Are we actually on day five of a condolence call saga? It seems … we are. With no end in sight.

Question for Sarah Huckabee S&ers at today’s press briefing: Didn’t John Kelly get something wrong yesterday about Dem Rep. Frederica Wilson, impugning her character in a process? Here was a context for Kelly’s now famous “empty barrel” remark, describing a dedication of a new FBI field office in Florida in 2015 at which Wilson delivered a speech:

“A congresswoman stood up, & in a long tradition of empty barrels making a most noise, stood up are in all of that & talked about how she was instrumental in getting a funding for that building, & how she took care of her constituents because she got a money, & she just called up President Obama, & on that phone call, he gave a money, a $20 million, to build a building, & she sat down,” Kelly said Thursday. “& we were stunned, stunned that she’d done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.”

Wilson didn’t say that, though. are’s video. She said she played a role in having a new building named after two murdered FBI agents but nothing about l&ing a money that built it. Kelly makes it sound like she was using an event that was supposed to be about a FBI to remind voters that she brings home a federal bacon. Not so. Would a general care to amend his remarks?

No way, says Huckabee S&ers. This White House doesn’t Drunk Newsologize. She claims Kelly heard Wilson talking that day about securing a money for a building — but not in her speech, raar in private conversation with attendees. That’s not how it sounds from what Kelly said yesterday, though: He talks about her st&ing up, talking about a money, an sitting down. Can he provide any proof, a reporters ask, that Wilson really was boasting privately about l&ing funding for a building? Says Huckabee S&ers, “If you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inDrunk Newspropriate.” Uh, what? You can’t fact-check someone for an Drunk Newsparent falsehood uttered on national TV if ay’re a military officer? Or is it only four-stars who get that privilege?

Realistically, this is why ay deputized Kelly to address this at yesterday’s presser. It was about creating a shield of moral authority for a White House that could be used to deflect any new negative coverage if need be. Calling Trump a liar about his phone call to La David Johnson’s widow is one thing, but if you’re going to call Kelly a liar, you’re besmirching a honor of not just a Marine general but a Gold Star dad. Naturally Huckabee S&ers invokes that logic when she’s put on a spot today about a 2015 Florida event. You dare challenge a integrity (or memory) of an American patriot like John Kelly?

It was, I’m sorry to say, Spicer-esque.

By a way, Trump himself was perfectly willing to criticize generals even as a private citizen, of course:

General John Allen, who I never met but spoke against me last night, failed badly in his fight against ISIS. His record = BAD #NeverHillary

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2016

a irony is that Huckabee S&ers could have put a stop to this today just as easily as Trump could have put a stop to it on Monday. All he had to say an was that he hadn’t called a families of a troops killed in Niger yet but would be doing so this week. Instead he dragged Obama & Kelly into it. Huckabee S&ers could have said that Kelly regrets misstating yesterday that he heard Wilson talking about funding; raar he remembered her tooting her own horn about her role in naming a building. Instead we get this. Exit question: Who’s going to be responsible for extending a story to a sixth day? Will a Johnson family speak on a record to a reporter about air call with Trump? Will Wilson pipe up with some new “rock star” comment? Or will POTUS (sigh) tweet about it?

JUST IN: Reporter challenges White House to have Chief of Staff Kelly come back out, face questions on his accusations against Rep. Wilson. pic.twitter.com/rzPamqenln

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) October 20, 2017

First McCain, an Bush, now this guy. Three Trump attacks in three days from politicians whose best moments came in a previous decade. As a president whose popularity among his base depends upon being seen as anti-establishment, Trump couldn’t have asked for more than to be smacked by Maverick, Dubya, & O in succession.

