Donnie from Queens hasn’t tweeted about this yet. That will be because it appears to be about someone else. The fact that that someone else reflects badly on him won’t cross his mind.

Even some Republicans are a little bit skeeved by Trump’s flattery of Putin.

President Trump has long been effusive in his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

In an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, which will air ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump doubled down on his “respect” for Putin — even in the face of accusations that Putin and his associates have murdered journalists and dissidents in Russia.

“I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them,” Trump told O’Reilly.

O’Reilly pressed on, declaring to the president that “Putin is a killer.”

Unfazed, Trump didn’t back away, but rather compared Putin’s reputation for extrajudicial killings with the United States’.

“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers,” Trump said. “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

Hmmmmm. But yesterday he was Twitter-shouting about keeping “evil” [scare-quotes his] out of our glorious nation.

This isn’t a new line with him.

In a 2015 interview on “Morning Joe,” Trump was pressed on the same issue and gave a similar answer.

“He kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” the show’s host, Joe Scarborough, pointed out.

“Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe,” Trump said.

Hmmmm. Really? Bush and Obama put polonium in activists’ tea? Bush and Obama sent hit men to machine gun journalists in their own apartment buildings? I wonder why we haven’t heard anything about that.

From Nick Cohen’s extended piece on Trump and lies and the people who believe his lies:

No one in the west has seen Trump’s kind of triumph in politics since the age of the dictators. But look around your workplace and perhaps you won’t be so surprised by their victories. If you are unlucky, you will see an authoritarian standing over you. The radical economist Chris Dillow once wrote that, while the fall of communism discredited the centrally planned economy, the centrally planned corporation, with the autocratic leader who tolerated no dissent, not only survived 1989, but blossomed.

Dillow is not alone in worrying about the harm the little Hitlers of the corporation might bring. Since the crash, economists have looked as a matter of urgency at how hierarchies encourage petty tyrants to brag their way to the top. They exhibit all the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder: a desire to dominate, overconfidence, a sense of entitlement, an inability to listen to others or allow others to speak and a passion for glory. If you want to know how they can win the votes of those around them, remember Fred Goodwin’s vainglorious decision to takeover ABN Amro. Perhaps the single worst decision in UK business history, whose consequences we are still paying for, was not opposed by a single member of the RBS board.

Narcissists in business are more likely to seek macho takeovers and less likely to engage in the hard work of innovating and creating profitable firms, the researchers found. They are more likely to cook the books to feed their cults of the personality and make, if not America, then themselves look great again. Academics from the University of California have asked the obvious question: why would rational companies let the fascism of the firm survive? Surely they ought to be protecting their businesses, as free market theory dictates, rather than allow dangerous and grasping men and women to risk their destruction.

They found what most of us instinctively know to be true: in the right circumstances, compulsive liars can create compulsive believers, as Trump has done. “Overconfident individuals attained status” because their peers believed the stories they told about themselves. It should not be a surprise that Donald Trump, Arron Banks and oligarchs backing the Russian and east European strongmen come from business. The age of the dictators never came to an end in the workplace.

We are all his Apprentices.

Why is Ivanka Trump present at official meetings? She was present at a meeting of business honchos on Friday. Why? Presidents don’t just routinely have random family members joining the gang at official meetings. Why are the rules different for Trump?

President Donald Trump convened with the heads of some of America’s largest corporations on Friday at the White House for a meeting intended to make good on the administration’s pledge to reduce regulation, promote women in the workplace, and cut taxes.

…

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, told CNBC it had been a “fabulous meeting” and said the president “engaged forcefully” on every topic.

Steve Schwarzman, CEO of private equity firm Blackstone and chairman of the council that arranged Friday’s meeting, said the session had been “spirited intellectually” and that the members had had a “balanced discussion” about “taxes, trade, infrastructure, women’s issues, education, and how to bring home jobs in terms of training people in technology.”

Other attendees at Friday’s business huddle included members of Trump’s economic advisory council, such as JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Walt Disney’s Bob Iger, Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon, and Mary Barra of General Motors.

The meeting also included First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president; as well as Vice President Mike Pence and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

Why was she there?

I still want to know.

So Pence is willing to lie for Trump, and he’s willing to excuse Trump’s infantile and reckless personal attack on a federal judge. I guess we knew that, since he was willing to be his VP.

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday defended President Trump’s personal attack on the federal judge who blocked his travel ban on seven predominately Muslim countries, saying that the president’s remarks did not risk undermining the bedrock principle of the separation of powers.

Asked about Mr. Trump’s reference on Twitter to the “so-called judge” who ordered a stay of the president’s executive order, Mr. Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Well, look, the president of the United States has every right to criticize the other two branches of government. And we have a long tradition of that in this country.”

