The Art of the Swamp

#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is not the lede:

AT&T said Cohen approached the company after the 2016 presidential election and said he was leaving the Trump organization to do consulting for a “select few” companies that wanted his opinion on Trump and the administration. AT&T said it had been looking for consultants who could help it understand the president’s approach to regulatory reform at the Federal Communications Commission, tax reform and antitrust enforcement—”specifically our Time Warner deal.”

It’s the sixth graf, via Associated Press, and might well move up as the story, posted without byline, develops.

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Image note: Trump Organization attorney Michael D. Cohen in New York City, 13 April 2018. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

Associated Press. “AT&T chief lobbyist out after hiring Trump attorney, Cohen”. 11 May 2018.

Capitalism Recovering Itself

[¡#zucked!]

If the question is whether you want the lede or bottom line, well, it is Axios, and some days that pretty much makes the article. How about the headline: “Facebook stock has fully recovered from Cambridge Analytica scandal”.

What did anyone actually expect of capitalism? Of course Facebook stock has recovered. Public morality is also public relations, and that pretty much makes for the private limit. One thing about the Cambridge Analytica scandal is that it demonstrates just how valuable Facebook is to capitalists.

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Image note: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., 10 April 2018. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Primack, Dan. “Facebook stock has fully recovered from Cambridge Analytica scandal”. Axios. 10 May 2018.

The Pruitt Watch (#swampstyle)

#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor

The lede from Bloomberg ought to be enough—

President Donald Trump called his embattled environmental chief Monday to assure him his job is safe amid mounting scrutiny of Scott Pruitt’s travel, hiring practices and an unorthodox condo rental arrangement last year, according to two administration officials.

—to beg the question: So, the clock is ticking, then, right?

A Quote: Kansas Cluck

“The KFC bucket came with a side of Republican panic.”

―Hunter Woodall and Bryan Lowry

It takes two, or perhaps some occasions simply beg a hook in lieu of a lede, but still, Woodall and Lowry do eventually get around to such niceties ‘twixt cluckin’ buckets:

Anxiety over the GOP’s weakened grasp on Kansas’ 2nd congressional district, which includes Topeka and Lawrence, was on full display during last month’s state party convention.

GOP Rep. Lynn Jenkins is retiring. Republicans lack a clear front runner in the race to replace her, while Democrats have coalesced around Paul Davis, a former state lawmaker who won the district during his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2014.

“If the election were held today, (there’s) a 70 percent chance Davis gets elected,” Mike Stieben, co-chair of Kansans For Life’s political action committee, told the crowd at a convention prayer breakfast.

He passed an empty KFC bucket around the room, urging people to drop in donations so his anti-abortion group could start campaigning in the district.

“We cannot elect Paul Davis,” Stieben said. “And he’s ahead. Wake up. We need your help.”

There is a great moment in which we might toss coins or play some obscure dice game to decide between “now more than ever”^α, and why not pitch for one’s own anti-abortion group. This is, after all, Kansas.  

The Panama City Trumps

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is a lede from Associated Press:

One of President Donald Trump’s family businesses is battling an effort to physically evict its team of executives from a luxury hotel in Panama where they manage operations, and police have been called to keep the peace, The Associated Press has learned. Witnesses told the AP they saw Trump’s executives carrying files to a room for shredding.

And then there is the detail:

Representatives of the hotel owners’ association formally sought to fire Trump’s management team Thursday by hand-delivering termination notices to them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, according to a Panamanian legal complaint filed by Orestes Fintiklis, who controls 202 of the property’s 369 hotel units. Trump’s managers retreated behind the glass walls of an office where they were seen carrying files to an area where the sounds of a shredding machine could be heard, according to two witnesses aligned with the owners. The legal complaint also accused Trump’s team of improperly destroying documents.

A Reich-Wing Reminder

#reichwing | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Three bylines, and the Washington Post brings what might well be the least surprising lede we might imagine:

The man who federal authorities say threatened to kill CNN employees had declared in high school that he identified with Adolf Hitler and suggested “the Holocaust was exaggerated,” according to a former classmate.

Some might point out that the difference between Holocaust denial and diminution is a matter of the wolf and what it wears, but that’s the thing; they’re not wrong, but once upon a time, that difference actually meant something … er … significant … ah … that is to say … (ahem!) … to the wolves.

(¡cough!)

Mundane Strangeness (Trump Turnover Mix)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

The lede from CNN—

White House aides have been told to decide before the end of January whether they intend to leave the administration or stay through the November midterm elections, an official said, a deadline intended to help bring a sense of order to an anticipated staffing exodus.

—seems yet another bit of news that makes no real sense, though we really do not intend to dispute with the reporters. That is to say, this is the Trump administration, so, yeah, sure, sounds about right.

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Image note: The sun rises near the White House on Nov. 8, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Zeleny, Jeff, Kevin Liptak, Dana Bash, and Dan Merica. “Facing staffing exodus, Trump struggles to fill West Wing”. CNN. 9 January 2018.

#DimensionTrump: The Lulzie Lede (Stone Stupid Mix)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

It ought to be significant of something that Dan Friedman of Mother Jones can possibly offer a lede like this:

Randy Credico, a comedian and radio host who Trump adviser Roger Stone claims was his intermediary to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, has asserted his Fifth Amendment right ahead of an interview with the House Intelligence Committee that was scheduled for Friday, according to his lawyer. As a result, the committee has released Credico from appearing before the panel as part of its investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal.

To some degree, this kind of utter stupidity really is some aspect of #WhatTheyVotedFor.  

The Child Marriage Update (New York Edition)

This is a real lede from Associated Press:

The New York Legislature has overturned a state law that allows 14-year-olds to legally wed.

The headline kind of makes the point: “New York child marriage ban heads to Cuomo’s desk”. The rarity of such progress is a reasonable point for reflection; to the one, there is not much left on this particular count, while, to the other, there are still Alaska and North Carolina to account for. Governor Cuomo is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as reasonably possible.

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Associated Press. “New York child marriage ban heads to Cuomo’s desk”. 8 June 2017.

Too Damn Perfect

#PutiTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

The setup is yet another tweetstorm, and, look, you have to be careful. To the one, Andrea Chalupa’s “thread about #RussiaGate and Paul Manafort’s $10M/year contract to further the interests of Putin’s government” is as likely as any, but it really does seem to bury the lede, that Donald Trump is a victim in all this:

@AndreaChalupa: 11. Can’t help but think today of what IC agent told me: Trump never wanted to win. They made him run. He’s trapped. And now IC closing in.

@BrianVastag: @AndreaChalupa Who’s the “they” here?

@AndreaChalupa: @brianvastag In DT’s eyes? Close friends and admirers. But they also happened to be people embedded with the Kremlin/Russian money.