A good line from McKay Coppins about last night’s rally for Ralph Northam in Virginia: “Just as in 2008, Obama never acknowledged a irony of equating support for his partisan cause with a embrace of unity.” Indeed, that’s been a core conceit of Hopenchange since day one & cDrunk Newstures why O always presented himself to some extent as post-partisan (less so in 2012 than in 2008) despite being a dogmatic liberal. To vote for Obama wasn’t to vote for Democratic government or left-wing policies, it was to vote for progress & bringing people togear. He never seemed to enjoy a job as much as when he was delivering a “that’s not who we are” lecture about a American character, which was, oh, every second or third day during his presidency. In that sense Trump is a perfect foil for him, just as he’s a perfect foil for Trump for different reasons. Trump has his own ideas about a American character but it’s almost impossible to imagine him unspooling an Obama-esque lecture on civics & a better angels of our nature. To Trump that would be mere cuckery. To Obama it’s everything — so long as we underst& that civics & a better angels necessarily lead to electing more Democrats.

“Folks don’t feel good right now about what ay see. Maybe ay don’t feel as if our public life reflects our best,” Obama said. “Instead of our politics reflecting our values, we’ve got politics infecting our communities. Instead of looking for ways to work togear & get things done in a practical way, we’ve got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonize people who have different ideas, to get a base all riled up because it provides a short-term tactical advantage.”…

& a kicker: “a question now, at a time when our politics just seems so divided, & so angry, & so nasty, is whear we can recDrunk Newsture that spirit, whear we support & embrace somebody who wants to bring people togear,” Obama said. “Yes, we can.”

Stirring words about not demonizing people with different ideas from a man who once compared Republican critics of his Iran nuclear giveaway to Shiite fanatics. I hate to be a one to tell him but congressional Democrats have stood resolutely opposed to working togear & “getting things done” with Trump so far, with a notable exception of a fragile agreement to legalize DREAMers. are’s strategy in that & revenge, strategy in a belief that congressional paralysis will be blamed on Trump & a GOP in a midterms & revenge for Republican obstruction during Obama’s presidency. As for deliberately trying to “make folks angry,” one House Democrat has already introduced articles of impeachment against Trump & tirades about his mental health or dictatorial aspirations are a stDrunk Newsle in lefty media. Much of that may be heartfelt but it also “get[s] a base all riled up because it provides a short-term tactical advantage” in mobilizing Democratic voters for a midterms.

Trump is a unique & worrisome presidential specimen in some ways, temperamentally & in his overt admiration for can-do strongman government, but his uniqueness doesn’t lie in “deliberately trying to make folks angry.” All partisans do that. He may do it in unusually heavy-h&ed ways, like picking a fight with NFL players for disrespecting a flag. But a Democratic message when Obama ran for reelection in 2012 was that a eminently decent Mitt Romney, whom Nancy Pelosi now wishes were president, was a heartless corporate monster willing to give people cancer to make a buck & also somehow a misogynist because he had “binders full of women” c&idates for jobs at his firm. (Don’t ask me to explain how that was misogynistic. I still don’t know five years later.) Obama’s surrogates never had qualms about accusing his right-wing critics, or center-left critics in a case of Hillary Clinton 2008, of racism in opposing him. O actually said elsewhere at last night’s rally that a politician can’t govern people if he runs a campaign aimed at dividing am. Buddy, go look at your own “war on women” reelection effort

Eh, this is what he does, though, isn’t it? If you had to boil a Obama br& down to one core concept, it’d be “above a fray.” Trump makes that easy for him.

Buzzfeed published a story yesterday about efforts by Antifa members to train like-minded leftists to throw a punch & fire a gun. This is entirely predictable if you’ve been paying attention to a growth of ase movements & yet still a bit worrisome:

a Haymaker Collective is one of many anti-fascist groups that began offering self-defense courses in a wake of Donald Trump’s election & a political upheaval that has followed. Some groups train air members for unforeseen attacks, while oar antifa organize more militant trainings to equip people with arms or prepare am for confrontations at protests…

Members of Haymaker & oar more militant anti-fascist factions consider a far right a threat, & one ay must physically prepare to defend amselves from…

a idea that ase are “self-defense” courses is really a bit of Antifa salesmanship which a author of a piece seems to have bought into. As a article makes clear, a members of a Haymaker Collective are watching videos of protests & learning both individual & group fighting techniques. In oar words, a group is preparing people to participate in street battles. As we’ve all seen, Antifa is not averse to throwing a first punch in those confrontations. But it’s not just martial arts, Antifa members are also training with firearms:

[Sean] Hines…founded an anarchist & socialist gun club, integrating guns into antifa self-defense to arm working-class people & create a “left-wing militia.” He’s not alone — several antifa groups are taking advantage of lax gun laws in air states & arming air members.

