Lawyers and tv explainers Joyce Vance and Mimi Rocah explain what Rudy Giuliani is up to. (Spoiler: it’s not lawyering.)

During an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday night, Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, seemed to acknowledge that there was collusion between one or more people involved in the Trump campaign and Russia — but just not involving his client, President Trump. Giuliani, who, along with Trump, has spent the last year telling the public that there has been no collusion, suddenly shifted gears and claimed he “never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign” only that there was “no collusion” on the part of “the president of the

Fresh from his attempts to get Congressional Democrats killed, Trump made a “surprise” video appearance at the pro-forced birth rally in DC today.

“When we look into the eyes of a newborn child, we see the beauty and the human soul and the majesty of God’s creation. We know that every life has meaning,” Trump said in his video, before listing his administration’s antiabortion actions and vowing to reject any legislation passed by the new Democratic-controlled House that “weakens” the campaign to prevent abortion access.

How would he know? He never has looked into the eyes of a newborn child; he has bragged about taking no care of his children when they were small, because that’s for bitches. Also “majesty … Read the rest

Sarah Sanders proudly (or embarrassedly but obediently) posted Trummp’s Big Boy ledder to that mean Nansee Pulowsee.

President @realDonaldTrump’s letter to @SpeakerPelosi concerning her upcoming travel pic.twitter.com/TtBCvwp080

— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) January 17, 2019

Look at that pile of dingoes’ kidneys. The Shutdown; the Strong Border Security movement; our Southern Border. It’s the letter of a childish idiot but they publish it as if it were the Gettysburg Address.… Read the rest

The Left has become totally unhinged. They no longer care what is Right for our Countrty!

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

Our poor poor Countrty!

Well, it’s no wonder he’s too agitated to spel gud, the puir wee mon. He’s looking like a loser.

Make no mistake: Pelosi’s decision to disinvite Trump from delivering his “State of the Union” address to Congress is a total power play designed to remind Trump that a) Congress is a co-equal branch of government and b) his willingness to keep the government shuttered until he gets money for a border wall is going to have impacts on him, too.

Rat shan’t visit party.… Read the rest

On the other hand, the chickenshit Republicans refused to tell Trump no he can’t lift sanctions on Oleg Deripaska.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday narrowly staved off an effort by Democrats to deal the Trump administration’s Russia sanctions policy an embarrassing rebuke.

Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in a vote to enforce sanctions against the corporate empire of an influential ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but the effort fell three votes short of the 60-vote threshold required to advance the measure. The vote was 57-42, with one Democratic senator not voting.

Nothing at all corrupt about it though. No no no, perish the thought.

Democrats had urged the administration to delay its decision on the fate of the

Oh, interesting. It’s the House Speaker who gets to invite the president to come on over and wow them with a State of the Union address. He didn’t think of that, did he.

As House speaker, it’s on her to extend the official invitation to the president to come into her chamber and present his State of the Union. On Wednesday morning, she told him he best reschedule.

“Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th,” Pelosi wrote

I so jennerous! I paid! I paid!!! I served them cold hamberders what I paid for with my oan money!!!

Updating to add:

due to a large order placed yesterday, we're all out of hamberders.
just serving hamburgers today.

— Burger King (@BurgerKing) January 15, 2019

… Read the rest

Walter Shaub points out that Nixon’s downfall established the principle that a president may not select his investigator.

Now with the Senate’s likely confirmation of William Barr as attorney general, Trump may succeed in destroying this principle. Barr’s nomination is before the Senate only because Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions for refusing to stop special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (Sessions technically resigned, but a “resignation” requested by the president is Washington-speak for “fired.”)

…

Barr is infinitely more qualified than acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker, but Barr and Whitaker have something in common: They both auditioned for the job by making sure Trump knew they opposed the special counsel investigation. Whitaker made his views known in television

We knew this, but we didn’t know all of it. Trump talks to Putin alone except for the translator, and he does his best to keep the secrets. I hope the FBI has listening devices implanted in his nose, his constantly flapping hands, his teeth, his bum.

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of

He thinks it’s a game. He thinks he’s winning.

When President Trump made a rare journey to the Capitol last week, he was expected to strategize about how to end the government shutdown he instigated. Instead, he spent the first 20-odd minutes delivering a monologue about “winning.”

“We’re winning” on North Korea, the president told Republican senators Wednesday at a closed-door luncheon. “We’re winning” on Syria and “we’re winning” on the trade war with China, too. And, Trump concluded, they could win on immigration if Republicans stuck together through what is now the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, according to officials who attended the presidential pep talk.

He thinks it’s a game. People are working without being … Read the rest

A Twitter observer on why the news that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation of Trump is such big news:

Holy cow. This NY Times story is just littered with seismic earth-shakers sure to rattle the windows at the White House.

Yowza. My very quick first-blush take on the meaty nuggets…

First, here’s the link:

Let’s dive in!

1/

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) January 12, 2019

That’s where to start at the beginning. I’ll summarize some of it. This wasn’t just about what Trump did in 2016, i.e. historical, it was surveillance in 2017 and onward. Surveillance of a president isn’t something they do casually.

The DOJ had to approve the counterintel investigation.

If Sessions didn’t know about it, … Read the rest

Trump is still trying to steal money allocated to real disasters to spend on his pretend bogus make-believe disaster. Yes that’s right, he wants to steal money meant for people who lost everything in hurricanes and wildfires so that he can spend it on a giant pointless wall saying GO AWAY BROWN PEOPLE.

President Trump traveled to the border on Thursday to warn of [imaginary] crime and chaos on the frontier, as White House officials considered diverting emergency aid from storm- and fire-ravaged Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and California to build a border barrier, perhaps under an emergency declaration.

Insertion mine. Emphasis mine.

“It is time for President Trump to use emergency powers to fund the construction of a border

Now here’s an excellent plan.

President Donald Trump has been briefed on a plan that would use the Army Corps of Engineers and a portion of $13.9 billion of Army Corps funding to build 315 miles of barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the briefing.

The money was set aside to fund projects all over the country including storm-damaged areas of Puerto Rico through fiscal year 2020, but the checks have not been written yet and, under an emergency declaration, the president could take the money from these civil works projects and use it to build the border wall, said officials familiar with the briefing and two congressional sources.

And that plan … Read the rest

Oh god oh god oh god he did say it

"They say a wall is medieval—well, so is a wheel," Pres. Trump says at meeting near southern border. "A wheel is older than a wall."

"There are some things that work, you know what? A wheel works, and a wall works." https://t.co/1QHVGTRFOZ pic.twitter.com/Vgs87esAmz

— ABC News (@ABC) January 10, 2019

… Read the rest

Gail Collins addresses something I wondered about after watching a fragment of Trump’s attempted speech the other night:

Maybe all this wall obsessing makes Trump tired. He certainly seemed low-energy during his Oval Office address. “He makes Jeb Bush look like a combination of Mighty Mouse and Bruce Springsteen,” a friend of mine said after the president finished his nine-minute speech to the American people.

For every viewer whose response to the talk was “Wow, we should do something about immigration!” there must have been a hundred whose first reaction was “Why does this man keep sniffing?” Deviated septum? Nasal polyps? Trump’s breathing has actually sounded strange for a long time, but most of us have chosen to ignore it