Oh stop. “Criticize” is one thing, and “insult via Twitter” is quite another. Criticism is not the same thing as publicly saying a federal judge is not actually a judge but an impostor.

Asked on the ABC program “This Week” about whether Mr. Trump had failed to respect the judicial branch’s check on his authority, Mr. Pence said the president was merely “speaking his mind,” as Americans have come to expect from him.

Right, like all those times he called Senator Warren “Pocahontas,” and that time he bragged about being able to grab women “by the pussy,” and the countless insults to women, and all the rest of the toxic stew. We know. But he’s president now, so that’s an additional reason he should stop “speaking his mind” in that way – additional to the ones about not being an evil belligerent misogynist racist shit.

Critics in both parties said the president had demonstrated a lack of understanding of or a disregard for the nation’s three equal branches of government.

Or both. He appears not to understand that the judiciary can rule on his orders, and we can be pretty sure that he would carry on the same way even if he did understand.

H/t Dave R

And they’ve filed an appeal.

On another day of chaotic developments over the week-old order, the State Department reversed its cancellation of visas for people from the seven affected countries and restarted efforts to admit refugees. Aid groups scrambled to take advantage of what they acknowledged might be a brief opportunity for refugees to enter the United States, and small numbers of travelers from the previously banned countries began their journeys, knowing that the judge’s ruling could be reversed at any time.

The developments led Mr. Trump to lash out throughout the day on Saturday, prompting criticism that he failed to respect the judicial branch and its power to exert a check on his authority.

He certainly does – and he very publicly and noisily fails to respect it.

Late Saturday, the Justice Department filed papers notifying the District Court that it would seek to have the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit block the lower court’s action. The White House had said earlier that it would direct the Justice Department to file for an emergency stay of the ruling, by Judge James Robart of Federal District Court in Seattle, that would allow continued enforcement of the president’s order.

Judge Robart, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, declared in his ruling that “there’s no support” for the administration’s argument that “we have to protect the U.S. from individuals” from the affected countries — Iran, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya.

I think we’re supposed to just take Trump’s word for it.

In his first statement on the matter on Friday evening, the press secretary, Sean Spicer, described the judge’s action as “outrageous.” Minutes later, the White House issued a new statement deleting the word outrageous.

Mr. Trump’s Twitter post showed no such restraint. It recalled the attacks he made during the presidential campaign on a federal district judge in California who was presiding over a class-action lawsuit involving Trump University.

Democrats said the president’s criticism of Judge Robart was a dangerous development. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Mr. Trump seemed “intent on precipitating a constitutional crisis.” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, whose state filed the suit that led to the injunction, said the attack was “beneath the dignity” of the presidency and could “lead America to calamity.”

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said in a statement that Mr. Trump’s outburst could weigh on the confirmation process for Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

He’s like the crazy relative locked up in the root cellar.

Until now, Mr. Trump had been comparatively restrained about the multiple federal judges who have ruled against parts of his immigration order, even as he staunchly defended its legality. Some analysts had speculated that he did not want a repeat of the storm during the campaign when he accused Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of having a conflict of interest in the Trump University case because the judge’s family was of Mexican heritage. Mr. Trump, who had painted Mexicans as rapists and criminals, settled that case after the election.

But on Saturday, Mr. Trump let loose, and in the afternoon he unleashed another volley of attacks on the ruling. In one Twitter message, he questioned why a judge could “halt a Homeland Security travel ban,” which would allow “anyone, even with bad intentions,” to enter the country. An hour later, he complained about the “terrible decision,” saying it would let “many very bad and dangerous people” pour into the country.

Earlier, Mr. Trump had asserted, without evidence, that some Middle Eastern countries supported the immigration order. “Interesting that certain Middle-Eastern countries agree with the ban,” he wrote. “They know that if certain people are allowed in it’s death & destruction!”

Crash crash crash! – as he knocks all the jars of pickles to the floor.

Jim Wright on Facebook on Trump’s demented idea that judges can’t overrule his decisions:

That moment as President when you discover that part about Checks and Balances most of us learned in 8th Grade.

Leaving aside the part where the President of the United States, the actual goddamned PRESIDENT, is sitting on the shitter at 5 in the morning petulantly complaining to the internet about the New York Times and people being mean to him and the fact that the job is WAY more complicated than he imagined (so tough in fact that he needed a vacation less than two weeks into it), leaving all that aside, there’s this:

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”

“The opinion of…”

That opinion is a legal decision in accordance with the Constitution. That’s how our government is supposed to work.

“…of this so-called judge…”

There’s nothing so-called about it. James Robart is a US District Judge, a conservative appointed by George W. Bush in accordance with the Constitution and approved by the Senate in a vote of 99 to 0. Now either Trump believes in the US Constitution and the US process of government or he doesn’t. It’s just that goddamned simple. Federal Judges ruled against President Obama any number of times (it happens to all presidents), you didn’t see Barack on the shitter at 5AM tweeting “IT’S SO UNFAIR! UNFAIR!” like a fucking child.

