Trump's Big CON: Violence Against Minorities Isn't As Important

UPDATE:  Fear, anger and hatred is a profitable business for Trump, and others.

Read the Washington Post, Anti-sharia group offers donors a private tour and cocktails at Trump hotel, which reports:

"A controversial group that has held rallies against the spread of Islamic law is seeking to harness the allure of President Trump’s brand as it raises money for its upcoming Washington conference.

For $10,000, sponsors of the ACT for America gathering can enjoy 'pre-conference cocktails' and a 'private tour of the historic Trump International Hotel' alongside the group’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel, among other benefits, according to promotional materials published on the group’s website.

The walk through the hotel, located in the stately Old Post Office Pavilion a few blocks from the White House, is scheduled to take place before participants head to Capitol Hill to hold lawmakers’ 'feet to the fire' on national security issues, according to plans posted on the group’s website. The organization, which critics have decried as anti-Muslim, has repeatedly claimed that Judeo-Christian culture is under “assault” in America and radical Islam is to blame.

The promotion represents a new twist in the story line of Trump’s luxury hotel, which has sparked several lawsuits and criticism from ethics experts alleging that the president is improperly profiting from foreign governments and other interest groups holding events at the property. Although groups typically pay to book meeting space and food service at the Trump hotel like they would at any event venue, ACT is touting the chance to enjoy access to a signature business owned by the president of the United States. . .

Officials from the Trump Organization and ACT declined to answer questions about the event, including whether ACT was paying the hotel for the tour and, if so, how much. . .

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks hate organizations, has labeled ACT an extremist group characterized by “wild hate speech demonizing Muslims” and a mission to advance anti-Muslim legislation around the country. Heidi Beirich, who runs SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said that Gabriel’s national prominence has recently surged. . .

Last summer ACT announced that retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, who was advising then-candidate Trump on national security issues, had joined its board of advisers. In August, Flynn appeared at an ACT event in Dallas and referred to Islam as a 'cancer,' according to a Dallas Morning News account of his speech. A person close to Flynn told The Post that he is not involved with ACT and has no plans to attend the group’s conferences."

Read also the Washington Post:

This group believes Islam threatens America: ‘It’s a spiritual battle of good and evil.’, and 

Anti-sharia demonstrators hold rallies in cities across the country.

"A full 24 hours after the incident, Trump had yet to express condolences to the attack's victims or support for London. Contrast that to his rushed messaging when groups like the Islamic State are suspected to be involved."

Read the Washington Post, The White House’s Islamophobia problem can no longer be ignored.

So why does Trump act like this?

Because pandering to fear, anger and hatred is just a Republi-CON campaign strategy.

Why BlackLivesMatter, And What White People Don't Understand

UPDATE II:  This is criminal:

""The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop last year fired a volley of bullets within seconds of learning the driver was armed, according to a video recording released publicly Tuesday.

When the traffic stop began, the two men interacted calmly. Officer Jeronimo Yanez, a police officer in the Twin Cities suburbs, greeted Castile and examined his insurance card.

“Sir, I have to tell you that I do have a firearm on me,” Castile said 30 seconds after they began speaking.

“Okay,” Yanez interrupted, his voice remaining steady as he shifted his right hand onto the holster of his gun.

Yanez told Castile not to reach for the gun or pull it out. Castile said he was not, which was echoed by Diamond Reynolds, his girlfriend, sitting in the Oldsmobile’s passenger seat.

“I’m not pulling it out,” Castile responded. Yanez again yelled: “Don’t pull it out!” He then unholstered his gun and pushed it into the car.

“Don’t pull it out!” Yanez yelled. “I’m not!” Castile said as Yanez, seven seconds after being informed of the gun, began firing into the car."

Read the Washington Post, Video footage shows Minn. traffic stop that ended with Philando Castile’s death.

And watch the video:



Read also the Washington Post:

What the police officer who shot Philando Castile said about the shooting,

‘I don’t want you to get shooted,’ girl, 4, begged mother after Philando Castile shooting, and 

Gun owners are outraged by the Philando Castile case. The NRA is silent.

Then if you don't think this was criminal, you must be white.

UPDATE:  Incident #1:  'Two men were lying in a pool of blood. 19-year-old Austin Harrouff was making 'guttural sounds and animal noises,' and not only appeared to be killing John Stevens — he was also chewing off chunks of the 59-year-old victim’s face with his teeth.  The stun gun’s paralyzing bursts had no effect. A flurry of punches and a powerful kick to the head didn’t, either.'

Incident #2: 'Charles Kinsey, an unarmed behavioral therapist who was lying on his back with his arms raised while he attempted to assist an autistic patient.'

Which one did the police shot?

Hint:  Austin Harrouff is white, Charles Kinsey is black.

Read the Washington Post, Police killed the black ‘Miami zombie.’ So why did a terrifying, face-eating white teen live?

Wait patently, seal off area, arrest/try to arrest the terrorists, then give them trials.

Read the Washington Post, Authorities seal off Oregon refuge after leaders of occupation arrested. 1 killed in gunfire.

Why is the organization BlackLivesMatter necessary? Because that's not how black people get treated.

Read Gawker, Unarmed People of Color Killed by Police, 1999-2014.

Read also Vox, This chart explains why black people fear being killed by the police.

And it is not just black people being shot by the police.  Remember Trayvon Martin,  Sandra Bland, Victor Stein, Flint Michigan.

I could go on for days.

Some people call BlackLivesMatter racist, but they don't remember, or want to remember, how minorities are and have been treated.

Trump's Big CON: Tranparency is For Suckers

UPDATE:  "Increasingly, politicians are weaponizing public anger at the media to justify operating in the shadows. Democracy is dying in that darkness. We cannot and must not accept it becoming the new normal. . .

Even if yesterday’s briefing had been on camera, this is just the seventh press briefing in June. That’s a sharp drop not just in comparison with Trump’s early days but also from the frequency of press briefings under Barack Obama (there were 23 briefings in June 2016; Obama averaged more than 19 per month).

Trump himself is also avoiding on-camera press conferences. Obama held 65 solo press conferences, an average of more than eight per year. George H.W. Bush averaged 22 per year. After five months, Trump has held just one — and none since February. This is a deliberate and undemocratic attempt to shield the president from direct public scrutiny. . .

Last week, Republican leadership in the Senate attempted to outlaw the long-standing practice of journalists interviewing members of Congress in hallways (unless they had specific permission from the Senate Rules Committee). In Montana, Greg Gianforte’s decision to body-slam a journalist earned him a ticket not to jail but a chance to serve out his probation in the hallowed halls of Congress, welcomed by Republicans with open arms.

The White House has also ended the practice of releasing visitor logs, so we don’t know who is meeting with the president or his senior staff. . .

In the Senate health-care saga, reporters can’t even be barred from hearings because there are none. Instead, 13 white Republican men from 10  states, representing fewer than 1 in 4 Americans, are bypassing normal public hearings as they secretly craft a health-care bill that will affect every American and one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

These are all commonly used tactics in the shadows of authoritarian societies: If people don’t know what’s happening, it’s a lot harder to criticize it. After all, we all know that Vladimir Putin is corrupt, but we can’t prove it because the Russian government deliberately shrouds itself in darkness. We cannot allow such authoritarian practices to become part of our open, transparent and free society. Democracy rests on a simple foundation — the informed consent of the governed. That principle is now under attack.

Read the Washington Post, What is it that the Trump administration doesn’t want us to see?

"The Senate bill to scale back the health-care law known as Obamacare is being written in secret by a single senator, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a clutch of his senior aides.

Officials at numerous agencies of the Trump administration have stonewalled friendly Republicans in Congress — not to mention Democrats — by declining to share internal documents on sensitive matters or refusing to answer questions.

