Trump grew increasingly and visibly enraged

Jan 24th, 2017 11:29 am | By

Last night the Post confided in us about what’s going on in Donnie’s office. He’s not happy. He’s surprised and upset that some of us think he’s terrible.  He’s surprised and upset that a lot of us think he’s terrible.

When he came back to the White House on Saturday after a nice soothing prayer meeting, he turned on the tv only to see news about the protests and the scanty turnout for his sacred inauguration.

As his press secretary, Sean Spicer, was still unpacking boxes in his spacious new West Wing office, Trump grew increasingly and visibly enraged.

Really?! How astonishing. He always seemed like such a reasonable, even-keeled, good-natured guy, one who would naturally expect to see some people unhappy with his presidency, and would take it in his stride and focus on the important stuff.

Trump’s advisers suggested that he could push back in a simple tweet. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Trump confidant and the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, offered to deliver a statement addressing the crowd size.

But Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.

Ok that’s interesting – it’s interesting to know they were urging him not to.

But it’s also slightly perplexing. They must know him and know what he’s like. If they think it’s a bad idea to explode in rage at the citizenry on the slightest provocation, then why are they working for him?

Spicer’s resulting statement — delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods — underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump’s campaign have been transported to the White House.

The broader power struggles within the Trump operation have touched everything from the new administration’s communications shop to the expansive role of the president’s son-in-law to the formation of Trump’s political organization. At the center, as always, is Trump himself, whose ascent to the White House seems to have only heightened his acute sensitivity to criticism.

That’s our only consolation, I think, at least for now. It’s the straw I’ve been clinging to for weeks – the fact that his election was going to mean he’ll be faced with more and harsher opposition and contempt than he’s ever had to deal with before. It’s a vindictive consolation, but it’s all we have.

By most standards, Spicer’s statement Saturday did not go well. He appeared tired and nervous in an ill-fitting gray pinstripe suit. He publicly gave faulty facts and figures — which he said were provided to him by the Presidential Inaugural Committee — that prompted a new round of media scrutiny.

Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump’s mind, Spicer’s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.

The president himself, of course, can’t utter a coherent sentence unless it’s composed and written down by someone else.

Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media’s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.

Good. Excellent. More of that. Maybe he’ll get so demoralized that he’ll leave. I know Pence is even worse on policy, but I want Trump gone.

Trump watched Sunday as Conway sparred with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” Some Trump allies were unsettled by her performance, but not the president, according to one official. He called Vice President Pence to rave about how she handled questions from Todd, whom Trump mocked on Twitter as “Sleepy Eyes,” and called Conway to offer his congratulations. Trump was perturbed that the media focused on two words from Conway’s interview: “alternative facts.”

So he’s still calling people names in public. Even as president.

Tiny Hands. Sleepy Brain. Alternative Hair.



Thrust ahead

Jan 24th, 2017 10:15 am | By

Of course he did.

President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday clearing the way for the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines to move forward.

He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.”

Yes indeed – we mustn’t take the time necessary to investigate the environmental impacts of what we do, even at this time when we know for sure that we’ve already made the world a much more difficult place for future generations. Hell no, we must barge ahead regardless, because we’re just that greedy and selfish.

The orders will have an immediate impact in North Dakota, where the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners wants to complete the final 1,100-foot piece of the 1,172-mile pipeline route that runs under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would carry oil from the booming shale oil reserves in North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native American groups have been protesting the project, which they say would imperil their water supplies and disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites. The Army Corp of Engineers called a halt to the project in December to consider alternative routes.

The executive order from Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline threatens to undo a major decision by President Obama…

And that of course is all the reason President Shithead needs.



In what direction do we pray?

Jan 24th, 2017 9:54 am | By

With his usual modesty, Trump declared himself our new object of “patriotic devotion.”

President Trump has officially declared the day of his inauguration a national day of patriotism.

Trump’s inaugural address on Friday frequently referred to patriotism as the salve that would heal the country’s divisions. “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice,” Trump said from the steps of the Capitol after being sworn in as president.

Later that day, Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, said that naming a national day of patriotism was among the executive actions that Trump took in his first few hours as president.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.

On Monday, the paperwork was filed with the federal government declaring officially that Jan. 20, 2017 — the day of Trump’s inauguration — would officially be known as the “National Day of Patriotic Devotion.”

“Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, president of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Jan. 20, 2017, as National Day of Patriotic Devotion, in order to strengthen our bonds to each other and to our country — and to renew the duties of government to the people,” the order says.

