Benjamin Wittes has thoughts on the effects of the current situation on people at the Department of Justice and on the rest of us.

The trouble is that remaining in office does not merely demean the individual dignity of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general when the President whines about the attorney general’s compliance with Justice Department recusal rules; when he attacks the attorney general for not investigating a political opponent; when he openly suggests that the Justice Department’s leadership should act in his personal interests; or when he suggests that the deputy attorney general is biased against him as a result of previous service as U.S. attorney in a Democratic-majority city. These are also degradations of the

But my favorite part of Trump’s Address to the Nations Boy Scouts is where he just veers off into telling them a long boring story about this one guy he met 50 years ago, like any other damn windbag you accidentally sit next to at a dinner or on a bus or in the dentist’s waiting room. You know those – the ones who just talk, regardless of who is next to them or what the likelihood is that anyone in hearing will give a damn.

In life, in order to be successful, and you people are well on the road to success, you have to find out what makes you excited. What makes you want to get up

Some parents of Boy Scouts are furious.

One parent wrote: “Done with scouts after you felt the need to have my kid listen to a liar stroke his ego.”

…

Responding to the criticism of the speech, the Boy Scouts of America insisted it was “wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy”.

It said the invitation to Mr Trump was a “long-standing tradition and is in no way an endorsement of any political party or specific policies”.

Except that the way it played out, it was.

Many parents, lobbyists and politicians took to social media to cite the 107-year-old organisation’s values, and to suggest Mr Trump had failed them.

Lobbyist for

More on Trump’s confusion of the Boy Scouts with the Hitler Youth:

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” President Trump asked the 40,000 people gathered in Glen Jean, West Virginia, on Monday for the Boy Scout Jamboree.

The answer is President Trump. The event, which occurs every four years, was attended by about 24,000 boys, ages 12 to 18, but Trump treated it like a raucous campaign rally. During a rambling, 35-minute speech, he playfully threatened a member of his cabinet about getting the votes to repeal Obamacare, recounted his election win in great detail, and attacked President Obama.

A post on the Jamboree’s blog had warned troops

The Post details how aberrant and wrong and narcissistic Trump’s speech to the Boy Scouts yesterday was.

For 80 years, American presidents have been speaking to the National Scout Jamboree, a gathering of tens of thousands of youngsters from around the world eager to absorb the ideas of service, citizenship and global diplomacy.

In keeping with the scouts’ traditions, all eight presidents and surrogates who have represented them have stayed far, far away from partisan politics.

I had assumed that, without knowing anything specific about it, because after all, it’s the Boy Scouts – it’s not a set of people you would expect to be interested in the minutiae of Donald Trump’s political biography and it’s also not a … Read the rest

Oh, brilliant – now we’re expected to rejoice that War Hero With Glioblastoma Is Returning to the Senate to Vote on Urgent Matter – in fact to add his vote to the other Republican votes TO TAKE HEALTH INSURANCE AWAY FROM MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

I hate this country right now. Hate it. Trump’s performance in front of the Boy Scouts yesterday has pushed me over the edge.

John McCain has excellent health insurance, because he’s a senator, and he’s coming back to vote to take it away from people who don’t have the good fortune to get health insurance from their employers.

It was just five days ago that John McCain, the longtime Arizona senator, two-time presidential candidate and perhaps

Aw poor Donald. He’s cracking. For the first time he’s letting us know it hurts.

As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

As if the laughter of the Russians were our fault and not his.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

Aw. If he weren’t such a sadistic monster, I might feel a little sorry for him at that. But he is, so I don’t. He’s earned his feelings of abandonment … Read the rest

On Friday the Post ran an editorial by Laurence Tribe, Richard Painter, and Norm Eisen, titled No, Trump can’t pardon himself. The Constitution tells us so.

Can a president pardon himself? Four days before Richard Nixon resigned, his own Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opined no, citing “the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” We agree.

The Justice Department was right that guidance could be found in the enduring principles that no one can be both the judge and the defendant in the same matter, and that no one is above the law.

The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and