Your Monday Afternoon Trump Dump

I haven't done one of these for a while…but why not? It looks like it's not going to be a very good week for Donald Trump. Oh, he'll score a point or two but he's going to spend this week — and probably the rest of his time in office — tweeting in hysterics about plots against him and Fake News and how he is absolutely perfect and everyone against him is lying, treasonous pondscum who hates him and America — in that order of importance. Here's some reading…

I have a pet peeve about people who vow they're going to pass a Constitutional Amendment and then drop the matter two days later. This is the case with about 999.99999999% of all promises to pass a Constitutional Amendment. In the same vein are accusations of Treason, usually by someone who thinks the definition of Treason is "doing anything I don't like." Dylan Matthews reminds us what Treason actually means.

Kevin Drum lays out the facts in the accusation of Biden wrongdoing in the Ukraine. So far, there's absolutely no case against either Joe or his son, and I suspect Trump and his minions know that. But you know, if you're Donald Trump and someone is running against you, you have to accuse them of tons of vile corruption if only so yours won't look so awful. Drum also reminds us how so many Republicans earnestly believe a lot of bad shit about Democrats.

Jonathan Chait explains why Lindsey Graham's defense of Trump is a pretty darned weak one, no matter how fervently he makes it.

Conservative columnist Rod Dreher thinks that "Trump's paranoia, à la Nixon, is going to destroy him."  I think that's happening right this minute. Maybe the ghost of Barry Goldwater will go to the White House and tell Donald it's time to get out.

And there are a lot of Conservative pundits and politicians who are acknowledging Trump probably committed impeachable offenses but who also think that impeaching him will hurt the country more than not impeaching him. Daniel Larison takes on one of them and explains why that's wrong.

Like I said, not a very good week to be Donald Trump. Or someone who has to go out and explain why every single criticism of him is a lie. Kellyanne Conway's on one of the cable channels right now trying to convince everyone in America and good luck with that, Kellyanne. You can't even convince everyone in your marriage.