Who needs Jerry Lewis when we can watch this guy?
- Trump keeps bragging about how great the economy has become since he took office and how rotten it was when Obama was in power. As I look at the numbers, I see almost all straight lines and pretty much the same levels of growth. If something was going up 2% a month under Obama, that was a catastrophe according to Trump. Now, it's going up 2% a month and Donald is to be congratulated for rescuing us. Jared Bernstein is a good guy to follow if you want to know where we really are.
- Here's an "explainer" for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which Trump is threatening to close down because, you know, non-white people.
- Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, brags that he's getting Trump to cut Social Security by finding ways to argue that those cuts do not violate Trump's campaign promise to not cut Social Security. I don't get why you brag about this unless you're sure that Trump is so ill-informed, he won't read it.
- Daniel Larison affirms once again that the Nuclear Deal is working well. This is the deal the Obama administration negotiated to keep Iran's nuclear ambitions in check. Since Trump operates on the premise that all deals are lousy unless he made them, he wants to declare Iran in breach and then redo this whole deal…or just let Iran do whatever they want and count on U.S. might to keep them scared.
- While I'd be cautious to pin too much hope to it, it sure looks like Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III is building a pretty vast case against various members of the Trump administration. I have no idea when this might be unveiled and I gather no one else does, either. But it'll be a Game-Changer if he does it and a Game-Changer if he doesn't do it.
Lastly: I continued to be fascinated that the worst insult in Trump's repertoire — the one he hurls at almost everyone he doesn't like — is that their business is "failing" or "their ratings are terrible." He almost always uses it against targets whose businesses are doing better and better or whose ratings are going up…but even if they were going down, there's that odd logic there: If your business isn't successful, you must be wrong about everything you say. How many failed businesses has this guy had now?