#feeding my Matt and Andrew agenda

[tankuare]

Aaron watching the ravens swing their rackets at Andrews head knowing he killed a man in the exact same way

[wordpress-guides]

How Do I Become a Best WordPress Developer?

To start with, we should sort a couple of things out: turning into a top WordPress developer is difficult to work — difficult work. It will require some investment, energy, and assurance. In case you're searching for a simple agenda or some "quick pass" to the top, you will burn through your time. Being extraordinary compared to others is hard, and measurably talking, the situation is anything but favorable for you. 

To begin with, we should sort a couple of things out: turning into a top WordPress developer is difficult to work — exceptionally difficult work. It will require some investment, energy, and assurance. In case you're searching for a simple agenda or some "quick pass" to the top, you will burn through your time. Being a standout amongst others is hard, and genuinely talking, the situation is anything but favorable for you. 

Coincidentally, introducing WordPress, perusing a couple of instructional exercises, and altering a couple of topics doesn't make somebody a top developer. They may consider themselves a "Specialist", and that is fine. They may know more than the normal individual. However, a top developer moves a long way past the nuts and bolts and pushes the actual limits of what is conceivable. They enhance, add to the local area, and show dominance in the work they do. 

So I need you to be more than a "specialist", I need you to be truly outstanding.

Wordpress Development Agency

   WHY BE A TOP WordPress DEVELOPER?

Why not WordPress developer? In the event that you work with WordPress (or plan to begin), why simply settle for being normal? There's something over the top "normal" in life as of now. "Ordinary" is profoundly exaggerated. There are different reasons, however. For example, the top WordPress developers: 

Get the most cash-flow. Interest in WordPress improvement is high and customers will pay more for developers who are awesome in their field. 

Get the best customers. At the point when you are at the top, you have the opportunity to say "No" to the ventures you don't need, and "Yes" to the activities you do. 

Have the most impact. Being at the top methods you have an impact (and duty) and the capacity to shape the fate of WordPress just as the environment that is worked around it. 

WordPress Developer Guides: ONE HOUR OF Perusing A DAY 

Follow WordPress developer guides. In the event that you will make it to the top, at that point you need to go through at any rate one hour every workday zeroed in on perusing and getting familiar with WordPress — outside of any improvement work. There are no alternate ways and no alternate ways around it. Learning and dominating WordPress will require some serious energy. On the off chance that you sit in front of the television, cut it out — over 90% of it isn't useful for you in any case. In case you're a gamer, sell your games or discard them. Arriving at the top takes responsibility and penance and the best spot to begin is with the things in life that aren't benefiting you in any way in any case. 

Start with one committed, an interruption-free hour of perusing for every workday. Close off texts, put your telephone on quiet, and read. Take notes on what you realize en route. You'll make the time passes by quicker than you would have anticipated. Keep at it, for quite a while, after quite a while after week, and a seemingly endless amount of time after a month. What's more, as you begin to see achievement, put in more energy for perusing. 

Then again, consider a three-hour block, a few times each week. The key is to make a promise to learning and respecting that responsibility by putting aside the vital chance to own it. 

There will never be been a superior chance to learn and dominate WordPress than at this moment. There are such countless magnificent assets accessible to those willing to invest the time and energy into utilizing them. Before you can begin acquiring experience, you need some instruction. Indeed, you could simply hop in and begin breaking things. Be that as it may, I propose you pause, and develop the self-control it takes to learn — there will be a lot of time to break things later. As you start your schooling, it's imperative regardless of the social part of your experience. 

Spend time WITH THE Correct Group 

We become like those we partner with. In the event that you need to be one of the top WordPress developers, begin investing energy with those at the top. Peruse their online journals, follow them on Twitter, give input on their considerations and thoughts, go to WordCamps to meet them, and tune in to their discussions. Peruse the meetings on CodePoet. Follow their models, ask them for counsel, follow their recommendations, and report back. 

Here is a little rundown of WordPress developers to kick you off:

Andrew Nacin (@nacin) Alex King (@alexkingorg) Bill Erickson (@billerickson) Cory Miller (@corymiller303) Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) Nathan Rice (@nathanrice) Peter Westwood (@westi) Joost de Valk (@yoast) Justin Tadlock (@justintadlock) Silviu-Cristian Burcă (@scribu)

The measure of perusing material accessible on WordPress is overpowering. There are a large number of individuals discussing WordPress and it is getting progressively hard to channel through the commotion. There are specialists, notwithstanding, and when you focus on dominating WordPress, at that point you should begin your excursion by finding the greatest assets and focusing your endeavors simply on those. 

Here are a couple of assets to kick you off: 

WordPress Codex. The WordPress codex is a local area altered store for everything WordPress. Start with the very rudiments and spotlight on dominating the WordPress interface itself from an end-client's point of view. Gain proficiency with WordPress semantics. Find out about the topic plan and module advancement. 

Books on WordPress. There are in excess of twelve books accessible on WordPress. Get going with the titles of most noteworthy interest to you and afterward pursue the others. Think "WordPress For Fakers" is excessively essential? Perhaps not. Your customers may understand it and it's critical to have their viewpoints. At the point when you're done, thank the writer and compose an audit. 

Sites on WordPress. Discover and follow the best online journals about WordPress. Buy into their feeds. Peruse them routinely and offer criticism to the creators. A couple of my #1 sites are WordPress on Crushing Magazine, WP Tuts+, and WP Candy. 

Comprehend THE Innovation 

In case you will dominate WordPress as a developer you need to comprehend the innovation. In case you're as of now a developer and PHP/MySQL aren't different to you, amazing. Ensure your abilities are exceptional. In case you're new to programming, begin learning. Here are a few different ways to start: 

Learn PHP and MySQL It's truly significant that you know PHP and MySQL and that you get familiar with the prescribed procedures. A couple of out-dated instructional exercises won't do it. Furthermore, on the off chance that you learned it a couple of years prior, a great deal of the practices you chose up are most likely from date. Not certain where to start? Start with Lynda.com or Learnable.com. Find out about MySQL execution. 

Investigate the Codebase Set aside an effort to investigate the WordPress codebase on Trac and on Xref. Peruse the documentation to see how things work. Look into what doesn't sound good to you and pose inquiries. Acclimate yourself with how WordPress is organized. 

Run The Daily Arrangement a nearby improvement climate and run the daily form as an approach to keep awake-to-date on WordPress as it's being created. 

Peruse "Make WordPress" A decent method to comprehend the innovation is to follow the advancement conversations occurring on make.wordpress.org. You can follow conversations about the Center, Modules, and Subjects first of all. 

DO THE Schoolwork 

Set up the thing you're learning as a regular occurrence. Start with your own WordPress sites. After you read an instructional exercise, follow it all alone. Examination. Separate things. Track what you've realized and record your bits of knowledge and forward leaps for future reference. Invest however much energy that you can take what you've realized and applying it to your own undertakings and examinations. 

Here are a couple of zones to investigate: 

WordPress APIs. Start by acclimating yourself with the rundown of accessible APIs on the Codex. Peruse the data accessible for every Programming interface and investigation with every (some will be simpler than others). Quest for instructional exercises for every one of the APIs to give you some certifiable point of view and experience on how can be managed each. 

Ajax in WordPress. Regardless of whether you're now acquainted with Ajax, find out about the utilization of Ajax in WordPress. At that point, proceed onward to handle utilizing Ajax in module advancement. Quest for instructional exercises to build up your experience further. 

WordPress PHP Classes. Acclimate yourself with the rundown of classes made by WordPress developers. Trial with them on your own ventures and expert them. Specifically, give exceptional consideration to WP_Query, WP_Theme, and wpdb. Quest for instructional exercises on every one of the classes, just as non-center, local area contributed classes like WPAlchemy. 

