Tag: Trump

  • Wham wham wham

    Trump and his gang are going to take an axe to federal programs.

    The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

    The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

    Also…

    At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for eliminating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation and for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions.

    Burn it all down, says the invading barbarian.

  • Hail to the sleaze

    Trump is partying up his inauguration…and he’s doing it at his hotel. That means he’s profiting while he parties, which is sleazy as fuck. Tomorrow at 12:01 Eastern it will become more than sleazy.

    With sirens blaring, a fleet of limousines and security personnel raced down Pennsylvania Avenue twice in less than the last 24 hours to deliver Donald J. Trump to inauguration events.

    But he was not heading to the White House. He was going to Trump International Hotel.

    The hotel he leases from the federal government, and runs as a profit-making venture.

    Conflicts that for months have been theoretical are now about to become real — most immediately a possible challenge by the federal government. It owns the building that houses Mr. Trump’s hotel and has granted him a 60-year lease. From the moment he is sworn in as president at noon Friday, Mr. Trump may be in violation of that lease, given a provision that appears to prohibit federal elected officials from renting the Old Post Office building, the Pennsylvania Avenue landmark that houses the hotel, from the government.

    Guests at the hotel include foreign diplomats and politicians who could be looking to curry favor with Mr. Trump — but even the act of paying their bills as they check out after the inauguration may open Mr. Trump to a challenge that he has violated the United States Constitution, which prohibits federal government officials from taking payments or gifts from foreign governments.

    Maybe the whole thing – Trump, the Old Post Office, all 50 states – will slide down into a crack in the earth’s crust tomorrow and vanish with a fearsome roar. I hope Canada and Mexico will be unharmed.

    Members of Mr. Trump’s new cabinet are also staying there this week, as are dozens of big-ticket donors to his presidential election campaign and inauguration. The hotel will also be the site of a prayer breakfast on Friday before Mr. Trump is sworn in. All these bookings mean payments to the Trump Organization for the hotel rooms, meals and other accommodations.

    Well at least he’s probably giving them a discount, right?

    The minimum nightly rate at the hotel will be $735. One suite during inauguration week was offered for $500,000, with various perks. On Thursday, the president-elect attended a lunch with Republican leaders of Congress, cabinet members and hundreds of others in the hotel’s enormous Presidential Ballroom, which features nine glass chandeliers and gold and white walls. “This is a gorgeous room,” Mr. Trump told the gathering. “A total genius must have built this place.”

    Yeah, Donnie from Queens the total genius.

    Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, defended Mr. Trump’s continued close ties to the hotel. “That he’s going to his own hotel? I mean, I think that’s pretty smart,” Mr. Spicer said. “I think the idea that he’s going to his own hotel shouldn’t be a shocker. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a place that he’s very proud of.”

    Mr. Spicer added: “It’s an absolutely stunning hotel. I encourage you all to go there if you haven’t been by.”

    They’re making us all proud.

  • Ruining the brand

    The Times addresses the question of why Putin wanted Trump; what’s in it for him?

    Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth and a contributor to The Upshot, made the case succinctly:

    Trump has flouted the norms of American elections and governance at every turn, including calling for the jailing of an opposing candidate, encouraging violence against protesters, endorsing the torture of prisoners, suggesting he might not respect the results of the election, falsely claiming that millions of illegal votes were cast, failing to resolve unprecedented conflicts of interest or to even disclose his tax returns, and attacking a federal judge based on his ethnicity (and that’s of course a highly incomplete list). I can’t directly assess the IC report, but it’s fair to say that the liberal democratic order is being disrupted both in the U.S. and around the world.

    Putin doesn’t like the liberal democratic order, because it’s not his kind of order. He’d rather have a kind of order that favors authoritarian strongmen like him. Breaking the legs of the liberal democratic order helps with that.

    Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sent me his thoughts:

    One, the Russians have known for a long time that Trump was susceptible to flattery, especially from major authority figures. Two, he had a significant following in the US as a mega-celebrity. Three, if he got engaged in politics, it would be divisive — a good early example being his birther efforts. Four, he would perplex, frustrate and divide Republican establishment figures, most of whom were hostile to Russia, but a divided major party serves to disrupt the democracy. I doubt they thought he would win, but he would encourage or exacerbate divisions in the society, challenge many fundamental norms over his own narcissistic sociopathic views of himself and his entitlements, and break a lot of crockery without a second’s misgiving. His victories, with the GOP nomination and the election were unexpected icing on the cake.

