All entries by this author

The lizard-brained and misogynistic argument

Jan 7th, 2018 10:14 am | By

Uh oh – emergency emergency – a woman appears to have ambition. DANGER.

In recent months, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand seems to have begun positioning herself for a presidential run in 2020. She’s been a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, pushed for Al Franken’s resignation, and endured a gross Twitter feud with the president. But despite her rising celebrity, a new op-ed in the Daily Beast suggests Gillibrand is too “too transparently opportunistic to be a viable candidate.”

Yeah. She’s supposed to be flirtatious about it, not just walk right up and say she wants it. Directness is great in a man but in a woman it’s gross and scary and emasculating.

In an

… Read the rest

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Trump laments our feeble libel laws

Jan 6th, 2018 5:00 pm | By

Trump did a press conference at Camp David today. Wolff’s book came up a time or two.

During the press conference, Trump called the book a “work of fiction” and said it was a “disgrace” that Wolff could “do something like this.”

“Libel laws are very weak in this country,” Trump said. “If they were stronger, hopefully, you would not have something like that happen.”

But if libel laws were stronger, think of all the people who could sue Trump. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Elizabeth Warner, Kim Jong Un, Chuck Schumer, Steve Bannon, Rosie O’Donnell, Jeff Sessions, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Native Americans, Mexicans, Mexico, Muslims, atheists, Chicago, New York, women – it would never … Read the rest

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He went to the best colleges, or college

Jan 6th, 2018 10:27 am | By

After Dim Donald’s shy confession of genius on Twitter this morning he expanded on his explanation to reporters.

Elaborating during a meeting with reporters at Camp David later in the day, Mr. Trump again ticked off what he called a high-achieving academic and career record. He raised the matter “only because I went to the best colleges, or college,” he said. Referring to a new book citing concerns about his fitness, he said, “I consider it a work of fiction and I consider it a disgrace.”

Translation: I hate it I hate it I hate it.

The president’s engagement on the issue is likely to fuel the long-simmering argument about his state of mind that has roiled the political

… Read the rest

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Stable genius meets happy toast

Jan 6th, 2018 9:24 am | By

This is a nice antidote:

Two scoops!

“WHO INVITED ALL THE EMPTY SEATS?” – classic.

All praise to … Read the rest

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Trump serenely rises above the Wolff book

Jan 6th, 2018 8:58 am | By

The Friday night-Saturday morning installment:

Dumped like a dog? Does Trump have a habit of dumping dogs? Where, by the roadside? In Central Park? In the East River? Or maybe he means “dog” aka “ugly woman” who gets dumped because ugly. Anyway, all very dignified and presidential, announcing that a book he hasn’t read is boring and that it’s untruthful when … Read the rest

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The irony was lost on many

Jan 5th, 2018 4:12 pm | By

If tweets can get tenured academics bullied out of their jobs then why can’t they get presidents scolded out of theirs?

The last 12 months have seen one controversy after another over the tweets of George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. In a series of incidents, he has made statements that led to calls for his dismissal. In several instances, the university has criticized him. Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters have said that his comments have been distorted and that his academic freedom has been attacked.

On Thursday, he announced on Twitter that he was leaving his tenured job at Drexel. “After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and

… Read the rest

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Abuse of power and obstruction of justice

Jan 5th, 2018 3:10 pm | By

Jennifer Rubin at the Post says it’s a stunt.

The move by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) marks a major escalation in conservatives’ challenges to the FBI’s credibility as the agency investigates whether any Trump associates committed crimes. Another Republican, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), joined in the letter to the Justice Department.

Their letter makes what is called a criminal referral to the Justice Department, suggesting it investigate the dossier author, former British spy Christopher Steele, for possibly lying to the FBI. It is a crime to lie to FBI agents about a material fact relevant to an ongoing investigation.

This is an outrageous political stunt, one with no legal ramifications and obviously designed to take the heat

… Read the rest

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Arrest that man!

Jan 5th, 2018 2:23 pm | By

In case we still haven’t had enough farcical distraction yet, here’s another installment:

More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate. The committee is

… Read the rest

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What good are coasts anyway?

Jan 5th, 2018 10:36 am | By

Don is universally agreed to be an idiot but hey, he can still destroy all the coasts.

The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.

The proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental restrictions in an effort to promote energy production.

Many states … Read the rest

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What me worry?

Jan 5th, 2018 9:39 am | By

People in Europe are somewhat rattled by the whole thing.

“Is Trump still sane?” asked the Friday lead headline on the site of Germany’s most respected conservative paper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The piece was published under the topic “mental health.”

Meanwhile, British readers woke up to the Times of London’s main front page headline that also wondered about the president’s stability: “Trump’s mental health questioned by top aide.”

“Donald Trump’s right-hand man openly questioned his fitness to serve and predicted that he would resign to avoid being removed by his own cabinet, according to a book that the US president tried to block yesterday,” wrote the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Times of London.

Well at least they found a dignified photo to … Read the rest

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How to quantify credibility

Jan 5th, 2018 9:06 am | By

Don’s attempts to make that Wolff guy go away aren’t working out for him.

The author of a scathing new book about President Trump said on Friday that the president’s attempt to block its publication would not only help with sales but would also confirm the book’s key finding: Mr. Trump is unfit for office.

Speaking on the “Today” show, Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” called the administration’s attempt to block the book “extraordinary” and dismissed the president’s criticisms of him out of hand.

