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I haven't done one of these lately because just about every website is turning into a Trump Dump these days. But for the many of you who read no other website but this one…

• In the coming showdown over budget negotiations regarding The Wall, there are three possible outcomes. At least, that's how Jim Newell figures it. He explains how Trump will like none of them. My guess is we will wind up with no real bucks for his wall but Trump will fiercely try to spin it as a total victory for him and insist, "I got everything I wanted!"
• Fred Kaplan notes that just about everything Trump is saying about U.S. security and conditions overseas is being contradicted by departments within the executive branch and people that he appointed. Isn't it comforting to know that in matters relating to war and international relations, either Trump is dead wrong or his intelligence departments are?
• And as Alex Ward explains, Trump is dealing with this discrepancy by lying about what those departments are saying.
• Congress is voting to stop Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria and Afghanistan. As Kevin Drum explains, this kind of translates to "We should stay there forever." I have two thoughts about this. One is that this may be one of those outlier matters where Trump is right (or mostly right) and those opposing him are wrong. The other thought is just that John McCain would be so happy.
• Max Boot doesn't think Trump is taking the right approach with Syria and Afghanistan. So there's the other side of that argument.
• When employment numbers under Obama looked good, Trump insisted the numbers were fake and that unemployment had never been higher. Now that the steady drop in unemployment under Obama continues, Trump insists those numbers are very real and that the "fake news" is that the press is not reporting how successful he's been. Emily Stewart has more.
• Jonathan Chait takes us through the curious thought process of those who deny the revelations to date of the Mueller investigation. Not just a river in Egypt.

And here are some recent thoughts from Frank Rich about Howard Schultz, the upcoming State of the Union address and other topics. For more Trump Dump stories, consult almost any other website on the 'net.

So Trump makes this surprise visit to visit troops in Iraq. Could he have made it look any less like he really wanted to do this? And he stands before our fighting men and women and tells them they're getting a 10% pay raise…

You haven't gotten one in more than 10 years — more than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one. They said: "You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent." I said: "No, make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent."

Now, of course, that's not true…none of it. Our troops have received a pay raise every year for decades. This year's is not 10%. It's 2.6%, which is just about what it takes to keep up with the rate of inflation. That means that it's not really a raise at all in that they won't be able to buy much more with it.

I've stopped wondering why he says things like that. He says them because something within him compels him to speak of darn near nothing else except what a fantastic president he is and we should all be so grateful we have him. Since he has nothing real to say to support that position, he makes shit up and doesn't bother to ask himself, "Won't they know this is a lie?" His more devout followers have made it quite clear to him they don't care…and he doesn't care that a military audience, composed of soldiers who were ordered to attend, is not an audience of his devout followers.

I've given up thinking it can be anything but pathological. If there's a logical thought process at all behind it, it's something like, "Hey, it works for me." What I still don't get is why anyone lets him get away with it.

I know I have devout Trump fans who read this site. Every day, I get one or two e-mails from someone who says they love everything here except the political stuff and it would be so nice if I'd knock that stuff off and stop spoiling my blog for them. Would a couple of you folks like to tell me you wouldn't be outraged if President Obama or any President Clinton had said one thing like that, let alone 7000+?

Sure have been a lot of them lately, haven't there? And there's an old saying that I just made up that says that when lots of people are going to jail for perjury and lying, there's something pretty serious being covered-up.

Hey, how many witches does a witch hunt have to catch before you can no longer dismiss it as just a witch hunt?

The crazy stuff Trump's pulling lately — the latest being this notion he can end Birthright Citizenship (you know…that thing in the Constitution) by Executive Order — strike me as desperation/panic acts by a guy who's pretty sure he's going to end up with a Democratic Congress. That is to say, a Democratic Congress that will have the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas and even vote to impeach. I wonder how his supporters would have felt if President Barack Obama had said the Chief Exec has the power to change one syllable of the Constitution.