President Trump, meanwhile, is still forbidding the release of his tax returns, his aides have stopped releasing logs of visitors to the White House and his media aides have started banning cameras at otherwise routine news briefings, as happened Monday.

Trump even refuses to acknowledge to the public that he plays golf during his frequent weekend visits to his private golf courses.

More and more in the Trump era, business in Washington is happening behind closed doors. The federal government’s leaders are hiding from public scrutiny — and their penchant for secrecy represents a stark departure from the campaign promises of Trump and his fellow Republicans to usher in newfound transparency."

Read the Washington Post, In Trump’s Washington, public business increasingly handled behind closed doors.

Read also Columbia Journalism Review, As president, Trump sings a different tune on ‘transparency’, which list numerous examples of Trump's hypocrisy on transparency.

Trump's Sycophant Gingrich's Big CON: a Republican President Can't Obstruct Justice to Hide a Relationship With a Foreign Country

But a Democratic President can, to hide a relationship with an intern.

Read CNN, Despite Clinton impeachment vote, Gingrich says President 'cannot obstruct justice'.

It takes a ginormous level of hypocrisy to b a Republi-CON.

Trump's Big CON: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

UPDATE:  "While Trump is erratic and impulsive much of the time, he seems particularly so with regard to this investigation. In some limited way it’s understandable — no president likes being investigated — but it seems to be pushing Trump to particular heights of irrationality. If you were trying to limit the investigation and its political fallout and not antagonize the prosecutors, it would be utterly insane to send out these kinds of tweets. Trump’s staff and lawyers are surely begging him to stop. But they can’t control him. There may be people who are willing to stand up to him and tell him that he’s making a mistake, but he’s obviously not willing to listen.

In an ordinary scandal, you have some initial set of misdeeds, and then possibly a coverup that adds more misdeeds that could themselves be criminal. In the Russia scandal we could have those two sets of actions, but on top of them we have a paranoid, infantile president seemingly determined to put himself in ever-greater political and legal jeopardy. The more we learn about how deep Mueller’s investigation is reaching, the higher the chances that Trump will, in a moment of rage, order Mueller to be fired. If you think things are dramatic and absurd right now, just wait — it’s going to get worse."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s outburst of rage just sent the Russia scandal hurtling forward.

Honestly, I have no idea how this man got to where he is?

Stupid is as stupid does, and Trump has proven himself to be too stupid to be president.

Read the Washington Post, Prospect of Trump firing Mueller keeps becoming more untenable, which stated:

"If Donald Trump thought he could intimidate Bob Mueller, he thought wrong.

A person who spoke with Trump on Tuesday told the New York Times that the president was pleased by the intentional ambiguity of his position on firing Robert S. Mueller as special counsel, 'and thinks the possibility of being fired will focus the veteran prosecutor on delivering what the president desires most: a blanket public exoneration.'

If the president truly believes this, he fundamentally misunderstands what motivates the former FBI director – who has stood up to previous administrations and never swayed under political pressure.

Marines Corps veterans don’t scare easily. Mueller, 72, earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Valor for his gallantry in Vietnam before devoting most of the rest of his life to public service. Trump, 71, avoided military service by claiming a medical deferment for 'heel spurs,' and he’s said that his 'personal Vietnam' was avoiding sexually-transmitted diseases while sleeping around in New York. 'I feel like a great and very brave solider'" the president once told Howard Stern."

Read also, the Washington Post:

Trump keeps creating his own personal hell,

Trump finds himself exactly where he doesn’t want to be,

Trump is hastening his own political death spiral, and 

Trump still could have obstructed justice — even if he didn’t break the law, which concludes, correctly I think, that:

"Too much time has been spent asking whether Trump might eventually be charged with a crime. Whatever he did or didn’t do, there is virtually no chance he’ll be subject to a criminal prosecution as a result. . .

[The investigation true ramifications will be political.], no matter one’s reading of the relevant statutes.

There are two reasons the political implications are more important: First, even if a particular action or statement is legal, that doesn’t automatically make it appropriate, wise or in keeping with the duties of the highest office in the land. Americans have an undeniable interest, not only in whether their elected representatives are acting within the four corners of the law but in whether they are acting in the interests of the nation. Second, and related, the ultimate remedy contemplated by the Constitution for malfeasance in office by a president is the very political, not legal, remedy of impeachment. Ultimately, the Constitution leaves it to Congress, not the courts, to decide whether a president should be 'removed from Office' for 'Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'"

Trump's Sycophant Gingrich's Big CON: Political Hatred and Violence is the Other Party's Fault

UPDATE IV:  "Wednesday’s shooting at a congressional baseball practice was a ghastly example of the political polarization that is ripping this country apart. Political scientists have shown that Congress is more divided than at any time since the end of Reconstruction. I am struck not simply by the depth of partisanship these days, but increasingly also by its nature. People on the other side of the divide are not just wrong and to be argued with. They are immoral and must be muzzled or punished.

This is not about policy. . .

Partisanship today is more about identity. Scholars Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that, in the past few decades, people began to define themselves politically less by traditional economic issues than by identity — gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation. I would add to this mix social class, something rarely spoken of in the United States but a powerful determinant of how we see ourselves. Last year’s election had a lot to do with social class, with non-college-educated rural voters reacting against a professional, urban elite.

The dangerous aspect of this new form of politics is that identity does not lend itself easily to compromise. When the core divide was economic, you could split the difference. If one side wanted to spend $100 billion and the other wanted to spend zero, there was a number in between. The same is true with tax cuts and welfare policy. But if the core issues are about identity, culture and religion (think of abortion, gay rights, Confederate monuments, immigration, official languages), then compromise seems immoral. American politics is becoming more like Middle Eastern politics, where there is no middle ground between being Sunni or Shiite. . .

Today, everything becomes fodder for partisanship. Consider the now-famous production of the Public Theater’s 'Julius Caesar' in Central Park, in which Caesar resembles President Trump. Conservatives have pilloried the play, raising outrage among people who have never seen it, saying that it glorifies the assassination of a president, and seeking to defund the production. Since I tweeted a line praising the production, I’ve received a barrage of attacks, many of them quite nasty. In 2012, a production of the same play had an Obama-like Caesar being murdered nightly, and no one seemed to have complained.

In fact, the central message of 'Julius Caesar' is that the assassination was a disaster, leading to civil war, anarchy and the fall of the Roman Republic. The assassins are defeated and humiliated and, racked with guilt, die horrible deaths. If that weren’t clear enough, the Public Theater play’s director, Oskar Eustis, has explained the message he intended to convey: 'Julius Caesar can be read as a warning parable to those who try to fight for democracy by undemocratic means.'

Political theater is as old as human civilization. A sophisticated play by Shakespeare — that actually presents Caesar (Trump) in a mixed, somewhat favorable light — is something to be discussed, not censored, and certainly not to be blamed for the actions of a single deranged shooter, as some on the right have suggested."

Read the Washington Post, The country is frighteningly polarized. This is why.

UPDATE III:  "Extreme partisanship may not be the direct cause of violence. But political violence acts like lightning, illuminating and freezing the whole political landscape for a moment. And what we see is a ready recourse to violence — punches at rallies, assaults, death threats, violent protests and intimidation. The system seems unbalanced — easily veering off course with every provocation.

The capacity for human evil is always there. But stable societies construct restraints. Some of those restraints are institutional — balancing interest against interest, power against power. In America, such institutions are strong, even under considerable current strain. Yet human beings are also restrained by norms — unenforced and unenforceable standards of civility and respect. We rely on character in countless ways to keep people from destroying themselves and each other. And here all the demonization and decapitation fantasies — all the talk of revolution and warfare against our fellow citizens — have taken a toll.

