Donald Trump, Jr.: 'For Me, This Was Opposition Research...' (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Russia Story Has Become the 'Brier Patch' from Which the Trump Administration Cannot Escape."

I was watching the All-Star Game last night, tweeting baseball, when I see all kinds of establishment types, like Professor Daniel Drezner and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, posting tweets about Donald Trump, Jr.'s, interview on Sean Hannity.

Give me a break!

Don't these people take time off from their campaign of attacks?

This is after 8:00pm on the East Coast, so the Beltway blowhards have been at it all day finding ways to take down the administration. And funny thing? There's no "there" there. There's nothing. Donald Jr. had this meeting in June 2016. Donald Sr. had barely wrapped up the nomination by then and we hadn't had the GOP national convention. This is way early in the campaign season and most establishment hacks thought the Trump presidential bid was a joke. Now Russia's become all-consuming, since this is the one shot leftists have at destroying the president. The New York Times is right: This so-called scandal has emerged as a "brier patch," but more for the partisan hacks in the press than for the Trump administration. President Trump will continue to have an easy target for his rancor and tweet-storms, and rightly so. The genuine problem for Republicans will be the failure to advance their policy goals in the Congress, a failure which the Democrat-Media-Complex is working to bring about. The end result will be more anger at Washington, policy debilitation, and political polarization. Who this helps in 2018 remains to be seen.

In any case, listen for yourself. This is this most I've ever heard Donald, Jr. He's a fine man. I hope he's got as much fortitude and Teflon as his dad, because the attacks are just heating up.

At Fox News:



And at Fox, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump Jr. tells Sean Hannity: ‘In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently’."

Russia Story Has Become the 'Brier Patch' from Which the Trump Administration Cannot Escape

Since Maggie Haberman, et al., are attempting to become the next Woodward and Bernstein, I thought I'd actually read their partisan attacks on the White House.

If there's any glee going around, it's found among the radical left's mass-media attack dogs.

In any case, at the New York Time (FWIW), "Rancor at White House as Russia Story Refuses to Let the Page Turn" (safe link):

WASHINGTON — If President Trump emerged from his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last week hoping he had begun to “move forward” from the controversy over the Kremlin’s election meddling, as advisers put it, his flight home the next day made clear just how overly optimistic that was.

As Air Force One jetted back from Europe on Saturday, a small cadre of Mr. Trump’s advisers huddled in a cabin helping to craft a statement for the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to give to The New York Times explaining why he met last summer with a lawyer connected to the Russian government. Participants on the plane and back in the United States debated how transparent to be in the statement, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Ultimately, the people said, the president signed off on a statement from Donald Trump Jr. for The Times that was so incomplete that it required day after day of follow-up statements, each more revealing than the last. It culminated on Tuesday with a release of emails making clear that Mr. Trump’s son believed the Russian lawyer was seeking to meet with him to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

The Russia story has become the brier patch from which the president seemingly cannot escape. It dominated his trip to Europe last week and, after he leaves on Wednesday night for a couple of days in France, it may dominate that trip as well. Every time Mr. Trump tries to put the furor behind him, more disclosures thrust it back onto the Washington agenda...

Keep reading.

Also, at Memeorandum, "‘Category 5 hurricane’: White House under siege by Trump Jr.'s Russia revelations."

Garth Kemp's Monsoon Moisture Forecast

I watched the All-Star Game, and then read books until bedtime, and thus never got around to posting my evening weather entry.

So, it's been a lot cooler, about 10 degrees cooler than Sunday and Monday, which was a relief. We finally got our air-conditioning up and running again as well, so that was extra nice.

More tonight on the weather, but meanwhile, here's Garth Kemp at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

A.J.P. Taylor, Struggle for Mastery in Europe

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918.

Max Hastings, Catastrophe 1914

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Max Hastings, Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War.

Is it 'America First'? Or, America in Isolation?

Following-up from this morning, "Emmanuel Macron Pushed Brusquely to the Front of G20 Group Photo, So He Could Stand Next to President Trump (VIDEO)."

This article, below, at the Los Angeles Times, is what I was talking about. 19 nation-states against 1, the United States, most emphatically on the issue of "climate change." It occurred to me last night that all of these other nations are literally leading the world community off a cliff into non-survival and oblivion. There's not enough windmills and solar panels in the world to power the energy needs of the real people of the global community. This, among the most important things, is why Trump's presidency is so brilliant.

See, "Trump's 'America first' approach receives a cold reception at global summit" (safe link):

President Trump's signature slogan — “America first” — has been tweaked recently by administration aides eager to show that his nationalism is not at odds with the United States' traditional global leadership role. Their new version: "America first does not mean America alone."

