Aaron Blake on Trump’s semi-veiled threats:

Trump’s public comments are often more strategic than his critics give him credit for. He will routinely suggest something without technically saying, “This is what I want.” And he will generally lather himself in plausible deniability. “It would be very bad” and “I hope they stay that way” allow him to say he doesn’t actually want this thing he’s hinting at to happen.

Not really. It’s so obvious that he’s lying that it’s probably worse for him to say it than not to say it. Nobody is dumb enough to think he means it when he says “I hope they stay that way.” He means it only in the sense that he … Read the rest

Oof, the crazy level has taken a big jump today.

It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of “the other side.” Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019

….Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019

Yes indeed. … Read the rest

Good lord. Trump has tweeted or retweeted (usually himself) 26 times today. So far.

Bill Kristol sees it as a favorable portent.

I’m cheered up by Trump’s frantic tweeting (with many of the tweets Mueller related). Suggests Trump may be worried about something that’s about to come out…

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 16, 2019

I gotta say, though, what’s with the bad-mannered rubes in the huge hats?

Sheriff Hodgson: "Mr. President, you have stood up and you’ve taken the action. And the American people are behind you and we’re behind you." pic.twitter.com/ioj6zXmFny

— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) March 16, 2019

I know, we’re supposed to think “Texas Rangers – hooray – manly men – saving us from … Read the rest

Trump 5 hours ago, 7:30 in the morning in DC:

My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019

Trump one hour later:

“New evidence that the Obama era team of the FBI, DOJ & CIA were working together to Spy on (and take out) President Trump, all the way back in 2015.” A transcript of Peter Strzok’s testimony is devastating. Hopefully the Mueller Report will be covering this. @OANN @foxandfriends

— Donald

First, this, starting at 1:02 if you don’t want to listen to him explaining Brexit for the first minute. He says he predicted Brexit, people laughed, but he was right. He was at Turnberry and he predicted it.

“I gave the Prime Minister my ideas on how to negotiate Brexit…she didn’t listen to that and that’s fine.”

Donald Trump says he’s ‘surprised that Brexit has gone so badly’ from the standpoint of a negotiation. pic.twitter.com/rzOrd7HCv8

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 14, 2019

But

I can’t believe I’m hearing this again. DONALD TRUMP DID NOT PREDICT BREXIT THE DAY BEFORE VOTE AT TURNBERRY. HE ARRIVED IN SCOTLAND THE DAY AFTER, ON JUNE 24. HIS TWEETS CONFIRM THIS. I WAS THERE

The essence of Trump.

Republican Senators are overthinking tomorrow’s vote on National Emergency. It is very simply Border Security/No Crime – Should not be thought of any other way. We have a MAJOR NATIONAL EMERGENCY at our Border and the People of our Country know it very well!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2019

He sees all thinking as “overthinking” because thought is so profoundly alien to him. He doesn’t know how to think. He reacts, he blurts, he exclaims, he feels angry or conceited, he watches Fox. That’s it, that’s his mental life.

He wants the issues to be “very simple” because very simple is all he can understand, and that is because he is lazy as … Read the rest

Oh, Donnie, so touchy (and yet so quick with the insults), and so helpless to respond cogently.

At a recent round table meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2019

No, you didn’t. Come on now. You, save time and words? You love nothing better than talking on and on and on and on with no one getting a word in. That explosion in a word salad factory at CPAC the other … Read the rest

Adan Gopnik observes that Trump’s protection is that he does it all in plain sight. (Well not all, but a lot. He does so much in plain sight.)

Any one of a dozen things that Trump has done overtly would have resulted, if done clandestinely by another President, in near-universal cries for impeachment, if not for immediate resignation. Just for a start, his firing of the director of the F.B.I. and then confessing to both a journalist and the Russian foreign minister that he did it to end an investigation into his own campaign’s contacts with Russians follows the exact form of one of the impeachable offenses—obstruction of justice—that was applied against Richard Nixon. The “smoking gun” tape smoked

Whoever wrote Trump’s prezzidenshul statement on International Women’s Day did a crap job of it.

On International Women’s Day, we honor women worldwide for their vital role in shaping and strengthening our communities, families, governments, and businesses. We celebrate their vision, leadership, and courage, and we reaffirm our commitment to promoting equal opportunity for women everywhere.

