Donnie is agitated.

Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were just reported as being wiped clean and gone. Such a big story that will never be covered by the Fake News. Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2018

A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2018

So where are all the missing Text messages between

Intelligence officials are, not surprisingly, frustrated that Trump is too lazy and too stupid to pay attention to what they tell him.

Donald Trump continues to reject the judgments of US spy agencies on major foreign policy fronts, current and former US officials said, creating a dynamic in which intelligence analysts frequently see troubling gaps between the president’s public statements and the facts laid out for him in daily briefings.

The pattern has become a source of mounting concern to senior US intelligence officials who had hoped Mr Trump would become less hostile to their work and more receptive to the information that spy agencies spend billions of dollars and sometimes put lives at risk gathering.

Trump can’t “become” anything. … Read the rest

So anyway – Cohen was sentenced today; three years.

Judge William H. Pauley III said Mr. Cohen had committed a “veritable smorgasbord” of crimes involving deception and “motivated by personal greed and ambition,” each of which “standing alone warrant serious punishment.”

But he added that Mr. Cohen’s crimes — breaking campaign finance rules, tax evasion and lying to Congress — “implicated a far more insidious harm to our democratic institutions.”

“As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better,” the judge said.

Before he was sentenced, a solemn Mr. Cohen, standing at a lectern, sounded emotional but resolved as he told the judge he had been tormented by the anguish and embarrassment he had caused his family.

“I blame

Pelosi dissed him.

Moments after returning to Capitol Hill after an Oval Office standoffwith President Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi questioned Trump’s manhood and said the border wall was a matter of masculine pride.

“It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing,” said the California congresswoman.

Wall! Yooge wall! Yooge throbbing wall!

She told colleagues that she was “trying to be the mom” in the room while Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) bickered about the coming funding showdown.

But she described Trump’s admission during the 17-minute on-camera tete-a-tete that he would be “proud” to shut the government as a political triumph.

“The

And then there’s Trump’s self-declared pride at shutting down the government.

As Nancy says, the American people recognize that a shutdown *is not* worth anything.

But Trump now blatantly admits that he is "proud to shut down the government" and harm our nation's economy. #TrumpShutdown pic.twitter.com/oibVrcUmKk

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) December 11, 2018

“I am proud to shut down the government,” he announces in his dopy shouty petulant scratchy voice.

Oh. My. God. This may be the single stupidest thing that Trump has said on camera. Well, maybe #2 after confessing to Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of “the Russia thing.” But still—wow. https://t.co/JnWuECdC2i

— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) December 11, 2018

… Read the rest

This is maddening to watch, along many axes – but the most maddening to me is the way Trump shouts Pelosi down seconds after she starts talking, every time, along with slapping his hand at her in the “shut up I want to do all the talking” signal*…while he sits sullenly still and quiet while Schumer talks. His feels of dominance toward her and submission toward Shumer are painfully, infuriatingly obvious.

*Updating: found a picture of the shut up gesture at Pelosi.

… Read the rest

Meanwhile Trump wants us to have dirtier water – dirtier in the sense of more toxic, not muddier – and he’s putting his want into action. Thanks, Don!

The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to unveil a plan that would weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants.

Because why shouldn’t we have to drink pesticide?! We can always buy Perrier by the case. If we can’t do that it’s our own damn fault for being so lazy and shiftless and not corrupt, so we deserve the pesticide in our water.

Environmentalists say the proposal represents a historic assault on wetlands

Meanwhile…

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures.

The US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. That’s who we are now: Team Evil.

Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid

Philip Bump at the Post:

President Trump’s day began Monday, as many of his days do, with watching Fox News. A guest on “Fox and Friends First” — the version of the show that airs in the pre-dawn hours — argued that former FBI director James B. Comey’s Friday testimony left Democrats without a smoking gun on the question of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016. (It wasn’t intended to; it had been demanded by congressional Republicans.) Trump seized on the comment in a pair of typo-marred tweets.

“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James B. Comey’s testimony,” he wrote on Twitter. “…So now the Dems go to a

https://twitter.com/fredvegasbass/status/1072105788741701634

Me, to my half-conscious 9 y.o. son: “Good morning, bud. Hey, can you spell something for me?”

Son: “Why?”

Me: “Just curious. Spell ‘smoking’ for me.”

Son: “S-m-o-k-i-n-g. Why?”

Me: “Because the president just tweeted and couldn’t spell it.”

Son: “Oh my god.” #smockinggun

— Sarah (@MemeJedi) December 10, 2018

https://twitter.com/JenTusch/status/1072124384633081856

Hush, little baby, don't say a word.
Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird won't sing…
then Flynn, Manafort & Cohen will take care of the rest. #SmockingGun#SmockingKills pic.twitter.com/LIYsiQ9kL0

— Billy Baldwin (@BillyBaldwin) December 10, 2018

Maria Butina is pleading guilty. She and Russian Banker Alexander Torshin had deep ties to the NRA, even flying a delegation to Moscow in 2015 to meet with

Theme for today: beware the smocking gun.

“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun…No Collusion.” @FoxNews That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2018

Also, of course, the “simple private transaction” was spending money to buy the silence of two women he had sex with so that the voters wouldn’t know he’d had sex with two women outside his marriage. How dare we invade his privacy like that.

Also, it’s not “the Dems,” it’s federal prosecutors.… Read the rest

Hold the phone – the Post says Trump has no plans to humiliate Kelly.

How can that be when Kelly’s leaving and Trump is a bully and coward? But the Post says it is so.

Kelly’s departure is anticlimactic, after months of the president’s musing about replacing him and complaining about his chief of staff to some advisers, even discussing possible successors. Still, the president did not diminish Kelly as he prepares to leave the White House, as he has done in other firings, and has no plans to humiliate Kelly, officials said. Current and former officials said Trump continues to respect Kelly, no matter how often the two men clashed.

I’m floored. He should get some kind of … Read the rest