Month: May 2017

Imagine All the People

by tristero

Imagine, for a moment, that the only place you got your news from was the right wing echo chamber. And that you had no reason whatsoever to distrust it – after all, all your friends watch the same Fox shows and cruise Breitbart just as much as you do. Imagine how unhinged the mainstream media must appear on the subject of Trump and his gang of deplorables whenever, by accident, you encounter, say, CNN or the Washington Post, or a Colbert monologue. Imagine how bizarre and extremist the calls for impeachment from Democrats and other normals must sound.

While highly unlikely anytime soon (the politics have to be right and they’re not), someday Trump may get himself impeached and removed from office. Now imagine again that the only place you get your news is from the right wing echo chamber. What y’gonna think?

You’re gonna think a radical leftwing coup sabotaged the only reasonable hope this country had to stave off existential disaster. You are, to put it mildly, gonna freak out.

Imagine all the people who are going to think that way. Alot of them are not going to be reachable by any rational information, logic, or counter-arguments. A lot of them are not going to be content merely to fume.

To all those who heeded John Oliver’s call to Fuck You 2016 – I’m sorry, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m really sorry. And I’m starting to worry.

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Adding: In case you think this is somehow a plea to let up on Trump, just the opposite. We need to double down on the demands for accountability, and on efforts to thwart his totalitarian behavior. It is essential that we fully understand the likely consequences of this moment if we are to have a chance of effectively confronting Tump and the insane and craven Republican party. The full implications of this moment, one of the most frightening of my lifetime (which includes the Cuban Missile Crisis) are not well understood by many people.

Michael Flynn is piece of work

by digby

Not that we didn’t know this. After all, he went on TV and called Hillary Clinton a pedophile who was running a child sex trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor. He’s letting his friends speak out for him now and he’s just as cracked as ever:

Late last month, fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — under investigation by federal prosecutors, with his lawyer seeking immunity for him to testify to Congress — met with a small group of loyalists at a restaurant in the northern Virginia suburbs.

Saddled with steep legal bills, Flynn wanted to reconnect with old friends and talk about potential future business opportunities. But one overriding question among those present were his views on the president who had fired him from his national security advisor post.

Flynn left little doubt about the answer. Not only did he remain loyal to President Trump; he indicated that he and the president were still in communication. “I just got a message from the president to stay strong,” Flynn said after the meal was over, according to two sources who are close to Flynn and are familiar with the conversation, which took place on April 25.

The comment came at the end of an especially difficult day for Flynn, during which his legal woes appeared to grow: Two congressmen — House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings, D-Md. — after reviewing classified Pentagon documents, had just accused Flynn of failing to disclose foreign income from Russia and Turkey when he sought to renew his security clearance.

The sources who spoke to Yahoo News say Flynn did not indicate how Trump had sent the message —whether it was a written note, a text message, a phone call or some other method. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.) But the fact that the two men have stayed in contact could raise additional questions about the president’s reported request to now former FBI Director James Comey to shut down a federal investigation of the retired Army general.

Democrats and some legal commentators say that Trump’s request, as recorded by Comey in a memo — “I hope you can let this go” — could amount to an effort to obstruct a federal investigation that might ultimately implicate the president himself. Any ongoing contacts between Trump and Flynn are likely to be among the matters closely scrutinized by Robert Mueller, the ex-FBI director named late Wednesday as the new Justice Department special counsel in charge of the Russia investigation.

But friends of Flynn insist the president’s comment could also be viewed not as a deliberate effort to obstruct justice but a personal plea — however ill-advised — on behalf of a down-on-his luck friend who had stood by Trump throughout his campaign and is now ostracized by former associates and struggling to find new consulting work. “Basically what [Trump] was saying is, ‘Can you take it easy on my buddy?,’” said one friend of Flynn who has stayed in touch with him.

Either way, the sources say, Flynn has given no indication that he has any plans to turn on Trump to cut himself a deal for leniency. Speculation that he might do so was rampant in late March when his lawyer, Robert Kelner, confirmed that Flynn would be willing to be interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but only in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Kelner added in a public statement that his client “certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it.” (Kelner did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Senate intelligence committee chair Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told reporters today that Flynn’s lawyer has indicated his client may not honor the panel’s subpoena for documents relating to its Russia investigation.)

But Flynn, in multiple talks with friends and former associates, has repeatedly dismissed the idea that his story might include giving evidence against the president. “Thank God Trump is president,” Flynn said after he was fired, according to one of his friends. “Can you imagine if Hillary had won and what she would be doing?”

“These are two men who bonded on the campaign trail,” said another close associate of Flynn — who, like others quoted in this story, asked not to be publicly identified. “Flynn always believed that Trump would win. They were together so much during the campaign that Flynn became family. There has been zero sign of anything but supreme loyalty.”

That close bond — described by one friend as brothers “in the foxhole” — would appear to explain why Trump hired him as national security advisor even after, as the New York Times reported Wednesday, Flynn notified the transition team’s chief lawyer, Don McGahn, that he was under criminal investigation. That conversation took place as early as January 4, according to the Times, which also reported that Flynn believes the FBI investigation — including recent subpoenas from a federal grand jury in northern Virginia — was instigated by former Obama administration officials after Trump rejected President Barack Obama’s advice not to hire Flynn as his national security advisor.

Friends and associates who spoke to Yahoo News say Flynn has also blamed his troubles on unidentified former Clinton aides who he believes pushed for him to be investigated because of his prominent role during the campaign, including his speech at the Republican National Convention when he led delegates in a chant of, “Lock her up!”

One example he has cited is the FBI’s apparent focus on his initial failure to register with the Justice Department as an agent of the Turkish government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act while he was serving as the Trump campaign’s principal national security advisor. Flynn had registered with Congress last August as a lobbyist for an obscure Dutch firm, Inovo BV, headed by a businessman, Ekim Alptekin, with close ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Only belatedly, after the FBI investigation began, did he file in March a far more detailed report with the Justice Department, disclosing that he had signed a contract for more than $500,000 to lobby on behalf of Turkish government interests. His efforts included running a campaign to discredit an exiled cleric living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen, and to lobby for his extradition to Turkey. The Erdoğan government, which blames Gulen for orchestrating a failed coup last summer, is seeking to return him for trial.

As Flynn has argued to friends, the Podesta Group — a firm headed by Tony Podesta, the brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — also recently retroactively registered with the Justice Department for work it had done between 2012 and 2014 for a pro-Russian political party named the Party of Regions, which paid it a reported $1.2 million. (The party had long been a client of Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s campaign manager.)

As Flynn has told friends, he believes there is a double standard in his being investigated because of his Turkish contract while there is no indication the Podesta Group is under similar scrutiny. Similarly, Flynn has suggested other potential legal issues he is facing — such as his failure to disclose a $45,000 contract he had for a speaking appearance in Moscow with RT, the Russian government-funded television network, when he was seeking to renew his security clearance — was a paperwork oversight rather than a deliberate effort to conceal payments from a foreign government.

As for the actions that ultimately got him fired — his conversation last December with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and his untruthful denial to Vice President Mike Pence that the two of them discussed the possible lifting of sanctions — Flynn has suggested that he was only seeking to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to improve relations with Moscow. Based on the accounts provided to Yahoo News, Flynn has not said whether Trump directed or authorized him to reach out to the Russian ambassador — a key unanswered question in the probe. But one of the friends said Flynn has alluded to multiple meetings and conversations with the Russian ambassador. Reuters reported Thursday that Flynn and other Trump advisors had at least 18 phone calls and emails with Russian officials, including Kislyak, during the last 7 months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

I think it should be somewhat concerning that this man is in contact with the President of the United States who is telling him to “stay strong.” And it’s very interesting how his comments mirror Trump’s. They are obviously still on the same page.

He’s obviously planning to be the Oliver North of this scandal and appear before the congress and testify about his loyalty and patriotism in taking the actions he took. At this point he plans to go down with the ship. But we’ll see if that holds. He’s nutty as a fruitcake but he may still have some survival instincts. He’s in big trouble for this Turkey thing and that has nothing to do with Trump and Russia.

Oh, and he’s a petulant whiner too, just like our president. Whatever happened to “never complain, never explain”?

Update: The Daily Beast reports that Trump pressured Flynn to take the NSA job even after finding out he was under investigation. He just loves the guy. And get this:

Trump doesn’t just hope that Flynn will beat the rap. Several sources close to Flynn and to the administration tell The Daily Beast that Trump has expressed his hopes that a resolution of the FBI’s investigation in Flynn’s favor might allow Flynn to rejoin the White House in some capacity—a scenario some of Trump’s closest advisers in and outside the West Wing have assured him absolutely should not happen.

Those sources said Trump didn’t believe Flynn should be under investigation in the first place.

“Trump feels really, really, really, bad about firing him, and he genuinely thinks if the investigation is over Flynn can come back,” said one White House official.

One former FBI official and a second government official said Trump thought he owed Flynn for how things ended up and was determined to clear Flynn’s name and bring him back to the White House.

All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to speak freely on sensitive matters.

Trump’s going to pardon him. And I’ll bet he knows it.

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Trump’s bully boys

by digby

This is from CNN reporter Michelle Kosinski’s Facebook page:

This is How Your Government Responds to Unfavorable News Coverage

Monday night, as the story of the President giving classified information to the Russians was in full evolution, I get a call from this guy:

RC Hammond, the State Department’s communications advisor, who had his facts wrong about what was reported and by whom.

But he kicked off the conversation with a venomously irate “What the hell are you doing??!!”

Followed up with full-on DEMANDS—over and over, and over again—to tell him who my sources were. He kept pushing, as if he thought this was ample reason. Then, “Why won’t you tell me who they are?” he bellowed repeatedly, again demanding I at least tell him what jobs they held at State, or in what areas.

I had to explain to him that wasn’t how it worked.

This, mind you, is someone employed by the US government to act as a communications professional.

But he went for another approach: personal attacks. Saying I was losing the “shred of credibility I had left,” etc.

Not sure what he was trying to accomplish here, but next came Hammond’s final attempt: threats.

That he would make sure NO ONE– no one– at the department would speak to me, EVER AGAIN, he proclaimed.

I asked Hammond to name one time he had ever shared information with me or responded to a single email I’ve ever sent him (this has been a problem here that has been discussed among journalists, and Hammond told me to my face two weeks ago a flat “no” when I asked him if he ever answered emails.)

“Well maybe there’s a reason for that,” he spat into the phone.
Me: “Ok and what would that be.”

Hammond: “WE don’t think you’re smart enough to HANDLE OUR information!!!!

So when you wonder why it seems information might be a bit—ahem—lacking, contradictory, or confusing coming from your own government, just recall the immortal words of RC Hammond:

“WE don’t think you’re SMART ENOUGH to HANDLE our information!!!!!”

And that should pretty much explain it.

That’s the state department spokesman. You know, the department of our government that’s in charge of diplomacy.

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How long did the GOP leadership know about this Russia connection anyway?

by digby

I wrote about the Ryan McCarthy “joke” for Salon this morning:

As happens almost every day, Wednesday featured a late-breaking bombshell Trump story. This one was the welcome news that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had done his job and appointed a special counsel to take over the Russia investigation. He made a good choice by picking Robert Mueller, the former U.S. attorney and FBI director for 12 years under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

All in all, Mueller is probably the best we could have hoped for in this moment, although some expert observers like Marcy Wheeler are concerned that the scope of the investigation is not broad enough. My recollection of special counsels and/or special prosecutors — not exactly the same thing — is that their investigations are always broadened over time as evidence develops, so I’d imagine that is likely here too. And as Ian Milhiser at Think Progress reported, there are some safeguards that prevent Trump from pushing Mueller around. This seems like a positive step for the investigation, but it may also mean the torrent of leaks will probably dry up a bit, which is bad for the political necessity of stopping the GOP agenda.

The Turkish Connection

by digby

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’sformer national security adviser, vetoed a plan to attack the so-called Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa in Syria in January ― a position that aligned with the desires of Turkey, which had paid him $530,000 to represent its interests, McClatchy reported Wednesday night.
But Flynn, a retired general, hadn’t always backed the views of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime, as HuffPost first reported last year. Quite the opposite: Last July, Flynn praised a coup attempt against Erdogan, criticizing the Turkish leader for being too close to President Barack Obama and calling the coup “worth clapping for.”

Flynn shifted to supporting Erdogan only after a Dutch company headed by a man with ties to Erdogan’s government hired his intelligence firm in early August. By November, Flynn had flip-flopped entirely. “We need to see the world from Turkey’s perspective,” he wrote in an opinion piece published on Election Day. “We must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to U.S. interests. Turkey is really our strongest ally against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as a source of stability in the region.”

Wednesday’s McClatchy report adds a dimension to this flip-flop. Flynn had demagogued for years about the supposed dangers of Muslims and Islam. “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL,” he tweeted in February. “Islam is not a real religion, but a political ideology masked behind a religion,” he claimed.

ISIS received special attention in Flynn’s harangues. He told The New Yorker in February that Obama had “too narrowly defined” efforts to defeat the group and called for “fighting these guys on the battlefield.”

But when the Obama administration asked the Trump administration in mid-January to approve a plan ― fiercely opposed by Turkey ― to arm Syrian Kurds to retake Raqqa from ISIS, Flynn, who was being paid by Turkey, balked.

“Don’t approve it,” Flynn said, according to a February report in The Washington Post cited by McClatchy. (Turkey opposes arming the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, because it believes the YPG has ties to the PKK, an organization of Kurdish fighters in Turkey that both Turkey and the U.S. have listed as a terrorist group.)

The Trump administration knew at the time ― and, indeed, before Trump appointed Flynn ― that the FBI was investigating him for secretly serving as a paid agent of Turkey while campaigning for Trump, The New York Times reported Wednesday night.

But Trump listened to the paid Turkish agent who was also serving as his national security adviser anyway, and the operation against the ISIS capital was delayed for months. The president continued to allow Flynn to sit in on national security briefings, as he had throughout the last months of the campaign and through the transition ― all times during which he was being paid by Turkey.

Trump has known this for a while. And yet rports have it that he’s desperate to talk to Flynn and wishes more than anything that he could have him back. He’s the one guy Trump trusted above all others. And yet he did all that.

Meanwhile, here’s some footage of Turkish president Erdogan’s bodyguards assaulting protesters in the middle of Washington on the day of his visit:

Robert Mackey of the Intercept reported:

Casting aside his predecessor’s concerns about human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech in another nation, Donald Trump lavished praise on another autocratic foreign leader on Tuesday, calling it “a great honor to welcome the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the White House.”

Just hours after Trump focused his remarks on “the exemplary valor of the Turkish soldier,” however, Erdogan’s presidential bodyguards were caught on video punching and kicking protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

Images recorded by the Turkish-language service of Voice of America, a Congressionally funded broadcaster, showed the Turkish security guards battering about a dozen demonstrators, after scuffles between the protesters and Erdogan supporters.

Another witness captured video of the aftermath, as some of those injured in the attack received treatment, and an Erdogan supporter stomped on the flag of a Syrian Kurdish group that is fighting the Islamic State with the support of the United States.

Far from disputing that Erdogan’s security team was involved in the melee, a state news agency confirmed it, reporting, inaccurately, that the president’s team had been forced to step in because the American police had failed to stop an “unauthorized protest” by supporters of a Kurdish terrorist group.

