Five quick links for your clicking pleasure…
- William Saletan discusses how most Trump supporters will believe any damned thing Trump says, even if it's contradicted by Fox News, other Republican officials, people in his own administration or existing documents. There's something going on there besides simple enthusiasm for a politician.
- Fred Kaplan points out that while Trump claims to be doing the best job ever at having our military be ready for anything, he's taking his own sweet time about finding a Secretary of Defense. Given how much TV Trump watches, he'll probably end up selecting Gomer Pyle.
- Up to 580,000 contractors could be missing out on back pay because of the last government shutdown. What is it with Trump and not paying contractors?
- Daniel Larison says the Trump administration is handling the Iran situation about as well as they handle anything. They make it worse and insist they're wildly succeeding.
- The National Debt has hit $22 trillion dollars. This is a horrible, destructive sign of government incompetence and negligence. Unless, of course, your party is responsible for the latest peak, in which case it's no big deal.