“Our Constitution is written on parchment, but it lives in the hearts of the American people,” the order continues. “There is no freedom where the people do not believe in it; no law where the people do not follow it; and no peace where the people do not pray for it.”

Hail the new Volksgemeinschaft.



Everyone had an awesome time

Jan 23rd, 2017 6:01 pm | By

The Washington Post has some Sean Spicer memes.

https://twitter.com/Jamie_Foreman/status/823045216504606724



More alternate facts

Jan 23rd, 2017 4:03 pm | By

Well at least Trump is unhappy about how many people hate him. That’s something. It’s a start.

Sean Spicer explained that to the press today.

Toward the end, Spicer gave an impassioned defense of why Trump dwells so much on things like his inauguration crowd size, arguing that Trump is very frustrated by constant negative coverage and the media minimizing him. He basically said it amounted to a defense mechanism from the president. It was really rather interesting.

Good. Of course it would be better if Trump were ashamed or contrite, but frustration is better than nothing. All he has to do now is figure out that the “constant negative coverage” is because he, Trump, is such a shitty, evil, bullying, horrible human being. And then resign, and retire from all public life, and work on being not so loathsome.

It’s true: toward the end Spicer does get into that. It’s very silly stuff.

QUESTION: But — but in terms of the crowd size issue, why bring that up at the CIA? And why did you come out Saturday afternoon to talk about that? Did he tell you, Sean, I’m upset about this, I want you to come out and —

SPICER: No, I’m not going to get into conversations that I have with the president. But I will tell you that it’s not — it’s not just about a crowd size. It’s about this constant — you know, he’s not going to run. Then if he runs, he’s going to drop out. Then if he runs, he can’t win, there’s no way he can win Pennsylvania, there’s no way he can win Michigan.

SPICER: Then, if won, it’s oh, well he(ph) — there is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. And I think that it’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win.

QUESTION: And — and if I may —

SPICER: Hold on — because I — I think it’s important. He’s gone out there and defied the odds over and over and over again. And he keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there. And he exceeds it every single time. And I think there’s an overall frustration when you — when you turn on the television over and over again and get told that there’s this narrative that you didn’t win. You weren’t going to run. You can’t pick up this state.

Ok there’s a misunderstanding here (or a pretended misunderstanding). It’s true that many in the news media underestimated the recklessness of the voters. But that of course isn’t what frustrates Trump – what Trump is agitated about is that he thinks the news media underestimated him. He thinks that because he thinks he’s hot shit. He isn’t. He’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Yes he won, because too many voters like a worthless empty-headed bully if they’ve seen him on tv enough. But the fact that he won (just barely, and not in terms of the popular vote) does not mean he’s hot shit.

He’s frustrated because we can see that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Well that’s his problem – he decided to run for the presidency, so he made it obvious to the world that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. That’s not the fault of the news media, it’s the fault of Trump himself, for being a worthless empty-headed bully.

QUESTION: Isn’t it a fair criticism that you’ve got bigger fish to fry? Why worry about a couple of tweets about crowd size?

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: Because it’s not — because that’s what I’m saying, you’re minimizing the point here, Jim. It’s not about one Tweet. It’s not about one picture. It’s about a constant theme. It’s about sitting here every time and being told no. “Well, we don’t think he can do that, he’ll never accomplish that, he can’t win that, it won’t be the biggest, it’s not gonna be that good. The crowds aren’t that big, he’s not that successful.”

The narrative — and the default narrative is always negative and it’s demoralizing. And I think that when you sit here and you realize the sacrifice the guy made, leaving a very, very successful business because he really cares about this country and he wants — despite your partisan differences, he cares about making this country better for everybody. He wants to make it safer for everybody. And so when you wake up everyday and that’s what you’re seeing over and over again and you’re not seeing stories about the Cabinet folks that he’s appointing or the success that he’s having trying to keep American jobs here. Yes, it is a little disappointing.

No. He does not. He does not care about making this country better for everybody. People who care about that do not talk to and about people the way he does. They don’t look at people the way he does. They don’t do the things he does. People like that don’t cheat workers and contractors, they don’t call people names on Twitter, they don’t grab women by the pussy and brag to other men about being able to grab women by the pussy.

No more sob stories please.



Corruption is corruption

Jan 23rd, 2017 12:28 pm | By

NPR reports on that lawsuit.

A team of ethics experts and legal scholars filed a lawsuit in federal court this morning that says President Donald Trump’s overseas businesses violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars presidents from taking money from foreign governments.

