TOP OF THE NEWS:
- John Boehner Unchained (Politico) "As a young House member, Boehner was instrumental in cleaning up Congress. As a committee chairman, he wrote and ushered through one of the premier policies of the Bush administration—even if the results were not what he envisioned. And as speaker, Boehner accomplished more than conservatives will ever give him credit for: winning significant spending cuts under a Democratic president; protecting the overwhelming majority of Americans from a tax hike; keeping earmarks banned despite having every reason to bring them back; and his proudest accomplishment, finding a permanent 'Doc Fix,' which solved a nagging problem with the Medicare payment formula and could produce nearly $3 trillion in savings over the next three decades. Yet that assessment will be overshadowed by posterity’s more existential observations: that Boehner’s 25 years in Washington saw the dissolution of a party, the vandalizing of a government and the splintering of a nation. That Boehner watched as the GOP transformed from the party of George H.W. Bush into the party of Donald Trump. That Boehner funded and helped recruit a class of majority-makers who ended up driving him from office and destabilizing the Congress he cares deeply about."
- John Boehner says he told Sean Hannity: ‘You’re nuts’ (WaPo) "'I had a conversation with [Sean] Hannity, probably about the beginning of 2015...I called him and said, ‘Listen, you’re nuts.’ We had this really blunt conversation.' Note the time period here. This was before Trump launched a bid for the White House — before Hannity became such an unconditional Trump booster that he would, according to Ann Coulter, 'endorse communism if Trump decided to implement the policies of ‘The Communist Manifesto.’ Hannity, for his part, denies that 'this really blunt conversation' even occurred."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Pruitt Bars Some Scientists From Advising E.P.A. (NYT) "The move will effectively bar a large number of academic researchers, many of them experts in fields ranging from toxicology to epidemiology, from advising the E.P.A. on scientific matters, since the agency is one of the largest funders of environmental research. ...Mr. Pruitt said he made the decision to ensure the agency would receive data and advice free from conflicts of interest or any appearance of a conflict. He said that people currently serving on E.P.A. advisory boards had received $77 million in grant money over the past three years as they were issuing advice on policy."
LIFE:
- Why Americans have stopped eating leftovers (WaPo) "American consumers throw away 27 million tons of food each year, according to the food waste coalition ReFED, clogging landfills, generating greenhouse gasses, and costing the economy an estimated $144 billion. Once the mainstay of weekday lunchboxes and thrifty home cooks, leftovers today constitute the single largest source of edible food waste in U.S. homes... ...in the report, published last week, NRDC sought to measure how much food Americans waste and what types of foods they tend to waste most. What researchers found was staggering: The average person wasted 3.5 pounds of food per week."
NEWS:
- 5 House Republicans Facing Primary Threats (from the Republican party) (Ozy) "Here are five House Republicans who should, at a minimum, remain extra vigilant in 2018. Alabama’s Martha Roby. After Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape bragging about sexual assault leaked last year, a disgusted Roby said she wouldn’t vote for him. Tens of thousands of her enraged constituents then wrote in a tea party challenger on their general election ballots, and Roby nearly lost. Virginia’s Barbara Comstock. A gaggle of Democrats is lining up to challenge Comstock, but she also faces a threat on the right. Comstock said she would not vote for Trump after the Access Hollywood tape, and she opposed the Obamacare repeal bill in the House. North Carolina’s Robert Pittenger. Last year Pittenger won his primary by 134 votes... New York’s Dan Donovan. A recent photo posted on Twitter required no explanation: Former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm with his arm wrapped around Bannon. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan. Because of Ryan’s stature this race will draw attention, but in local terms, a Ryan defeat would be like the Green Bay Packers losing to Division III Wisconsin Lutheran College."
- Andrew Weissmann, Mueller’s Legal Pit Bull (NYT) "If Mr. Mueller is the stern-eyed public face of the investigation, Mr. Weissmann, 59, is its pounding heart, a bookish, legal pit bull with two Ivy League degrees, a weakness for gin martinis and classical music and a list of past enemies that includes professional killers and white-collar criminals. ...Mr. Weissmann is an expert in converting defendants into collaborators — with either tactical brilliance or overzealousness, depending on one’s perspective."
- G.O.P. Collusion with Trump Continues Despite the Mueller Revelations (New Yorker) "Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell don’t consider new evidence of an attack on the integrity of our legislative and electoral system worthy of comment." and Staying Silent May Backfire Spectacularly on Republican Lawmakers (Atlantic) "Republican officeholders are desperately eluding reporters, conforming to the maxim often attributed to Calvin Coolidge, 'You don’t have to explain what you never said.' Here’s your problem: The Trump political and legal strategy is about to get very radical. After months of hesitation and distraction-mongering, this weekend The Wall Street Journal editorial page ran a column advocating the end-the-probe, pardon-everyone position. You may think you are biding your time. In reality, you will find that you have preemptively surrendered to an internal takeover. President Trump has no fact-based defense."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Biden Hands Out Loose GT Cola Can To Unexpected Trick-Or-Treater (Onion) "Telling his only trick-or-treater to 'hang tight a sec while Uncle Joe scares up some Halloween goodies,' former Vice President Joe Biden reportedly disappeared and returned 10 minutes later with a warm can of GT Cola, sources confirmed Friday."
- Sweet Lovin' (Sigala, Bryn Christopher)
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