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Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
William Taylor, our acting ambassador to Ukraine, testified before the House about conversations with other officials in the Trump administration which confirmed the quid pro quo involved in holding up military aid in exchange for an investigation of Joe Biden and his son. If you need to know why that's bad news for Trump, read Alex Ward.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
It's this stuff about "lynching." And why do I have the feeling that in his entire life, Donald Trump never had any problem with the "lynching" of anyone other than Donald Trump?

An article Donald Trump should read but won't
An explanation of the Emoluments Clause…which, by the way, is not phony. It's in that United States Constitution that our presidents swear to uphold.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Republicans continue to not back Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria. Even Mitch Friggin' McConnell thinks it was a mistake, which is kind of like Edgar Bergen being condemned by Charlie McCarthy, Paul Winchell being denounced by Jerry Mahoney or Señor Wences getting the finger from his own left hand.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Read this account of Trump's cabinet meeting today and pick any or all. Adam Schiff was the informant to the Whistleblower! You have to get into wars to get out of wars! The Emoluments clause in the Constitution is phony! Mitt Romney is disloyal to his party! Trump gets the biggest cheers! The Never-Trumpers are dying off! This man is losing his marbles or my name isn't Pierre Delecto.

An Interesting Scenario Involving Trump
Jonathan Chait theorizes on how Donald Trump's own party might vote to convict him in the Senate and remove him from office. It's possible but it doesn't seem likely to me. I don't think anything's predictable about this guy except that he'll always act in his own self-interest and that he'll be steadfastly wrong about how to do that.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney sat down with Fox Newsguy Chris Wallace this morning to deny he'd said what he said and didn't do so well. He looked like a gangland lieutenant trying to walk back yesterday's confession before his bosses have his legs broken.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
He still stubbornly insists on being president.

Two Interesting Articles That Say the Same Thing About Donald Trump
Recently, in a nutty attempt to make things better between Syria and Turkey, Trump penned a letter to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, telling him, "Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool!" Over at the American Conservative website, two of its columnists — Rod Dreher and Daniel Larison both wrote about Trump's letter. These two men rarely agree but this time, they both think it showed zero grasp of international diplomacy and a worrisome indicator of mental instability.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
So many people, including Republicans, have said it's wrong for Trump to host next year's G-7 meeting at a hotel he owns that he's been forced to reverse that decision. And it's always bad news for Trump when anybody tells him he can't do any damned thing he wants. It's almost like "What's the point of being president if I can't be an absolute despot and always get my way?"

Today's Bad News for Rudy Giuliani
Rudy seems to have taken a day off as he tries to decide (a) whether or not to go on one or more of the Sunday morning talk shows tomorrow, (b) if so, which one? and (c) what self-incriminating thing will he blurt out as part of his "defense?" I'm guessing (a) if it's at all possible, (b) all of them and (c) "Was I in on the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby? Of course I was!"

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
And here we have another quid pro quo: Josh Marshall reports, "Notorious Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash would help Rudy and DiGenova and Toensing cook up dirt on Joe Biden. In return, they'd work with Trump to get U.S. corruption charges against Firtash tossed. Firtash has been fighting extradition to the US on federal corruption charges since 2014." Everything's a deal.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
A former Republican governor is calling for impeachment…and sure, it's John Kasich, who's probably positioning himself to step in if Trump doesn't get the nomination. But that's certainly not good news for Trump.

Today's Bad News for Rudy Giuliani
Meanwhile, as predicted, Rudy is in more legal trouble than he was yesterday and less than he will be on Monday. The new revelation? He pressed the Trump administration to grant a visa to former Ukrainian official Viktor Shokin, who claimed he had dirt on certain Democrats. You know, I don't have a license to practice law and it's looking Rudy and I will soon have that in common.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held meetings in Ankara to work out what Trump supporters touted as a "cease-fire" between Syria and Turkey and Trump himself called it an "amazing outcome." But firing has not ceased, the deal expires in a matter of days and Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, issued a statement that said, "This is not a cease-fire."

Today's Runner-Up Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump is threatening to sue CNN because their coverage of him is not fair and balanced. So if you're following his interpretations of the Constitution, Congress has no legal right to investigate or impeach him and the press has no right to report what he thinks is unfair. I'm waiting for him to get rid of that "We the People" nonsense and demand that he gets top billing.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
White House Chief O' Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted there was a quid pro quo involved in the release of military aid allocated for Ukraine. A few hours later, he was out insisting he hadn't said what he said…but he said it. Wouldn't you have liked to have heard the phone call or meeting where he was told to do that?