Well, let's go to the news…

• As Jonathan Chait notes, Trump and his mob are lying when they claim to be behind a health plan that protects those with pre-existing conditions. This is not one of those cases where there are two sides to the matter and they just have a different interpretation of some legal language than others do. This is a case of just outright lying. And by the way, let's remember that what some of us want is not insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. It's affordable insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. Any insurance company can cover folks with pre-existing conditions if they charge them enough.
• Josh Marshall discusses the utter cluelessness shown by Mike Pence. He appeared at a campaign rally and brought up a "rabbi" to offer a prayer of mourning for those killed in the synagogue attack in Pittsburgh. All fine except that the "rabbi" (and the reason I put that in quotes) is a R.I.N.O. — a Rabbi In Name Only.
• Ezra Klein discusses Trump's strategy. To him the "opposition party" isn't the Democrats. It's CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC…
• Politifact explains about that $450 billion Saudi arms deal that Trump brags about and which really doesn't exist.
• William Saletan "defends" Trump from accusations that his speeches are creating unrest, divisiveness and maybe even violence in this country.

And have you noticed that the chanting of "Lock her up!" or "Lock him up!" that he so loves and encourages has come to have just about nothing to do with anyone being charged with a crime? It's all about the idea that we should be able to throw people in prison because we just plain don't like what they say. Yeah, that's what we do in this country…

Haven't done one of these in a while. Haven't looked at the news a lot.  I kinda feel like everyone has made up their mind by now as to whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing for Republicans to retain as much control as they have of the government.  It's now just a question of which side can do a better job of making their voters feel like the world will end if they don't turn out on Election Day.

Trump continues to do something almost every day which is morally and/or legally wrong.  His backers continue to deny it or just outright say, "Who cares?  We're in power and that's all that matters."  They'd howl if President Obama had done the same thing and howl even louder if President Crooked Hillary had done it…but Trump was right: He could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters."  Especially if the person he shot was a journalist.

It was kinda refreshing the other day to hear Pat Robertson throw the sanctity of human life under the bus to save a big-money arms deal.  He said, in effect, one dismembered reporter is a small price to pay to be able to sell all those guns.  And of course, what possible Teaching of Christ could possibly be violated with $100 billion dollars worth of weapons or however much it really is?

I wish someone had asked him what if they dismembered two reporters?  A hundred?  A thousand?  At what point does the cost/benefit ratio swing the other way?  How about ten thousand reporters and one TV evangelist motivated solely by money?  That would take a lot of bone saws.

What's going to happen is going to happen.  I'm not really following the polls this time.  After the last election, all the pollsters are filling their projections with qualifiers and disclaimers and prearranged excuses for why they might not be right.  It's like watching a baseball game where the announcers keep reminding you that the scoreboard may not be accurate.  I'll probably care like hell when we get near the bottom of the ninth.  And now, this…

• Fred Kaplan explains what's up with that War in Afghanistan we seem to all care about less than we care about what Trump and Stormy Daniels are saying about each other on Twitter.  What Fred says about Afghanistan is that there is no path to victory there and there never has been one…and by the way, it's now the longest war in American history.  That just demonstrates the folly of fighting this kind of war and how we'll never get anything out of it; not even a damned Bob Hope Christmas Special.
• And here's a right-winger saying essentially the same thing Fred says in his piece.  Can someone — anyone? — point me to an article by anyone with foreign policy cred arguing that that war is still or ever was winnable?
• And here's Daniel Larison discussing how else our foreign policy is going in precisely the wrong directions.
• Our President continues to denounce Democrats as "an angry mob" while inciting his own angry mobs.  It's yet another example of how nothing is immoral or wrong these days if you do it on behalf of Trump.  If I were you, I'd stay off Fifth Avenue any time Donald is in town.
• Reports of clerical sex abuse continue to mount.  Atheism continues to become increasingly popular.  Gee, you think maybe there's some connection there?  How about folks like Pat Robertson placing profits over principles?
• This may be the stupidest thing Trump has ever said.  And the most dangerous.
• And here's another example of how the Number One priority of this administration is the financial enrichment of the Trump Family.
• And lastly for now: A lot of folks are bemoaning how the U.S. Constitution gives the same number of Senators to a state like Wyoming that it gives to a state like California.  It is, of course, a matter of unequal representation for the larger states and they're saying something should be done about it.  Kevin Drum explains to us why nothing will ever be done about it.

