The Hill reports that Ivanka Trump is going to have an office in the White House that’s usually kept for “the First Lady.” Julia Ioffe, a political journalist who writes for Foreign Policy and until yesterday wrote for Politico, tweeted about the hint of skeeviness in the story:

Either Trump is fucking his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?

Crude, but then it’s impossible to write honestly about Trump without crudity. Trump himself oozes crude from every pore, and that means that putting his words and actions into more genteel language is likely to misrepresent them. He is crude, he is a pig, he does see the world in such contemptuous and libidinous terms. He did, after … Read the rest

The bubble talks back.

This column is for Bernard Gibson, a good man from the state of Indiana. Late last month, NPR went out to Vigo County there to explain why it flipped from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. Gibson was one of those interviewed, and here is what he said: “These are real people here. These are not New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles. You know, these are real people that live every day from hand to hand, just have to work to make a living and everything else.”

Oh.

Richard Cohen adduces some facts about his background – not privileged – and says life in the bubble wasn’t just handed to … Read the rest

It wasn’t just the presidential election that Russia hacked. It wasn’t just the Democratic candidate for president that Russia sabotaged. It was also Democratic candidates for Congress. We’re in for a reactionary shitstorm thanks to Russian hacking.

In south Florida for instance

a handful of Democratic House candidates became targets of a Russian influence operation that made thousands of pages of documents stolen by hackers from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington available to Florida reporters and bloggers.

“It was like I was standing out there naked,” said Annette Taddeo, a Democrat who lost her primary race after secret campaign documents were made public. “I just can’t describe it any other way. Our entire internal strategy plan

Everyday Feminism is so reliably absurd. You know how they caption every single image with a tedious description, out of consideration for people who can’t see images? And how mostly it’s annoying because the image is just an illustration, not something crucial to understanding the content of the post? And there’s no point in giving a verbal description of a non-substantive image that is there solely to provide visual interest along with words? So describing it in words is just seriously futile and silly? Or maybe that’s just me. Anyway – here’s one:

A person sitting at a wooden table and chairs, with bookshelves lining the wall behind them. They are holding a sandwich in one hand and licking

Trump said about Tillerson yesterday:

The thing I like best about Rex Tillerson is that he has vast experience at dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2016

The thing I like best about Rex Tillerson is that he has vast experience at dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments.

Yeahhhh. The Times explains that Tillerson does that in defiance of the State Department and its goals. Exxon has its own foreign policy and it doesn’t necessarily match that of the State Department.

Struggling to keep Iraq from splintering, American diplomats pushed for a law in 2011 to share the country’s oil wealth among its fractious regions.

Then Exxon Mobil

Oklahoma really doesn’t like women.

Back in June, Oklahoma passed the Humanity of the Unborn Child Act, which includes a provision that requires public restrooms — for instance, those in restaurants, public schools, and hospitals — to feature anti-abortion signs that urge pregnant women to carry their fetus to term.

Along with a link to the Oklahoma Health Department’s website, the signs would read:

“There are many public and private agencies willing and able to help you carry your child to term and assist you and your child after your child is born, whether you choose to keep your child or to place him or her for adoption. The State of Oklahoma strongly urges you to contact them

Kellyanne Conway talked to Anderson Cooper last night, and one thing she said was quite clarifying to me, even though it’s not anything I didn’t know.

As we know, it’s a very unconventional situation, normally we have politicians moving from political job to political job – in this case we have a very successful businessman, who’s brilliant and a billionaire, who has assets and holdings all over the globe, and that needs to have a transfer of power through the proper channels to his adult children…

See it?

…normally we have politicians moving from political job to political job – in this case we have a very successful businessman…

This is their story, and in this story it totally … Read the rest