Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was granted immunity for providing information to federal prosecutors in their investigation into Michael Cohen, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Weisselberg was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury about hush money payments made to women in order to protect President Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sacha Baron Cohen is back and badder than ever. I don't know whether to laugh or puke my guts out.

(Starring Trent Lott, Dana Rohrabacher, and Joe Wilson)

When we speak of government, we refer to the various technical and bureaucratic means by which policies and plans are delivered. Government involves officials, data-gathering, regulating and evaluating. As a governmental issue, Brexit involves prosaic problems such as how to get trucks through ports. Sovereignty, on the other hand, is always an abstract notion of where power ultimately lies, albeit an abstraction that modern states depend on if they’re to command obedience.

George Will has been a persistent anti-Trumper since 2016. Still, for the lifetime conservative pundit to urge voters to reject congressional Republicans in November is remarkable:

President Trump’s lawyers and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III are hurtling toward a showdown over a year-long investigation into the president’s conduct, with Mueller pushing to write up his findings by summer’s end and Trump’s lawyers strategizing how to rebut a report that could spur impeachment hearings.

...

Trump knows the press has a strong instinct to repeat his most outrageous claims, and this allows him put the press to work as a marketing agency for his ideas. His lies reach millions of people through constant repetition in the press and social media. This poses an existential threat to democracy.

Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump’s victory.

“What if we were wrong?” he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential limousine.

He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind. “Maybe we pushed too far,” Mr. Obama said. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”

The stupidity of this man will get us all killed

This theory is completely speculative, but the story does sound much more plausible than what has been reported about Broidy's alleged affair with Playboy playmate Shera Bechard. If it was actually Trump's affair, this will be an even bigger bombshell than Stormy Daniels for several reasons: significantly more money + clear campaign violation by Broidy + abortion.

Textbook concern-trolling by Cavuto:

"Now, I'm not saying you're a liar — you're president, you're busy — I'm just having a devil of a time figuring out which news is 'fake.' Let's just say your own words on lots of stuff give me, shall I say, lots of pause...None of this makes me a never-Trumper, just always confused."

And later...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has decided against recusing himself from the investigation into President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, but will consider stepping back from specific questions tied to the probe, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Yes, Trump beat a big field to become president, he is more popular among GOP voters than any rival, many elected Republicans fear publicly crossing him at the moment, and he is influential in setting the tone in Washington. Still, the conclusion that he has taken over the Republican Party is overstated and premature.

Molly Ringwald eloquently reflects on the social impact of the John Hughes' films she starred in:

Why are white Christians sticking so closely to President Trump, despite these claims of sexual indiscretions? And why are religious individuals and groups that previously decried sexual impropriety among political leaders suddenly willing to give Trump a “mulligan” on his infidelity?

Our new study points to a different answer than others have offered. Voters’ religious tenets aren’t what is behind Trump support; rather, it’s Christian nationalism — their view of the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation.

How an Obscure Conservative Theory Became the Trump Era’s Go-to Nerd Phrase -- The concept of the “Overton window,” the range of ideas outside which lie political exile or pariahdom, was first batted around in a series of conversations by the late free-market advocate Joseph Overton in the 1990s. After Overton’s untimely death in a plane crash in 2003, his friend and colleague at the libertarian Mackinac Center, Joseph Lehman, formalized and named the idea in a presentation meant to educate fellow think-tank warriors on the power of consistent advocacy.

This masterly long-form profile of Paul Manafort charts his rise as a young Republican star, the metastasis of his lust for money and power as he consorted with oligarchs and despots, and the downward financial, personal, and professional spiral that drove him to seek a lifeline from Donald Trump--and recklessly expose his dark secrets to legal and press scrutiny. There are no news bombshells, but it's fascinating read that paints an illuminating portrait of a grasping, corrupt American villain.

Gerrymandering. It’s become the embodiment of so many of the evils in the U.S. political system. Frustrated by the lack of competitive elections? Blame gerrymandering. Appalled by the growing number of ideological extremists in Congress? Blame gerrymandering. What about congressional gridlock? Gerrymandering did it.

But the end of gerrymandering would be no panacea. Indeed, gerrymandering may be just as much a symptom of America’s political problems as a cause.

Many have compared Trump's administration to House of Cards, but Michael Wolff's reporting suggests that it's more like Veep--if Selina Meyer were a doddering nincompoop. The White House is plagued not by Machiavellian intrigue but by petty feuds and backstabbing that has flourished in the leadership vacuum like e coli in petri dish.

Fascinating and disturbing excerpt from Michael Wolff's new Trump book:

“You need a son of a bitch as your chief of staff,” [Roger Ailes] told Trump. “And you need a son of a bitch who knows Washington. You’ll want to be your own son of a bitch, but you don’t know Washington.” Ailes had a suggestion: John Boehner, who had stepped down as Speaker of the House only a year earlier.

“Who’s that?” asked Trump.

And much more...