Demon Trump is going ahead with giving part of Bears Ears National Monument to industry to develop.

U.S. President Donald Trump will shrink the size of two national monuments in Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said on Friday, a change that will open the areas to drilling and mining but which Democrats, environmental groups and Native Americans are vowing to fight.

The two Utah sites, Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are among several that U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended reducing in size in order to make way for more industrial activity on the land they occupy.

Former President Barack Obama designated Bears Ears as a national monument during his final days in office.

Charles Blow points out that the Republicans are caught in a rage spiral.

Flake wasn’t only excoriating Trump, he was also excoriating his fellow elected officials, particularly Republicans, and the Republican Party, which finds itself caught in a perpetual rage spiral, in which no one but extremists are pure enough. The circle of inclusion is being drawn smaller and tighter around an electorally deadly singularity: White people who espouse Christianity, accept patriarchy and misogyny, and turn a blind eye to (or sometimes openly encourage) white supremacy.

They also hate fags and furriners.

I’m growing increasingly angry with Republican lawmakers expressing grave concerns about Trump in private and on background, but biting their tongues in public.

It is no coincidence

The Post offers us a history lesson today. Jeff Flake’s speech yesterday reminded Kevin Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton, of Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” address to the Senate on June 1, 1950.

Like Flake, Smith (R-Maine) spoke to denounce a demagogue in her own party and to announce her refusal to stand quietly by as he did damage to the nation’s institutions. Smith’s target — unnamed in her speech, much as Trump was unnamed in Flake’s — was none other than the junior Republican senator from Wisconsin: Joseph R. McCarthy.

A few months earlier, in February, McCarthy had set the political world on fire with his stunning accusation that there were 205 “known communists” working

It’s odd the way choice and liberty and autonomy and making one’s own decisions are usually core values for Republicans and conservatives. Of course those values are often in tension with other core Republican / conservative values that come from the goddy wing, like obedience and deference and respect for tradition / hierarchy / the sacred…but they are core values nevertheless.

Or maybe they’re really core values only for men, while the goddy ones are more suited to women. Real Men™ make their own decisions while Real Women™ obey Real Men™ and clerics and Mr God.

But even so, it’s a little odd for a political orientation that is so strongly libertarian, often at the expense of concern for the … Read the rest

If Corker thinks all this, is he talking impeachment? If not, why not?

If they all think this, or if most of them think this, are they talking impeachment? If not, why not?

Sen. Bob Corker said a lot of things about President Trumpon Tuesday morning. The Tennessee Republican warned that Trump’s itchy Twitter finger could set off another world war. He suggested Trump is a liar. He said Trump’s legacy will be “debasing” America. He said Trump is not a role model for children. He declined to say whether Trump should be trusted with the nuclear codes. He said Trump’s conduct is “very sad for our nation.” He said Trump has “proven himself unable to rise to the

John McWhorter is hilarious.

Brian Williams: He’s quick to remind us that he went to the best schools.

John McWhorter: Umhm and he learned nothing in them.

… Read the rest

I guess Trump was feeling bored this morning? I don’t know why else he would decide to pick another fight with a Republican senator in full public view.

Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017

…Corker dropped out of the race in Tennesse when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump. Look at his record!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017

Isn't it sad that lightweight Senator Bob Corker, who couldn't get re-elected in the Great State of Tennessee, will now fight Tax Cuts plus!

The check was in the mail! It was in the mail, I tell you! Ok it was in the mail after the story broke in the Post, but all the same it was in the mail.

The family of a slain US soldier has received their $25,000 personal check from President Donald Trump months after receiving a condolence call from Trump and being offered the money, according to an ABC11 reporteron Monday.

A letter signed by Trump was also sent with condolences to Chris Baldridge, the father of Sgt. Dillon Baldridge, who was one of three US soldiers killed in Afghanistan when an Afghan police officer fired on them. The Taliban have since claimed responsibility.

“I

You know, if Trump actually intended his phone call to Myeshia Johnson to be consoling, as opposed to intending it as the performance of an irksome duty, then he would not now be brawling with her. He just wouldn’t. The intention to console or attempt to console or send a heartfelt message of intending to console would make subsequent brawling simply out of the question. Her grief would blot out his ego concerns, and that would be that.

So from his behavior now we can conclude that he never meant any genuine sympathy or kindness by the call, and that he was simply ticking off another presidential task that he doesn’t relish.

Chris Cillizza makes a similar point.

As

It ruined Harvey Weinstein (for the moment at least) but it hasn’t ruined Trump. Why is that?

As the aftershocks from Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct spread to other powerful men in Hollywood and media, a group of women for whom the allegations are “gross but familiar” are wondering if the fallout will reach an even more powerful man – the one in the White House.

During the course of his presidential campaign, more than 10 women came forward with accusations that Donald Trump had touched or kissed them without consent – something he bragged about on the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape when he said stars like him could “grab them by the pussy”.

A number of other

Three times now.

