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Congressman Steve King, But Not Only Steve King…

Bigoted congressman Steve King has lost his committee assignments, should be censured, and truly should leave politics forever. And yet, and yet, while King should go,  King shouldn’t head for the exit alone: The condemnations of Mr. King stood in stark contrast to the lawmakers’ willingness to tolerate President Trump’s frequent offensive and insensitive remarks about migrants, black people, Native Americans and other…

Trump-Russia Roundup

While the proper focus against Trumpism involves a zealous lawful effort against Trump and his leading operatives, there is also a problem of Trumpism down to the local level. In both cases, officials advancing Trumpism ignore the overwhelming evidence of his betrayal of our own people to the benefit of a hostile foreign power. As…

The Room Where It Happens

This weekend, Greg Miller reported on the lengths to which Donald Trump has gone to hide the contents of his discussions with Putin from his — Trump’s own — administration.  See Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration. Normally – in a properly functioning federal administration – a…

Trump as Fifth Columnist

A fellow traveler is someone who sympathizes with a foreign adversary, but a fifth columnist is far worse: the fifth columnist takes active steps in support of his or her disloyal sympathies.  Trump has spoken favorably of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on many occasions, yet he has done far worse: he has acted in ways that actively…

‘Our Guy’ Isn’t Our Guy

Some months ago, in a radio interview to tout part of the Trump tax bill, the Whitewater Community Development Authority’s executive director Dave Carlson referred to Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner as ‘our guy.’ Sensenbrenner, a pro-Trump septuagenarian multimillionaire from a gerrymandered district, is – literally – Whitewater’s federal representative. Sensenbrenner has never been – and…

Immoral (and Unnecessary) Compromises

There’s a certain kind of Republican who rationalizes Trump’s many vices because, well, Trump has nominated some conservative judges. (Hugh Hewitt, who’ll rationalize anything to keep a job on the Salem talk radio network comes to mind. See It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.) If there’s an equivalent of this, it’s a certain kind of Democrat…

About Those Bone Spurs…

Steve Eder asks Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?: In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam. For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the…

Campaign of Fraud

NBC reports on a deal between prosecutors in the federal Southern District of New York and AMI, the publisher of the pro-Trump National Enquirer: AMI, National Enquirer’s parent company, admitted it made $150,000 Cohen payment “in concert” with “a candidate’s presidential campaign” in order to “ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about…

It’s On Him

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security … I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it,” President Trump tells Senate Minority Leader Schumer in the Oval Office. Via NBC News.

On Trump-Russia, Right from the Very Beginning

Embed from Getty Images Virginia Heffernan reports Early on, Trump-Russia obsessives were marginalized; they’re prophets now: “I felt like the guy in ‘Rear Window,’ ” David Corn, the coauthor of “Russian Roulette,” told me this week. Corn was referring to his affinity for James Stewart’s character, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece film. Jeff witnesses…