The group says it is asking the court “to stop Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments” with ties to Trump interests. The lawsuit states that:

“These violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause pose a grave threat to the United States and its citizens. As the Framers were aware, private financial interests can subtly sway even the most virtuous leaders, and entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious threat to the Republic.”

But we’re supposed to trust that Trump is above all that. Yes, certainly, because obviously the greed for more money has never motivated him before so why would it start now? Obviously he’s one of the more public-spirited people in the world, so all these paltry millions in profits won’t influence him in the slightest.

The suit on the other hand gives illustrations of how they could.

For example, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which is owned by the Chinese government, is a tenant at Trump Tower in New York, and its lease is due to expire during Trump’s term, the suit says. This could mean that the Chinese government will be in negotiations with the Trump Organization to renew the lease.

Another tenant is the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, which is owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates, the lawsuit notes.

The suit also says that Trump collects royalties from his TV show The Apprentice and its various spinoffs, many of which air on broadcast networks owned or controlled by foreign governments.

It also cites numerous examples of Trump properties in Indonesia, Turkey, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Scotland that require various government permits and exemptions.

“When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman,” according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is part of the suit.

Except that we will, really, because of what we already know about him. We know he will indeed also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman, because that’s all there is to him. He’s an empty bag of vanity and greed, with no trace whatever of disinterested commitment to serve all the people.

The legal scholars and former White House ethics officials filing the lawsuit include Richard Painter, ethics adviser to President George W. Bush; Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine; and Supreme Court litigator Deepak Gupta.

Former Obama administration ethics adviser Norman Eisen told Morning Edition recently that Trump’s business ties violate the emoluments clause in numerous ways:

“We need travel no further than a few blocks from the White House, the Trump Hotel. There’s been controversy now about whether or not they’re pressuring governments to leave other hotels in Washington and come to their hotel.

“Whether those allegations are proven or not, there can be no question that the Trump Hotel in D.C. is aggressively seeking business from foreign governments. Once Mr. Trump takes the oath of office, that will be a violation of the Constitution.”

It remains to be seen how the lawsuit will be received, because the courts have never ruled on how the emoluments clause relates to the president. Trump’s lawyers have already indicated they will oppose the suit.

This is so fucking degrading. It makes Teapot Dome look altruistic in comparison.



Denying women access

Jan 23rd, 2017 11:33 am | By

Found a news item other than “LifeSite” and similar – the Huffington Post reports:

In one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump has reinstated a federal ban on U.S. funding for international health organizations that counsel women on family planning options that include abortion.

The Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule, was first put in place by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. It prohibits giving U.S. funding to nongovernmental organizations that offer or advise on a wide range of family planning and reproductive health options if they include abortion ― even if U.S. dollars are not specifically used for abortion-related services.

Since then, the gag rule has been something of a political football, rescinded and reinstated as soon as presidents take office. President Bill Clinton did away with the rule, President George W. Bush reinstated it and then President Barack Obama again revoked it in 2009.

Shame on Reagan, shame on Bush, shame on Trump.

The United States spends about $600 million a year on international assistance for family planning and reproductive health programs, making it possible for 27 million women and couples to access contraceptive services and supplies.

None of that money is spent on performing abortions. The Helms Amendment has prevented U.S. tax dollars from funding overseas abortions since 1973. Proponents of the global gag rule believe the policy is nevertheless still necessary, arguing that Helms isn’t strong enough by itself.

But the Guttmacher Institute and other opponents of the gag rule say that such restrictions have devastating effects on international organizations, often forcing them to close their clinics or reduce their services, denying women access to help from safe providers and even hampering HIV prevention efforts.

It’s just punitive bullying, that’s all. It’s punishing poor women on the far side of the planet, just for the sake of punishing them. It’s sexist, it’s misogynist, it’s bullying.

The policy has severe implications and could be deadly for women and girls in developing countries and conflict zones, who often resort to dangerous methods of ending their pregnancies when they lack access to safe abortion. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 21 million women a year have unsafe abortions in developing countries, accounting for about 13 percent of all maternal deaths.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the only woman on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Foreign Policy that she is planning a legislative response to the reinstatement of global gag rule.

“I will continue to stand up to President Trump and Republican leadership in Congress who are intent on rolling back women’s access to reproductive healthcare, and will soon be introducing bipartisan legislation aimed to repeal the Global Gag Rule for good,” the senator said. “Women around the world deserve to make important personal health care decisions without politicians in Washington interfering.”

It’s war.



Pussygrabber in chief signs death sentence for thousands of women

Jan 23rd, 2017 11:24 am | By

More commentary on President Pussygrabber’s attack on the women of the world:



Demons

Jan 23rd, 2017 11:18 am | By

Cecile Richards says Trump has reinstated the global gag rule.