    It’s a tiny bit reassuring that even someone at the AEI can see that.

    Another scholar put it as a matter of weakening “the West’s desirability, credibility and moral authority.” It’s an effective way of doing that, for sure. I’ve lost a huge amount of trust in our desirability, credibility and moral authority since last July. I still have no desire to move to Pakistan or Somalia, but the gap is closing. That’s no good. Pakistan and Somalia need to get better; we don’t need to get worse.

    David Leege, a professor emeritus of political science at Notre Dame, wrote me:

    Trump was a willing but unwitting accomplice because he loved the flattery, saw it only as a business opportunity, and had so little understanding of international relations to recognize how affairs of state could be caught up in it.

    Along similar lines, Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby, argued that Trump’s

    ego is such that he never asked, nor does he ask yet, what playing into the Russians needs and desires meant for our system. An unwitting — ego-driven — tool of Putin’s goal to undermine faith in our system and in the Clinton candidacy.

    Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, was outspoken in his response to my question asking why the Russians favored Trump:

    His shameless mendacity, narcissism, authoritarian instincts, inability to tolerate opposition or criticism, hostility to formal institutions and the media, vast ignorance of foreign and domestic issues, indifference to constitutional restraints and eagerness to whip up and exploit xenophobia and (barely disguised) racism. We might add his affection for authoritarian leaders and other tough guys. Have I left anything out? Probably. All of these characteristics lead him to say things and propose actions antithetical to democratic norms and standards.

    Trump is so terrible it’s difficult to give an exhaustive account of his terribleness.

  • 28 out of 690

    Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

    Politico’s Michael Crowley has a nice piece explaining the missing National Security Council staffers, and the dangers that could cause if there’s an early crisis. Hundreds of briefing papers have been created by Obama’s NSC and sent to Team Trump, but the New York Times reports that no one knows if they’ve been reviewed.

    Yet the NSC is ahead of the curve for this administration. Look at the big four departments. There’s no Trump appointee for any of the top State Department jobs below secretary nominee Rex Tillerson. No Trump appointee for any of the top Department of Defense jobs below retired general James Mattis. Treasury? Same story. Justice? It is one of two departments (along with, bizarrely, Commerce) where Trump has selected a deputy secretary. But no solicitor general, no one at civil rights, no one in the civil division, no one for the national security division.

    And the same is true in department after department. Not to mention agencies without anyone at all nominated by the president-elect.

    Overall, out of 690 positions requiring Senate confirmation tracked by the Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service, Trump has come up with only 28 people so far.

    That’s alarming. It’s alarming if it’s incompetence and indifference, and it’s alarming if it’s all part of the cunning plan to destroy the state.

    If I had to guess, however, I’d say that the failure to get his administration up and running on time isn’t a deliberate choice by Trump; he just has no idea what he’s doing, and hasn’t surrounded himself with people well-equipped to translate his impulses and his campaign commitments into a full-fledged government. This isn’t exactly a surprise. Recall that the Trump Organization has never had a large bureaucracy and that his campaign didn’t staff up the way campaigns normally do, so he doesn’t really have any relevant management experience. And, of course, he’s never demonstrated any significant knowledge in how the government actually works. The results are likely to be damaging to his presidency, and to the nation.

    His presidency should be damaged. The nation? I’d rather not.

  • It is never just locker room talk

    Congressional Representative Luis Gutierrez on why he won’t be at the inauguration. Now there is a guy who knows how to talk, unlike President-elect Pussygrabber. The rep has something to say about the Pussygrabber.

    My speech this morning on the Floor of the House about why I will not be at the inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 20 but will be marching with women at the Women’s March on Jan. 21. “We all heard the tape when Donald Trump was bragging – bragging! – about grabbing women by their private parts without their consent. It is something I can never un-hear. Bragging to that guy on TV that he would grab women below the belt as a way of hitting on them. Sorry. That is never OK. It is never just locker room talk. It is offensive and, if he ever actually did it, it is criminal….”

  • Donnie doing his hoamwerk

    Bahahahahahahaha Donnie from Queens tweets a candid shot of himself “writing” his inaugural address. Suuuuuuure he is. He’s totally writing it. You can tell by the casual expertise with which he tries to fold the pad in half while he’s writing on it.

     

  • Trump’s defamatory assertions may catch up with him

    Another reason to think Donald Trump is not a very nice man.

    A former contestant on the reality show “The Apprentice” filed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against President-elect Donald Trump over his response to her allegations that he groped her during a job interview in 2007.

