In the face of a Republican senatorial revolt, including refusal to approve the extension of FISA § 702, which will lapse as the House took off for yet another vacay, to Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as the acting DNI, Trump has announced the nomination of Southern District of New York United States Attorney Jay Clayton as the next DNI.

Clayton, whose qualifications to be US Attorney* were dubious given his complete lack of prosecutorial experience, was at least a decent lawyer. Compared to Pulte, who has no qualifications for the job whatsoever, Clayton seems almost like a decent choice, even though he too fails to meet the statutory qualification of “extensive national security experience,” and he’s very much a Trump sycophant. Continue reading →

Adhering to the terms of international trade deals, or any international deals for that matter, has always been a matter of trust. And trust mattered, for without it, no deal was a deal, and no country could be held to its end of a bargain if it simply chose not to honor its obligations. After all, what can really be done about it? Complain to the United Nations? Take it to the Hague? Go to war?

Since World War II, there has been one alliance where the trust was so deeply grounded that the idea of breaching agreements seemed unthinkable. That was between the United States and Europe, since refined to the European Union. We were allies against Hitler and the Nazis, partners in NATO and the bastion of first world democracy. It was us against the world, the world being the Soviet Union and Communist China, with third world countries being off to the side for occasional plunder or noblesse oblige. Or both. Continue reading →

Every once in a while, someone calls for a new constitutional convention to fix the myriad problems people have with the existing Constitution. Do away with the Electoral College? Make the Senate more democratic? Allow for the criminalization of hate speech? End the right to keep and bear arms?

But what if that same convention decided to do away with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and/or Eighth Amendments? It’s not that people hate constitutional rights, but that they hate the rights that enable others to do what they don’t want them to do, often under the same protections they hold dear for themselves. People are funny that way, being overwhelmingly clear that should the Constitution be changed, it will be to their benefit and not to the benefit of their adversaries. Silly people. Continue reading →

Trump has officially nominated his criminal defense lawyer, now on the payroll of the Department of Justice as the Acting Attorney General following the firing of Pamela Jo Bondi, who replaced his first choice, Matt Gaetz, to be the Attorney General of the United States. While this might not come as much of a surprise to anyone, even if other names were floated earlier and Blanche told the press that if the president was to nominate someone else, he would still say “thank you very much. I love you, Sir.”

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President Trump was interviewed by Kristen Welker for Meet The Press. It did not go well. But for whom?

For some, this was one of the most revealing interviews, reflecting Trump’s detachment from reality, abusiveness toward the media in general and a woman interviewer in particular, and inability to deal with any challenge to his delusional beliefs. Was it possible that anyone could watch this interview and reach any conclusion other than Trump being manifestly unfit for office? Of course it was possible. Continue reading →

While I was hardly a regular watcher of The Apprentice, I did watch occasionally, particularly in the early seasons. One thing stood out to me then. The losing team would have a leader, and Trump would ask the leader who was at fault for the team losing. Most of the time, the team leader would blame a team member for being uncooperative, or incapable of performing the task, or some variation of lazy, stupid or ugly.

Once in a while, however, the team leader would reply to Trump that he or she, as team leader, was responsible for the team, regardless of who did what to whom. The leader would take responsibility rather than shift the blame to someone else. In other words the team leader would be a leader.

Trump’s reaction? Continue reading →

Much has been made of Republican Senators finally finding their guts to say no to Trump’s wildest and most outrageously unlawful actions. It was put to the test in an appropriations bill to fund ICE and CBT with $70 billion for the next three years, where amendment after amendment was offered to address the myriad schemes to circumvent the Constitution and law and accomplish Trump’s wildest fantasies. The Republican Senators failed the test.

The Senate voted early Friday to fund immigration enforcement agencies for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term after a revolt by Republican senators held up the bill’s passage for weeks.

The bill passed 52-47 along party lines, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats in opposing it. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) did not vote.

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Remember Bill Pulte? He was the nepo-baby who bought his way into Trump’s good graces to get a low-level, unsexy job as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he then boot-strapped into a covert spy operation for Trump’s vengeance campaign by illegally accessing mortgage applications of Trump’s enemies to try to come up with crimes so they could be prosecuted. Aside from giving Trump money, there’s no surer way to endear oneself to Trump than being a cog in his vanity and vengeance machine. Pulte was more than happy to be such a cog.

And he’s now being rewarded for his faithfulness and faithlessness.

President Trump on Tuesday named Bill Pulte, who has pressed for investigations into the president’s foes, to serve as the acting director of national intelligence, giving him oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies.

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Years ago, I was interviewed by Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes. He was old by then, but he was still an animal. In the scheme of broadcast investigative journalism, there was nothing to compare to 60 Minutes, the highest rated show on CBS, airing since 1968. After Wallace retired in 2006, the newsmagazine softened. Today, it’s grown into something fat and puffy, rarely pushing as hard as it did to force the unwilling to confront their improprieties. And then there was the puff piece segment, as the Heuer stopwatch ticked to a close, to fill the dead air after the football game or golf tournament pushed it beyond its time slot.

I used to watch 60 Minutes religiously. Nowadays, I check it out first to decide whether it’s worth it, and occasionally watch one or two segments. Still, it’s disappointing when Leslie Stahl fails to follow up a non-responsive answer with the in-your-face retort. Mike Wallace never would have let that go. Continue reading →

He was rough around the edges, plain spoken and an outsider to politics. This apparently appealed to the Democratic voters in Maine, so when Graham Platner, 41, decided to run against two-time governor, Janet Mills, his campaign caught the public interest, gained momentum and ultimately forced Mills to suspend her campaign.

But Platner came with baggage of his own.

The latest furor involving Mr. Platner involves an admission that he had sent sexually explicit texts to as many as six women since he was married in 2023. His campaign previously survived uproars over a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol (he has since had it covered up) and inflammatory old Reddit posts.

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