Another huge Times piece – Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, and Peter Baker on day-to-day Trump.

As he ends his first year in office, Mr. Trump is redefining what it means to be president. He sees the highest office in the land much as he did the night of his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton — as a prize he must fight to protect every waking moment, and Twitter is his Excalibur. Despite all his bluster, he views himself less as a titan dominating the world stage than a maligned outsider engaged in a struggle to be taken seriously, according to interviews with 60 advisers, associates, friends and members of Congress.

Interesting. He’s right about that – he is a … Read the rest

Trump went to Jackson. Trump read the words they wrote for him, and then added his own, more stupid ones.

In his remarks to assembled guests, Trump said: “The civil rights museum records the oppression, cruelty and injustice inflicted on the African-American community, the fight to bring down Jim Crow and end segregation, to gain the right to vote and to achieve the sacred birthright of equality.”

He said: “And it’s big stuff. That’s big stuff.”

Uh uh uh, big stuff, uh uh.

He doesn’t, of course, mean a word of the first paragraph. He likes the oppression, cruelty and injustice inflicted on the African-American community, and has done what he can to add to it. He has no quarrel … Read the rest

Trump and his goons try to turn it around.

NEW from @PressSec on Lewis, Thompson missing the Civil Rights Museum opening: “We think it’s unfortunate that these members of Congress wouldn’t join the President in honoring the incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history." (1/2)

— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) December 7, 2017

No, that’s not what’s happening. They’re refusing to join Trump because he is a racist himself, because he opposes civil rights himself, because he thinks there were good people “on both sides” in Charlottesville, because he refused to rent to black people in the 60s, because he was a birther, because he demanded the death penalty for the Central Park 5, … Read the rest

Trump is going to the opening of the Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, so John Lewis is not going. Brilliant. The noisy venomous racist toad is going, so the civil rights veteran is not.

U.S. Rep John Lewis announced Thursday that won’t speak at the opening of Mississippi civil rights and history museums, saying it’s an “insult” that President Donald Trump will attend.

The long-planned Saturday ceremony will mark Mississippi’s bicentennial of admission into the union. But what was intended as a moment of racial unity and atonement in the state with the largest share of African-Americans is descending into racial and partisan strife after Republican Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant invited fellow Republican Trump to attend.

What an … Read the rest

Don Junior is refusing to answer.

In a closed-door interview with congressional investigators yesterday, Donald Trump Jr. refused to divulge the contents of a phone conversation with his father — that would be the president — that took place just after news broke of Trump Jr.’s now-notorious June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer. According to reports, investigators wanted to know whether Senior and Junior discussed what happened at that meeting and how they should respond to the news of it, but Trump Jr. cited attorney-client privilege and clammed up.

…

In an interview with me this morning, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) — the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which interviewed Trump Jr.

Not happy.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, there were harsh words for Mr. Trump from Palestinians agitated at the idea that they were being forced into another period of conflict.

“We will never allow East Jerusalem to be taken away from us,” said a retired farmer who gave his name as Abu Malik, 54. “Trump is a crazy man who knows nothing about politics. I think he should go back to making WWF videos, rather than making these dangerous decisions that will only bring more headaches and bloodshed to our region.”

Maysa Hanoun, 20, a student at Al-Quds Open University, said she believed recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would set off a third intifada. “He

The confidence Trump has in his own judgement and rightness is astounding. He has no qualms about reversing decades of policy just because he glorious he thinks it’s an awesome idea.

President Trump on Wednesday formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing nearly seven decades of American foreign policy and setting in motion a plan to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to the fiercely contested Holy City.

“Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” Mr. Trump said from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. “This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be

Maybe it’s his eating habits that have warped him into the monster we see today.

“Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.”

This 2,400-calorie meal is among the details in a forthcoming book by Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and aid David Bossie, as described in a preview by The Washington Post.

That’s unhealthy af, obviously, but it’s also…well it tells us something about him. He could eat anywhere and order anything, and he chooses that.

Maybe he can’t even detect better things. You know, the way we can’t hear higher frequencies that dogs can? Maybe he’s … Read the rest

Oh and also? In case we haven’t had enough yet? The Jerusalem thing too. I guess Trump is rushing to break everything he can before the cuffs are on.

President Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders on Tuesday that he plans to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a symbolically fraught move that would upend decades of American policy and upset efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

He’s told Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, although the embassy isn’t actually packing up the dishes and books yet because they don’t have a building in Jerusalem. Middle East experts say that’s weird, because all they have to do is change the sign on the consulate … Read the rest

More on the “thinking” behind this No National Monuments For You move:

Trump told a rally in Salt Lake City that he came to “reverse federal overreach”

What is that even supposed to mean? How is it “overreach” to keep public land for public use? Why is that called “overreach” in contrast to handing the public land over to private developers to exploit and damage? Why isn’t it “federal overreach” for Mr Pinchyhand to bounce in and remove protections from public land?

Trump told a rally in Salt Lake City that he came to “reverse federal overreach” and took dramatic action “because some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very

Not appropriate. Should not happen. Should be rejected. Should be turned away at door if it goes that far.

President Donald Trump will be traveling to Mississippi on Saturday to attend the opening of a new civil rights museum.

No. That’s insulting. The man is a vehemently openly unabashedly racist pig. He

• was a “birther” for years
• was sued for refusing to rent properties to black people
• made a “Pocahontas” “joke” to three Native Americans in the Oval Office just last week, in front of a portrait of Andrew “Indian Removal” Jackson
• told April Ryan to “make an appointment” for him with the Congressional Black Caucus at a press conference
• took out a full page ad in the New

Mr Destroy Everything hopes people will rush out to Utah in order to mine and farm and pave over the entire state without delay. He expects a cut of the profits.

President Trump said he would dramatically reduce the size of a vast expanse of protected federal land in Utah on Monday, a rollback of some two million acres that is the largest in scale in the nation’s history.

The administration said it would shrink Bears Ears National Monument, a sprawling region of red rock canyons, by about 85 percent, and cut another area, Grand Staircase-Escalante, to about half its current size. The move, a reversal of protections put in place by Democratic predecessors, comes as the administration pushes for

Setting the cat among the pigeons.

In a mysterious trip last month, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, traveled to Saudi Arabia’s capital for consultations with the hard-charging crown prince about President Trump’s plans for Middle East peace. What was said when the doors were closed, however, has since roiled the region.

According to Palestinian, Arab and European officials who have heard Mr. Abbas’s version of the conversation, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented a plan that would be more tilted toward the Israelis than any ever embraced by the American government, one that presumably no Palestinian leader could ever accept.

The Palestinians would get a state of their own but only noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and

Trump’s lawyer thinks Trump is an absolute monarch.

Trump continues to make it chillingly clear that his unceasing attacks upon the system are neither accidental nor a mistake borne of naïvete. Trump believes he commands the government with the same totality he commands his business. His lawyer, John Dowd, has elevated this assumption to official presidential doctrine in an explosive interview with Mike Allen. A “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” he says.

So Trump can do anything he wants to, and no one can stop him. That’s a dictatorship. John Dowd is saying Trump is a … Read the rest

I was wondering if Billy Bush was going to say anything about Trump’s recent claims that “we think the voice wasn’t mine” – the voice on the Access Hollywood tape that is, the one we listened to repeatedly weeks before the piece of dung was elected. I was wondering if Billy Bush was going to say hey I was there and yes he did too so say it.

He has.

He said it. “Grab ‘em by the pussy.”

Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time,

Trump is taking us out of an international pact meant to deal with global migration and refugee issues.

The US has been a part of the non-binding New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants since it was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly last year.

The declaration called for negotiations on a Global Compact for Migration, aimed at protecting the rights of refugees and migrants and helping them resettle.

It also seeks to fight xenophobia, racism and discrimination towards refugees and migrants.

So, naturally, Trump and his evil assistants would prefer us to weaken or demolish the rights of refugees and migrants, and hinder their efforts to resettle. Obviously they don’t want us to be fighting xenophobia, racism and … Read the rest

He’s frantic.

So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday “interrogation” with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times…and nothing happens to her? Rigged system, or just a double standard?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

Many people in our Country are asking what the “Justice” Department is going to do about the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States Congress, deleted and “acid washed” 33,000 Emails? No justice!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

Many more “people in our Country” are asking how this terrible man got elected president.

Congratulations to @ABC News

Oh gee, look what the Times has.

When President Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in February, White House officials portrayed him as a renegade who had acted independently in his discussions with a Russian official during the presidential transition and then lied to his colleagues about the interactions.

But emails among top transition officials, provided or described to The New York Times, suggest that Mr. Flynn was far from a rogue actor. In fact, the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak,

Lordy. I had to go do other things for a few hours and in that small space of time Trump only went and admitted obstruction of justice.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

He fired him for lying to the FBI…and then tried to pressure Comey into letting him off. Obstruction. The lawyers are lining up to say so.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/937054063451168775

Just got off a MSNBC panel in which Alan Dershowitz argued it is not a crime to lie