Acquiring Involvement in WordPress

With your schooling great in progress, it's an ideal opportunity to acquire certifiable experience — and loads of it. Your way to the top is fixed with preliminaries and challenges and acquiring experience outside the protected jungle gyms of your own tasks is a basic positive development. Perhaps the most ideal approach to begin is a managing job for other people. 

TAKE ON Customers

Working for customers, paid or free, is perhaps the most ideal approach to acquire insight. Customers present difficulties you could never need to manage to chip away at your own. In case you're simply beginning, figure out how to get your first customer. While the market center (enormous customers versus little customers) will shift, the core of the issue is to get a ton of involvement. The objective is to not simply get two or three hundred hours chipping away at WordPress, yet a couple thousand. You need to place the time in with genuine experience and taking on customers is probably the most ideal approach to do this. 

Build up A PUBLIC Subject 

Fabricate a subject you'd really use. Delivery it, paid or free. Tune in to the criticism you get from developers and end-clients who utilize your topic. Request a companion survey from topic originators you regard. Update your topic as you get input and as your capacities improve. Endeavor to make a topic that you can be glad for. 

Build up A Module 

As you learn and work with WordPress you'll in the end discover a need that hasn't been met. At the point when you do, meet it yourself. Take what you've found out about module advancement and set up it as a regular occurrence. Compose a module that is secure and that tackles a genuine need, without being another "me as well" commitment to the generally huge module local area. Delivery it, paid or free, and get criticism from individuals who put your module to utilize. 

CONTRIBUTE A Fix 

Peruse the Center Patron handbook and figure out how to present a fix. It tends to be an overwhelming cycle your first time around, yet search for a test that you can handle, and adhere to it. Contributing a fix is a significant encounter and a significant piece of having the option to view yourself as a top WordPress developer. 

Expert Investigating 

Figuring out how to compose sans bug code is a basic advance in turning into an extraordinary developer. Start with the Codex and find out about investigating in WordPress. Peruse Andrew Nacin's post on 5 Different ways To Troubleshoot WordPress. Acquaint yourself with a portion of the developer arranged modules, similar to Center Control, Troubleshoot Bar and Log Expostulated Takes note. 

Joining The WordPress Develper or WordPress community

Became an active member in the WordPress developer or WordPress community.  As you proceed with your schooling and set up what you've realized as a regular occurrence, the following stage is to turn into a functioning individual from the local area. You might be an awesome developer, yet it doesn't mean a lot if nobody realizes you exist. Invest energy putting resources into the local area. Perhaps the most ideal approach to do so is sharing what you know. 

Compose Instructional exercises 

I got my beginning back in 2006 with a straightforward instructional exercise I composed (be cautioned, it is somewhat dated). I took what I had recently sorted out and emptied it into an instructional exercise to help other people and save them the time (and migraine) I had recently experienced. Many individuals read it, a couple composed back and said thank you, and a few people even requested that I accomplish some work for them. So compose instructional exercises that take the most awesome aspect of what you've recently realized and present it to other people so they may receive the rewards of your endeavors. It's justified, despite all the trouble. 

Add TO THE CODEX 

As you invest energy perusing the Codex you will see regions that need improvement. Find out about turning into a volunteer in the Codex. Commit time to improve the nature of the documentation. While documentation in the Codex is ceaselessly improving, there are still capacities and highlights in the WordPress center that go undocumented. On the off chance that a region is past your present capacities, carry it to the consideration of others and embrace the chance to learn more all the while. 

Partake IN Gatherings 

Most WordPress novices begin posing inquiries on the authority uphold gatherings. Start there by responding to questions (even the senseless, essential ones — we as a whole beginning someplace). From that point, become a functioning individual from the WordPress Stack Trade people group. Answer questions and gain from the appropriate responses that different developers are giving. 

PRESENT AT WORDCAMPS 

Go to forthcoming WordCamps and search for freedoms to present and offer an incentive to the WordPress people group. A genuine indication of your skill is your capacity to take what you know and instruct it to another person. Peruse the Journal Of A WordCamp. Need much to a greater degree a test? Become a coordinator and start a WordCamp close to you. 

Prize And Duty 

The award at the top merits the exertion. In case you're assembling a business around WordPress (read 7 reasons why you ought to), an authority of WordPress is a basic advance to your prosperity. In 2011, as per the authority WordPress Overview results, "6,800 independently employed respondents were answerable for more than 170,000 sites, by and by". Of those, the normal middle hourly rate was $50/hour. In view of the Pareto standard, the top 20% of those developers (under 1,400) are liable for 80% of the work done (and they make more than $50/hour). 

Presently, being in that top 20% conveys with it an undeniable degree of obligation. Remaining at the top requires a promise to progressing training and constant experience. Never quit learning and improving. Being at the top likewise puts a degree of obligation on your shoulders for the wellbeing and eventual fate of the WordPress environment. Get included. Say something regarding significant issues. Contribute. Set a level of your prosperity back into developing WordPress and guaranteeing its future. 

End 

Turning into a top WordPress developer requires a mentality of persistent improvement and an ability to accomplish the difficult work. It begins with a purposeful spotlight on instruction and afterward moves to broad certifiable experience. At last, the title of a "top developer" requests devotion to the WordPress people group, just as an acknowledgment of the duties by the individuals who form and shape the fate of WordPress.

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[endenogatai]

Alexa, where are the legal limits on what Amazon can do with my health data?

The contract between the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and ecommerce giant Amazon — for a health information licensing partnership involving its Alexa voice AI — has been released following a Freedom of Information request.

The government announced the partnership this summer. But the date on the contract, which was published on the gov.uk contracts finder site months after the FOI was filed, shows the open-ended arrangement to funnel nipped-and-tucked health advice from the NHS’ website to Alexa users in audio form was inked back in December 2018.

The contract is between the UK government and Amazon US (Amazon Digital Services, Delaware) — rather than Amazon UK. 

Nor is it a standard NHS Choices content syndication contract. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed the legal agreement uses an Amazon contract template. She told us the department had worked jointly with Amazon to adapt the template to fit the intended use — i.e. access to publicly funded healthcare information from the NHS’ website.

The NHS does make the same information freely available on its website, of course. As well as via API — to some 1,500 organizations. But Amazon is not just any organization; It’s a powerful US platform giant with a massive ecommerce business.

The contract reflects that power imbalance; not being a standard NHS content syndication agreement — but rather DHSC tweaking Amazon’s standard terms.

“It was drawn up between both Amazon UK and the Department for Health and Social Care,” a department spokeswoman told us. “Given that Amazon is in the business of holding standard agreements with content providers they provided the template that was used as the starting point for the discussions but it was drawn up in negotiation with the Department for Health and Social Care, and obviously it was altered to apply to UK law rather than US law.”

In July, when the government officially announced the Alexa-NHS partnership, its PR provided a few sample queries of how Amazon’s voice AI might respond to what it dubbed “NHS-verified” information — such as: “Alexa, how do I treat a migraine?”; “Alexa, what are the symptoms of flu?”; “Alexa, what are the symptoms of chickenpox?”.

But of course as anyone who’s ever googled a health symptom could tell you, the types of stuff people are actually likely to ask Alexa — once they realize they can treat it as an NHS-verified info-dispensing robot, and go down the symptom-querying rabbit hole — is likely to range very far beyond the common cold.

At the official launch of what the government couched as a ‘collaboration’ with Amazon, it explained its decision to allow NHS content to be freely piped through Alexa by suggesting that voice technology has “the potential to reduce the pressure on the NHS and GPs by providing information for common illnesses”.

Its PR cited an unattributed claim that “by 2020, half of all searches are expected to be made through voice-assisted technology”.

