Commentary
General commentary about previous news items.
Tuesday 14 May 2019
Tuesday 26 March 2019
In a private meeting with House Democrats, Pelosi said lawmakers “cannot make a judgment on the basis of an interpretation by a man who was hired for his job because he believes the president is above the law.”
Study finds newspaper closures are linked to partisanship
American Jews are very uncomfortable with Trump, but the pro-Israel lobby has embraced him wholeheartedly.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) took to the House floor on Monday to portray President Trump’s detractors as Nazis but ended up slurring them using an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory drawn verbatim from Adolf Hitler’s writings.
Sunday 24 March 2019
Yet in one notable instance where Mueller reached no conclusion after years of investigation—about whether the president obstructed justice—Barr rushed to reach a conclusion in just two days.
Friday 22 March 2019
But it’s hard to see it as inherently more newsworthy than the flooding in Nebraska. Especially given that the flooding [...] bears the fingerprints of climate change.
Thursday 21 March 2019
It’s actually about power — specifically, the conservative attempt to seize it on college campuses.
What the president’s staffers can learn from the ex-Marine who carries his golf clubs, and another former caddy in Trump’s orbit.
Monday 18 March 2019
Those who profit from bigotry have a powerful incentive to downplay its significance.
Sunday 17 March 2019
Most notably of all, he used Twitter to send a long message to Fox executives, urging them to "stay true to the people that got you there."
Monday 4 March 2019
“It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.”
Tuesday 26 February 2019
"I'll look like an idiot--but if the fate of humanity is at stake, I have no choice!"
To which the heiress, who has literally been handed everything her entire life thanks to federal housing subsidies her grandfather received from the government, responded: “I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something.”
Monday 25 February 2019
The Republican president, who knows far less about trade than he likes to pretend, is routinely far more interested in what things are called than the substantive details.
Sunday 24 February 2019
Friday 15 February 2019
Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a southern border wall will be met with fierce Democratic opposition, both legally and in Congress
Thursday 14 February 2019
Others have pointed out that declaring a random emergency and overriding the legislature whenever it’s convenient is a hallmark of dictatorships around the world.
Tuesday 12 February 2019
The fact that Republicans signed off shows how little leverage they have.
Monday 11 February 2019
The fierce backlash against the Congresswoman for stating the obvious can be seen as a sign that the Israel lobby, though still powerful, is losing some of its oomph
Wednesday 6 February 2019
What's personally good for a president facing a corruption probe isn't automatically what's best for the country.
“The constant impression from [CEOs] I talk to is that they’re constantly starving for time,” she said. “It would be a luxury for them to have five hours a day to think or work by themselves.”
Aware of having been wrong in the past, I’m more open to being wrong today, and I trust that I’m more open to correction.
Tuesday 5 February 2019
Bewildered by polls that show Americans want to tax the rich, the network blames the Golden Rule
Trump throws out a few nuggets of superficially unifying rhetoric designed to garner approval from elite centrist commentators, while also keeping a conveyor belt laden with bloody meat running to his supporters.
Friday 1 February 2019
...and said he could potentially face a Republican primary challenger in 2020 if he doesn’t build a wall along the southern border.
Thursday 31 January 2019
The president says he’s going after Cliff Sims, but it’s just his usual bluster. What worked in Trump Tower doesn’t work in the White House.
Wednesday 30 January 2019
Trump will often float policy proposals with little strategy for how to implement them, then surrender when the proposals flounder.
Monday 28 January 2019
Because, according to the court, the law was intended to serve “the broad dominant purpose of preserving the purity and integrity of the white race.”
“This guy’s mean as a snake!” he said, pointing at McConnell and looking around the room. The entire group burst out laughing.
It promised to create a ‘robust’ waiver process for visa applicants from countries affected by the travel ban. The process is a sham.
Sunday 27 January 2019
An attractive narrative emits a powerful force, whether it’s about politics or things less serious, and we’re all susceptible to its allure.
Saturday 26 January 2019
The United States does not grant titles of nobility. There are no lords, barons or dukes here. At least, not officially.
Friday 25 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 35
Thursday 24 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 34
It is a political hostage situation in which the president has taken part of the government hostage to get money for his wall.
“Nancy Pelosi, or Nancy, as I call her”
Trump’s interference in congressional travel misused the commander-in-chief power for political purposes, endangered the speaker’s delegation, and obstructed the exercise of Congress’ Article I legislative fact-finding responsibilities.
Wednesday 23 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 33
Trump’s view, which he has applied to numerous bargaining scenarios throughout his career, is that his sociopathic indifference to human welfare gives him a negotiating advantage.
Tuesday 22 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 32
During much, if not all, of Trump's campaign he sought to enrich himself by pursuing a luxury hotel-condominium-office deal in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow.
Monday 21 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 31
Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against.
Saturday 19 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 29
Although many of the details are different, the legal and procedural questions raised are not.
That would be the growing antagonism between the countries and the South China Sea and Africa.
...says chief of staff indicated ‘country first, president second’ approach
“The whole thing felt like Game of Thrones, but with the characters from Veep”
Friday 18 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 28
His campaign was a marketing venture. That’s why he didn’t want to put business on hold.
Thursday 17 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 27
...the saturnine Senate leader issued a Washington Post op-ed that reads a lot like a series of spell-checked Donald Trump tweets
Legislative defeats, financial problems, and a surprisingly difficult ally in the White House.
Wednesday 16 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 26
The more Democrats try to pin the immaturity label on Trump, the more Republicans are likely to eschew it.
Tuesday 15 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 25
Monday 14 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 24
Republicans are shocked, shocked, to learn that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is a dyed-in-the-wool racist.
Saturday 12 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 22
We now know that Trump took possession of the translator’s notes from that meeting, and told the translator not to discuss what had happened with other people in the administration.
Congressional leaders once let funding expire because they didn’t want to miss a fundraiser.
Friday 11 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 21
Thursday 10 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 20
He can’t explain what he’s trying to do or why
Tuesday 8 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 18
It’s likely the administration was lulled into complacency by a previous, abbreviated shutdown that took place in early 2018. This interruption in funding lasted only a few days and had barely any effect.
Monday 7 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 17
The people in charge apparently “recognized only this week the breadth of the potential impact.”
"We're looking at a national emergency because we have a national emergency -- just read the papers"
Saturday 5 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 15
How educated, suburban whites ended the over-representation of Republicans
Friday 4 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 14
Thursday 3 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 13
Trump’s acting attorney general just humiliated himself with a display of servile groveling
Wednesday 2 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 12
Starting tomorrow, Democrats in the House will make Trump's life a living hell.
It quickly became a 95-minute stream-of-consciousness defense of his presidency and worldview, filled with falsehoods, revisionist history and self-aggrandizement.
About 800,000 federal employees, and the citizens who depend on them, are being hurt for an empty political stunt.
“Trump is an interesting person. He is not immoral but is amoral. Amoral is when you shoot someone in the head, it doesn’t make a difference. No conscience.”
Tuesday 1 January 2019
Government Shutdown Day 11
America is strongest when our arms are linked with other nations.
Sunday 30 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 9
“Is Trump immoral, in your view?” Raddatz asked.
“I think he is,” he said.
How could someone like Kennedy, who provided the pivotal vote and wrote so eloquently in support of the most important LGBTQ rights decisions, trust those rights to Trump?
Saturday 29 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 8
...it is obvious that the blame here lies entirely with the uncooperative parents who have stubbornly failed to pay their children’s ransom, despite my very clear instructions.
Thursday 27 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 6
Lost in all the discussion about possible lawbreaking by Mr. Trump is the fact that impeachment wasn’t intended only for crimes.
With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.
Wednesday 26 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 5
McConnell “made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”
Tuesday 25 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 4
“We apologize, but due to the lapse in federal funding we are unable to take your call. Once funding has been restored, our operations will resume. Please call back at that time.”
Monday 24 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 3
As the population exploded and the economy became ever more sophisticated, the growing share of poor citizens started to demand redress. But since the institutions of the republic were dominated by patricians who had much to lose from measures like land reform, they never fully addressed the grievances of ordinary Romans.
Sunday 23 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 2
We are entering a new and dangerous stage of Trump’s presidency. It will be defined by a reckless man who will happily burn down the international order or launch missiles to distract the country as he tries to save his own skin.
What has euphemistically long been known as “executive time” is lasting longer.
The mostly forgotten story of Nixon’s tax troubles, long overshadowed by the simultaneous Watergate scandal, is getting a new look from lawmakers and legal experts.
The secretary of defense has no legal position in the nuclear chain of command, and any attempts by a secretary of defense to prevent the president from exercising the authority to use nuclear weapons would be undemocratic and illegal.
Saturday 22 December 2018
Government Shutdown Day 1
For two years, Mr. Trump has waged war against his own government, convinced that people around him are fools.
For two years, they tried to tutor and confine him. [...] But in the end, they failed.
Friday 21 December 2018
“Last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limits in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
The 83 ethics claims filed against Brett Kavanaugh that cannot be processed underscore what SCOTUS lost this year.
We cannot indict a sitting president; we cannot discipline a sitting justice. If you are untruthful for a long enough period of time, you can find your way into a job where there are no consequences for being untruthful.
It was never a real thing. But with Jim Mattis’ exit, the idea that Trump’s advisers could restrain the president is finally dead.
Thursday 20 December 2018
“Having Mattis there gave all of us a great deal more comfort than we have now”
In a year of hyperpartisanship, I did the unthinkable — I changed my mind about politics.
Saturday 15 December 2018
Simply put, Trump's campaign, transition, inaugural committee and presidency are now under active criminal investigation. His business -- the Trump Organization -- and his defunct charity -- The Trump Foundation are also under investigation (the charity investigation is a civil one). His college -- Trump University -- has already been deemed a fraud.
Friday 14 December 2018
As if the country didn’t have enough to be divided about, now the forces aligned for and against President Trump are battling over whether his presidency is legitimate.
It isn’t an occasional failure to uphold norms, but a consistent repudiation of them. It isn’t about dirty money so much as the pursuit and abuse of power—power as an end in itself, justifying almost any means.
Monday 10 December 2018
But the fact remains that Kelly was a true believer in some of Trump’s very worst ideas, echoed several of his very worst influences, failed completely to compensate for Trump’s most significant personal deficiencies, and intervened at key moments to make things worse.
Someone needs to get the White House under control—but the president won’t let it happen.
Saturday 8 December 2018
His verdict on the caravan, which he delivered in a 17-minute video at the time, broke sharply with Trump-aligned orthodoxy on the issue.
b/c these are goddamned felonies
Tuesday 4 December 2018
Other Watergate lawyers also went to jail for conspiring in Nixon’s efforts to obstruct justice.
So when the president announced publicly that China “has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S.,” Trump was either badly confused about a policy he really ought to understand or he was lying.
Monday 3 December 2018
“Federal law makes it a crime to do anything to dissuade, try to postpone or delay someone’s testimony”
Trump, according to The Washington Post, seems to believe that the Fed is a lot like a roller coaster: You have to be so tall to go on it.
Saturday 1 December 2018
Hypocrisy and failure are only the beginning: Ryan’s speakership is a story of craven cowardice and collaboration
Language used in statements issued after the two leaders meet will offer clues as to the temperature in the room — so what does it all mean?
If the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has proved anything in his 18-month-long investigation [...] it is that Mr. Trump surrounded himself throughout 2016 and early 2017 with people to whom lying seemed to be second nature.
Thursday 29 November 2018
One of the chief questions in the Trump-Russia scandal has been whether Vladimir Putin has leverage over the president of the United States, and, if so, what that leverage looks like.
Like the real-life and movie mobsters he’d studied so closely, Trump concluded that the way to insulate himself from the betrayals and backstabbing of the business world was to place a premium on loyalty
Tuesday 27 November 2018
Trust him. Or trust your gut.
Sunday 25 November 2018
Trump separated more than 2,000 families at the southern U.S. border. Obama did not.
Friday 23 November 2018
As they are often used, such laws are incentives for abusive governments, because the entity that seizes the property frequently is allowed to profit by keeping or selling it.
Trump’s failure to exact accountability for the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi will resonate far beyond the Middle East.
As others have noted, his governing principle is borrowed from King Louis XIV of France: “L’état, c’est moi” — I am the state.
Monday 19 November 2018
Trump’s actions and behavior have led service members and veterans to question whether he really understands who a commander in chief is, or what he does.
Friday 16 November 2018
But top Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics.
And the people who scream at Tucker Carlson or Kirstjen Nielsen or Ted Cruz have good reason to be angry. The president of the United States is a bigot.
Monday 12 November 2018
"But I think it's bigger than just a misstep. I think it's a failure of an obligation -- of a basic obligation of a commander in chief."
Friday 9 November 2018
Trump first noticed Matthew G. Whitaker on CNN in the summer of 2017 and liked what he saw — a partisan defender who insisted there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Thursday 8 November 2018
Trump supporters accused me of smearing his campaign manager. Today they’re smearing Jim Acosta.
Monday 5 November 2018
Today’s Congress is dominated by party leaders and functions as a junior partner to the executive
Wednesday 31 October 2018
It is true that folks like Shepard Smith, an afternoon host, routinely fact-checks President Trump, fillets his policies and so on; it’s also true that “Fox & Friends” this week criticized “enemy of the people” rhetoric
And none of that mitigates or minimizes the baseless, irresponsible and destructive programming that takes place in other Fox News precincts.
Monday 29 October 2018
They were poised to storm Washington. Then America stopped caring.
Sunday 28 October 2018
After two years of already high turnover, the president is expected to push out or accept the resignations of several more department chiefs by January.
Friday 26 October 2018
The president is mounting an 11th-hour effort to head off high-profile losses for governor and Senate in his adopted home state.
Wednesday 24 October 2018
The budget deficit has swollen under Trump’s hand to $782 billion, some $116 billion more than the year before. The wider gap can be attributed entirely to a shortfall in tax revenue; in particular, corporate tax receipts plunged $92 billion year-on-year.
Monday 22 October 2018
The lying grates, but how poorly crafted and executed the lies are, how telegraphed they are in his own interest, and how unmoored from any semblance of reality they are, makes them particularly crushing.