I have my mail-in ballot here.  I'm going to spend some time this weekend reading up on the various propositions.  Then I'm going to mark it, send it off and go back to paying less attention to the election that's the most important one of our lifetimes — until the next one that's the most important of our lifetimes and the one after that and the one after that…

Somewhere between 36% and 40% of Americans still tell pollsters they approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as Chief Exec. I have friends who gasp audibly at those numbers and ask, "What stupid, corrupt thing does that man have to do to lose those supporters?" and my theory is this: They don't approve of him. They can't be pleased that their guy utters/tweets so many stupid statements they must defend and has so many scandals closing in on him. I think it's that they just prefer him to any visible alternative. They approve of most of the agenda they think they're getting and see Trump as a hero for wresting control of the country away from people they abhor like Obama and Hillary.

But I'll bet most of them would rather have someone else giving them that agenda. They loved Trump when he was the guy slapping everyone else around…but now every morning, he's the one getting slapped, often by those close to him. It's getting harder and harder to argue that he's not unstable and that there's no evidence out there of criminal activity. Here are some articles worth reading…

• If you still believe Trump is honest and knows what he's doing, note that you disagree with an awful lot of folks who work closely with him. William Saletan explains.
• Republicans feel they have to come up with some kind of health insurance guarantee for people with pre-existing conditions. It polls way too well to not do that. But every single thing that would make that work is something they said was evil when it was part of Obamacare. So what's their solution? Guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions will be able to buy health insurance. Just don't guarantee that they'll be able to afford it. Jonathan Chait explains.
• Christian Right leaders love to lecture people about morality. They're very quick to condemn people who do not fit their standard for decency…unless, of course, that person might give them a fifth vote on the Supreme Court. Ed Kilgore has the story.
• A man named Ed Whelan runs the Ethics & Public Policy Center, a right-wing organization that now seems to have no ethics and at least one incredibly stupid policy. In his zeal to defend Brett Kavanaugh, Whelan floated a baseless theory that someone else had tried to rape Christine Ford — and with close to zero evidence, accused that someone else by name. Absolutely no one is buying the theory and Whelan has retracted it and apologized…but it's still one of the sleaziest and dumbest attacks ever attempted in politics. Rod Dreher will tell you more about it.
• Some supporters of Mr. Kavanaugh are arguing that even if he did drunkenly try to rape a woman when he was 17, he was a teenager and that mistake shouldn't be held against him for the rest of his life. That might be a valid subject for debate and I'm not sure which side I'd be on.  But those making it now are ignoring two points, one being that denying it now under oath (as Kavanaugh has) involves committing the current-day crime of perjury. Should a man who has just committed perjury be placed on the highest court in the land? Secondly, those making this argument are mostly of the mind that a 17-year-old who attempts to commit rape should be forgiven but a 17-year-old who commits the non-violent crime of selling drugs should go straight to friggin' prison for 20+ years and rot there. At least one Kavanaugh supporter — the author of this article — calls out the hypocrisy in holding both views.
• Hey, remember how Trump was going to get North Korea to denuclearize just because the two of them were buddies? As Fred Kaplan notes, that doesn't seem to be happening but we may be in for Trump trying to claim credit for making it happen when it doesn't. That's kind of Trump's style: You don't have to actually do the right thing for Puerto Rico if you can convince your supporters that you did.

