But this story illustrates another dimension to the ways federal officials have had to accommodate Trump: They have been forced to defend the United States of America, its government and its interests from the president himself. As we have learned, this is a task of enormous difficulty and complexity; in a case like this, there are risks to national security and even lives.

And for what? To serve Trump’s embarrassing man-crush on Putin?

Try to imagine something similar happening with any other president from either party. Imagine American intelligence officials saying “We’d better exfiltrate this spy we have in the Kremlin before the president tells the Russians about him” if the president was Obama or Bush or Clinton or Reagan or Nixon or any other. You can’t do it.

It’s in part because of events such as this one that I’m certain history will judge Trump to be the worst president America has had in 230 years. Not just corrupt, not just ignorant, not just impulsive, not just divisive, not just bigoted, not just juvenile and petty and vindictive, but someone so untrustworthy that he couldn’t even be relied on to not spill intelligence secrets to our adversaries.

Some people assert that Trump is in fact a Russian asset; whether you agree will depend on how you define the term. But it has become clear that across the government and the country, everyone has had to adjust their expectations and actions to the fact that the president of the United States simply cannot be trusted to uphold America’s interests, if doing so conflicts with his greed, or his desire to please a foreign dictator, or simply some whim he had while watching “Fox & Friends.”

It may be some time before we understand the full extent of the damage that has caused.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/09/shocking-cnn-scoop-confirms-officials-are-defending-our-country-trump/

Trump Is Not Well
Accepting the reality about the president’s disordered personality is important—even essential.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/donald-trump-not-well/597640/

Donald Trump’s disordered personality—his unhealthy patterns of thinking, functioning, and behaving—has become the defining characteristic of his presidency. It manifests itself in multiple ways: his extreme narcissism; his addiction to lying about things large and small, including his finances and bullying and silencing those who could expose them; his detachment from reality, including denying things he said even when there is video evidence to the contrary; his affinity for conspiracy theories; his demand for total loyalty from others while showing none to others; and his self-aggrandizement and petty cheating.

It manifests itself in Trump’s impulsiveness and vindictiveness; his craving for adulation; his misogyny, predatory sexual behavior, and sexualization of his daughters; his open admiration for brutal dictators; his remorselessness; and his lack of empathy and sympathy, including attacking a family whose son died while fighting for this country, mocking a reporter with a disability, and ridiculing a former POW. (When asked about Trump’s feelings for his fellow human beings, Trump’s mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, reportedly said, “He pisses ice water.”)

The most recent example is the president’s bizarre fixation on falsely insisting that he was correct to warn that Alabama faced a major risk from Hurricane Dorian, to the point that he doctored a hurricane map with a black Sharpie to include the state as being in the path of the storm.

“He’s deteriorating in plain sight,” one Republican strategist who is in frequent contact with the White House told Business Insider on Friday. Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, “You should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.”

We have repeatedly heard versions of that sentiment over the course of Trump’s presidency. It’s said that speculating on Trump’s mental health is inappropriate and unwise, especially for those who are not formally trained in the field of psychiatry or psychology.

That’s true, up to a point. Yes, it is best to leave it to experts to determine whether Trump satisfies the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, some combination of both, or nothing at all.

But if a clinical diagnosis is beyond my own expertise, Trump’s psychological impairments are obvious to all who are not willfully blind. On a daily basis we see the president’s chaotic, unstable mind on display. Are we supposed to ignore that?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/donald-trump-politics-alabama-hurricane-afghanistan-business/index.html

It's not surprising to see a President seeking to maximize personal political advantage. But no modern President has taken a course that appears to make a conventional reading of America's national interest so subordinate to his own goals or done so little to separate the role of head of state from his personal impulses.

Trump's frenetic activity violates long-accepted guardrails governing the commander in chief's role. It also poses a fundamental question. What, or who exactly, is the Trump presidency -- and potentially four more years in office -- actually for?

Can Trump's actions in recent weeks honestly be said to be the work of a President selflessly toiling for "the forgotten men and women of our country" he lauded in his inaugural address while warning "a nation exists to serve its citizens?"

Or are they offering Democrats a potentially powerful and so far untapped election argument that Trump is really only interested in himself, burnishing his ego and adding to his wealth while forgetting the plight and dreams of most Americans?

https://twitter.com/essenviews/status/1170884290546024448

DNC has huge 2020 research trove against Trump: "Let's say [Trump] goes to Youngstown, Ohio. We have everything he said, what he promised in 2016 to that community - maybe it's 'that bridge will be fixed' - then we'll show what's actually happened since"

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/460456-dnc-amassing-huge-2020-research-trove-against-trump-report

DNC amassing huge 2020 research trove against Trump: report

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has reportedly built a trove of opposition research against President Trump in advance of the 2020 election.

