I guess "trashy tabloid fiction" sells (of course it does)
https://www.salon.com/2018/01/05/the-new-anti-trump-book-is-really-popular/
More: https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/949295852245397506
The Wolff episode is a classic of example of getting the biographer you deserve. Wolff's nasty, self-promotional and also a pretty capable reporter. He played the Trumpers like chumps.
https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/05/trump-faces-many-books/
Trump Faces Many More Books
Michael Wolff thanks Trump for free publicity
https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/05/quote-of-the-day-1816/
“Where do I send the box of chocolates?… Not only is he helping sell books, but he’s helping me prove the point of the book.”
More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michael-wolff-defends-trump-book
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Wolff about Trump’s claim, in a tweet Thursday night, that “I never spoke to him for book.”“I absolutely spoke to the President,” Wolff said. “Whether he realized it was an interview or not, I don’t know. But it certainly was not off the record.” [read on]
I said a few days ago, on January 1, that 2018 was going to be an eventful year. And just five days in . . .
https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-first-week-of-2018-1ebdf201b858
I think this new NYT revelation could be the thing that forces AG Jeff Sessions out
https://thinkprogress.org/sessions-comey-stories-b4d8f50fc98d
Scott Pruitt, who has ruined the EPA and is embroiled in his own controversies, is angling for the AG job
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/05/scott-pruitt-us-attorney-general-position-326373
[NB: Here's the problem: any new nomination will have to go through confirmation hearings -- and question #1 is going to be, Will you protect Mueller from interference?]
The Republican Congress issues its first criminal referral in Trump-Russia. Their first target? The author of the Steele dossier, Christopher Steele! The "crime"? Supposedly not mentioning certain conversations with reporters. Even if true, it seems pretty trivial -- and of course does nothing to undermine the credibility of the dossier itself. This is punishing the whistleblower, and Grassley and Graham should be ashamed of themselves
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/judiciary-republicans-doj-referral-dossier-author
https://www.salon.com/2018/01/05/republicans-find-the-true-villain-of-the-russia-probe-dossier-author-christopher-steele/
More: https://www.vox.com/2018/1/5/16845704/steele-dossier-russia-trump
The bigger pattern here: Trump and his defenders using legal institutions to deflect attention from his problems and punish his critics
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/republicans-weaponizing-the-law-against-trumps-enemies.html
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/01/05/trump-is-using-the-fbi-to-go-after-his-opponents-how-will-the-media-respond/
People think the 25th Amendment can save us from Trump -- but it's more complicated than that
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/03/trump-25th-amendment-mental-health-322625
Washington's growing obsession: The 25th Amendment
BUT: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-the-25th-amendment-remains-hot-topic-conversation
Under the 25th Amendment, a sitting vice president and a majority of the executive branch’s cabinet could, on their own, agree to transfer power out of the hands of a sitting president. At that point, those officials would notify Congress, and the vice president would assume the office as the acting president. And what if the challenged president wasn’t on board with the plan to remove him/her from the office? As Vox explained a while back, “If the president wants to dispute this move, he can, but then it would be up to Congress to settle the matter with a vote. A two-thirds majority in both houses would be necessary to keep the vice president in charge. If that threshold isn’t reached, the president would regain his powers.”
[NB: So, a rule passed to address temporary incapacity, not removing someone from the office but provisionally transferring powers to the VP (as when Bush was under anesthesia for a colonoscopy) is NOT the way to deal with Trump. Hard to imagine a two thirds vote of both the House and Senate -- that's a higher bar than impeachment!]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-nuclear-blast-briefing-nuclear-war-emergency-preparation-north-korea-tensions/
CDC to hold briefing on how public can prepare for nuclear war
Trump has been bragging about job creation. But the numbers don't lie
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-job-boom-actually-the-fewest-number-of-jobs-created-in-the-last-6-years-0465cb9b54c2/
Trump ‘job boom’ actually the fewest number of jobs created in the last 6 years
More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/05/in-trumps-first-year-stocks-soar-for-rich-but-wages-stay-flat/
In Trump’s first year, stocks soar for rich, but wages stay flat
Trump plans to hold the Dreamers hostage to get $18 billion for his Wall
https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/05/trump-wants-18-billion-border-wall/
Remember when "Mexico would pay for it"? https://thinkprogress.org/trump-requests-border-wall-funding-8635a77fdcfd/
The negotiations are falling apart: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/05/daca-dreamers-white-house-congress-negotiations-326356
After a record-setting first year of departures from the Trump circus, more are to come
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-white-house-more-departures-high-turnover-rate
Here's the next one: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/nsa-chief-mike-rogerss-classified-retirement-memo-leaks.html
National Security Agency head Admiral Mike Rogers . . .
DHS makes clear that Kris Kobach is not running their voting security operation
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kobach-voter-commission-panel-dhs-take-over
But the GOP assault on voting rights isn't over: https://thinkprogress.org/voting-rights-still-under-attack-45e0571e6c7f/
Susan Collins, key vote on the tax bill, thought she got a pretty good deal in exchange for her vote. Got used, is what she did
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1730106
Meet Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/01/katy-tur-pins-jim-jordan-when-he-wont
The damage Roy Moore has done
https://www.salon.com/2018/01/05/roy-moore-threatened-to-sue-one-of-his-accusers-now-shes-suing-him/
Roy Moore threatened to sue one of his accusers. Now she’s suing him
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/01/roy-moore-accusers-house-burns-down
Roy Moore Accuser's House Burns Down In Possible Arson
[NB: Not the same one.]
"Semi-literate"
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/americas-first-post-text-president/549794/
“He didn’t process information in any conventional sense,” Wolff writes. “He didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semi-literate.” Wolff quotes economic adviser Gary Cohn writing in an email: “It’s worse than you can imagine … Trump won’t read anything—not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored.” . . .
Just a thought: Trump has requested a copy of the new Spielberg movie, "The Post," for a White House screening. It makes me wonder: given his antipathy to the subject of the film (a courageous free press) and to the people who made it, will this just be an excuse for him to pan the film via Twitter and encourage people NOT to see it? Let's see
https://www.thedailybeast.com/meryl-streep-tom-hanks-ok-with-trump-screening-the-post-at-white-house
Colonel Sanders has a remarkable ability to utter absurdities, not only with a straight face, but with an aggrieved sense of outrage
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-house-trump-believes-making-sure-information-accurate
Over the summer, in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, a reporter asked Donald Trump why it took so long for him to denounce white supremacists. “I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct,” the president said with a straight face. He added, “When I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts…. Before I make a statement, I need the facts.” This remains one of my all-time favorite Trump quotes precisely because it’s so transparently ridiculous. To know anything about the president is to know he’s effectively allergic to the truth. And yet, for some of the president’s allies, the idea that Trump places a high value on accuracy is taken quite seriously. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters yesterday that the president “believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact.” She didn’t appear to be kidding. . . .
The Trump-Fox feedback loop. Here's how it works: the three big franchises -- Fox and Friends, Hannity, and Judge Jeanine -- flatter Trump endlessly, so he watches them. Because he watches them, he recycles their views via Twitter and often recommends to his followers that they watch a particular episode. He trusts these sources more than real news shows, and even more than his own briefers; his tweets often follow within minutes, restating as fact what he has just heard. It is near certain that these shows promulgate notions with an eye toward influencing him -- so each promotes and gives credibility to the other. And, of course, he helps these shows, which ARE fake news, paint everything that disagrees with them as "fake news"
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/05/trump-media-feedback-loop-216248
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/trumps-first-year-was-a-disaster-heres-why-i-have-hope.html
Trump’s very incompetence is also a calming factor. There is no wall, and almost certainly won’t be. There has been no deportation force and, given good news on border crossings, it appears we don’t need one. The president has not defied a court order, and the Mueller investigation into potential treason during the campaign remains active. We have seen no brutal “law and order” police crackdown — in fact, we have proof that we don’t need stop-and-frisk at all, and the number of unarmed African-Americans shot dead by the cops has been halved in two years. The Iran nuclear deal still stands; ditto NAFTA; so too the Paris climate accord — despite the U.S.’s symbolic withdrawal. The shift to renewable energy has not paused. We have not seen new tariffs on trade with China, beyond the limits of previous presidents. Obamacare is more popular than ever. Democrats lead Republicans in the generic congressional polls by double digits. Established media — like the New York Times and the Washington Post — are seeing huge gains in digital subscriptions. A Democrat won in Alabama. Terror attacks have not prompted massive overreaction, as many of us feared. It seems at times as if Trump is both ubiquitous and yet Trumpism is all but absent. If you squinted and judged only the substantive change since last January, Trump’s tangible record is indistinguishable from any other mainstream Republican’s. [read on]
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