Read all about it.

Key elements of this story:

1. ​
according to U.S. officials,

​Plural.​

​2. ​
​
according to the officials,

​Again.

​3.
According to one U.S. official,

​Singular.

​4.
The Wall Street Journal agreed not to identify the ally because another U.S. official said it could jeopardize the source.

The ally? Nice of the Journal to keep that out of the paper. But why did the Journal agree not to identify the helpful officials who gave it the story?

Instant reaction: We know whoever they are, they are out to get him. We know it’s take-a-leak time at the White House. We know Trump is not their kind of POTUS.

Question of day: WHO ARE these nameless leakers? Is there a reporter around who can arrange a meeting in a basement garage and discover this? Woodward-Bernstein of our day, where art thou, Brother?​

My favorite Chi daily, by a long shot.

Seems like a solution here — assuming S-T keeps its identity.

From Tom Hickey’s With Both Hands:

President Haughty gave out his academic-smoothie aura so clearly, did he not?

“My hemorrhoids are acting up, otherwise I’m OK. And you?” (Jake kissed the h-word goodbye ages ago, but the caller didn’t know that and never will.)

Jake, no relation, by the way, is a throwback to old pre-digital Blithe Spirit days, about which more later. Ditto Jake.

Later: A less sardonic reply, which Jake did not supply, would be, to being asked how you are doing, “About to feel much better, thank you.”

Look, I tell you what Jake says but want to be helpful on my own, OK?

​Guilty as charged: Pot called kettle black.​




​FBI #2 on heavy take from Virginia’s top Dem while in the thick of investigating Trump? His better half, that is. What is this anyway?

​Busy, busy, busy they are at WaPo, linking to Nixon’s Sat. Night Massacre et al., after years of somnolence during Obama time. Something there is that wakes them up in Republican time.​

They come to life!

​Your tax dollars at work, trolling ICE people to think twice about enforcement.

​The first three named:​

1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.
2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn’t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.

​Etc.

His was a firing waiting to happen.​

I have often wondered about this, which may be an idea whose time has come.​