So far the only news stories I can find are from anti-abortion sites.

On the other hand this guy seems to have found Fox reporting it:

Someone else has a photo of the gang:



All about Sophie

Jan 23rd, 2017 7:15 am | By

Trans “activism” at its “center your movement on meeeeeeeeee” worst:

“Girlhood and womanhood aren’t defined by genitalia”

Yesterday’s Women’s marches were overall a big success and an amazing time to come together, but several messages seemed to come straight out of the sixties. Feminism can do better.

Image may contain: text

How dare women make a defiant and humorous point in order to push back against Donald “pussygrabber” Trump? How dare women allude to Trump’s belligerent contempt for women by mocking his “grab them by the pussy” brag? How dare women refer to their own anatomies? Women should be ashamed of themselves for doing such a thing. Women should be ashamed of their bodies and certainly of their genitalia.



Lies and threats

Jan 22nd, 2017 5:37 pm | By

The Times notes the news media’s alarm at the Trump gang’s rabid hostility to the news media. Ahhh but the Times would, wouldn’t it, because the Times is part of the evil cabal. Right? Right?

For wary Washington journalists, it seemed only a matter of time before Donald J. Trump’s presidency would lead to a high-tension standoff between his administration and the news media.

But on Day 1?

It was startlingly prompt.

The news media world found itself in a state of shock on Sunday, a day after Mr. Trump declared himself in “a running war with the media” and the president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, used his first appearance on the White House podium to deliver a fiery jeremiad against the press.

Worse, many journalists said, were the falsehoods that sprang from the lips of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer on Saturday. Mr. Trump accused the news media of confecting a battle between himself and the intelligence services (in fact, he had previously compared the services to Nazi Germany in a Twitter post), and among other easily debunked assertions, Mr. Spicer falsely claimed that Mr. Trump’s inauguration was the most attended in history (photographs indicated it was not).

Maybe there were a million or so invisible people there. Photographs can’t photograph invisible people, can they, Smarty Boots.

The tensions flared anew on Sunday when Kellyanne Conway, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, said in a television interview that Mr. Spicer had merely presented “alternative facts” about the inauguration, prompting an astonished response from her questioner, Chuck Todd of NBC.

“Wait a minute — ‘alternative facts’?” Mr. Todd asked Ms. Conway on “Meet the Press.” “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

Well Donald Trump didn’t kindly take time out from his busy schedule to run the country just so that demons like Chuck Todd can be rude about Donald Trump’s alternative facts.

When Mr. Todd pressed her about why the administration had put Mr. Spicer behind the lectern for the first time to “utter a provable falsehood,” Ms. Conway responded with a sharp threat. “If we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here,” she said.

They all think he’s a dictator and they can impose his will on us. I hope they’re wrong.

In reporting on the day’s events, many news organizations also called out the falsehoods that Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer offered on Saturday, using variations of “false,” “falsehoods” and“lies” in headlines and stories.

That’s unusual, but Trump might as well be daring them to call him a liar.



Lawsuit on the way

Jan 22nd, 2017 5:10 pm | By

Good; it begins.

A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments.

The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government.

In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause amounts to a ban on payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears by the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments.

I hope it’s not only liberal advocacy organizations. I hope conservatives too are opposed to corruption and flagrant conflicts of interest.

The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses, as well as loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments, and leases with tenants like the Abu Dhabi tourism office, a government enterprise.

You don’t want a president who has financial motivations that could easily displace the motivations that are supposed to operate – the public good and the national interest, basically.

But…the cheaters have a way to shut that whole thing down.

The lawsuit may run into trouble, other legal experts said, given that CREW, as the organization is known, must demonstrate that it would suffer direct and concrete injury to give it standing to sue.

That pisses me off, because we shouldn’t have to demonstrate that we personally will suffer “direct and concrete injury” in order to stop a president being grotesquely corrupt. That shouldn’t be how any of this works.



Three times bigger

Jan 22nd, 2017 1:38 pm | By

The Times reports that the Women’s March in DC yesterday was about three times the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.

Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday.

They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.

Donnie from Queens won’t like that.



Oy

Jan 22nd, 2017 12:59 pm | By

Image may contain: 2 people



The restoration

Jan 22nd, 2017 12:49 pm | By

It’s just a proposed bill so far. Maybe it will be ignored or laughed at…or maybe not.

A proposed House Resolution would set the stage for the United States to remove itself from the United Nations.

