“When you're a star, they let you do it.”

'Nuff said.

The administration official also said the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov’s official photographer without disclosing that he also worked for Tass.

“We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” the administration official said.

[...] Beyond TaskRabbit, service platforms include Thumbtack, for professional projects; Postmates, for delivery; Handy, for housework; Dogvacay, for pets; and countless others. Home-sharing services, such as Airbnb and its upmarket cousin onefinestay, supplant hotels and agencies. Ride-hailing apps—Uber, Lyft, Juno—replace taxis. Some on-demand workers are part-timers seeking survival work, akin to the comedian who waits tables on the side. For growing numbers, though, gigging is not only a living but a life. Many observers see it as something more: the future of American work.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives won a clear victory over their Social Democrat rivals in a vote in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, boosting her prospects of winning a national election in September.

Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) fetched 33 percent of the vote in Schleswig-Holstein, up from 30.8 percent in the last election there in 2012, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD showed. The Social Democrats won 26 percent, down from 30.4 percent.

This article has been adapted from The Retreat of Western Liberalism, the forthcoming book by Edward Luce of The Financial Times.

I find this piece fascinating, in part because I can't decide whether or not I agree with the premise ... but I'm left with an almost unsettling feeling nonetheless.

No new news here, just a good, in-depth analysis of what went down ... reading the article is like watching a movie when you know how it ends but still can't quite wrap your head around it.

The White House said the USS Carl Vinson was headed for North Korea as it sailed the opposite direction—the latest example of a communications failure inside the executive branch.

Or a brazen lie. 

Yates and another witness at the planned hearing, former CIA director John Brennan, had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to the committee probably would contradict some statements that White House officials had made, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The following day, when Yates’s lawyer sent a letter to the White House indicating that she still wanted to testify, the hearing was canceled.

Two months later, on March 15, 2013, Bannon happened to be attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington when Trump took the stage.

By The Blob, Rhodes meant the bipartisan class of foreign policy elites—Washington swamp dwellers like Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates and their assorted Ivy League hangers-on, who backed the 2003 war in Iraq but “now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East,” as the Times put it, and bashed Obama, at least behind closed doors, for not intervening militarily to stop the bloodshed in Syria or contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.[...]

Then came Donald Trump.

Which brings us to a surprisingly likable while starkly disturbing new book, “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors.” Reproduced here are individual portraits and a group mural which Bush painted, from photographs, of sixty-six physically and/or mentally wounded Armed Forces veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Want to understand the key to the way the Jeff Sessions story is playing out today? Then leave the stately halls of the Capitol, and come with me to the playgrounds and streets of New York, where I first learned one of the most reliable of political rules.

It’s just over a month into Hillary Clinton’s historic presidency, and Milo Yiannopoulos works as a Starbucks barista, the Koch brothers have fled the country and the first woman to occupy the Oval Office is the sober, exacting policy wonk that millions of Americans expected.

Trump fans ... uh ... aren't happy.

I'm pleased with the choice - now is the time for the party to finally move past the 2016 primary divisions and move in the same direction.

The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider). “Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (the Huffington Post).

The last paragraph:

To be sure, these realities do not mean any of the various candidates cannot become standout fundraisers, hire top-notch staff or oversee an expanded small-dollar program that makes up for lost ground. It does mean that despite the more progressive slant of the party since November, the practice of traditional party fundraising — something many Democratic activists reject — will need to continue. All those voting for the next head of the DNC should keep that in mind.

The gun was fired in the United States. The bullet stopped 60 feet away in Mexico — tragically, in the head of a 15-year-old boy named Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca.

Border patrol agent Jesus Mesa Jr. pulled the trigger that day six years ago in the wide concrete culvert that separates El Paso from Juarez, Mexico. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Constitution gives Hernández’s parents the right to sue Mesa in American courts for killing their son.

"It's possible that you may see conventional forces hit the ground in Syria for some period of time," one defense official told CNN.

 

But the official emphasized that any decision is ultimately up to President Donald Trump, who has ordered his defense secretary to come up with a proposal to combat ISIS before the end of the month.

Just one possible proposal, certainly not a done deal.  But the very idea that it's even being considered by this administration is frightening ...