The shabbiest U.S. president ever is an inexpressibly sad specimen
sford/The Washington Post) By George F. Will Columnist January 18 at 5:09 PM
Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.
If the country’s condition is calibrated simply by economic data — if, that is, the United States is nothing but an economy — then the state of the union is good. Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment. Unless the president has forever banished business cycles — if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it — the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.
The president has kept his promise not to address the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlement state (about the coming unpleasant reckoning, he said: “Yeah, but I won’t be here”), ... https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-on-coming-debt-crisis-i-wont-be-here-when-it-blows-up ... and his party’s congressional caucuses have elevated subservience to him into a political philosophy. The Republican-controlled Senate — the world’s most overrated deliberative body — will not deliberate about, much less pass, legislation the president does not favor. The evident theory is that it would be lèse-majesté for the Senate to express independent judgments.
And that senatorial dignity is too brittle to survive the disapproval of a president not famous for familiarity with actual policies. Congressional Republicans have their ears to the ground — never mind Winston Churchill’s observation that it is difficult to look up to anyone in that position.
The president’s most consequential exercise of power has been the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opening the way for China to fill the void of U.S. involvement. His protectionism — government telling Americans what they can consume, in what quantities and at what prices — completes his extinguishing of the limited-government pretenses of the GOP, which needs an entirely new vocabulary. Pending that, the party is resorting to crybaby conservatism: We are being victimized by “elites,” markets, Wall Street, foreigners, etc.
After 30 years of U.S. diplomatic futility regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, the artist of the deal spent a few hours in Singapore with Kim Jong Un, then tweeted: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” What price will the president pay — easing sanctions? ending joint military exercises with South Korea? — in attempts to make his tweet seem less dotty?
3:59 President Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history. (Adriana Usero, Danielle Kunitz, Robert Gebelhoff/The Washington Post)
By his comportment, the president benefits his media detractors with serial vindications of their disparagements. They, however, have sunk to his level of insufferable self-satisfaction by preening about their superiority to someone they consider morally horrifying and intellectually cretinous. For most Americans, President Trump’s expostulations are audible wallpaper, always there but not really noticed. Still, the ubiquity of his outpourings in the media’s outpourings gives American life its current claustrophobic feel. This results from many journalists considering him an excuse for a four-year sabbatical from thinking about anything other than the shiny thing that mesmerizes them by dangling himself in front of them.
Dislike of him should be tempered by this consideration: He is an almost inexpressibly sad specimen. It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Donald Trump. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life. His historical ignorance deprives him of the satisfaction of working in a house where much magnificent history has been made. His childlike ignorance — preserved by a lifetime of single-minded self-promotion — concerning governance and economics guarantees that whenever he must interact with experienced and accomplished people, he is as bewildered as a kindergartener at a seminar on string theory.
Which is why this fountain of self-refuting boasts (“I have a very good brain”) lies so much. He does so less to deceive anyone than to reassure himself. And as balm for his base, which remains oblivious to his likely contempt for them as sheep who can be effortlessly gulled by preposterous fictions. The tungsten strength of his supporters’ loyalty is as impressive as his indifference to expanding their numbers.
Either the electorate, bored with a menu of faintly variant servings of boorishness, or the 22nd Amendment will end this, our shabbiest but not our first shabby presidency. As Mark Twain and fellow novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside together one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked, “Do you think it will stop?” Twain replied, “It always has.”
Fmr. Federal Prosecutor: ‘Robert Mueller Is Trying To Find The Truth’ | The Last Word | MSNBC
"Michael Cohen's Lawyer On How Cohen Will Expose Trump To Congress | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC"
MSNBC Published on Jan 18, 2019
The Special Counsel's Office has disputed parts of a BuzzFeed report that claimed Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress but what part? Mimi Rocah says that should reassure the American public that Mueller is on the path to find the truth. Lawrence also discusses with Joy Reid and Ken Dilanian.
Lawrence szys: "'if true',...that's the phrase that we always use when discussing stories that aren't yet proven to be true.", and that the Buzzfeed story puts real pressure on Mueller's team.
BuzzFeed report involving Trump, Michael Cohen called ‘not accurate’ by Mueller’s office
by Rob Tornoe, Updated: January 18, 2019
[...]
Ronan Farrow says he declined to run ‘with parts' of BuzzFeed’s story
After the special counsel’s office called out the accuracy of BuzzFeed’s report Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow shared on Twitter that he has a source that repeatedly disputed the idea that Trump issued direct orders to Cohen.
Ronan Farrow @RonanFarrow
I can’t speak to Buzzfeed’s sourcing, but, for what it’s worth, I declined to run with parts of the narrative they conveyed based on a source central to the story repeatedly disputing the idea that Trump directly issued orders of that kind. 23.4K 11:50 AM - Jan 19, 2019
Ronan Farrow @RonanFarrow Replying to @RonanFarrow
How Democrats are responding to the BuzzFeed report that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress “If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop.” By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Jan 18, 2019, 10:30am EST [...] Ted Lieu @tedlieu Based on the Buzzfeed report and numerous other articles showing @realDonaldTrump committed Obstruction of Justice and other possible felonies, it is time for the House Judiciary Committee to start holding hearings to establish a record of whether @POTUS committed high crimes. 63K4:32 PM - Jan 18, 2019 https://www.vox.com/2019/1/18/18188067/trump-cohen-lie-buzzfeed-democrats-impeachment
--
Lawrence: Rudy Giuliani Gives ‘Incoherent’ Defense Of President Donald Trump | The Last Word | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jul 30, 2018
Rudy Giuliani and President Trump are the only members of team Trump defending the president and, according to Lawrence, their bizarre denials in the Russia investigation show that they don't have a strong defense for the president's actions.
Suggestion is that IF there was a good evidence-based defense of Trump's involvement, or not, in the whole affair then Trump and Giuliani's public defense would not be as incoherent as it is. And that Giuliani would do a better job at it if he kept his mouth shut.
That video is fairly dated yet the comments today are as relevant as they were back then.
--
Trump Just Wants To Be On Primetime TV
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Published on Jan 8, 2019
Regularly scheduled programming gets interrupted by irregularly spoken exaggerating.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
