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Joe Walsh, a right-wing talk-radio host and former Tea Party congressman, has announced he's challenging Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. I gather he doesn't think he has a chance of winning but it's kinda nice to see someone who can't be dismissed as a "libtard" saying that Trump is a child, Trump is a disaster, Trump is destroying the economy, Trump lies every time he opens his mouth, etc. The problem is that Joe Walsh has long had all those qualities apart from the ones that require presidential power.

I've seen three or four interviews with him and he keeps saying he needs to look back on his old tweets and statements and "own" them. In the parlance of today, I take that to mean you have to admit you made them and to say you wish you hadn't…and that's about it. You don't have to, for example, retract them or apologize to those who may have been harmed. You certainly don't have to admit that you engaged in the kind of thing that you now call blatant lies when Donald Trump says them.

There has long been money to be made by bashing Trump. It's why people put out anti-Trump shirts, tell anti-Trump jokes on talk shows, publish anti-Trump books, etc. I'm not saying those efforts aren't also sincere and political and totally protected by any reasonable definition of Free Speech. It's just that when there's dough to be made off those t-shirts and such, they're more likely to be sold. In the past though, the market for them was people who never liked Trump, never voted for him, never had any respect for the guy.

While I may doubt Mr. Walsh's sincerity, what I think we're seeing now is people trying to get in on the expected bandwagon of former Trump-supporters who are looking likely to abandon him. It may not be most of his backers but it may be enough that there will be advantages to getting in on the ground floor. Anthony Scaramucci has now apparently figured out there's no place for him in the pro-Trump world, whereas he gets welcomed on talk shows and gets book deals by turning on Donald. Joe Walsh wouldn't be on all those interview shows if he was still solidly behind Trump.

His conversion may be genuine but it may also be because he's anticipating a growing trend in talk radio and punditry, which are really the only things he does these days. I hope for his sake and the country's, it will turn out to be a wise business decision. Because I suspect that's all it is.

As noted here, Donald Trump cannot understand why there's this poll out from Fox News that shows him losing to Biden, Sanders, Warren and even Harris. He said, "I don't know what's happening with Fox."

It's fascinating that among the possibilities that apparently didn't occur to him was that the Fox News pollsters conducted a poll by the same methods they've always used and the poll yielded those results. He seems to have assumed that since Fox has been generally favorable to him, they would rig their poll to show him clobbering the other candidates…or at least should suppress the results of a poll that showed him losing.

This may tell us a lot about the way this man views politics. The news is just a tool to manipulate public opinion and it's dishonest if it doesn't do that in service of Trump. If and when he runs a news network or newspaper, that's how it would work.

And if/when on Election Night 2020, Fox News reports that Donald Trump lost, he'll be able to understand why CBS, NBC, ABC and all the newspapers he hates would say such a thing…

…but why, oh why would Fox?

Someone or something apparently told Donald Trump that his record on the environment might cost him a state or two. He's now out talking about how great he's been in that area where, of course, he hasn't been great or even not-terrible. His credo has been to never do anything that would interfere with any company making as much money as possible, no matter what air gets polluted, what stream has toxic matter dumped into it, what lower-paid employee gets ill from working the mines, what it does to our climate, etc. I find it hard to believe that will ever change except maybe in token ways for show.

So as Rebecca Leber describes, he and his minions are out there with lists of his accomplishments in this area. They're pretty short lists and not particularly accurate ones.

There are a lot to choose from but I think I'll take his leap from "I never colluded" to "I'll collude in the future if I get the chance!" Fred Kaplan has the details on this one.

He complained and complained that our NATO allies needed to spend more on defense weaponry…and now they're doing it and Trump's mad. Why? Because the whole idea was to get them to spend more with U.S. weapons makers and instead, they're buying from within their own countries. Fred Kaplan has more.

…and then I'll stop thinking about the guy for the weekend. He makes it tough, though. At times, I get the feeling some aide tells him, "Mr. President, our monitoring says that Mark Evanier is not thinking about you" and he goes "We can't have that" and he quickly thinks of something to say that will piss me off and he calls an impromptu news conference to say it.

