Trump’s lawyer claims responsibility for president’s problematic tweet

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer took responsibility Sunday for a tweet that Trump sent the previous day, in which the president said for the first time that he knew his former security adviser, Michael Flynn, had lied to the FBI before he fired Flynn in February.

The tweet caused an uproar in Washington because it implied Trump knew Flynn had committed a felony — lying to the FBI — when he told then-FBI director James Comey to go easy on Flynn the day after the firing.

Interfering in the FBI’s investigation could be construed as obstructing justice, potentially creating legal jeopardy for Trump. Within a few hours, Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, stepped in to say that he wrote the tweet, not the president.

Dowd told NBC News that he drafted the tweet and then sent it to White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino to publish. When asked for the original email he sent to Scavino, Dowd said he dictated it orally.

There is no way anyone with a couple of working neurons is going to buy this huge mound of bovine excrement as being in the same universe as the truth. The gratuitous reference to “lying to the FBI” screams blow dried comb over, not bald lawyer.

This is one of three charts prepared with data from the Congressional Budget Office in the PBS article: How the Senate tax bill affects rich and poor, in three charts. They show what we already knew: the rich get richer and the poor and middle class get poorer.

Congressional Republicans will now create a joint committee of Republicans to meld the House and Senate versions of into an even worse bill to ram down the throats of Congress. If Doug Jones wins in Alabama, this could get interesting.

It’s the first Sunday of Advent and Why Now? is pleased to present the Fiftieth-first version of the Gävlebocken, The biggest Christmas Goat in the world [now on Twitter @Gavlebocken].

From Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Something in the comments from 2006:

Why build a giant goat of straw,
Which most of us would scarcely note?
Some, though, defy the very law,
To vandalize the Gävle Goat.

In some years, they used wayward cars;
In others, flaming arrows smote.
This year’s survives, although with scars…
A fact that gets some people’s goat.

A webcam and some watchful eyes,
A flame-retardant second coat,
Should save it… unless Dubya spies
The thing, and claims it’s his pet goat!

– SB the YSS

Today is the First Sunday of Advent which means you should have made your Christmas Pudding so it would have time to age, and the Gävlebocken is standing tall in Castle Square.