Tag: Trump

Weirdness.

A felon pleaded his case on ‘Fox & Friends.’ Days later, Trump pardoned him.

Some 1.6 million people tune in to “Fox & Friends” every morning, but when Kristian Saucier told the network why he believed he should be pardoned for his national-security-related felony conviction, he clearly had one very specific, very powerful fan of the show in mind: the viewer-in-chief.

“Obviously, there’s two different sets of laws in this country, for the politically elite and for those lower-level individuals, Americans like myself,” he said on the network Sunday. “And I think that’s very upsetting on a basic level for most people. It should be.

“I accepted responsibility. I didn’t go to trial. I pleaded guilty. I said, ‘Look, I made a mistake when I was a young kid, and my family still continues … to be punished for that mistake.’ Whereas Hillary Clinton not only was not punished, but was allowed to run for the highest office in the country, and that should be very upsetting to the American people.”

And Trump took the bait. Of course, Clinton didn’t do what Saucier did, but don’t let that stop you. Less than a week later Trump pardoned Saucier and gave him a high five on Twitter.

So what did this hero do?

Saucier’s self-imposed saga started in 2009, when he snapped photos inside the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Alexandria while it was in Groton, Conn. The sailor, then 22, said he only wanted mementos of his service as a machinist’s mate on the sub. But federal prosecutors painted him as a disgruntled Navy man whose pictures of the sub’s reactor compartment and propulsion system were a national-security risk.

The “mementos” claim doesn’t wash. Here’s how I know: my brother was in the Navy (the fam had a good time for awhile calling him Ensign Benson, until promotion to Lt jg spoiled that fun), and we once went to visit him and his ship. It was some kind of open house for relatives thing, I guess, because we got to go on board and walk around on deck a little. But. At some point while we were on shore looking at all the ships and chatting, I took a snap of one, and my brother told me that was a big no-no. I was surprised because it seemed to be such a public place and the ships were just sitting there in plain view, so how were they enforcing that? I don’t remember what the explanation was, but I do remember that photography was a Big Red Flag. There’s no way Mr SauceMaker thought it was fine to take snaps inside the sub.

(Irrelevant detail: my brother’s ship was an aircraft carrier; it picked up the astronauts after one of the missions.)

The photos were discovered by chance in 2012. Saucier left his phone at a garbage dump in Hampton, Conn. A supervisor who found the phone powered it on, and showed the photos of the submarine to a retired Navy buddy who recognized the pictures for what they were. They went to authorities.

When federal agents confronted Saucier about the photos, he said the phone was his but initially denied snapping the pictures. Later, the FBI says, he went home, smashed his computer and camera, and flung the pieces in the woods behind his grandfather’s house.

Not all that similar to what Clinton did, is it. Nothing like it, in fact.

But Trump bought the lie. Of course he did.

Oh, that meeting with Kim that Trump was going to have? Never mind. He got excited and he didn’t mean it and it was all a misunderstanding. Next question?

South Korean official Chung Eui-yong was in the White House yesterday meeting with other officials. Trump decided to see Chung right away; maybe Fox News was in repeats or something. Trump “then asked Mr. Chung to tell him about his meeting with Mr. Kim,” reports the New York Times. “When Mr. Chung said that the North Korean leader had expressed a desire to meet Mr. Trump, the president immediately said he would do it, and directed Mr. Chung to announce it to the White House press corps.”

It sounds from this account that Trump had no real idea that North Korea has always wanted a face-to-face meeting with the U.S. president, and the U.S. has always imposed conditions. That would certainly be the logical interpretation of this account, given that, in the last week, Trump has confused North Korea with the other, extremely different South Korea, and demanded a laughably tiny $1 billion trade concession from China when he was supposed to demand $100 billion. It certainly appears Trump believed, in the moment, that North Korea had not been interested in a meeting until then, so he needed to take the deal before they changed their mind. Whatever. Art of the Deal.