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
In his never-ending quest to project his own misdeeds and failings on everyone else, Trump began slamming Nancy Pelosi. As Anna North observed…

The president's attempt to shame Pelosi likely worked among his base. But for most other Americans, it backfired. That should come as no surprise, given Trump's track record with powerful women.

As I've written before, Trump's strategy in confrontations with men is often to question their masculinity — he called Marco Rubio "Little Marco" and made fun of Jeb Bush's supposedly "low energy." It's a style he's likely developed in a long career in male-dominated spaces, from the military academy where he went to school to the heavily male real estate development business to the Hollywood sets where he bragged about being able to grab women "by the pussy."

But that strategy doesn't work on women, so Trump usually tries to invade their personal space, insult their appearance, or, as in the case of "Nervous Nancy," insinuate that they are mentally ill or unstable. Any woman who's gotten to where Pelosi is now, though, has had to put up with being called "crazy" a time or two. Except with people already primed to applaud Trump's misogyny, the strategy is doomed to fail.

I think when some non-partisan, observant author writes the history of American politics in this century, it's going to amaze many how much of it has to do with men who can't rationally deal with women in positions of power. And usually they don't call them "crazy" so much as they impugn their appearances and femininity.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Where to start, where to start? The headline "House overwhelmingly votes bipartisan condemnation of Trump withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria" is pretty bad news, as if the news out of Syria and Turkey isn't itself bad enough. "[Trump] was shaken up by it," Nancy Pelosi said on the House's overwhelming vote. "And that's why we couldn't continue in the meeting, because he was just not relating to the reality of it." Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is, as he will be for some time, in more legal trouble than he was yesterday and less than he will be tomorrow.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
A letter that Trump wrote to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was making the rounds and every newsperson who saw it contacted the White House to verify it was legit. That's how daffy it was and you can read it here and about a thousand other places. It wasn't sane, it wasn't presidential and it clearly did more harm than good…but Trump gave himself an A+ for it because, of course, he gives himself an A+ for absolutely everything.

Today's Runner-Up Outrage by Donald Trump
On any other day with any other president, this would be one of the more shameful and wrong-headed moves ever. You all know about Anne Sacoolas, the American spouse of (maybe) a diplomat who killed 19-year-old motorcyclist on an English lane last August. Ms. Sacoolas fled the country, claiming diplomatic immunity and Dunn's grieving parents and many British agencies are trying to get her to return to the scene of the arguable crime. Trump summoned the parents to the White House and then sprang two surprises on them: He had Ms. Sacoolas in the next room and also had members of the press ready to film/photograph the parents meeting the woman who killed their son and he apparently thought some warm, huggable moment would result. The parents, horrified, refused to go along with it and…well, here. Read all about it. It was a crazy move engineered by a man to whom empathy and consideration are alien concepts and who thought a great photo-op with himself as the Great Peacemaker would result. Crazy.

And One Important Article
This could have been in the Bad News category but it was too crowded…

Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump's businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings' property tax.

This is illegal and as Paul Waldman notes, it probably demonstrates why Trump is battling so hard to keep his tax records secret. They've got to be full of this kind of thing.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Ronan Farrow's new book revives the issue of Trump and/or his handlers paying off women to keep hush about affairs with The Donald.  If the National Enquirer really was shredding papers about those alleged affairs, that's something.  I mean, it's not like the Enquirer ever dumps a story because it's false…

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump announces that he will soon be "issuing an Executive Order authorizing the imposition of sanctions against current and former officials of the Government of Turkey and any persons contributing to Turkey's destabilizing actions in northeast Syria."  Oh, great.  Now Trump has to impose sanctions on himself.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
I'm putting the increasing bad news out of Syria in the next category so in this one, I'll just put it sure looks like Rudy Giuliani is in pretty deep legal trouble, which just contributes to the lawless rep of the folks Trump chooses to advise him. I don't think Trump will be able to get away with claiming he doesn't know Rudy but that doesn't mean he won't try.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Things just keep getting worse and worse for the Kurds and for the role of the U.S. in world politics. Fred Kaplan explains.

An important article About Donald Trump
Jonathan Chait lays out the "full" case for the impeachment of Donald Trump. I put "full" in quotes because I'm thinking by the time this thing could get to a trial in the Senate, there'll be a dozen more charges in it.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Trump keeps citing Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who in a tweet said there was no quid pro quo regarding the Ukraine call. But later this week, Sondland will reportedly testify that he wrote that there was no quid pro quo, not because he knew that to be the case but just because Trump told him.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Did you catch any of Trump's rally last Thursday night in Minneapolis? There's more than a year until Election Day and he's hurling mud like an infinite number of monkeys flinging their poo. And he's getting it from the same place.