A pro-government newspaper, Yeni Safak, also blamed the DC police for not stifling the protest, and claimed that the Kurdish protesters had “shouted racist slogans against Turkey and attacked Turkish citizens.”

Reports have it that the Turkish “bodyguards” have left the country so there will be no accountability.

WTF is going on here?

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Maybe not as smart as you
by Tom Sullivan

That was last night.

This morning brings news that Robert Mueller, the newly appointed special counsel for the Trump-Russia investigation, will need to explore at least 18 more communications between the Trump campaign and Russian contacts:

Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

[…]

Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Kislyak and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.

Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.

In January, the Trump White House initially denied any contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. The White House and advisers to the campaign have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during that time.

The report explains that Reuters’ sources had seen in the communications “no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion,” adding “so far.” Trump released a statement last night after the Mueller appointment, saying, “As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know –- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity.”

Veterans of previous election campaigns said some contact with foreign officials during a campaign was not unusual, but the number of interactions between Trump aides and Russian officials and others with links to Putin was exceptional.

“It’s rare to have that many phone calls to foreign officials, especially to a country we consider an adversary or a hostile power,” Richard Armitage, a Republican and former deputy secretary of state, told Reuters.

Republican donors are panicked, as well they should be:

Pangs of fear and frustration are rippling through the Republican donor and operative classes as Donald Trump’s self-inflicted wounds threaten to fully derail the GOP legislative agenda and tarnish the party’s brand headed into the midterms.

At a Miami donor retreat and at a high-powered Washington dinner, on Capitol Hill and at political firms across the country, Republican donors and operatives this week watched the barrage of bad headlines about Trump with a mixture of awe, angst and anger, worrying about the political implications for their Republican majorities — and about the legal implications for the president.

Asked which of the cascading disclosures about the Trump administration was most disquieting, one donor/fundraiser said, “It’s hard to choose.”

Everyday there's a new disclosure. Hard to keep up with it all… https://t.co/7LI9H6KOOu— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) May 18, 2017

This will take months to sort out. Trump and his staff may hope his planned five-country foreign trip is a break from the controversies of Washington. But since Trump’s task is to consult with foreign officials and his every meeting is, ultimately, about Trump, expect controversy to follow him. Although his staff is trying to prepare him:

Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.

He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.

National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.

Having spent years inside and working with large, international firms, I can say Trump is simply an extreme case. Incompetence comes in all shapes and sizes and degrees. I’ve met PEs (professional engineers) who are useless and PhDs who are clueless. And even in ordinary circumstances, it is important not to assume that with great wealth and power comes great intelligence and wisdom.

Something Tom Clancy wrote in “Debt of Honor” (1994) has stuck with me for years. In it (ironic, given today’s circumstances), Jack Ryan is the president’s national security advisor:

“You mean,” Robberton said, opening the basement door to the West Wing.

“You mean to tell me that it’s that screwed up?”

  “Paul, you think you’re smart?” Jack asked. The question took the Secret Service man aback a little.

  “Yeah, I do. So?”

 “So why do you suppose that anybody else is smarter than you are? They are not, Paul,” Ryan went on. “They have a different job, but it isn’t about brains. It’s about education and experience. Those people don’t know crap about running a criminal investigation. Neither do I. Every job requires brains, Paul. But you can’t know them all. Anyway, bottom line, okay? No, they are not any smarter than you, and maybe not as smart as you. It’s just that it’s their job to run the financial markets, and your job to do something else.”

  “Jesus,” Robberton breathed, dropping off Ryan at his office door.

QOTD: Barack Obama

by digby

What does Obama really think of the man now occupying the Oval Office?

“He’s nothing but a bullsh–ter,” Obama told two friends early last November, describing an election night phone call with Trump, in which the businessman suddenly professed his “respect” and “admiration” for Obama—after years of hectoring.