Gee. It’s a little bit too bad he didn’t find out about that before immediately saying, “I’ll do it!!!” It’s a little bit too bad he has no idea about any of this.

Now the administration is backing away without admitting that’s what it’s doing.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters today Trump won’t meet with North Korea unless they offer concrete concessions beforehand:

Press Sec. Sanders on talks with North Korea: "The president will not have the meeting without seeing concrete steps and concrete actions take place by North Korea." https://t.co/phiWfrQOEU pic.twitter.com/7xHdQse21v

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 9, 2018

But that’s just the same old policy it always was.

Which means Trump shot off his mouth and got excited and then his advisers had to explain to him why he can’t do that. Or maybe they haven’t explained it to him and are backing out without his permission. Whatever the explanation, the major policy change Trump announced appears to be completely moot because he plays the president on television but isn’t really president.

Were their faces red!

About this lawsuit that Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) filed to break the NDA: it could be the thing that brings Trump down.

As any longtime legal hand in the capital remembers well, it was a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by an Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones, against Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment for lying about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.

The case of the adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage-name Stormy Daniels, may not get past even the first considerable obstacles. But if her court case proceeds, Mr. Trump and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, may have to testify in depositions, several lawyers said in interviews on Thursday. Ms. Clifford’s suit could possibly also provide evidence of campaign spending violations, which would bolster a pending Federal Election Commission complaint against Mr. Trump’s campaign.

In a perfect world I’d rather see him fall for even worse things, but on the other hand, there’s a certain poetic justice if it’s the pussygrabbing habit that gets him. Pussy fights back.

David A. Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the lawsuit Ms. Clifford filed on Tuesday centered on a limited contract law matter, but he noted that it also specifically stated that Ms. Clifford would amend her complaint in the future to add the names of people who she said participated in wrongdoing with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen.

He suggested that Ms. Clifford and her lawyer might be starting with a narrow argument aimed at getting the contract declared invalid, perhaps intending to broaden it later to include claims that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen coerced her into silence. “If that happened,” he said, “they certainly could seek to depose Trump.”

And in that case, he said, “I can certainly imagine how it might get broader. And if it did, the wide array of Trump’s sexual interactions could be addressed, just as the wide array of Clinton’s sexual interactions was addressed in the Paula Jones case deposition.”

In an interesting paradox, Ms. Clifford might be unable to sue because of the NDA, but on the other hand if the NDA is so sweeping it amounts to a gag order then it’s invalid.

“If the parties agreed to binding arbitration, they have waived their right to file a lawsuit,” said H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a law partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington who previously worked in the White House as associate counsel to President George W. Bush. Ms. Clifford’s signature on the contract, and acceptance of the money, could count as a clear sign of agreement.

But other legal experts were struck by the sweeping nature of the nondisclosure agreement Ms. Clifford signed, and expressed skepticism that it would hold up in court. Beyond the circumstances of the alleged sexual relationship, the agreement barred her from doing anything, even indirectly, to “publicly disparage” Mr. Trump.

“It actually presents a relatively clean issue for the court,” said Lawrence M. Noble, a former top lawyer at the Federal Election Commission who is now the general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group. “What she signed amounts to a gag order, and she has rights if this agreement is not found to be valid.”

It will be interesting to watch.

The Times solemnly reports on Trump’s North Korea caper as if it were sane and normal and likely to produce excellent results, and doesn’t talk to anyone who sees it differently until the last few paragraphs. Waaaay down at the bottom we get:

Analysts expressed skepticism about Mr. Trump’s decision to meet Mr. Kim, saying there was no indication that North Korea had given up its determination to be a nuclear weapons state.

“There is every reason to believe that North Korea is attempting to blunt sanctions and secure de facto legitimacy for its nuclear weapons program with this gesture,” said Michael J. Green, a former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, speaking by telephone from Tokyo.

Evan S. Medeiros, an Asia adviser to President Barack Obama, said that any direct talks would elevate Mr. Kim and legitimize him. “We got nothing for it. And Kim will never give up his nukes,” Mr. Medeiros said. “Kim played Moon and is now playing Trump.”

