Oh christ.

Trump wants a military parade.

President Trump’s vision of soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the boulevards of Washington is moving closer to reality in the Pentagon and White House, where officials say they have begun to plan a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America’s armed forces.

Just like China! And Russia! And Nazi Germany!

Shows of military strength are not typical in the United States — and they don’t come cheap. The cost of shipping Abrams tanks and high-tech hardware to Washington could run in the millions, and military officials said it was unclear how they would pay for it.

And why would we do it? What for? It’s well … Read the rest

The first Roosevelt president, Theodore, in May 1918, when Woodrow Wilson was in the office:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To

James Hohmann at the Post says why Trump’s constant cheapening of language matters.

Bigger picture, the president has a pattern of diluting the potency of language. Trump cheapens the value of significant words by overusing and misusing them.

He encouraged violence against protesters as a candidate. He welcomed chants of “lock her up” about Clinton, whom he routinely described as “crooked.” He attacked the intelligence community: “Are we living in Nazi Germany?”

After the election, he coopted the term “fake news” — which once described a real phenomenon of made-up stories online. Now, by Politico’s count, leaders or state media in at least 15 countries have adopted the president’s denunciation to quell dissent and question human

The Times uses the normal restrained newspaper language to describe the infantile out of control disgusting president.

President Trump accused a top Democratic lawmaker on Monday of being “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington,” calling Representative Adam Schiff of California “Little Adam Schiff” and accusing him of illegally leaking confidential information from the House Intelligence Committee.

In an early-morning tweet, Mr. Trump ominously said that Mr. Schiff “must be stopped,” though he did not elaborate.

The president’s insult came as Mr. Schiff is expected to call for a vote on Monday afternoon for the Intelligence Committee to release a Democratic rebuttal to the classified memo that the panel’s Republicans released on Friday, which accuses federal law

Also Trump today:

Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018

This disgusting man is head of state.

This is disgusting. Never once did I hear President Bush refer to a Member of Congress with such offensive language in private, much less in public. Decent people simply don't behave this way. https://t.co/Fl10S9NsEJ

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) February 5, 2018

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/960592929575391233… Read the rest

Trump this morning:

The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018

UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt:

I may disagree with claims made on that march but not ONE of them wants to live in a system where 28m people have no cover. NHS may have challenges but I’m proud to be from the country that invented universal coverage – where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance https://t.co/YJsKBAHsw7

— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) February 5, 2018

Adam Schiff explains the creation of the wall between the presidency and the Justice Department:

In the run-up to the release of a deliberately misleading memo, some Republicans hyped the underlying scandal as “worse than Watergate.” When it was published, however, it delivered none of the salacious evidence of systemic abuse that it promised—only a cherry-picking of information from a single FISA court application. The memo’s release provided none of the vindication the President sought or would claim, but it was hugely consequential nonetheless, in how it undermined the system of checks and balances designed to insulate the FBI from White House meddling established in the wake of Watergate.

The years after the Watergate scandal saw multiple Congressional investigations

Meanwhile…government watchdogs spend government money to monitor Trump’s conflicts of interest…and the money they spend goes into Trump’s pocket. The government is paying Trump to let the government monitor his corrupt use of his office for self-enrichment. Nice racket.

An employee for the federal agency supervising the lease for the Trump hotel in Washington spent more than $900 for a stay there last year, according to a document reviewed by CNN — the first publicly known movement of federal taxpayer dollars into the highly scrutinized business.

The federal employee worked for the General Services Administration, the agency which supervises the lease of the Old Post Office building to the Trump Organization.
The GSA reimbursed the employee for a