Trump might get a bit of a break this coming week when most eyes will be on the sentencing hearing that may result in Bill Cosby wearing an orange "Hello, Friend!" shirt behind bars  and recording an album called To Spider, My Fellow Inmate, Whom I Slept With. But hey, that may be a good time for the White House to release some bad news they can no longer contain or to fire someone Donald wants out.

I feel very bad for the folks in Hawaii who have a big, probably-destructive hurricane bearing down on them. It makes me more frustrated that so many government resources are going towards nonsense and human misbehavior. Helping out our fellow citizens in times of disaster ought to take precedence over everything. Here's some of the everything…

• Hey, you'll never guess who doesn't think anyone should be investigating Donald Trump's personal life and affairs. It's Ken Starr, the guy who thought it was in the public interest to know every minute detail of Bill Clinton's sex life, right down to descriptions of the presidential penis.
• William Saletan lays out the case that Donald Trump betrayed his country and in the process, answers the oft-asked question, "Where's the collusion?" According to Mr. Saletan, it's all in the public record even before Robert Mueller's office files its report.
• The White House is opposing a bill that would make it more difficult for a foreign power to hack our elections. Gee, I can't imagine why they're against that. Adam K. Raymond has the story.
• As Steve Benen points out, Trump is doing everything he can to pretend that he and Michael Cohen were never close. One of these days, Donald Trump Jr is going to be indicted, someone will ask the president to comment and he'll say, "Donald Who?"
• Daniel Larison keeps writing about how Trump is botching up our relationship with Iran. It's turning out that undoing everything Obama did even when you don't have a better alternative is not a great way to formulate foreign policy.
• Ezra Klein points out that one of the key issues on which Trump won in 2016 was stamping out government corruption. It's going to be very difficult to run on that in 2020 if two-thirds of your associates are in prison.

I seem to be unable to turn on my TV without seeing Michael Avenatti. I even thought I saw him in an old Scooby Doo I wrote that was on Boomerang today. The guy's on so much that even Steve Harvey's saying, "Enough, already!"  Well, better him than Kellyanne Conway.

Oh, and by the way: I'm getting real tired of reporters trying to get Sarah Huckabee Sanders to admit that Trump did something wrong.  She's just doing her job.  The problem is that her job is to just keep saying, in answer to every question, "He did nothing wrong.  No charges have been filed."  It's like trying to get the recorded voice on the phone that tells you the time to instead tell you a knock-knock joke.  Sarah's not allowed to say what you want her to say, people!

The latest thing I'm tired of: Trump supporters saying "We've got to unite and function as one!" That would be a nice sentiment if their idea of uniting wasn't that Trump gets to do everything he wants and no one criticizes or investigates him. It's like folks who think the word "compromise" means "We get 100%, you get zero!" Here are some links…

• Daniel Larison explains why Trump's campaign against Iran makes absolutely no sense except that our prez staked out a ridiculous position there and now doesn't know how to back down from it.
• Kevin Drum looks at the numbers and notes that for all the pain and ill will Trump's border crossing policies have caused, they still haven't diminished the number of people who come here illegally from Mexico.
• Mr. Drum also has some interesting thoughts on How to Fight Climate Change and he is now making the point repeatedly that people are taking Trump's tweets way too seriously; that they're just blather to keep his base aroused and that they have little to do with his actual actions.  Well, they might be an indicator of an increasingly unstable mind…
• Trump keeps saying, "U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills." Sometimes, he says it's seven or eight. The truth is they're opening no new steel mills but, hey, isn't all that matters is that his supporters cheer him at rallies and believe they're winning?
• I don't have any real firm opinions about the ousting of Alex Jones from certain social media apart from the conclusion that Jones has mastered a tricky duality: He is insane enough to get a certain kind of person to watch him but still sane enough to exploit that attention for big bucks. Anyway, here's Matt Taibbi with some thoughts of the matter of yanking Jones and his Infowars garbage off Facebook, Spotify and other international forums. Me, I haven't quite made up my mind what kind of precedent is being set here and how it might boomerang.
• Charles P. Pierce says that the one constant train of thought in the Trump Administration is that whatever Barack Obama did must be undone…not because it's wrong but because it was his. We may be only weeks from them bringing Osama bin Laden back to life.

