Another Trump transcript, this one of an interview with CBS for Face the Nation.

They start with North Korea. There was that missile test yesterday. It was a small one, Trump says, as if that makes a difference.

But he understands we’re not going to be very happy. And I will tell you, a man that I’ve gotten to like and respect, the president of China, President Xi, I believe, has been putting pressure on him also.

As if it’s meaningful that he’s “gotten to like and respect” Xi. He likes and respects anyone who puts on a good act for him. He has all the insight of a dish sponge.

JOHN DICKERSON: The Chinese, our allies, have been

They’re still dreaming of changing the libel laws. The goal? To make it so that anyone who criticizes Trump is immediately executed, and anyone who mocks the tiny-handed cheeto is tortured to death.

One day after President Trump declined to attend the White House correspondents dinner to host a rally in Pennsylvania, his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the administration was considering changes to libel laws.

“I think that’s something we’ve looked at, and how that gets executed and whether that goes anywhere is a different story,” Priebus said in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Priebus was also pressed about whether the President should be able to sue newspapers like the New York

Trump continues his program of outreach to murderous autocrats by inviting Duterte to the White House.

The two leaders had “a very friendly conversation” in which they talked about the North Korea threat, according to the White House’s readout of the call. The two men, who have drawn comparisons for their tough rhetoric, also discussed the Philippine government’s fight against drugs.

What remained unmentioned, however, are the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users as part of the government’s drug war. Thousands have been killed by police and vigilantes since Duterte took office and vowed to eradicate his country’s massive drug problem. The rising death toll has drawn criticisms from international human rights groups, at least one of … Read the rest

A glimpse of hell.

https://twitter.com/DBloom451/status/858449702408392704

https://twitter.com/WayneDupreeShow/status/858459599682363396

Ah the dignity and strength of the furious pout with folded arms.

https://twitter.com/mikandynothem/status/858435268453384192

Yay the Nazi salute.

https://twitter.com/JohnPaul_USA/status/858369296279273473… Read the rest

The Times has a piece on ways Donnie has changed the presidency. This one made me laugh.

…he has cast off conventions that constrained others in his office. He has retained his business interests, which he implicitly cultivates with regular visits to his properties. He has been both more and less transparent than other presidents, shielding his tax returns and White House visitor logs from public scrutiny while appearing to leave few thoughts unexpressed, no matter how incendiary or inaccurate.

Ha! Doin’ it wrong, Donnie. You’re supposed to reveal the stuff relevant to the job and hide the inappropriate thoughts that lurk in the pestilent swamp of your mind.

Although Mr. Trump assumed that his experience in business and

Guess who would benefit from Trump’s (sketched) tax plan?

Oh darn you must have peeked. That’s right: it’s the man himself.

Among the likely winners in President Donald Trump’s tax-cut plan would be a real estate developer turned reality TV star who now happens to occupy the White House.

The one-page proposal released Wednesday seems sure to benefit the president’s businesses. It would eliminate the estate tax, repeal the alternative minimum tax that affects some affluent people, deeply slash corporate rates and reduce investment taxes — all of which could in theory benefit a billionaire real estate magnate like Trump.

It’s a sensitive subject for a White House that is telling Americans its proposed cuts to individual and corporate

So about those “hundred days”…

David Leonhardt gives Donnie low marks.

No doubt, you’ve seen a torrent of coverage in recent days of the milestone. And while it’s certainly an arbitrary milestone, it’s also a meaningful one. Presidents are at their most influential in their early months, which makes that period a particularly important one for a presidency.

In other words the hundred days is an arbitrary number, but the first few months of a presidency, is not. Trump’s hundred, Leonhardt says gently, is the worst ever.

Trump has made no significant progress on any major legislation. His health care bill is a zombie. His border wall is stalled. He’s only now releasing basic principles of a tax

I guess Trump thinks the Gulf oil spill was a nice jobs-creator, or something. He wants to encourage that kind of thing.

Just past the seventh anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, President Trump on Friday directed the Interior Department to “reconsider” several safety regulations on offshore drilling implemented after one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history.

Friday’s executive order was aimed at rolling back the Obama administration’s attempts to ban oil drilling off the southeastern Atlantic and Alaskan coasts. It would erase or narrow the boundaries of some federally-protected marine sanctuaries, opening them up to commercial fishing and oil drilling.

Because marine life, meh, who needs it, whereas oil – now there’s a … Read the rest