    Summer Zervos, a California restaurant owner who appeared on the show in 2006, accused Trump of aggressively kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization a year later.

    In her suit, Zervos alleges that Trump defamed her when he denied her account of their interactions in the hotel room, accusing her and other women who made similar accusations of lying and fabricating their accounts. Zervos said she would drop her lawsuit, which was filed in New York, without seeking monetary damages if Trump would retract his claim that she lied and acknowledge his actions.

    Sleazy enough yet?

    Zervos held a news conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

    “Enough is enough,” Allred said. “Truth matters. Women matter, those who allege they were victims of sexual misconduct or sexual assault by Mr. Trump matter.”

    Trump’s people denied it.

    Eleven women spoke publicly before the election, accusing Trump of inappropriately touching or kissing them. They stepped forward after Trump denied ever touching a woman without her consent during a presidential debate in October.

    “Have you ever done those things?” Trump was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, regarding comments Trump made during a taping of “Access Hollywood” in 2005, when he bragged about groping and kissing women without their permission. “I will tell you: No, I have not,” Trump responded.

    Was that credible? After listening to that tape? No.

    During the campaign, Trump asserted that each of his accusers was lying and vowed to sue the women for making the claims.

    “Total fabrication,” he said during a campaign rally in Gettysburg, Pa., in October. “The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

    He’s a bad man.

    Without evidence, he said the women were coordinating with the campaign of his rival, Hillary Clinton. He also mocked some of the women, suggesting they were not attractive enough for him to sexually harass.

    “When you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, ‘I don’t think so,’ ” Trump said at a rally about one of his accusers, a People Magazine reporter who said Trump shoved her against a wall and forcibly kissed her while she was at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate on assignment in 2005.

    He’s a cruel bullying lying monster of a man.

    Zervos said she excused Trump’s behavior for years, particularly because she was ultimately offered a job at the Trump Organization, but she had been compelled to step forward after hearing the presidential candidate brag to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about behaving similarly with other women.

    According to the suit, the tape convinced Zervos that Trump was “a sexual predator who had preyed on her and other women.”

    You can see how it would. It shows that he did that shit routinely and calculatedly, and that he bragged about it to other men. Yes, that’s predatory.

    Lie down with dogs, get up with Donald Trump as president.

  • Falling apart

    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution expanded on Trump’s assertion that John Lewis’s congressional district is “in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested)” a few days ago.

    The Democrat’s district includes parts of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties – and most of the city of Atlanta – as well as Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur and Morrow. The district has several of Atlanta’s most prominent gems, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the King Center and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    And it has the bulk of Georgia’s higher education institutions: Emory University, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University are all in the 5th Congressional District. It is also where many of the state’s Fortune 500 companies are based, including Coca Cola Co., Southern Co. and Delta Air Lines.

    Um. Er. So not really in such horrible shape then. Not actually falling apart then. Kind of the opposite. Five colleges and universities, and CocaCola, and Delta, and the CDC.

    Ah yes but does it have any Trump Towers?

    Image result for trump tower

  • Translating Trump

    Rob Zaretsky at the LA Review of Books talks to a French translator about what it’s like translating Trump. They start with Obama. Translating him was a joy. Trump is…different.

    Well, as I said, you have to be able to get into someone’s mind in order to translate his speech and reformulate it into your own language. Trump is not easy to translate, first of all, because, most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going. In my essay, I took the example of the interview he gave to The New York Times. He seems to hang onto a word in the question, or to a word that pops into his mind, repeating it over and over again. He shapes his thought around it and, sometimes, succeeds in giving part of an answer — often the same answer: namely, that he won the election. Trump seems to go from point A (the question) to point B (himself, most of the time) with no real logic. It’s as if he had thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them.

    Indeed. I too have been reading him closely, and yes that is what he does. Remember the answers from the Times – Bild interview? A question about his view of the UK – a reply about his golf course. A question about his heroes – a reply about how awesome he is. Random and narcissistic at once.

    But here’s the other problem with Trump: even once you’ve understood his point (or lack thereof), you must still express it in your own language. You realize, at that moment, that you have written something very unpleasant to read. Trump’s vocabulary is limited, his syntax is broken; he repeats the same phrases over and over, forcing the translator to follow suit. If she does not, she betrays the spirit of the original piece. The translator has to translate the content and the style. So that is what I do, and reading Trump in French, which is a very structured and logical language, reveals the poor quality of his language and, consequently, of his thought.