Tuesday 9 October 2018
Nikki Haley is right—the First Son-in-Law’s genius does operate in ways we can’t understand.
Thursday 4 October 2018
"Yes, I was emotional last Thursday. I hope everyone can understand I was there as a son, husband and dad."
Imagine the volume of lies we’d be subjected to if these “daily” briefings happened more frequently than once every few weeks.
McConnell is as cynical a politician as you’ll find in Washington, but what makes this quote so frightening is that it goes beyond cynicism into delusion.
Wednesday 3 October 2018
I do not know if Brett attacked Christine Blasey Ford in high school or if he sexually humiliated Debbie in front of a group of people she thought were her friends. But I can say that he lied under oath.
Tuesday 2 October 2018
In essence, we’ve moved from “partisanship,” which still allowed for political compromises in the end, “to tribalism,” which does not
Monday 1 October 2018
Justice Kennedy did more than any living American to undermine democracy. Now he’s mad about it.
Sunday 30 September 2018
The graphic image [...] shows Justice blindfolded and pinned down, her scales cast aside as a man’s hand covers her mouth
But if we expect steely resolve from a police officer confronting a knife-wielding assailant, or disciplined courage from a firefighter rushing into a burning house, we should expect stoic self-control and calm from a conservative judge, even if his heart is being eaten out.
Saturday 29 September 2018
Thursday’s hearings do not reflect a Senate in decline. They reflect a Senate in crisis. That’s entirely different.
Thursday 27 September 2018
Kavanaugh has said too many things that strain credulity for all them to be plausibly true.
Wednesday 26 September 2018
The press really did change in the 1960s—for the better.
Journalism, once the servant of established power, became over those two key decades its opponent and judge.
Tuesday 25 September 2018
The Republicans’ position on Supreme Court nominations is now: We will do whatever we can get away with.
Monday 24 September 2018
Confirming Kavanaugh could lead to a collapse in faith for the Court — with dire consequences for American democracy.
“The economic fallout from Trump’s skirmishes with China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union risk making an already tough cycle for Republicans even more brutal”
Thursday 20 September 2018
...but it’s what every Republican candidate worries about these days. What if some supporter of mine says something shockingly racist? What if that guy who introduced me at that rally turns out to be a klansman? What if I get endorsed by some neo-Nazi group?
Tuesday 18 September 2018
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a chance to do better by the country than it did nearly three decades ago.
It makes the argument for less transparency, less disclosure, less light. We can't know who is telling the truth here, so we can't possibly try,
Friday 14 September 2018
“If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved”
Thursday 13 September 2018
The president sees the accepted death toll of nearly 3,000 as evidence of a political conspiracy against him.
Wednesday 12 September 2018
Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.
In short, the people who possess tradable assets, especially stocks, have enjoyed a recovery that Americans dependent on savings or income from their weekly paycheck have yet to see.
Tuesday 11 September 2018
Losing the Senate was once an unthinkable prospect as the GOP looked to gain seats in the midterms, and with the party’s grip on the House in serious jeopardy, the chamber had been seen as the last line of defense.
Trump is amoral, dishonest and disturbed, a man totally unfit to be president, but, as the anonymous author self-servingly wrote, “There are bright spots”
That’s the anonymous-G.O.P. credo today: We know Trump is a jerk, but you’ve gotta love the good stuff
Saturday 8 September 2018
The nomination process has been polluted by lies for decades, it’s time to scrub the process
Friday 7 September 2018
The problem for Mr. Trump is that, in some cases at least, the record shows that he has.
Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.
Thursday 6 September 2018
Society’s shared middle ground is quickly turning into a battlefield. What will that do to democracy?
The extraordinary attack from within his own camp provoked a furious reaction from Trump, who blasted the article as “anonymous, meaning gutless” in a statement before cameras at the White House.
Wednesday 5 September 2018
There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put the Koch Network’s agenda first.
Tuesday 4 September 2018
Democrats have made Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearing about process.
Trump reached a new low when he denounced the indictments of two GOP congressmen accused of financial crimes.
A historically divisive Supreme Court nomination, explained in 8 polls.
The special prosecutor quietly and subtly played the president, who even now has no real clue what Mueller and his zipped-lipped crew are up to.
Monday 3 September 2018
...if Republicans hold Congress in November, they will indeed repeal Obamacare. That’s not a guess: It’s an explicit promise, made by Vice President Mike Pence last week.
Trump’s incoherence grows to keep pace with his desperation. These days, he makes less sense than ever — a sign that this malignant presidency has entered a new, more dangerous phase.
Believe only me. Reality is what I say it is. Anyone who claims otherwise is an Enemy of the People.
The former mayor’s theatrical, combative style of politics anticipated—and perfectly aligns with—the President’s.
"But there are no constitutional defenses to what the Southern District is investigating," Dershowitz added. "So, I think the Southern District is the greatest threat."
Again, even two polls do not make a trend, but Republicans surely have reason for alarm.
Thursday 30 August 2018
How a hypothetical accusation could actually play out in practice, if the Education Department’s proposed rules become law
Tuesday 28 August 2018
Shunned at two funerals and one (royal) wedding so far, President Trump may be well on his way to becoming president non grata.
To hear Donald Trump tell it, he and his team achieved a historic breakthrough on trade policy yesterday. I wish that were true, but it’s not.
Monday 27 August 2018
Since Trump's summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, the U.S. has called off its military exercises with South Korea while China and Russia have softened pressure on North Korea.
Sunday 26 August 2018
Publicly, House Republicans are putting on a brave face about the midterms. But privately, they are scrambling to prepare for the worst. This document, which catalogs requests Democrats have already made, is part of that effort.
Friday 24 August 2018
Movie supervillains often commit a grave tactical error when, in a moment of overconfidence, they tell the hero all the details of their evil plan. That is in essence what President Trump has done
Thursday 23 August 2018
It’s now clear that the president’s statement was a lie — and that the people speaking for him repeated it.
Trump told Fox News he paid hush money to two women out of his own pocket. Federal election law requires that kind of expense to be reported publicly.
These were not, I now realize, the best people. I get this sense from how frequently they keep being forced to quit, getting charged with and admitting to crimes.
Wednesday 22 August 2018
What the president’s supporters fear most isn’t the corruption of American law, but the corruption of America’s traditional identity.
“I’m not sure why that would change my support for the president,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) of the past day’s events.
Tuesday 21 August 2018
Two of the president's former associates were in court Tuesday. Both guilty of multiple felonies. What happened to draining the swamp?
Monday 20 August 2018
The Democrats are reclaiming language they ceded to the GOP decades ago—and putting a liberal spin on it.
Sunday 19 August 2018
There are 43 Republican seats now without an incumbent on the ballot. That's more than one out of every six Republicans in the House — a record in at least a century,
"This election is the year of the angry female college graduate"
With the exception of a few Republican elected officials at the periphery, Congress has worked to enable Trump’s abuses
Saturday 18 August 2018
The secrets they have aren’t secrets anymore. They’re evidence
Thursday 16 August 2018
—William H. McRaven, retired Navy admiral, commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014. He oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
If a policy principle were to display erratic conduct and behavior, increasingly frenzied commentary, make wild outbursts on the internet and television, monetize his official position, and lie repeatedly, well, by now you should be fully aware of the punchline to this joke.
Why some Trump allies think his path to reelection runs through an effort to kick him out of the Oval Office.
Tuesday 14 August 2018
Faithfully executing the laws requires the president to act reasonably and in good faith. It does not countenance the deliberate sabotage of an act of Congress.
Friday 10 August 2018
Rosenstein must have done something truly and utterly horrible, because these guys don’t impeach just anybody. In fact, they impeach nobody.
Thursday 9 August 2018
Trump’s legal team is doing all it can to keep the president from lying
Sunday 5 August 2018
At rare moments of introspection for the famously self-centered president, Trump has also expressed to confidants lingering unease about how some in his orbit — including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — are ensnared in the Russia probe
Friday 3 August 2018
The previous gold standard in Presidential lying was, of course, Richard Nixon.
The President, for example, has a habit of repeating the same falsehoods over and over again, especially as they concern his core political causes, such as trade or immigration
A lot of this rage is obviously performative. The people heckling the protesters can't deliver their burns without turning around and seeing who's laughing and which one is a winner.
Wednesday 1 August 2018
Under Trump, conspiracy theories and an all out assault on the truth have created a strange new reality
The midterms are approaching, and the president has yet to get serious about protecting the nation’s electoral system from cyberinvasion.
“Q” feeds disciples, or “bakers,” scraps of intelligence, or “bread crumbs,” that they scramble to bake into an understanding of the “storm”
Tuesday 31 July 2018
For years, many Republicans have worked to effect sweeping cuts and benefits for the wealthiest Americans while maintaining a non-wealthy voting base by engaging in robust cultural fights. Trump has nearly perfected it.
Saturday 28 July 2018
Friday 27 July 2018
But the economy is continuing the essentially upward trajectory established before Mr. Trump took office, with some quarters growing a little faster and some more slowly.
Thursday 26 July 2018
In other words, not only was Trump aware of the payment by AMI, he even knew the figure.
Wednesday 25 July 2018
The president’s forceful blister against Iran over the weekend, in which he tweeted in all capital letters that Tehran ought to cease and desist threatening the U.S.—or else—was just the latest example in a long line of Trumpisms obstructing a legitimate debate over Iran policy.
Tuesday 24 July 2018
While the intelligence agencies are silent on the impact of Russia’s attack, outside experts who have examined the Kremlin campaign [...] have concluded that it did affect an extremely close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states.
Monday 23 July 2018
On Sunday, congressional Republicans fanned out on TV to deliver a common message. [...] They staged a collective intervention, begging him to understand that Russian interference could be true even if collusion by Trump’s campaign wasn’t.
Yes, his base likes him, but his overall numbers are terrible.
Sunday 22 July 2018
Israel has formally declared the right of national self-determination, once envisioned to include all within its borders, as “unique to the Jewish people.”
How the effort to discredit special counsel Archibald Cox backfired in 1973.
Saturday 21 July 2018
Trump further grumbled about the tough question he was asked by Jonathan Lemire [...] Lemire asked whether Trump would denounce Russia’s election interference to Putin’s face, “with the whole world watching,” and the president demurred.
Butina is just a minor figure in what appears to be a broader ongoing inquiry into the relationships between Russia, conservative American organizations like the National Rifle Association, and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Friday 20 July 2018
Some on the far right see Putin as the restorer of Christendom; others simply see him as a champion of the white race. Donald Trump apparently sees Putin as the savior of, well, Donald Trump.
The caution is a notable change in tone from just before the summit
Last week’s events have nullified my previous skepticism.
Thursday 19 July 2018
Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them.
Tuesday 17 July 2018
“President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?”
“Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.”
His words on Monday encouraged the nation’s enemies, insulted its intelligence officers, made the president himself look like a fool, and thus brought disgrace on the presidency.
This was the grand plan from the White House after the whole western world rose up in arms against Trump's performance standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference Monday: Uhh...we meant to say wouldn't, not would!
It’s clear that White House stenographers do not serve his administration, but rather his adversary: the truth.
Could this be enough that even so strong a Trump apologist as Sean Hannity might be critical of the president's actions?
Hahahahaha. Sorry. Let me catch my breath here.
Monday 16 July 2018
But today the question of where the president’s loyalties lie is a legitimate one
Even by the upside-down standards of 2018, the sight of a U.S. president standing alongside a Russian one and attacking an investigation by this country’s Justice Department was disgraceful.
His remarks were met with an outpouring of condemnation from Republicans, Democrats, and even Fox TV hosts, who accused the president of undermining his country's intelligence community while embracing an adversary.
Friday 13 July 2018
So how long before Mueller fills in the blanks with familiar names like Stone or Assange?
In the end, the hearing did more to harm Congress and the FBI than it did to expose wrongdoing.
Thursday 12 July 2018
The next eight most populous states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to 69.2 percent — meaning that the 16 most populous states will be home to about 70 percent of Americans.
Whether you believe Mr. Strzok’s account of what he was thinking, the fact is that the FBI said little about Russian meddling before Election Day 2016. There simply was no effectuated plot to harm Mr. Trump’s electoral chances.
...he and the broader conservative legal movement have the very scrutable idea that the Constitution should be read primarily as a property owners’ charter, whose purpose is to stymie economic regulation.
Monday 9 July 2018
What is missing from our imagination is the unlikely but possible outcome on the other end: that this is all much worse than we suspect.
Sunday 8 July 2018
The former US secretary of state decries the global rise of authoritarianism in her new book, Fascism: A Warning, and talks about Trump, Putin and the ‘tragedy’ of Brexit
Saturday 7 July 2018
The right has demonstrated that winning this kind of institutional fight takes years, even decades, and requires a ruthless disposition.
Friday 6 July 2018
Many members of his inner circle apparently couldn’t stand their boss.
There was a time when this was riveting spectacle, either enthralling or terrifying or some mix. ... There’s a reason the networks don’t carry them live in full anymore.
Tuesday 3 July 2018
The nativity statues at the Christ Church Cathedral are enclosed in a chain link fence lined with barbed wire. It's meant to resemble an immigration detention center.
Monday 2 July 2018
...but stopped short of labeling him a fascist
After getting hosed by Kim Jong Un in Singapore, Trump does Putin’s bidding ahead of their Helsinki summit
Sunday 1 July 2018
Friday 29 June 2018
This White House has been, and is likely to remain, home to the first presidency in American history that is almost completely devoid of culture.
Thursday 28 June 2018
Step 1: Create a group identify around a shared belief.
Step 2: Create a body of rhetoric that the group can repeat to defend their belief
Step 3: Spread the word / start beef
Step 4: Make your group members feel like the scum of the earth and that everyone hates them
Step 5: Escalate
Step 6: The enemy's beliefs and feelings can be completely dismissed.
Step 7: Benevolent Dictatorship
Tuesday 26 June 2018
With an increasingly unmoored President purposely stoking divisions for perceived political gain, the possibility need well be contemplated.
