Congressional Republicans have taken some criticism for expressing their "concerns" about President Trump's behavior, as a series of scandals involving Russia and the FBI investigation into his campaign unfold, and leaving it at that. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) played the Nixon card on Tuesday night, while accepting a Freedom Award from the International Republican Institute. "I think we've seen this movie before; I think it appears at a point where it's of Watergate size and scale," McCain told veteran TV journalist Bob Scheiffer, according to reporters at the dinner. "The shoes continue to drop, and every couple days there's a new aspect."

McCain, who's had a strained relationship with Trump, said his advice to Trump would be "the same thing that you advised Richard Nixon, which he didn't do ... get it all out," The Daily Beast's Tim Mak reports. "It's not going to be over until every aspect of it is thoroughly examined and the American people make a judgment," McCain added. "And the longer you delay, the longer it's going to last."

McCain also criticized Trump for hosting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office last week — when Trump apparently revealed highly classified intelligence to Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "I've known this guy Lavrov for 30 years, he's an old KGB apparatchik stooge, and Putin is a murderer and a thug," McCain said. "And to have Lavrov in the Oval Office and be friendly with the guy whose boss ... sent aircraft with precision weapons to attack hospitals in Aleppo, I just think it's unacceptable."

Talk of impeachment and "obstruction of justice" is reportedly starting to percolate on Capitol Hill, after The New York Times reported Tuesday afternoon that fired FBI Director James Comey kept contemporaneous notes indicating that Trump asked him to drop the FBI's investigation of just-fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. That has set off yet another frenzy of media speculation, but you can watch a calm analysis of what that might mean from The Associated Press' Catherine Lucey below. Peter Weber

A video published on Facebook shows a group of New York City police officers violently yanking a baby away from his mother while attempting to arrest her at a social services office in Brooklyn. The clip was uploaded Friday and gathered more than 200,000 views over the weekend, prompting a police department review of the incident and outrage from local political leaders.

The encounter reportedly began when Jazmine Headley, 23, sat on the floor in the office waiting room because all the seats were filled. "The security guard, I guess she came over and told her she couldn't sit there. So she's like, 'Where am I going to sit?'" said Nyashia Ferguson, who captured the footage. "She was like, 'What is the crime? What did I do wrong?'" Ferguson added. "And then it just escalated."

In the video, Headley is seen on the floor, desperately holding on to her 1-year-old son while a group of about five officers and guards try to restrain her and pull her child away. "They're hurting my son!" she shouts as the waiting room crowd protests. One officer takes out a yellow stun gun, waiving it at bystanders and pointing it at Headley's face.

Headley was ultimately arrested and charged with resisting arrest, criminal trespass, obstructing governmental administration, and, incredibly, acting in a manner injurious to a child. Her mother said as of Sunday she was still in jail and had not been allowed to see her son.

Watch the disturbing video below. Bonnie Kristian

In case there was any doubt that 2018 has lasted approximately 200 years, take a look at the Time "Person of the Year" shortlist. It is ... exhausting:

Remember the North Korea summit, a few short lifetimes ago? Or the Royal Wedding, which feels like a distant, hazy dream? And how about March for Our Lives, which either took place in March or the Paleoarchean Era (both seem equally plausible)?

There is only one takeaway from all this: Make 2019 the year of the nap. Jeva Lange

When President Trump makes a false claim, he doesn't just do so once or twice. He repeats it over and over again, even after being corrected.

Nobody knows that better than the fact-checkers at The Washington Post, who have meticulously examined virtually every one of the president's claims and in November found that he made more than 6,000 false statements since being inaugurated. This has inspired the Post to introduce an entirely new rating for their fact-checker section, which normally operates on a one-to-four Pinocchio scale: the Bottomless Pinocchio.

This, the Post explains, is a rating given out to "politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation." In other words, it's for Trump, who the Post writes is "not merely making gaffes or misstating things" but is "purposely injecting false information into the national conversation."

In order to receive a Bottomless Pinocchio, a politician must repeat a claim that has received a rating of three or four Pinocchios at least 20 times. Don't be surprised to see Trump rack up the Bottomless Pinocchio ratings, considering according to the Post, 14 of his false statements - one of which has been repeated 87 times - already qualify. Read more about the new rating at The Washington Post. Brendan Morrow

President Trump on Monday again declared on Twitter that there was no collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia, although he did not earn high marks for spelling in the process.

In response to former FBI Director James Comey's recent Congressional testimony, Trump declared while citing Fox News that Democrats failed to find a "Smocking Gun." He spelled the word "smoking" incorrectly for a second time in the next sentence, going on to insist that his former lawyer Michael Cohen's payment of hush money to two women was a "simple private transaction" and not a "campaign contribution." But even if it wasn't on the up and up, then it's his "lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me," Trump wrote.

Trump over the summer deleted and reposted a tweet in which he also incorrectly spelled the word "smoking." Brendan Morrow

The domestic box office fell to a three-year low in 2017, but with the help of superheroes, dinosaurs, and Lady Gaga, this year is set to shatter records.

ComScore estimates that the domestic box office will reach $11 billion by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, which means it will have taken either 345 or 346 days to do so, Deadline reports. That would be the quickest the U.S. box office has ever reached $11 billion, with the previous record being 361 days in 2016, a year when the final yearly total ended up being $11.3 billion. That year, only $10.3 billion had been grossed by this point in December.

That's great news for Hollywood after the total domestic box office just barely reached $11 billion last year and saw a 6.2 percent decline in tickets sold over 2016, per Box Office Mojo. But 2018 delivered two new entries into the all-time top five highest grossing films domestically: Black Panther, which grossed $700 million, and Avengers: Infinity War, which grossed $678 million. Three films this year made more than $600 million domestically (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Incredibles 2), whereas in 2017, only Star Wars: The Last Jedi was able to cross that threshold, and no movie did so in 2016 at all.

The $11 billion total will be reached long before the massively profitable Christmas season, and this year, Star Wars' absence from cinemas has left room for five major blockbusters: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mortal Engines, Aquaman, Bumblebee, and Mary Poppins Returns. The box office is currently on pace to finish somewhere around $11.7 billion or $11.8 billion, which would already be the best year ever, but Deadline writes that depending on how this upcoming holiday brawl shakes out, it's entirely possible 2018 could reach $12 billion for the first time in history. Brendan Morrow

In August 2016, when Hillary Clinton was widely expected to be elected president, Argentina's new president regaled Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior U.S. officials with a story about Clinton's underdog rival, Donald Trump, Axios reports. Argentina's Mauricio Macri, elected president in 2015, has a long history with Trump, dating back to a contentious business deal between Trump and Macri's father. So Macri was surprised, he told the Americans, when Trump called him up out of the blue during Macri's campaign to offer help.

As Macri reportedly told the story, imitating Trump during the recounting, Trump told him he'd been watching Macri, adding, "I remember you fondly and I remember the business deal." Since the deal hadn't gone well, Macri said, he responded: "Fondly? Fondly, you son of a gun?" Then Trump offered help, and Macri shrugged it off until a FedEx envelope with a check arrived. The three people who told Axios the story couldn't agree on whether Trump's check was for $500 or $5,000, but they all remembered the punch line: "It bounced."

The White House declined to comment to Axios, and Argentina denied that the conversation ever took place. "The conversation certainly did take place," Axios rebuts. "It's not conceivable that our three sources could have colluded to make this up." Still, Macri's administration has diplomatic and practical reasons to deny the story: Trump tends to take public slights seriously and if the anecdote's true, Macri would have technically broken Argentina's rarely enforced restrictions against accepting foreign campaign donations. Peter Weber