Yet America was undeniably alone as Trump on Saturday departed the annual summit of the so-called Group of 20 leaders here. With the leaders' final statement, it was evident that Trump's prioritization of American self-interest — on environmental agreements, trade, migration and more — left him, and thus America, often in unfamiliar isolation.

After two days of cordial smiles, handshakes and back-slapping, Trump expressed satisfaction with the summit. Even so, he was alone among leaders of the world’s major economic powers in dissenting from its resolution affirming the Paris climate accord. And while he has threatened to abandon existing trade deals and penalize countries for what he sees as unfair trade practices, particularly on steel exports, the summit’s closing declaration affirmed support for open markets and fighting protectionism.

After the more exclusive Group of 7 summit in May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had described the meeting as “six against one” — the one being the United States. As she closed the G-20 gathering that she hosted this week, Merkel again singled out the United States.

In a news conference, Merkel said she “deplores” America’s decision to walk away from the Paris climate agreement and, despite Trump’s comments, does not believe the administration is open to renegotiating the terms agreed to among more than 190 nations to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Merkel, as she has before, called on European countries to step into the vacuum that Trump is leaving on the world stage.

"We as Europeans have to take our fate into our own hands," she said.

The new French president, Emmanuel Macron, who will host Trump next week in Paris to mark Bastille Day, echoed his ally Merkel. “The world has never been so divided,” he said.

In another break from past decades, the United States seemed closer to Russia — in goodwill if not on many issues — than with traditional allies such as Germany and France after Trump’s genial tete-a-tete with President Vladimir Putin, which was the presidents’ first meeting since Trump took office.

Trump’s meeting with Putin, lasting more than two hours, was his longest with any leader. He raised Americans’ concerns over Russian election meddling, according to aides, but the two presidents decided to put the matter behind them and move on to discuss how they can address their differences over Syria, Ukraine and North Korea.

Unlike many other leaders, including Putin, Trump didn’t hold a news conference at the conclusion as American presidents typically have. Putin, in his meeting with reporters, denied again — as he did to Trump on Friday — that Russia interfered in the U.S. election, and said he thinks that Trump accepted his face-to-face denials.

Putin also said that Trump asked him many questions about Russia’s alleged meddling, which Trump has called “a hoax” despite the consensus of American intelligence agencies that Russia did try to sway the election to Trump. FBI and congressional investigations also are probing whether Trump associates colluded with Russia.

White House officials declined to challenge Putin’s view that Trump accepted his denials when questioned by reporters aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington.

Trump "will be happy to make statements himself" about his meeting with Putin, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said...

More.

Christina Ionno for PSM Magazine for Men

Ooh!

Seductive, "Christina Ionno by Tony Ellis."

Keilani Asmus for Treats! Magazine

At Editorials Fashion Trends, "KEILANI ASMUS FOR TREATS! #12."

Behind the Scenes with Lada Kravchenko (VIDEO)

Following-up from May, "Playboy Playmate Lada Kravchenko May 2017 (VIDEO)."

Watch, at Playboy's YouTube channel, "Behind the Scenes with May Playmate Lada Kravchenko."

Trump the Traditionalist

From arch neocon Elliott Abrams, at Foreign Affairs, "Trump the Traditionalist: A Surprisingly Standard Foreign Policy":

Imagine two U.S. foreign policy analysts plucked from their Washington think tanks and marooned on desert islands, one just before Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy and the other just before the 2016 election itself. After the election, both are told that the Republican candidate won and are asked to predict the new administration’s foreign policy. Whose predictions would have been more accurate?

At times this spring, the second analyst’s forecasts would have been on the money. Having followed the bitter election, he or she would have foretold the nature of the transition and the early weeks of the new administration as a logical continuation of the campaign. The starkly nationalist rhetoric of Trump’s inaugural address; the president’s unpredictable tweets; the departure of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, after only 25 days in office; and a whole host of other developments solidified many professionals’ sense that Trump would break dramatically with long-standing traditions and with recent policy. As the months passed, however, the analyst’s predictions would have been increasingly off base as the administration’s foreign policy became more conventional.

Meanwhile, the other desert-island refugee, who would have missed Trump’s surprising ascent and the bizarre campaign that followed, would likely have predicted that no matter who won the GOP nomination and despite any idiosyncrasies that emerged during election season, the realities of governing and of leading in a complex world would ultimately produce a fairly familiar Republican approach to foreign policy. And on balance, this analyst would have been right.