“This war has to be fought with a scale and a duration and a savagery that is only true of civil wars,” [Newt Gingrich] said.
One of the telling features of this political moment is that the president — the lying, slandering, raging, insulting president — constantly whines about how nastily and unfairly other people treat him. It justifies everything.
Monday 25 June 2018
One can’t mention the current debate over “civility” in American politics without highlighting the role that President Trump’s approach to the political dialogue plays.
Thursday 21 June 2018
The Hastert rule is a nakedly anti-democratic, nakedly partisan, and nakedly destructive.
Wednesday 20 June 2018
It’s about how to live in a world where these sorts of action-movie entertainments seem, increasingly, to influence politics and policy, until the two swallow each other.
Tuesday 19 June 2018
Like Mitchell, Tomi Lahren attempted to shift the onus for the separations back onto the true villains, the desperate asylum seekers.
Monday 18 June 2018
When we were children, my two siblings and I were also taken from our parents. And the problems we’ve experienced since then portend the terrible things that many of these children are bound to suffer.
Today, Eric is the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he's defending Trump's policy. He agrees that we should be separating mothers and children. I wish I knew what happened.
Saturday 16 June 2018
So why has nothing changed if this policy is so heinous that no one outside of Jeff Sessions wants credit for it? Because it's a way for Trump to get what he wants. He's already tweeted that he's willing to hold literal child hostages to force Democrats to support his immigration demands, like a border wall and an end to immigration policies that allow family reunification.
They appear to recognize that tethering themselves to Donald Trump—a thrice-married man who has bragged about committing adultery, lies with impunity, allegedly paid hush money to a porn star with whom he had an affair, and says he has never asked God for forgiveness—places the moral credibility of the Southern Baptist Convention at risk.
In the end, what this summit achieved was have the US president indirectly legitimise a notorious dictator.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, immigrants within the U.S. who tell immigration officials they’re afraid to return to their countries have the right to request asylum and to be immediately processed.
Thursday 14 June 2018
Wednesday 13 June 2018
But, like “Episode I,” we've reached a point where people care less about the long-term advantages the system provides and more about the short-term ones it prevents them from getting. They want to be able to alter the deal, and force you to pray that they don't alter it any further. In other words, to bully their way to a better one.
Tuesday 12 June 2018
They called Obama an inexperienced, self-serving celebrity. Then their party chose Trump.
Kim forced the American president, through his nuclear and missile tests, to accept North Korea as a nuclear equal, to provide security guarantees to North Korea, and to cancel war games with South Korea that the North has protested for decades.
In exchange for these concessions, Trump seems to have won astonishingly little. In a joint statement, Kim merely “reaffirmed” the same commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that North Korea has repeatedly made since 1992.
Monday 11 June 2018
Canada has every right to be insulted that Mr. Trump would invoke national security in their trade dispute. Canada has stood with the United States in every modern war and crisis.
Sunday 10 June 2018
It had already been an extremely tense G7 meeting. Just before showing up late, President Trump had suggested Russia rejoin the alliance... He had harangued world leaders over their supposedly unfair trade practices, disrupted a women’s empowerment meeting, and generally acted as a one-man diplomatic wrecking ball.
Friday 8 June 2018
‘I don’t think I have to prepare very much’ for the upcoming meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump says. Here’s how we ended up with president who’s all gut, no knowledge.
Thursday 7 June 2018
The party is divided over two very different approaches on immigration. Conservatives have been agitating for months for a vote on hard-line immigration
At the same time, frustrated moderate Republicans — many of whom represent the battleground districts that will determine control of the House this November — began working with Democrats last month on a discharge petition to force a vote on the floor.
Wednesday 6 June 2018
One of the few things that Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, had a talent for was causing outrage.
Friday 1 June 2018
The president and his movement are empowered by ugly talk—the most effective rejoinders are factually precise and emotionally restrained.
Wednesday 30 May 2018
What has Trump done to obstruct this investigation? The answer to that question is that he has done an extraordinary amount.
Monday 28 May 2018
Now that he is president, Mr. Trump’s baseless stories of secret plots by powerful interests appear to be having a distinct effect.
For a man with a lot of serious issues he needs to address every day, President Trump plainly spends a lot of time thinking about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Sunday 20 May 2018
The tweets are riddled with misinformation and, in some cases, outright falsehoods.
Friday 11 May 2018
In other words, that parents would justifiably be terrified about losing their kids is “the big point” — in Kelly’s words — of the policy. Parents considering crossing the border with their children would ... think twice about doing so if being apprehended meant seeing their kids taken away
Wednesday 9 May 2018
By making brash and risky moves on the world stage ... Trump has a chance to change the way voters evaluate his presidency.
Tuesday 8 May 2018
Trump has come to see his policy toward North Korea as a success and believes his unusual combination of insults and biting economic sanctions appears to have brought Kim to the table. Now, Trump wants run the same playbook against Iran.
Sunday 6 May 2018
Obamacare was never perfect. But Commonwealth Fund analysts noted that, rather than fixing the law’s problems, Republicans have done concrete things to worsen them.
Friday 4 May 2018
In the past few days, he has launched a series of rants in the media, assailing his former colleagues in law enforcement — and the work that they have done — as Nazis, frauds and garbage.
Wednesday 2 May 2018
All this demonstrates the shifting standards candidates are treated with, which somehow kept working to Trump’s benefit. On one hand, there’s a presumption that politicians tell the truth most of the time, so the things they say should be treated with a basic level of respect. Which means that when someone like Trump comes along telling obvious, constant lies, those lies just get passed on to the public over and over.
Tuesday 1 May 2018
We still don’t know the biggest, most important evidence. ... That includes, obviously, the evidence that George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Rick Gates all traded to Mueller for their plea deals over the last seven months.
Saturday 28 April 2018
The idea is simple but powerful: a federally issued license for simple possession of all semi-automatic firearms.
From Mueller’s perspective, the benefits of a Trump interview must be weighed against the prospect that questioning the president may not benefit his case much in the long haul.
Thursday 26 April 2018
In both private and public enterprise, he has loaded up the payroll with incompetents, self-dealers and family members — categories that are not mutually exclusive — whose top qualifications are ethical pliability and unwavering devotion to the boss.
Tuesday 24 April 2018
“Stupid question,” Trump shot back Tuesday when ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked the president whether a pardon was on the table. According to the pool report, the president “glared” at Karl for having the gall to ask it.
Trump voters weren’t driven by anger over the past, but rather fear of what may come. White, Christian and male voters, the study suggests, turned to Mr. Trump because they felt their status was at risk.
In inquiries on Benghazi and Russia and beyond, the California congressman has displayed a deep mistrust of the expert consensus on reality — a disposition that has helped him make friends in the current White House.
Tuesday 17 April 2018
Before Trump, she says, being a conservative meant embracing American exceptionalism, forceful moral leadership of the world, promotion of the free market and “fiscal conservatism, which now is a hoot”
Jordan said "nothing comes to mind" when asked again whether the president has ever said something publicly that is a lie.
Sunday 15 April 2018
Trump is preemptively attacking former FBI Director James Comey ahead of his book release.
Saturday 14 April 2018
This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency.
Friday 13 April 2018
There are no tanks; no mass arrests of opposition politicians; no coups; no direct assaults on the rule of law; and no new totalizing ideology. There is, in fact, no moment where you can definitively say that the liberal democracy has ceased to exist. But in Hungary, an upstanding member of the European Union, liberal democracy is now dead
Thursday 12 April 2018
If AMI routinely paid for the exclusive rights to stories that it ended up not using — if, that is, the Sajudin situation were something that happened regularly with other payment recipients and other celebrities — the payment may not be easily tied to Trump’s candidacy explicitly.
Wednesday 11 April 2018
The story broke shortly before 4 p.m.; about an hour later, it led the websites of the Drudge Report, ABC News, CNN, NBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post.
But not Fox News Channel.
Sunday 8 April 2018
This show, with its kindergarten-level intellectual capacity, moved from parroting conservative policies to constructing presidential priorities. “Fox & Friends” has essentially become Donald Trump’s daily briefing.
Thursday 5 April 2018
Trump’s savage attacks on Jeff Bezos and Amazon mark a sharp escalation in the president’s attacks on the free press.
Wednesday 4 April 2018
This could be a significant moment, suggesting Mueller views criminal charges against Trump as being off-limits.
Friday 30 March 2018
The richest 1 percent will see its tax burden drop by 1.5 percent, while middle earners see theirs drop by 1.2 percent. The poorest Americans see the smallest change, as their taxes drop by 0.3 percent
The inquiries are exposing the risks Trump took on when he made the decision to maintain ownership of the company that bears his name while serving in the White House
“And because he’s nice and spends a lot of time with the president, he gets his own Cabinet seat.”
Thursday 29 March 2018
The thing of value in bribery law is not limited to envelopes stuffed with cash. ... A promise not to cooperate in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe could readily serve as the quid in this quid pro quo.
“I am no longer involved in the movement, and I have no stake in all the stupid shit going on in it.”
Tuesday 27 March 2018
And any firm that represented Trump may as well just give up on attracting female associates. It would become their entire brand overnight, and it is a terrible black mark.
Monday 26 March 2018
Republican election law expert Trevor Potter said the payout potentially represented an “illegal, in-kind contribution.”
Friday 23 March 2018
The president’s surprise Friday morning tweet threatening to veto a $1.3 trillion government funding bill — and subsequent reversal in a matter of hours — capped another week in which Trump’s impulsive decisions undermined his exasperated staff.
Monday 19 March 2018
Adam Schiff says Republicans are doing Trump’s dirty work on the Russia investigation.
Saturday 17 March 2018
—John O. Brennan, former Director of the CIA
Friday 16 March 2018
Trump has debased the value of expertise and supercharged the celebrification of American politics.
Thursday 15 March 2018
Trump sees the world through the prism of cable news, and Kudlow is cable news economics come to life. That gives him credibility in the president’s eyes.
Wednesday 14 March 2018
The reality is that the United States is now learning to live without a functional president or government.
Tuesday 13 March 2018
"Evangelicals know they are not compromising their beliefs in order to support this great president."
And since it now seems all but certain that the White House was lying about the timing, it looks more probable that it was lying about the motive too.
He had one goal: to understand why rural America is so angry with Washington.
Under Tillerson’s watch, 60 percent of State’s top-ranking career diplomats resigned and new applications to join the foreign service fell by half
When you combine the lack of influence over Trump with Tillerson’s dismantling of the State Department’s staff — he made more of a mess of the department in a shorter amount of time than any other secretary of state in history — you have a truly disastrous tenure in Foggy Bottom.
Monday 12 March 2018
It is one thing to point to the difficult binary choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton. It is another to provide Trump political cover in every scandal and offer preemptive absolution of every character failure.
What you see here is that people on the moderate left really have become less tolerant of racists while growing more tolerant of all other groups. Meanwhile, the other five ideological subcategories seem to have become more tolerant of everyone.
Friday 9 March 2018
The approach is opportunistic rather than strategic, concerned with short-term victories rather than the unglamorous work of building something enduring and strong
Thursday 8 March 2018
It would seem very fitting if an attempt to bury a sordid affair, rather than a lengthy and expensive special counsel investigation ... proved to be Trump's undoing.
Unless Trump suddenly starts to learn on the job—something he has stubbornly resisted doing for the past 18 months—he is unlikely to emulate the successes of Chávez, Kaczyński, and cohorts.
Wednesday 7 March 2018
“There is the broader ethical issue that he’s been married three times and cheated on all three of his wives And he takes his oath of office to uphold the Constitution about as seriously as he has taken his marriage vows”
Friday 2 March 2018
Most alarming ... is mounting evidence that Trump lacks an attribute possessed by most previous presidents and certainly by all the most successful ones: a capacity for self-critique and self-correction
“So in the face of incompetence and total chaos you have a president who has no self-awareness of how bad it is.”
Trump clearly sees trade as a zero-sum game.
Thursday 1 March 2018
What we have is less a presidency than a cheesy reality show, set in a great stately house, with made-for-television histrionics, constant backstabbing and major characters periodically getting booted out.
Whatever your view of Second Amendment jurisprudence, Trump’s flippant comments showed a startling indifference for foundational rights that are enumerated in the Fourth, Fifth and 14th amendments.
Normally, details like those disclosed in the 37-page indictment would be classified, not released to the public.
Wednesday 28 February 2018
The departure of Keith Schiller, a longtime security guard and body man, was a blow to the president, as is Hicks’ departure. Both were viewed as deeply loyal aides who understood the president’s whims, the rhythms of his day and his wishes.
In moments when members of the Trump administration appear embattled or targeted in some way, someone in the press typically stands up for them. Yet, in the midst of another bad news cycle for Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser finds himself with few, if any, media allies.
The reliance on Jared Kushner as the primary negotiator for everything from Middle East peace to trade deals to the United States' relationships in Asia has been dying a slow death over the last year due to a combination of his lack of experience, lack of respect from world leaders and the actions of his boss and father-in-law
Monday 26 February 2018
While 9 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam War — 1.8 million were drafted — the future president was given five deferments from the draft: four related to his college studies and one for bone spurs in his heel, though the problem was not severe enough to prevent him from playing sports such as football, tennis and golf as a young man.
Trump told radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam.”
Saturday 24 February 2018
Democrats even made a point of running candidates in the 2006 midterms who could pick up NRA support.
Friday 23 February 2018
And Trump’s CPAC speech was filled with such moments — moments that would be blockbuster news from a normal president but that are largely irrelevant given Trump’s marginal role in the Trump administration. He’s a Potemkin president who riles up crowds at rallies but has no real role in governing the country.
Thursday 22 February 2018
Security videos showed School Resource Deputy Scot Peterson was armed and in uniform on the school campus when the shooting started... But he stood by as the violence unfolded.
How would 20 percent of America’s teachers, surely card-carrying good people by any definition, respond to similar pressures of the unthinkable? These questions of human frailty and error are nowhere to be found in the NRA’s “good guy with a gun” mythology
“Watching a teenager fundamentally challenge Rubio’s talking points feels like watching a generation call B.S. on a whole form of politics”
Government officials are routinely denied clearance for reasons that look minor next to concerns about Jared Kushner and Rob Porter
In fact, no federal appeals court has ever held that assault weapons are protected.