    It’s very unpleasant to read in English too. It’s especially unpleasant in light of his new job. That brain-dead tweet about Martin Luther King for instance: nothing but “great” and “very very.” It’s horrifying that that is succeeding Obama.

    Does this mean that Trump poses an ethical as well as linguistic challenge to the translator?

    As a translator of political discourse, you also have the duty to write readable texts: so what am I to do? Translate Trump as he speaks, and let French readers struggle with whatever content there is? (Not to mention the fact that I will be judged on the vocabulary I choose — sometimes the translator is blamed for the poor quality of a piece.) Or keep the content, but smooth out the style, so that it is a little bit more intelligible, leading non-English speakers to believe that Trump is an ordinary politician who speaks properly — when this is obviously not the case?

    No, not that second one. Absolutely not. He must never be translated into Less Stupid.

  • Bikers for Trump are on their way

    Today in TrumpOnTwitter.

    His epistemology needs work. The fact that one sycophant says something flattering about his Twitter use is just that – a minor fact about one person. It’s far from sufficient to demonstrate that the media are dishonest about his Twitter use.

    He seems to think his daughter should be immune from press attention unless it’s friendly. If she were a child I would agree, but she’s not. She’s an adult and a participant in his shoddy corrupt activities.

    Again – that’s one person saying something. It’s random.

    Also notice Trump’s chronic shallowness – notice that he chose a tweet that says nothing, just as he couldn’t manage to say anything about Martin Luther King even when he wanted to. “Great…character…class.” That’s just a generic compliment, it doesn’t mean anything. Trump doesn’t even know how to mean.

    No they’re not. People are staying away in record numbers.

    No they’re not.

    It’s true that Lewis boycotted Bush Jr’s inauguration. Since he doesn’t have Trump’s pattern of reckless lying, I think he forgot as opposed to lying, but I can’t demonstrate it. Mind you, there were very solid reasons for seeing Bush’s first election as dubious, given that 5-4 Supreme Court ruling and all. But Trump is at least telling the truth in that pair of tweets. But so what? He’s telling it in aid of continuing his attack on someone who’s better than he is.

    Breitbart. He’s quoting Breitbart at us. He’ll be president in three days and he’s quoting Breitbart at us.

  • Trump names his heroes

    The transcript part 2.

    Next comes the bit I saw on Twitter, which motivated me to read the whole thing. Empty empty empty. He is so empty.

    Do you have any models — are there heroes that you steer by — people you look up to from the past?

    Well, I don’t like heroes, I don’t like the concept of heroes, the concept of heroes is never great, but certainly you can respect certain people and certainly there are certain people — but I’ve learnt a lot from my father — my father was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens — he did houses and housing and I learnt a lot about negotiation from my father — although I also think negotiation is a natural trait, I don’t think you can, you either have it or you don’t, you get better at it but basically, the people that I know who are great negotiators or great salesmen or great politicians, it’s very natural, very natural . . . I got a letter from somebody, their congressman, they said what you’ve done is amazing because you were never a politician and you beat all the politicians. He said they added it up — when I was three months into the campaign, they added it up — I had three months of experience and the 17 guys I was running against, the Republicans, had 236 years – ya know when you add 20 years and 30 years — so I was three months they were 236 years — so it’s sort of a funny article but I believe it’s like hitting a baseball or being a good golfer — natural ability, to me, is much more important to me than experience and experience is a great thing — I think it’s a great thing — but I learnt a lot from my father in terms of leadership.

    His hero is himself, in fact. He has that heroic quality of being a good negotiator, in the sense of getting more money out of a deal than anyone else. He has it naturally. Heroic.

    How is being president going to change how you operate?

    Ya know this is a very, very big change — I led a very nice life and ya know successful and good and nice and this is a lot different — but ya know my attitude on that is when you’re president, you’re in the White House which is a very special place — you’re there for a limited period of time — who wants to leave? Like I’ve liked President Obama, he’s been very nice, yeah he’s been nice one on one, but maybe not so nice in other ways — but who wants to leave the White House to go to some other place and be away on a vacation? The White House is very special, there’s so much work to be done, I’m not gonna be leaving much — I mean a lot of work to be done — I’m gonna be in there working, doing what I’m supposed to be doing — but who wants to leave the White House?

    Oh, I see – it’s about the house. I didn’t realize that. Ok. He’s excited about the house. He’s all about the house. He won’t be wanting to leave the house.

