Well at least Trump is unhappy about how many people hate him. That’s something. It’s a start.

Sean Spicer explained that to the press today.

Toward the end, Spicer gave an impassioned defense of why Trump dwells so much on things like his inauguration crowd size, arguing that Trump is very frustrated by constant negative coverage and the media minimizing him. He basically said it amounted to a defense mechanism from the president. It was really rather interesting.

Good. Of course it would be better if Trump were ashamed or contrite, but frustration is better than nothing. All he has to do now is figure out that the “constant negative coverage” is because he, Trump, is such a shitty, evil, bullying, horrible human being. And then resign, and retire from all public life, and work on being not so loathsome.

It’s true: toward the end Spicer does get into that. It’s very silly stuff.

QUESTION: But — but in terms of the crowd size issue, why bring that up at the CIA? And why did you come out Saturday afternoon to talk about that? Did he tell you, Sean, I’m upset about this, I want you to come out and —

SPICER: No, I’m not going to get into conversations that I have with the president. But I will tell you that it’s not — it’s not just about a crowd size. It’s about this constant — you know, he’s not going to run. Then if he runs, he’s going to drop out. Then if he runs, he can’t win, there’s no way he can win Pennsylvania, there’s no way he can win Michigan.

SPICER: Then, if won, it’s oh, well he(ph) — there is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. And I think that it’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win.

QUESTION: And — and if I may —

SPICER: Hold on — because I — I think it’s important. He’s gone out there and defied the odds over and over and over again. And he keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there. And he exceeds it every single time. And I think there’s an overall frustration when you — when you turn on the television over and over again and get told that there’s this narrative that you didn’t win. You weren’t going to run. You can’t pick up this state.

Ok there’s a misunderstanding here (or a pretended misunderstanding). It’s true that many in the news media underestimated the recklessness of the voters. But that of course isn’t what frustrates Trump – what Trump is agitated about is that he thinks the news media underestimated him. He thinks that because he thinks he’s hot shit. He isn’t. He’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Yes he won, because too many voters like a worthless empty-headed bully if they’ve seen him on tv enough. But the fact that he won (just barely, and not in terms of the popular vote) does not mean he’s hot shit.

He’s frustrated because we can see that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Well that’s his problem – he decided to run for the presidency, so he made it obvious to the world that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. That’s not the fault of the news media, it’s the fault of Trump himself, for being a worthless empty-headed bully.

QUESTION: Isn’t it a fair criticism that you’ve got bigger fish to fry? Why worry about a couple of tweets about crowd size?

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: Because it’s not — because that’s what I’m saying, you’re minimizing the point here, Jim. It’s not about one Tweet. It’s not about one picture. It’s about a constant theme. It’s about sitting here every time and being told no. “Well, we don’t think he can do that, he’ll never accomplish that, he can’t win that, it won’t be the biggest, it’s not gonna be that good. The crowds aren’t that big, he’s not that successful.”

The narrative — and the default narrative is always negative and it’s demoralizing. And I think that when you sit here and you realize the sacrifice the guy made, leaving a very, very successful business because he really cares about this country and he wants — despite your partisan differences, he cares about making this country better for everybody. He wants to make it safer for everybody. And so when you wake up everyday and that’s what you’re seeing over and over again and you’re not seeing stories about the Cabinet folks that he’s appointing or the success that he’s having trying to keep American jobs here. Yes, it is a little disappointing.

No. He does not. He does not care about making this country better for everybody. People who care about that do not talk to and about people the way he does. They don’t look at people the way he does. They don’t do the things he does. People like that don’t cheat workers and contractors, they don’t call people names on Twitter, they don’t grab women by the pussy and brag to other men about being able to grab women by the pussy.

No more sob stories please.

The Times notes the news media’s alarm at the Trump gang’s rabid hostility to the news media. Ahhh but the Times would, wouldn’t it, because the Times is part of the evil cabal. Right? Right?

For wary Washington journalists, it seemed only a matter of time before Donald J. Trump’s presidency would lead to a high-tension standoff between his administration and the news media.

But on Day 1?

It was startlingly prompt.