The Trump administration has been in office for less than six months, and most jobs below the cabinet level still remain unfilled, so one must tread carefully when making judgments about its approach or predictions about its future. But it is already clear that this is not a revolutionary administration. The broad lines of its policy fit easily within those of the last few decades. Trump might not be a conventional president, but so far, his foreign policy has been remarkably unremarkable.

A BREITBART PRESIDENCY?

This is a far cry from what many observers expected (and what some continue to worry about): a radical departure from tradition and the emergence of what might be called a Bannonite administration, after Steve Bannon, the populist-nationalist provocateur who chaired Trump’s campaign and was later named his chief White House strategist. Before joining the Trump team, Bannon had led Breitbart News, the online publishing company that he described as “the platform for the alt-right” and that regularly railed against “globalists” in the foreign policy establishment...

Keep reading.

Young Japanese People Are Not Having Sex

That's not good, heh.

At the Independent U.K., "Nearly half of Japanese people are entering their 30s without any sexual experience, leaving the country facing a steep population decline":

The country is facing a steep population decline as a growing number of youngsters abstain from sex and avoid romantic relationships.

Some men claimed they "find women scary" as a poll found that 43 per cent of people aged 18 to 34 from the island nation say they are virgins.

One woman, when asked why they think 64 per cent of people in the same age group are not in relationships, said she thought men "cannot be bothered" to ask the opposite sex on dates because it was easier to watch internet porn.

The number of births dropped below one million in Japan for the first time last year, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Japan's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research predicts that the country's current population of 127 million will decline by nearly 40 million by 2065.

The fertility crisis has left politicians scratching their heads as to why youngsters are not having more sex...

Plus, more from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "IT’S A TRICK QUESTION: THEY’RE NOT COMING FROM ANYWHERE. Question: Where do Japanese babies come from?":

Who knew how prescient the Vapors were in 1980, when they warned, “No sex, no drug, no wine, no women?”

Democrats Continue to Beat a Dead Horse

Following-up, "Donald Trump, Jr., Email Allegedly Specifies Tie to Moscow in Effort to 'Incriminate Hillary'."

From Wesley Pruden, at the Washington Times, "Another dead horse, another beating":

We’re finally getting somewhere. Dead horses are useless to most folks, but Democrats, rendering plants and certain newspapers are determined to follow the stink.
The latest scoop by the intrepid horse-hunters of The New York Times has led to a meeting by Donald Trump with Russians who were said to have savory secrets about Hillary Clinton for sale. This was at a meeting during what the newspaper called “an inflection point” in the late, lamented presidential campaign of 2016.

Too bad for the crack scoop artists of The New York Times, it wasn’t actually Donald Trump, but Donald Trump Jr., who manages the family real-estate interests, and what they talked about was American adoptions of Russian babies and a Miss Universe Contest, a franchise owned by the Trump interests, for Moscow. Whether they discussed shoe and bra sizes of contestants, whether the Russians promised contestants with the perfect 38-24-36 measurements so prized by beauty-contest judges, The New York Times did not say. Perhaps the newspaper is saving that for further scoops in the coming days.

It’s not clear what The New York Times was looking for in this particular dead-horse account, perhaps proof that Mr. Trump had sent a campaign team bearing a hollowed-out watermelon with microfilmed specifications for the next generation of the H-Bomb inside. After months of huffing, puffing and promising the real goods, we still haven’t seen a smoking gun, or whatever cliche we’re using this month to describe the evidence that would overturn the election results, cancel the Gorsuch appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, and install Hillary Clinton in the White House at last. Or something like that.

In the Times account, it was “unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton.” But with smoke like that — a Russian spy named “Natalia” with an unpronounceable surname is all John le Carre would need to spin a dark tale of intrigue, with or without microfilm in a hollowed-out watermelon. Who needs fire?

*****

So far, the story was another of the nothingburgers served up as appetizers for the promised porterhouse about Russian collusion with Donald Trump, senior not junior, for so long expected from the magpie media. For the record, the account noted that the president’s lawyers said, “The president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.” But if any reader wanted to think he had, that was OK by the newspaper. If it wasn’t true, it could have been.

Still more.

Hailey Clauson in Sumba Island (VIDEO)

Via Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

Donald Trump, Jr., Email Allegedly Specifies Tie to Moscow in Effort to 'Incriminate Hillary'

It's still a nothing-burger to me, but everybody's over the moon about this latest development, so here you go.

At NYT, "Russian Dirt on Clinton? 'I Love It,' Donald Trump Jr. Said." (Safe link.)

But see Joel Pollack, at Breitbart, "Donald Trump Jr. Releases 'Russia Email' Chain":

The Times reported the existence of the introductory email on Monday evening, though it had not seen the email, did not possess the email, did not verify the email, and relied on second-hand descriptions from “three people with knowledge of the email,” presumably from the intelligence community or from one of the intelligence committees in Congress.