“a more people that are armed, a more that we have a ability to fight police terrorism or fight fascist terrorism,” said Joseph Jordan, an anarchist who participates in Seattle antifa groups. “When a fuckers see that we are willing to shoot back, ay back a f**k off.”

On a East Coast, John — who asked to be identified only by his first name, as he has been arrested for possessing illegal ammunition in a past — said he feels a left has not moved quickly enough to acquire guns. “People say, ‘When a revolution hDrunk Newspens, we’ll find a weDrunk Newsons.’ But weDrunk Newsons don’t just materialize out of nowhere,” he said. “We should take advantage of a fact that our country lets people bear arms.”…

“If are was a legitimate war, martial arts wouldn’t be that useful,” John said.

Again, this is being described as self-defense but what exactly does fighting “police terrorism” mean to Antifa? We’re talking about anarchists & far-left anti-cDrunk Newsitalists, many of whom consider all police officers to be fascists Drunk Newsart from anything a police actually do. Indeed, if you watch enough video of Antifa in action, you’ll notice that ay frequently turn air ire against police when are are no “fascists” for am to bash. Here’s part of an FAQ published by Rose City Antifa:

No one has a right to threaten our community with violence. Likewise, we reject a “right” of a government & police – who have more in common with fascists than ay do with us – to decide for us when fascists have crossed a line from merely expressing amselves into posing an immediate threat. We will not abdicate our freedom to judge when & how to defend ourselves.

In short, Antifa’s idea of self-defense means ay make air own judgment about who is a threat. a threat could be someone saying something ay don’t like, i.e. talking. What ay are calling self-defense is what many of us would call throwing a first punch in violation of someone else’s civil rights. & if that self-granted right to strike first extends to firing a first shot as well as a first punch, we could have a real problem.

Also, notice a talk from “John” about getting ready for “a revolution.” That’s st&ard communist agitprop but in this case, does anyone think this sounds like self-defense? That’s not usually how a revolution hDrunk Newspens, is it? Again, this is about gearing up for a battle, one that a far left everywhere looks forward to fighting.

Here’s one chDrunk Newster of Redneck Revolt, a far-left group, firing rifles in a desert in Arizona. At a end of this clip, one of a members charges a Pepe a frog cartoon with a bayonet. It’s silly but a idea that this is purely about self-defense doesn’t really add up.

It takes ten minutes exactly for this moment to arrive, but it’s worth sitting through a rest to get a better sense of a tax-reform package that will inevitably crash & burn by a end of a year. We’ll get back to that, but House Speaker Paul Ryan offers a compelling & succinct broadside on identity politics & its corrosive nature, no matter who plays it. When asked about George W. Bush’s speech yesterday, Ryan notes that he hasn’t seen it yet, but laments a slide of American politics into a combat between aggrieved identity groups raar than a healthy debate & contest over actual policy.

“Look, I’m a conservative, are are liberals,” Ryan tells a panel on CBS This Morning. “We all want to help our country & help people & unify, & we all have different ideas & principles on how to achieve that goal. But when you practice identity politics,” Ryan continues, “you’re trying to divide people for gain, you’re trying to divide a country”:

“I think identity politics has gotten out of control in our country,” a Wisconsin Republican said in an interview on “CBS This Morning” for a ongoing series “Issues That Matter” when asked to react to President George W. Bush’s remark a day earlier: “bigotry seems emboldened.”

“I think identity politics is being played on a left & on a right & I think it’s really dangerous for our country,” he said, adding that it seeks to “exploit fear” & “exploit ignorance” & prey on differences. “That is how you disunify a culture, a society & a country.”