This week, administration officials had spoken in scathing terms about North Korea’s offer of direct talks. They noted that Mr. Kim said nothing about halting the production of nuclear bombs or missiles during negotiations — which meant the North could build its arsenal while stringing out the talks.

It seemed that the only thing that changed was Mr. Kim’s invitation to meet Mr. Trump himself. The president’s deal-making skills, one of his aides said on Thursday, could produce an outcome different from previous rounds of diplomacy, which have always ended in failure and disappointment.

And pigs might fly.

Catching up on one from a week ago:

[Editing to add: actually a year and a week ago. I should have realized. I knew he’d started doing it as soon as he got the chance, but I assumed this was a new phase. Reminder to self: check the year.]

President Trump stepped up his attack on federal environmental protections Tuesday, issuing an order directing his administration to begin the long process of rolling back sweeping clean water rules that were enacted by his predecessor.

……………………………What kind of fucking evil sack of shit gets rid of clean water rules?

Stupid question; I know; the fucking evil sack of shit who stole the election and now gets to destroy everything. I know. But making the water more toxic…god damn.

The order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to set about dismantling the Waters of the United States rule takes aim at one of President Obama’s signature environmental legacies, a far-reaching anti-pollution effort that expanded the authority of regulators over the nation’s waterways and wetlands.

…

“It is such a horrible, horrible rule,” Trump said as he signed the directive Tuesday aimed at the water rules. “It has such a nice name, but everything about it is bad.” He declared the rule, championed by environmental groups to give the EPA broad authority over nearly two-thirds of the waterways in the nation, “one of the worst examples of federal regulation” and “a massive power grab.”

It won’t be easy or quick for him though.

Both the climate and the clean water rules were enacted only after a long and tedious process of public hearings, scientific analysis and bureaucratic review. That entire process must be revisited before they can be weakened. It could take years.

…

Trump vowed Tuesday that he would continue to undermine the Obama-era environmental protections wherever he sees the opportunity, arguing they have cost jobs. “So many jobs we have delayed for so many years,” Trump said. “It is unfair to everybody.”

Many industries take issue with that interpretation. Tuesday’s order, for example, was met with a swift rebuke from sport fishing and hunting groups. They said the clean water rule has been a boon to the economy, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in their industry.

“Sports men and women will do everything within their power to compel the administration to change course and to use the Clean Water Act to improve, not worsen, the nation’s waterways,” a statement from a half-dozen of the organizations said.

Another boom. The Times reports Trump doing something you’re really not supposed to do…something that a punctilious observer could consider witness tampering.

The special counsel in the Russia investigation has learned of two conversations in recent months in which President Trump asked key witnesses about matters they discussed with investigators, according to three people familiar with the encounters.

In one episode, the president told an aide that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, should issue a statement denying a New York Times article in January. The article said Mr. McGahn told investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McGahn never released a statement and later had to remind the president that he had indeed asked Mr. McGahn to see that Mr. Mueller was dismissed, the people said.

In the other episode, Mr. Trump asked his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his interview had gone with the special counsel’s investigators and whether they had been “nice,” according to two people familiar with the discussion.

The episodes demonstrate that even as the special counsel investigation appears to be intensifying, the president has ignored his lawyers’ advice to avoid doing anything publicly or privately that could create the appearance of interfering with it.

Like screaming about witch hunts on Twitter, or interrogating witnesses about their testimony.

Legal experts said Mr. Trump’s contact with the men most likely did not rise to the level of witness tampering. But witnesses and lawyers who learned about the conversations viewed them as potentially a problem and shared them with Mr. Mueller.

Not quite witness tampering, but witness pestering, witness teasing, witness bothering?

In investigating Russian election interference, Mr. Mueller is also examining whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry. The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said that Mr. Trump asked him for his loyalty and to end the investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. After firing Mr. Comey, the president said privately* that the dismissal had relieved “great pressure” on him. And Mr. Trump also told White House officials after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation that he needed someone running the Justice Department who would protect him.