The news media world found itself in a state of shock on Sunday, a day after Mr. Trump declared himself in “a running war with the media” and the president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, used his first appearance on the White House podium to deliver a fiery jeremiad against the press.

Worse, many journalists said, were the falsehoods that sprang from the lips of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer on Saturday. Mr. Trump accused the news media of confecting a battle between himself and the intelligence services (in fact, he had previously compared the services to Nazi Germany in a Twitter post), and among other easily debunked assertions, Mr. Spicer falsely claimed that Mr. Trump’s inauguration was the most attended in history (photographs indicated it was not).

Maybe there were a million or so invisible people there. Photographs can’t photograph invisible people, can they, Smarty Boots.

The tensions flared anew on Sunday when Kellyanne Conway, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, said in a television interview that Mr. Spicer had merely presented “alternative facts” about the inauguration, prompting an astonished response from her questioner, Chuck Todd of NBC.

“Wait a minute — ‘alternative facts’?” Mr. Todd asked Ms. Conway on “Meet the Press.” “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

Well Donald Trump didn’t kindly take time out from his busy schedule to run the country just so that demons like Chuck Todd can be rude about Donald Trump’s alternative facts.

When Mr. Todd pressed her about why the administration had put Mr. Spicer behind the lectern for the first time to “utter a provable falsehood,” Ms. Conway responded with a sharp threat. “If we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here,” she said.

They all think he’s a dictator and they can impose his will on us. I hope they’re wrong.

In reporting on the day’s events, many news organizations also called out the falsehoods that Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer offered on Saturday, using variations of “false,” “falsehoods” and“lies” in headlines and stories.

That’s unusual, but Trump might as well be daring them to call him a liar.

Good; it begins.

A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments.

The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government.

In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause amounts to a ban on payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears by the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments.

I hope it’s not only liberal advocacy organizations. I hope conservatives too are opposed to corruption and flagrant conflicts of interest.

The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses, as well as loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments, and leases with tenants like the Abu Dhabi tourism office, a government enterprise.

You don’t want a president who has financial motivations that could easily displace the motivations that are supposed to operate – the public good and the national interest, basically.

But…the cheaters have a way to shut that whole thing down.

The lawsuit may run into trouble, other legal experts said, given that CREW, as the organization is known, must demonstrate that it would suffer direct and concrete injury to give it standing to sue.

That pisses me off, because we shouldn’t have to demonstrate that we personally will suffer “direct and concrete injury” in order to stop a president being grotesquely corrupt. That shouldn’t be how any of this works.

The Times reports that the Women’s March in DC yesterday was about three times the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.

Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday.

They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.

Yesterday.

The Daily DonnieOnTwitter:

"Do not allow anyone to tell you that it cannot be done. No challenge can match the HEART and FIGHT and SPIRIT of America." – @POTUS pic.twitter.com/26JQOY4pk8

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 21, 2017

Just look at that horrible horrible picture. The scowl, the fist – and that’s a picture they choose to highlight, and it’s the picture he chooses to tweet at us. He wants to be seen as a disgusting bully; he likes that image of himself.

Who does that? Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, but besides them?

President Angry Bully. That’s how he chooses to present himself to us. It’s horrifying.

Had a great meeting at CIA Headquarters yesterday, packed house, paid great respect to Wall, long standing ovations, amazing people. WIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

“paid great respect to Wall” – god what a stupid little man he is. He must have seen the news stories about how he stood next to the wall commemorating agents killed on the job and whined about his grievances at the media, and so he chose to say Nuh uh, he “paid great respect to Wall” – which simply disrespects it all over again. It’s sandwiched between two claims about his vast popularity, and it’s empty and offhand – not how one does “respect.”

Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

In other words how dare people protest him. Yes, we know, and you can’t stop us, not unless you do go full-fascist.

Also, “Celebs hurt cause badly” is pretty funny coming from him. If he were not a “celeb” he would still be a failed casino-builder.

Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

Now we get to the important stuff – his tv ratings. They’re awesome, dude! Best ever! Top celeb!

Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

Two hours after the whine about the protests. Someone must have had a word in his shell-like about the troublesome fact that we have rights to speak and gather and protest in this country, the one he presumes to govern. It’s a tad disconcerting that he needs to be reminded.

Robert Reich on Facebook today:

I had breakfast recently with a friend who’s a former Republican member of Congress. Here’s what he said:

Him: Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.

Me: Then why didn’t you speak out against him during the campaign?

Him: You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.

Me: So what now? What are your former Republican colleagues going to do?

Him (smirking): They’ll play along for a while.

Me: A while?

Him: They’ll get as much as they want – tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare – and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.

Me: And then what?

Him (laughing): They like Pence.

Me: What do you mean?

Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.

Me: So what?

Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb – steps over the line – violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way … and you know he will …

Me: They impeach him?

Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.

CNN is caustic about Spicer’s rant.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” Spicer said, contradicting all available data.

Aerial photos have indicated that former president Barack Obama’s first inauguration attracted a much larger crowd. Nielsen ratings show that Obama also had a bigger television audience.

Spicer said, without any evidence, that some photos were “intentionally framed” to downplay Trump’s crowd.

Evidence! Pah! Absolute monarchs don’t bother with evidence.

He also expressed objections to specific Twitter posts from journalists. And he said, “we’re going to hold the press accountable,” partly by reaching the public through social networking sites.

Spicer, at times almost yelling while reading a prepared statement, took no questions. CNNMoney called his cell phone a few minutes later; he did not answer.

Some longtime White House correspondents were stunned by the tirade.

Glenn Thrush of The New York Times wrote on Twitter, “Jaw meet floor.”

“I’ve run out of adjectives,” wrote Chuck Todd, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post said Spicer’s assertion about “what you guys should be writing” was “chilling.”

They’re building the resistance.

Ari Fleischer, who had the same job as Spicer during the George W. Bush administration, tweeted, “This is called a statement you’re told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching.”

And Brian Fallon, who was in line to become press secretary if Hillary Clinton had won, wrote, “Sean Spicer lacks the guts or integrity to refuse orders to go out and lie. He is a failure in this job on his first full day.”

…

Former Democratic congressman Steve Israel, who recently joined CNN as a commentator, said, “This isn’t a petty attack on the press. It’s a calculated attempt to delegitimize any questioning of @realDonaldTrump by a free press.”

Spicer’s statement came two hours after Trump spoke at CIA headquarters and described his “running war with the media.” Trump spent several minutes of that speech complaining about news coverage.

So I guess Trump will be even more furious tomorrow, because of this coverage we’re reading right now? And Spicer will shout even louder? And the press will report on that?

Close the shutters. Lay in plenty of chocolate and coffee. Make a will.

Trump’s press secretary started the new administration by giving the press a damn good scolding, and then lying about the inauguration. They’re not wasting any time steering the ship onto the rocks.

President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, on Saturday used his first media briefing to angrily lambaste the press for its coverage of the new administration, claiming reporters had deliberately sought to minimize the “enormous” crowd at Trump’s swearing-in on Friday.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period — both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Of course, that’s not true, or even close to true.

In a highly unusual move, Spicer left the briefing without taking questions, ignoring reporters who shouted questions at him about the massive crowd in town for the Women’s March on Washington, which was designed to protest Trump’s presidency.

Spicer’s comments on crowd size echoed those of his boss a couple of hours earlier, when Trump appeared at the CIA headquarters in Virginia. Trump said that the “dishonest” media had underreported a crowd that, from the dais, he said “looked like a million, a million and a half people.”

Which of course he knows how to tell. From the dais.

And he said that more people used the Metro system in Washington for Trump’s inaugural than for Obama’s 2013 swearing-in. That conflicted with information released Saturday by Metro.

The agency said 570,557 people took trips in the system between its early 4 a .m. Friday opening through midnight closing. That compared with 1.1 million trips for Obama’s 2009  inaugural and 782,000 in 2013, according to Metro.

But he gets to make up the numbers, because he works for the prezzydent. It’s force majeure, or something. Crème Brûlée. Volte face. One of those things.

Maybe it’s all been a big joke, and he’s going home on Monday.

