While some Republicans are distancing themselves from Devin Nunes's controversial memo questioning the FBI's credibility, Sean Hannity uses it to defend President Trump.



CP Time: The History of Black Actors Dying On Screen



Roy Wood Jr. looks back on the history of African-American actors dying in movies and honors LL Cool J for having the best survival record.

Seth takes a closer look the misleading memo written by House Republicans that President Trump claims vindicates him in the Russia probe.

The United States is coming undone. It is dis-united. Its citizens are bitterly divided along a widening chasm, each side believing the other is despicable; its democratic institutions are under assault; its ideals of equality and respect for the rule of law, once so widely admired around the world, are now ignored, even scorned, by some of its highest-ranking officials.

I had always believed that only a shooting war could tear us apart in this way, but I was wrong. Our civic fabric is being ripped to shreds, lacerated by a petty and divisive president and the people who enable him.

President Donald J. Trump has launched a full frontal assault on the rule of law, belittling the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ignoring the Department of Justice, intimidating (and firing) senior law enforcement officials who attempt to hold him to account. The latest example is his determination to release a one-sided and harshly partisan memo, despite pleas from the FBI director not to do so.

The memo, composed by staffers for U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) -- a Trump lapdog -- is another attempt by Trump and his team of lackeys to undermine the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The most significant part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry focuses on whether any members of Trump’s campaign -- including Trump himself -- colluded with Russians to damage Hillary Clinton’s chances. Apparently, top Republicans and White House staffers have descended into panic as Mueller’s probe draws closer to the president.

However, the FBI fears that the release of the memo, some of which is based on classified information, may threaten national security. You would think that would matter to the so-called patriots in the GOP who put so much emphasis on saluting the American flag. But Republican voices who object to Trump’s release of the memo are few and muted.


More: http://www.saratogian.com/opinion/20180204/cynthia-tucker-trump-respects-no-law-no-institution

WASHINGTON -- "Nixonian" is not the right word to use to describe the behavior of President Trump. In important ways, that characterization smears Richard Nixon.

It is hard to believe I am writing this. But it is also hard to believe it has come to this: The president is in open warfare with his Justice Department and FBI -- asserting flatly that its "top Leadership and Investigators ... have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans -- something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago."

This was a breathtaking gut punch to the constitutional system. The release of the House Intelligence Committee memo purporting to discredit the Russia probe was predictably followed by a White House statement bemoaning "serious concerns about the integrity of decisions" by senior law enforcement officials.

Brace yourself for more, folks. Asked whether he had confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump replied: "You figure that one out."

"The sacred investigative process." "Unthinkable just a short time ago. " Oh please. Nothing is sacred to Trump except protecting himself. And what is unthinkable, except that Trump has made it all too thinkable, is that a president would impugn the integrity of his own Justice Department. That a president, confronted with evidence that a hostile foreign power had tried to influence the election, would repeatedly reject those findings and fail to take action to shore up the nation's defenses against a repetition.


More: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/02/04/dont_insult_nixon_by_comparing_him_to_trump_136183.html

TOKYO (Reuters) - Clumps of oil have washed up on the shores of southern Japan and there are fears they may be leaking from an Iranian crude tanker than sank in the world’s worst such disaster in decades, the Japanese Coast Guard said on Friday.

Black clumps have reached the shores of the island of Amami-Oshima, a coast guard official told Reuters by phone. Authorities are checking to see if it is from the Sanchi (IMO: 9356608) tanker that sank in the East China Sea last month, after being alerted to its presence by the public.

The government had set up a special unit within Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s office to coordinate Japan’s response to the latest development, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

“The government, while working closely with local authorities, is looking into how broad the range (of oil clumps washed ashore) is and what has caused it,” Suga said.“We are doing all we can, including dispatching a Coast Guard unit” to remove the oil, he said.