*And publicly! To Lester Holt on national television, and to the Russians in their oh so private meeting the next day. Private in the sense that the US news media were not allowed in, but public in the sense that any Russian who rolled up and asked was allowed in.

The experts said the meetings with Mr. McGahn and Mr. Priebus would probably sharpen Mr. Mueller’s focus on the president’s interactions with other witnesses. The special counsel has questioned witnesses recently about their interactions with the president since the investigation began. The experts also said the episodes could serve as evidence for Mr. Mueller in an obstruction case.

Because, if you didn’t do anything amiss, why are you asking all these questions? Hmmmmm?

Central figures in investigations are almost always advised by their own lawyers to keep from speaking with witnesses and prosecutors to prevent accusations of witness tampering. The president has not been questioned by Mr. Mueller; Mr. Trump’s lawyers are negotiating terms of a possible interview. Learning even basic details about what other witnesses told investigators could help the president shape his own answers.

Well, in theory. Trump isn’t smart enough for that.

Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. McGahn unfolded in the days after the Jan. 25 Times article, which said that Mr. McGahn threatened to quit last June after the president asked him to fire the special counsel. After the article was published, the White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, told Mr. McGahn that the president wanted him to release a statement saying that the story was not true, the people said.

Mr. Porter, who resigned last month amid a domestic abuse scandal, told Mr. McGahn the president had suggested he might “get rid of” Mr. McGahn if he chose not to challenge the article, the people briefed on the conversation said.

Mr. McGahn did not publicly deny the article, and the president later confronted him in the Oval Office in front of the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, according to the people.

Obstruct justice much?

The president said he had never ordered Mr. McGahn to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn replied that the president was wrong and that he had in fact asked Mr. McGahn in June to call the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to tell him that the special counsel had a series of conflicts that disqualified him for overseeing the investigation and that he had to be dismissed. The president told Mr. McGahn that he did not remember the discussion that way.

And Donald Trump has never told a lie in his life, yeah?

Priebus got together with Don in December. Priebus’s friends have advised him to steer clear of Don, but Priebus wants to build up his law practice so he went ahead and schmoozed with the head honcho.

Keep it up, Don. You’re giving us hope.

18 U.S. Code § 713: Use of likenesses of the great seal of the United States, the seals of the President and Vice President, the seal of the United States Senate,…United States House of Representatives, and the seal of the United States Congress

(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

(b) Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Meanwhile, back at the Trump Tower gift shop:

https://twitter.com/BySteveReilly/status/971164396444684288

You know how Trump has a long history of using fake names to promote himself and his scams?

TheWashington Post set off a controversy last week when it published a story alleging that Trump posed as a public relations man named John Miller to energize the tabloid scandal raging over his affair with the model/actress Marla Maples and his divorce from his first wife Ivana. Trump last week denied that he’d made the call. The report provoked a new round of questions about Trump’s character. What could possibly motivate a grown man running a business empire to do such a thing? And what does this say about Trump’s temperament?

In fact, Trump’s use of fake names is far more extensive than most people realize. For more than a decade – 1980 to 1991 — Trump used phony names to promote himself. I know from my work as Trump’s biographer that even prior to the John Miller episode, Trump had posed as John Baron (or Barron).

And then named his kid that. Nothing creepy there, oh hell no.

Anyway. Now the Times reports that someone nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, and that someone is…a forgery. Twice.

A total of 329 candidates — 217 individuals and 112 organizations — are being considered for this year’s prize, which will be announced in October. The identities of the candidates are kept secret, and indeed, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prizes, is forbidden from divulging to divulge any information about its deliberations for 50 years, and even then, only for scholarship purposes and at its discretion.

But a wrinkle in this time-honored process — the peace prize was first awarded in 1901 — emerged on Tuesday, when the committee announced that it had uncovered what appeared to be a forged nomination of President Trump for the prize. The matter has been referred to the Oslo police for investigation.