This type of language isn’t new, of course. But the Trump era has unleashed it with a kind of fury. The routine violation of norms has taken on the nature of an arms race. Each transgression justifies and requires a response. Both sides cultivate a merciless certainty. And, in some cases, they have made anger into an industry — using it to run up the number of listeners, viewers and hits. The trashing of norms has been not only normalized but monetized. This type of hashtag animus is not merely change but decay. The damage is clear. If words can inspire, then they can also incite or debase. We are on a descending path of enmity.

In our politics, dehumanization is far along. This is true against outsiders and political opponents. And it is true against those who govern us. We have often dehumanized the leaders who result from our free choices — men and women, on the whole, of public spirit, with a talent for friendship and persuasion. And this should be a reminder to opponents of President Trump as well. His violation of norms is a reason for criticism and opposition; it is not a justification for demonization. As offense and response spin faster and faster, someone must get off this carousel.

The success of our politics, the quality of our culture and the order of our society are very much at stake.

Read the Washington Post, America is riding a carousel of hate.

Although I don't agree on equivalency, criticism and opposition is perfectly American and appropriate, fear, anger and hatred must be renounced and condemned.

UPDATE II:  "Plenty bad before Trump’s campaign and presidency, it has gotten markedly worse. This is what happens when the president and his surrogates portray opponents as immoral, subhuman and criminal, when they hack away at the courts, the press and other pillars of a free society — and when they promote conspiracy theories suggesting American justice is tainted. . .

Revolting in a different way is the speed with which a few on the right have tried to use the shooting to delegitimize the justifiable and widespread anger that Trump has generated. Rush Limbaugh called the gunman “a mainstream Democrat voter.” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said of the shooting: 'I do want to put some of this at the feet of Barack Obama.' Sean Hannity of Fox News, broadcasting from the scene of the shooting, alleged a 'record level of vicious left-wing hate,' claiming this is the 'biggest issue we have to face as a country.' . .

The president himself is stoking fear and fury. Seven months after the election, he is still attacking Hillary Clinton as a criminal. He is frightening allies, attacking the courts, discrediting the intelligence community and the 'fake news media' and suggesting there’s a major conspiracy against him in the justice system.

This recklessness causes enormous fear, which generates the 'ferocity' Ivanka Trump perceives. President Trump could calm the anger — if he could calm himself."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump has noticed a new ‘level of viciousness.’ Its sources are clear.

UPDATE: Other Republi-CON sycophants are joining the blame game.

Read the Washington Post, Rep. Steve King is right. ‘America has been divided,’ and he helped divide it.

And in case you are new or forgot, read also about the longtime Republi-CON campaign strategy of fear, anger and hatred.

You must read the Washington Post, Newt Gingrich’s hypocritical comments on the Alexandria shooting, which I quote in full:

"Newt Gingrich, a peripatetic soul who apparently treks from one TV studio to another with sound bites in hand, the other day came up with the cause of the baseball field shooting that left the House majority whip and four others wounded: 'an increasing hostility on the left' toward the apparently angelic President Trump. He clearly has the president confused with the Dalai Lama.

It ought to be apparent that one man with one rifle does not make a political movement. The shooter was deranged, consumed by hate, and while our times are tense and polluted by excessive partisanship, the list of political assassinations is long — Lincoln, McKinley, John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Harvey Milk and Huey Long, to name some of the more prominent. Just as an infinite number of monkeys dancing on an infinite number of typewriters will produce 'Hamlet,' so will a nation of 350 million people and even more guns produce the occasional massacre.

Gingrich was not content to stick to the facts. In his depiction, the shooter represented something called 'the left.' Just a couple of weeks ago, Kathy Griffin held that title. On Fox News, her single (astoundingly) tasteless depiction of the decapitated Trump made her into the face of the Trump opposition. Sean Hannity carried on about her as if she was an actual elected political leader. For Griffin, this was not a bad day’s work: She brought Hannity down to her level.

Now Gingrich has gone further. Appearing on Fox and commenting on the shooting, he said, 'You’ve had a series of things that send signals that tell people it’s okay to hate Trump,' he said. 'And now we’re supposed to rise above it?' He added, 'Maybe this is a moment when everybody takes a step back, but there is no evidence of it.'

But this is the very same Trump who campaigned as a bully in the schoolyard. He ridiculed Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio; he slandered Ted Cruz by linking his father to the Kennedy assassination. He called Hillary Clinton 'crooked Hillary.' He egged on his followers to attack political demonstrators, he encouraged hatred of immigrants and he called Mexicans 'rapists.' Finally, he mocked a disabled journalist.

Through all this, Gingrich contained his desire to speak out in condemnation. He, in fact, supported Trump, becoming an unofficial adviser. He did not get the reward he must have thought behooved him — secretary of state or something – but his wife is going to be the ambassador to the Vatican. Just recently, Gingrich added one side of his mouth to the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, was murdered last year to keep him from telling what he knew about how WikiLeaks got thousands of hacked Democratic Party emails.

'Nobody’s investigating that, and what does that tell you about what’s going on?' Gingrich said on Fox. 'Because it turns out, it wasn’t the Russians. It was this young guy who, I suspect, was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee. He’s been killed, and apparently nothing serious has been done to investigative his murder. So I’d like to see how [Robert S.] Mueller [III] is going to define what his assignment is.'

In a flash, we got an insight into Gingrich’s jaundiced mind. In fact, from the day he first entered Congress, to the day he was forced to resign as House speaker, no one has been more bitterly partisan than Gingrich. He has been on one specious crusade after another — remember the adulterous Gingrich on Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? — and now, suddenly, he poses as the voice of reason. Gingrich has accomplished much in his career, but his real triumph is to give hypocrisy a bad name." 

Read also the Washington Post, The bogus claim that a map of crosshairs by Sarah Palin’s PAC incited Rep. Gabby Giffords’s shooting, which noted that although no link to the shooting was found, "Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs."

Trump's Big CON: Thank You Dear Leader (AKA Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (CONt., Part 4))

UPDATE V:  "Today, about a third of the nation’s population seems to be suffering from a reality discernment malfunction. Have they been ingesting mushrooms plucked from bull dung? Drinking water spiked with credulity-enhancing chemicals?

Thus, when President Trump speaks in his fourth-grade, monosyllabic, syntax-challenged verbiage, they hear lyrical lucidity. When he brags that he has accomplished more than any other president, save for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his starry-eyed minions nod their approval. Exactly no major legislation has been passed by Congress since Trump took office.

As Trump himself said, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they’d still love him.

This is the definition of reciprocal madness, which seems to have spread to the highest levels, as witnessed Monday in the strangest Cabinet meeting in American history. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said it was a “blessing” to serve the president. Each secretary matched his example in what became an epic, circular kiss-up, praising Trump’s leadership (do you suppose the last lemming thanked the first?) and expressing his or her gratitude. . .


The only way to process such tortured effusion is to remember James B. Comey. You either profess loyalty or you go back to being a member of the privileged class so abhorred by the very folks Trump tempted at the ballot box."

Read the Washington Post, Is Trump making America mentally ill?

UPDATE IV:  The Donald loves to watch the news, and be praised, and he love to hear people praise him on the news.

CNN recently "aired a story about Tangier, Va., which sits on Tangier Island, about 12 miles from both the Virginia and Maryland coasts in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. The small island, now only 1.3 square miles, shrinks by 15 feet each year, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which points to coastal erosion and rising sea levels as the cause.

The island’s 450 residents, many of whom are descendants of its first settlers in the 17th century, are desperate. Scientists predict they will have to abandon the island in 50 years if nothing is done.