But here’s the part which really matters:

“…which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country…”

What?

WHAT?

HOW does this judgement take law enforcement away from our country?

How? Be specific and show your work.

The press should grab onto this line, this one right here “essentially takes law enforcement away from our country,” and hold on like a pitbull.

He’s terrifying. He apparently has no idea that judges can overrule him and that that’s just a normal part of how our government works. He thinks it’s lèse majesté. He has no clue how the state he’s head of which actually works.

What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

What’s our country coming to, he asks, when a judge can put limits on what a president does. What our country is coming to when that happens is an example of what is often called “checks and balances,” and it is what is supposed to happen.

I wonder if he even remembers that two weeks ago he swore to uphold the Constitution. I wonder if he even knows what the Constitution is. I wonder if he realizes he can’t just ignore it if it gets in his way.

A judge could have ruled that Executive Order 9066, that authorized the internment of Japanese-American citizens during WW 2, was unconstitutional. Unfortunately no judge did so rule, and war panic allowed a gross violation of the rights of tens of thousands of people.

Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

That’s a reckless and irresponsible lie. People still need visas, and people requesting visas are still vetted. Nobody is “pouring” because nobody was “pouring” in the first place. The president of the US is telling public lies about a federal judge in order to delegitimize his ruling.

Why aren't the lawyers looking at and using the Federal Court decision in Boston, which is at conflict with ridiculous lift ban decision?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

Why is Trump such a reckless power-intoxicated maniac?

Today in Trump on Twitter.

We must keep "evil" out of our country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

Oh. Ok – I’ll get right on that.

But why the scare quotes? Or are they not scare quotes but actual quotes? But in that case who is the source? Lots of people have used the word “evil,” in lots of contexts – he needs to be more specific. Or maybe they are scare quotes, but then it’s hard to tell what he means. Also – if you’re looking for evil, to be frank, I can’t think of anyone in government in the US as thoroughly and conspicuously evil as he is. If he genuinely wants to keep evil out of our country he should instantly retire from public life. He’s not only evil in himself, he is the cause that evil is in other people – he validates and encourages evil.

Also, of course, it’s just a stupid, witless thing to say.

When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security – big trouble!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

But he doesn’t mean “a country” – he means himself, acting unilaterally and with no check or oversight. He’s not the country. It’s frightening (and disgusting) that he thinks he is.

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

That’s the president of the US, calling a federal judge a “so-called judge.” There is no low too low for this evil man.

After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

Presidents should not attack the free press. Presidents should not obsessively attack and lie about one of the country’s best newspapers, especially not on social media. Presidents should not carry on like angry babies.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

Uh…calm down, dude.

Trump has a command for us.

A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

“Get smart” meaning what? What sure-fire action does he think there is that would prevent that? Rounding up all the “radical Islamic terrrorists” and expelling them? What sure-fire intelligence operation is there that can do that? Does he think we should round up and expel all Muslims? (He probably does, yes. He hasn’t quit put it that way yet, but it’s consistent with a lot that he has said, and with his temperament and “values” and love of bullying.) That would be logistically difficult and a violation of a whole raft of laws, national and international, plus it would be a leap into a moral abyss. And it wouldn’t do what he seems to think it would anyway.

It’s also ludicrous as risk management. It’s all the more ludicrous given the fact that the guy in Paris was stopped, by on the ground screening that did what it’s meant to do.

And then, it’s also shitty – given the fact that he hasn’t even publicly mentioned the terrorist attack by (allegedly) a white nationalist in Quebec that actually killed six men and injured more. Of course they were Muslims, so maybe he thinks it’s a start.

Trump is raging on Twitter, but the restraining order is being heeded all the same.

The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that it had suspended “any and all actions” related to President Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries and his halt on refugees coming into the U.S.

The move came after a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order against the major parts of Trump’s executive order, effective nationwide, in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Washington and Minnesota.

“DHS personnel will resume inspection of travelers in accordance with standard policy and procedure,” the department’s statement said.

The State Department, which had “provisionally revoked” 60,000 visas since the president signed his Jan. 27 order, said Saturday that it had started re-accepting those visas from people in the countries affected.

Trump would like to fire them all, but he can’t.

Trump’s White House has said it will ask for an emergency stay of the judge’s order, and argued that the president’s actions were lawful.

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” Trump said amid a series of early morning tweets.

He did say that. It’s mind-blowing that the head of state could say such a thing. It’s mind blowing that the head of state thinks there’s such a thing as “the country,” which owns a thing called “law-enforcement” which is separate from and in opposition to judges. It’s mind blowing that the head of state thinks judges are some kind of aliens who steal “law-enforcement” from “the country.” It’s mind blowing that the head of state considers it appropriate to go on Twitter and disparage the authenticity of a federal judge.

