As far as Nunes can tell, none of us have even met with Trump

[PerkingFaintly]

Devin Nunes Gets A Pretty Basic Fact Wrong In Defending His Memo
Nunes suggested that Donald Trump had never met with George Papadopoulos. There's a photo of them sitting at the same table.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/devin-nunes-memo_us_5a788b57e4b01fe513a60603

And we certainly didn't have a national security meeting right here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3150505-The-one-in-which-Trump-orders-his-staff-to-fire-Mueller-and-they-give-him-the-finger?pg=1

I was taking my 10 minutes off. After mention of a 'dress', I think I'll extend that.

CeciliaKang
@ceciliakang
NEW: FCC Chair @AjitPaiFCC Being Investigated for Improper Coordination With Sinclair Broadcasting:

t.co/rnwXJII2tD?amp=1

Investigation follows our deep dive:

t.co/49gAh5NHrm?amp=1

Sorry cozie it’s pretty grim. Wasn’t sure whether to post and compromised by not including the link (but also cos it was the fail tbf)

Again, not including a link but:

Max Tani
@maxwelltani
Jeff Sessions gave an interview about the Florida shooting to Breitbart

Matthew Miller
@matthewamiller
What a disgrace. The head of the agency whose proudest moments have been desegregating schools and enforcing civil rights laws gives an interview to a racist website with a "black crime" section.

A dress?!

Axios
@axios
The White House is out in full force to squash the bipartisan immigration bill.

www.axios.com/wh-to-senators-drop-support-bipartisan-immigration-99913934-4021-4714-9d61-01e50b81168b.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100&utm_term=politics

Chris Hayes
@chrislhayes

1. The President ended DACA unilaterally.
2. He then said: work out a bi-partisan bill I’ll sign anything you bring me.
3. He was promptly brought a bi-partisan deal. He rejected it.
4. He was then brought a second bi-partisan deal with even more support. He rejected that

The reason is that he and GOP leadership do not actually want to protect Dreamers from deportation. But because they recognize how indefensible that view is, they lie about it instead.

I haven’t actually read the article lion but the imagination hasn’t gone to a happy place

A bit more detail:

Kyle Cheney
@kyledcheney
NEW: Lawmakers furious as BANNON won't answer Russia probe questions, say the White House "scripted" his testimony to be intentionally misleading.

But he met with MUELLER earlier in the week for 20 hours over multiple days.

www.politico.com/story/2018/02/15/steve-bannon-scripted-questions-russia-probe-414755

Not a happy place, no.

Mueller v Bannon.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/steve-bannon-met-mueller-multiple-times-over-past-week-n848421

Immigration bills fail in Senate, casting doubt on whether Congress can resolve fate of ‘dreamers’

The Republican-led Senate on Thursday blocked both President Trump’s immigration plan and a bipartisan alternative, a failure that cast doubt on whether Congress will ever resolve the fate of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants.
In a series of afternoon votes, senators failed to muster enough votes for a Republican plan backed by Trump that would have granted legal status to 1.8 million young immigrants and spent at least $25 billion to bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border. It also would have made changes to family-based legal migration programs and ended a diversity lottery system used by immigrants from smaller countries.
The vote was 39-60, well short of the 60 needed to move ahead.
www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/as-immigration-showdown-looms-in-senate-trump-administration-is-doing-everything-in-our-power-to-stop-bipartisan-plan-official-says/2018/02/15/e0cff9d0-1260-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html

Renato Mariotti
‏
Verified account

@renato_mariotti
5m5 minutes ago
More Renato Mariotti Retweeted Manu Raju
That’s not how executive privilege works. What Bannon did was improper, but Congress might not have the political will to challenge him. He couldn’t use the same maneuver with Mueller.

Manu Raju‏Verified account
@mkraju
Follow Follow @mkraju
More
Bannon says Trump authorized him to invoke executive privilege post campaign, per members. Only questions he would answer were 25 questions authorized by WH, and he answered “no” to all of them. Committee weighing whether to hold him in contempt. Conaway to meet with Ryan.

www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/americas-failure-to-protect-its-children-from-school-shootings-is-a-national-disgrace-parkland-florida?mbid=social_twitter

And this is where two premiers ousted/near ousted for corruption might come into play.

In the fear of sounding vulgar, I hope there is a dress. With a bigly, yuge, ahem, 'DNA marking'. If there is, you know it will be the greatest, most wonderful one possible. Because I'm sure Scrotus has the best stains. KFC gravy on his tie, ketchup from his burger on his shirt, and, um, you know what on a dress.

OK, I may have had too much Amaretto and coffee. We ran out of schnapps earlier!

