Brontoforumus

Matthew Gertz: I’ve Studied the Trump-Fox Feedback Loop for Months. It’s Crazier Than You Think.

It isn't a new or groundbreaking observation that Trump tweets about whatever he just saw on Fox and Friends, but Gertz has spent a hell of a lot of time gathering supporting data.

Here's where we are as a nation, the whole country just watching an old man yell at the TV.

You know... I wonder what sort of President she'd be?

Why the fuck not.

Hell, it'd even be refreshing to have a President be up front about her history of cocaine abuse.

I mean, she'd certainly be an improvement over the unqualified celebrity who's currently in the office, but this is the woman who unleashed Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and The Secret on the world.

Thad wrote:this is the woman who unleashed Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and The Secret on the world.

My first thought too.

She's going to somehow find and appoint Double Flynn.

In less-funny news, The US government has crossed the line to revoking citizenships, a policy which could potentially lead to deportation to people who've been naturalized US citizens as far back as 1943.

A few good articles about Wolff's book:

Ezra Klein at Vox: Beyond the gossip, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury reveals a president in crisis

Angie Drobnic Holan at PolitiFact: A fact-checker's guide to Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House'

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Axios: The Wolff lines on Trump that ring unambiguously true

Henry Holt's lawyer responds to Harder's threatening letter about Fire and Fury with the sort of legal letter that's fun to read.

Worth keeping in mind that it's an advertising move as much as a legal one. Trump's given them the sort of advertising money can't buy, and if they can keep goading him into angrily ranting about the book, that'll keep it selling.

He's back on his "we need to make it easier to sue people for defamation" kick. Of Trump's various bugbears, this is one I'm not particularly worried about. The sort of broad First Amendment restriction Trump is demanding wouldn't pass this (or, likely, any) Congress, and it wouldn't survive the courts. (Plus, he doesn't really want to make it easier to sue people for saying nasty things about people; he wants to make it easier for him to sue people for saying nasty things about him. If the US really did somehow institute UK-style defamation laws, the guy who tweets about somebody "bleeding badly from a botched face lift" would be the first one served.)

"I'll sue you" is kind of like Trump's version of "bazinga," anyway. He says it all the time, but it doesn't really mean anything.

He DID sue Bill Maher for demanding that he show his birth certificate and prove he wasn't the offspring of Fred Trump and an orangutan.

Wait, Bill Maher did something legitimately funny?

Law of averages.

Globe: Trump to open path for states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients

Uh, this would effectively be an end to Medicaid as we know it, right? At least in Red States?

In a similar vein, WaPo has a story today about how there was a federal database of addiction and mental health programs for people to use to find ways of getting help - only it's been frozen for months.

Not Photoshopped.

I am laughing in the way that I laugh at old racist cartoons: it's funny because it's so deeply shocking, backward, and wrong. Except the racist cartoon from the 1940s is my goddamn president.

An American friend of ours commented "Why would you even ask that? Doesn't it kind of answer itself?" and I replied, well, the question of whether the US is a good or even safe place to go becomes more legitimate with every passing day.

The language he uses about immigration has been consistently fucking weird, beyond the racism. "Why are we getting," "they're sending us," like people are filling out fucking requisition forms.

Why it's almost as if he doesn't see them as people!