This prediction is frequently attributed to ComScore, a media measurement firm that was last month charged with fraud by the SEC. However it actually appears to originate with computer scientist Andrew Ng, from when he was chief scientist at Chinese tech giant Baidu.

Econsultancy noted last year that Mary Meeker included Ng’s claim on a slide in her 2016 Internet Trends report — which is likely how the prediction got so widely amplified.

But on Meeker’s slide you can see that the prediction is in fact “images or speech”, not voice alone…

So it turns out the UK government incorrectly cited a tech giant prediction to push a claim that “voice search has been increasing rapidly” — in turn its justification for funnelling NHS users towards Amazon.

“We want to empower every patient to take better control of their healthcare and technology like this is a great example of how people can access reliable, world-leading NHS advice from the comfort of their home, reducing the pressure on our hardworking GPs and pharmacists,” said health secretary Matt Hancock in a July statement.

Since landing at the health department, the app-loving former digital minister has been pushing a tech-first agenda for transforming the NHS — promising to plug in “healthtech” apps and services, and touting “preventative, predictive and personalised care”. He’s also announced an AI lab housed within a new unit that’s intended to oversee the digitization of the NHS.

Compared with all that, plugging the NHS’ website into Alexa probably seems like an easy ‘on-message’ win. But immediately the collaboration was announced concerns were raised that the government is recklessly mixing the streams of critical (and sensitive) national healthcare infrastructure with the rapacious data-appetite of a foreign tech giant with both an advertising and ecommerce business, plus major ambitions of its own in the healthcare space.

On the latter front, just yesterday news broke of Amazon’s second health-related acquisition: Health Navigator, a startup with an API platform for integrating with health services, such as telemedicine and medical call centers, which offers natural language processing tools for documenting health complaints and care recommendations.

Last year Amazon also picked up online pharmacy PillPack — for just under $1BN. While last month it launched a pilot of a healthcare service offering to its own employees in and around Seattle, called Amazon Care. That looks intended to be a road-test for addressing the broader U.S. market down the line. So the company’s commercial designs on healthcare are becoming increasingly clear.

Returning to the UK, in response to early critical feedback on the Alexa-NHS arrangement, the IT delivery arm of the service, NHS Digital, published a blog post going into more detail about the arrangement — following what it couched as “interesting discussion about the challenges for the NHS of working with large commercial organisations like Amazon”.

A core critical “discussion” point is the question of what Amazon will do with people’s medical voice query data, given the partnership is clearly encouraging people to get used to asking Alexa for health advice.

“We have stuck to the fundamental principle of not agreeing a way of working with Amazon that we would not be willing to consider with any single partner – large or small. We have been careful about data, commercialisation, privacy and liability, and we have spent months working with knowledgeable colleagues to get it right,” NHS Digital claimed in July.

In another section of the blog post, responding to questions about what Amazon will do with the data and “what about privacy”, it further asserted there would be no health profiling of customers — writing:

We have worked with the Amazon team to ensure that we can be totally confident that Amazon is not sharing any of this information with third parties. Amazon has been very clear that it is not selling products or making product recommendations based on this health information, nor is it building a health profile on customers. All information is treated with high confidentiality. Amazon restrict access through multi-factor authentication, services are all encrypted, and regular audits run on their control environment to protect it.

Yet it turns out the contract DHSC signed with Amazon is just a content licensing agreement. There are no terms contained in it concerning what can or can’t be done with the medical voice query data Alexa is collecting with the help of “NHS-verified” information.

Per the contract terms, Amazon is required to attribute content to the NHS when Alexa responds to a query with information from the service’s website. (Though the company says Alexa also makes use of medical content from the Mayo Clinic and Wikipedia.) So, from the user’s point of view, they will at times feel like they’re talking to an NHS-branded service.

But without any legally binding confidentiality clauses around what can be done with their medical voice queries it’s not clear how NHS Digital can confidently assert that Amazon isn’t creating health profiles.

The situation seems to sum to, er, trust Amazon. (NHS Digital wouldn’t comment; saying it’s only responsible for delivery not policy setting, and referring us to the DHSC.)

Asked what it does with medical voice query data generated as a result of the NHS collaboration an Amazon spokesperson told us: “We do not build customer health profiles based on interactions with nhs.uk content or use such requests for marketing purposes.”

But the spokesperson could not point to any legally binding contract clauses in the licensing agreement that restrict what Amazon can do with people’s medical queries.

We’ve also asked the company to confirm whether medical voice queries that return NHS content are being processed in the US.

“This collaboration only provides content already available on the NHS.UK website, and absolutely no personal data is being shared by NHS to Amazon or vice versa,” Amazon also told us, eliding the key point that it’s not NHS data being shared with Amazon but NHS users, reassured by the presence of a trusted public brand, being encouraged to feed Alexa sensitive personal data by asking about their ailments and health concerns.

Bizarrely, the Department of Health and Social Care went further. Its spokeswoman claimed in an email that “there will be no data shared, collected or processed by Amazon and this is just an alternative way of providing readily available information from NHS.UK.”

When we spoke to DHSC on the phone prior to this, to raise the issue of medical voice query data generated via the partnership and fed to Amazon — also asking where in the contract are clauses to protect people’s data — the spokeswoman said she would have to get back to us.

All of which suggests the government has a very vague idea (to put it generously) of how cloud-powered voice AIs function.

Presumably no one at DHSC bothered to read the information on Amazon’s own Alexa privacy page — although the department spokeswomen was at least aware this page existed (because she knew Amazon had pointed us to what she called its “privacy notice”, which she said “sets out how customers are in control of their data and utterances”).

If you do read the page you’ll find Amazon offers some broad-brush explanation there which tells you that after an Alexa device has been woken by its wake word, the AI will “begin recording and sending your request to Amazon’s secure cloud”.

Ergo data is collected and processed. And indeed stored on Amazon’s servers. So, yes, data is ‘shared’.

The more detailed Alexa Internet Privacy Notice, meanwhile, sets out broad-brush parameters to enable Amazon’s reuse of Alexa user data — stating that “the information we learn from users helps us personalize and continually improve your Alexa experience and provide information about Internet trends, website popularity and traffic, and related content”. [emphasis ours]

The DHSC sees the matter very differently, though.

With no contractual binds covering health-related queries UK users of Alexa are being encouraged to whisper into Amazon’s robotic ears — data that’s naturally linked to Alexa and Amazon account IDs (and which the Alexa Internet Privacy Notice also specifies can be accessed by “a limited number of employees”) — the government is accepting the tech giant’s standard data processing terms for a commercial, consumer product which is deeply integrated into its increasingly sprawling business empire.

Terms such as indefinite retention of audio recordings — unless users pro-actively request that they are deleted. And even then Amazon admitted this summer it doesn’t always delete the text transcripts of recordings. So even if you keep deleting all your audio snippets, traces of medical queries may well remain on Amazon’s servers.

Earlier this year it also emerged the company employs contractors around the world to listen in to Alexa recordings as part of internal efforts to improve the performance of the AI.

A number of tech giants recently admitted to the presence of such ‘speech grading’ programs, as they’re sometimes called — though none had been up front and transparent about the fact their shiny AIs needed an army of external human eavesdroppers to pull off a show of faux intelligence.

It’s been journalists highlighting the privacy risks for users of AI assistants; and media exposure leading to public pressure on tech giants to force changes to concealed internal processes that have, by default, treated people’s information as an owned commodity that exists to serve and reserve their own corporate interests.

Data protection? Only if you interpret the term as meaning your personal data is theirs to capture and that they’ll aggressively defend the IP they generate from it.

So, in other words, actual humans — both employed by Amazon directly and not — may be listening to the medical stuff you’re telling Alexa. Unless the user finds and activates a recently added ‘no human review’ option buried in Alexa settings.

