See No Evil: The Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee issued a report concluding that there was no collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign, but it’s also possible they weren’t really looking for it.

The report says, “While the committee found that several of the contacts between Trump associates and Russians — or their proxies, including WikiLeaks — were ill advised, the committee did not determine that Trump or anyone associated with him assisted Russia’s active measures campaign.”

President Trump tweeted, “As I have been saying all along, it is all a big Hoax by the Democrats based on payments and lies. There should never have been a Special Councel appointed. Witch Hunt!”

Note that he’s found yet another creative way to spell “counsel.”

In its dissent, the Democratic minority listed 30 witnesses they said should have been called and said, “As with so many of the majority’s findings, the majority did not uncover evidence because it refused look for any.” The Republicans didn’t even call the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. promising campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Unique Circumstances: In granting a delay of Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against President Trump, a federal judge said Trump’s personal lawyer will likely be indicted on criminal charges.

“This is no simple criminal investigation; it is an investigation into the personal attorney of a sitting President regarding documents that might be subject to the attorney client privilege,” Judge James Otero wrote. “Whether or not an indictment is forthcoming, and the Court thinks it likely based on these facts alone, these unique circumstances counsel in favor of stay.”

Otero delayed opening of the trial in the Daniels lawsuit for 90 days. Daniels claims she had a one-night stand with Trump and was paid $130,000 not to talk about it, although she has.

Et Tu, Tom?: Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw reacted with fury over the accusation by a woman who is a former correspondent that he tried to put the make on her.

It is 4:00 am on the first day of my new life as an accused predator in the universe of American journalism,” Brokaw wrote.  I was ambushed and then perp walked across the pages of The Washington Post and Variety as an avatar of male misogyny, taken to the guillotine and stripped of any honor and achievement I had earned in more than a half century of journalism and citizenship.”

Linda Vester, who’s now out of the business, told Variety and the Washington Post that on two occasions, in her apartment and a hotel room, that Brokaw made creepy and unwanted advances.

Brokaw wrote in an email to NBC colleagues, “I am facing a long list of grievances from a former colleague who left NBC News angry that she had failed in her pursuit of stardom.”

Between the lines of Brokaw’s counter attack is the reason young women don’t come forward when it happens. But Brokaw may have a valid point saying, “She couldn’t pick up the phone and say, ‘I’d like to talk. I have issues from those two meetings 20 years ago?’”

The Gene Pool: In the brave new world in which the most personal information is available on the internet, California investigators say they tracked down the infamous Golden State Killer by consulting the website Ged match on which DNA information is publicly available.

Ged match users voluntarily post their DNA information to find distant relatives and investigators were able to make a match of crime scene DNA with relatives of the 72-year-old suspect, James DeAngelo Jr.  The information led them to DeAngelo.

Environmental Pollution: The Environmental Protection Administration is drafting new rules for auto pollution standards that would largely undo standards set by President Obama, The NY Times  reports.

The rules may also set up a clash with California over the state’s right to set its own standards. The California car market is so big that they effectively write the rules for the rest of the country.

These new EPA emission rules follow an EPA plan to weaken fuel economy standards, also set by the Obama administration.

The Credibility Gap: A stunning 81 percent of Republicans believe President Trump is more likely to tell the truth rather than the news media, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Ninety percent of Democrats believe the news media. Overall, 53 percent believe the media and 37 percent believe the President. The rest apparently just don’t know.

Here’s another stunner from the poll. In answer to the question, “the news media is the enemy of the people, or the news media is an important part of democracy?”, 22 percent answered that the news media are actually an enemy of democracy.

God and Man in Congress: Politics have become so nasty in Washington that Speaker Paul Ryan fired the House priest. Father Patrick Conroy, the House chaplain was let go for reasons Ryan refuses to explain. No one has ever fired the chaplain before.

Speculation is that Conroy was fired for opening a House session praying that “there are not winners and losers” under the new tax law, but rather “benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.” Evidently praying for the poor is a fireable offense.

Conroy has learned that in the House of Representatives, the Speaker is God.

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