Don’t read this if you’re feeling at all queasy. It was party time at Donnie’s place yesterday.

President Donald Trump recognized the “great chairman” Sen. Orrin Hatch while celebrating the passage of the Republican tax plan Wednesday on the White House steps.

In turn, Hatch, R-Utah, said, “We’re going to keep fighting to make this the greatest presidency we’ve seen not only in generations but maybe ever.”

That’s like holding a bowl of warm shit and saying you’re going to keep fighting to make this the most beautiful marble sculpture we’ve seen not only in generations but maybe ever. You can’t turn a bowl of warm shit into a marble sculpture and you can’t turn a Trump presidency into the … Read the rest

Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic reminds us that Twitter carves out big exceptions to its new policy.

The guidelines do not draw a distinction between user behavior on or off the site: If someone tweets only in coded language on Twitter, but calls for racial violence or genocide elsewhere on the web or in person, then they could still be banned from the service.

While logos or symbols affiliated with hate groups will not result in someone getting banned, they will carry a sensitive media tag, meaning that they will not automatically display to the site’s users.

But “context matters when evaluating for abusive behavior,” warns Twitter, and they have included two big exceptions in the new policy. First, their

Max Boot at Foreign Policy also lines up the sinister portents hinting at a near future in which a criminal overturns the US government and takes dictatorial power.

There is the claim that Mueller is biased because he is friends with fired FBI Director James Comey, who is anti-Trump even though Comey did as much as anyone to elect Trump. That members of Mueller’s staff have made campaign donations to Democrats. That the FBI erred in showing interest in the dossier on Kremlin-Trump links compiled by a respected former MI6 officer. That FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife received money from Hillary Clinton (in fact, she received campaign funds from the Democratic Party of Virginia and a political action committee

Speaking of dicks – Trump’s gang is pretending Mueller did a bad.

A lawyer representing President Trump’s transition team claimed Saturday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III improperly obtained a trove of transition emails as part of the inquiry into Russian influence in the 2016 election and other matters.

The batch of emails totaling thousands of pages of communications was provided to Mueller by the federal General Services Administration, a lawyer representing the organization known as Trump for America said in a letter delivered to congressional investigators.

Blah blah blah unauthorized blah blah private blah.

Mueller’s people said nah we didn’t.

The letter from Langhofer is the latest in a series of legal and public relations moves by

Get a load of this headline at Reuters:

Trump allies say Mueller unlawfully obtained thousands of emails

You what? Trump’s friends say Mueller got emails unlawfully? Are they drunk?

… Read the rest

Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian reminds us (as do many) that while we’re fuming at Trump’s misogynist insults he’s doing damage that will last for decades.

Freedland starts with the murder of net neutrality and the blizzard of judicial appointments.

Needless to say, 91% of Trump’s nominees are white and 81% are male, re-stacking the judiciary with white men at a rate unseen for 30 years, reversing decades of steady progress towards a bench that resembles the society it judges.

Trump knows what he’s doing, hailing this shift as an “untold story” that “has consequences 40 years out”. He’s right about that. Judges are appointed for life. A judiciary made in Trump’s image will live on long after he’s

Trump really really wants to make it more difficult and expensive for women to get contraception because that’s the kind of guy he is, but he’s hit a roadblock.

A federal court on Friday blocked Trump administration rules that made it easier for employers to deny insurance coverage of contraceptives for women.

Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia issued a preliminary injunction, saying the rules contradicted the text of the Affordable Care Act by allowing many employers to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage if they had religious or moral objections.

In the lawsuit, filed by the State of Pennsylvania, the judge said the rules would cause irreparable harm because tens of thousands of women

He also hinted he plans to pardon Flynn.

“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the F.B.I. and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”

There’s that theory of mind problem again. He watches Fox and translates that into “people” in general. His people are a minority, at this point a quite small minority.

Yet https://t.co/nyVIsuVEqd

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) December 15, 2017

No pardon for Flynn or bye-bye Trump.
No pardon for Trump or bye-bye Pence.
Nobody is above the law.

Trump on a Flynn pardon: 'Let's see' @CNNPolitics https://t.co/MWu2TPx1um

—

Trump is attempting to convince us all that he gets to fire Mueller and pardon Flynn and go on his way rejoicing.

President Trump said Friday there is tremendous anger over what he called the FBI’s “disgraceful’’ behavior, taking aim at the bureau just before he appeared at its training facility to praise the nation’s police officers.

“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI,’’ the president told reporters as he prepared to depart the White House for a ceremony at the FBI’s National Academy in Quantico, Va., where more than 200 law enforcement officers graduated from a program that imparts FBI expertise and standards.

“We’re going to rebuild the FBI, it’ll be bigger and better than ever, but it

The Post has a big think piece on Trump’s completely self-centered attitude to the Russia question. On the one hand yo, national security, rival power, hostile rival power; on the other hand, me me me me ME me me.

The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. The repercussions radiate across the government.

Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat

Donald Trump on whatever popped into his head:

Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia – so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017

Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017

The people

Trump wants us to know that he doesn’t squander his valuable time watching tv. Instead he squanders it telling us he doesn’t squander it watching tv.

Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day – Wrong! Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News. I never watch Don Lemon, who I once called the “dumbest man on television!” Bad Reporting.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2017

Cool story, but the Post rudely points out that the timing doesn’t back him up.

President Trump tweeted on Monday morning that he does not watch as much television as a recent New

He really did say it. Go to 2:20 and see for yourself; he really said it. “That’s big stuff. That’s big stuff. Those are very big phrases, very big words.”

He’d just gotten through saying them – oppression, cruelty, injustice, inflicted – and he managed it without stumbling. Ooooooh Mommy I said the big big words.

It should have been John Lewis. John Lewis stayed away because Trump was there – so instead of John Lewis who actually understands and feels the words because he lived them, they got Trump who thinks they’re meaningless, and couldn’t care less.

Editing to add a photo from March 2015:

… Read the rest

And then – more from the Times piece – there’s Trump’s way of evaluating fact claims.

In almost all the interviews, Mr. Trump’s associates raised questions about his capacity and willingness to differentiate bad information from something that is true.

Monitoring his information consumption — and countering what Mr. Kelly calls “garbage” peddled to him by outsiders — remains a priority for the chief of staff and the team he has made his own. Even after a year of official briefings and access to the best minds of the federal government, Mr. Trump is skeptical of anything that does not come from inside his bubble.

The hardcore Trumpists of course think that’s a good thing. His bubble is the best … Read the rest