Many of these arrangements remain under regulatory scrutiny in Europe. Amazon’s lead data protection regulator in Europe confirmed in August it’s in discussions with it over concerns related to its manual reviews of Alexa recordings. So UK citizens — whose taxes fund the NHS — might be forgiven for expecting more care from their own government around such a ‘collaboration’.

Rather than a wholesale swallowing of tech giant T&Cs in exchange for free access to the NHS brand and  “NHS-verified” information which helps Amazon burnish Alexa’s utility and credibility, allowing it to gather valuable insights for its commercial healthcare ambitions.

To date there has been no recognition from DHSC the government has a duty of care towards NHS users as regards potential risks its content partnership might generate as Alexa harvests their voice queries via a commercial conduit that only affords users very partial controls over what happens to their personal data.

Nor is DHSC considering the value being generously gifted by the state to Amazon — in exchange for a vague supposition that a few citizens might go to the doctor a bit less if a robot tells them what flu symptoms look like.

“The NHS logo is supposed to mean something,” says Sam Smith, coordinator at patient data privacy advocacy group, MedConfidential — one of the organizations that makes use of the NHS’ free APIs for health content (but which he points out did not write its own contract for the government to sign).

“When DHSC signed Amazon’s template contract to put the NHS logo on anything Amazon chooses to do, it left patients to fend for themselves against the business model of Amazon in America.”

In a related development this week, Europe’s data protection supervisor has warned of serious data protection concerns related to standard contracts EU institutions have inked with another tech giant, Microsoft, to use its software and services.

The watchdog recently created a strategic forum that’s intended to bring together the region’s public administrations to work on drawing up standard contracts with fairer terms for the public sector — to shrink the risk of institutions feeling outgunned and pressured into accepting T&Cs written by the same few powerful tech providers.

Such an effort is sorely needed — though it comes too late to hand-hold the UK government into striking more patient-sensitive terms with Amazon US.

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[everettwilkinson]

SCOOP: MCCONNELL and SESSIONS break bread — TRUMP threatens Venezuela intervention, returning to DC Monday — DEFENSE NEWS: All calm with the military in the Pacific

Good Saturday morning. A JUICY SPOTTED FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dining last night at Ocean Prime in D.C. with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Needless to say, the two men — who served in the Senate together for 20 years — have recently found themselves at odds with President Donald Trump.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PRESIDENT, from a pool spray yesterday at his golf club in New Jersey …

Story Continued Below

— ON TRADE: He will hold a press conference Monday in Washington, and will announce a trade investigation into China. More here from Andrew Restuccia http://politi.co/2uPjmvj

— ON VENEZUELA: He said he is not ruling out military action in Venezuela. REALITY CHECK FROM SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NEB.) — “No. Congress obviously isn’t authorizing war in Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro is a horrible human being, but Congress doesn’t vote to spill Nebraskans’ blood based on who the Executive lashes out at today.” … @nancyayoussef: “Overheard at the Pentagon, in what can only be described as in a whiny voice: ‘I don’t wanna go to war with Venezuela!’”

— ON NORTH KOREA: Asked about a “bad solution” for the U.S. in North Korea, Trump declined to get into specifics. Q: “What would be a bad solution, sir?” TRUMP: “I think you know the answer to that.” Q: “Mr. President, when you say bad solution, are you talking about war? Is the U.S. going to go to war?” TRUMP: “I think you know the answer to that.”

—@CNN: “Blitzer: I don’t recall seeing you this emotional, possibly outraged Panetta: ‘I’m concerned … This is not a game’”. http://bit.ly/2hThv7f

— ON JOHN KELLY: He is happy with John Kelly, right now. “[I] think that General Kelly has brought a tremendous — he’s brought something very special to the office of chief — I call him ‘chief.’ He’s a respected man. He’s a four-star from the Marines, and he carries himself like a four-star from the Marines. And he’s my friend, which is very important.” 11 min. video of the pool spray http://bit.ly/2vrGsvk

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

CHECKING IN — “If the U.S. is going to war in North Korea, nobody told the U.S. military,” by Defense News’ David B. Larter: “[W]hile the rhetoric is nearing a fever pitch in D.C., out in the Pacific you’d never know the world was on the brink of nuclear war. In Yokosuka, Japan, the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed ready aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan sits peacefully pier-side, along with the U.S. 7th Fleet command ship Blue Ridge. On the Korean Peninsula, the State Department has not advised American citizens to leave the country and U.S. military family members are not being evacuated. No Marines are being loaded on amphibious ships; no sailors have been recalled off leave to prepare for emergency operations; and no ballistic missile defense ships have been sortied to North Korea, the waters off Japan or to Guam, three sources said.” http://bit.ly/2wS8VIF

HENRY KISSINGER pens a WSJ op-ed: “How to Resolve the North Korea Crisis: An understanding between the U.S. and Beijing is the essential prerequisite. Tokyo and Seoul also have key roles to play.” http://on.wsj.com/2vPoCn0

— “How U.S. Military Actions Could Play Out in North Korea,” by NYT’s Michael Shear and Michael R. Gordon: http://nyti.ms/2vOOyiB

CHINA REACTS — “Xi calls for calm after Trump says U.S. is ‘locked and loaded,’” by AP’s Eric Talmadge in Seoul and Jonathan Lemire in Bedminster, N.J.: “Chinese President Xi Jinping made a plea for cool-headedness over escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, urging both sides to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation. … State-run China Central Television quoted Xi as telling Trump the “relevant parties must maintain restraint and avoid words and deeds that would exacerbate the tension on the Korean Peninsula.” http://bit.ly/2uPIYb9

KELLY MAKES HIS PRESENCE FELT — “Kelly considers further shuffling of West Wing staff, officials say,” by Josh Dawsey, Eliana Johnson and Ben White: “White House chief of staff John Kelly spent this week in Bedminster, N.J., pondering changes in the West Wing, according to four White House officials. Kelly summoned aides to President Donald Trump’s golf club there to ask about their portfolios and make suggestions on how to make the West Wing communicate better and get more done, while giving people clear responsibilities and then holding them accountable. The role of chief strategist Steve Bannon has come under particular scrutiny in several conversations, particularly because he has a large staff, including an outside public relations expert, but no specific duties.

“In a number of daily meetings, Kelly generated a list of concerns, including aides without clear portfolios, decisions that aren’t made with proper vetting and internal fights — particularly a sustained campaign against national security adviser H.R. McMaster. He has met with top aides, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, about making changes, the four officials say. In some of the encounters, he has suggested that people should be more concerned with the president’s agenda and less concerned with their own.

“Kelly … has also raised concerns about the administration’s communications, personnel practices and political operations, these officials said. He has said there have been too many internal fights over appointments, and that they need to speed up. He has been vague about exactly what he wants, telling aides he is still studying the White House, but has made clear ‘that the place will be different soon,’ one senior administration official said.” http://politi.co/2hTCjeQ

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): If you know only one fact about rising drug costs, know this one: drug makers set prices for prescription drugs. To help manage nearly double-digit price increases, employers, unions and government programs use PBMs to negotiate lower net prices to help curb costs for employers and patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

KNOWING MIKE PENCE — “Mike Pence and the art of staying clean,” by Darren Samuelsohn and Matt Nussbaum: “Vice President Mike Pence has so far avoided being dragged into the muck of the Russia probes that have engulfed President Donald Trump, his top aides and his family members. It’s no accident. Unlike his boss, Pence’s Twitter feed is silent about a ‘Russia hoax’ and ‘witch hunts.’ He’s denied having knowledge of critical discrepancies in Michael Flynn’s story – gaps that have landed the former national security adviser in prosecutors’ crosshairs. And he’s taken pains to note he wasn’t even part of the Trump ticket at a controversial June 2016 meeting where a Kremlin-linked lawyer offered dirt on Hillary Clinton in a meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

“The Vice President’s office has also instituted strict rules against speaking to the press, and any staffers have to clear it with Pence’s new chief of staff, Nick Ayers, his communications director or press secretary before talking to reporters. And unlike in the West Wing, where staffers have taken to slinging arrows and airing unattributed grievances through the media, the rules have held firm in Pence’s orbit, where infighting is rare. While Pence has become known for his aw-shucks persona, the former Indiana governor and longtime congressman is also a cunning politician who has developed a playbook for staying clean over his decades in the spotlight.