Their vital role, the precious darlings; it’s so kind of the to assist us, the real people, by playing their vital role in shaping and strengthening that which we (the real people) have made. Would one of them like to step forward so that I can pat her head or perhaps grab her by the pussy?… Read the rest

Trump can multitask, at least he can when he has to pay off his consigliere.

On a busy day at the White House, President Trump hosted senators to talk about tax cuts, accused a Democratic congresswoman of distorting his condolence call to a soldier’s widow and suffered another court defeat for his travel ban targeting Muslim countries.

And at some point on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, Mr. Trump took the time to sign a $35,000 check to his lawyer, who had made hush payments to prevent alleged sexual misconduct from being exposed before the 2016 presidential election.

As one does, you know.

At the heart of last week’s congressional testimony by Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, was

It’s not just Prince Jared, it’s also Princess Ivanka. Well of course it is.

President Donald Trump pressured his then-chief of staff John Kelly and White House counsel Don McGahn to grant his daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump a security clearance against their recommendations, three people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The President’s crusade to grant clearances to his daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, rankled West Wing officials.

While Trump has the legal authority to grant clearances, most instances are left up to the White House personnel security office, which determines whether a staffer should be granted one after the FBI has conducted a background check. But after concerns were raised by the personnel office, Trump

These days Trump is all about the “No YOU are!”

This week, however, the current president seems to have taken his fondness for projection to a new level.

* Friday, March 1: Facing allegations that he’s committed a variety of crimes, Trump insisted “real crimes were committed” by Democrats. He echoed the argument two days later.

* Sunday, March 3: After House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) raised the prospect of Trump running afoul of the law, Trump tweeted that Schiff may have run afoul of the law.

* Tuesday, March 5: Accused of obstructing justice, Trump said via Twitter that Democrats “are obstructing justice.”

You know how it is – he hears an exciting new … Read the rest

In another “you have got to be kidding” moment, Trump announces on Twitter that he’s giving special treatment to Alabama.

FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes. @GovernorKayIvey, one of the best in our Country, has been so informed. She is working closely with FEMA (and me!).

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2019

Many observers are asking, with some heat, why he is “telling FEMA directly” to give Alabama “the A plus treatment” when he didn’t do so in the case of Puerto Rico or of California. Shouldn’t “the A plus treatment” be … Read the rest

Meanwhile…the House is swinging into action.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee delivered a flurry of document demands to the executive branch and the broader Trump world on Monday that detailed the breadth of the Democrats’ investigation into possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power by President Trump and his administration.

…

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the Judiciary Committee chairman, made clear on Monday that the new majority intends to train its attention on actions at the heart of Mr. Trump’s norm-bending presidency — actions that could conceivably form the basis of a future impeachment proceeding.

It will be interesting if the hearings clearly establish that Trump has committed multiple crimes, and he … Read the rest

There were historical echoes in that hearing room last week.

Any onetime Mafia investigator who listened to the Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen testify Wednesday would have immediately recognized the congressional hearing’s historical analogue — what America witnessed on Capitol Hill wasn’t so much John Dean turning on President Richard Nixon, circa 1973; it was the mobster Joseph Valachi turning on the Cosa Nostra, circa 1963.

Also perhaps any consumer of popular movies and tv shows would recognize the broad plot outline, even if Joseph Valachi didn’t come to mind.

And it’s had that overtone all along – the story is packed to the rafters with prosecutors, serving and former; packed with feds, packed with rats and stool pigeons, packed with … Read the rest

Tick tick tick tick

Rep. Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said that as far as he’s concerned there’s “direct evidence” of collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. Specifically, Schiff says that the 2016 offer from a Russian lawyer for information on Hillary Clinton to members of Trump’s campaign is the smoking gun. “I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” Schiff said on CBS’ Face the Nation, when he was asked if he had “direct evidence of collusion with Russia.”

“They offer

Trump has been talking at the right-wing shindig CPAC for nearly two hours now.

Not certain, but this might be Trump's longest speech since he launched his campaign in 2015. My first tweet about it was exactly 90 minutes ago.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 2, 2019

That ^ was 15 minutes ago and new tweets are still coming in.

The Guardian is watching.

Basking in adulation at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the president said: “You know I’m totally off script right now and this is how I got elected, by being off script. And if we don’t go off script, our country’s in big trouble, folks, because we have to get it back.”

“Off script” … Read the rest