The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2017

I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2017

Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems. You watch her in action & vote R!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2017

The president of the United States.… Read the rest

We worried from the start about Trump’s penchant for hiring military people for his top jobs. We were wary about the excitement when Kelly took over as chief of staff…but we were also so sick of Trump’s rages and tantrums and explosions that we perhaps hoped it was worth the risk.

It wasn’t. Masha Gessen does a great job of saying why. She argues that Kelly’s press briefing was like a preview of what a military coup here would look like.

First Kelly argued that people who criticize Trump don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t served in the military.

Fallen soldiers, Kelly said, join “the best one per cent this country produces.” Here, the chief of

Trump last week put out a proclamation declaring October 15 through October 21 National Character Counts Week.

The first, tone-setting paragraph:

We celebrate National Character Counts Week because few things are more important than cultivating strong character in all our citizens, especially our young people.  The grit and integrity of our people, visible throughout our history, defines the soul of our Nation.  This week, we reflect on the character of determination, resolve, and honor that makes us proud to be American.

Note the impoverished idea of “character.” Note how militaryesque it is. Note how easily it can be adopted by bullies. Strength, grit, integrity, determination, resolve, and honor. Those are all useful qualities, to be sure, but only used … Read the rest

Of course he did.

Trump personally interviewed 3 people for US attorney jobs…ones that just happened, in a startling coincidence that means nothing at all, to be in districts where Trump has an interest.

Trump has interviewed Geoffrey Berman, who is currently at the law firm Greenberg Traurig for the job of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Ed McNally of the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres for the Eastern District post, according to the sources.

(One wonders what that can have been like. On the one hand an educated grownup with specialized professional training and experience, on the other hand a guy who can’t utter a coherent sentence and knows nothing about anything – … Read the rest

Richard Cohen at the Post explains Trump.

Trump does not possess an ounce of compassion. He is reptilian, knowing only to show his fangs, hiss and attack. This is why he mocked a physically disabled reporter for the New York Times, why he derided the heroism of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and why he dismissed the authenticity of the Khans, who had lost their son in Iraq.

This inability to feel the pain of others — even to acknowledge it — is not a minor tick in an otherwise good man. It is the salient characteristic of a sadist, of someone so wrapped up in himself that he has contempt for victims. Trump’s name for them is “losers.” They

Trump again demonstrates that he has no idea how to value anything.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/920776302231244800

He thinks singing a patriotic song is what “real pride in our country” is all about. That’s a ridiculous thing to think.

I’m sure it’s an expression of pride for many people – but it has to be freely chosen to be genuinely that, surely. Trump’s bullying about it just turns it into a meaningless exercise at best and a punishment at worst. Anyway it’s not an expression of pride for all of us – for many it’s just an empty ritual, and for some it’s an insult. We’re allowed to think both of those thoughts and we’re allowed to refuse to sing the damn thing, at … Read the rest

At CNN. Chris Cillizza – who did his bit to swing the election by keeping “Her Emails” constantly in the headlines – offers a best-case interpretation of how Trump messed up that phone call.

Don’t get me wrong: he starts with reasons to believe he messed it up badly and is lying about it now.

For those who are taking Trump’s side in all of this — alleging that Wilson is simply trying to score political points against a president the Democratic base hates — it’s important to remember a few things we know about Trump.

1. In the summer of 2016, he engaged in an extended back and forth with Khizr Khan, the father of an American soldier killed

Oh goddddd reading this has made me feel sick. It may seem small in the scheme of things, but just the cold narcissistic callousness behind it is nauseating. Trump’s way of condoling the families of soldiers killed in action: he tells them they signed up for it but he guesses it hurts anyway.

In his call with Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson, Trump told her, “He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway,” according to the account of Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.), who was riding in a limousine with Johnson when the president called and heard the conversation on speakerphone.

Wilson recalled in an interview with The Washington Post

The emoluments case starts tomorrow.

On Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Manhattan will hear preliminary arguments in a case that claims President Trump is violating the Constitution’s ban on accepting foreign payments, or emoluments.

Here is what is at stake: The Founding Fathers wrote a clause into the Constitution saying U.S. officials cannot accept “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title” from foreign governments without the consent of Congress. Trump’s critics say that by refusing to sell off his global businesses, the president is failing to uphold the Constitution.

But before that issue can be debated, the court first has to decide whether the plaintiffs even have standing to bring their Emoluments Clause case. And that first step is

Trump, naturally, goes even uglier in trying to argue away his lie about Obama yesterday.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday invoked the death of the son of his chief of staff, John Kelly, as he defended his claim from a day before that Barack Obama and other past presidents didn’t always call the families of slain service members.

“For the most part, to the best of my knowledge, I think I’ve called every family of somebody that’s died, and it’s the hardest call to make, and I said it very loud and clear yesterday. The hardest thing for me to do is do that,” Trump said Tuesday morning during an interview with Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade.

I guess … Read the rest