Bad planning, Across. How did you manage to 'run out' of a spirituous liquor like schnapps?

Wendy Siegelman
@WendySiegelman
New Papadopoulos information on 3 meetings held with British Foreign Office officials in September 2016 before the US election | openDemocracy by @JennaCorderoy & @PeterKGeoghegan

www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/jenna-corderoy-peter-geoghegan/uk-diplomats-met-talked-brexit-with-trump-aide-linked-to

Gavin Sheridan
@gavinsblog
Another small piece in the Papadopoulos story emerged today. 1/

. @JennaCorderoy and @PeterKGeoghegan published the results of an FOI showing 3 meetings Papadopoulos had with British FCO officials in September 2016

The FCO confirms that Papadopoulos met with a team leader at the British Embassy in Washington on September 10, 2016. "The topics discussed were: the structure of the campaign, UK/US relations,US foreign policy and Brexit"

Papadopoulos also had a second meeting 6 days later, in London, with the head of the FCO North America department. The meeting "covered a number of current affairs issues".

A third meeting was previously publicised, involving coffee on the fringes of the UN General Assembly between @tobias_ellwood and @georgepapa19, also in September.

And recall: Three days after Trump announced Papadopoulos as an advisor, he met Mifsud in London and "The topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership".

Three days after Trump announced Papadopoulos as an advisor: Papadop emailed: "They said the leadership, including Putin, is ready to meet with us and Mr. Trump should there be interest. Waiting for everyone’s thoughts on moving forward with this very important issue."

Papadopoulos lived in London at the time. He had only met Mifsud on a trip to Italy two weeks prior. He told Mifsud he was an advisor (but it had not been announced yet). The campaign emailed Papadop and said "Great work" in response.

Sometimes the details are missed in the mix. Papadopoulos became an advisor and was clearly immediately tasked with brokering a Russia meeting. He had lunch with Mifsud, met Polonskaya and claimed to have met the Russian Ambassador (but did not) within days of the annoucement

(I deleted and corrected an error re the ambassador, as the footnote says, Papadopoulos did not meet him, bit Mifsud and Polonskaya promised an introduction to him)

March 14: Papadop meets Mifsud for first time
March 21: Trump campaign names Papadop as advisor
March 24: Papadop meets Mifsud and Polonskaya in London where the subject of the meeting was: arranging a meeting between Trump campaign/Kremlin officials in "neutral city". Moves fast

Caroline O.
@RVAwonk
As of 4:20 PM: Every single one of the top ten trending topics being pushed by Russian-linked influence accounts is related to the Parkland, Florida school shooting and/or the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, per @SecureDemocracy's Hamilton 68 Dashboard.

Chris Hayes
@chrislhayes
More Chris Hayes Retweeted Zack Beauchamp
Good thread here, with reasons for caution on this story. I've grown more skeptical over the last few hours...

Zack Beauchamp‏Verified account
@zackbeauchamp
I'm surprised at how many outlets and reporters are flatly asserting that the Florida shooter was a white supremacist. The evidence is actually pretty thin!

twitter.com/zackbeauchamp/status/964233989497196545

How did you manage to 'run out' of a spirituous liquor like schnapps?

Amaretto is a liqueur! Very nice it is too, though I would think a better fit with hot chocolate than coffee. You have reminded me that I planned to gave a glass of wine this evening once the housework & online shopping was done...

have

I'm not knocking amaretto - just the 'run out' bit re the schnapps.

I had a 'B52' shot once on holiday: Baileys, Amaretto and Kahlua. I'm afraid it was too nice to be knocked back so I sipped and savoured.

An even more unhappy place.

From yesterday:

Axios @axios
Pence: "Irrespective of efforts that were made in 2016 by foreign powers, it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election" #Axios360

Chris Hayes‏Verified account
@chrislhayes
More Chris Hayes Retweeted Axios
This is simply untrue. It's not a determination anyone in the IC has ventured or made.

Rachel Maddow MSNBC‏Verified account
@maddow
More Rachel Maddow MSNBC Retweeted Chris Hayes
Exactly right. Pompeo had to issue a public correction through the CIA when he made the same false assertion. I think it's unavoidable that The Vice President will have to do the same thing here.

From today:

Rachel Maddow MSNBC
@maddow
More Rachel Maddow MSNBC Retweeted Rachel Maddow MSNBC
Following up on this: office of the @VP is just refusing to return calls or make any comment on it. For now, his false statement still stands.

The @VP has made several other false statements about Russia -- e.g. no one from campaign had contact with Russians, Flynn didn't discuss sanctions with Russia, etc. On those, he said he was lied to. On this, though, he's just simply not telling the truth. Why not clear it up?