Monday 19 February 2018
...it tied in the failure of the FBI in reacting to warnings about the Florida mass shooter, who killed at least 17 people, and used that to challenge the credibility of the Mueller investigation.
Multiple reports today from journalists covering the White House paint a picture of a president who spent the weekend seething with rage — at Mueller, at the media, at members of his administration, at the fact that he couldn’t play golf because it would have been unseemly in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting — and lashing out at everyone in sight, up to and including Oprah Winfrey.
Friday 16 February 2018
The hackers, he suggested, may have been Chinese. Or some 400-pound guy sitting on his bed. Again and again, he insisted, Russian interference was a hoax — a fiction created by Democrats as an excuse for losing an election they should have won.
Thursday 15 February 2018
This American ritual does not end with a sheriff’s announcement of the number of dead and wounded. Other parts are acted out in an ever-running play whose plot turns on the national paralysis over the Second Amendment.
Wednesday 14 February 2018
While Cohen was probably trying to put Trump in the clear by saying he had nothing to do with it, his very explanation paints a picture very similar to that of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
Edwards faced charges after it was alleged that he accepted and tried to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars that came from outside sources that were then used to cover up an affair he was having. Edwards was running for president at the time of the payments, and federal prosecutors claimed that the money should have been reported as campaign contributions.
Tuesday 13 February 2018
In a year of controlling power in Washington, President Trump and Republicans in Congress have run up federal spending, approved deficit-swelling tax cuts and presided over a marked increase in “policy uncertainty” in the economy. They still talk about the importance of fiscal discipline, but they have yet to enforce it.
Monday 12 February 2018
He may be unpopular, but among Republicans he’s still viewed positively. But if there are fewer Republicans now than there were when he took office, that Trump maintained their support seems less impressive.
Saturday 10 February 2018
So much for all that sanctimony about fiscal responsibility.
Tuesday 6 February 2018
Two and three decades ago, Mr. Trump spoke to David Letterman and Rona Barrett in the quietly composed phrasing we expect of public figures expressing serious thoughts. So why does the same man now toss off word salad?
Because he can.
“Even on positive news like that, really positive news like that, they were like death and un-American,” Trump said at a manufacturing plant outside Cincinnati. “Somebody said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Shall we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”
Monday 5 February 2018
Former top diplomat Victoria Nuland tells the story of how she pushed the Obama administration to do more to stop Russian hacking.
Saturday 3 February 2018
With a special counsel investigating whether his campaign collaborated with Russia in 2016 and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in 2017, the president has engaged in a scorched-earth assault on the pillars of the criminal justice system in a way that no other occupant of the White House has done.
The bureau is under fire not from those on the left but rather conservatives who have long been the agency’s biggest supporters, as well as the president who handpicked the FBI’s leader.
Wednesday 31 January 2018
The aim of the campaign against the Mueller investigation and the FBI is clear: Obstructing justice.
Tuesday 30 January 2018
Riddle me this: If Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have smoking gun evidence of a deep-state conspiracy that threatens American democracy itself, wouldn’t they be doing more than playing silly hashtag games, such as #ReleasetheMemo?
So far the only people who think the memo should be publicly released are people who have derided the Russia investigation.
Saturday 27 January 2018
White House officials have offered few details of what Trump will say other than that he will take credit for a healthier economy and tie its continued growth to the Republicans’ new tax plan, as well as argue his case on immigration, trade, infrastructure and national security.
It used to be the political assumption that if Ryan brought a bill to the floor that did not have the support of the Republican majority, that would be the end of his speakership. But now, there’s a corollary to the Hastert Rule
Ryan is guided by whether President Trump supports legislation, and that will be enough for him to bring it to the House floor.
Friday 26 January 2018
Thursday’s bombshell news points toward one conclusion: The special counsel has the goods on the president.
Thursday 25 January 2018
In a 2007 deposition in my libel case (which he lost), he was underprepared and overconfident.
Saturday 20 January 2018
Government Shutdown Day 1
Remember the hand-wringing when Barack Obama wore a tan suit or tossed a football in the Oval Office?
...we present, for the third time in nine months, an updated guide to what Republicans now consider to be acceptable behavior from the commander in chief.
Tuesday 16 January 2018
A weak, easy-to-manipulate president is what they want.
Monday 15 January 2018
The truth is we just don’t know: It’s way too early to determine whether the law has had a significant impact on the economy.
The most closely watched data point will be wage growth. Republicans have promised that the corporate tax cuts will filter down into larger paychecks for workers, which are sorely needed
A strong signal that the tax law isn’t working as Republicans hoped would be increased shareholder returns, in the form of either share buybacks or dividends.
Saturday 13 January 2018
Friday 12 January 2018
Even the president’s most sycophantic defenders didn’t bother denying the reports. Instead they justified them. Places like Haiti really are terrible, they reminded us.
Thursday 11 January 2018
Zoned out on Fox News and Mickey D’s, Trump still believes Obama was lazy and he’s a dynamic man of action
Saturday 6 January 2018
At the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, American intelligence agencies told the new administration that while North Korea had built the bomb, there was still ample time — upward of four years — to slow or stop its development of a missile capable of hitting an American city with a nuclear warhead.
Tuesday 2 January 2018
That’s Trump saying that the existing system is dangerous. That system didn’t change, but 2017 was indeed the safest year in history for commercial air travel. So how does Trump get credit for this again?
Sunday 31 December 2017
In this past year, members of Congress finally seem to have awoken to the fact that Congress is an equal branch of government. They don’t always have to follow Trump’s agenda.
Saturday 30 December 2017
The main takeaway, as it has been since Week One, is that Trump’s frenetic activity hasn’t yet transformed the way America works in too many fundamental ways. But it could. It really could.
By the end of September, all Cabinet agencies except Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and Interior had fewer permanent staff than when Trump took office in January — with most shedding many hundreds of employees
Friday 29 December 2017
Thursday 28 December 2017
But, just so you understand, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away and he was unable to do it. Ronald Reagan wanted to have ANWR approved 40 years ago and he was unable to do it. Think of that. And the individual mandate is the most unpopular thing in Obamacare, and I got rid of it.
Behind the scenes, according to aides, lobbyists and fellow lawmakers, Toomey played a major role in shaping the Republican tax overhaul — pushing not only for a cut in the top individual rate but also helping slash rates for corporations and repeal a key provision of the Affordable Care Act.
Tuesday 26 December 2017
The sliver of America that did get ahead was, you guessed it, the one at the tippy top: the richest Americans, those in the highest 1 percent of the income distribution. Their earnings grew by about 6 percent a year.
Thursday 21 December 2017
They can, however, be roused to political anger when they think others will end up doing better in comparison to people like them—that is, when they experience what social scientists refer to as “relative deprivation.”
Wednesday 20 December 2017
...the open contempt for democracy displayed in the Senate’s slapdash rush to pass the tax bill ought to trouble us as much as, if not more than, what’s in it.
Tuesday 19 December 2017
Members of Congress who under other circumstances might be constrained by shame, custom, or the will of their constituents have learned from Trump’s election that you can get away with more than we used to think.
Monday 18 December 2017
Fundamentally, there are two kinds of moral codes. One insists that you do the right thing, but the other has a lesser demand: Before you do the wrong thing, you have to agonize about it. Again and again, Republicans have demonstrated the second kind of morality.
The Alabama election, in particular, should suggest to Republicans that there’s still a role for shame and, more important, that there might yet be a reservoir of virtue left in their party.
Saturday 16 December 2017
It's such a telling phrase: "science in consideration with community standards and wishes." It is literal wishful thinking as public health policy.
Thursday 14 December 2017
But now, on the verge of achieving his long-sought legislative dream, he’s got his eyes on the exits.
Saturday 9 December 2017
Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.
Friday 8 December 2017
The government’s fiscal year started on Oct. 1. That’s the legal deadline for Congress and the president to have enacted into law the 12 appropriations bills that fund the government’s discretionary programs.
Back in September, the president struck a deal with “Chuck and Nancy” for a three-month CR — a deal that expires today, Dec. 8.
During the three months, Congress was supposed to finish the 12 spending bills. But that didn’t happen
The new CR expires Dec. 22, which means that Congress just gave itself a two-week extension to get a spending deal done for the rest of the fiscal year.
Thursday 7 December 2017
A stunning 74% said they have little or no confidence in Trump, up from just 23% who didn't trust Obama. Mistrust in the US leader extended to confidence in the United States, with favorable views of the United States plummeting around the world from 64% to 49% since Trump became president.
Wednesday 6 December 2017
...the House and Senate passed a bill called the “Jerusalem Embassy Act,” which formally recognized the city as the country’s capital and called for the U.S. Embassy in Israel to be moved there from Tel Aviv by 1999.
The bill became law after Clinton declined to sign it for a 10-day period while Congress was in session. He, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all postponed the embassy move every six months for each of the 22 years since the law was enacted.
The problem involves the corporate alternative minimum tax, which the GOP initially planned to repeal, but tossed back into their stew at the last second in order to raise some desperately needed revenue.
Tuesday 5 December 2017
“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”
“I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything.”
Saturday 2 December 2017
Once inside, most witnesses are seated in a windowless conference room where two- and three-person teams of FBI agents and prosecutors rotate in and out, pressing them for answers. ... Often listening in is the special counsel himself, a sphinx-like presence who sits quietly along the wall for portions of key interviews.
In the end, he was trapped on the one hand between a president with little regard for diplomacy or the State Department ..., and on the other hand, the cruel and unforgiving realities of a world beyond America’s shores, which left him with a bundle of challenges impossible to manage, let alone resolve.
Monday 27 November 2017
In short, the case against Conway is airtight. Or it would be, that is, if President Trump hadn’t appointed Kerner to lead the OSC.
Saturday 25 November 2017
While it’s certainly true that ISPs do in some ways store and generate data on behalf of the user, usually as part of managing their networks, it’s equally certain that their primary purpose is to transmit data between the user and points of his or her choosing. Consequently, broadband should be classified as a telecommunications service.
Trump cares so much about Time and its cover that he wants you to think he doesn't care at all. Don't believe it.
Sufism is a strand of Islam that eschews materialism and emphasizes the inward search for God.
It's an interpretation of Islam that's radically different from what Sunni extremists believe. Many extremists see Sufism as heretical, followed only by apostates.
More and more, extremists are willing to target Sufi mosques. “Opponents of Sufism see the shrines and these living saints as idols,”
Thursday 23 November 2017
The Turks had high hopes for Donald Trump’s presidency, given his hostility to an American “establishment” that Ankara regards as irredeemably hostile to Turkey, and his almost automatic rejection of the policies of his predecessor.
Wednesday 22 November 2017
Aside from Fox News, no network worked as hard as Rossiya, as Russian state TV is called, to boost Donald Trump and denigrate Hillary Clinton.
...the goal here isn't just for "more reasonable regulatory oversight" or "slightly less regulatory oversight," the goal here is almost zero oversight of one of the most predatory and anti-competitive legacy business sectors in America.
Monday 20 November 2017
So to recap: Trump needs votes in the Senate, Jones is too liberal for the White House, and the president's top adviser won't explicitly rule out Trump's campaigning for Moore.
Friday 17 November 2017
Trump focused his Twitter-fueled mockery on a Democratic senator while largely avoiding a similar condemnation of a Republican Senate candidate facing far more allegations. The turn in the political dialogue threatened to transform a moment of cleansing debate about sexual harassment into another weapon in the war between the political parties, led by the president himself.
I think what we’re seeing is an extreme politicization of Christianity. It almost does not feel like the evangelical tradition of a generation ago.
The Bible has things to say about sex. But for Jesus, in the New Testament, it’s not a major thing at all. He’s far more concerned with feeding the poor and caring for those in need. When you look back over the last century of Christian argumentation and political concern, however, it’s had a lot more to do with sex than with caring for the poor.
Wednesday 15 November 2017
Alabama has a law (complemented by party rules) that automatically punishes any elected officials for endorsing a candidate other than their party's. It's written such that "anti-endorsing" Moore may trigger the penalty as well: a six-year exclusion from any ballot printed in Alabama
Tuesday 14 November 2017
Politics is growing more personal, polarized and pugnacious. This dynamic is particularly acute on the right. This will likely get worse before it gets better
Monday 13 November 2017
One recent poll found that one-third of the public support it and half oppose it. Sixty percent believe it favors the rich. Majorities of the public believe corporations and high-income individuals should pay more in taxes. They believe the Republican plan would do the opposite, and they’re right.
The vice president is driving a White House agenda dominated by the conservative, anti-regulatory policies he embraced as Indiana governor.
A wealth of US historical evidence shows that incumbent politicians do better in elections than nonincumbents do. They’re more likely to win, and open seats are more likely to flip to the other party than are seats where an incumbent is running again are.
Sunday 12 November 2017
Partisanship often overrides religious or moral values in the state. But Moore’s scandal could be a new litmus test.
Friday 10 November 2017
These women aren’t props for your partisan gotcha tweets.
Tuesday 7 November 2017
The implications here are pretty big: a U.S. president telling his CIA director to meet with someone pitching what the intelligence community basically regards as a conspiracy theory.
Sunday 5 November 2017
Cyrus Vance Jr. is suddenly under fire. It began in October, when the New Yorker reported that in 2012 the Manhattan district attorney declined to charge Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. with fraud
District attorneys also have the discretion to drop a case even with clear evidence of guilt, but more often, eager to show they’re being tough on criminals, they push for convictions and press for the highest bail and the maximum charges. ... And yet, for all this power, do you know who your DA is?
Thursday 2 November 2017
In short, what if Mueller proves the case and it’s not enough? What if there is no longer any evidentiary standard that could overcome the influence of right-wing media?
Monday 30 October 2017
Who are the victims? Everyone in Puerto Rico.
James Clapper ... wants you to know that no matter how much Trump rants about the “Russia hoax,” the 2016 hacking was not only real and aimed at electing Trump but constituted a major victory for a dangerous foreign adversary.