Moreover, the forgery appears to have occurred twice: Olav Njolstad, the secretary of the five-member committee, said it appeared that a forged nomination of Mr. Trump for the prize was also submitted last year — and was also referred to the police. (The earlier forgery was not disclosed to the public at the time.)

It was probably…um…Hillary Clinton. Yeah, that’s it! She did it to get him in trouble. Or Obama did it. Or the two of them did it, and Oprah gave them a car afterwards.

Inspector Rune Skjold, the head of the economic crimes section of the Oslo police, said that investigators had been in touch with the F.B.I. since last fall, which suggests that the forged nominations originated in the United States. He said the police believed that the same perpetrator was behind both forgeries.

Who but who could it possibly be?

Not the guy who put a fake cover of TIME starring himself on the wall of one of his golf clubs. He would never do a thing like that.

So is Putin really deciding what Secretary of State we can have?

Jane Mayer reports a memo of Christopher Steele’s that indicates a maybe.

In the spring of 2017, after eight weeks in hiding, Steele gave a brief statement to the media, announcing his intention of getting back to work. On the advice of his lawyers, he hasn’t spoken publicly since. But Steele talked at length with Mueller’s investigators in September. It isn’t known what they discussed, but, given the seriousness with which Steele views the subject, those who know him suspect that he shared many of his sources, and much else, with the Mueller team.

One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney’s run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.

It’s just one source, and the source himself says it’s just “talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs”…but as Mayer goes on to say, if you look at what did happen, it bears an odd resemblance to Putin’s likely wish list.

As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him. There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney’s public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him. (Romney declined to comment. The White House said that he was never a first choice for the role and declined to comment about any communications that the Trump team may have had with Russia on the subject.) In any case, on December 13, 2016, Trump gave Rex Tillerson, the C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, the job. The choice was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow, because Tillerson’s business ties with the Kremlin were long-standing and warm. (In 2011, he brokered a historic partnership between ExxonMobil and Rosneft.) After the election, Congress imposed additional sanctions on Russia, in retaliation for its interference, but Trump and Tillerson have resisted enacting them.

There was a headline in the Times yesterday, saying Congress gave the State Department $120 million to fight off Russian election-meddling, and the State Department has spent $0 of it. Zero. Zeeeeero.

Prepare to gag.

Pro Publica reports:

President Donald Trump loves putting his name on everything from ties to steaks to water — and, of course, his buildings. But now the Trump Organization appears to be borrowing a brand even more powerful than the gilded Trump moniker: the presidential seal.

In recent weeks, the Trump Organization has ordered the manufacture of new tee markers for golf courses that are emblazoned with the seal of the President of the United States. Under federal law, the seal’s use is permitted only for official government business. Misuse can be a crime.

Is using it to advertise and glorify the president’s profit-making golf courses misuse or is it official government business? That’s a tough one.

Past administrations have policed usage vigilantly. In 2005 the Bush administration ordered the satirical news website The Onion to remove a replica of the seal. Grant M. Dixton, associate White House counsel, wrote in a letter to The Onionthat the seal “is not to be used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that suggests presidential support or endorsement.”

Oh. It’s not? Huh. Then I guess sticking them up on the president’s profit-making golf courses is definitely misuse.

Eagle Sign and Design, a metalworking and sign company with offices in New Albany, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky, said it had received an order to manufacture dozens of round, 12-inch replicas of the presidential seal to be placed next to the tee boxes at Trump golf course holes. Two tee markers are placed on the ground at the start of a hole on golf courses to indicate where golfers should stand to take their first swing.

“We made the design, and the client confirmed the design,” said Joseph E. Bates, who owns Eagle Sign, declining to say who the client was.

They share a photo of tables covered with the things.

An order form for the tee markers reviewed by ProPublica and WNYC says the customer was “Trump International.” The Facebook page for Eagle Sign and Design shows a photo of the markers in an album with the caption “Trump International Golf Course.”