    But he’ll be working hard while he’s in the house. At what? Twitter. He’s really big on Twitter you know. Did you know that? He wants you to know that.

    When you’re president will you still tweet? And if you do will it be as the Real Donald Trump, as Potus, or probably as Real Potus?

    @realDonaldTrump I think, I’ll keep it . . . so I’ve got 46 million people right now — that’s a lot, that’s really a lot — but 46 million — including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram so when you think that your 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working — and the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press — so dishonestly — that I can put out Twitter — and it’s not 140, it’s now 140, 280 — I can go bing bing bing and I just keep going and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out — this morning on television, Fox — “Donald Trump, we have breaking news” — I put out a thing . . .

    Well yes, it’s true that when a president tweets something deranged or contemptible, it gets on the news…but that’s perhaps not such an unalloyed good as he’s thinking.

    But ya know the tweeting is interesting because I find it very accurate — when I get a word out and if I tell something to the papers and they don’t write it accurately, it’s really bad — they can’t do much when you tweet it and I’m careful about, it’s very precise, actually it’s very, very precise — and it comes out breaking news, we have breaking news — ya know, it’s funny, if I did a press release and if I put it out, it wouldn’t get nearly — people would see it the following day — if I do a news conference, that’s a lot of work.

    Very, very precise – that’s good to know. He’s careful about it, it’s very very precise, he means every word. Good to know.

    Are you looking forward to meeting our prime minister?

    Well, I’ll be there — we’ll be there soon — I would say we’ll be here for a little while but and it looks like she’ll be here first — how is she doing over there, by the way, what do you think?

    Theresa?

    Yeah, May.

    Glad we got that cleared up.

    What do you do when there’s a toddler in the White House? Not because the president has a toddler but because the toddler is the president? What do you do?

  • Trump really is Trump

    The Times published a full transcript of the interview of Trump that Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann did for the Times and Bild respectively. It’s not a surprise yet it is a surprise. It’s the same old thing yet it still amazes. He can’t talk competently, and the content of what he says is absurd or horrifying or both. He’s always worse than one can believe.

    Their opener is to ask him about relations with Germany and Scotland [and presumably the UK as a whole] – and he replies by talking about his golf course and how it’s raking in the cash thanks to how low the pound is.

    They talk about Brexit and he talks about “strong borders” and how he’ll sign strong borders first thing on Monday, not Friday or Saturday because those are party days.

    You mentioned you have German ancestors. What does it mean for you to have German blood in your veins?

    Well, it’s great. I mean, I’m very proud of Germany and Germany is very special Bad Dürkheim, right? This is serious Germany, right? Like this isn’t any question — this is serious Germany. No, I’m very proud of Germany. I love Germany, I love the UK.

    Tell us more about the UK.

    When are you coming to the UK as president?

    I look forward to doing it. My mother was very ceremonial, I think that’s where I got this aspect because my father was very brick-and-mortar, he was like, and my mother sort of had a flair, she loved the Queen, she loved anything — she was so proud of the Queen. She loved the ceremonial and the beauty, cause nobody does that like the English. And she had great respect for the Queen, liked her. Anytime the Queen was on television, an event, my mother would be watching. Crazy, right?

    Is there anything else you take from having a Scottish mother?

    Well, the Scottish are known for watching their pennies, so I like to watch my pennies — I mean I deal in big pennies, that’s the problem.

    Is there anything typically German about you?

    I like order. I like things done in an orderly manner. And certainly the Germans, that’s something that they’re rather well known for. But I do, I like order and I like strength.

    Elegantly done.

    Given your views on free trade, would you say that you’re a conservative?

    I’m pragmatic, look I go in front of crowds — I had the biggest crowds anybody’s ever had for a presidential election and that’s tough and when I was fighting with Jeb Bush, ya know “low energy” Jeb, he would say, ‘Donald Trump is not a conservative’, so I’d go in front of 25,000 people and, like in Michigan, where there’s massive — 32,000 people — and I’m screaming, ‘Jeb Bush says I’m not a conservative’, they’re screaming, ‘Who cares?’, and I said, ‘What do you want? Do you want conservative or a good deal?’ And the reason, because Jeb Bush said I’m not a conservative because I don’t believe in free trade — well I do believe in free trade, I love free trade, but it’s gotta be smart trade so I call it fair trade — and the problem, so I said to the people, ‘Do you want a conservative or do you want somebody who’s gonna make great deals?’, and they’re all screaming, ‘Great deals, great deals’ — they don’t care, there are no labels — ya know there’s some people, he is not — Jeb Bush would stand up — ‘He is not a true conservative’ — who cares — I am a conservative, but I’m really about making great deals for the people so they get jobs . . . the people don’t care ya know when you’re talking — they don’t care, they want good deals — ya know what? They want their jobs back.