“Ryan Streeter, who served as Pence’s deputy chief of staff when he was governor, said Pence has a way of creating ‘barriers’ between himself and wrongdoing, or even the appearance of wrongdoing. Streeter said Pence used to tell staffers: ‘If there’s a line you don’t want to cross, you don’t even walk up to it — you stop three feet in front of it.’” http://politi.co/2fAzONX

CNN’S MANU RAJU — “GOP-led Senate panel wants White House responses on Kushner’s security clearance”: “The Senate Judiciary Committee is calling on the White House to provide new details about President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance application, including whether he could be trusted with sensitive information after he initially failed to disclose meetings with Russian officials.

“The committee, led by Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, sent a letter in June to the White House and the FBI asking for a detailed list of questions about Kushner’s security clearance form, which he has had to amend multiple times because of his initial failure to disclose meetings with foreign officials. In response, Kushner’s outside attorney sent the panel a letter, but the White House has not yet responded to the panel’s queries despite a July 6 deadline set by a bipartisan group of senators. …

“‘The committee is appreciative of the response we have gotten so far from Mr. Kushner’s attorney,’ Hartmann said. ‘But the committee still does expect the White House to reply to its questions about Mr. Kushner’s security clearance, and to provide answers to the requested questions of the SF-86,’ referring to the questionnaire applicants fill out for security clearances.” http://cnn.it/2fAhqVf

MEANWHILE … — JERUSALEM POST: “WHITE HOUSE AIDES TO VISIT REGION: MIDEAST PEACE ‘DIFFICULT, BUT POSSIBLE’”: “The White House official said the president is optimistic that a peace agreement can be reached,” by Michael Wilner: “U.S. President Donald Trump will send three envoys to the region in the coming days, hoping that talks which ended a crisis on the Temple Mount last month have provided an opportunity for broader dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Two of his aides leading the peace effort — Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner — will be joined on this trip by Dina Powell, a national security adviser. They will meet with leadership from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and report back to the president, a White House official said.

“Trump ‘believes that the restoration of calm and the stabilized situation in Jerusalem after the recent crisis on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif has created an opportunity to continue discussions and the pursuit of peace that began early in his administration,’ the official said. ‘While the regional talks will play an important role, the president reaffirms that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress towards that goal.’ The official said that National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are actively consulting with the delegation. A Palestinian official said on Thursday that the U.S. team is expected in roughly two weeks.” http://bit.ly/2vOBuK1

NYT’s CARL HULSE — WHAT RICHARD BURR IS THINKING — “Senator Richard Burr, the initially reluctant but now determined leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, said the investigation had expanded beyond its original scope based on new evidence, but he hoped to complete it this year to allow Congress to take steps to prevent future efforts at tampering by Moscow.

“‘What continues this investigation are the names of individuals that we didn’t know at the time, the documents that we weren’t aware of, the communications, the cables, the emails, the phone logs of individuals that we wouldn’t have thought then that we needed to interview or to look at their records,’ said Mr. Burr, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the intelligence panel. Mr. Burr said he remained ‘hopeful that we can bring finality to this by the end of the year, but I also can’t anticipate anything new that might come up that we don’t know today that would extend it by a month or two months. So I am conscious of the fact that I need to do this expeditiously, but I need to do it thoroughly and I won’t do anything to cut it short.’ … Mr. Burr said that the emergence of new information pushed the inquiry in new directions.” http://nyti.ms/2uPw0Kw … The podcast http://nyti.ms/2uykd8p

FOGGY BOTTOM WATCH — “Interest in U.S. diplomatic corps tumbles in early months of Trump,” by Daniel Lippman and Nahal Toosi: “Interest in joining the State Department’s elite ranks of Foreign Service officers has tumbled in the early months of the Trump administration, triggering worries among former officials about the long-run risks to U.S. diplomatic power. This June, the number of Americans who took the Foreign Service exam to start the process of joining the prestigious State Department ranks fell 26 percent from the same month a year earlier to 2,730, according to data obtained by POLITICO. The June tally marked the lowest number of test-takers in nearly a decade. …

“Top grad schools for international affairs that typically funnel graduates to the State Department also report a drop-off in interest. Information sessions for students who wanted to learn more about life as a Foreign Service officer at one leading university regularly drew at least 20 to 25 people. At one recent session, only three people showed up, according to a career services official at that university.” http://politi.co/2vOW6SA

THE AGENDA — “5 things Trump did this week while you weren’t looking: Washington may be quiet, but the Trump administration isn’t slowing down,” by Danny Vinik: “1. Interior relaxes Obama-era Sage Grouse rules … 2. EPA eases the approval process for new chemicals … 3. DOJ switches sides in Ohio voting case … 4. The fiduciary standard gets punted … 5. The nuclear waste storage fight warms up.” http://politi.co/2vsFJKE

POWER PLAYBOOKER — “Silicon Valley Now Has Its Own Populist Pundit,” by Nellie Bowles on the cover of the NYT Sunday Styles section from Menlo Park, California (print headline “He’s Pushing Buttons In Silicon Valley”): “It’s not easy being the first and only Fox News host in Silicon Valley. But Steve Hilton, a tech entrepreneur who was once chief adviser to former Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, added that role to his résumé in June.

“Now every week, Mr. Hilton flies from the home he shares with his high-profile tech executive wife, Rachel Whetstone, in Silicon Valley’s billionaire enclave of Atherton, Calif., to Fox’s studios in Los Angeles to host ‘The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton.’ Fox News markets the Sunday night program as exploring ‘the impact of the populist movement.’ … Mr. Hilton is unfazed. ‘I certainly have experienced a degree of curiosity, yes,’ he said.” http://nyti.ms/2hUKTKs

THE JUICE …

— WE’VE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is raffling off tickets to an upcoming town hall. “Registration does not guarantee a ticket. Registered names will be randomly drawn by the Bucks County Courier Times and selected individuals will be contacted to RSVP and receive further details. Ticketed names and addresses will be checked at the door. This event is for PA-08 residents only.” http://bit.ly/2vwAoAe

— ALEX ISENSTADT reports that “America First Action, a White House-sanctioned outside group, will spend between $150,00 and $200,000 on digital advertising in support of [GOP Sen. Luther] Strange, the group announced. The move comes just days after Trump announced his endorsement of Strange in a tweet, saying that he ‘has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama.’” http://politi.co/2vwgQvI

— CAROLINE KENNEDY has joined the board of directors of Boeing. Non-employee directors make roughly $300,000 per year. Kennedy was most recently ambassador to Japan.