'Donald Trump, if you see this, whatever you can do, we welcome any help you can give us,' [Tangier Island Mayor James 'Ooker'] Eskridge said in the CNN piece, later adding, 'I love Trump as much as any family member I got.'"

A week later, Trump called Eskridge.

Read the Washington Post, Trump calls mayor of shrinking Chesapeake island and tells him not to worry about it.

UPDATE III:  "President Trump’s delusional outburst Monday claiming to have accomplished more than any president other than FDR at this stage in his presidency and the fawning praise recited by Cabinet members (in their best imitation of the Politburo) serve to remind us that this is not a normal presidency, and will never be one. On the day that another court ruled against Trump’s travel ban, a passable health-care reform bill is nowhere in sight and little appetite exists for a mammoth tax cut (another one beyond the America Health Care Act) with correspondingly mammoth debt, we can see just how divorced Trump has become from the reality of his failing presidency. That leaves many political watchers to wonder aloud why Republicans stick by the president. . .

First, unlike Senate and House Republicans during Watergate, there are few genuine leaders of principle whose sense of propriety is offended by Trump. The moral and intellectual quality of the current crew of Republicans pales in comparison to the type of Republicans who finally told Richard Nixon the jig was up. . .

Second, elected Republicans by and large cower in the shadow of Fox Non-News hosts, talk-radio opportunists and right-wing interest groups. They fear noticeable distancing from Trump will prompt the vultures of the right to swoop down up them, leaving only bones behind. . .

Third, given the first two factors, Republicans continue to rationalize support for Trump, or at least line-straddling. Maybe this will all die down. They could still get tax reform. Once the president is forced out, the party will descend in chaos. Hey, gerrymandering will protect the House majority!

Finally, politicians read the polls. They see Republicans by and large still support the president."

Read the Washington Post, What stops Republicans from behaving rationally.

UPDATE II:  Watch Trump "inviting each member to praise him and his administration".

The whole thing was clearly staged as public declarations of loyalty to 'Our Great Leader'.

UPDATE: Read the Washington Post, ‘I love you more, Mr. President’: A Cabinet competition.

"At Monday’s Cabinet meeting — the first President Trump had held with everyone on board — White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus spoke up to thank Trump “for the opportunity and blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people.”

Priebus said he was offering words on behalf of everyone in the room. But one by one, pretty much everyone else seated around the table took the opportunity to lavish their leader with praise, too, as the media looked on."

Read the Washington Post, Praise for the chief: Trump’s Cabinet tells him it’s an ‘honor’ and ‘blessing’ to serve.

Read also:

Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man, where I first noted that Trump is a psycho-narcissistic con man,

Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (Cont.),

Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (Cont., Part 2), and

Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (Cont., Part 3).

Trump's Big CON: Baseless Accusations, Trump's "I’m Rubber, You’re Glue" Startegy

UPDATE:  If you follow Trump, you'll notice his tendency to reflex project, that is, accuse others of the flaws he is said to possesses.

For one example, read the Washington Post, Of course Trump called Comey a liar: That’s always been his strategy, which state:

"So Donald Trump is calling James Comey a liar.

This puts the fired FBI director in some impressive company. . .

Trump did not invent this strategy. I first encountered it on the playground of the Old Mill Road elementary school on Long Island in the 1970s: 'I’m rubber, you’re glue — whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.' Other kids used an endlessly entertaining variant: 'I know you are but what am I?'

There’s no doubt Trump’s rubber-and-glue strategy has worked. He is, after all, the president, and Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco and Low-Energy Jeb are not. But can the man who has established himself as one of history’s most prodigious prevaricators convince the country that the former FBI director, celebrated for his integrity, is just another lying liar? Polls before and after Comey’s testimony suggest Trump is losing that contest.

After all, who are you going to believe? Trump? Or everybody else?"

The article lists "those Trump has accused of lying, via pronouncements, tweets and retweets".

And for some déjà vu all over again, watch the Washington Post, All the people Donald Trump insulted in 2015, a comprehensive list at least 68 people or groups that Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump publicly insulted in 2015, "many of them multiple times":

Trump's modus operandi when criticized, "stir up new controversies to deflect attention from a damaging news cycle . .

[Invent a claim that] — if true — would be on the scale of crimes in politics we haven't seen in decades — or ever [and yet not backup the claim] with with even a shred of evidence." 

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s defense against Comey has fallen into a predictable pattern: Make a baseless accusation.

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Health Care Edition, Cont.

UPDATE III: What did they expect. Trump is "loyal to no one and believes in nothing, so whenever their actions draw criticism, Trump will be among the first to cut and run, decrying the very action he demanded his party take.

Ironically, as Republicans refuse to distance themselves from Trump’s egregious behavior, scandals and ethical shortcomings, he repays them — by creating the perfect soundbite for Democratic ads in 2018.

The House GOP threw the American Health Care Act together with little regard to its impact on ordinary Americans and was willing to slash health care for the poor and middle class while shoveling tax cuts into the coffers of the richest Americans. Trump insisted they pass something and then threw a celebration in the Rose Garden. So much for that.

Trump, of course, cares not even a tiny bit about substance — and we have yet to see him demonstrate even a rudimentary knowledge of what is in the bill. Having made a bargain with a policy know-nothing who lacks any interest in anything but his own winning, Republicans now find themselves excoriated for the very same reason Democrats lambasted the bill.

We have observed frequently that Trump’s rotten character and flightiness makes legislation nearly impossible. Ryan made precisely the opposite bet, namely that Trump’s character and intellectual deficits hardly mattered because he could help Republicans get what they wanted. In fact, Trump’s defects make it nearly impossible for Ryan to achieve his aims. "

Read the Washington Post, Trump predictably abandons the AHCA — and Democrats’ 2018 gift comes early.

UPDATE II: To "note how contemptibly dishonest" Republi-CONs are regarding Obamacare,

Read the AP, Obamacare ‘death spiral’ is a half-told tale, which notes 23 million more people will be uninsured  under the Republi-CON so-called health care plan.

UPDATE:  Not just 'mean', a "source said Trump called the House bill 'mean, mean, mean'".

Read the AP, Trump tells senators House health bill ‘mean’.

Trump says whatever necessary for praise and adulation.

Then: For months Trump called the the Affordable Care Act "'great' and urged GOP lawmakers to vote for it. Following the House vote, Trump hosted an event in the Rose Garden to celebrate its passage."

Now: "President Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House GOP health-care bill was 'mean' and he expects the Senate to 'improve' the legislation considerably, according to several Republicans familiar with the gathering."

Read the Washington Post, Trump calls House health bill that he celebrated in the Rose Garden ‘mean’.

But who cares, it's all 'bout the show, 'bout the show, stupid people!!! (Repeat til you get it).

Trump's Big CON: Charity Edition

"LIKE AUTUMN LEAVES, sponsored Cadillacs, Ferraris and Maseratis descend on the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, in September for the Eric Trump Foundation golf invitational. Year after year, the formula is consistent: 18 holes of perfectly trimmed fairways with a dose of Trumpian tackiness, including Hooters waitresses and cigar spreads, followed by a clubhouse dinner, dates encouraged. The crowd leans toward real estate insiders, family friends and C-list celebrities, such as former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry and reality housewife (and bankruptcy-fraud felon) Teresa Giudice.

The real star of the day is Eric Trump, the president's second son and now the co-head of the Trump Organization, who has hosted this event for ten years on behalf of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He's done a ton of good: To date, he's directed more than $11 million there, the vast majority of it via this annual golf event. He has also helped raise another $5 million through events with other organizations.

