An absolute must-read. Back in 2014, the Russian hackers who later meddled in the 2016 election were terrorizing US military spouses posing as ISIS militants.

Our new Secretary of State thinks Kim Jong Un is referred to as “Chairman Un”.

Today what we’re hoping to do is – there have been discussions between that day to now, and we’ve continued to develop both administratively and sort of begin to put some outlines around the substance of the agenda for the summit between the President and Chairman Un. And today we’re hoping to nail some of those down to say – to put in place a framework for a successful summit between the two presidents.

Not long ago, Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Vanessa Trump announced they were divorcing. The divorce appears to be getting acrimonious. For decades Donald Trump used The New York Post as a press tool to pump up his brand and attack enemies. The New York press world and the high octane real estate families who are fodder and enablers of it are all notoriously corrupt. And now – surprise, surprise! – The Post appears to be in the lead with dramatic dirt on Trump’s estranged wife – specifically, that in high school she dated and had a years-long relationship with a member of the Latin Kings, a notoriously violent Latino street gang which is the bigger brother, as it were, of MS-13, the street gang with roots in Central America and among Central American immigrants which Donald Trump endlessly cites as an example of the need for his draconian immigration policies. Read More

Michigan wants to attach work requirements to Medicaid. But its plan for how to implement the requirements is under fire for favoring the state’s rural, white, poor over poor residents of color in urban areas. Alice Ollstein has more in our Weekly Primer on the battle over the future of Obamacare (Prime access), which rounds up all of this week’s developments on the health care front.

Yesterday we discussed reports that opponents of the Iran Nuclear Deal, or at least opponents of at least two former Obama administration foreign policy staffers, had hired the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube to spy on and run a black ops operation against these two men, Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl.

Now The New York Times has obtained a copy of the report. Read More

Four women accuse New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of a range of sexual misconduct and abusive, violent behavior. The New Yorker has the story.

So we were contacted by someone purporting to be Black Cube. Read More

Our Caitlin MacNeal worked through almost a week of Rudy Giuliani’s evolving BS explanations about the Stormy Daniels payoffs to help you make sense of the whole mess.

I noted below that the Israeli private intelligence firm that Harvey Weinstein hired to dig up dirt and muzzle his accusers is now mounting some sort of operation against at least two Obama administration national security officials. The initial version of the story from The Guardian said they were hired by aides to President Trump. Another account from Ronan Farrow at The New Yorker went deeper but was less certain about who was paying the bill. One source told Farrow it was “part of Black Cube’s work for a private-sector client pursuing commercial interests related to sanctions on Iran.”

Now Black Cube is out with its third successive response to the story, which of course should be taken with some skepticism. Read More

For a sense of why we may care about Michael Cohen and father-in-law Fima Shusterman’s massive loans to a cratering business, look at this passage from a book to be published tomorrow, which I strongly recommend purchasing.

This passage is from Trump/Russia: A Definitive History.