WHO ya gonna call?

From Salon:

More than a dozen U.S. health experts based at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva provided real-time information about the new coronavirus in China last year, according to a new report.

President Donald Trump announced last week that the U.S. would stop providing funding to WHO, because it allegedly “missed the call” by not sounding the alarm “months earlier.” Trump, who also accused WHO of being “China-centric,” has ramped up his rhetoric against the organization after numerous media reports revealed that the president and his advisers did not head warnings about the emerging pandemic from intelligence agencies, health experts, economists and even top White House aides. The president continued to downplay the threat publicly in an apparent attempt to calm the stock market.

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One for the books

From Bloomberg:

The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., airs some of the family’s grievances over the probe into Russian 2016 election meddling — and many other topics, including Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize — in a new book.

…snip…

“Turns out I’m not a Russian agent after all!” Trump Jr., 41, writes in “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us,” to be published Nov. 5, according to an advance copy of the part political screed, part autobiography seen by Bloomberg News.

It can’t possibly be as good as the memoir he, Ivanka and Eric wrote together.

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Flop Go the Weasels

From The New York Times:

For 24 hours last week, Trey Gowdy, the former South Carolina congressman best known for leading congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton, was the new face of President Trump’s outside legal defense and a symbol of a streamlined effort to respond to a fast-moving impeachment inquiry.

A day later, the arrangement fell apart, with lobbying rules prohibiting Mr. Gowdy from starting until January, possibly after the inquiry is over. Now, according to two people familiar with events, Mr. Gowdy is never expected to join the team. And Trump advisers are back to square one, searching for a different lawyer.

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Boorish Johnson

In the words of Daughter/Wife Unwanted Ivanka:

“Congratulations @BorisJohnson on becoming the next Prime Minister of the United Kingston.” Yeah, she tweeted that.

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That’s gonna leave a stain

From THE HILL:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday dismissed criticism from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, stating in an interview on Fox News Radio that one thing he’s “not going to worry about is pleasing Joe Scarborough.”

The push back comes after Scarborough, who left the Republican Party last year after saying he could not be in a party that backed President Trump, said Graham had “sold his soul” by supporting the president on a number of issues.

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Duncan his toe in the grifter pool

(CNN) Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret, routinely — and illegally — used campaign funds to pay personal bills big and small, from luxury vacations to kids’ school lunches and delinquent family dentistry bills, according to a stinging 47-page indictment unsealed Tuesday.

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Even Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian!

From npr:

The book that created a rift between President Trump and his former campaign chief executive and adviser Steve Bannon hit the shelves Friday morning, ahead of the original Tuesday release date, despite the president’s threat to block its publication.

Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House, told NPR’s Kelly McEvers that he “100 percent” stands behind his reporting, which the White House and some of the book’s subjects have sharply criticized.

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The Lobbying Epidemic

From The Charlotte Observer:

The drug epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s was horrific.

…snip…

That period is no longer considered the worst drug epidemic in the nation’s history. The ongoing opioid crisis has, unfortunately, taken that title – because no one was lobbying Congress on behalf of crack cocaine dealers the way they have for large drug companies. That’s the devastating finding from a joint investigation by “60 Minutes” and The Washington Post released last weekend. Between 2014 and 2016, the drug industry spent $106 million lobbying Congress for a law that makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies.

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