A guy with broad experience in intelligence comments on Trump’s visit to the CIA:

President Trump at the CIA was appalling.

The sacrifices he talked about were his own: mistreatment by the “dishonest” media; self-glorification (“Trust me, I’m like a smart person”); the size of his inaugural crowd (“It looked like a million, a million and a half people” on the Mall) (which isn’t true); his narcissistic boasting of being on the cover of Time magazine.

Unfocused, except on himself. Untruthful, except perhaps acknowledging where he was. And completely at sea as to why on earth he was there. Except to fish for compliments, and the kind of admiration he craves like an attention-starved child. And maybe to draw attention away from the massive Women’s March on Washington crowd dominating our nation’s capital.

In short he’s not doing well so far. Impeachment may happen sooner than we think.

The Post gives us a nice opening paragraph:

On his first full day in office, President Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters to express his gratitude for the intelligence community, which he had repeatedly railed against and recently likened to Nazis.

“I’m so grateful to you, you Nazis.” Not entirely convincing, perhaps.

What Trump delivered Saturday was a campaign-style, stream-of-consciousness airing of grievances — at the Senate for delaying confirmation of his nominees; at critics for questioning whether he is smart and vigorous; and at journalists, whom he called “the most dishonest human beings on earth” and accused of lying about the size of his inauguration crowd.

Well at least we know we’re annoying him. That may be our only consolation for awhile, but then again, he may get so annoyed he flounces back to Trump Tower for good.

Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. It did not. Trump accused television networks of showing “an empty field” and reporting that he drew just 250,000 people to witness Friday’s ceremony.

“It looked like a million, a million and a half people,” Trump said, falsely claiming that his crowd “went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”

He’s stupid, he’s prickly, and he’s a liar.

Trump also misrepresented what happened to the weather during his swearing in. He said he felt a few drops of rain as he started delivering his address, but then, “God looked down and, and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.. . .The truth is it stopped immediately.”

Light rain continued to fall through the first few minutes of the speech — and VIP’s at the dais took out ponchos, including former president George W. Bush — and then quit. Trump said there was a downpour right after he finished, which did not occur.

Jezus what a goon he is.

Speaking from the lobby of CIA headquarters in Langley, before a wall of stars honoring intelligence officers who died in service, Trump declared, “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?”

No. No, you piece of shit – you are.

His audience was three to four hundred CIA people who were there because they’d signed up for it, so probably fans of his.

But aspects of his appearance are likely to be unsettling to the broader workforce, including his suggestion that the agency has been losing in the battle against the Islamic State and other terror groups, and his decision to score political points unrelated to the CIA’s mission in front of its most sacred setting — a wall emblazoned with more than 100 carved stars to mark the deaths of agency operatives killed in the line of duty.

It’s what a narcissist does. Trump thinks everyone is as fascinated by him as he is.

“That was one of the more disconcerting speeches I’ve seen,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official who was not present for the Trump speech but watched it by video. “He could have kept it very simple and said, ‘I’m here to build some bridges.’ But he spent 10 seconds on that and the rest was on the crowd size,” the official said, referring to Trump’s repeated complaints that the media had undercounted the turnout for his inauguration.

Nothing about Alec Baldwin?

“There is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump,” Trump said. “There is nobody.”

He added, “I am so behind you. I know maybe sometimes you haven’t gotten the backing that you’ve wanted and you’re going to get so much backing. Maybe you’re going to say, ‘Please, don’t give us so much backing. Mr. President, please, we don’t need so much backing.’”

See what he did there? He said he’s going to be so generous that they’ll actually beg him to stop. Can he use the language or what.

He talked about Pompeo and Flynn for awhile but then he got back on topic.

From there, Trump delved into a series of personal grievances. He claimed to “know a lot about West Point” and said his uncle was a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics,” Trump said. “They say, ‘Is Donald Trump an intellectual?’ Trust me. I’m, like, a smart person.”

Nah, they don’t. They say Trump is thick as two short planks. The fact that he’s not an intellectual is too obvious to discuss.

The Sunday Times:

So Trump is God now?

TIME just goes with the full frontal fascist:

The New Zealand Herald also likes the scowl with the puny fist: