Today in Trumpistan-SEE YOU IN COURT version.

Well, two days really, but who is counting?

Let's start out with some foreign policy WINNING from the man who knows more than all the generals:

"In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said."

He's negotiating with Putin and he never even heard of the most important US-Russia nuclear treaty in existence.  But wait, there's more foreign policy WINNING today:

"Trump, Changing Course on Taiwan, Gives China an Upper Hand...BEIJING — By backing down in a telephone call with China’s president on his promise to review the status of Taiwan, President Trump may have averted a confrontation with America’s most powerful rival.

But in doing so, he handed China a victory and sullied his reputation with its leader, Xi Jinping, as a tough negotiator who ought to be feared, analysts said.

“Trump lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, and an adviser to China’s State Council. “This will be interpreted in China as a great success, achieved by Xi’s approach of dealing with him.”

The great negotiator at work!  Just like with Mexico paying for the wall, he talks like a Mafia don, and then when he gets on the phone with his opponents, he caves.  What a laugh this guy is.  In two days, he has blown negotiations with Russia and China.  The winner at work!

And now, Republicans' ideas of free speech in the Trump era:

Lindsey Graham: Floor action to silence Warren ‘long overdue’...“The bottom line is, it was long overdue with her. I mean, she is clearly running for the [Democratic presidential] nomination in 2020.”

It is only appropriate to shut up a sitting United States Senator if they are running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, I guess.  Even though, of course Elizabeth Warren isn't.  So, I guess it is okay to shut up any Democrat.

And why would that be okay?  Because stubborn, unreasonable Democrats won't go along with sensible measures such as this:

"WASHINGTON ― The Trump administration is considering closing down the enforcement division of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report Wednesday evening from Inside EPA."

And you've got to love this argument:

"GOP senator: Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t criticize Sessions, because “think of his wife."  “Jeff Sessions is a really fine person,” Hatch said. “Think of his wife. She’s a really fine person. Jeff has been here 20 years. He’s interchanged with almost all of us. Sometimes you agree with him and sometimes you don’t, but he’s always been a gentleman.”

Really, the nerve of Warren.  Forget that Sessions is a corrupt racist.  Don't you dare bring it up because he has a wife.  Funny that nobody on the Republican side of the aisle thought of Obama's wife, or Bill Clinton's wife, or Gore's or Kerry's, while they were making hundreds of lying accusations against them.


And the Young Republicans at Central Michigan University have taken the new Trump consciousness as an appropriate opportunity to send out the following delightful Valentine's greeting:

Yup, Trump-bringing our country together.  After certain elements have been eliminated, of course.

And from the Washington Post, this exciting news:

"National security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election."

The talks were part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said. In a recent interview, Kislyak confirmed that he had communicated with Flynn by text message, by phone and in person, but declined to say whether they had discussed sanctions.

The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect."

Inappropriate and potentially illegal.  Sort of the definition of the Trump administration.  Of course, the Washington Post was just too polite to add the term "treasonous."

And absolutely no atrocity is too degraded for Trump if one of his backers can make money from it:

"The Trump administration has prepared a new executive order that would extinguish regulatory controls designed to prevent US companies profiting from and encouraging the spread of “conflict minerals” that are inflaming violence in Congo.

A draft executive order, composed last week and obtained by the Guardian, proposes a two-year suspension of a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms that requires US firms to carry out due diligence to ensure that the products they sell include no minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or neighbouring countries. The regulation was widely applauded as a mainstay of attempts to cut the umbilical chord between big business and violent warlords who have spread unrest throughout the Congo and caused the deaths of more than five million people since the 1990s."

Great news for Pat Robertson, the sainted religious leader who has used contributions to his tax-exempt foundation to trade in conflict diamonds for decades.

And let's just end with one of the most oblivious comments I have heard in months:

"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently visited the White House, prompting speculation that the Trump administration might be looking to follow Walker’s model of anti-unionism. But following Walker’s model means betraying the very people who put President Trump in office: frustrated working-class Americans."

Come on.  Every damned thing the Republican party has done for fifty years has been a betrayal of working-class Americans, and the suckers lap it up and send them back to Washington over and over again.  Why should it be any different now?


And This to Remember:  After two weeks in office, Trump took a weekend vacation, costing the taxpayers $3 million dollars.  Now, after a grueling five day work week, he is off on another vacation, presumably racking up another $3 million dollar cost.  And they screamed bloody murder when Obama took his first day off, after four months in office.