Slate points out (as do others) how long it took Donnie the Racist to say anything about the horror in Portland. When he finally did, he of course didn’t mention anything about racism. Also he did it (or more likely a staffer did it) from his official prez account, not the personal one where he constantly erupts at the news media and most of the population.

The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them.

— President Trump (@POTUS) May 29, 2017

For a candidate that became a darling of the white nationalist fringe, thrusting them closer to the mainstream of American life, the absence of

It’s shaming how stark the isolation is.

In an unusual admission, Group of Seven (G7) leaders have said in their final communique from a summit in Italy that they had failed to bridge differences over climate change with US President Donald Trump – and America was unable to join other countries in committing to the Paris Agreement.

“The United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics,” the communique read.

“Understanding this process, the heads of state and of government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom and the presidents of

Our problem child didn’t impress the more intelligent, polite, informed, thoughtful heads of state who encountered him on his Adventure Overseas.

Europe can no longer “completely depend” on the US and UK following the election of President Trump and Brexit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

Mrs Merkel said she wanted friendly relations with both countries as well as Russia but Europe now had to “fight for its own destiny”.

It follows the G7’s failure to commit to the 2015 Paris climate deal, talks Mrs Merkel said were “very difficult”.

And they were very difficult why? Because our stupid self-willed narcissistic president refused to co-operate, because he thinks his ego is more important than the future survival of everyone on the … Read the rest

Trump viewed from the vantage point of Jon Henley at the Guardian:

He crunched hands, shoved shoulders and struck poses. He scoffed chocolates, ignored protocol and harangued heads of state. He denied saying things he had said, then said things that showed he did not understand.

In short he was an embarrassing ludicrous spectacle.

First, there were the body language battles. Trump is well known for his efforts to dominate male interlocutors with a firm handshake, often accompanied by an arm wrench: notable victims include the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who survived a 19-second power grip in February.

In Brussels on Thursday for meetings with EU and Nato leaders, he was trumped by the French president, Emmanuel

Der Spiegel too dislikes Trump.

Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.

He is a man free of morals. As has been demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are.

Amy Davidson at the New Yorker tells us how Trump lectured the democratic heads of state at NATO on how awesome the Saudi king is.

He had just come from Saudi Arabia, Trump told the nato leaders, in a brief speech. “There, I spent much time with King Salman, a wise man who wants to see things get much better rapidly.” That meeting had been “historic,” Trump said. The “leaders of the Middle East” had promised him that they would “stop funding the radical ideology that leads to this horrible terrorism all over the globe.” So that should take care of the problem. He did not define “radical ideology,” or acknowledge that he was praising a monarch in

There was disgust over the loving exchange with Duterte at the time.

“By essentially endorsing Duterte’s murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. “Although the traits of his personality likely make it impossible, Trump should be ashamed of himself.”

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter, “We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash.”

…

Mr. Duterte’s toxic reputation had already given pause to some in the White House. The Philippines is set to host a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast

Oh gawd. Trump went to Yad Vashem today. He wrote an entry for the guest book, in all caps:

IT IS A GREAT HONOR TO BE HERE WITH ALL OF MY FRIENDS — SO AMAZING & WILL NEVER FORGET!

"So amazing," Trump describes Yad Vashem visit as only he canhttps://t.co/qezNcuuIcM pic.twitter.com/qGo7ZielBA

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 23, 2017

The guest book entry provides an opportunity to contrast Trump’s style with that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who spent an hour at Yad Vashem and gave an emotional speech in 2013. Obama had already visited once, in 2008, when he was an Illinois senator running for president. On that trip, he left this note in the guest book:

“I am

I guess the principle of Trumpism and most of the contemporary Republican party in the US is: destroy everything good. Trump’s budget slashes not only Medicaid and anti-poverty programs, but also scientific and medical research. Booya.

President Trump’s 2018 budget request, delivered to Congress on Tuesday with the title “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” has roiled the medical and science community with a call for massive cuts in spending on scientific research, medical research, disease prevention programs and health insurance for children of the working poor.

The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut,

The Manchester bomb is of course a gift to Trump: now he can yell that he was right right right about keeping out all the Mooslims except the ones from Saudi Arabia and other not at all Islamist places like that.

“This is what I’ve spent these last few days talking about in our trip overseas,” Mr. Trump said after a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. “Our society can have no tolerance for this continuation of bloodshed. We cannot stand a moment longer for the slaughter of innocent people.”

As if everyone else were standing for it, and only Trump thinks we should make it stop. The problem is that it’s not easy to … Read the rest

It wasn’t just Comey that Trump tried to strongarm into squashing the investigation, the Post reports.

President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who

Now the Trump admin is trying to cut the Office of Government Ethics off at the knees.

The Trump administration, in a significant escalation of its clash with the government’s top ethics watchdog, has moved to block an effort to disclose any ethics waivers granted to former lobbyists who now work in the White House or federal agencies.

The latest conflict came in recent days when the White House, in a highly unusual move, sent a letter to Walter M. Shaub Jr., the head of the Office of Government Ethics, asking him to withdraw a request he had sent to every federal agency for copies of the waivers. In the letter, the administration challenged his legal authority to demand