... the most important story of the weekend was a Brooke Singman Fox News piece titled “Mueller facing new Republican pressure to resign in Russia probe.”
The journalism in the story is laughable, but the message is clear and important: When Trump decides to fire Mueller (and possibly pardon the targets of his investigation) to spare himself and his family from accusations of serious wrongdoing, America’s premiere propaganda broadcaster will have his back.
Saturday 28 October 2017
Donald Trump has created an unprecedented power vacuum in the United States. There is effectively no President: he spends all his time golfing, watching television, and rambling on Twitter, and when actual emergencies crop up, they will either be handled by other officials or not at all.
Friday 27 October 2017
...the Russian government really, really hates the Magnitsky sanctions, and it hates them with disproportionate fury.
Tuesday 24 October 2017
The day wasn’t supposed to be like this. And it underscores deepening Republican fears that Trump’s personal spats will undermine GOP priorities, most notably tax reform.
Monday 23 October 2017
How did Iowa get to this precarious point? Decisions in Washington and Des Moines certainly played a role, but critical choices by state regulators, insurers and other key players also contributed to the tumultuous climate.
Friday 20 October 2017
But, as a video by the Florida Sun Sentinel of Ms. Wilson’s remarks that day shows, Mr. Kelly got it all wrong. She did not say she got money for the building. She was generous and graceful in sharing credit for how legislation naming the building was fast-tracked.
It is unfortunate that the sacrifice of brave people such as these two agents or the four soldiers killed in Niger can get overwhelmed by the petty name-calling of politics. That is a point Mr. Kelly was trying to make Thursday, and that he undercut with his misrepresentation of Ms. Wilson.
Thursday 19 October 2017
For 12 days, Trump said nothing, not even a tweet, about the four Americans killed in action, and had no contact with the loved ones they had left behind. Pressed by reporters to explain his silence, Trump reacted by slandering his predecessors ... Trump then placed a phone call to Myeshia Johnson, La David Johnson’s widow. The truism “better late than never” is not always true.
The island doesn't need new loans. It needs competent hurricane relief.
Monday 16 October 2017
“They have an on-the-record ‘Dear Leader’ culture, and an on-background ‘This-guy-is-a-joke’ culture”
Sunday 15 October 2017
But like the millions of low-information voters who elected him, Trump was duped by Fox News.
Saturday 14 October 2017
But the selling of tax cuts under Trump has taken things to a whole new level, both in terms of the brazenness of the lies and their sheer number.
Friday 13 October 2017
...the president has threatened to torch the Iran deal, scrap protections for Dreamers and touch off an Obamacare death spiral. He has said it’s up to Congress to come up with fixes for all three, even as a major overhaul of the tax code remains a top priority for his White House and Republican leadership.
Wednesday 11 October 2017
U.S. Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 11, Section 227, which is titled, “Wrongfully influencing a private entity’s employment decisions by a Member of Congress or an officer or employee of the legislative or executive branch.”
Several months ago ... Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president.
He: Impeachment. 25th amendment.
Me: You think Republicans would go that far?
He: Not yet. Here’s the thing. They really want to get this tax bill through. That’s all they have going for them. They don’t want to face voters in ’18 or ’20 without something to show for it. They’re just praying Trump doesn’t do something really, really stupid before the tax bill.
Me: Like a nuclear war?
Just north of Detroit, Macomb County has emerged as the de facto national capital of white middle America. Now, its two most famous native sons are entering the political fray.
NIXON: That's right. Right. The main thing is The Post is going to have damnable, damnable problems out of this one. They have a television station.
JOHN DEAN: That's right, they do.
NIXON: And they're going to have to get it renewed.
Tuesday 10 October 2017
We do not yet know all the relevant facts, and any final determination must await further investigation, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But the public record contains substantial evidence that President Trump attempted to impede the investigations of Michael Flynn and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including by firing FBI Director James Comey
The subtext of all of this is: How dare you criticize the president? He is doing important things, and speaking out against him only undermines his efforts to “Make America Great Again.”
Tillerson, who reportedly called his boss a moron: "I think it's fake news, but if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win."
"When I build something for somebody, I always add $50 million or $60 million onto the price. My guys come in, they say it's going to cost $75 million. I say it's going to cost $125 million and I build it for $100 million. Basically, I did a lousy job. But they think I did a great job."
In any situation, Trump must be the alpha dog. Delegation isn't his strong suit. Witness what happened when Tillerson apparently reopened a dialogue with the North Koreans. "He was wasting his time," Trump now says.
Take Obamacare. "It's a total mess," Trump says. ... But isn't it now his administration's responsibility? "Yes. But I've always said Obamacare is Obama's fault. It's never going to be our fault."
Monday 9 October 2017
One Trump confidant likened the president to a whistling teapot, saying that when he does not blow off steam, he can turn into a pressure cooker and explode. “I think we are in pressure cooker territory”
Saturday 7 October 2017
Cutting spending to balance the budget was almost religion to the Republican Party for much of the past eight years. But all year long, despite their control of the White House and Congress, Republicans have not taken steps to balance the budget, to overhaul entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, or to arrest the growth of the country’s $20 trillion in debt.
Wednesday 4 October 2017
The U.S. government is quietly losing its next generation of foreign policy leaders—an exodus that could undermine our institutions and interests for decades to come.
Monday 2 October 2017
But when Hurricane Maria struck at full strength several days later—precisely as advertised, and similar in scale to Harvey—the U.S. military simply called off the huge resources it had mustered for Hurricane Irma. An inadequately small military contingent was left on its own for nearly two weeks to help with the damage. If there was a plan for disaster relief it was not publicly apparent.
Since Trump took office, more Americans have been killed by white American men with no connection to Islam than by Muslim terrorists or foreigners.
Saturday 30 September 2017
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pitched himself as a dealmaker who would look out for the country’s “forgotten people,” “drain the swamp,” unite the country, “immediately repeal and replace Obamacare,” surround himself with “only with the best and most serious people,” and, of course, “win so much.”
Wednesday 27 September 2017
Trump, so visible when Harvey and Irma hit, all but ignored the devastation that Maria brought to Puerto Rico, devoting more attention to respect for the flag at NFL games.
When he did turn his focus to Puerto Rico on Monday, it was to say ... “Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars . . . owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with.”
Monday 25 September 2017
Before 2009, football players standing for the national anthem wasn’t even a thing. The teams stayed in the locker room until after “and the hoooome of the braaaave,” and then ran onto the field.
Wednesday 20 September 2017
The founding fathers never anticipated the rise of Facebook and fake news.
Wednesday 13 September 2017
The White House is making legal arguments about the former FBI director that barely pass the laugh test.
Sunday 10 September 2017
While these initiatives lacked the fanfare of some of President Trump’s high-profile proclamations — like his ban on transgender people in the military — they point to a fundamental repurposing of the federal bureaucracy to promote conservative social priorities.
The left has no equivalent to a Rush Limbaugh in influence and sheer lunacy.
Saturday 9 September 2017
In business, his personal life, his campaign and now his presidency, Trump has sprung surprises on his allies with gusto. His dealings are frequently defined by freewheeling spontaneity, impulsive decisions and a desire to keep everyone guessing — especially those who assume they can control him.
The debt and spending bill approved by Capitol Hill on Friday averted imminent fiscal disaster, but it’s added more misery for a Republican Party whose agenda has floundered even with unified control of Washington for the first time in a decade.
Friday 8 September 2017
The Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie once observed that there are “two Americas” — one at home and one abroad. The first is the America of Hollywood, work-in-progress democracy, civil rights movements and Ellis Island. The second is the America of coups and occupations, military dictators and CIA plots, economic meddling and contempt for foreign cultures.
The rest of the world knows both Americas. But as Shamsie has written, Americans don’t seem aware of the second one at all.
It’s a doctrine called “asymmetric escalation,” employed by states that are conventionally weak. France used it during the Cold War to deter the more powerful Soviet Union, and Pakistan does the same today against a more powerful India.
The United States is in many ways little more than an air force, military trainer and weapons depot for assorted Sunni despots.
Tuesday 5 September 2017
I was reminded of Bennett’s advisory role in the 2014 Seth Rogen comedy The Interview, about two Hollywood stoners hired by the CIA to kill Kim. ... The movie’s plot closely follows Bennett’s vision for regime change from within
But for years now, we’ve been retreating into our separate tribal epistemologies, each with their own increasingly incompatible set of facts and first premises.
Monday 4 September 2017
No, if Trump cancels DACA, it will be one more attempt to endear himself to his shrinking base with the only thing that truly energizes the dead-enders: vengeance fueled by white grievance. And it will also be an act of uncommon cowardice.
Tuesday 29 August 2017
Trump, miffed about the optics of empty seats in the Phoenix Convention Center, “later had his top security aide, Keith Schiller, inform Gigicos that he'd never manage a Trump rally again”
Sunday 27 August 2017
As the effects of climate change play out, the risks posed by storms like Katrina and Harvey only stand to get worse.
Saturday 26 August 2017
Even the greatest of nations may suffer a catastrophic leader, but the nation can survive the test and protect its resilience — if the public stays true to its values, institutions and traditions. That was true two millennia ago, and remains true today.
Trump thus used his constitutional power to block a federal judge’s effort to enforce the Constitution. Legal experts said they found this to be the most troubling aspect of the pardon, given that it excused the lawlessness of an official who had sworn to defend the constitutional structure.
Friday 25 August 2017
White nationalism isn’t simply an extremist political ideology. It is an alt-religious movement that provides its adherents with its own twisted version of what all religions supply to adherents: identity, a personal sense of who I am; community, a social sense of where I belong; and purpose, a spiritual sense of why my life matters.
He ran a jail that he described as a "concentration camp." Prisoners there died at an alarming rate, often without explanation.
He arrested New Times reporters for covering him.
But he somehow found time and money to send a deputy to Hawaii to look for Barack Obama's birth certificate.
In 2013, a federal judge confirmed what literally everyone in Phoenix knew: he'd been racially profiling Latinos. So naturally, he hired a PI to investigate the judge and his wife.
He also kept on profiling people, which is why he got charged with contempt of court (and was found to be guilty AF)
By 2015, his fondness for racial profiling had cost the county more $44 million. On top of, you know, ruining lives.
Thursday 24 August 2017
Saturday 19 August 2017
“Let’s be honest, the people who are currently outraged are the same people who have always been outraged,” said Ms. Hicks, 35, a lifelong Republican who lives in Boston. “The media makes it seem like something has changed, when in reality nothing has.”
“At what point does a principled party stand up for its principles?”
Friday 18 August 2017
Thursday 17 August 2017
Trump’s decision to double down on his argument that “both sides” were to blame ... was driven in part by his own anger — and his disdain for being told what to do.
“In some ways, Trump would rather have people calling him racist than say he backed down the minute he was wrong”
Wednesday 16 August 2017
A combative and unrestrained President Donald Trump opened his authentic political soul, in possibly the most memorable news conference in presidential history, that is certain to become a defining moment of his administration.
In the process, he appears to have abdicated any claim to the traditional presidential role as a moral voice for the nation and the world.
Tuesday 15 August 2017
After failing to win the popular vote, President Trump has instead governed on behalf of an increasingly vocal but diminishing minority.
Monday 14 August 2017
What we witnessed Saturday was the terrifying but logical outcome of our escalating, toxic politics of hate. I’ve seen it happen before.
“I have never felt like the government or police were against me,” said white nationalist leader Richard Spencer
Sunday 13 August 2017
Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent.
A large number have adopted a very clean cut, frat-boyish look designed to appeal to the average white guy in a way that KKK robes or skinhead regalia never could.
For Signer, Trump’s repeated failure to “condone, denounce, silence, put to bed” the white supremacist voices that invoked his name during the campaign and after he won the White House is why Charlottesville was besieged with violence on Saturday.
Protesters began to mace one another, throwing water bottles and urine-filled balloons — some of which hit reporters — and beating each other with flagpoles, clubs and makeshift weapons.
The more convincing explanation for Trump’s moral failure is that he is, and always has been, completely disconnected from any understanding of the American political tradition. ... For Trump, there is no past; only himself, rising as a self-creation out of the mist. He feels no need to speak against the poison of bigotry because he has no clue about how that poison has infected our past, and still infects our present.
Wednesday 9 August 2017
...likening the present-day US to the "escalating steps of oppression" that led to Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s.
If America wants peace it has one option. Better journalism. Stop talking about what NK is capable of and start talking about what NK wants: the status quo.
While the last thing Republicans on the Hill need is another example of their total incompetence, the White House seems to be cheering on a confrontation.
Monday 7 August 2017
How the Fox morning show evolved into Donald Trump’s posse.
This projection of vice, claiming of victimhood, and complaining about vanishing privileges make Trump an ideal front man for the kind of cultural anxiety, desperation and anger that disguises itself as a benign debate about public policy.
Wednesday 2 August 2017
The Supreme Court allowed parts of the travel ban to go forward, in a victory that would not have happened without Neil Gorsuch on the court
Pruitt’s EPA “has moved to undo, delay or otherwise block more than 30 environmental rules, a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency’s 47-year history.”
Sessions ... strengthened the federal government’s power of civil-asset forfeiture
...to chop up American politics into a collection of basic ideologies that shape people’s political lives, and then see how ideas like “political party” sit uncomfortably on top of them
Instead of transforming the Republican Party, Trump has assembled the most conservative administration and agenda of any modern president.
Tuesday 1 August 2017
..as Trump put it in a tweet in 2011, “plays golf to escape work while America goes down the drain.”
Friday 28 July 2017
“Bear with us. Once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing.”
Trump’s actions appear aimed at destroying the fundamental independence of the Justice Department.
Daily, the president’s boundless anger seems to find a new target: He is variously unhappy with his lawyer/his strategist/his press secretary. There is always someone else for Trump to blame, never himself.
Thursday 27 July 2017
(1) The White House has stated publicly, unambiguously, and repeatedly that President Trump's tweets are official White House declarations.
(4) A chief concern has been, and remains, just how difficult it is to determine when and how the President's tweets have the force of law.