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump speaks to the press alongside Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Aug. 11 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J | Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

2020 WATCH – “2 years before the caucuses, Democratic upstarts are trying to make a name in Iowa,” by Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble: “Who is Eric Swalwell? Who is Jason Kander? Who is Tim Ryan? And what the heck are they all doing in Iowa? Those questions have been echoing through Democratic conversations in the state for the better part of a year now, and they rang out again here in northern Iowa on Friday night, when Swalwell and Kander headlined the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding fundraiser. Despite a new president just seven months on the job and Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses still more than two years away, the state has seen a profusion of visits from would-be, could-be national Democratic leaders. But for the most part, the visitors haven’t come from the senators-and-governors set one might expect to see trying out on a presidential proving ground. Rather, the Democrats showing up in Iowa these days skew younger, with less political experience and lower national profiles but plenty of ambition. …

“Swalwell, who was born in Sac City but raised in California, visited Iowa last fall and again in February on trips that took him through Iowa City, Des Moines and Davenport. He attended an event in Council Bluffs on Thursday night before Friday’s Wing Ding, and is sticking around for a Progress Iowa fundraiser on Saturday and the Iowa State Fair on Sunday. … Kander … was in Iowa for political events last December and again in June. … Tim Ryan … [in] June … met Des Moines Democrats at Cooney’s Tavern in Beaverdale, and he’s scheduled to return to the state in September as a headliner at the Polk County Steak Fry. … Joining Ryan on the Steak Fry stage will be U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton, of Massachusetts, and Cheri Bustos, of Illinois.” http://dmreg.co/2w0i7xg

SPEAKING OF 2020 — “Megadonor Steyer vows to only back candidates that support abortion rights,” by Gabe Debenedetti in Atlanta: “Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer said on Saturday that he and his NextGen America group do not intend to work on behalf of anti-abortion politicians, jumping into the Democratic Party’s ongoing debate on the topic. ‘We’re pro-choice,’ the hedge fund manager-turned-activist told POLITICO on the sidelines of the progressive Netroots Nation conference here. Asked if his group would help candidates or sitting lawmakers who don’t support abortion rights, he said, ‘We do not work for a single candidate who is not pro-choice. I think people like to have litmus tests. We are explicitly pro-choice. We work a lot with Planned Parenthood, we work a lot with NARAL. We are absolutely committed to it.’” http://politi.co/2uPN1V8

–SPOTTED: Tom Steyer and Tom Perriello having drinks Friday night at the hotel bar in the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, where Netroots Nation is taking place … Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) taking selfies at DCA this morning (including with a woman with a “she persisted” tattoo) before boarding a flight to Atlanta for Netroots Nation

SCOOP – “Manchin Emerges as Possible Pick for Energy Department,” by Bloomberg’s Kevin Cirilli, Jen Jacobs, and Steven T. Dennis: “Some White House and Republican officials are exploring the idea of putting West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin in charge of the Energy Department, according to four people familiar with the discussions, a move that could boost President Donald Trump’s stalled legislative agenda. If Manchin were offered and accepted the position, that would allow West Virginia’s Governor Jim Justice — a newly minted Republican — to appoint a GOP successor and bring the party a vote closer in the Senate to being able to repeal Obamacare. The idea is in the early stages of consideration, and it’s unclear whether it has support within the administration … A spokesman for Manchin declined to say whether the senator would take the Energy secretary job — currently held by former Texas Governor Rick Perry — if offered.” https://bloom.bg/2uyOr6Q

— SOME CONTEXT: Yes, Republicans would love Manchin to join the Trump administration. It would make it much easier for Trump and McConnell to get their agenda passed. Heck, throw in Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and then Republicans would be really happy. But remember: Trump met with both lawmakers during the transition and talk of appointing them, or in fact any Democrat, to his cabinet went nowhere. For the record: Manchin hasn’t sent any signals that he’s interested in joining the Trump administration.

KEEPING THEM HONEST — NYT A1, “Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say,” by Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton: “When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the federal agency. Doors to the floor are now frequently locked, and employees have to have an escort to gain entrance. Some employees say they are also told to leave behind their cellphones when they meet with Mr. Pruitt, and are sometimes told not to take notes.

“Mr. Pruitt … often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security. A former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career suing the E.P.A., and whose LinkedIn profile still describes him as ‘a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,’ Mr. Pruitt has made it clear that he sees his mission to be dismantling the agency’s policies — and even portions of the institution itself.” http://nyti.ms/2vNZbCA

TRUMP’S WASHINGTON — “Pentagon’s empty posts cause uncertainty for defense contractors,” by Reuters’ Mike Stone: “U.S. President Donald Trump’s failure to fill dozens of senior-level positions at the Pentagon is making it difficult for defense contractors to forecast business. Defense company officials, speaking on conference calls after their just-reported quarterly earnings, did not blame Trump directly, but said the lack of appointments to key positions at the Pentagon had slowed contract awards and created uncertainty. … The Department of Defense said it has 42 unfilled top-level posts that require Senate confirmation, including general counsel, inspector general and other important roles like secretary of the Army and undersecretary of the Navy.

“The Pentagon referred a request for comment on its unfilled posts to the White House. A White House official said: ‘Democrat obstruction has played a key role in jamming up the president’s agenda.’ Of the 42 open positions that require Senate confirmation, 29 have no nominee identified, while 13 have nominees awaiting confirmation.” http://reut.rs/2vw3jV5

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the lowest net price for prescriptions on behalf of employers and other health care purchasers; however, the list price – the important starting point for those negotiations — continues to rise, at a rate of nearly ten percent in 2016 alone. Increased competition, faster reviews of generics and biosimilars and ending anti-competitive practices can also bring down the cost of medications for patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

NYT SUNDAY STYLE COVER STORY — JACOB BERNSTEIN: “Trump Tower, a Home for Celebrities and Charlatans” (print headline: “Towering Egos”): “Hillary Clinton slept here. The year was 2000. Mrs. Clinton was in the middle of her first political campaign, running to be New York’s junior senator.

“Steven Spielberg, an enthusiastic donor to Mrs. Clinton who had the use of a pied-à-terre in Trump Tower purchased for him by Universal Pictures, barely stayed at the place, despite its views of Central Park, and offered it to the candidate as a crash pad on grueling campaign days. Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were on good terms back then. He donated money to her candidacy and called her ‘tough and smart.’ Moreover, Mr. Trump was skilled in the art of spinning his associations with celebrities into publicity. This was particularly true at Trump Tower. Johnny Carson, Liberace and Paul Anka had condominiums there in the 1980s, and Michael Jackson rented one in the 1990s. In 2000, Bruce Willis closed on a place too.” http://nyti.ms/2hTg9cF

FOR YOUR RADAR — “March of white supremacists at University of Virginia ends in skirmishes,” by WaPo’s Joe Helm: http://wapo.st/2uxRGzy

MEDIAWATCH — “Uproar Over Omarosa Manigault-Newman at Black Journalists Convention,” by NYT’s Yamiche Alcindor in New Orleans: “The appearance of Omarosa Manigault-Newman, a White House aide, caused an uproar at a National Association of Black Journalists convention on Friday after she refused to answer some questions about President Trump’s recent remarks encouraging the police to be rougher while arresting criminal suspects. … It was moderated by a longtime journalist, Ed Gordon, a host at Bounce TV. The event began cordially, but within minutes, it devolved into a shouting match between Ms. Manigault-Newman and Mr. Gordon. … It became a 25-minute argument during which Ms. Manigault-Newman called Mr. Gordon ‘aggressive,’ with Mr. Gordon pointedly asking what effect Ms. Manigault-Newman had made on the president.” http://nyti.ms/2vZPnVA

CLICKER – “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker – 13 keepers http://politi.co/2vYhIM5

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

— “When Silicon Valley Took Over Journalism,” by Franklin Foer in September’s The Atlantic: “The pursuit of digital readership broke the New Republic—and an entire industry.” http://theatln.tc/2wBLhkj (h/t ALDaily.com)

— “At the heart of every restaurant,” by WaPo’s Tom Sietsema: “Our food critic works a shift to understand why top chefs are starting to give dishwashers their due.” http://wapo.st/2vWZ0VV