Lastly: Just in the ten minutes it took to compose this, I became tired of another thing. It's people who think that there's any meaningful lineage between today's Democrats or Republicans and the parties by those names of long ago. You don't get credit for what people with the same nominal party affiliation did or did not do about slavery or civil rights in a previous century; not if you aren't even consistent with the positions of your party twenty years ago. "My party fought for equality long ago" does not mean you can't be undermining that fight today.

I can't always focus on Trump's daily tap dances for his base, convincing them to believe in an alternate reality where he turned around the dreadful Obama economy and having the Russians pick our leaders isn't that bad an idea so long as they pick Trump and Trump-like candidates.  It's like an ongoing disaster right outside my window where, since I can't do anything about it, it's sometimes easier not to look.

On a personal level, it's sad (to use one of Trump's favorite words) to see people I know — including some I like and otherwise respect — giving him a pass on things that outraged them when done by Democrats. One friend of mine has never shut up about the time Obama once misspoke and said in a speech there were 57 states. That, my friend insisted, told us something about the man and his honesty or stupidity or something. Apparently, there was a good chance he could fool all of America into thinking there were 57 states.

But every day, Trump serves up a half-dozen of those. His poll numbers are higher than Lincoln's, you need an I.D. to buy groceries, America is more respected than ever in the world, etc. And it's dismaying to see people buy into it because, you know, staying in power is all that matters. If you haven't visited it lately, here's a link to the database of (currently) 4,229 lies and distortions of the Trump presidency as compiled by the Washington Post. The only response to it from the Trump fans seems to be, "Oh, that's the Washington Post. You can't believe anything they say including what day of the week it is."

That's the same defense mechanism Nixon used. You saw how well it worked there. Here are some other links that might be worth your time…

Kevin Drum points out that despite Trump's insistence that Obamacare is a disaster, defunct, long gone, dying any second now, a failure for 17 years (!) and anything else bad he can find to say about it, it's doing rather well.

Matthew Rozsa attacks the new G.O.P. line that collusion isn't a crime. Uh, doesn't it depend to a great extent on who colludes and for what purpose? There's nothing in the statutes about it being illegal to form a partnership but if you and I form a partnership to bust into houses and steal everything, we just might be breaking the law.

As Jonathan Chait notes, Trump has been bragging about making a deal with North Korea to stop with the missiles and to return the remains of American soldiers. And neither brag stands up to any scrutiny.

Ed Kilgore notes that the Trump Administration is trying hard to undo all the progress that's been made about auto fuel-efficiency standards, especially in California (i.e., the state that Trump hates most and vice-versa). If I had to single out one principle that today's Republican leadership values more than anything, it would not be abortion or guns or immigration. It would be the concept that government must never get in the way of a big company missing out on any opportunity to increase profits. And if that means fouling the environment, fine.

Trump will be real happy one of these days when one or more of his supporters beats the crap out of some reporter. And it won't matter which reporter or what they said or did. Just so long as his team feels like they dominate the press and have power to intimidate it.

And I assume you've heard how a Conservative think-tanker set out to prove that Single Payer would be a financial disaster for this county and wound up proving the opposite. It's changing no minds because in this country, studies are just things to put supposed facts behind our prejudices and we never look at those reports and think, "Hey, maybe I was wrong."

Lastly: Is it my imagination or is Trump now beginning to do an impression of Alec Baldwin's impression of him?  I can remember when Nixon began acting like he'd learned how to "do" Nixon by studying David Frye.  And whenever Bill Clinton was in trouble, he sounded just like Phil Hartman doing Bill Clinton in trouble.  It may be significant that no one ever became noteworthy for doing an imitation of Barack Obama.  Even Obama wasn't that good at it sometimes.