(6) But now what I and every other attorney could have predicted—President Trump using Twitter to *issue a presidential order*—has happened.
(11) The President's tweet—an order—was *crystal* clear. As Commander-in-Chief, he established a new zero-tolerance policy for the military.
(23) But Gen. Dunford did *not* confirm that the U.S. military planned to execute the directive upon receiving implementation instructions.
(27) It gave the clear impression—which not a *single* journalist missed—that it believes it must protect its personnel from its Commander.
(30) If this President continues to issue manic, middle-of-the-night declarations that have the full force of law, our military WILL resist.
(31) That resistance will at first take the form we've now seen: pretending clear orders aren't clear; using procedural excuses for a delay.
(37) The military's response to Trump's tweeted (but official) directive is the CANARY IN THE COAL MINE warning of far bigger dangers ahead.
Monday 24 July 2017
For the 39th time, top presidential adviser (and son-in-law) Jared Kushner has revised his financial disclosure forms. Kushner disclosed 77 additional assets, collectively worth millions of dollars.
Below the leadership level, Republicans are defying Trump more often, and McConnell and Ryan aren’t always standing in their way. You can see this defiance in the bipartisan Senate investigation of the Russia scandal. You can see it in the deal on Russian sanctions.
Friday 21 July 2017
Nope. Absolutely not.
The White House attracts all manner of toadies, suckups and flatterers seeking the president's favor, but never did any staffer demean, degrade and humble himself to the chief executive the way outgoing press secretary Sean Spicer did.
Wednesday 19 July 2017
Lost amid the uproar over the commission’s request was a letter sent at the same time by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. It forced 44 states to provide extensive information on how they keep their voter rolls up-to-date.
Tuesday 18 July 2017
The House is mad at the Senate. The Senate is mad at the House. Various factions in the House and Senate are mad at each other or mad at their leaders. Republican lawmakers have yet to turn on President Trump in any meaningful way. But they’re starting to turn on each other.
Monday 17 July 2017
About a quarter of Americans strongly approve of Trump’s job performance. A quarter think he’s doing a better job than past presidents. A quarter think America’s position in the world has gotten stronger since he was inaugurated. A quarter think that the way he acts is presidential.
That is the Trump bubble.
Sunday 16 July 2017
These days, to the extent that most people know of the John Birch Society—that far-right group founded in the thick of the Cold War to fight communists and preach small government—it’s purely as a historical relic of a bygone era of sock hops and poodle skirts. But the John Birch Society lives.
Friday 7 July 2017
“It’s an honor to be with you,” President Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday as they met for the first time.
Thursday 6 July 2017
The contrast between what’s happening in cities and the decentralized philosophy Republicans have championed from Washington is striking.
Thursday 29 June 2017
“If Republicans want to confirm every liberal caricature of conservatism in a single piece of legislation, they could do no better than vote on the GOP bill in its current form.”
Sunday 25 June 2017
The Senate’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not a healthcare bill. It’s a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by a dramatic reduction in healthcare funding for approximately 23 million poor, disabled, and working middle class Americans.
Saturday 24 June 2017
Most troubling, perhaps, is that rather than reassert themselves, the moderate Republicans have almost all rolled over entirely.
Friday 23 June 2017
The problem was never Obamacare. It was uninsured America — people who had been cut out of the system, but who were nonetheless pushing us toward collective bankruptcy. Obamacare just cleaned the water enough for us to finally see the time bomb in the depths.
Thursday 22 June 2017
One could even argue that bog-standard Republicans, under the leadership of Ryan and McConnell, represent an bigger threat to our democracy than Trump, possessing as they do more competence and cunning than the TV-addled overgrown toddler in the White House.
To control and edit the messages radiating out of the White House is media hound Trump’s keenest ambition.
Wednesday 21 June 2017
Remember when Obamacare was written “hastily,” “behind closed doors” in “secret” negotiations, so that Democrats could “jam” an unpopular health-care bill through Congress? Remember when this showed that they “didn’t care what was in it” and that they had betrayed the “trust” of the American people?
...the majority leader is deeply aware there's a strong possibility the whole effort might lose steam if his members return to their home states for the July Fourth recess without finishing their work on health care before then.
Sunday 18 June 2017
Trump appears willing to test the bounds of convention and his own powers against a legal and political establishment that he believes is conspiring against him. The higher the pressure, the more defiant the President becomes -- even if it puts him at odds with his legal team.
Wednesday 14 June 2017
One key point is that Mueller did not start this obstruction investigation. According to the Post, that probe began “days after Comey was fired on May 9”
The attorneys general of D.C. and Maryland filed a suit on Monday... Two days later, nearly 200 members of Congress also sued Trump.... Trump’s attorneys at the Department of Justice, meanwhile, are busy fighting another emoluments lawsuit, this one filed back in January on behalf of an ethics watchdog and Trump’s business competitors.
Tuesday 13 June 2017
Republicans, Schiff added, “have shown a willingness to make excuses for the most destructive behavior of a president in office that I can remember.”
Sunday 11 June 2017
Mattis ... is driven by several considerations, including his belief that the military’s political neutrality can help hold together a deeply divided nation
Saturday 10 June 2017
The party allows winner-take-all primaries by congressional district or statewide— which in many states hugely magnified Trump’s delegate totals. Trump won 32 percent of the South Carolina vote, but all 50 delegates. He won 46 percent of the Florida vote but all 99 delegates. He won 39 percent of the Illinois vote, but 80 percent of the 69 delegates.
Friday 9 June 2017
Every network aired it live, but not every network covered it in the same way. While MSNBC and CNN emphasized possible wrongdoing by the president in their coverage, Fox News hedged on Comey's accusations and removed context for some of his statements.
There is always something obscene about the abuse of power, even if it isn’t sexual.
“Twitter helped make Donald Trump president. It may also lead to his impeachment.”
“The President, they seem to argue, acted without knowledge of the law because he simply doesn’t know how to do his job. Trump’s actions may be criminal, but they are excusable because he’s a well-meaning idiot.”
“Underneath all the grotesquery, this is a drama that concerns the whole world.”
Thursday 8 June 2017
(1) Not ONE Committee Republican alleged that Comey lied—or that Trump told the truth—in their "he said/he said." ALL accepted Comey's word.
(9) The Director of the FBI was CONVINCED—from the moment of his FIRST meeting with the President of the United States—that Trump is a LIAR.
(15) Trump has an UNUSUAL OBSESSION with a SINGLE allegation from a dossier accusing him of TREASON: that he consorted with Russian hookers.
(CONCLUSION) While yesterday's Senate hearing had more TV-ready fireworks, TODAY we got far, FAR more actual bombshells on the Russia probe.
Wednesday 7 June 2017
(1) Obstruction of Justice IS a legal term and federal criminal statute. It has a strict legal definition. It is NOT open to interpretation.
(7) Questions tomorrow about how Trump's actions made Jim Comey FEEL—or about whether those actions IMPEDED an investigation—are IRRELEVANT.
(9) Obstruction of Justice IS about *actions* of the defendant. It is NOT about the *specific intent* of the defendant in acting as he did.
(12) Therefore any Obstruction of Justice case against President Trump IS about—almost exclusively—the nature of the words he said to Comey.
(13) If the words Comey CONTEMPORANEOUSLY RECORDED as having been said by Trump were indeed said, Trump IS guilty of Obstruction of Justice.
(18) And under "Obstruction by Intimidation, Threats, Persuasion, or Deception (18 U.S.C. 1512[b]), Trump DID "attempt to persuade" Comey.
Monday 5 June 2017
I see an angry man lashing out at enemies real and imagined — a man dangerously overwhelmed.
Of the 559 positions ... Trump has announced 117 people to fill the positions
Sunday 4 June 2017
"Mr. President, every day we are having a gun debate because every day 90 people in our country die from gun violence. Many of them are kids"
Saturday 3 June 2017
Bad leaders are an effect before they are a cause — an effect of people who are ready to self-destruct. They don’t arise in a vacuum.
Friday 2 June 2017
We imagine the villains of history as cunning strategists, brilliant masterminds of horror. ... But a careful reading of contemporary accounts will show that both Hitler and Stalin struck many of their countrymen as men of limited ability, education and imagination — and, indeed, as being incompetent in government and military leadership.
Trump is used to being a king ... Unfortunately for Trump’s ambitions, that’s not how the American government works.
Thursday 1 June 2017
There were times when on-air stupidity of this sort was ignorable, back when presidents could identify propaganda.
Wednesday 31 May 2017
Tuesday 30 May 2017
Once upon a time, a child was born into wealth and wanted for nothing, but he was possessed by bottomless, endless, grating, grasping wanting, and wanted more, and got it, and more after that, and always more.
Monday 29 May 2017
“Trump is so deeply insecure that not even becoming president of the United States quenched his need to make others feel small to build himself up,”
Sunday 28 May 2017
Gianforte’s assault is a glaring display of toxic masculinity in an environment made particularly toxic by the man in the White House and his media bullying. But more telling and more ominous is the degree to which Republicans no longer seem to care
Friday 26 May 2017
...haters seem emboldened as never before.
Among other remarks, Boehner said Trump should not be allowed to tweet
“People feel like, if the president of the United States can say anything to anybody at any time, then I guess I can too. And that is a very dangerous phenomenon.”
But if nothing else, the Republican's win demonstrates that a candidate’s hostility toward the media is no deal-breaker for voters -- and it might even be helpful.
Thursday 25 May 2017
After all of the hoops summit organizers reportedly jumped through to accommodate President Trump and his anemic attention span, he definitely was not on his best behavior.
If history doesn’t repeat itself, the Nixon years are at least the basis for the Trump administration’s rhymes
Tuesday 23 May 2017
(9) What this means is, it's UNBELIEVABLY EARLY in the federal criminal investigation into the Trump campaign's Russian ties. *SUPER* EARLY.
(10) This is why the White House, GOP Congressmen, and far-right trolls like Louise Mensch want you to think it's LATE in the investigation.
(13) To this end, right-wing trolls undermine the anti-Trump movement with stories they know are BS about how indictments are "coming soon."
Trump at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum ... "It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends. So amazing + will Never Forget!"
The president’s zeal for self-defeating candor can seize him anytime.
Friday 19 May 2017
Mike Pence would like you to know that Mike Pence is not involved in any of this.
Congress, Trump and the Justice Department still have the power to stymie (or even terminate) Mueller’s inquiry.
Thursday 18 May 2017
“When you're a star, they let you do it.”
Wednesday 17 May 2017
With the stroke of a pen, Rod Rosenstein redeemed his reputation, preserved the justice system, pulled American politics back from the brink — and, just possibly, saved the Republican Party and President Trump from themselves.
It is highly unlikely — there's almost zero chance — Trump would be impeached by a Republican Congress.
Tuesday 16 May 2017
Even as Mr. Trump reassured advisers like Mr. Spicer that their jobs were safe on Monday, he told other advisers that he knew he needed to make big changes but did not know which direction to go, or whom to select.
Monday 15 May 2017
..they spoke for a president who less than a week ago said publicly that his aides and surrogates can’t be expected to give accurate statements, because they don’t always know what’s going on.
It has long been clear that Donald Trump would be an incompetent president. But over the past week he has proven himself to be a dangerously incompetent president.
The pattern has become clear: A foreign official comes to President Trump. They speak. The official leaves with what he or she wants, and Trump emerges chastened, having reversed a major policy, or both.
Finally, Trump’s alleged screw-up with the Russians reveals yet again what we have learned many times in the last four months: The successful operation of our government assumes a minimally competent Chief Executive that we now lack.
Anyone with even a remedial understanding of politics and public relations understands that Trump is bungling the White House reaction to the ongoing investigation
Sunday 14 May 2017
But with the White House lurching from crisis to crisis, the president is hampering Republicans’ efforts to fulfill his promises.
It’s an axiom of Washington scandals that the cover-up tends to be worse than the crime—and it’s lower- or mid-level people who wind up getting caught in the worst legal trouble
Saturday 13 May 2017
A real surprise that’s out of the White House’s control — not a situation of President Donald Trump’s own making that spins out of control because the president and his inner circle sprung a decision on an unprepared staff. But what if there’s a real crisis?
Friday 12 May 2017
“Trump is putting a lot on the backs of his spokespeople, while simultaneously cutting their legs out from underneath them”
Thursday 11 May 2017
Trump conceded that his White House is often too combative, but he added that “the only way you survive is to be combative.”
Wednesday 10 May 2017
I don’t quite get it – if I’m going to do a job with the lowering taxes, better health care, take care of people, take care of hospitalization, all the things we’re doing, because there’s no plan now. You would think that people would like that. And they don’t.
Trump had “essentially declared war on a lot of people at the FBI,” one official said. “I think there will be a concerted effort to respond over time in kind.”
Tuesday 9 May 2017
The president is the first since Watergate to fire an official in the middle of investigating potential misconduct by his own campaign.
A GOP lawmaker just off a tough vote gets so frustrated he walks out of an interview he agreed to do, on a week where his main job is to go home and explain why he supported the controversial health-care bill
Friday 5 May 2017
The problems we are seeing now are due to the uncertainties injected into the market by the Trump administration’s actions to undermine the ACA’s success.
“They kept saying, ‘You need to vote! You need to call the vote!’ But we were trying to give this space and time to develop as opposed to a pressure cooker”
The president’s pitch was simple: If we don't pass this, we're going to be hurt down the road.
Thursday 4 May 2017
Wednesday 3 May 2017
Trump’s insistence that some deal could have prevented the Civil War has plenty in common with the anti-democratic wheeling and dealing of big bankers and slaveholders
Tuesday 2 May 2017
But rarely in the annals of White House palace intrigue have all the president’s anonymice stabbed more backs or spilled more blood than at Donald Trump’s 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Monday 1 May 2017
What we ended up with, from Bill Clinton onward, is a status-quo party and an “undo the system” party, where the Democrats became the status-quo party and the Republicans became the “undo the system” party.
Saturday 29 April 2017
The Times has logged at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days
And that's a lesson many presidents have learned over time — that their greatest domestic achievements come not from the White House but from their ability to work with the 535 people down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Friday 28 April 2017
He’s not unprecedented. He’s not going to change.