    And then everyone’s head flew off and the credits rolled.

    Just kidding. That’s only halfway. But I do wonder what Gove and Diekmann were thinking.

  • Trump’s holiday plans

    Trump is perhaps aware that his tribute to Martin Luther King was a little thin on specifics (unless you consider “wonderful” and “great” to be specifics), so he’s meeting with King’s oldest son to find out what they were.

    Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s press secretary and communications director, announced the planned meeting in New York between Mr. Trump and Martin Luther King III in a morning posting on Twitter. It came two days after the president-elect had taken to the social media platform to attack Mr. Lewis after the congressman said an interview that he would not attend the inauguration and did not see Mr. Trump as a legitimate president because of questions about whether Russian hacking had affected the American election.

    Mr. Trump hit back on Saturday with Twitter postings calling Mr. Lewis, who was brutally beaten in the “Bloody Sunday” march in 1965 in Selma, Ala., “all talk,” and saying that instead of “falsely complaining” about the election results, he should focus on fixing his “falling apart” and “crime infested” Georgia district.

    Mr. Lewis actually represents a district that includes part of the wealthy enclave of Buckhead; the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

    Later, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Lewis should help him focus on “burning and crime infested inner-cities” throughout the United States and adding, “I can use all the help I can get!”

    As if John Lewis were a servant to the president as opposed to a Congressional Representative with his own work to do.

    In a series of television interviews on Monday, Mr. Spicer said Mr. Lewis started the fight, and he defended Mr. Trump’s decision to respond, telling CBS that the president-elect is “not going to sit back and just take attacks without responding.”

    Ahhhh now you see that’s a problem right there. Actually presidents do have to sit back and just take attacks without responding. It goes with the territory. Presidents have to do that an enormous amount, possibly more than any other single human being on the planet, given our combination of a hefty population and a free press, along with our head of state and head of government folded into one office. Presidents are going to be attacked by all and sundry; that’s the nature of the job. They have to refrain from responding in order to get on with their work. So if Trump really is not going to sit back and just take attacks without responding, then that’s another reason he’s in way over his gleaming orange head.

    News reports on Sunday initially said that Mr. Trump, whose aides had refused to divulge his plans for Martin Luther King’s Birthday, would visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, but later said the plans had fallen through.

    “Fallen through”? What’s that supposed to mean? He forgot he had a geography test today? He had no clean underpants? He lost his bus pass? How can a plan of that kind for the president-elect “fall through”?

    Mr. Spicer said that the president-elect would meet with Mr. King and others in New York to discuss voting rights and other ways of pursuing King’s legacy during a Trump administration.

    Ah voting rights is it. So is he going to talk to Mr King about his lie about “millions of people who voted illegally”? Trump doesn’t give a shit about voting rights, except for taking them away.

    Maybe they’ll just talk about football and call it a day.

  • All of the many

    Even when Trump tries for once not to be an asshole, he remains an asshole. That’s because he’s so inadequate and empty.

    Behold his masterpiece for MLK Day:

    Oh yes, all the many wonderful things. So many. Very wonderful. Very very wonderful.

    Honor him. Honor him for being great. So great. Very very very great. Very very great man who did many many very very wonderful things.

    Exclamation point!

  • They should APOLOGIZE

    The latest TrumpOnTwitter:

    No. John Lewis doesn’t need the ignoramus Trump telling him what to work on, and he’s not Trump’s assistant.

    Says the man whose campaign rallies were notorious for their hatemongering which often developed into violence. Says the man who spews hatred for individuals and groups every day on Twitter. Says the meanest angriest most narcissistic man ever to be elected president of the US.

    Ah, people who make mistakes should apologize. When has Trump ever apologized for a mistake? He never apologized for his torrent of lies about Obama. He never apologized for bragging about grabbing women by the pussy without their permission.

    He is at this moment struggling to conclude a thought that was too long for one tweet. It’s been eleven minutes now and he still hasn’t completed it.

    Couldn’t do what?

    Writing is hard.

  • Compare

    Susan Campbell has a terrific post at The Hill comparing Trump and John Lewis over time.

    n a photograph from his youth, President-elect Donald J. Trump poses in the dress uniform of a New York Military Academy cadet. He’s posed next to his father, real estate mogul Fred C. Trump, and his mother, the Scottish immigrant/social climber, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump.

