Linkee-poo, this is a story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue

Well, wasn't yesterday exciting? "Khuzami noted that Cohen was repaid by the campaign with invoices for 'services rendered.' Those 'invoices were a sham,' Khuzami said. They were 'merely reimbursement for illegal campaign contributions.'" All done at the direction of "the candidate." That's not just a shoe, that's a whole damn shoe store that dropped. And here's the thing, if Trump had cut the check himself, even if delivered by Cohen, this would not have been a crime even if it were done with the express interest of the campaign. But because Trump is incapable of behaving with integrity, this is now a crime (on the part of Cohen, the campaign, and Trump and possibly others, but not on McDougal or Daniel's part). The sad thing is I expect the president won't be able to see just how he did wrong here (even excluding the extra-marital affair).

I would say I have a plethora of alligators. All this big news, and not enough time to keep up with it. Sorry. Several big clients making several big moves. All of it last minute, of course. Why would American Business ever plan in advance.

"We are not living in the first universe. There were other universes, in other eons, before ours, a group of physicists has said. Like ours, these universes were full of black holes. And we can detect traces of those long-dead black holes in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the radioactive remnant of our universe's violent birth." Well then. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

"In the darkest and coldest parts of its polar regions, a team of scientists has directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon's surface. These ice deposits are patchily distributed and could possibly be ancient. At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole's ice is more widely, but sparsely spread."

"As SpaceX gears up to launch NASA astronauts to space with its Falcon 9 rockets, the agency has been debating whether to allow the company to fuel its spacecraft after astronauts have boarded." Ah, no.

"It seems Steve isn't an aurora after all." Something wonderful.

"The sea off Greenland's northern coast has long been referred to as 'the last ice area.' The ice there is so old and thick that scientists believed the shelf would be the last to remain intact in the area in the face of climate change. Now, a new development is challenging that assumption: As The Guardian reports, the strongest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break apart for the first time in recorded history." We're boned. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)

"A deadly mixture of cocaine and fentanyl is circulating in Trumbull County, according to the Trumbull County Combined Health District and the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board." The country's drug tastes are morphing again.

"(A study) found people who ate a moderate amount of carbohydrates lived four years longer than those who had low-carb diets."

"E-cigarettes produce chemicals that can damage a person's DNA, the first step on a path that might lead to cancer, a new study reports."

"Why settle for nine-and-a-half years when you can do an even 10 or better? That’s the thinking of a lot of investors measuring whether a historically long run in U.S. stocks still has legs." Ah, the record bull market run. What could go wrong?

"With China’s economy cooling, President Trump and his aides are emboldened on the hardline tariffs strategy that they increasingly believe is jamming President Xi Jinping, officials tell Axios." No one wins a trade war. Markets never achieve the presence they had before a trade war.

Who needs regulations? "The same herbicides are being used on soy and other crops in the U.S. Some estimates, such as this report published last month from the University of Missouri, suggest that drift this year from one of the herbicides, dicamba, has caused over a million acres of damage to vulnerable crops across the country."

"A plan to be announced Tuesday would give states broad authority to determine how to restrict carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The Environmental Protect Agency announced late Monday that acting administrator Andrew Wheeler planned to brief the news media by telephone Tuesday on what the administration is calling the 'Affordable Clean Energy' rule — greenhouse guidelines for states to set performance standards for existing coal-fired power plants." We're boned. Repeat after me, there is no such thing as Clean Coal.

"On Tuesday, America’s vast army of incarcerated men and women – at 2.3m of them they form by far the largest imprisoned population in the world – will brace itself for what has the potential to be the largest prison strike in US history."

"A possible plea deal in the fraud case of Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen plea deal may come together as soon as today, NBC reports." That would have been Tuesday.

Sure, the president isn't racist. "On Monday, President Trump delivered a speech in tribute to officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP — though Trump kept pronouncing the acronym 'CBC'). But Trump’s way of honoring the front-line agents enforcing his immigration agenda got a little weird when he ended up reassuring the audience that a Latino Border Patrol officer onstage with him 'speaks perfect English.'"

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reportedly detained a U.S. citizen for nearly two years and tried to have him deported." (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

"This was the first courtroom test for Mueller’s prosecutors and they (mostly) passed, no small feat given that Mueller's lawyers at times seemed to be litigating against both the defense and an ill-tempered and perhaps biased judge. Indeed, on more than one occasion during the trial, Judge T.S. Ellis seemed to put his thumb on the evidentiary scale — to the detriment of the prosecution." And, again, I love how the media and the president are all, "this has nothing to do with the election and Russian interference and possible conspiracy/collusion." Really. Where did Mueller get the money he didn't report and do you think they also know he didn't report it (kompromat). And then theres this part, "But the fact remains that Manafort volunteered to work for free for the Trump campaign at a time when he was deep in debt and was caught red-handed… asking how he could use his campaign status to “get whole” with a Russian oligarch to whom he was financially beholden."