With amigos like this, who needs enemigos?

From npr:

The White House removed the core of its Ukraine policy team in the spring and replaced it with “three amigos” considered more reliable for the plan to pressure Kyiv, a senior U.S. diplomat was described as telling House investigators on Tuesday.

…snip…

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized the May 23 meeting at which the personnel moves were decided, according to [ Rep. Gerry] Connolly’s [D-Va] description.

That conference yielded the crew described as the new “three amigos” assigned the Ukraine portfolio: Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union; Kurt Volker, then an envoy to Ukraine for its peace negotiations; and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

 

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Toady Foster

From VANITY FAIR:

On Monday, Trump convened his first full Cabinet meeting since taking office, gathering the heads of every major government agency for a press gaggle around the elliptical mahogany table that occupies a prominent place in the West Wing. Traditionally, the media is present only at the beginning of such meetings, during which the president makes a brief statement and a few photos are snapped before a review of the administration’s progress continues behind closed doors. Trump tried something a little different.

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Oops!

From Mail Online:

Oops, there goes Rick Perry’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Texas governor sensationally self-destructed in one of the most cringe-worthy moments in debate history last night when he forgot one of the chief elements of his own economic plan.

Trying to explain the three government agencies he would axe, the one-time Republican favorite crashed and burned as he tried in vain to remember them all.

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CPT:2010 The Brain That Wouldn’t Work

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Sharron Angle has resorted to an unusual maneuver to counter Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s attacks on her past quotes and positions, the Reid campaign has announced: A cease-and-desist letter, demanding that Reid no longer republish Angle’s previous campaign website.

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Economics 101? She can’t even count to 101!

(CNN) – Alaska governor Sarah Palin let loose Wednesday on the Obama administration for enacting fiscal policies that “fly in the face of principles” and “defy Economics 101.”

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We don’t know where the buck stops, but that’s okay, because there are no bucks left!

From Paul Krugman at The New York Times:

Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

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Mr. Shmeckel and Formaldehyde

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has changed Environmental Protection Agency reviews of chemicals in a way that will delay scientific assessments of their health risks and open the process to politicization, congressional investigators said yesterday.

In a new report and in testimony on Capitol Hill, officials with the Government Accountability Office criticized a White House policy that began this month to allow the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies to offer secret input on assessments of long-term exposure to chemicals such as formaldehyde.

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