    He graduated from NYMA in 1964, and with all due respect to the class of ’17, at the time his school had the reputation as little more than a holding pen for rich, disaffected young men who’d reach a level of incompetence unwelcome at other institutions.

    During that same time, John Lewis, the son of the sharecropper Eddie Lewis, and Willie Mae Carter Lewis, was running the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was a keynote speaker at the 1963 March On Washington, the gathering where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream Speech.”

    Now to be fair Lewis is six years older than Trump, so in the early years he gets a partial discount for that…but only partial, because the discrepancies in material advantages remain.

    While Trump was playing Animal House Lewis was having his skull fractured by Alabama state troopers.

    Trump transferred to Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, and racked up five draft deferments — four for college, and one for bone spurs in his heels. He entered his father’s real estate business, where in 1973, the Department of Justice sued Trump and his company for alleged racial discrimination at their housing developments.

    Trump and family settled, without admitting guilt, but only after Trump tried to counter-sue for $100 million.

    During that time, Lewis was director of the Voter Education Project, which coordinated the voter registration work of five different organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the NAACP, and the National Urban League. In 1987, John Lewis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s Fifth district. In 1998, he published, “Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of a Movement.” It won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He followed it with a much-acclaimed series of graphic novels titled, “March.”

    In 1987, Trump published “Art of the Deal,” followed by “The Art of the Comeback,” “How to Get Rich,” and “Think Like a Billionaire,” though we don’t actually know if Trump is a billionaire as he won’t release his income taxes.

    Speaks for itself, dunnit.

    In 2011, Trump began floating the (false) rumor that Pres. Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. That same year, Lewis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    Trump isn’t good enough to empty the wastebasket in Lewis’s office.

  • More than $5 million for unpaid labor

    Item 2 from Amy Suskind’s list – Bloomberg reported on January 5:

    Donald Trump’s new Washington hotel, located just blocks from the White House, owes electricians, wood workers and a plumbing and heating business more than $5 million for unpaid labor, according to liens filed against the property with the District of Columbia.

    The 263-room hotel, located on the historic site of the city’s former main post office, opened in October following a $212 million renovation of the 1899 structure. The liens were filed in November and December, according to public records.

    Trump has acknowledged not always paying all his bills, saying it’s often a negotiating tactic when work is subpar. His companies have been sued numerous times over unpaid work. Among them were landscapers at Riverside South Park in Manhattan, who sued in 2001 seeking $111,000. Contractors at Trump Park Avenue sued in 2003 seeking $206,000. And in 2010 a painter in Chicago sued a Trump entity developing a high-rise claiming to be owed more than $4 million.

    Beautiful, isn’t it? The guy who will be president in 5 days owes 5 million bucks to working people? Are we a classy nation or what.

    Those claiming they’re owed money by Trump Old Post Office LLC include the Washington plumbing and heating firm, Joseph J. Magnolia Inc., which says it’s due $2.98 million. A Maryland company, AES Electrical Inc., claims it’s owed $2.075 million and A&D Construction of Virginia LLC, says the hotel hasn’t paid $79,700 for trim work including crown and base moldings.

    Rebecca Woods, an attorney representing the president-elect in other hotel-related litigation, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment on the liens. Trump’s communications office didn’t immediately reply to an e-mailed request for comment.

    Trump is a thief, and the people he steals from are contractors and workers.

  • Thank you all for peeing here

    Last night’s Alec Baldwin as Trump:

  • 36 items

    Amy Siskind posted a list yesterday, saying that “experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.” Some of the items are new to me and demand research. Number 2 for instance made my eyes stand out on stalks, as did 23.

