good edison

Star Wars Group Therapy

It’s official: Congress has passed a massively unpopular tax plan that will add more than a trillion dollars to the deficit and essentially redistribute wealth, which Americans are apparently cool with if it’s being redistributed to people who are already tremendously wealthy. Merry Christmas, everyone!

How can a bill that one poll found only a third of Americans support make its way to the president’s desk for a bit of the old John Hancock? Your guess is as good as mine. But it does leave room for some wild speculation about what kinds of idiocy our elected officials will undertake next. I’m referring to the types of actions that defy logic, reality and the wishes of their constituents, who elected them to one of the highest public offices in the country with the foolish assumption that those politicians had their best interest at heart. Like Mr. Smith, these lawmakers have gone to Washington, and also like that Jimmy Stewart character, their integrity is pure fiction.

It makes you wonder: What will those crazy kids come up with next?

Neo-Nazis want your short, stupid attention, youth of America. And in this equation, any attention you pay them, good or bad, is giving them exactly what they want.

That’s according to both reality and a style guide for white nationalist site The Daily Stormer that The Huffington Post published this week. The document presents an almost humorous juxtaposition of basic format instructions with strategies to mask the “raging vitriol” of white supremacy with sarcasm and humor. The ultimate goals are to entice the “ADHD demographic” and circumvent social media restrictions.

Take this window into Nazi humor: “The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not. There should also be a conscious awareness of mocking stereotypes of hateful racists. I usually think of this as self deprecating humor – I am a racist making fun of stereotype of racists, because I don’t take myself super-seriously. This is obviously a ploy and I actually do want to gas kikes. But that’s neither here nor there.”

The genius of Riverdale and the teenage girls who love it

As special Russia counsel Robert Mueller wraps up interviews with senior current and former White House staff, one name has been conspicuously absent from public chatter surrounding the probe: Steve Bannon.

President Donald Trump’s former White House chief strategist and campaign chief executive played critical roles in episodes that have become central to Mueller’s probe as well as to multiple Hill investigations.

Bannon was a key bystander when Trump decided to fire national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with foreign officials. He was among those Trump consulted before firing FBI Director James Comey, whose dismissal prompted Mueller’s appointment — a decision Bannon subsequently described to “60 Minutes” as the biggest mistake “in modern political history.”

And during the campaign, Bannon was the one who offered the introduction to data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, whose CEO has since acknowledged trying to coordinate with WikiLeaks on the release of emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.

Yet Bannon hasn’t faced anywhere near the degree of public scrutiny in connection to the probe as others in Trump’s inner circle, including son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner — who was recently interviewed by Mueller’s team — or Donald Trump Jr., who was interviewed on Capitol Hill last week about his own Russian connections.

People close to Bannon, who left the White House in August and returned to his former perch as head of Breitbart News, say he’s told them he doesn’t have a lawyer and isn’t worried about potential exposure. But others say it’s inevitable he’ll be called in as a witness in the ongoing investigations. He has not been publicly accused of any wrongdoing or named as a target of the investigations.

Congressional investigators say he’s already on their list.