Ted Lieu

Whip counts change. The most worthless ones-- aside from Steve Scalise's-- come from the clueless Beltway media clods. I laughed when I saw Lou Barletta (R-PA) start turning up on lists of NO votes. There's no one in the House more easily bought-off by a thug like Trump than Barletta.

Yesterday James Fallows wrote that Señor Trumpanzee's credibility crisis is now front-and-center. He worries about the inevitability of the moment a crisis causes Trump to say "Trust me," and no one can and that's why so many veteran officials have warned about his habit of incessantly telling instantly disprovable lies. "If an administration will lie about facts where the contradictory evidence is in plain sight, how can we possibly believe them on anything else?

After bashing her personally and gratuitously all during the campaign last year-- benefactor Comrade Putin hates her-- Señor Trumpanzee welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House today. And that was the best part of American foreign relations this week. Less susceptible to a smiley face was what happened with Trump trying to worm his way out from under his Adderall-fueled tweet about Obama tapping his wires... by blaming the British.

Last week, Barbara Lee introduced a new bill, H.R. 1473, "to prohibit the deployment of members of the Armed Forces to Syria for purposes of engaging in ground combat operations." Her first co-sponsor was North Carolina Republican Walter Jones. Here's the full list of co-sponsors:

At some point around 1980, Stuart Goddard (AKA- Adam Ant) had to decide if the band he led was going to be a modern boy band and go for the gold via a path used by contemporaries like Classic Nouveaux, ABC, Simple Minds, Heaven 17, Blancmange... and later so successfully trod by groups like the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys, or go for the glory of competing with the big boys-- like The Clash, The Smiths and Generation X. If the video above confuses you, don't worry; it confused Stuart and his mates as well.

Raqqa-- a day in the lifeThe battle for Raqqa has begun. It's a medium-sized city (population before Daesh took over exactly 4 years ago was around a quarter million people, including many refugees who had fled Assad's brutality in Aleppo and Homs) that ISIS declared it's "capital" in 2014.

I'm hearing anecdotal evidence from all over the country that people are tense and disturbed and attributing their change in mood to Trump. I know it sounds unbelievable-- and maybes' just people I know-- but everyone sounds on edge. People are seeing psychiatrists and self-medicating and getting off the wagon and everyone seems nervous and depressed... Have you seen any of that too?

Friday Arnold Schwarzenegger told Empire he won't be signing on for another season of Celebrity Apprentice because the show is drowning in Trump's stench, although he put it more politely. "I learned a lot, I had a great time, it was a really great opportunity. But under the circumstances I don't want to do it again...

I was a close friend of Harvey Milk's when he was serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with Dianne Feinstein. He was very progressive and she was very conservative. His intense dislike for her in our conversations in the back of his Castro Street camera shop colored my own feelings towards her.

You remember when Darrell Issa was on Bill Maher's show last Friday? We covered it here, ran a video of the segment that shows how Maher and his audience pressured the gutless Issa into agreeing that any real investigation into Trump's relations with Putin requires a special prosecutor rather than a Republican white wash effort led by Richard Burr or Devin Nunes.Issa told the audience that "You’re going to need to use the special prosecutor’s statute and office to take, not just to recuse.