“My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point,” Mr. Wolff said.

Or … Read the rest

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Ethics boffin explains

Jan 5th, 2018 8:32 am | By

Walter Shaub, former Director of the Office of Government Ethics, on Twitter this morning:

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260106314772480

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260595857158144

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260905174401024

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949261034392641536

Then he went on CNN to talk about it.

… Read the rest

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Boom boom boom

Jan 4th, 2018 5:38 pm | By

Boom, as Benjamin Wittes says when one of these appears. Trump tried to order Sessions not to recuse himself.

President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election.

Public pressure was building for Mr. Sessions, who had been a senior member of the Trump campaign, to step aside. But the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, carried out the president’s orders and lobbied Mr. Sessions to remain in charge of the inquiry, according to two people with knowledge of the episode.

Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful,

… Read the rest

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How dare anyone say rude things about Trump?

Jan 4th, 2018 12:50 pm | By

Trump is of course firing off threats of lawsuits right and left.

He’s threatening the publisher and the author.

The legal notice, which has been published by the Washington Post, demands that author Michael Wolff and the book’s publisher “immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book”.

It accuses Wolff of making “numerous false and/or baseless statements” about Mr Trump and says lawyers are considering pursuing libel charges.

Considering it. They just might do it! I’m tellin ya, they’ll do it! They will! You better shut up or they will!

He’s threatening Bannon.

A private lawyer representing Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bannon, arguing he violated an employment agreement with

… Read the rest

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He reads not, neither does he skim

Jan 4th, 2018 11:38 am | By

John Cassidy at the New Yorker does some more gleaning from Wolff’s book and tosses us the bits of chocolate and almond.

[T]he over-all portrait that Wolff draws of a dysfunctional, bitterly divided White House in the first six months of Trump’s Presidency, before the appointment of John Kelly as chief of staff and the subsequent firing of Bannon, has the whiff of authenticity about it—and it echoes news coverage at the time. Other details are impossible to confirm but damning if true. Such was the animosity between Bannon and “Jarvanka”—Bannon’s dismissive term for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—Wolff reports, that, during one Oval Office meeting, Bannon called Ivanka “a fucking liar,” to which Trump responded,“I told you this is

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Serial misogynist murder

Jan 4th, 2018 11:07 am | By

This is painful to read:

Theodore Johnson first killed a woman in 1981. He tipped his wife Yvonne over the balcony of their ninth-floor flat in Blakenhall Gardens, Wolverhampton, having already hit her with a vase. Well, they had been arguing – a factor that enabled him to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. The second woman Johnson killed was Yvonne Bennett, in 1992. He strangled her with a belt while their baby slept. Her “provocation” was that she refused the box of chocolates he had bought to win her back; he was able to plead diminished responsibility and, after a two-year stay in a secure psychiatric unit, was released and again free to form new

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Attentive to his lapses and repetitions

Jan 4th, 2018 10:33 am | By

Michael Wolff has a summary of his Trump book at the Hollywood Reporter (a fitting place for it).

Most of it is what we’ve already seen via the news: shock-horror, chaos, incompetence, mass departures, how did we get here, what does this even. But toward the end there are some…let’s say noteworthy details.

There was, after the abrupt Scaramucci meltdown, hardly any effort inside the West Wing to disguise the sense of ludicrousness and anger felt by every member of the senior staff toward Trump’s family and Trump himself. It became almost a kind of competition to demystify Trump. For Rex Tillerson, he was a moron. For Gary Cohn, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a

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Your enduring commitment to spreading the word of God for $$$$

Jan 3rd, 2018 5:34 pm | By

Barry Duke at the Freethinker tells us that Donnie sent a mash note to a risible prosperity gospel preacher a few months ago.

[Kenneth] Copeland revealed on Facebook at the end of December 2017 that he received a letter from the deranged Trump in August. Trump wrote:

Melania and I send our warmest wishes as you celebrate 50 years of ministry. For half a century, you have devoted your life to faith and humanity. Your enduring commitment to spreading the word of God has influenced the lives of people across the United States and around the world.

We hope your heart is filled with joy, knowing your efforts to spread a message of hope are an inspiration to people who

… Read the rest

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His eyes are rolling back in his head

Jan 3rd, 2018 4:45 pm | By

One item from the Times story on Bannon and the Wolff book needs to stand on its own.

The book presents Mr. Trump as an ill-informed and thoroughly unserious candidate and president, engaged mainly in satisfying his own ego. It reports that early in the campaign, one aide, Sam Nunberg, was sent to explain the Constitution to the candidate. “I got as far as the Fourth Amendment,” it quoted Mr. Nunberg as saying, “before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”

Not a child in school itching to go outside and run around. Not an undergraduate too hungover to pay attention. Not a random asshole on Twitter. A grown-ass adult … Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 6 comments


Huge victory for voting rights

Jan 3rd, 2018 4:36 pm | By

Good news (or, actually, just bad news reversed, but we take what we can get).

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday evening to disband a White House commission investigating claims of voter fraud, ending an inquiry started after he falsely claimed that unauthorized votes had cost him the popular vote in the presidential election.

Mr. Trump cast blame for the commission’s demise on the refusal by several states to turn over voter information to the group. He said he made the decision despite “substantial evidence of voter fraud,” but experts generally agree such fraud is rare.

Ari Berman:

… Read the rest

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