Trump has gotten rid of that pesky rule that said coal companies couldn’t dump all their waste products into streams. Another victory for filthy water! The People, in all their glorious peoplehood, love filthy water; they thrive on it. It’s only coastal elites who look down on it from their spotless mansions in the sky.

President Donald Trump signed legislation repealing a regulation meant to protect streams from the effects of coal mining.

The congressional resolution killing the so-called Stream Protection Rule, which was issued in the waning days of the Obama administration, follows similar action by Trump overturning an anti-corruption rule that would have required oil companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

We must protect corporations’ rights to … Read the rest

One of the worst bits of that “press conference” that was really just a therapy session for Donnie was when April Ryan asked him if he planned to collaborate with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Ryan asked Trump if he would include the CBC in discussions about his agenda for addressing urban policy. The CBC, for those unaware, is the Congressional Black Caucus, a group of African American legislators that is often a leading voice on the Hill for issues dealing with the black community. Trump appeared briefly to be unaware of what the initials stood for, and so Ryan asked more pointedly.

I didn’t recognize the initials either, partly because “the CBC” is also short for the Canadian Broadcasting … Read the rest

Trump’s eagerness to get away from the White House is going to cost us all hundreds of millions of dollars – hundreds of millions that could have gone to more urgent things than Trump’s ability to spend a lot of time at his Florida golf club.

On Friday, President Trump and his entourage will jet for the third straight weekend to a working getaway at his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.

On Saturday, Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., with their Secret Service details in tow, will be nearly 8,000 miles away in the United Arab Emirates, attending the grand opening of a Trump-brand golf resort in the “Beverly Hills of Dubai.”

Meanwhile, New York police will keep

A Trump goon bullshits Evan Davis on Newsnight.

“I’m sad to say that you and your colleagues have fallen into this trap of fake news,” the goon says.

Sebastian Gorka, his name is. He’s been news himself lately.

Donald Trump’s Deputy Assistant has angrily denied being anti-Semitic after he was spotted wearing a military medal associated with Hungarian Nazi sympathisers.

Sebastian Gorka, who is of Hungarian descent but was born and raised in the UK, was pictured wearing the controversial badge at an inaugural ball for Mr Trump and several other events.

According to the LobeLog blog, the medal was given to Mr Gorka’s father by the group Vitezi Rend – meaning Order of Heroes – that consisted

One thing that stood out in that horrifying “press conference” was his whines about the “hatred” at CNN.

From the Times transcript:

It’s very important to me and especially in this position. It’s very important. I don’t mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody as long as it’s true and, you know, over a course of time, I’ll make mistakes and you’ll write badly and I’m OK with that. But I’m not OK when it is fake. I mean, I watch CNN, it’s so much anger and hatred and just the hatred.

…

And I’ll tell you what else I see. I see tone. You know the word “tone.” The tone is such

CNN found the press conference startling – which is perhaps to be expected, given how much of it was about or rather aimed at CNN.

President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary denunciation Thursday of his critics and media reports that his White House is in chaos, complaining he inherited a “mess” and slamming stories that his campaign was constantly in contact with Russia as “fake news.”

It will immediately go down as a stunning moment in modern American political history, as presidents have rarely betrayed such a sense of anger and grievance so graphically or so early in their administrations.

And they have never done it in such a flailing, barking, self-interrupting way. They have never looked like such redfaced … Read the rest

I just watched the last 40 minutes or so of Trump’s press conference. It was unbelievable. He’s always worse than it’s possible to imagine ahead of time. He’s incoherent – spasmodic – irascible – ignorant – boastful – truculent – prickly – vain – hyperbolic – absurd – mendacious of course – unctuous – clueless – childish –

I don’t see how anyone can watch him in action without wondering how in hell he managed to get the job he has and why we can’t kick him out right this second.

The Post has a transcript with annotations by Aaron Blake.

We have had great conversations with the United Kingdom, and meetings. Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really,

Today in Donnie Disgusting:

Venezuela should allow Leopoldo Lopez, a political prisoner & husband of @liliantintori (just met w/ @marcorubio) out of prison immediately. pic.twitter.com/bt8Xhdo7al

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

So now we do diplomacy on Twitter, is that it? And what’s with the thumb? And why is he telling us this? And does he think he can do the whole thing one person at a time? Is this really what he thinks the job is – dispensing miraculous interventions to individual people by broadcasting their cases on Twitter?

Stock market hits new high with longest winning streak in decades. Great level of confidence and optimism – even before tax plan rollout!

— Donald J.

Trump is getting confused about his own story.

President Trump  criticized the intelligence community and the media Wednesday for the news reports that ultimately led to national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation Monday night, less than four weeks into his White House tenure.

“I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the ‘fake media,’ in many cases — and I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly,” Trump said at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think in addition to that, from intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked.”

Trump added that the leaks were a “criminal action, criminal act.”

After Trump’s extended Twitter-diatribe, he took a break by meeting with Netanyahu and holding a joint press conference with him. He didn’t insult his guest by talking about issues important to Israel the whole time though.

President Trump lashed out at the nation’s intelligence agencies again on Wednesday, saying that his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was brought down by illegal leaks to the news media, on a day of new disclosures about the Trump camp’s dealings with Russia during and after the presidential campaign.

“From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked,” Mr. Trump said at a White House news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. “It’s a criminal action, criminal

It appears that people in the Intelligence Community are getting increasingly anxious about Trump, so they’re talking to the Post and the Times more. The Post did a big late in the day drop on Monday, so yesterday it was the Times’s turn. CNN and MSNBC stayed up all night to discuss it.

Trump people talked to Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.

The IC people who talked to the Times declined to give important details, like which Trump people and what they talked about.

Trump of course is melting down, as conspicuously as possible.

The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!

— Donald

So much bumbling.

When Donald Trump ran for the White House, he insisted that his lack of experience in politics and his complete disdain for the details (or even the broad strokes) of policy were not only not a problem, they were a key reason why he’d be such a terrific president. The system needed to be shaken up, and it couldn’t be done by someone locked inside it.

This is inane. If you don’t like the way your mechanic is keeping your car running, you hire a better mechanic…

You don’t hire a pastry chef or a lawyer or a journalist. Incompetence and ignorance and lack of qualifications do not automatically combine into the ideal person to improve … Read the rest