I don't subscribe to his Twitter feed and I even have him blocked, just in case he decides to assert some Executive Privilege to address Americans who don't want to read his silly ramblings. But I just know that after he sends each tweet, he tells that aide, "Make sure someone Evanier reads quotes that."

And every so often, everyone who does Trump jokes — even me — gets a message in some form from someone who says, "Hey, could you lay off those lame attempts at political humor?" Often, those communiques sound like desperate pleas from someone who voted for Trump, still craves some of what he promised to do to/for this country and doesn't want to be reminded that he or she helped put such a horrible human in the White House to further that agenda.

But the interesting thing to me about Trump jokes is that most of them aren't political jokes. They're jokes about his hair, about his girth, about his manners, about his obsession with self-praise, about his rudeness towards anyone who doesn't kiss Trump butt, etc. We were making jokes about all those aspects of him before he was even remotely a candidate for political office…back when he was a staunch pro-choice Democrat. (Since 1987, he has changed his party affiliation five times.)

Most political jokes — about Trump or anyone — are not about the person's politics. Most of the ones about Bill Clinton were about his marital fidelity and lack thereof. Most of the ones about George W. Bush were about his mangling of the English language and him doing things like choking on a pretzel. 90% of the jokes about Joe Biden seem to be about his handsiness or other social faux pas.

You could take an old fat joke about Orson Welles or Kate Smith or Dom DeLuise or someone and switch it to Chris Christie — and people do. That does not make it a political joke. Even jokes about an official's hypocrisy — saying one thing and doing another — you could argue are not really political.

Of course, if you really wanna see Trump get Term #2, I suppose you could look at any joke at the expense of Donald J. and think it's a political joke because it may diminish someone's opinion of the guy and cost him votes. In that case, you shouldn't get mad at the people who make the jokes. You should get mad at your candidate for personal behavior that makes it so easy and irresistible to make the jokes.

This is from the website Vox…

President Donald Trump spent most of Thursday in Normandy, France, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day and honor the Americans who fought and died to liberate France from Nazi occupation in World War II. But he didn't let the solemnity of the occasion stop him from talking trash about his political enemies.

Sitting just a few feet away from the thousands of white grave markers at the Normandy American Cemetery, where more than 9,000 American war dead are buried, Trump gave an interview to Fox News's Laura Ingraham in which he insulted former special counsel Robert Mueller and said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — or "Nervous Nancy," as he called her — is "a disaster."

But of course. Donald Trump is always more important than anyone or anything else. He talks about his own greatness and perfection, and he maligns those who dispute or deny that greatness and perfection…and that's about it. Once in a while, it's subtext in a statement ostensibly about something else but it would never occur to Trump to talk about those who had died in service to America except maybe as small talk before proclaiming his own greatness and perfection.

Someday when he's out of office — and yes, I still believe that will happen in our lifetimes — every single person in or around the Trump Administration will write a book about what it was like in there. They will all be negative about him and filled with scandalous revelations because, first of all, that's how you sell a book. And secondly, all those folks will want to distance themselves from his crimes and cruelty and they'll profess, "Of course I knew what a maniac he was but instead of calling me an accomplice, you should thank me for hanging in there and stopping some of his crazier demands from being done."

I will be (that is to say, I am) curious as to how the guy with the Hindenburg Ego dealt with all the TV shows — news and comedy — that call him a liar and a fool and a crook, etc. We know he watches Fox News the way some people watch porn but does he ever catch more than thirty seconds of Colbert or Seth Meyers or SNL or Jon Oliver? And if so, how does he react not just to the jokes but to the way those shows get great tune-in and happy audiences by presuming their audiences hate Trump? He attacks them for attacking him but does he get that audiences are laughing because they agree?

Ah, what would Memorial Day be without Trump using the occasion to talk only minimally about Those Who Served and primarily about the greatness of his own administration? Because no matter what it's about, it's only really about Trump.

And few will be surprised that he claimed credit for things the Obama administration did to better the lot of veterans. I can't wait to hear how it was Trump who commanded the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Jon Voight thinks Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln. He probably also thinks Donald freed the slaves.

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.

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.