–“Unlearning the myth of American innocence,” by Suzy Hansen in The Guardian in an excerpt from “Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World”: “When she was 30, Suzy Hansen left the U.S. for Istanbul – and began to realise that Americans will never understand their own country until they see it as the rest of the world does”. http://bit.ly/2vqKjZT … $17.28 on Amazon http://amzn.to/2fA4cYD (h/t Longform.org)

— “Meet Alex, the Russian Casino Hacker Who Makes Millions Targeting Slot Machines,” by Brendan I. Koerner in Wired: http://bit.ly/2vNbiiX

— “How Rebecca Solnit Became the Voice of the Resistance,” by Alice Gregory in T Magazine: “[H]er 2008 essay ‘Men Explain Things to Me’ [http://bit.ly/2uPM9zy] … was born of a now-famous anecdote: In 2003, Solnit was at a party in a chalet above Aspen, Colo., when the host of the party, upon learning that Solnit was an author, insisted on summarizing a book he had read a review of, ignoring her friend’s efforts to inform him that Solnit herself had written it. The essay is credited with inspiring the hashtag-ready term ‘mansplaining,’ which is now used around the world; it’s on T-shirts, on Twitter, in the most casual of conversations.” http://nyti.ms/2fz98Ny

— “How to Kill a Dinosaur in 10 Minutes,” by Paul Braterman in 3 Quarks Daily: “Ten minutes difference, and Earth would still be Planet of the Dinosaurs.” http://bit.ly/2vqCxPs

— “‘The wounds have never healed’: living through the terror of partition,” by Moni Mohsin in The Guardian: “It was one of the most painful births in modern history. More than 12 million people were displaced [in the 1947 partition of India]. Muslims fled across the hastily drawn borders into Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs into India. Two million people were killed, tens of thousands of women were raped and abducted, homes were plundered and villages were torched.” http://bit.ly/2wBQZCL (h/t TheBrowser.com)

— “The Chef Who Wouldn’t Cook: Why Rocco DiSpirito Left the Kitchen,” by Kevin Alexander in Thrillist: “Rocco DiSpirito is a cooking virtuoso. An artiste, a phenom. He was born with a gift, a gift that was nurtured and prodded and teased from him since adolescence. Rocco DiSpirito, who is just over 50, might be the most talented American chef alive at this very moment. Also: Rocco DiSpirito hasn’t cooked in a restaurant kitchen in 13 years.” http://bit.ly/2fz39IH

— “Hard Lessons in Living Off the Grid,” by Grist’s Amelia Urry: “A family tried to build its own sustainable paradise in Hawaii. Then Tesla’s batteries came to town.” http://bit.ly/2vqygvo

— “The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe,” by Kim Tingley in the N.Y. Times Magazine: “As the Voyager mission is winding down, so, too, are the careers of the aging explorers who expanded our sense of home in the galaxy.” http://nyti.ms/2uyazhT

–“How Silicon Valley rediscovered LSD,” by FT’s Hannah Kuchler: “A new generation of San Franciscans believes the drug makes them more creative. … ‘I don’t do coffee, I do acid,’ [one 29-year old start-up founder] says.” http://bit.ly/2uA9tlS

–“Flowers in Their Hair — Remember the Summer of Love? No? Lucky You,” by The Weekly Standard’s Andy Ferguson: “Having come to an end half a century ago, the Summer of Love is one of those events San Francisco has never quite got over, like the gold rush and those two earthquakes. The summer of 1967 is considered by people who like to consider such things to be the high-water mark of the hippies, the climax of the counterculture, the Camelot moment when all that was lovely and innocent about the sixties blossomed fleetingly from the potential to the actual.” http://tws.io/2w01Jx0

— “The Drug Runners,” by Ryan Goldberg in Texas Monthly: “The Tarahumara of northern Mexico became famous for their ability to run incredibly long distances. In recent years, cartels have exploited their talents by forcing them to ferry drugs into the U.S. Now, with their land ravaged by violence, they’re running for their lives.” http://bit.ly/2vqYNbZ

— “Inside Kim Jong-un’s Bloody Scramble to Kill Off His Family,” by Jean H. Lee in September’s Esquire: “While the world watches North Korea launch missiles, the very paranoid supreme leader has been busy eliminating anyone in his family who might knock him off the throne.” http://bit.ly/2uOlmE9 … Lee in the NYT today, “Donald Trump Is Giving North Korea Exactly What It Wants” http://nyti.ms/2vsokBq

—“The Un-Trump Republican: Gov. Larry Hogan’s radically normal model for the GOP,” by Matthew Mosk on the cover of WaPo Magazine: “[I]n the shadow of the nation’s storm-tossed political epicenter, Larry Hogan’s governorship is seeming more and more like an intriguing test case for a radically different version of the Republican Party: What would it look like if a politician played to Trump’s electoral coalition while rejecting just about every element of the president’s personal style?” http://wapo.st/2vuIAkk

–“Whose Fault Was Dunkirk?” by Lynne Olson in Longreads: “Abandoned and isolated by their allies, lacking everything they needed to keep fighting, the Belgians felt they had held off the Germans for as long as humanly possible. On May 27, the Belgian government, in an official communiqué, informed France and Britain of its imminent surrender to Germany.” http://bit.ly/2vMWPDN

GREAT WEEKEND LISTEN, curated by Jake Sherman:

–YES, this is still Lawn Boy. http://bit.ly/2hTvZUI

SPOTTED: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and their wives at Shakespeare in the Park in New York City last night to see “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.” Schumer spoke before the performance and said he hoped for a “Midsummer night’s change in Washington.” … Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) in first class on an American Airlines flight from D.C. to Dallas. Hutchinson was nominated to be ambassador to NATO.

SPOTTED last night at a reunion party for Sopan Deb, a former CBS Trump reporter now covering culture for the NYT, at Kingfisher on 14th Street: Logan Dobson, Ali Vitali, Jeremy Diamond, Tom Kaplan, Ashley Killough, Jill Colvin, Jeremy Herb, Alan He, Josh Dawsey, Ben Jacobs, Eli Stokols, Elena Schneider, Elaina Plott, Miranda Green and Kailani Koenig-Muenster.

WEEKEND WEDDING — John Hall, a partner at Targeted Victory and a digital fundraising guru, recently married teacher Erin O’Connell, at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. Instapic http://bit.ly/2uxz7f5 SPOTTED: Sam Osborn and Mathias Reynolds, Abe and Ashley Adams, Ryan and Katie Meerstein, Zac Moffatt, Michael and Brooke Beach, Tad and Jenna Rupp, Jason Weinstein and Jen Harrington.

ENGAGED — Ibrahim AlHusseini, founder and managing partner of FullCycle Energy Fund and the Husseini Group, a family fund focused on impact investing, got engaged to actress Sarah Himadeh. They met in LA and were introduced by director/writer Chadi Zeneddine. Ibrahim proposed on the roof of her grandfather’s ancestral home in the mountains outside of Beirut. Pics http://bit.ly/2vqXVnX … http://bit.ly/2wQtHIJ

TRANSITIONS — MATT MOWERS has started as chief of staff and chief policy officer for anti-HIV/AIDS program PEPFAR, part of the State Department. Mowers most recently served as the senior White House adviser at State, leading transition efforts. … Ciaran Clayton is joining the Nature Conservancy as director of global media relations. For the past three months, Clayton, an Obama NOAA alum, has been consulting with the Center for American Progress working on public lands and marine monument defense. … Leacy Burke has been named communications director for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). She was communications director for Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.). …

… Kevin Walling is joining political media firm Hamburger Gibson Creative, where he will head up its new digital division, HGC Digital. He previously led business development at DSPolitical. … Lizzie Ulmer has been named communications director at the Democratic Attorneys General Association. Her last day as deputy communications director at Everytown and Moms Demand Action is Monday.