Slea-zeeeee. Also apparently a crime.

Eagle Sign makes a wide array of tee markers out of bronze and aluminum, and has made other signs for Trump’s courses, according to its website. At some of Trump’s golf courses, tee markers have sported the Trump family crest, which he took from the family that originally owned Mar-a-Lago without permission and then altered by adding his own name.

Bahahahahahahahahaha he’s so classy.

Is it hard to understand why this rule exists? I don’t think so.

The “law is an expression of the idea that the government and government authority should not be used for private purpose,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University specializing in government and legal ethics said. “It would be a misuse of government authority.”

Not unlike Kellyanne Conway flogging Princess Ivanka’s merch on tv.

Another surprise story out of the White House: Trump is in a bad mood. Really?!! Well that caught us all flat-footed.

Barry McCaffrey says he’s “starting to wobble in his emotional stability,” which comes as a huge shock because we never knew he had any emotional stability to wobble in.

[T]he developments have delivered one negative headline after another, leading Trump to lose his cool — especially in the evenings and early mornings, when he often is most isolated, according to advisers.

But surely Melania and Barron are there to cuddle and cheer him. No? They’re in their own quarters with the doors triple-locked?

For instance, aides said, Trump seethed with anger last Wednesday night over cable news coverage of a photo, obtained by Axios, showing Sessions at dinner with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation, and another top Justice Department prosecutor. The outing was described in news reports as amounting to an act of solidarity after Trump had attacked Sessions in a tweet that morning.

The next morning, Trump was still raging about the photo, venting to friends and allies about a dinner he viewed as an intentional show of disloyalty.

Well they didn’t invite him to come with them.

But to be serious for a second – isn’t that typical. It’s fine for Trump to call Sessions names on Twitter, but it’s an outrage for Sessions to have dinner with his deputy. Trump can be as mean, rude, abusive, slanderous, insulting, contemptuous, hostile, belligerent as he likes, while everyone else in the world is required to be servilely polite in return. One rule for Trump, and a completely opposite rule for the 7.6 billion not-Trumps on the planet.

Trump hits 100.

President Donald Trump reached a presidential milestone at his Palm Beach County, Florida, golf club on Saturday: One hundred days in office at a golf club that bears his name.

100 days in 13 months: not too shabby.

Trump, once a critic of presidential golfing, has ignored his own advice and made a habit of visiting some of the many golf courses emblazoned in his moniker. The habit is part of the broader trend of the President and first lady making frequent trips to properties owned and operated by the Trump Organization.

So, you see, he’s not actually golfing in the recreational sense, he’s working to exploit the presidency to promote his businesses.

In total, Trump has spent nearly 25% of his days in office at one of his golf clubs. It is impossible to know whether Trump golfs every time he visits one of his golf clubs because White House aides rarely confirm that he is golfing, and Trump has, at times, visited his golf clubs to eat a meal or meet with people.

Yeah whether or not he’s actually pushing the little white ball around with the long stick isn’t really the issue.

Norm Eisen, the chief White House ethics lawyer under Obama, called Trump’s 100th day at a golf property as president “an ignominious anniversary.”

“First, there is his hypocrisy in criticizing Obama for golfing and then playing much more himself,” Eisen said. “Then there is the fact that he is using his government platform to promote his businesses.”

Eisen added, “Finally, he is also mingling with representatives of corporate interests who are paying to play, and not just golf. Because they have business before the federal government, that creates more conflicts. Trump has hit an unprecedented ethics bogey.”

He’s providing jobs for the people who mow the grass.

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

REST IN PEACE BILLY GRAHAM! pic.twitter.com/2qMoUccVC2

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018

Nothing like shouting at people to make them have a good nap.

This morning:

Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018

The Times has background:

Mr. Trump had refrained from remarking on the show on Twitter for many months. But on Friday morning, Mr. Baldwin’s remarks were highlighted on Fox News and Mr. Trump weighed in soon after.