A lot of folks out there who don't like Trump are yearning for the political figure who can fight just as dirty as he can, including all the personal insults and nastiness. Matthew Yglesias is toying with the idea that that person could be Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti. And yeah, it's a remote notion but so was Donald Trump in the White House.

The Republican-controlled Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has agreed unanimously that the government of Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election to help elect Donald Trump. The response from Trump supporters ranges from "No, no matter what anyone finds, there is no evidence to indicate that" to "So what if they did?" and in a few cases to "Well, if that's true, let's tell them not to do that again." Heather Digby Parton has more.

Meanwhile back in North Korea, Trump's squad is demanding that the government there give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program but doesn't seem to be offering any reason why it should. One wonders if this kind of "negotiation" ever worked for Trump when it was just about condominiums and not the entire future of a nation. Read Daniel Larison about this.

And read him here about how Trump had to be talked out of his idea that we should go to war with Venezuela. How close did this great land of ours come to doing that?

Ezra Klein on Donald Trump's poll numbers. They're not as bad as some think nor as good as others insist.

And lastly for now: Donald Trump believes 100% in Jim Jordan's innocence against the charges that Jordan ignored or looked the other way in a massive string of sexual crimes. Well, of course. Donald Trump believes 100% in anyone who believes 100% in Donald Trump and he believes 0% in anyone's claims of having been molested by anyone who isn't an enemy of Donald Trump. And as Ed Kilgore notes, that's just how it works with Donald.

Here's Laura McGann with the best article I've read about the incident where Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant. Ezra Klein summarized it as follows: "The Trump administration's position is not that restaurants shouldn't discriminate against people whose life decisions they disagree with. It's that restaurants shouldn't discriminate against the Trump administration." I still don't know what I would have done in this situation but I'll tell you who's really wrong in this case: The Trump supporters who are phoning in death threats and posting hateful reviews of other, unaffiliated restaurants that have names similar to the one that kicked out Sarah.

Trump's current immigration policy isn't much more humane than the one he "fixed."

Fred Kaplan previews the upcoming Trump-Putin summit. It'll be a lot of kissing-up to Donald's role model and a display of, as Kaplan puts it, "Trump's naïve belief that personal relationships — specifically, his own charisma — can transcend national interests." This is, after all, a man who recently said, "If Vladimir Putin were sitting next to me at a table instead of one of the others and we were having dinner the other night in Canada, I could say, 'Would you do me a favor? Would you get out of Syria?' 'Would you do me a favor, would you get out of Ukraine? You shouldn't be there. Just come on.'"

Meanwhile, Kaplan doesn't think muoh of Trump's Space Force proposal, either.

Daniel Larison on how Trump keeps misrepresenting what happened with his North Korea summit, boasting about things in the agreement that aren't really in the agreement.

And getting back to the "border crisis" stuff, Matt Taibbi summarizes what he sees as hypocrisy on all sides. Supporters of Trump's policies keep trying to claim that he's doing nothing that Obama and other Democrats didn't do. That's not true but some of the folks opposing what's happening right now weren't all that uncomfy with at least the mentality behind it, pre-Trump.

Here's Matt Yglesias with a good explanation of the charges being brought against the Trump Foundation. As far as I can tell, Trump and his minions have never offered any proof that the allegations aren't true; just countered with insults and charges of "witch hunt." I'm sure that all the folks who wanted Bill and Hillary tossed in the slammer for every possible infraction by the Clinton Foundation will hold Trump to the same standard. Sure they will…

There is tremendous outrage out there about immigrant families being torn apart. You know who's fine with it? All those folks who told us Gay Marriage would destroy families.

Even Conservatives like Rod Dreher are uncomfy with Trump lionizing Kim Jong Un as a great, talented leader. It makes you think Kim got a dub of the pee tape from Putin.

And of course, no one with a straight face can look at the "agreement" between Kim and Trump and think that Trump got anything but hosed. Well, actually, he got something that he can sell to his followers as a triumph but if Obama had come back with that, it would have been condemned as a Neville-Chamberlainesque bargain. Daniel Larison describes what it actually says.

Josh Marshall says that if Russia had a wish list of what it wanted to see happen in the United States, it would look an awful lot like Donald Trump's agenda: "If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia's primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there's really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done."

Amy Davidson Sorkin on Rudy Giuliani's attack. I doubt there are very many people in this country who think Stormy Daniels' story of an affair with Donald Trump is false. There are, however, those who think they if they deny, deny, deny and attack, attack, attack, the story won't do their boy any real damage. And there is of course, Giuliani who will say anything he's told to say.

Here's a list of all of Robert Mueller's indictments and plea deals in the Russia investigation so far. Not bad for a fake witch hunt which hasn't done anything.

Trump is now claiming he's caused some major, for-the-better changes in Iran via the stance he's taken against them. Daniel Larison says this is an outright lie.

And Fred Kaplan tells us what to expect (and not to expect) when Trump sits down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un this Tuesday in Singapore. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Matt Yglesias explains the new theory of presidential power that Trump's White House is advancing…and why it would give dictatorial powers to our Chief Exec. No one who is for this would have been for this if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had proposed this while they were in office.

Daniel Larison explains why Trump's tariffs and trade wars are bad ideas that will wind up helping no one be better off.

Initially when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, we heard that 64 people had been killed. More recently, we're hearing that the actual number is 4,645 which is quite a jump. So which is it? Probably neither, says Washington Post truth seeker Glenn Kessler. He thinks it's more like 1,000 which is still horrifying but not as horrifying as 4,645 but still indicative of a government that doesn't care about human life.

Here's another view of John McCain, this one from a reporter who has covered him a lot. And lastly…

Since he took residency in the Oval Office, Trump has uttered 3,251 false or misleading statements. You know…in a way, that's kind of impressive.

Some folks are upset this morning that Trump is saying "everyone agrees" he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for a peace that has barely begun to happen. What they don't get is that Trump means everyone on Fox News agrees he should get it. It's just the way the guy talks. Everything he does is perfect. Everyone agrees. What is that lying media talking about when they suggest otherwise? Meanwhile, in other Fake News…

• Joe Conason on why pulling out of the Iran deal might not be good for America but it could be great for Russia. Of course.
• And Daniel Larison writes at some length here and here why it'll be bad for America. Apparently, the main reasons the Iran agreement is "the worst deal ever" in the eyes of Trump and folks like John Bolton are that (a) Obama negotiated it and (b) it somehow doesn't make Iran cease to exist.
• George Will says Donald Trump is not the worst person in our government. That honor, he argues, now belongs to Mike Pence. Frankly, I think the difference between Trump and Pence is about as meaningful as the difference between the Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's and the Crispy Chicken Nuggets at Wendy's.
• Frank Rich is asked if Trump will face any political penalty for his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear pact. Rich replies, "Honestly, I doubt Trump will still be in office when the full fallout of this blunder is felt. The blunder, one should add, is not only to pull out of a deal that was working but also to have no "better deal" (or policy at all) to take its place. But the interesting political piece about both this decision and the onrushing summit with Kim Jong-un is that Trump has persuaded himself that big bold foreign policy moves, however harmful to America and its allies, will rescue him from the rampaging scandal at home."
• A number of corporations gave huge, suspicious cash amounts to Michael Cohen…for what? Andrew Prokop runs us through some of their explanations of what they thought they'd be getting for that money.

So here's what I'm wondering about. We get this steady stream of stories about Trump off-camera being pissed about this or furious about that…stories that obviously have been leaked by sources within the White House. Who's leaking these and how have they been able to remain within the White House?