The best part about all this, according to Eric Trump, is the charity's efficiency: Because he can get his family's golf course for free and have most of the other costs donated, virtually all the money contributed will go toward helping kids with cancer. "We get to use our assets 100% free of charge," Trump tells Forbes.

That's not the case. In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it's clear that the course wasn't free--that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.

Additionally, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has come under previous scrutiny for self-dealing and advancing the interests of its namesake rather than those of charity, apparently used the Eric Trump Foundation to funnel $100,000 in donations into revenue for the Trump Organization.

And while donors to the Eric Trump Foundation were told their money was going to help sick kids, more than $500,000 was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses.

All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors. It also raises larger questions about the Trump family dynamics and whether Eric and his brother, Don Jr., can be truly independent of their father.

Especially since the person who specifically commanded that the for-profit Trump Organization start billing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the nonprofit Eric Trump Foundation, according to two people directly involved, was none other than the current president of the United States, Donald Trump."

Read Forbes, How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business.

Trump's Big CON: Pay No Attention to Those Budget Cuts to Worker Programs While The Great and Powerful Donald Sends His Beautiful Daughter to Distract You

"President Trump's proposed cuts to the country’s job-training programs could jeopardize the very [services that workers need for] upward mobility. . .

The president's budget proposal for 2018 called for slashing $2.5 billion from the Department of Labor's $9.6 billion budget, a reduction of about 21 percent, according to an analysis from the National Skills Coalition, a national worker advocacy group.

The budget calls for a 40 percent cut to the Labor Department’s Wagner-Peyser Employment Service, which supports about 14 million job seekers annually and last year helped nearly six million people find jobs.

The proposed reductions include a $1.3 billion cut to programs which operate under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which Congress reauthorized in a bipartisan move three years ago.

Author Angela Hanks, associate director for workforce policy at the Center for American Progress, said the reduced funding to WIOA initiatives could lead to about 571,000 million adults and teenagers losing access to the job training opportunities in 2018. Those services include resume polishing, literacy lessons and employment placement."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump is hitting the road to boost workers. Her father wants to gut job-training programs.

Trump's Big CON: 'I'll 100 Percent Testify Under Oath'

UPDATE:  Don't forget, Trump is facing numerous investigation and lawsuit.

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s presidency becomes a legal swamp, which notes:

"Ironically, the man who gleefully litigated in order to bully a variety of business and media antagonists now finds himself caught in a web of civil and possible criminal litigation."

So, despite the claim to the contrary, The Donald will never willingly testify under oath.

But he says he will because the purpose of the Trump Show is to deflect attention from current damaging news cycle.

And his supporter are chumps who believe and repeat his every word.

"During a combative news conference in the White House Rose Garden . . .[when a reporters] pointed out to Trump that Comey had made these statements under oath and asked the president — who has a long and well-documented history of telling falsehoods — whether he would be willing to provide his version of events under oath.

'One hundred percent,' Trump said." [Link in original.]

Read the Washington Post, Trump accuses Comey of lying, says he’d ‘100 percent’ agree to testify in Russia probe.

Yeah, right, when pigs fly!

Trump's Big CON: The Beclowning Continues

Trump is "'developing a track record of demolition accompanied by vague promises that he'll build something better.' . .

'It's hard to overstate how happy Trump has made the Chinese govt in the past 2 weeks: NATO, Germany, now Paris. Leadership self-sabotage.' . .

In his remarks yesterday [announcing the U.S. was withdrawing from the the Paris climate change accord ], Trump said:

    'At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be. They won’t be.'

Oh yes they will. They are laughing at Trump right now. And so am I. To use a word I’ve used a lot since January, Trump is beclowning American foreign policy. His foreign policy cabinet has disgraced itself.

The choice is to laugh or weep."

Read the Washington Post, I can’t stop laughing at the Trump administration. That’s not a good thing.

Read also Trump's Big CON: When Loyalty Is Valued Above Principle and Honest.

Trump's Big CON: He Thinks He is King (or Godfather)

UPDATE IV:  "From a former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell:

All In w/Chris Hayes
@allinwithchris

Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump admin. is "like a mafia family... That's the way I view Pres. Trump now - as a godfather"
7:24 PM - 7 Jun 2017"

UPDATE III:  "Succeeding in politics in a democratic nation is different from making a go of it in a business centered on one person — or in an autocracy. Almost all of President Trump’s problems can be traced to his failure to grasp this. It explains why he now has such a big problem with former FBI director James B. Comey.

It’s not surprising that Trump’s warmest words have been reserved for autocrats. They run things the way he likes to run things. No obnoxious media. No annoying political opposition. No independent judiciary. No need to show any concern about the people who work for you. Despots can make them disappear. It’s no accident that “You’re fired” is the phrase that made Trump famous.

In Trump world, everything is a deal, everything is transactional, everything is about personal loyalty — to him. What can I give you to make you do what I want? What can I threaten you with to force you to do what I want? Will you be with me no matter what?

In constitutional democracies, rules and norms get in the way of this sort of thing. Other institutions in government have autonomy and derive their authority from being at least partly independent of politics. The boss does not have absolute power.

This is how we should understand Comey’s extraordinary prepared testimony released on Wednesday in advance of his Thursday appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. . .

There has been a lively debate among Trump critics about whether he’s dangerous because he’s inclined toward authoritarianism or because he’s incompetent. The Comey episode allows us to reach a higher synthesis in this discussion: Trump is incompetent precisely because he believes he can act like an autocrat in a constitutional democracy. This doesn’t work, and it makes him do stupid things.

Trump operates as if he were still running the Trump Organization, as if the rules that worked fine when nobody challenged him are the rules he’s under now. His worst mistakes flow from this profound misunderstanding.

As a democratic leader, Trump is an apprentice with little desire to learn. And his role models teach him the wrong lessons."

Read the Washington Post, Trump doesn’t understand how to be president. The Comey story shows why.

UPDATE II:  "Democracy isn’t possible without the rule of law — the idea that consistent principles, rather than a ruler’s whims, govern society.

You can read Aristotle, Montesquieu, John Locke or the Declaration of Independence on this point. You can also look at decades of American history. Even amid bitter fights over what the law should say, both Democrats and Republicans have generally accepted the rule of law.

President Trump does not. His rejection of it distinguishes him from any other modern American leader. He has instead flirted with Louis XIV’s notion of 'L’état, c’est moi': The state is me — and I’ll decide which laws to follow."

Read The New York Times, The Lawless Presidency.

UPDATE:  "Trump’s seething anger at Sessions is disconcertingly similar to the anger that led him to fire Comey. As the Times previously reported, Trump privately 'burned' as he watched Comey testify to Congress about Russia’s efforts to tip the election to Trump, and was 'particularly irked' when Comey conceded his own intervention, via a letter about Clinton’s emails, may have influenced the outcome, which Trump 'took to demean his own role in history.' The Post added that Trump was 'infuriated' at the FBI’s failure to investigate and stop leaks, which have led to news accounts detailing what the Russia probe was finding.

Both Comey and Sessions enraged Trump because in some manner or other, they failed to show a level of loyalty to Trump that would have trumped (as it were) legitimate processes. Comey kept publicly validating the Russia investigation (which Trump dismisses as nothing but Fake News) and would not make it disappear by stopping leaks about it. Sessions recused himself to display (nominal) independence, which Trump somehow interpreted as a lapse into weakness that led to the special counsel, further affirming the probe’s weightiness. . .

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University who writes extensively on authoritarianism and Italian fascism, told me that a discernible trait of authoritarian and autocratic rulers is ongoing 'frustration' with the 'inability to make others do their bidding' and with 'institutional and bureaucratic procedures and checks and balances.'"

Read the Washington Post, Trump is now raging at Jeff Sessions. This hints at a deeply unsettling pattern.