They share the tweet.

(An earlier version of the post in which Mr. Trump misspelled Mr. Baldwin’s name as “Alex” was deleted.)

It also spelled “dying” “dieing.”

Oh sweet Jesus.

At 4:24 am, Fox & Friends First ran a segment about Alec Baldwin saying he was tired of playing Trump on SNL. An hour later, Trump tweeting an attack on him.

Left, Fox & Friends First, 4:24 am
Right, Trump, 5:42 am pic.twitter.com/M3mBwTmMN1

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 2, 2018

So anyway, how mediocre has Alec Baldwin’s career been? Let’s ask Wikipedia.

Baldwin has won three Emmy Awards,^[24] two Golden Globe awards and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for his role. He received his second Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical as Jack Donaghy in 2008, marking his seventh Primetime Emmy nomination and first win. He won again in 2009.^[25]

…

Baldwin was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in the 2003 gambling drama The Cooler.^[7]

…

On May 12, 2010, Baldwin gave a commencement address at New York University and was awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, honoris causa.^[52]

It doesn’t seem all that mediocre.

Also, nobody is forced to watch Saturday Night Live. Trump really should learn something about the laws of this country.

Inside the West Wing:

But a president who has long tried to impose his version of reality on the world is finding the limits of that strategy. Without Mr. Porter playing a stopgap role on trade, the debate has been marked by a lack of focus on policy and planning, according to several aides.

Morale in the West Wing has sunk to a new low, these people said. In private conversations, Mr. Trump lashes out regularly at Attorney General Jeff Sessions with a vitriol that stuns members of his staff. Some longtime advisers said that Mr. Trump regards Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation as the “original sin,” which the president thinks has left him exposed.

If it stuns his staff it must be scorching, because they can’t ever have thought he was a nice guy.

Mr. Trump’s children, meanwhile, have grown exasperated with Mr. Kelly, seeing him as a hurdle to their father’s success and as antagonistic to their continued presence, according to several people familiar with their thinking.

Yes if only it weren’t for Kelly, Trump wouldn’t be the bumbling but corrupt bozo he is.

Yet Mr. Trump is also frustrated with Mr. Kushner, whom he now views as a liability because of his legal entanglements, the investigations of the Kushner family’s real estate company, and the publicity over having his security clearance downgraded, according to two people familiar with his views. In private conversations, the president vacillates between sounding regretful that Mr. Kushner is taking arrows and annoyed that he is another problem to deal with.

It’s so sad that poor Prince Jared is “taking arrows” simply for having conflicts of interest you could march a battalion through.

Privately, some aides have expressed frustration that Mr. Kushner and his wife, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, have remained at the White House, despite Mr. Trump at times saying they never should have come to the White House and should leave. Yet aides also noted that Mr. Trump has told the couple that they should keep serving in their roles, even as he has privately asked Mr. Kelly for his help in moving them out.

I’m picturing Kelly packing boxes while listening for Princess or Prince coming up the stairs.

Europe to Trumpistan: ok you’ve done it now – we’re slapping a tariff on bourbon and blue jeans, so ha.

It’s a clever move. Trump will hate that, because American Greatness!

The European Union will hit back at the heart of the United States, slapping tariffs on products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and bluejeans, if President Trump goes ahead with a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president of the bloc’s executive arm vowed on Friday.

Harleys! They really know how to attack Americanitude, don’t they.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, made the remarks to the German news media in reaction to the proposed tariffs. Mr. Junker said the plans to tax the American goods, produced in the home states of key Republic leaders, had not yet been finalized, but amounted to treating them “the same way” that European products would be handled if the metals tariffs go through.

“None of this is reasonable, but reason is a sentiment that is very unevenly distributed in this world,” Mr. Juncker declared.

Oh zing.

Officials around the world have been voicing varying degrees of dismay and anger since the proposal was unveiled on Thursday.

