BOB CORKER ON THE MEDIA: I Have Empathy for Trump Now.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he has a “newfound empathy” for President Trump’s criticism of the media after a report that he’d benefit from a provision in the final GOP tax bill went viral.

“I told (Trump) that I’d had a healthy respect for the media and I deal with them all the time, and, you know, to attack the media has not been something I’ve done,” Corker said on Fox News.

“I’ve never ever in my life used the work ‘fake news’ until today. I actually understand what it is the president has been dealing with,” he continued.

Think of them as Democratic Party operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.

I TOLD HER SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS.  I TOLD HER IT WOULD DRIVE HER CRAZY.  AND YET SHE PERSISTED, AND I SHAMELESSLY ECHOED IT ON MY BLOG: My friend Amanda Green continues reading Hillary’s book.  HRC: Those Damn Emails by Amanda S. Green

APPARENTLY THE GERMANS AREN’T FANS EITHER.  GOOD THING WE’RE AN INDEPENDENT NATION:  Surprise! Russia and China Don’t Like Trump’s “America First” Policies.

YEAH.  NO PROTECTED CLASS IS ALLOWED TO STEP OUT OF LINE:  The Deep Racism of the Left.

AND SCALISE REPLIES: Maestro of Obama’s Echo Chamber, Ben Rhodes, Speaks Darkly of Wishing for the Obituaries of Pence, Ryan, and McConnell.

IF THOSE GRAN POOBAHS OF SCLEROTIC CRONYISM DON’T SEE YOURS, I’LL SHOW THEM MINE. I HAVE A MATCHED SET!  Dear UN – See This Middle Finger?

WAIT.  THEY THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA?  Amazon realizes DIY circumcision kit might be a bad idea.

OF COURSE WE ARE.  HAVE YOU SEEN THE REST OF THE WORLD?  Americans are stressed out.

RIP: Sportscasting icon Dick Enberg dead at 82.

OTOH THEY MIGHT STILL BE DUMB ENOUGH TO SWALLOW FEMINISM.  WOULD KIND OF DEFEAT THE WHOLE PURPOSE:  Future sex robots could become intelligent enough to cheat.

YEAH I KNOW, BUT IF WE’RE GOING TO HAVE NASA IT’S GOOD TO SEE THEM DOING SOMETHING THAT MAKES MORE SENSE THAN OUTREACH TO MUSLIMS:  NASA planning interstellar mission for 2069.

BREXIT REDUX? Catalan Separatists Win Election, Rebuke Spain and the EU, According to Exit Polls.

MAKE YOUR HILLARY PRESS CORPS JOKE HERE.

ALICE LLOYD: College Women Are Far Less Likely To Be Raped Than Their Working Class Counterparts: Obama’s Title IX regime has never looked so misguided, not to mention elitist.

Well, it was always about a political narrative, not science.

STEVEN HAYWARD IS ENJOYING THE HOLLYWOOD MELTDOWN.

C.R.E.W.’S SILLY EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE LAWSUIT is dismissed. “Judge George B. Daniels of United States District Court in Manhattan found that the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had suffered as a result of specific actions by Mr. Trump intended to drum up business for his enterprises. . . . Beyond that, the judge found, the emoluments clauses of the Constitution are intended to protect the country against presidential corruption from foreign influences or financial incentives that might be offered by either states or the federal government. They were not meant to protect businesses from competition from presidentially owned enterprises, he ruled.”

AND ANOTHER ONE: Five Women Are Accusing A Top Left-Leaning Media Executive Of Sexually Harassing Them. “Don Hazen has been an executive at left-leaning media outlets since the 1980s, first helming the influential Mother Jones magazine as publisher and in 1997 starting AlterNet, an online outlet publishing and syndicating reporting on ‘the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, and health care issues.’ But five women journalists have told BuzzFeed News that Hazen sexually harassed them while they worked for AlterNet touching them inappropriately, discussing their sex lives, making unwanted advances, sending explicit emails, and showing them explicit photographs — including one of his naked, erect penis.”