"President Trump is used to being a king.

For decades, his word was the final word in his domain. His advisers, princes and princess might offer their insights, but the decision of what would happen in the Trump Organization was his alone, if he chose to weigh in. No board of directors, no stockholders, just Donald Trump, unchecked.

On the campaign trail, it seemed pretty clear that he assumed that the presidency worked the same way. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he said during his speech at the Republican convention in July, a marked break from the traditional appeal to getting Congress to unite behind an agenda. He repeatedly dismissed endemic problems as being easy — and, if he had the authority of a chief executive, of a king, perhaps they would have been.

Unfortunately for Trump’s ambitions, that’s not how the American government works. . .

[Congressinal oversight] is only one example of Trump’s bristling at the formal and informal checks that exist on his power. Others include:

Investigations. . .

Information. . .

The judiciary. . .

The filibuster. . .

Approval of his Cabinet. . .

Executive orders. . .

The media. . .

In the old days, high in his castle on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, such insolence could be waved away.

Now, as a president bound by rules, law and custom, his authority is not so sweeping and the opposition more robust — even as he scrambles to constrain it."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s war against the checks on his power keeps expanding.

Trump's Big CON: He Doesn't Believe in America (Trump Only Cares About Himself)

UPDATE:  In meeting and talking with Comey, "Trump didn’t inquire about the danger to the United States posed by Russia as a result of interference with our electoral system. The lack of concern about an investigation into a hostile power’s cyberattack on the United States contrasts with Trump’s insistence on clearing himself from a 'cloud.' Trump looks upon the entire Russia investigation as a 'cloud,' a political problem for him. The lack of concern about the nature of the underlying Russian meddling confirms what many knew already — this is a deeply narcissistic man who cannot help but put himself first.

Comey succeeded in painting a disturbing picture of a president trying to convert an FBI director into his minion and trying to get his friend into the clear. And just as disturbing is the realization that in the most devastating attack on American democracy, Trump cares only about Trump."

Read the Washington Post, Comey paints a portrait of Trump: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’

And neither do Republi-CONs who defend him.

"[L]et’s be clear on what Comey is alleging. Comey is claiming that Trump explicitly sought to convert one of the leading law enforcement officials in the country into a personal loyalist. Comey is claiming that Trump demanded, seemingly as a condition for his continued employment, that he voluntarily shed his position’s institutional independence. And Comey is claiming that, after having done all this, Trump told Comey that he “hoped” he would drop the FBI probe into Flynn’s conduct. Comey took this presidential effort as an “order,” which would plainly constitute overt interference in an ongoing FBI investigation into his former national security adviser’s ties to a foreign power that — according to the widely held conclusion of the intelligence community — tried to sabotage our election, in order to tip it to Trump.

The only way Republicans can continue to claim this constitutes “exoneration” is to also hold the position that none of the above is cause for concern.  . .

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is now saying that Trump is “just new to this” and is unfamiliar with protocol. This idea — that Trump only needs to learn what the rules are — elides the much more likely explanation, which is that Trump’s behavior is rooted in a sincerely held belief that our institutions and rules should not represent a check on his power and that he’s willing to actively abuse his power in order to further weaken those constraints. Comey’s testimony today should substantially increase press scrutiny of the widespread refusal of Republicans to acknowledge how serious a problem this has become."

Read the Washington Post, Comey just blew apart a leading GOP talking point about Trump and Russia.

As an American, the only loyalty required is to the Constitution.

Trump is 70+ years old, he was elected president.  If he doesn't know this now, he never will.

Trump's Big CON: Time For the Enablers to Leave

As noted before:

"Like the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster are expected to be early alarms in the event that life in the Trump administration becomes untenable. If the White House fails to build an atmosphere in which they can work, Mattis and McMaster — both of whom are keenly aware that the world is watching their every move — could take their leave. The shock waves caused by their departure would be felt throughout the White House, Congress, and foreign capitals around the globe. The stakes couldn’t be higher — everyone knows that if they aren’t able to make it work, something must be seriously broken."

A prominent Republic critic of Trump's thinks it is time to acknowledge Trump can't be President:

"Maybe he was peeved there was no sword dance or lavish reception, as there has been in Saudi Arabia. Maybe he didn’t like French President Emmanuel Macron’s handshake. Whatever the explanation, a president who on the spur of the moment decides not to communicate a key commitment is also a president who might not keep it even if he said it. He repeatedly proves himself feckless and thereby undercuts the United States’ standing with allies and its image with foes. And once again, it demonstrates that when it matters most, top advisers serve up the appearance of sanity without prompting him to act more sanely. In other words, they are enabling him.

As I said before, literally to prevent nuclear war, [National security adviser H.R.] Mattis should remain, but the other two in his national-security triumvirate [Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson] have failed to constrain and guide the president when it mattered. Their leaving would be more beneficial than their staying at this point."

Read the Washington Post, The people who are supposed to be constraining Trump clearly aren’t.

Read also Trump's Big CON: His Enabler.

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Explained

UPDATE:  And re-read the Washington Post, President Trump wants to put on a show. Governing matters less., which noted that:

"Last spring, while reporting The Washington Post’s biography of Donald Trump, I asked an executive who had worked for Trump for more than three decades to help me understand a central contradiction about the man: How could he be at once the micromanager who in the 1980s would call an employee at 2 a.m. and order her out of bed to clean up litter he’d noticed in the lobby of one of his buildings, and also the boss who was so detached that he claimed to be ignorant of his hotels’ finances as they fell into bankruptcy?

The executive offered this guidance: 'If you’re ever confused about Trump’s motives, go to showman first.' The building lobby was a showcase for the Trump brand, requiring the close attention of the man behind the name; the finances were backstage stuff, easily ignored.

Those words keep coming back to me as the timeworn rituals of Washington are washed out by the bright glare of President Trump at center stage. News conferences, diplomatic summits, relations with Congress, campaign-style rallies — the public-facing aspects of the presidency are being blown up, flipped on their heads, transformed into platforms for the master marketer to play out his unique approach to brand enhancement.

What Washington has been trained to perceive as disorder — a blizzard of contradictions, a president saying one thing while his top appointees say the opposite — is actually a long-running theatrical event, The Trump Show, a time-tested method by which the star builds excitement, demands attention and creates soap-operatic story lines that at least superficially seem like success. The most important thing about this presidency, to the man in the Oval Office, is how it looks. . .

Great theater both entertains and confronts. Trump gets the first part — his brand of performance aims to deploy his audacity and his authority to rev up the audience and soak up attention. But neither at his campaign rallies nor in the opening weeks of his presidency has he challenged the crowds’ thinking. The Trump Show is, as ever, a spectacle, a cavalcade of provocations. It is designed not to prompt thought or even to persuade, but to sell tickets to the next performance."

"Let’s dispense once and for all with the fiction that Donald Trump doesn’t have a strategy. It may be a deeply-flawed strategy for reasons the neophyte president is not yet savvy enough to appreciate, but make no mistake: there is a strategy. . .

He cares less about winning the [travel ban] case than reassuring his base. . .

[T]he president is trying to maintain his populist street cred and show his true believers that he’s not going wobbly on them after five months in Washington, despite back-tracking on more of his campaign promises than he’s kept.

Trump has always been a flashy show horse. . .

[Now w]ith his agenda imperiled, Trump increasingly seems determined to create an aura of effectiveness in the hopes that core supporters already inclined to support him won’t be able to tell the difference between optics and substance. . .

