Jubilation among deep state conspiracy types that Trump has unleashed Barr.

I should note that after a day of saturation coverage of those doctored Pelosi hoax videos Facebook continues to slow roll taking them down. Theyir current stance is still that they’ve been “enqueued” the videos for review by third party fact-checkers, a group that includes publications such as The Daily Caller among others.

For now they continue to derive ad and data revenues from the video and curry favor with the President of the United States by keeping it online.

For everyone who’s been worried about Attorney General Bill Barr’s lawless reign at the Department of Justice last night was the big moment. As you’ve likely already seen President Trump gave Barr blanket authority to access and declassify any and all classified information from the country’s dozen and a half intelligence agencies in his quest to “investigate the investigators” of the Russia scandal.There’s hardly any way to overstate just how big a deal this is or how dangerous it is in the hands of a corrupt official like Bill Barr.

Happy Friday, May 24. The Trump-Pelosi feud continues, with the New York Times reporting that the fight was intentionally escalated by Pelosi. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.

As Kate Riga reported earlier, someone has created a series of highly realistic and yet provably doctored videos running on Facebook which appear to show Nancy Pelosi slurring her speech or drunk. The Post was first on this, showing conclusively how the doctoring had happened and the real video it was based on.

This is a growing issue, the increasing ability to created phony videos which look very real and are very difficult to show are not real. They are referred to as “deepfakes” and they’re getting talked about more and more in media and intelligence circles.

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The NRA is suing its longtime ad firm, Ackerman McQueen, for another $40 million for allegedly mounting a campaign of leaked emails to foment a coup at the NRA.

Happy Thursday, May 23. Democrats and Republicans can’t seem to come together on infrastructure and disaster relief legislation as the Memorial Day weekend looms and members prepare to go home. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re following.

Manhattan federal judge Edgardo Ramos may have issued a striking rebuke of Trump’s position that it is illegal for Congress to investigate his finances today, but the way he did it was surprising.

I was in the courtroom where Ramos issued his 25-page ruling from the bench, calmly and methodically intoning his way through an opinion that dismantled the President’s legal position.

TPM’s Josh Kovensky was in the courtroom today when a federal judge rejected Trump’s attempt to halt a congressional subpoena issued to Deutsche Bank and Capitol One. Read his report from the courtroom, where the judge said Trump’s case was not “serious”and said that Congress’ authority is “well-settled.”