The Post has an article about how the Trump National Security Council plans to set up a new committee of scientists basically to refute climate science. It will be spearheaded by an NSC senior director named William Happer. He ran a right-wing “pro-carbon” group before entering the administration and got another round of attention last week for once comparing the “demonization of carbon dioxide [to] the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.” Read More

Short time ago, Judge Jackson gave the Special Counsel the go-ahead to release the redacted version of the Manafort sentencing memo. So that should be out very soon.

Earlier this week, Goodloe Sutton, the editor and publisher of a small local paper in western Alabama published an editorial calling for the “Ku Klux Klan to night ride again” and “clean up” Washington DC with a few choice lynchings.

Sutton later clarified: “It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?” Read More

Trump says Mueller Report will show “no collusion” if it’s “honest.”

I think this is right. We’ll know how good or bad the Mueller ‘report’ is for Trump by how quickly and completely it’s released. From TPM Reader RS …

I just read “More Thoughts on the End of the Mueller Probe,” and thought I’d share a reaction that came to me — not necessarily because it directly follows from anything you wrote, but something that was probably implicit.

As you’ve written previously, it seems likely that AG Barr is going to try to do what he can for President Trump, within certain limits of professional reputation, responsibility, etc. It probably wasn’t that surprising, therefore, when he made public comments that suggested that he wouldn’t necessarily make the Mueller report (whatever there is) public in its entirety, particularly if there was information that was derogatory about uncharged individuals (e.g. President Trump or members of his family).

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As Republicans have played a rearguard defense in what turns out to be an egregious instance of election fraud in the 2018 congressional election in North Carolina’s 9th district, they’ve sometimes resorted to the curious claim that at least they’re vindicated. Contrary to Democrats’ claims, voter fraud really does happen! Even if it’s our candidates doing it. This is not only too clever by half. It is an intentional conflation. What Democrats and voting rights advocates say is that voter impersonation fraud is rare to the point of non-existence. Voter and election fraud is rare but not unknown. (The distinction is critical because voter ID laws, the top voter suppression method justified by claims of fraud, only has any relevance to voter impersonation fraud.) And that gets us to a critical lesson or rather a series of them from this incident in North Carolina. Read More

Looks like Roger Stone will escape the Instagram post fiasco without having his bail revoked, but will now be subject to a tighter gag rule, and runs the very real risk of going to jail if he violates the terms of the new gag order.

North Carolina Board of Election votes unanimously to call new election in NC-09 over absentee ballot fraud.

We expect a ruling from the judge in Roger Stone’s case within minutes.

The news is flying this afternoon, but don’t miss Tierney Sneed covering Roger Stone’s come to Jesus moment with the judge whose picture he Instagrammed with a crosshairs.