monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

All in all, the odds are disconcertingly high that Russia, or somebody, has blackmail leverage over the president of the United States.

Getting old, losing my illusions about mankind... same as usual.

What about you? Do you still live in that perfect country out there, who never committed any crime against anybody?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. It's a very powerful weapon. I know this weapon. It's the civilian version of an M-16. It's very, very powerful. But you could stop a person with an AR-16 with a slingshot if you know how to use it.

Washington is full of professional centrists, whose public personas are built around a carefully cultivated image of standing above the partisan fray, which means that they can’t admit that while there are dishonest politicians everywhere, one party basically lies about everything. News organizations are intimidated by accusations of liberal bias, which means that they try desperately to show “balance” by blaming both parties equally for all problems. But our job, whether we’re policy analysts or journalists, isn’t to be “balanced”; it’s to tell the truth.

Pecker is as pecker does.. (stop sniggering at the back).

A Treasury Department list of wealthy Russian allies of Vladimir Putin appears to have been classified without the involvement of the intelligence community.

The news raises further questions about whether the list needed to be classified in its entirety at all. And it adds to concerns that the Trump administration is finding ways to soft-pedal its enforcement of Russian sanctions to avoid alienating Putin.