AND HERE’S TONIGHT’S OPEN THREAD. Discuss and enjoy.

THE 21ST CENTURY IN A NUTSHELL: Annual sex robot convention is axed from London’s Goldsmiths university over fears it would provoke a terror attack by Muslim extremists.

I’d actually think there’d be a big market there.

2017 HEADLINES: Wesley Snipes and Sean Astin to Develop Adventure Supplement for Sci-Fi RPG.

Two unlikely men are teaming up for an even more unlikely venture for Starfinder, a spacefaring RPG based after Dungeons & Dragons.

Iron GM Games has secured two Hollywood actors—Sean Astin, best known for his role as Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings; and Wesley Snipes, Blade himself—to help write a new setting compatible with the popular tabletop game.

They are set to contribute to Grimmerspace, an upcoming adventure book intended for use with the Starfinder ruleset.

I’m old school when it comes to spacefaring RPG games inspired by D&D: Traveller. Accept no substitutes. (To be fair, it’s also the only spacefaring RPG game I remember playing back in the day. But still.)

AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A SIGMA ALPHA EPSILON PARTY! Air Tests Positive for Alcohol at Frat House:

Indoor air at a Maryland frat house tested positive for alcohol.

The booze-filled party location’s air was found to have an alcohol concentration of 0.01. 0.08 is the legal blood alcohol limit for driving.

The home was the American University’s home for  Sigma Alpha Epsilon, WJLA reports.

Pretty sure Steve Green would call those guys pikers.

WHEN THE HEADLINE DOESN’T MATCH THE STORY: “How liberal Hollywood’s support of Roman Polanski became a weapon for the alt-right,” blares this headline in the London Telegraph. Underneath it is a 2,360 word article on Polanski’s crime(s) and his flight from justice, of which less than 150 words focuses on the latest creation of conservative L.A. street artist Sabo:

For reasons we can’t possibly speculate on*, Streep has bore the brunt of her implied support of Polanski, with critics taking to social media this week slamming the star, calling her a rape apologist, proposing a boycott of her new film The Post, and celebrating posters unveiled across several Los Angeles locations this week claiming “she knew” about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct.

The Guardian yesterday confirmed that the posters were the work of a right-wing street artist named Sabo, who told the newspaper that he didn’t actually know whether Streep was aware of Weinstein’s behaviour (she has repeatedly denied any knowledge), and confirmed that the posters were revenge for an anti-Donald Trump speech Streep gave at this year’s Golden Globes. “She’s swiping at us so we’re swiping back,” he said.

But while much of the recent anti-Streep sentiment has been deliberately engineered by militants, it would be foolish to describe Hollywood’s past support of Polanski as anything other than an embarrassing, vaguely reprehensible blind spot…

Republican overreach — it’s everywhere! But is Sabo actually a member of the alt-right, or has that word replaced “neocons” (ironically enough) in the left’s dictionary for this decade’s catchall phrase to describe everyone on the right? So far, based on the art he has created, my money is on the latter.

On the other hand, I’m old enough to remember when the Telegraph was considered to be on the right, itself.

* C’mon, you’re speculating about the motives of one L.A. artist; why not another?

NEW FRONTIERS IN “SEXUAL HARASSMENT:” “You should be aware that Close is a quadriplegic.”

WTF IS A “LIFESTYLE DIRECTOR” ANYWAY? When I saw that Gallup issued a poll showing Mrs. Clinton’s lowest-ever favorability ratings, I thought to myself “who cares, she’s not really going to run for anything.”

But when I heard this editor (oh, excuse me, “Lifestyle Director”) from Time Magazine dismiss the poll by telling Tucker Carlson that Clinton is not a public figure, I actually burst out laughing.

There must be some DSM vernacular for people who are so desperate that they invert reality, no?

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