Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

[Mongrel]

Oh wait!



Good thing we got that sorted out!

[Mongrel]

Today I learned:

Trump and Bolton are apparently old pals from Bolton's days at Fox. The main reason Trump hadn't already given Bolton a job as Sec State or NatSec Adviser was because he doesn't like Bolton's moustache.

Tell me we're not living in an 80's cartoon.

[Niku]

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

Kate Briquelet and Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: ‘Stormy Will Eat You Alive’: How a Porn Star is Making Trump World’s Lives Hell

But in that final month on the trail, there was something else weighing on Trump’s mind, even more than the assault allegations. According to three top campaign officials, speaking to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, Trump began pressing senior staffers about the specific dates that the women were alleging that the assaults, affairs, or harassment took place.

If the date fell within the time period of the early stage of his marriage to Melania Trump—and the birth of their son Barron—Trump would suddenly care more about the story and quiz campaign aides more closely about it. Officials concluded that Trump’s true concern was not so much being accused of sexual harassment as it was, in the words of one aide, about “pissing off Melania.”

[...]

“The president may be able to fire Mr. [Robert] Mueller and others who may challenge him, but he cannot fire me, or my client. We will not be going away any time soon,” Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, told The Daily Beast. “If they [in Trumpworld] are upset about what has transpired over the last two weeks, they are really going to be upset when they see what is going to transpire over the next few months—because the last two weeks haven’t been a warm-up lap.”

Quoting what I said on The Avocado:

Stormy's handling of this, the pace at which she's let details out, seems extremely canny and media-savvy. It sure seems like she's consulted with counsel (and probably media consultants), made a plan, and is following it.

It's possible, of course, that I'm full of shit and she's just good at manipulating the media into giving her attention and has no real plan -- like Trump. Time will tell. But it at least looks to me like she's cleared the low bar of "smarter and better-disciplined than Trump."

Speaking of Trump's lack of discipline, that he's actually managed to keep his mouth shut on this story definitely means something. I'm not sure what, exactly; maybe the "he's more afraid of pissing off Melania than he is about investigations and lawsuits" theory is true, or maybe it's just that this is the kind of scandal he's used to dealing with and it's easier for him to stay on-script.

[Mongrel]

Latest headline:

Trump ousts David Shulkin as Veterans Affairs secretary, nominates personal physician

[Caithness]

Harold Bornstein?

[Mongrel]

Yep.

[zaratustra]

No, the White House physician - Ronny Jackson.

At the White House briefing, Jackson vouched for Trump's neurological function, pronounced him in "excellent" health and attributed part of the positive health assessment to good genetics.

[Mongrel]

Well, as the quote indicates, that's still the guy who said Trump had "Good genetics", so I'm not sure it's that much of an improvement over Dr. The Dude.

Anyway...

CNN: White House reviewing plan to restrict immigrants' use of government programs

There's no possible way THIS could go wrong and kill a bunch of children!

[Friday]

White House unveils plan to kill brown children not only abroad but also here at home

"We've had extremely positive feedback regarding the killing of brown children in other countries," a White House spokesman was quoted as saying. "But here in America, people don't like even regular drones that are not armed with explosives constantly bombing everything, so we had to work out some other way to murder brown kids."

"Our next plan is to encourage shooters to target only inner city schools by giving them a cash incentive," the spokesman went on to say. "Sure, there might be a few white kids shot, but they're probably poor, so they're like 50-70% worthless anyway."

[Thad]

NYT: Venting on Immigration, Trump Vows ‘No More DACA Deal’ and Threatens Nafta

Ah, "no more DACA deal". As opposed to all the DACA deals we've had up to this point.

Minutes after wishing the nation a happy Easter Sunday, Mr. Trump denounced “liberal” laws that he said were preventing Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs. He said that Republicans should use the “nuclear option” to sidestep Democratic opposition in the Senate and enact “tough laws NOW.”

Prediction: Mitch McConnell is not going to eliminate the filibuster right before an election where there's a chance Republicans we'll lose the Senate.

But, y'know, McConnell understands how the government works. Trump does not.

[Mongrel]

You'd think George Papadopoulos would have learned his lesson about getting drunk in nightclubs and blabbing about the inner workings of the Trump campaign to random strangers. But you'd be wrong!

(via ThinkProgress)

[Mongrel]

These have been posted up all over the hill in DC:



LOOOOL

[Yoji]

Not in response to anything, but I was thinking about the 2016 election earlier, about how such a stark and seemingly easy choice there was to make.



Like regardless of how this thing ends, just... goddamn. It was an easy test, and holy fuck did we ever blow it. I'm not sure how I'm ever going to trust ourselves with policy decisions and/or sharp objects ever again.

[Mongrel]

The comments are pretty great too.

[Mongrel]

"The paparazzi lingering outside the Loews Regency on Park Avenue, hoping to get a photo of U.F.C. fighter Conor McGregor, appeared not to notice the stream of F.B.I. agents who entered the New York hotel early Monday morning, as they made their way up to the room where the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has been staying."

That's a hell of a lead-in for a news story.

Full article at Vanity Fair

A conservative guy I know keeps sarcastically saying "This is it!" every time a story breaks about the Mueller Investigation. Well, Popehat just posted this:

[Thad]

No matter how many stupid things Trump says and does, I'm still constantly...not surprised, exactly, but caught off-guard, perhaps?, by his total lack of thought.

He's fuming about this raid, and...dude, the other day you told reporters that Cohen paid hush money to a porn star without your knowledge or consent. You gave them legal justification. You did.

Granted, you're right, this takes a whole lot of layers of approval and preparation, and probably would have happened with or without Trump's self-own. But still, it's like, y'know, a person of average intelligence would have made a connection between those two things. And a person of average impulse control would have said "No comment; I refer you to my counsel" and not made that mistake in the first damn place.

My overwhelming takeaway, as always, is that, as bad as things are, imagine how much worse they'd be if Trump were not an incompetent moron surrounding himself with incompetent morons. "Stupid Watergate" indeed.

As big a step as this is, and as urgent as it is to get Trump out of office, I want Mueller to keep going until every rock is overturned. Take as long as it takes; not just Stormy, not just Russia, not just shady real estate deals. Get it all.

[mharr]

This is just from random internet chat, but I've read a few suggestions recently that openly corrupt capitalist states, eg: Russia, generate more experienced and effective civilian resistance where in places like America much of the population can assume it's never going to affect them and theirs. It's like the US just caught an acute case of what Russia has been living with at a chronic low level forever and has fallen into a high fever.

Hopefully the analogy will extend to the point where y'all wake up recovered and feel fucking awesome after a pint of Gatorade and a fried breakfast.

[Mongrel]