Mr. Juncker’s proposal to hit back at the United States through some of the products for which it is best known in Europe was first floated last month in the German news media. The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cited a plan to target the home states of influential members of the Republican Party, including Senators Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Do it. Bite’em.

Meanwhile Trump shared his thoughtful analysis with the world:

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018

So what happens when Don has a really bad day? He starts trashing the place in earnest.

President Trump whiplashed Washington through 24 hours of chaos and confusion, culminating Thursday with a surprise announcement that he will unilaterally impose steep tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.

His own aides were stunned. The stock market plunged. It was the moment many of his advisers had long feared would occur when he grew tired of talking points and economic theory and decided to do things his way.

Maybe next time it will be starting the nuclear Armageddon.

Trump often likes to sow misdirection, running the White House like a never-ending reality show where only he knows the plot. But even by his standards, the day-long period that ended Thursday left some senior aides and Republican lawmakers wondering whether the White House had finally come unmoored, detached from any type of methodology that past presidents have relied on to run the country and lead the largest economy in the world.

Well that’s for grown-ups. Trump is a child.

On Thursday morning, Trump had a meeting with top economic advisers including Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Cohn warned against the tariffs, and a number of White House advisers came away from it believing that a decision had been postponed and that Trump’s meeting with steel and aluminum executives would amount to little more than another gathering of CEOs at the White House, several people briefed on the planning said.

After all, they had persuaded Trump before, diverting him from withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement and a free-trade agreement with South Korea.

But that all changed around noon. Trump unexpectedly summoned reporters into the Cabinet Room for his meeting with the executives. Senior White House officials did not want reporters to attend the meeting, for fear of Trump announcing tariffs, but the president made an impromptu call to bring in the media and proceeded to announce his trade crackdown.

“What’s been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful,” Trump said.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 500 points within several hours.

Today the Dow Jones, tomorrow the nukes! Or a round of golf. One of those.

The White House story yesterday was that Hope Hicks had been planning to quit for weeks n weeks, and her all-day session in front of the Intelligence Committee had nothing to do with it despite the temporal proximity. Nobody believed that, but now there’s reporting to the contrary.

[A] report from CNN’s Erin Burnett suggested Trump had made it clear he was not happy with Hicks following the revelation that she sometimes needed to tell “white lies” in her role, according to a close ally of the president who spoke with Burnett.

Trump asked Hicks “how she could be so stupid,” after the testimony, Burnett said, adding, “Apparently, that was the final straw for Hope Hicks.”

That’s so Don. He thinks he can treat people any way he feels like, and they’ll put up with it because he’s just that amazing. Also note that he apparently expected lie to a Congressional committee for him and that he sees it as “stupid” to refrain from lying.

Cable news talkers last night were pointing out that apart from the Princess and Prince, all of Trump’s close buddies have now left and he’s feeling very lonely. Good; he should leave.

No theory of mind and no self-knowledge either. Trump now is telling us he “really believes” he would have run into MSD School even without a gun, because he’s so brave and awesome and everything.

Donald Trump was unable to serve his country during the Vietnam War due to his crippling bone spurs. He has spent his life since then proclaiming his love of the military that his affliction prevented him from joining (or sometimes using his love of the military as political cover). Today, Trump told a meeting of governors he would have stopped the Parkland school shooting had he been an officer on the scene. Indeed, he would have charged the shooter if he had no weapon: “I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon.”

Oh, well, if he really believes it, then there’s no more to be said. Ivanka Trump claims she believes her father’s claims that he never did assault or harass any of those women, so that settles it. Belief=truth as any fule kno.

Trump is frankly disgusted, yes disgusted.

“I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that too,” Trump told a gathering of US governors at the White House.

Signaling more than one sheriff’s deputy was at fault, Trump said they “weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners” and said “the way they performed was frankly disgusting.”

It’s not something he’s ever going to be tested on, is it. He has protection now and he’ll have it for the rest of his life. For him it’s just a woulda. For the deputies in Florida it was the real thing.