Consider this: 'Trump employed all the trappings traditionally reserved for signing major bills into law as he kicked off ‘infrastructure week’ on Monday: the stately East Room full of dignitaries, a four-piece military band to serenade, celebratory handshakes and souvenir presidential pens for lawmakers, promises of 'a great new era' and a 'revolution' in technology. Yet the documents Trump signed amid all the pomp were not new laws or even an executive order. They were routine letters to Congress, relaying support for a minimally detailed plan in Trump’s budget to transfer control of the nation’s air traffic control system to a private nonprofit group,' the Los Angeles Times’s Noah Bierman reports.

But low-information voters may not be able to tell the difference when they see the b-roll of the ceremony on TV or an image in the paper.

It follows a pattern of Trump over-promising and under-delivering: 'He touted the unveiling of his tax overhaul in April but released only a one-page set of bulleted talking points,' Noah writes. 'Just last week, he tweeted that his tax bill is proceeding ‘ahead of schedule,’ though he has submitted no bill to Congress … Trump held a Rose Garden ceremony in May to celebrate House passage of a bill to repeal Obamacare … even as Republicans in the Senate served notice that the House bill was unacceptable. His promised ‘beautiful wall’ on the southern border is not yet on a drawing board. Likewise, many of the executive orders Trump has signed failed to live up to the president’s rhetoric.'

Bloomberg’s Toluse Olorunnipa noticed an amusing pattern and just posted a smart trend story about it: 'From overhauling the tax code to releasing an infrastructure package to making decisions on NAFTA and the Paris climate agreement, Trump has a common refrain: A big announcement is coming in just 'two weeks.' It rarely does. … Trump’s habit of self-imposing -- then missing -- two-week deadlines for major announcements has become a staple of his administration … The president has used two-week timelines to sidestep questions from reporters or brag to CEOs at the White House. But his pronouncements have also flummoxed investors, Congress and occasionally even members of his staff.'

Is this strategy gimmicky and cynical? Absolutely. Does it work? For millions of people, yes. . .

The president believes that, so long as grassroots activists back him, his adopted party’s lawmakers will have no choice but to follow. The fact that so many politicians have caved and capitulated over the past two years has taught him that he can get away with his unusual behavior. What the Republican governing class has never understood is that Trump doesn’t really respect people who kowtow to him; he sees it as a sign of their weakness. Seeing such timidity has only emboldened this president to pursue this bottom-up, outside-in approach. There is no evidence he will change until elected Republicans buck him en masse.

Read the Washington Post, Trump signals to his base that he is a man of action.

Trump's Big CON: Mexico Will Pay For His Wall

UPDATE:  Proving the great showman that he is by saying something to entertain his admirers and the masses:

"President Trump has come up with a new idea on how to cover the costs for a proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico: build it from solar panels."

Read the Washington Post, If you thought getting Mexico to pay for the wall couldn’t get weirder, you were wrong.

Of course there are all those pesky technical details that make the plan impossible.

But who cares, it's all 'bout the show, 'bout the show, stupid people!!! (Repeat til you get it).

"In the annals of pathetic climb-downs, this Sunday-morning tweet from President Trump deserves a special place of honor, or perhaps dishonor:

'Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.'

To put those weasel words in context, let me ask a question of all you small-business owners out there. If a customer brings some merchandise to the cash register and promises that one of his neighbors will pay you for it 'eventually .?.?. at a later date .?.?. in some form,' what are your odds of ever seeing that money? How likely is it that “in some form” means cash? Do you let him walk out with the goods, or do you remind him you weren’t born yesterday?

Trump apparently believes we are all hopelessly naive. With his presidency nearing the 100-day mark, he is desperate not to have to acknowledge that his outrageous, ridiculous, impossible campaign promises were, in fact, outrageous, ridiculous and impossible.

There was nothing ambiguous about his pledge to build a wall along the southern border, with Mexico footing the bill. This is what Trump said in August following his meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has categorically denied that his country will pay a dime toward the barrier: “Mexico will pay for the wall, believe me, 100?percent. They don’t know it yet, but they will pay for the wall.”

Now, however, Trump is threatening to shut down the government or destabilize the health-insurance market if Congress does not appropriate $1.4 billion to begin work on the wall. So he wants U.S. taxpayers to pay for the thing, amid ever-more-vague promises that Mexico will ante up 'in some form' at some future date. Like, never."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s border-wall fantasy is crumbling.

Trump's Big CON: Trump's $1B Infrastructure CON

UPDATE II:  "President Trump's "$1 trillion infrastructure plan” isn't $1 trillion and it isn't a plan. It's a $200 billion plan to have a plan that hasn't advanced beyond that stage for six months now.

The administration, though, has decided that this is “infrastructure week,” so this bare outline of an actual proposal is getting touted as if it's something that required more than five minutes of thought. Which is to say that it's not that different from the rest of Trump's agenda: bullet points that seem more appropriate for a tweet than for anything else. . .

It hasn't said how it would spend the $200 billion of its own, or how it would try to get corporations to spend the $800 billion of theirs, or how much that second part would cost in tax breaks. There's nothing to analyze, because there's nothing at all.

But it's not just that Trump doesn't have much of an infrastructure plan. It's that he doesn't have much of a legislative plan to pass it either. . .

Between replacing Obamacare and lifting the debt ceiling and cutting taxes, which, despite Trump's claim to be “moving along in Congress,” doesn't even exist right now, there isn't a lot of time for Republicans to do things before election season is upon us.

Trump has really had a Potemkin presidency so far. He stages elaborate photo ops for executive orders that, with the exception of his stalled travel ban, don't actually do anything of substance. He hosts celebrations for bills that have only passed one chamber of Congress. And he makes a big show out of unveiling half-finished policies that have been that way for a while.

In other words, Trump isn't a successful president, but he plays one on Fox News.

This is due to Trump's 140-character attention span; to his unfamiliarity with, and indifference toward, policy, and to his apparent cable TV-style belief that ratings matter more than results. You can see all of this in his approach to filling the government. The assistant secretaries and undersecretaries who don't make headlines but do make policy are almost entirely absent from the Trump administration. He just hasn't bothered to nominate anyone for those spots. He's been too busy feuding with the mayor of a city that's just suffered a terrorist attack to worry about having a team in place in, say, the Treasury Department. Which is why an infrastructure proposal that should have been fleshed out months ago is still stuck in embryonic form, perpetually “a few weeks away” from being ready.

Until then, make sure to compliment the emperor — I mean president! — on his new clothes.

Read the Washington Post, Trump keeps pretending his infrastructure plan is real. It’s not.

UPDATE:  "During his campaign, Donald Trump promised to spend $1 trillion on an infrastructure program that he likened to those of the New Deal era. When Hillary Clinton called for $275 billion in infrastructure investment, the Republican nominee vowed to spend at least twice that sum.

Last month, the White House released a budget that allocated $200 billion for spurring public-private partnerships in infrastructure investment — while cutting $144 billion from direct public spending on infrastructure.

The president has yet to release the full details of his new vision for repairing America’s crumbling roads and bridges. But a report from the New York Times on Saturday suggested that Trump’s new plan for federal infrastructure spending is to reduce it".

Read New York Magazine, Trump’s Big Infrastructure Idea Is to Privatize Air Traffic Control.

"When President Trump was running for the White House last year, his advocacy of a large investment in infrastructure was often cited as evidence that he wasn’t a traditional Republican. After all, would some doctrinaire conservative propose spending a trillion dollars of taxpayer money on government projects to shore up our roads, bridges and water systems?

But there was a bait-and-switch going on, one that becomes more evident as we get closer to seeing the details. . .

The problem with what the Trump administration proposes is that while the number $1 trillion gets mentioned a lot, that’s not actually what it wants to spend. The budget proposal the White House released called for $200 billion in new infrastructure spending, but Democrats noticed that it simultaneously made over $200 billion in cuts to existing spending. For the most part, the administration wants to pass costs on to state and local governments and hope that private investors come up with the rest of the money. . .