Amami-Oshima is part of a chain of islands that includes Okinawa, an area famous for pristine beaches and reef systems. The Iranian tanker sank nearly three weeks ago, raising worries about damage to the marine ecosystem.


More: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-shipping-accident/oil-from-sunken-iranian-tanker-may-have-reached-japan-shores-coast-guard-idUSKBN1FM0QG



The oil spill from a stricken Iranian tanker Sanchi that sank on Sunday is seen in the East China Sea, on January 16, 2018 in this photo provided by Japan’s 10th Regional Coast Guard. 10th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters/Handout via REUTERS

Steve Doocy (Alex Moffat), Ainsley Earhardt (Heidi Gardner) and Brian Kilmeade (Beck Bennett) interview Hope Hicks (Cecily Strong), Louis Farrakhan (Chris Redd) and President Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin).

Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, including the release of Rep. Devin Nunes' memo. Brigitte Bardot (Kate McKinnon) and Catherine Deneuve (Cecily Strong) stop by to discuss #MeToo.



Weekend Update on Black History Month



Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, including February being Black History Month. Pete Davidson stops by to discuss filming a Dockers commercial and Willie (Kenan Thompson) shares what he loves about February.

The president is attacking one of the government's most conservative institutions—and the Republicans have his back.

In announcing the release of a declassified four-page memo prepared by the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, Representative Devin Nunes said, “The committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies exist to defend the American people, not to be exploited to target one group on behalf of another.”

As The New Republic’s Matt Ford explains, the memo does not support Nunes’s allegations, let alone justify the hype that preceded it from Fox News and other right-wing outlets. But its release on Friday is still an important event: the latest skirmish in the war that Trump and his allies in Congress are waging against the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray had told the White House he opposed making the memo public, and the FBI released a statement saying it has “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” But Trump had other ideas. Early Friday morning, he tweeted an attack on the FBI and the Department of Justice:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/959389424806191104

It’s unprecedented for any president to attack the FBI so brazenly, but it’s especially unusual for a Republican president to accuse the FBI, one of the most conservative of federal agencies, of being anti-Republican. This is, of course, a deliberate strategy to undermine the investigation against him, which New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg on Thursday compared to Republicans’ attacks on climate science and the mainstream media. “And now, to protect Trump, the right has expanded its war on empiricism to that most conservative of institutions, the F.B.I.,” Goldberg wrote.


More: https://newrepublic.com/article/146932/trumps-brazen-war-fbi-defies-history

President Trump Declines To Tackle The Traditional Super Bowl Interview



President Trump continues with his trend of not doing presidential things by skipping out on the Super Bowl interview.



KFC's New Female Colonel Made Some Dudes On The Internet Mad AF



KFC made Reba McEntire the new Colonel Sanders and the sexists had a huge issue.



Michael Shannon And Stephen Colbert Come Together For A Great Cause



The Winfield Theater needs to be saved so Michael Shannon and Stephen Colbert use their star power to get support.



Missouri Senate Candidate Courtland Sykes Prefers Sexism Over Feminism



Senate Candidate Courtland Sykes shares on Facebook that he isn't on board with the whole feminism thing.



Groundhog Day 2: The Trump Era



The sequel to Groundhog Day is here and it's been updated for a Trump presidency.



'Lassie' Returns To Television As The Top Dog In The Russia Investigation



'Lassie' gets a reboot and this time around she's a federal agent leading the FBI's Russia investigation.

Monologue: Banana Republicans



Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including the House GOP's controversial decision to release "The Memo."



The Mooch



Former White House Communications director Anthony Scaramucci joins Bill Maher and panelists David Frum and Donna Brazile to discuss the 2016 election and the president's first year in office.



New Rule: Trump's Wall of Lies



Bill implores Trump fans to admit that their President has been lying to them about building a border wall.



Post-Trump World, GOP Split, Black History Month | Overtime



Bill and his guests - Richard Haass, David Frum, Donna Brazile, and Anthony Scaramucci – answer viewer questions after the show.