So now we’re pretending that Trump has a worked-out policy or plan or organizing principle or something, and that the word for it is “flexibility.”

As he confronted a series of international challenges from the Middle East to Asia last week, President Trump made certain that nothing was certain about his foreign policy. To the extent that a Trump Doctrine is emerging, it seems to be this: don’t get roped in by doctrine.

Please. Laziness isn’t a “doctrine.” Empty-headedness isn’t a doctrine. Toddler-level impulsiveness isn’t a doctrine. Being totally random isn’t a doctrine. Breaking all the rules and stamping all over the porcelain isn’t a doctrine.

“Our decisions,” Mr. Trump said in the Saturday address, “will be guided by

The Times starts with the obvious: the photos were horrifying, with all that follows from that. Then it moves to the still obvious but all the more alarming.

This time, though, a new American president was seeing the pictures and absorbing the horror.

Donald J. Trump has always taken pride in his readiness to act on instinct, whether in real estate or reality television. On Thursday, an emotional President Trump took the greatest risk of his young presidency, ordering a retaliatory missile strike on Syria for its latest chemical weapons attack. In a dizzying 48 hours, he upended a foreign policy doctrine based on putting America first and avoiding messy conflicts in distant lands.

You don’t want a president … Read the rest

Rebecca Traister has thoughts on Trump’s endorsement of the goodness of Bill O’Reilly.

Where even to begin, except with a reminder that we are now five days into April, a month Trump has designated “National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month”? The decree he signed on March 31 read in part: “We recommit ourselves this month to establishing a culture of respect and appreciation for the dignity of every human being.”

More like National Sexual Assault Promotion Month, or Year or Presidency.

Trump’s commitment to public, performed displays of white-male dominance is so complete that he seems to view even fake nods to respecting women as some kind of sign of weakness. When he’s forced to offer one — like

Trump adds another item to his scumbag-CV by defending serial harasser and bully Bill O’Reilly.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Donald J. Trump praised Mr. O’Reilly as “a good person” and declared, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” days after The New York Times reported that five women had received settlements after making harassment claims against him.

Of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with sexually assaulting women. He does it himself and boasts about it to friendly bros, so of course he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

Few have spoken out publicly in support of the Fox star. The president had no qualms.

“Personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled,” Mr. Trump told

Donnie did an interview with the New York Times this morning – the failing New York Times as he genially calls it. I wonder why he bothers giving interviews to failing newspapers. I think I would stick to nonfailing newspapers if I were prezeedent.

The interview is as stupid as you’d expect, and stupider. I wonder what it’s like being Maggie Haberman or Glenn Thrush and trying to ask him questions as if he were a reasonable adult.

President Trump said on Wednesday that he thought that the former national security adviser Susan E. Rice may have committed a crime by seeking the identities of Trump associates who were mentioned on intercepted communications and that other Obama administration officials may

Another shakeup in Trumpland. Hey they’ve been there more than two months now, it’s totally normal to have 47 shakeups in such a long period of time. Bannon is out of that job he should never have been in in the first place.

President Trump reshuffled his national security organization on Wednesday, removing his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, from a top policy-making committee and restoring senior military and intelligence officials who had been downgraded when he first came into office.

The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was tapped as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after the resignation of Michael T. Flynn, who stepped down in February after being caught misleading Vice President Mike Pence

Of course he did.

On March 27, Trump revoked the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order then-President Barack Obama put in place to ensure that companies with federal contracts comply with 14 labor and civil rights laws. The Fair Pay order was put in place after a 2010 Government Accountability Office investigation showed that companies with rampant violations were being awarded millions in federal contracts.

In an attempt to keep the worst violators from receiving taxpayer dollars, the Fair Pay order included two rules that impacted women workers: paycheck transparency and a ban on forced arbitration clauses for sexual harassment, sexual assault or discrimination claims.

…

“Arbitrations are private proceedings with secret filings and private attorneys, and they

The White House published Trump’s remarks at the “Women’s Empowerment Panel” the White House held the other day. They are rather stupid remarks, as you’d expect. Already it seems almost quaint to expect a president to sound intelligent and informed. No no, a president sounds like any other carnival barker.

So as you know, Melania is a very highly accomplished woman and really an inspiration to so many.  And she is doing some great job.

Is she? Accomplished? At what? And what job is she doing?

And I’m so proud that the White House and our administration is filled with so many women of such incredible talent.  This week, as we conclude Women’s History Month, we honor a great woman

It may yet turn out that Donald Trump is subject to the law just like everyone else.

The courts keep taking Donald Trump both seriously and literally. And the president’s word choices are proving to be a real headache.

A federal judge in Kentucky is the latest to take Trump at his word when he says something controversial. Judge David J. Hale ruled against efforts by Trump’s attorneys to throw out a lawsuit accusing him of inciting violence against protesters at a March 2016 campaign rally in Louisville.