Thursday 27 April 2017
A map of the United States that illustrated the areas that would be hardest hit, particularly from agriculture and manufacturing losses, and highlighting that many of those states and counties were “Trump country” communities that had voted for the president in November.
...a White House on a collision course between Trump’s fixed habits and his growing realization that this job is harder than he imagined when he won the election on Nov. 8.
Tuesday 25 April 2017
How is that possible with such low popularity ratings for Trump? It all comes down to the stark partisan divide in our current political culture.
Sunday 23 April 2017
More than half of Americans think Trump hasn't accomplished much in his first 100 days (56 percent).
Saturday 22 April 2017
...giving the appearance of a frenzied search for wins ahead of Saturday’s symbolically important 100th day of the new presidency.
One of the most consistent features of President Donald Trump’s public statements is his drive to take credit and assign blame.
Friday 21 April 2017
It suggests that Trump isn't nearly as confident about his early accomplishments as he led us to believe ... In fact, it suggests he realizes things aren't going well.
Tuesday 18 April 2017
15 percent of reluctant Trump voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their district if the November 2018 elections for U.S. Congress were held today.
Monday 17 April 2017
And the degree to which the wealthy disdained the 2016 Republican candidate was without recent historical precedent.
Sunday 16 April 2017
“He's a transactional guy with humans and it's no different with God -- it's all about whatever is to his advantage with regard to his supporters, and referencing God is exactly and only that”
Friday 14 April 2017
Trump this week threatened not to pay $7 billion to insurers in annual subsidies for giving discounted coverage to low-income Americans.
...the fact our president needed an introductory tutorial on Sino-Korean relations to understand how hard it is to contain Pyongyang is just the latest illustration of one of his blind spots: He and his inner-circle have very little sense of history.
Thursday 13 April 2017
As Trump struggles to keep his campaign promises and flirts with political moderation, his most steadfast supporters ... are increasingly dismayed by the direction of his presidency.
Trump is making gains because he has assembled a competent national security team — and listens to its advice.
Saturday 8 April 2017
A good number of Southern Christians tend to vote Republican, but in truth the values of the rural South are not incompatible with the policies of the Democratic Party.
Friday 7 April 2017
After McConnell justified his filibuster-ending “nuclear option” by saying it would be beneficial for the Senate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said this: “Whoever says that is a stupid idiot.”
Thursday 6 April 2017
Let’s be clear: The so-called nuclear option being seriously contemplated by Republican leaders to eliminate the filibuster of Supreme Court nominations is a tactic of last resort
Wednesday 5 April 2017
“our growing intolerance of an unedited reality”
North Korea has made no secret of its desire to build an inter-continental ballistic missile, or ICBM, capable of reaching the continental United States.
Trump mortgaged everything to win the election by making promises that he lacked any remotely practical plan to fulfill. The gains for him and his party will be scant, and the political costs of obtaining them high.
Sunday 2 April 2017
An Economist-YouGov poll in December found that while only 9 percent of Trump voters had a favorable view of Obama, 35 percent had a favorable view of Putin.
Wednesday 29 March 2017
It is possible Trump will yet recover. But it is also possible he’ll enter a failure loop, where his unpopularity and his scandals and his failed initiatives and his poor management lead to more public anger and more aggressive congressional investigation and more failed initiatives and more fracturing and infighting among his staff.
Republican redistricting guaranteed the GOP a near-lock on the House after the 2010 Census — but it also created a nearly ungovernable caucus. They gerrymandered themselves into this predicament.
Tuesday 28 March 2017
“Since Monday, I’m sorry to say, the chairman has ceased to be the chairman of an investigative committee and has been running interference for the Trump White House, cancelling hearings.”
Monday 27 March 2017
The Freedom Caucus favors a centralized approach to organization, relying on formal rules and procedures to govern their internal decision-making.
...procedures for collective deliberation and code of confidentiality enabled members to work out their differences behind closed doors.
Freedom Caucus members were able to present a united front in negotiations with party leaders.
Sweating the little stuff is important when it comes to legislating. That's especially true for the big things Trump wants to tackle.
Saturday 25 March 2017
In the past week, there have been several startling revelations about the investigations into Donald Trump, his closest allies, and their ties to Russia.
...the evident desire of the chairman of that committee to protect President Trump may only be increasing Trump’s problems.
Friday 24 March 2017
Ryan will remain speaker because no one else wants the job, but in a sense he does not “lead” the House Republicans, let alone the House.
Thursday 23 March 2017
“How could you possibly look out at America and decide that the problem is that rich people don’t have enough money and the Medicare trust fund is too flush?”
He said ruefully this week that he should have done tax reform first when it became clear that the quick-hit health care victory he had hoped for was not going to materialize on Thursday
Apology or not, though, Nunes already has showed his hand: he is playing the role of White House defender rather than Congressional investigator
...Spicer promised that the Republican effort to replace Obamacare wouldn’t be “jammed down people’s throats” in the way he said the Affordable Care Act was in 2010
Wednesday 22 March 2017
"I am writing you directly because I believe you are the last “few good men” who can stand up and reverse the moral rot that has infected the Trump administration from the top."
A growing credibility gap could be hard for Trump to reverse
Tuesday 21 March 2017
Trump has visited his golf courses 10 times since taking office, eight weeks ago.
Monday 20 March 2017
This is just the barrage of disasters, which is something that’s not very familiar to those of us who are trying to report the Putin story.
That’s definitely not the—what we’re experiencing here, and that gives me a little bit of hope, right, because certainly we’re in no danger of losing our sense of outrage at what’s going on.
Saturday 18 March 2017
“Two plus two is four. Three plus one is four. Partly cloudy, partly sunny. Glass half full, glass half empty. Those are alternative facts,” she said, further defining the infamous phrase as “additional facts and alternative information.”
Friday 17 March 2017
...the White House is not full of careless people who skim headlines looking for the ones that sound sort of positive and then send them out in their daily briefing newsletter hoping for the best
Over decades spent in the company of yes men and yes women, he has been able to fire off nonsense without question or rebuke.
It's not exactly a complicated tactic — any grade-schooler can master the "yeah-well-you-suck-too-so-there" defense.
Thursday 16 March 2017
"For someone who says he wants to invest in infrastructure, I don't see any evidence of it in this budget"
The German chancellor is the only leader in Europe who even has a plausible claim to moral leadership.
Wednesday 15 March 2017
But the constant presence of Trump’s senior aides also reflects their desire not to lose their standing in Trump’s complicated orbit — or to let others in.
And because the president doesn’t like to read policy papers or use the Internet, he is more focused on advice and information delivered to him verbally — putting even greater importance on proximity.
“It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you, and everybody actually is out to get everyone else.”
Its fate could also determine how much else he can get done on Capitol Hill in the early stages of his presidency.
Tuesday 14 March 2017
He’s not streamlining government by leaving key positions unfilled. He’s making it less likely that he’ll be able to lock his own policies into place.
Saturday 11 March 2017
They are poor, sick and voted for Trump. What will happen to them without Obamacare?
Friday 10 March 2017
Thursday 9 March 2017
If anything in the WikiLeaks revelations is a bombshell, it is just how strong these encrypted apps appear to be.
Wednesday 8 March 2017
...it's true that Trump's cabinet of robber-barons has lots of dealings with Russians, but that's because every billionaire is in bed with every autocrat
Monday 6 March 2017
Trump is again citing corporate investments planned before he took office as evidence that his policies are growing jobs and business.
But the President believes if he can put enough people back to work and continue to strengthen the economy, then his past offenses will be forgiven by the time he runs for re-election
Faced with an explosive political situation at his feet, he lobs a rhetorical grenade elsewhere, using the resulting blast and confusion to his advantage.
Sunday 5 March 2017
Trump has a problem either way. If he was not wiretapped, he invented a spectacularly false charge. And if a court ordered some sort of surveillance of him, on what grounds did it do so?
Both leaders want a compliant press and are willing to take action toward getting it — some, of course, more extreme than others.
Trump aides were caught Sunday defending the president’s accusation without any evidence to back them up.
Saturday 4 March 2017
There is no evidence – nor did the president provide any – suggesting the Obama administration “tapped” Trump’s phone lines at Trump Tower, or in general for that matter.
Friday 3 March 2017
Here’s the real reason for the delay: The Trump administration can’t solve the problem that has always bedeviled this policy, which is that there isn’t any credible national security rationale for it.
Thursday 2 March 2017
This really should be adjudicated by the elected branches. Problem is: Congress has abdicated.
No one he has ever met or talked to seems to remember him. Not Michael Flynn. Not Attorney General Jeff Sessions. No one.
Reasonable Chatting Trump is crazy about the environment. He’s even worried about climate change. Just ask him, before he forgets. And Donald the Unscripted thinks environmentalism is an evil plot
Back then, the senator described perjury as a “big-time issue,” adding, “I have no doubt that perjury qualifies under the Constitution as a high crime. It goes to the heart of the judicial system.”
Wednesday 1 March 2017
The attention to detail was somewhat unusual for a president who often seems to wing it.
Trump boasted Tuesday night about corporate job expansion and military cost-savings that actually took root under his predecessor
Tuesday 28 February 2017
So, if you were looking for real details about policy matters, you no doubt were disappointed.
Trump, Feb 2017: Now I have to tell you, it's an unbelievebly complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.
Obama, Oct 2016: You know health care is complicated
Obama, Jun 2009: Because our health care system is so complex
Obama, Feb 2009: I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. Once again, it will be hard.
Obama, Mar 2015: Health care is complicated stuff
Obama, Oct 2016: So it's hard to get people focused on the facts
This is not only dumb, but it distracts from more serious and consequential debates like Trump's travel ban, his campaign's contacts with Russian intelligence officials and his war against leaks.
...while each act of hate is easily explained away as the work of a disturbed person, had these attacks been perpetrated by a Muslim or an undocumented immigrant, Trump would surely have claimed that he was right all along.
Monday 27 February 2017
More often than not, the administration’s actions have been both highly unusual and highly consequential
Anyone who has ever dealt with a health insurance company—even over a minor dispute—knows that America’s health care system makes Brazil look like a utopian film about the wonders of efficiency.
To a considerable extent, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have taken to seeing themselves not as part of a separate and competing branch of government, but as arms of their respective political parties.
Sunday 26 February 2017
Reporter writes story WH doesn't like/disputes. WH anonymously plants false story about reporter.
Saturday 25 February 2017
There may be good reasons to worry about Mr. Bannon, but they are not the ones everyone is giving.
Friday 24 February 2017
Mr. Trump launched what was easily the most blistering attack on the media and corporate elites of his already bellicose and eventful presidency.
Thursday 23 February 2017
I have many friends who voted for Trump. I think they’re profoundly wrong, but please don’t dismiss them as hateful bigots.
Wednesday 22 February 2017
The two angry, screaming ladies looked at me, both of them raised their middle finger at me in my face and repeatedly yelled, “F*#% YOU!” Repeatedly.
Tuesday 21 February 2017
The hypocrisy is clarion-clear: This was never, in fact, about free speech at all. It was about making it OK to say racist, sexist, transphobic, and xenophobic things, about tolerating the public expression of those views right up to the point where it becomes financially unwise to do so.
There hasn't been a single day of Trump's presidency in which he has said nothing false or misleading.
“You need to give us an opportunity to admit we may have been wrong without saying we’re bad people.”
I wish that they [the Anne Frank Center] had praised the president for his leadership in this area.
Monday 20 February 2017
... [Sebastian Gorka] the former national security editor for the conservative Breitbart News outlet occupies a senior job in the White House and his controversial ideas — especially about Islam — drive Trump’s populist approach to counterterrorism and national security.
It’s hard to believe it’s been just 31 days since Trump delivered his dystopian inaugural address promising to stop all the “American carnage.”
...the Trump transition team instead ordered CEA staffers to predict sustained economic growth of 3 to 3.5 percent. The staffers were then directed to backfill all the other numbers in their models to produce these growth rates.
“But they are saying: ‘Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You’re an idiot if you support any part of Trump.’”
But the lesson of the fall of Singapore must surely be that Australia can not trust its survival wholly to a foreign power. Even a close ally. Yesterday Britain, today America.
Sunday 19 February 2017
Mr. Jones, in case you aren’t aware, is the conspiracy-theorizing, flame-throwing nationalistic radio and internet star who’s best known for suggesting that Sept. 11 was an inside job, that the Sandy Hook school shooting was “completely fake”
“The press is your enemy,” Nixon said during his first term. “Enemies. Understand that? … Now, never act that way … give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you're trying to be helpful. But don't help the bastards. Ever. Because they're trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”
“The media’s problem is that they keep wanting to make up stories so that he looks bad. It doesn’t work. He’s talking right through you guys.”
—Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister of Sweden
Saturday 18 February 2017
...if you aren't a liberal when you get to the big city, you might be before the year is up.
His objection is to objectivity itself. He’s perfectly happy for the media to be disgusting and corrupt — so long as it’s on his side.
The Supreme Court nominee resides on the right, listens intently to the left and often finds a homespun truth somewhere in between
The new administrator and President Donald Trump are expected to move quickly to begin unraveling the agency's rules on water and climate change.
Mr. Trump remains fixated on the campaign as he applies a loyalty test to some prospective officials.
"...if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press," McCain said in the interview. "And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started."
Friday 17 February 2017
“The rollout was perfect,” Trump said.
“That would have been a really funny hour or so of television if he weren’t president of the United States”
Thursday 16 February 2017
So when you start seeing proposals for health care laws, here are some questions you should ask...
Despite his belligerent tone and the calling out of individual reporters, the President also insisted he was “having a great time” and “not ranting and raving.”
...these tweets suggest that the President is more interested in hunting down leakers than in getting to the bottom of extremely serious allegations against his own administration.
...his past support for more moderate immigration reform put him on the wrong side of the more radical anti-immigration forces in the Trump administration
“Gen. Flynn is a wonderful man,” Trump said. “I think he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the fake media — in many cases.”