Legal experts said the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which would review any request from the White House for a stay, may not be friendly to it.

“The 9th Circuit has a group of three judges who sit together all month hearing any motions that get filed …. The motions panel looks like a very good panel for the plaintiffs, but we’ll see what happens,” said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan who served as the head of civil rights for the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama.

Schlanger predicted a long court battle that could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Already, several federal courts have issued emergency stays against portions of the executive order as dozens of lawsuits proceed against it.

Trump will have a lot of judges to Twitter-rage at.

Take a bow, Seattle.

A federal judge in the city of that name has put a  temporary nationwide restraining order on Trump’s loathsome ban.

Seattle!

Forgive a spot of local patriotism.

A federal judge in Seattle has ordered a halt to enforcement of President Trump’s controversial travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

U.S. District Judge James Robart at a court hearing Friday ruled in favor of Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who filed a lawsuit to invalidate key provisions of Trump’s executive order. The order indefinitely blocks entry to the United States for Syrian refugees and temporarily suspends entry for citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries.

…

In a legal filing asking for the restraining order, Ferguson, a Democrat, argued Trump’s travel ban targets Muslims, violating the constitutional rights of immigrants and their families.

“Federal courts have no more sacred role than protecting marginalized groups against irrational, discriminatory conduct,” said the filing by Ferguson, state solicitor general Noah Purcell and Colleen Melody, head of the attorney general’s civil-rights unit.

Trump lawyers have said Washington state lacks standing. Oh really? Any idea how many international flights arrive at SeaTac every day?

In a 19-page complaint, Ferguson alleged Trump’s executive order violates constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and equal protection. The state of Minnesota had joined as a plaintiff, while attorneys general in several other states have also taken legal action against the controversial ban.

Ferguson’s lawsuit includes quotes by Trump during his presidential campaign, including his original pledge for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The lawsuit alleges that constitutes evidence that the order was “motivated by animus and a desire to harm a particular group.”

Isn’t there some legal doctrine that says people get to say whatever they want in a campaign and it can’t be cited as evidence that they’re racists shits later on when they declare racist bans? I don’t  know the Latin for it, but I’m sure it must exist.

Washington’s lawsuit has been backed by major corporations, including Seattle-based Amazon.com and Bellevue-based Expedia, which have criticized the immigration order’s impact on the state’s economy, businesses and higher-education institutions, as well as on families and residents.

At the hearing Friday, state solicitor general Noah Purcell said the harm to University of Washington’s students and faculty who are stranded out of the country due to the order is “direct and immediate.”

The president’s order sparked legal chaos and a wave of protests nationwide over the weekend, with a huge crowd pouring into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport amid reports that refugees and immigrants from countries targeted by the travel ban were being detained there.

Some immigrant air travelers were flown back to their countries of origin, while others were allowed to enter the country with the help of immigration attorneys.

That’s coastal elites for you – we’re handy for the foreign countries so we have lots of foreign people. Of course, those foreign people tend to bring some talents and skills with them, but never mind that – some of them might be Mooooooslims.

I’m proud of my adopted city.

Jeezus. More than 100 thousand visas have been revoked under Trump’s loathsome ban.

At least 100,000 visas have been revoked in a single week in response to President Trump’s executive immigration order, a lawyer for the Justice Department revealed in court Friday.

The number came to light in a Virginia courtroom as a federal judge granted the state’s motion to join a lawsuit challenging the immigration ban that caused chaos at airports over the weekend.

“The number 100,000 really sucked the air out of my lungs,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represents two brothers from Yemen who were detained after arriving at Dulles Airport on Saturday and filed the original lawsuit that Virginia just joined.

Attorney Erez Reuveni, from the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation, announced the staggering number after Judge Leonie Brinkema pressed for the number of people who were detained and sent back from airports.

Fortress America. White people welcome to visit; brown people…welllllll we’re going to need to ask you a lot of questions first.

The State Department quickly disputed the Justice Department’s numbers, issuing a statement claiming the amount of revoked visas was far lower.

“Fewer than 60,000 individuals’ visas were provisionally revoked to comply with the Executive Order,” said William Cocks of the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs in an email to NBC News. “We recognize that those individuals are temporarily inconvenienced while we conduct our review under the Executive Order. To put that number in context, we issued over 11 million immigrant and non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2015. As always, national security is our top priority when issuing visas.”

In light of the President’s order — which banned Syrian refugees indefinitely, all other refugees for 120 days, and residents of seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days — multiple court orders have been issued that rolled back some of the ban’s heavier restrictions.

Are the camps being built as we speak?