BIRTHDAYS: Kelley McCormick, managing director at SKDKnickerbocker (hat tips: Tammy Haddad, Tim and Kiki Burger and Hilary Rosen) … Joe Moore is 31 … Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner is 76 (h/t Rob Bluey) … HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson … Mike Kelleher, lead int’l affairs officer at the World Bank and an Obama alum (h/t Burger) … Brian Devine … Trudi Boyd, EVP at Story Partners … Brianna Puccini, comms director for Sen. Deb Fischer (h/t Jeff Grappone, filing from Maine) … Matt Sparks, communications director for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the pride of Silver Spring … Google’s Nick Meads and Amber Jesse … BuzzFeed’s Nidhi Prakash … Justin Folsom … Julia Ziegler, news director of WTOP.com … Molly French … CNN KFile editor Kyle Blaine … Jason Livingood … Brandi Travis … former Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) is 5-0 … Tess Glancey, deputy director of comms for House Homeland Security … Deborah Colitti … Stephen Claeys … Rochelle Behrens … Dana Berardi … Mary Trupo … Sophie Miller … Thurgood Marshall Jr. … Jenn Burr-Linn …

… Mike Holtzman, partner at BLJ Worldwide, is 48 … Christina Hartman, congressional candidate in Pennsylvania’s 16th district, formerly of NDI and the Joyful Heart Foundation (h/t Ryan Morgan) … Nicole Nason, former Bush NHTSA administrator now a State Department senior adviser (h/t college roommate Betsy Fischer Martin) … Kristin Sheehy (h/t Jon Haber) … Matt Krupnick, public policy director at Red Hat … Doris Truong, WaPo homepage editor … Christopher Dorobek … Lauren Collins Cline … Toby Burke … Raytheon’s Michael Dorff … Laura Lawlor … Ben Gulans … former SEC enforcement chief Bill McLucas, now at WilmerHale … Audrey Jones … Matt Wahl … Don Rockwell (h/t Jon Karl, whose nickname for Don is “Mr. DC Dining”) … Maris Segal … Laura Hahn … Lynn Trautmann … Ben Gulans … Patrice Hauptman (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

THE SHOWS, by @MattMackowiak, filing from Austin:

— “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Panel: Newt Gingrich, Donna Edwards, Tom Rogan and Marie Harf

— NBC’s “Meet the Press”: National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster … Adm. Mike Mullen … Recode executive editor Kara Swisher. Panel: Helene Cooper, Rich Lowry, Joy Reid and Amy Walter

— CNN’s “State of the Union”: James Clapper … White House Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert … Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). Panel: Nina Turner, Michael Caputo, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Bill Kristol

— ABC’s “This Week”: National security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster … Anthony Scaramucci. Panel: Alex Castellanos, Matthew Dowd, Ben Rhodes and Cokie Roberts

— CBS’s “Face the Nation”: CIA Director Mike Pompeo … Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) … Leon Panetta … David Ignatius and Michael Morrell. Panel: Molly Ball, Michael Duffy, Ed O’Keefe and Ramesh Ponnuru

— Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) … Karl Rove … Ayaan Hirsi-Ali … Gordon Chang. Panel: Guy Benson and Charlie Hurt

— Fox News’ “MediaBuzz”: Christina Bellantoni … Mollie Hemingway … Jessica Tarlov … “America Trends” host Gina Loudon … Catalina Magazine publisher Cathy Areu … Steve Hilton

— CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King: Panel: Michael Shear, Karoun Demirjian, Margaret Talev and Manu Raju

— CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Victor Cha and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd … Israel Channel 2 investigative journalist Ilana Dayan … Bill Maher

—CNN’s “Reliable Sources”: CNN international correspondent Will Ripley, former ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton and Rear Adm. John Kirby (Ret.) … Politifact editor Angie Drobnic Holan and The Washington Post Fact Checker columnist Glenn Kessler … HuffPost’s Yashar Ali and NPR’s David Folkenflik

— Univision’s “Al Punto”: Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) … Proceso Magazine’s Jesus Esquivel and Univision Deportes commentator Pablo “La Torre de Jalisco” Ramírez … Jeb Bush … TransLatin@ Coalition president Bamby Salcedo … Foro Penal Venezlano president Alfredo Romero

— C-SPAN: “The Communicators”: Net-Square CEO Saumil Shah … “Newsmakers”: Senate Leadership Fund president and CEO Steven Law, questioned by AP’s Erica Werner and The Washington Examiner’s Al Weaver … “Q&A”: Paul Butler (“Chokehold: Policing Black Men”)

— Washington Times’ “Mack on Politics” weekly politics podcast with Matt Mackowiak (download on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher or listen at http://bit.ly/2r37J6h): Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) … Gen. Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army, Ret.).

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[politicalfilth-blog]

The Trump-Russia Conspiracy Campaign Collapses

We Are Change

Article via Zero Hedge

Is sanity finally returning? After weeks of ranting and raving about Russian “interference” and Putin-Trump conspiracies, so-called ‘intelligence’ agencies and high-ranking Democrats are quietly walking back their rhetoric and managing their base’s expectations – simply put: there’s no ‘there’, there.

‘Moon of Alabama’ reminds us that a while ago Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone warned: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media:

If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to be no conspiracy – Trump will be pre-inoculated against all criticism for the foreseeable future.

And now, as The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald writes, key Democratic officials are now warning their base not to expect…

From MSNBC politics shows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.

Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence.

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clinton’s most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to “cast doubt” on “allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.” “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all,” he said, adding, “There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”

Obama’s former CIA chief also cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive “dossier” originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it. The dossier, he said, “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”

Morell’s comments echo the categorical remarks by Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obama’s DNI, he saw no evidence to support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. “We had no evidence of such collusion,” Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obama’s DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee — charged with investigating these matters — who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. “There’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation,” BuzzFeed’s Ali Watkins wrote.

Moreover, “several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives.” One member told Watkins: “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”

What makes all of this most significant is that officials like Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents; Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it exists. As even the law recognizes, statements that otherwise lack credibility become more believable when they are ones made “against interest.”

Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, which published the Steele dossier, published an article yesterday warning that the Democratic base’s expectation of a smoking gun “is so strong that Twitter and cable news are full of the theories of what my colleague Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives — the left’s new version of Glenn Beck, digital blackboards full of lines and arrows.” Smith added: “It is also a simple fact that while news of Russian actions on Trump’s behalf is clear, hard details of coordination between his aides and Putin’s haven’t emerged.” And Smith’s core warning is this:

Trump’s critics last year were horrified at the rise of “fake news” and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

And those of us covering the story and the stew of real information, fantasy, and — now — forgery around it need to continue to report and think clearly about what we know and what we don’t, and to resist the sugar high that comes with telling people exactly what they want to hear.

For so long, Democrats demonized and smeared anyone trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all Kremlin agents and Putin lovers.

Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report using the language of treason to announce the existence of a “Fifth Column” in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew Sullivan’s notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the war on terror composed an anti-American “Fifth Column”), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly announced: “Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.”

But with serious doubts — and fears — now emerging about what the Democratic base has been led to believe by self-interested carnival barkers and partisan hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the excesses of this story.

With so many people now doing this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little, too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been deliberately cultivated around these issues for months.

Many Democrats have reached the classic stage of deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions, where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently needed. That’s true primarily so that conspiracies no longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

It’s certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the Trump presidency, it’s vital that everything be done now to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged stable of media, online, and party leaders has decisively fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials are now desperately trying to warn.

This article first appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was authored by Tyler Durden.

The post The Trump-Russia Conspiracy Campaign Collapses appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/trump-russia-conspiracy-campaign-collapses/