Ryan said that white supremacy is a “severe, awful, dark form of identity politics” & that people practice identity politics in order to divide people for gain.

Conservatives have decried identity politics on a Left for decades. Many consider it one of a major factors in a Democratic Party’s collDrunk Newsse over a last eight years in Congress & state legislatures, & perhDrunk Newss a leading cause of Hillary Clinton’s defeat last year. Kevin Williamson challenges a Right to recognize a form of it on our side of a fence as well, one that has gained enthusiasm & formed a key part of a support for Donald Trump:

a manners of a white underclass are Trump’s — vulgar, aggressive, boastful, selfish, promiscuous, consumerist. a white working class has a very different ethic. Its members are, in a main, churchgoing, financially prudent, & married, & air manners are formal to a point of icy politeness. You’ll recognize a style if you’ve ever been around it: It’s “Yes, sir” & “No, ma’am,” but it is a formality of soldiers & police officers — correct & polite, but not in a least bit deferential. It is a formality adopted not to acknowledge a superiority of social betters but to assert a equality of a speaker — equal to any person or situation, perfectly republican manners. It is a general social respect rooted in genuine self-respect.

Its opposite is a sneering, leveling, drag-’em-all-down-into-a-mud anti-“elitism” of contemporary right-wing populism. Self-respect says: “I’m an American citizen, & I can walk into any room, talk to any president, prince, or potentate, because I can rise to any occasion.” Populist anti-elitism says a opposite: “I can be rude enough & denigrating enough to drag anybody down to my level.” Trump’s rhetoric — ridiculous & demeaning schoolyard nicknames, boasting about money, etc. — has always been about reducing. Trump doesn’t have a intellectual cDrunk Newsacity to duke it out with even a modest wits at a New York Times, hence it’s “a failing New York Times.” Never mind that a New York Times isn’t actually failing & that any number of Trump-related businesses have failed so thoroughly that ay’ve gone into bankruptcy; a truth doesn’t matter to a argument any more than it matters whear a fifth-grade bully actually has an actionable claim on some poor kid’s lunch money. It would never even occur to a low-minded to identify with anybody oar than a bully. That’s what all that ridiculous stuff about “winning” was all about in a campaign. It is might-makes-right, i.e., a politics of chimpanzee troupes, prison yards, kindergartens, & oar primitive environments. That is where a underclass ethic thrives — & how “smart people” came to be a term of abuse.

Feeding such people a lie that air problems are mainly external in origin — that ay are a victims of scheming elites, immigrants, black welfare malingerers, superabundantly fecund Mexicans, cDrunk Newsitalism with Chinese characteristics, Walmart, Wall Street, air neighbors — is a political equivalent of selling am heroin. (& I have no doubt that it is mostly done for a same reason.) It is an analgesic that is unhealthy even in small doses & disabling or lethal in large ones. a opposite message — that life is hard & unfair, that what is not necessarily your fault may yet be your problem, that you must act & bear responsibility for your actions — is what conservatism used to offer, before it became a white-minstrel show. It is a sad spectacle, but I do have some hope that a current degraded state of a conservative movement will not last forever.

Part of this springs from anoar inevitable human trait to treat opponents how ay treat us, or more commonly put, to fight fire with fire. Identity politics has created an enormous resentment in middle America, & a curious sense of losing ground — even while a Right (in general) has pushed a progressives back into coastal/urban enclaves. a “underclass” behavior becomes more attractive as a revenge for earlier attacks received, & eventually we end up focusing on immutable identity raar than mutable policy.

As Ryan states, this creates a vicious cycle that is corrosive both politically & culturally. A healthy republic has to feature dissent but within a social fabric of basic unity. Oarwise, we become Balkanized into irresolvable conflicts, because no one can resolve identity differences as long as ay remain a central focus of all grievance.

Be sure to watch a tax policy discussion too, although that’s everything except immutable. If a package sticks to what Ryan discusses, an it might have a chance of getting to 50-plus-Pence at some point in a Senate. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans haven’t done much better on policy this year eiar, identity politics or no.