Michael Flynn resigned because he got caught, not because of what he did. White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed this with his statement during Tuesday’s press briefing that Flynn did “nothing wrong or inappropriate.”
Wednesday 15 February 2017
Now we know that when Comey spoke up about Clinton while remaining silent about allegations of contact between Trump’s team and the Russian government, not only were there mere allegations but also concrete evidence that such contact was frequent and ongoing.
Nearly all of the North Korean dictator’s potential rivals are now dead.
Tuesday 14 February 2017
In this sense, Trump’s incompetent, variable, and ridiculous behavior is the central pillar upon which his younger support rests.
Everything about this story suggests that the White House has many secrets to hide and little of the time to prepare, the competence to execute or the cooperation of the President to hide them effectively.
Monday 13 February 2017
As Justin Trudeau showed us today, the President's handshake game is notoriously unpredictable, so make sure you're prepared for anything.
It may not be illegal for the president to receive a sensitive security briefing about an enemy missile-launch in a public space surrounded by unvetted third parties, but if so, that's because no one ever dreamed that someone would be stupid enough to do so.
Sunday 12 February 2017
10% of people will always be heroes; 10% will be villains. The other 80% will wait to see what people around them are doing, and take their cues about what’s right and wrong from social norms.
Trump and Obama each issued five executive orders in the first week in office. Prior to Trump, Obama was the first modern-day president since John F. Kennedy to issue more than two in the first week.
In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway?
But for all the president’s authoritarian tendencies and unwillingness to respect traditional norms and institutions, his inability to moderate his mouth, effectively manage the government or successfully negotiate with foreign leaders have left his presidency wounded and weakened.
Saturday 11 February 2017
Mr. Trump is not delivering painful but necessary truth. A country enjoying nearly full employment with low inflation, and with stock market indexes at all-time highs, cannot fairly be described as a “mess.”
We gave Putin a chance in Russia, and it was the last free election we ever had. It’s far better to act and later admit you overreacted than to do nothing until it’s impossible to act.
And of course Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, was an inveterate and incorrigible liar. He was an inventor of news.
...if you look at the courts, that’s one of the most interesting aspects of what Trump has been doing. He clearly has a contempt for the courts and the law, which echoes that of the Nazis very, very clearly.
Many people thought that Hitler was a buffoon. He was a joke. He wasn’t taken seriously. Alternatively, they thought that he could calm down when he assumed the responsibilities of office.
Friday 10 February 2017
Washington has long designed education policy to deal with urban and suburban challenges, often overlooking the unique problems that face rural schools like this one.
In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte, whose “war on drugs” has killed more than 6,000 Filipinos since July, said he would consider accepting refugees affected by Trump’s ban “in the name of humanity.”
Trump often asks simple questions about policies, proposals and personnel. And, when discussions get bogged down in details, the president has been known to quickly change the subject
"Reichstag Fire" was an arson attack on the Reichstag, the German parliament, in Berlin on February 27, 1933. The incident was soon abused by Adolf Hitler and his gang to demand a suspension of civil liberties
Thursday 9 February 2017
President Trump is in his first weeks as President with both houses of Congress under his party's control and he's focused on executive orders rather than legislation.
For this article, I set out to develop a list of telltales that the president is endangering the Constitution and threatening democracy. I failed. In fact, I concluded that there can be no such list, because many of the worrisome things that an antidemocratic president might do look just like things that other presidents have done.
“She was warned,” McConnell said later. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” Wow, nothing worse than a woman who won’t stop talking.
Since Trump entered office, there has been far more back-and-forth between reporters and Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the inauguration crowd size, Trump's bathrobe, and Melissa McCarthy than the Russia scandal.
Wednesday 8 February 2017
The Warriors star responded to Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank's statement that Trump is an "asset" to the country. “I agree with that description,” Curry told The Mercury News, “if you remove the ‘et'."
The GOP’s paternalistic attitude toward women in power is well captured by McConnell’s condescending tone.
...but so many people, even those who opposed him, hoped that he would act like an adult when he got to the White House because, you know, he's the president of the United States and not the school bully.
Adding fuel to the backlash, supporters noted the apparent hypocrisy that Warren's male colleagues were able to read from the letter uninterrupted.
Note that climate change denialism is a flag of convenience for the folks at the top. It's a loyalty oath and a touchstone: they don't necessarily believe it, but it's very convenient to fervently preach it in public if you want to continue to turn a profit.
“Trump’s 2-week-old administration has a third category: leaks from White House and agency officials alarmed by the president’s conduct.”
“Now Trump and his minions are in the driver’s seat, attempting to pose as respectable participants in American politics, when their views come out of a playbook written in German”
Tuesday 7 February 2017
Twenty-seven times, the White House memo misspelled “attacker” or “attackers” as “attaker” or “attakers.” San Bernardino lost its second “r.” “Denmark” became “Denmakr.”
The key tactic of alternative or provocative figures is to leverage the size and platform of their “not-audience” (i.e. their haters in the mainstream) to attract attention and build an actual audience.
Dystopian fiction [...] has seen a recent uptick since the election of President Trump. “Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ and Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ have all risen up the latest paperback bestseller list,” he wrote.
“But it’s more likely we’ll now hear the same trashing of public schools that the disrupters, the privatizers and the austerity hawks have used for the last two decades. That makes this a sad day for children.”
The judiciary, however, is not the branch of government with the most power or the most responsibility to curb Trump’s worst instincts. That designation belongs to the US Congress.
Military officials got Donald Trump to agree to the botched Yemen raid by suggesting Barack Obama would never have had the courage to do it
It was bare-bones in nature and seemed to have been hastily assembled. The document contained numerous typos and several factual inaccuracies. Some of the attacks listed were so high-profile and thoroughly reported that anyone with Google would be hard-pressed to say they didn’t receive sufficient attention.
Ordinarily, presidents use democratic rhetoric with the goal of unifying Americans who have different private beliefs behind the same set of democratic ideals. This president’s rhetoric is significantly different.
Monday 6 February 2017
Pence’s answer was straight out of the fascist playbook. First came the Putinesque emphasis on “action,” “decisiveness,” and “leadership.” [...] Next came the appeal to “safety and security.” [...] Then came the scorn for “niceties”
...this was an opportunity to get the media to run with a lengthy list of terror attacks that, he hoped, would reinforce Trump’s broader message that terror attacks were a constant threat that demanded a strong response.
So there are only two options here. Donald Trump either read this executive order and did not understand what placing Steve Bannon on the National Security Council [...] would mean, which is terrifying...OR Donald Trump didn't read the fucking executive order that he signed.
For many Republican politicos who were critical of Trump during the campaign, the fear of personal retribution from the leader of the free world is softened somewhat by their unwavering conviction of his incompetence.
Sunday 5 February 2017
Another change will be a new set of checks on the previously unfettered power enjoyed by Mr. Bannon and the White House policy director, Stephen Miller
...this approach began, not by accident, with an assault on the press and intelligence community, two entities in American society that traditional provide the verified facts that are the basis for policy decisions.
In a surprise cameo, McCarthy mimicked Spicer's famously combative first appearance with the White House press corps, where he angrily took issue with reports about the size of the crowd at Trump's inauguration.
Saturday 4 February 2017
The goal is not necessarily to assess the relative likelihood of each scenario so much as to keep an open mind so you’re not so surprised when events don’t develop quite as you’d expected.
The real danger is that, inundated with “alternative facts,” many voters will simply shrug, asking, “What is truth?” — and not wait for an answer.
It's only the second week of the Trump administration, but there has been a continued tension with facts.
The magazine Der Spiegel has ignited controversy in Germany and elsewhere with a cover illustration that depicts President Trump as an ISIS executioner, brandishing a bloody knife in one hand and the head of Lady Liberty in the other
Friday 3 February 2017
...the main theme of his even wilder second week was that it’s hard to keep track of all the true signs of dramatic change when they’re all getting jumbled together.
The Bowling Green case is the best known example of refugees who should not have been admitted to the United States slipping through the cracks, though there have been numerous changes to the refugee vetting system since then.
Thursday 2 February 2017
The radio host said he also believed Trump ran for president solely to get a larger contract from NBC for "The Apprentice."
Trump seems to believe that chaos and unpredictability are good in and of themselves because they can keep US adversaries trying to guess what Washington will do next.
Donald Trump is sowing diplomatic chaos around the world just two weeks into his presidency, as he feuds with world leaders and defends an unpredictable style that has alarmed friends and foes alike.
Yes, the president used the National Prayer Breakfast to talk about television ratings for a reality show – which he remains the executive producer of – because everything at all times is about him and his career.
Democracies have turned into dictatorships not only through violent revolutions, but through elected officials seizing power and nobody stopping them.
Bernstein also noted that the same Republican Party that assailed Democrat Hillary Clinton for alleged conflicts of interest is now turning a blind eye to Trump's potential exposure.
He’s also a flamboyant provocateur who has been denounced for propagating racism, misogyny and anti-Islam views, but he styles himself a champion of free speech.
Wednesday 1 February 2017
I can affirm that whoever wrote Trump’s executive order blocking refugees from the United States is wholly unfamiliar with the U.S. immigration system, U.S. laws, international law and the security threats facing our nation.
Douglass has been dead for more than 120 years.
“It’s amateur hour,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at management consultancy RSM US. “Euro grossly overvalued? Repatriation of U.S. supply chain? That way lies perdition. Pun intended.”
Trump gained power legally but this week has provided many indications that his inner circle intends to shock or strike at the system, using the resulting spaces of chaos and flux to create a kind of government within the government: one beholden only to the chief executive.
Tuesday 31 January 2017
“In early December, FSB Colonel Sergei Mikhailov, who was responsible for cyberwars and cyberattacks… was arrested by the FSB; yes, with a bag over his head,” he said.
What is spreading today is repressive kleptocracy, led by rulers motivated by greed rather than by the deranged idealism of Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Such rulers rely less on terror and more on rule-twisting, the manipulation of information, and the co-optation of elites.
Ironically, however, the question came from a deeply concerned Jeff Sessions who really had a bee in his bonnet about how critical it was for the DOJ to be prepared to defy improper directives.
Monday 30 January 2017
But we’ve never witnessed a political aide move as brazenly to consolidate power as Stephen Bannon
He has plans to commit awful acts of sabotage like flushing strange things down the toilet, because here there is a toilet to flush. He has plans to grow up to become the most terrifying thing in the world: an American.
...the administration is deliberately testing the limits of governmental checks and balances to set up a self-serving, dangerous consolidation of power.
...from the perspective of the outsider, weak leaders often act like strong leaders, and strong leaders often act like they are indifferent.
Trump's party has control of Congress. He's just impatient.
...he warned that the nation is facing a moment of “tremendous danger”
Sunday 29 January 2017
While Trump entered office with record-low approval, he now stands at a dismal 42 percent approval
That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government.
Precisely because the problem is one of temperament and character, it will not get better.
Others saw it as a wrecking operation, aimed at debilitating the state department at a time of upheaval
You know, I was stopped many times, weren’t you, after 9/11. I didn't resemble, or share a name with or be part of any kind of terrorist conspiracy, but this is what we do to keep a nation safe.
In cases like this, the smart money is usually on incompetence, not malice. But this looks more like deliberate malice to me. Bannon wanted turmoil and condemnation.
Why, then, does Trump’s first week and a half in office seem so surprising, even to those of us who weren’t expecting a kindler, gentler Trump?
Saturday 28 January 2017
NBC is reporting that the document was not reviewed by DHS, the Justice Department, the State Department, or the Department of Defense, and that National Security Council lawyers were prevented from evaluating it.
Trump’s executive order has led to the flagrantly unconstitutional detention of perfectly legal immigrants whose lone crime is their national origin and religion.
Friday 27 January 2017
With a flurry of provocative executive orders, surreal events, unapologetic falsehoods and did-he-really-say-that tweets, Trump continued to obliterate political norms, serving notice that the gaze of history won’t change who he is.
"It was during the Holocaust that the world shamefully refused to give asylum to Jews and to others who were being murdered or about to be murdered in Nazi Germany"
When we are in an environment headed by someone who lies, so often, something frightening happens: We stop reacting to the liar as a liar.
I was homeschooled and my parents were part of a subculture called Quiverfull, whose aim is to outbreed everyone for Jesus.
...the statement “misses that it was six million Jews who perished, not just ‘innocent people’”
Even before Jan. 20, Mexico was already a tinderbox.
Time and again, the image of Trump pushed by his “aides” is one of a clueless child — someone who acts on impulse, disregarding the better advice of people who know better.
Thursday 26 January 2017
I'm a mid-level White House staffer and I can't believe what I signed up for.
Trump delivered a sixteen-minute inaugural address, the first in American history to use the words “bleed,” “ravages,” and “carnage.”
But his meetings now begin at 9 a.m., earlier than they used to, which significantly curtails his television time. Still, Mr. Trump, who does not read books, is able to end his evenings with plenty of television.
Wednesday 25 January 2017
In 2012, Kosinski proved that on the basis of an average of 68 Facebook “likes” by a user, it was possible to predict their skin colour (95% accuracy) their sexual orientation (88% accuracy), and their affiliation to the Democrat or Republican party (85%).
Tuesday 24 January 2017
The self-ignited controversies in the first five days of his presidency [...] hints at a deeper and consuming need to be demonstrated as legitimate
There is no evidence to support the claim, which has been discredited repeatedly by numerous fact-checkers.
He triumphs when opponents trade righteous anger for crude tantrums.
Monday 23 January 2017
He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.
The most immediate hurdle facing the lawsuit [...] whether the group has the legal standing to challenge Trump in the first place
Imagine having a campaign rally at the National Cemetary.
Sunday 22 January 2017
Anyone — citizen or journalist — who is surprised by false claims from the new inhabitant of the Oval Office hasn’t been paying attention.
...and launch the "new right," which he said would be free of the racist tendencies the alt-right had become all too known for.
Saturday 21 January 2017
I know signs. I make the best signs. They’re great. Everyone agrees.
He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved.
Crowds in hundreds of cities around the world gathered Saturday in conjunction with the Women’s March on Washington.