    1. The Office of Government Ethics director publicly lamented, “we seem to have lost contact with the Trump-Pence transition since the election.”
    2.Three vendors have placed liens on the Trump hotel in DC for unpaid bills of over $5 million, in total.
    3. The OGE similarly said they had not completed ethics reviews of Trump’s cabinet nominees. Leader McConnell said the Democrats need to “grow up” on Trump’s desire for speedy confirmations.
    4. Sean Hannity endorsed a tweet which said “Make Russia Great Again” with the word, “Amen.” Hannity later deleted his tweet.
    5. Meryl Streep used her Golden Globes lifetime of notable work speech to eloquently attack Trump, without mentioning his name.
    6. Trump responded via a tweet that Streep is an “over-rated” actress, and denied he had mocked a disabled reporter.
    7. Trump took credit for a Fiat Chrysler plant and jobs in MI and OH. Fiat Chrysler responded that Trump had nothing to do with it.
    8. Trump appointed Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to a top WH post, possibly violating the 1967 federal anti-nepotism statute.
    9. Trump told the NYT that all the dress shops in DC are sold out for his inauguration. This was a lie.
    10. Trump team dismissed the National Nuclear Security Administration and his deputy, responsible for maintaining our nuclear arsenal, as of January 20. Trump also dismissed the commanding general of the DC national guard.
    11. Cory Booker became the first US Senator to speak out against a fellow sitting senator at a confirmation hearing (Sessions for AG).
    12. CNN reported a bombshell – Intelligence chiefs had briefed Trump that Russia had gathered information to blackmail him (the dossier).
    13. Same day, BuzzFeed published contents of the dossier, which apparently had been in the hands of the FBI and some in the media since the summer. Contents include the infamous golden shower.
    14. Trump denied having been briefed, and said the contents of the dossier were confirmed by intelligence to be fake. DNI Clapper issued a public statement indicating the dossier’s contents are still being verified (not fake), and media reported that Comey met with Trump one-on-one to review the dossier the prior Friday.
    15. Trump held his first press conference since July. Trump packed the room with paid employees, who applauded him, and jeered at reporters.
    16. At presser, Trump said he had no plans to release his tax returns, or resolve conflicts of interest, saying, “I have no-conflict situation because I’m president.”
    17. Trump bullied reporters at two news outlets, calling them “fake news,” and used other news outlets as evidence.
    18. The director of the OGE publicly blasted Trump’s non-plan for dealing with conflicts of interest. Next day, Rep Jason Chaffetz threatened to investigate the OGE.
    19. Next day, while meeting with CEO of AT&T at Trump Tower (AT&T needs approval for their merger with Time Warner, parent company of CNN) Trump tweeted CNN is “FAKE NEWS” and tanking.
    20. Rep Barbara Lee said she would not attend Trump’s inauguration. During the week, the list grew to 12 members of Congress.
    21. Trump encouraged his followers in a tweet to “buy L.L. Bean,” in violation of a WH policy prohibiting the endorsement of products.
    22. The Justice Department inspector general opened an investigation into allegations of misconduct by the FBI and Comey, leading up to the election.
    23. C-Span’s online broadcast was interrupted by Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT, while Rep Maxine Waters was speaking. Waters has said she will not meet with Trump. The broadcast was also interrupted that morning when a Senator discussed Russian hacking.
    24. WAPO reported that Michael Flynn, Trump’s NSA, spoke to Russia’s envoy on Dec 29th, the day Obama announced sanctions on Russia. Trump team initially denied this, then later, said they spoke only once that day. Reuters reports they spoke 5 times that day.
    25. Trump continued to deny Russian hacking, and to use quotes around Intelligence in his tweets.
    26. Trump appointed Rudy Giuliani to a cybersecurity role – albeit though a private company.
    27. Trump appointed a sixth Goldman Sachs (past or present) employees to a major role in his administration.
    28. After Congress was briefed by Intelligence chiefs, Rep John Lewis said, “I don’t see Trump as a legitimate president.”
    29. Next morning, Trump tweeted a disparaging attack on Lewis, on MLK weekend, saying he was all talk.
    30. Democrats in Congress were furious with FBI director Comey’s unwillingness to answer their questions and fully brief them.
    31. UK media broke that the former agent who gathered the info in the dossier, had shared his findings with the FBI, starting in the summer, and had become concerned that a cabal within the FBI was compromised and attempting to cover-up information.
    32. The Senate announced hearings on possible Russia-Trump ties, and said subpoenas would be issued if necessary.
    33. The FEC sent Trump a letter listing 247 pages of illegal contributions to his campaign.
    34. In the wake of the Trump dossier becoming public, Russia’s cybersecurity head is out of a job.
    35. Human Rights Watch issued its annual report of threats to human rights around the world. For the first time in 27 years, the US is listed as a top threat because of the rise of Trump.
    36. A Quinnipiac poll showed Trump’s favorability ratings continuing to slide to historic lows for modern day presidents: only 37% of Americans view Trump favorably.

    That’s week 9. She includes links to weeks 1-8 at the end.

  • Roll out

    Tired of wanting to rip your own head off to avoid seeing Trump’s gestures any more? Here’s a pleasing alternative.

    H/t Jen