Axios reported that the DNC has compiled its haul by sifting through nearly 7,000 lawsuits from all 50 states. The organization has also reportedly compiled a comprehensive document of every time Trump told supporters when campaigning in 2016 that Mexico would pay for a wall along the southern border.


The cache of research is expected to make its way to local reporters, groups and Democrats in battleground states, according to a source who spoke with Axios.

"Let’s say [Trump] goes to Youngstown, Ohio. We have everything he said, what he promised in 2016 to that community — maybe it’s 'that bridge will be fixed' — then we’ll show what’s actually happened since," a source told the news outlet.

Additionally, the DNC reportedly has examples of how American farmers and truckers feel about Trump's tariffs, the ongoing trade dispute with China, and the way the GOP tax law has hurt the trucking industry.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez plans to center the 2020 presidential race around Trump’s “performance as president, not his bigotry or awfulness," according to a source who was present at a meeting of 20 Democratic operatives and strategists where Perez spoke.

https://www.vibe.com/2019/09/uyinene-mrwetyana-funeral



The 19-year-old film and media student was last seen Aug. 30 while heading to a local post office to pick up a package. Days later her remains were found and a 42-year-old post office employee was arrested for her rape and murder.

According to South African outlet News 24, Mrwetyana went to the post office about a parcel and was told to return later because the electricity was out at the time. When she did, the employee who had prior convictions, bludgeoned her with a scale, raped and then killed her. While confessing to the crime he also revealed he burned the teen's body and buried her in a shallow grave.

His trial is set for November.

Mrwetyana's mother gave a heartfelt speech at her daughter's funeral and blamed herself. "I'm sorry. I warned you about so many places but not about the post office," she said

https://www.vibe.com/2019/09/uyinene-mrwetyana-funeral

https://twitter.com/lukewaltham/status/1168583128702705664

https://twitter.com/IAmJoeTrudeau/status/1170427258961461249

JeanieResists! Retweeted
JoeTrudeau
@IAmJoeTrudeau
Looking at jobs and deficits

Reagan: 15M jobs
$79B to $159B

Bush: 2M jobs
$153B to $255B

Clinton: 23M jobs
$255B to $128B surplus

Bush 1.5M jobs
$128B surplus to $1T debt

Obama 12M jobs
1.16T to $585B

Trump 5M jobs
$585B to $1.1T

Vote Democrat
Quote Tweet

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
· Sep 7
Our Economy is doing great!!!!! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1170422093500026880
1:02 PM · Sep 7, 2019·Twitter f

here are two of them:

https://twitter.com/arielmou/status/1170015006731243520

https://twitter.com/VP/status/1170029237044224000

https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/1168916866015932422

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/08/politics/air-force-donald-trump-turnberry/index.html

The Air Force, which said in a statement it was reviewing the trip records, said the stop was "not unusual." But it's another example of Trump's company earning money from taxpayer dollars, which has led some government watchdogs to argue the arrangement breaches ethical norms and potentially violates a clause of the US Constitution.

"As our air crews serve on these international airlift missions, they follow strict guidelines on contracting for hotel accommodations and all expenditures of taxpayer dollars," Air Force Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas said in a statement. "In this case, they made reservations through the Defense Travel System and used the closest available and least expensive accommodations to the airfield within the crews' allowable hotel rates. While we are still reviewing the trip records, we have found nothing that falls outside the guidelines associated with selecting stopover airports on travel routes and hotel accommodations for crew rest."

The Air Force said the crew on the March 13 consisted of seven active duty and National Guard crew members, adding that although they stayed at Turnberry en route to Kuwait, "it doesn't appear" they did so on the trip back to the US.

The Air Force said the Turnberry resort was less expensive than a nearby Marriott and that both were under the per diem rate of $166. The Air Force also said it schedules stopovers based on such factors as leg distance and contract fuel availability.

Crews use a commercial airport -- Prestwick in Glasgow -- when they stop for refueling in Scotland.
The Pentagon and White House have not responded to CNN's request for comment regarding the stopovers in Scotland and the stays at Turnberry. The Trump Organization also did not respond to a request for comment regarding the stays at Turnberry.

https://twitter.com/The_UnSilent_/status/1170308968507412480