A Question About Donald Trump
Trump complained a lot about that Fox News Poll that showed that a majority of Americans want him impeached. He's been saying, "Fox News isn't working for us anymore," right? So what is he expecting? Is he angry that Fox News, having received those numbers from their pollsters, didn't just fib and adjust them in his favor? Is that what he expects of the news media? No wonder he doesn't like any of them.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
There are a couple of choices but I'm going with how it increasingly looks like Rudy Giuliani is in legal trouble. Yesterday, it seemed like Trump was going to drop Rudy as his lawyer and start claiming he barely knew the guy. Today, he looks like he's decided he's stuck with him.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, is being quoted as having told a senior American diplomat, "You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered. You are not willing to protect the people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral." And indeed, the slaughter seems to be starting.

Bonus Article About Donald Trump
Here's an odd article by Alexander Hurst which compares ceasing to be a Trump supporter with fleeing from a cult. The author tells us a lot of interesting things about cults and the mentality of those who people them but he doesn't convince me it's that bad with most who voted for Donald and would again. There are those in this country who simply prefer the right-wing agenda and if Trump's the guy who's going to put it in power, fine. That's all they want him for.

If someone else could give them the same "win" without the pathological crap and the shady business history and the pussy-grabbing and insulting Bruce Springsteen, fine. What I think Trump fears most now is that some Republican — maybe Romney — is going to mount a credible campaign to offer the Trump agenda without Trump, and a lot of Trump voters will flee to that person. Once he starts looking like a loser — and he's lost a lot lately and been acting like a panicked loser — he's of no use to them. Cult leaders don't worry like that.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Well, it looks like a three-way tie! In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a lower court ruling saying Trump's accounting firm must turn over eight years of his accounting records — i.e., his income tax forms. That's one. Then a federal judge in Texas ruled that Trump's "national emergency" declaration to build The Wall is unlawful. That's two. Then a different federal judge blocked the Trump's "public charge" rule, which would have made it harder for immigrants to obtain green cards. Had it not been blocked, it would have gone into effect next week. That's three.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
The Trump administration is sending 3,000 service members, two fighter squadrons, one air expeditionary wing, two Patriot Missile batteries and one THAAD missile defense system to Saudi Arabia to aid that kingdom. As Daniel Larison noted in a link yesterday, Trump is often praised by his supporters for his policy of getting us out of permanent foreign wars…but he hasn't actually done that yet anywhere. To date, he has escalated every war he inherited and he sure looks poised to create some new ones.

Bonus Article About Donald Trump
Trump keeps soliciting or applauding illegal or unethical actions done on his behalf. His followers claim that what he says in these instances are "jokes." But as William Saletan makes clear, they're not.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Two associates of Rudy Giuliani were arrested today and "America's Mayor" may himself be in great legal jeopardy. That's all worse news for Rudy than it is for Donald but having his lawyer and most visible spokesperson in legal trouble sure won't reflect well on Trump. Giuliani keeps saying that when all this is over, he will emerge as "the hero." And that may be true — to those of us who want to see Trump gone.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump's attacks against the Bidens are getting wilder, coarser and more hysterical. If he's at this level of mud-hurling with close to 13 months before Election Day, where is the public discourse going to be by Halloween of 2020?

Bonus Article About Donald Trump
Daniel Larison makes the important point that most of the folks praising Trump's foreign policy are hailing what he says he's going to do, not what he actually does. There's a very big difference.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
For the first time, a major poll shows more than half the country believes Trump should be impeached and removed from office. And it's going to be hard to dismiss this as some rigged Liberal-Democratic poll since it's the Fox News Poll.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
According to a new book, back in March, Trump was in a frenzy to stop immigration and he discussed shooting migrants in the legs, electrifying the border wall and fortifying it with spikes, and putting in a moat stocked with snakes or alligators. It's frightening to think how many of his supporters would have cheered these measures…and even complained they weren't harsh enough.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria is not going over well with a lot of people. Among them, as Adam Edelman and Elizabeth Janowski report, are a lot of the kind of Republicans who, if Trump mugged an old lady would race to the microphones to praise him for it. Even Lindsey Graham couldn't bring himself to smooch butt over that one. And we also have Fred Kaplan explaining why it's such a wrongheaded move.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump has this new, novel theory about how impeachment works. Jonathan Chait explains that it comes down to "Trump will cooperate with an impeachment probe if Democrats stop the impeachment probe." The man who criticized Barack Obama every way he could think of doesn't believe any criticism of him is legit.