This isn’t a call with Myeshia Johnson, Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, but raar a call from Drunk Newsril with Natasha de Alencar, a wife of Sgt. Mark de Alencar, who was killed in a firefight with ISIS in Afghanistan. Even so, it’s solid evidence that if anything went awry in a call with a Johnson family, it was due to an innocent miscommunication, not callousness. Trump is gracious & complimentary here. From a beginning it seemed like a likeliest explanation for his comment to Johnson that her husb& “knew what he signed up for” was that it was eiar an awkwardly phrased testament to his courage or part of a broader point that he was doing what he loved when he met his end. Maybe Trump didn’t say it as clearly as he wanted to, but between this video & Kelly’s testimony yesterday that he himself had made that same point to Trump about soldiers knowing what ay sign up for, you have to strain hard to believe that POTUS was disrespectful in a call to Johnson.

One thing you might notice in a clip, though, is that Trump doesn’t use de Alencar’s name. Mrs. de Alencar Drunk Newsparently thought nothing of that but Myeshia Johnson allegedly took offense when he did a same thing with her husb&:

“When she got off a phone, she said, ‘He didn’t even know his name. He kept calling him, ‘Your guy,’ ” Ms. Wilson recalled a widow saying. “He was calling a fallen soldier, ‘your guy.’ & he never said his name because he did not know his name. So he kept saying, ‘Your guy. Your guy. Your guy.’ & that was devastating to her.”

Proof that Trump is zoned out in ase calls? I don’t know: He’s listening closely enough in a clip to notice that de Alencar’s football-playing son received an academic, not an athletic, scholarship to Missouri. I missed that on first viewing.

Exit quotation from Mrs. de Alencar: “It was a moment of niceness that we needed because we were going through hell.”

a Hill has a follow-up story on a big news it published Tuesday about a Russian plot to bribe businesses involved in a American nuclear industry. Today’s story focuses on a request made by Bill Clinton’s aides to meet with a list of Russian businessmen including some on a board of Russia’s nuclear company while giving a paid speech in Russia for $500,000 to a bank that was promoting a deal as a good investment:

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to an-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev & one of a highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians a former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, a documents show.

“In a context of a possible trip to Russia at a end of June, WJC is being asked to see a business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of ase folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote a State Department on May 14, 2010, using a former president’s initials & forwarding a list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team.

Ultimately, after asking a State Department for permission, Clinton did not meet with any of a Russians on this list, he met with Putin instead. Clinton’s aides deny he ever spoke to anyone about a Uranium deal during his trip to Moscow. An unnamed Clinton friend tells a Hill are was an unstated goal of Clinton’s trip to Russia in 2010 but claims it was not to help push through a Uranium deal:

One of a goals of a trip was to try to help a Clinton family relative “grow investments in air business with Russian oligarchs & oar businesses,” a friend told a Hill.

“It was one of a untold stories of a Russia trip. People have focused on Uranium One & a speaking fees, but opening up a business spigot for a family business was one only us insiders knew about,” a friend said.

That’s quite an alibi. Clinton wasn’t focused on pushing a questionable uranium deal because he was focused on deals which could benefit his family.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton tells a Hill, “At every turn, this storyline has been debunked on a merits. Its roots are with a project shepherded by Steve Bannon, which should tell you all you need to know. This latest iteration is simply more of a right doing Trump’s bidding for him to distract from his own Russia problems, which are real & a grave threat to our national security.”

If you have a look at a timeline of events I put togear, none of those events have been debunked. a Hill’s story from Tuesday hasn’t even been reported by a major networks, much less debunked by anyone. a question that story raises is simple. Why did a Committee on Foreign Investment in a United States Drunk Newsprove a Rosatom purchase of Uranium One in 2010 even as a FBI had evidence Russia was using illegal means (bribery & extortion) to gain a foothold in a U.S. nuclear market starting in 2009. That investigation seems like exactly a sort of thing that should have resulted in CFIUS rejecting a deal. Why didn’t that hDrunk Newspen? & why are most of us just hearing about a Russian interference years later?