Today in Trumpville

Only a partial list, I am sure; the day is only half over.  First, a quote from Trump's oh-so-reasonable appointment to the Supreme Court.  Admittedly, it's from when he was a student, but do you remember advocating anything like this as a student?

"The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer."-Neil Gorsuch

A good philosophy for a Supreme Court Justice, huh?


And now, this comforting piece of information regarding Trump's contacts with Vladimir Putin:

"Ilan Berman, vice president of the conservative American Foreign Policy Council think tank, reported that the White House turned off its recording equipment during President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin."

I have said that Trump's behavior in alienating all of our allies, crippling our intelligence agencies, and putting a mole in the National Security Council can have but one explanation: he is deliberately damaging our ability to defend ourselves against aggressive moves by Vladimir Putin.  No one else that I know of has had the honesty to say that in the open, but that is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence.  So, I guess it's no wonder that Trump might like to prevent us from hearing what he and Putin have to say to each other.


And remember when the Republicans viciously attacked Obama for years, falsely accusing him of not being in the White House Situation room during the Bin Laden raid?  This went so far as for wingnuts to insist that Obama was photoshopped into the pictures showing him there at the time:

Well, how about this?

"Trump didn't bother to show up in Situation Room for botched Yemen raid...And those earlier suggestions that President Obama had somehow cleared the raid? Completely false. Donald Trump was totally responsible for authorizing the botched raid. But he didn’t take that responsibility seriously enough to let it keep him out of bed while Navy SEALs were putting their lives on the line."

And further:

"US military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations."

I wonder how many Republican show hearings and angry, screaming interviews we are going to hear about this.


Now, on we go.  Wheeee!  More exciting news:

"The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States."

No sense wasting out time worrying about people like this guy:

Or this one:

I mean, they are only good American patriots, and one went after black people, and the other went after Jews, and what's the harm in that, huh?  And while we are on the subject of patriotism,

"Trump Vows to ‘Destroy’ Law Banning Political Activity by Churches...President Trump vowed Thursday to overturn a law restricting political speech by tax-exempt churches, a potentially huge victory for the religious right and a gesture to his political base.

Mr. Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches from engaging in political activity at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status."

Well, there you go, a day in the life.  Or at least half a day.  More to come, I'm sure.



I would be remiss if I didn't add that I was led to some of this via Daily Kos, the single most important news website in existence.  You should be looking at it every day.