That might save some money in the very short run, but it means that consumers keep paying, basically forever. In the traditional approach, government spends the money to build, say, a bridge, and then it’s built and it belongs to the taxpayers. There are maintenance costs, but that’s it. In the Trump approach, the government gives almost as much money in tax breaks as it would have spent building the bridge, but it belongs to the developer, who charges tolls that everyone who uses the bridge has to keep paying. . .

[In other words this] the basic structure of the plan: having taxpayers give a huge amount of money to private developers, so that those developers can then turn around and charge people even more to use the systems that get built."

Read the Washington Post, Trump will never get help from Democrats in passing his infrastructure plan. Here’s why.

Trump's Big CON: He is The Child President

UPDATE III:  "It is possible that a strong White House chief of staff could help to bring some more order to the current clown car apparatus. And if one assumes that Donald Trump is like other politicians in that he wants to be reelected, this would be the rational course of action.

That said, there are two big honking problems with Bernstein’s argument. The first one is simple: Who would agree to the job at this point? . .

But even if there was some Manic Pixie Dream Staffer just waiting in the wings to be discovered, we get to the fundamental problem with Bernstein’s proposed plan to improve the Trump administration — the president would continue to be Donald Trump. As I’ve noted previously, “The best explanation for Trump’s erratic shifts in behavior is Trump-specific.” Venues ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Vox have concluded that the president is his own worst enemy. For this new structure to exist, Donald Trump would have to sign off on it. He would have to be mature enough to recognize his own management problems. . .

For the past six weeks or so, I’ve been chronicling when Trump’s staff describes him to reporters in terms that make him seem like a truculent toddler. There’s a lot of them. The fact is, the president appears to display massive insecurities, which causes him to turn on any staffer who rises to prominence." [Link in original.]

Read the Washington Post, Why it is impossible for Donald Trump to rise to adequacy.

UPDATE II: YOU MUST:

Read the Washington Post, I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past., which explains:

"Why does Donald Trump behave in the dangerous and seemingly self-destructive ways he does?

Three decades ago, I spent nearly a year hanging around Trump to write his first book, 'The Art of the Deal,' and got to know him very well. I spent hundreds of hours listening to him, watching him in action and interviewing him about his life. For me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and then disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable.

Early on, I recognized that Trump’s sense of self-worth is forever at risk. When he feels aggrieved, he reacts impulsively and defensively, constructing a self-justifying story that doesn’t depend on facts and always directs the blame to others. . .

Trump’s worldview was profoundly and self-protectively shaped by his father. . .

To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive worldview took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. 'When I look at myself today and I look at myself in the first grade,' he told a recent biographer, 'I’m basically the same.' His development essentially ended in early childhood. . .

Trump was equally clear with me that he didn’t value — nor even necessarily recognize — the qualities that tend to emerge as people grow more secure, such as empathy, generosity, reflectiveness, the capacity to delay gratification or, above all, a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. Trump simply didn’t traffic in emotions or interest in others. The life he lived was all transactional, all the time. Having never expanded his emotional, intellectual or moral universe, he has his story down, and he’s sticking to it.

A key part of that story is that facts are whatever Trump deems them to be on any given day. When he is challenged, he instinctively doubles down — even when what he has just said is demonstrably false. I saw that countless times, whether it was as trivial as exaggerating the number of floors at Trump Tower or as consequential as telling me that his casinos were performing well when they were actually going bankrupt. In the same way, Trump sees no contradiction at all in changing his story about why he fired Comey and then undermining the explanatory statements of his aides, or in any other lie he tells. His aim is never accuracy; it’s domination.

Trump derives his sense of significance from conquests and accomplishments. 'Can you believe it, Tony?' he would often begin late-night conversations with me, and then go on to describe some new example of his brilliance. But the reassurance he got from even his biggest achievements was always ephemeral and unreliable — and that appears to include being elected president. On the face of it, Trump has more opportunities now to feel significant and accomplished than almost any human being on the planet. But that’s like saying that a heroin addict has his problem licked once he has free and continuous access to the drug. Trump also now has a far bigger and more public stage on which to fail and to feel unworthy.

Any addiction has a predictable pattern — the addict keeps chasing the high by upping the ante in an increasingly futile attempt to recreate the desired state. From the very first time I interviewed him in his office in Trump Tower in 1985, the image I had of Trump was that of a black hole. Whatever goes in quickly disappears without a trace. Nothing sustains. It’s forever uncertain when someone or something will throw Trump off his precarious perch — when his sense of equilibrium will be threatened and he’ll feel an overwhelming compulsion to restore it. Beneath his bluff exterior, I always sensed a hurt, incredibly vulnerable little boy who just wanted to be loved.

What Trump craves most deeply is the adulation he has found so ephemeral. This goes a long way toward explaining his need for control and why he simply couldn’t abide Comey, who reportedly refused to accede to Trump’s demand for loyalty and whose continuing investigation into Russian interference in the election campaign last year threatened to bring down his presidency. Trump’s need for unquestioning praise and flattery also helps to explain his hostility to democracy and to a free press — both of which thrive on open dissent. . .

The Trump I got to know had no deep ideological beliefs, nor any passionate feeling about anything but his immediate self-interest.

Over the past week, in the face of criticism from nearly every quarter, Trump’s distrust has almost palpably mushroomed. No importuning by his advisers would stand a chance of constraining him when he feels this deeply triggered. The more he feels at the mercy of forces he cannot control — and he is surely feeling that now — the more resentful, desperate and impulsive he becomes."

UPDATE:  "Trump is a daily reminder of why presidents need protocols and talking points. When someone as inexperienced and impulsive as Trump tries to wing it, the result is chaos or worse. The Lawfare blog, one of the most fair-minded chroniclers of national security issues, reviewed the string of Trump’s recent actions involving intelligence and asked whether he was violating his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President.” That’s a polite way of asking whether he should be impeached.

The threat to Trump’s presidency is deepening. His credibility is unraveling, with prominent Republicans now voicing concern about his erratic, impulsive decisions. Each new revelation builds the narrative of a man who has been trying to bully or cajole intelligence and law enforcement officials since his election. As one GOP veteran told me: “There are no guardrails for this president.”

Intelligence issues have been at the center of Trump’s troubles since before the election, animated by a strange mix of anxiety, insecurity and vanity. "

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s presidency is beginning to unravel.

"At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif. . .

The Russian leak story reveals one other thing, the dangerousness of a hollow man.

Our institutions depend on people who have enough engraved character traits to fulfill their assigned duties. But there is perpetually less to Trump than it appears. When we analyze a president’s utterances we tend to assume that there is some substantive process behind the words, that it’s part of some strategic intent.

But Trump’s statements don’t necessarily come from anywhere, lead anywhere or have a permanent reality beyond his wish to be liked at any given instant.

We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

'We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him,” David Roberts writes in Vox. “It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?'

Read The New York Times, When the World Is Led by a Child.

FYI, the article describes the three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out:

"First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.

Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.

'In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care,' he told Time. 'A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber,' he told The Associated Press, referring to his joint session speech.

By Trump’s own account, he knows more about aircraft carrier technology than the Navy. According to his interview with The Economist, he invented the phrase 'priming the pump' (even though it was famous by 1933). Trump is not only trying to deceive others. His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself.

He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought he’d be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.

Third, by adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won’t be perceived as obnoxious.

But Trump seems to have not yet developed a theory of mind. Other people are black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved. In Trump’s telling, every meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but his guests stayed two hours because they liked him so much."

Read also Trump's Big CON: Our Boy President.