Speaking to PEOPLE for its new cover story on Obama and his wife Michelle adjusting to life outside the White House, the two friends quoted Obama’s blunt assessment of President-elect Trump. And how has Obama’s opinion changed since Trump been in office? “Well,” said one of the sources, “it hasn’t gotten any better.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

by digby

He’s a good choice if only because he was FBI chief for a dozen years without a whole lot of drama. Presumably he’s well respected by the rank and file and both parties will be satisfied. If nothing else, the Republicans won’t be able to whine too much about it.

The best aspect of this is if Trump picks Joe Lieberman for FBI chief, as is rumored. Having a Mueller as special counsel will spare us having to put up with him using the Russia investigation to punish liberals for beating him in a primary.

Yes, he is that petty.

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We’re a long way from a resolution to all this

by digby

Greg Sargent astutely notes that despite the fact that some Republicans are nodding slightly in the direction of becoming more that a little bit “troubled” by the latest news about Trump’s potential criminality, it’s entirely possible that it will make no difference:

In an interview with me, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) — the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — pointed out that establishing obstruction of justice requires demonstrating corrupt intent to obstruct, a high bar to clear. But more to the point, Schiff noted that, even if this were established, Republicans would then have the option of taking refuge in the argument that this should not override the election results — rather than conceding that their party’s president poses a serious enough threat to our democracy to warrant doing that.

“The more practical question is whether there is bipartisan recognition that the seriousness of that conduct warrants removal,” Schiff told me. He added that you could have “a sizable part of the country feel this is an effort to nullify the election by other means. That’s probably the most fundamental question of whether you’re meeting the standard of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

“It’s been a constant refrain already by the president that the whole Russia investigation exists only because Democrats are mad about losing in the electoral college,” Schiff said. “Ultimately, the practical test for the Congress — and perhaps it is most pressing for the GOP members — is whether they think the conduct rises to the point that they can make the case back home that this is not about re-litigating the election; this is about a fundamental threat to our democracy.”

The wiggle room in proving obstruction of justice could end up meaning that, even if we come a lot closer to establishing that Trump did interfere in the manner reports have indicated, we could still genuinely fall short of proving his clear intent. More cynically, even if that standard is reasonably cleared, Republicans could take refuge in this murkiness and then buttress this position by arguing that we should not re-litigate the election simply due to Democratic sour grapes.

Remember, Trump has been assaulting our democracy on multiple fronts since the beginning, and Republicans have mostly looked the other way. There is an unfortunate tendency to cover these various stories as separate from one another, but Trump has abused his power in multiple ways that, ultimately, all trace back to the same autocratic impulse. In addition to the Russia affair, there’s also the unprecedented, middle-finger-brandishing lack of transparency around his tax returns, even as he backs tax reform that would deliver his family a massive windfall; the laughably substandard ethics arrangement for his businesses and the perpetuation of likely emoluments clause violations; and the continued use of diplomatic business to promote Mar-a-Lago and steer cash into his pockets.

All of these — taken along with the alleged interference in ongoing probes — add up to a level of autocratic, above-the-law contempt for our democracy that is larger than the sum of its parts. And Republicans have effectively shrugged off most of it for as long as possible. So it’s plausible that even if obstruction of justice were reasonably well established, they’d find a way to evade taking it to its logical conclusion.

“Up until this point, the Republican leadership have wanted to continue to prop up this president, and probably feel that their fortunes are tied to his,” Schiff said. “At the end of the day, the decision for the GOP leadership is: Are they devoted to the country and the Constitution, or are they more devoted to this president and their political fortunes?”

We are at the beginning of this scandal, not the end.

McCain said today that it’s reached “Watergate level” proportions but he also said it’s like a centipede dropping another shoe. If a centipede had shoes it would have a whole lot of them.

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Your president ladies and gentlemen

by digby

You can’t make this stuff up:

Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.

He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.

National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.

Trump likes to look at a map of the country involved when he learns about a topic.

“He likes to visualize things,” said a senior administration official. “The guy’s a builder. He has spent his whole life looking at architectural renderings and floor plans.”

These stories are everywhere. The government is adjusting all its practices to accommodate this man-child we call a president.

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