The proposed “American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017” is sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL). It was introduced in the House on Jan. 3 and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, according to the Congress website.

The bill proposes that the United States terminate its membership in the UN, that the UN removes its headquarters from the US, and that the US stops participating in the World Health Organization. Read the full bill here.

Murka First amirite?

 



Largest protests in US history

Jan 22nd, 2017 12:04 pm | By

Yesterday.



How to be human

Jan 22nd, 2017 11:59 am | By

Compare:

H/t Holms

Updating to add: from another angle:

Image may contain: 1 person, standing and outdoor



Paid great respect to Wall

Jan 22nd, 2017 11:40 am | By

The Daily DonnieOnTwitter:

Just look at that horrible horrible picture. The scowl, the fist – and that’s a picture they choose to highlight, and it’s the picture he chooses to tweet at us. He wants to be seen as a disgusting bully; he likes that image of himself.

Who does that? Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, but besides them?

President Angry Bully. That’s how he chooses to present himself to us. It’s horrifying.

“paid great respect to Wall” – god what a stupid little man he is. He must have seen the news stories about how he stood next to the wall commemorating agents killed on the job and whined about his grievances at the media, and so he chose to say Nuh uh, he “paid great respect to Wall” – which simply disrespects it all over again. It’s sandwiched between two claims about his vast popularity, and it’s empty and offhand – not how one does “respect.”

In other words how dare people protest him. Yes, we know, and you can’t stop us, not unless you do go full-fascist.

Also, “Celebs hurt cause badly” is pretty funny coming from him. If he were not a “celeb” he would still be a failed casino-builder.

Now we get to the important stuff – his tv ratings. They’re awesome, dude! Best ever! Top celeb!

Two hours after the whine about the protests. Someone must have had a word in his shell-like about the troublesome fact that we have rights to speak and gather and protest in this country, the one he presumes to govern. It’s a tad disconcerting that he needs to be reminded.



Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.

Jan 21st, 2017 5:43 pm | By

Robert Reich on Facebook today:

I had breakfast recently with a friend who’s a former Republican member of Congress. Here’s what he said:

Him: Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.

Me: Then why didn’t you speak out against him during the campaign?

Him: You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.

Me: So what now? What are your former Republican colleagues going to do?

Him (smirking): They’ll play along for a while.

Me: A while?

Him: They’ll get as much as they want – tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare – and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.

Me: And then what?

Him (laughing): They like Pence.

Me: What do you mean?

Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.

Me: So what?

Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb – steps over the line – violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way … and you know he will …

Me: They impeach him?

Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.

They can of course do a lot of damage in that time they “play along.”



A calculated attempt to delegitimize any questioning of Trump by a free press

Jan 21st, 2017 5:11 pm | By

CNN is caustic about Spicer’s rant.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” Spicer said, contradicting all available data.

Aerial photos have indicated that former president Barack Obama’s first inauguration attracted a much larger crowd. Nielsen ratings show that Obama also had a bigger television audience.

Spicer said, without any evidence, that some photos were “intentionally framed” to downplay Trump’s crowd.

Evidence! Pah! Absolute monarchs don’t bother with evidence.

He also expressed objections to specific Twitter posts from journalists. And he said, “we’re going to hold the press accountable,” partly by reaching the public through social networking sites.

Spicer, at times almost yelling while reading a prepared statement, took no questions. CNNMoney called his cell phone a few minutes later; he did not answer.

Some longtime White House correspondents were stunned by the tirade.

Glenn Thrush of The New York Times wrote on Twitter, “Jaw meet floor.”

“I’ve run out of adjectives,” wrote Chuck Todd, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post said Spicer’s assertion about “what you guys should be writing” was “chilling.”

They’re building the resistance.

Ari Fleischer, who had the same job as Spicer during the George W. Bush administration, tweeted, “This is called a statement you’re told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching.”

And Brian Fallon, who was in line to become press secretary if Hillary Clinton had won, wrote, “Sean Spicer lacks the guts or integrity to refuse orders to go out and lie. He is a failure in this job on his first full day.”

Former Democratic congressman Steve Israel, who recently joined CNN as a commentator, said, “This isn’t a petty attack on the press. It’s a calculated attempt to delegitimize any questioning of @realDonaldTrump by a free press.”

Spicer’s statement came two hours after Trump spoke at CIA headquarters and described his “running war with the media.” Trump spent several minutes of that speech complaining about news coverage.

So I guess Trump will be even more furious tomorrow, because of this coverage we’re reading right now? And Spicer will shout even louder? And the press will report on that?

Close the shutters. Lay in plenty of chocolate and coffee. Make a will.