(On Tuesday morning, it proclaimed: “The Times now has the email to Donald Trump Jr. offering Russian aid to ‘incriminate Hillary’,” after Donald Trump, Jr. had made the email available to the general public.)

Donald Trump, Jr. accompanied the release of the email chain with a statement in which he stated that he thought the lawyer had “Political Opposition Research” on Clinton, and that the meeting had taken place “before the current Russian fever was in vogue.” He reiterated that the lawyer “had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act.” He did not comment on the publicist’s statement that the information was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

The email does not refer to any cooperation, coordination or collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Honesty, it's not much.

I don't blog about Russia that much because it's a faux scandal created by the faux news media and perpetuated by faux political experts.

Everything's fake. It's the one time in my life in which I don't really enjoy following politics. I haven't watched television news in weeks. I read my books and click around for memes on Twitter, as well as reading a few so-called "hard news" stories on my iPhone apps.

In any case, more at Memeorandum, "Russian Government Sought to Aid Trump's Candidacy, According to Email."

Emmanuel Macron Pushed Brusquely to the Front of G20 Group Photo, So He Could Stand Next to President Trump (VIDEO)

You know, this one story puts the lie to all the leftist media establishment hit pieces claiming how the U.S. was weakened and belittled at the G20 summit (because of President Trump).

Actually, it's a joke. None of those countries at the conference --- not one --- could manage effectively without close economic, military, and diplomatic relations with the U.S.

At the Telegraph U.K, "Emmanuel Macron 'did not breach protocol by pushing to front of G20,' say the French":

Emmanuel Macron was merely following protocol when he elbowed his way to the front of G20 leaders to stand beside Donald Trump for a group photograph, French media claimed on Sunday.

Le Parisien newspaper said: “As shown in a video by the British daily, The Telegraph, the president of the [French] Republic treated himself to a little stroll before taking his place beside his American counterpart.”

Initially placed towards the back of the group for the “family photograph” of leaders attending the Hamburg summit, Mr Macron is shown in the footage pushing to the front.

After surprising Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, as he jostled past him, Mr Macron paused briefly to embrace the Norwegian premier, Erna Soldberg, on both cheeks.

“All this [happened] as Angela Merkel looked on, astonished or even annoyed,” Le Parisien reported.

The newspaper, reputed for its accurate and fair coverage, commented: “Despite condemnation by some media, especially the British, who considered that the French president moved of his own accord to be closer to Donald Trump, in reality the placement follows a strict diplomatic rule.”

You don't "elbow your way" to the front unless you're scared someone else is going to be photographed next to the President of the U.S. and you're not. Good on Macron. His actions show he's not as hare-brained as I'd thought.

Also at American Thinker, "French president Macron pushed his way to stand next to President Trump at G-20 group photo."

Anna Faris Bikini Pics

At Drunken Stepfather, "ANNA FARIS LOOKING GOOD IN A BIKINI OF THE DAY."

Emily Ratajkowski for Harper's Bazaar Australia: 'My boobs are too big...'

Heh.

And who's complaining?!

Here, "EMILY RATAJKOWSKI IS OUR AUGUST COVER STAR":

She ... addressed backlash she has garnered, including her now-famous topless selfie with Kim Kardashian and her unapologetic belief that being sexual and being a feminist are not mutually exclusive. "There's this thing that happens to me: 'Oh, she's too sexy'," she says. "It's like an anti-woman thing, that people don't want to work with me because my boobs are too big. What's wrong with boobs? They're a beautiful feminine thing that needs to be celebrated. Like, who cares? They are great big, they are great small. Why should that be an issue?"

Here, a sneak peek at the August issue before it goes on sale Monday, August 3rd...

Click through for the photos.

Hat Tip: WWTDD, "Emily Ratajkowski Boobs Prevent Her From Getting Work."

Hannah Jeter Revealing Mexico Shoot (VIDEO)

Via Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Hal McRae Ain't Buying 'Your Wussy Modern Sliding Rules...'

Heh.

This is great, on Twitter, "Super B-Day to Hal McRae, who isn't buying your wussy modern sliding rules."

Happy B-Day, brother.

Ellie Goulding Italian Bikini Vacation

At London's Daily Mail, "Good as Gould-ing: Ellie showcases her athletic figure in skimpy black two-piece as she smooches her boyfriend Caspar Jopling on a boat in Capri."

And at WWTDD, "Ellie Goulding Italian Bikini Vacay and Stuff Around the Web."