At the rally, Trump repeatedly said “get ’em out of here” before, according to the protesters, they were shoved and punched by his supporters. Trump’s attorneys sought to have the case dismissed

Lordy lordy lordy.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a private elevator to his palatial office on the seventh floor of the State Department building, where sightings of him are rare on the floors below.

On many days, he blocks out several hours on his schedule as “reading time,” when he is cloistered in his office poring over the memos he prefers ahead of in-person meetings.

Most of his interactions are with an insular circle of political aides who are new to the State Department. Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly — or even make eye contact.

If he happens to pass them in … Read the rest

Trump has been especially loathsome on Twitter this morning. He’s probably cranky because the grownups won’t let him go to Taco del Mar this weekend, on account of how the news media keep pointing out how very much time he is spending on vacation at our expense.

When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

It makes me want to smash things to see our head of state publicly deploying rude nicknames as if he were five years old. He is degrading us all, and it makes me furious.

It is the same Fake News Media that said

Mother Jones:

In an announcement late Friday, President Donald Trump proclaimed April as National Sexual Assault and Prevention Month, vowing to commit his administration to raising awareness on the issue and “reduce and eventually end violence” against women, children, and men.

“This includes supporting victims, preventing future abuse, and prosecuting offenders to the full extent of the law,” a statement from the White House read. “I have already directed the Attorney General to create a task force on crime reduction and public safety.  This task force will develop strategies to reduce crime and propose new legislation to fill gaps in existing laws.”

“In the face of sexual violence, we must commit to providing meaningful support and services for victims

This tweet is particularly infuriating:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/847625389908217856

How can we possibly enlist the full potential of women in our society when women in our society are subject to so much contempt and predatory behavior from men like Trump? How can he mouth pious bullshittery about the full potential of women when he talks about women the way he does? Where does he get the nerve?… Read the rest

Ok my excuse is that yesterday was rushed because I had to do things out in the world, so I didn’t grasp what the news about the identity of the people who gave Nunes the sekrit info meant. Julie Hirschfeld Davis at the Times caused the penny to drop in a piece on Trump’s dopy tweet about Flynn and immunity and “Dems” this morning.

The credibility of the inquiry was thrown into question on Thursday after it emerged that a pair of White House officials helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, with intelligence reports that showed Mr. Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy

The government ethics duo Richard Painter and Norman Eisen on Flynn and immunity:

Instead of categorically rejecting Mr. Flynn’s offer, as the Senate Intelligence Committee appears to have done today, both houses of Congress and federal prosecutors should carefully review Flynn’s proffered testimony and the details of the immunity deal and then make a decision.

This is the latest development in a scandal more frightening than Watergate because it involves a foreign adversary attacking the American political system. We need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.

In this case need to know might outweigh need to punish.

This time, the stakes are too high to wait. Immunity should be granted as soon as Congress

There’s yet more confirmation that Devin Nunes is the White House’s fluffy fluffy poodle.

A pair of White House officials helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

The revelation on Thursday that White House officials disclosed the reports, which Mr. Nunes then discussed with Mr. Trump, is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the presidential election.

Why, … Read the rest

Meanwhile, Trump is leaving executive branch science jobs unfilled, which means he has no science advisers on staff.

Mr. Trump’s first budget proposes slashing $5.8 billion, or 18 percent, from the National Institutes of Health and $900 million, or about 20 percent, from the Energy Department’s Office of Science, which runs basic research at the national laboratories. The Environmental Protection Agency would be cut by 31 percent.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump issued executive orders that roll back Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have closed hundreds of coal-fired power plants in an effort to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.

Those actions have been taken without advice or guidance from scientists and engineers inside the White House. The few

Today in Trump.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Fight them, and the Dems, and the 65% of the population who think Trump is a trainwreck. That should go well.

The Times attempts to pick its way through the debris field, starting with that tweet.

The post from Mr. Trump did not seem to have been impulsive: Mr. Bannon, who has counseled a tough tone with the rebels, has instructed his staff to more closely monitor the president’s Twitter messages to use them as leverage in negotiations.

Dan Scavino, an aide

Spicey is shocked, shocked, that people think there was anything wrong with the way he talked to April Ryan yesterday. Or, more likely, he’s pretending to be shocked. They want to normalize asshole behavior so that Trump won’t look so glaringly abnormal and psychopathic.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to accusations of sexism and racism after he repeatedly told senior journalist April Ryan to stop shaking her head during Tuesday’s press briefing.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Spicer’s actions Tuesday, labeling the incident an example of the kind of sexism that women encounter every day. But Spicer said that Ryan was a tough reporter and he was “astonished” at the accusation. He insisted that he

The Trump gang tried to stop Sally Yates testifying.

According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.

Yates and other former intelligence officials had been asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee this week, a hearing that was abruptly canceled by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Who worked on Trump’s transition team. That Devin Nunes.

Yates and another witness at the planned hearing, former CIA director John Brennan, had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to