The shitshow must go on

There is a new blog post, “Our last chance.”


Updates

  1. Originally published, July 24, 3:19 pm.
  2. July 24, 10:55 pm:
    • In the space of Donald Trump paying off porn stars to cover up his adultery with them, I thought the Stormy Daniels saga was sufficient. It appears I may have been wrong about that.[1]
  3. July 25, 8:22 am:
    • Added tweets from Adam Schiff and Michael Avenatti under Donald Trump. Schiff distills this story nicely while Avenatti is saying things no one else is saying—and I just don’t know what to make of the latter. I’ve also further developed the commentary (which now covers two angles of the Trump story).
    • Here’s another study showing that Uber and Lyft are making traffic worse.[2] This is consistent with previous reporting.[3] (Ridesharing)
  4. July 25, 1:10 pm:
    • Timothy O’Brien, the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, spots the name of Allen Weisselberg in the recording of Michael Cohen and Donald Trump. He apparently participated in the scheme to suppress the story of the Playboy Playmate’s affair with Trump but would know much, much more about Trump’s nefarious dealings than Cohen.[4]
    • I am not caught up.
  5. July 25, 2:21 pm:
    • I am now caught up.
  6. July 25, 8:30 pm:
    • After the Senate Foreign Relations Committee grilled Mike Pompeo about Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, there remain many unanswered questions about what was agreed, with Pompeo insisting that the meeting was private.[5]
  7. July 26, 4:51 pm (corrected):
    • I’m deeply skeptical how significant this is, and Stephen Collinson more than admits there are good reasons to be so skeptical, but he thinks it’s worth noting that Donald Trump actually backed down on a couple things on July 25.[6] This would be significant if reality is somehow finally catching up with our delusional raging narcissist-in-chief. Just don’t hold your breath. Really don’t hold your breath.
    • House Republican leadership has no plan to bring an impeachment bill against Rod Rosenstein up for a vote[7] and has apparently persuaded Mark Meadows, who initiated the effort, to at least make it look like this is about subpoenaed documents,[8] rather than about getting a replacement in who would terminate Robert Mueller’s investigation. (James Comey)
    • Oh, this should be good. Speaking of Robert Mueller’s investigation, it appears Mueller is looking over Donald Trump’s tweets as part of his obstruction of justice investigation. Supposedly, “Trump’s lawyers told the Times that none of what was under review amounted to obstruction of justice, although the report said privately some of those lawyers had expressed concern about what Mueller would be able to argue when taking many efforts and messages together.”[9] And, formally or otherwise, if you don’t believe Trump is a ‘target’ of Mueller’s investigation, I still have that big beautiful bridge to sell you. (James Comey)
    • Whether or not Timothy O’Brien is right to think the surfacing of Allen Weisselberg is significant[10] remains to be seen. But Weisselberg has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury.[11] (Donald Trump)
    • I am not caught up.
  8. July 26, 7:00 pm:
    • It would seem that trade and the Putin invitation aren’t the only things Donald Trump caved on under pressure from congressional Republicans.[12] Add funding for the border wall, which would now be brought up after the midterm elections.[13] (Donald Trump)
    • Hundreds of children still have not been reunited with their parents despite a court-ordered deadline. In over 400 cases, the parents have been deported.[14] (Unauthorized migration)
    • I am now caught up.
  9. July 27, 7:16 am:
    • I’m mostly picking this up because it’s getting picked up widely. Michael Cohen now, apparently, claims that Donald Trump had advance knowledge of a meeting with Russians to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. What you make of this story depends largely on your pre-existing proclivities because the only new “evidence” here is Cohen’s claim and Cohen doesn’t seem particularly credible. But folks who are convinced Trump knew are jumping on this as (more?) proof of what they’ve known all along and folks who claim Trump didn’t know are impugning Cohen’s credibility.[15] Intellectually, this is garbage. Way, way too much is being made of this and I’m not buying any of it, not on this “evidence” anyway. (Golden Showers)
    • Here’s another one with low merit. See my comment on Joe Scarborough’s column under Donald Trump.
  10. July 27, 9:03 pm:
    • A judge has struck down as unconstitutional a law that Jeff Sessions relied on in suing local governments over ‘sanctuary city’ policies.[16] (Unauthorized migration)
  11. July 27, 11:11 pm:
    • There is no excuse for this. I screwed up. I should have picked up this story with the previous update: A judge is ordering an independent audit of conditions children who have been separated from their parents are being kept in.[17] (Unauthorized migration)
  12. July 28, 11:03 pm:
    • Federal government databases were never designed to facilitate the reunification of children with their parents after they were separated by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.[18] (Unauthorized migration)
  13. July 31, 12:35 am:
    • I meant to update this in the wee hours yesterday, July 30. But apparently the update never got published. Further, it appears there may have been an editing error with the last update, on July 28, at 11:03 pm, that may have obliterated text. It is all fixed or incorporated here.
    • Donald Trump is climbing back up on his hill to die for, threatening a government shutdown if he doesn’t get the money he wants for his border wall[19] and repeating this threat with, if anything, even more emphasis the following day.[20] This undoes one relatively small (it’d be huge for other folks not so far away) move toward sanity. He’d also climbed back up on Russia.[21] And as for trade and ally-bashing, he’d really just subdued his rhetoric, at least for the moment. So I think we’re safe in saying that Donald Trump remains secure in his delusion(s). (Unauthorized migration)
    • So, if Rudy Giuliani claims collusion is not a crime, does that mean he’s admitting that Donald Trump colluded with Russia?[22] (James Comey)
  14. July 31, 10:33 am:
    • It really is a shitshow. Chris Cillizza explains that largely because “Robert Mueller, who is running the investigation, doesn’t seem to believe a sitting President can be indicted,” “ultimately, this isn’t a legal fight, it’s a public relations one.” Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani understand this, Cillizza argues, and are acting accordingly. What’s worse is that Republicans are highly likely to continue to support them.[23] (James Comey)
    • “U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a ‘risk of harm’ to themselves or others.”[24] (Unauthorized migration)
  15. July 31, 11:21 am:
    • Michael Avenatti has reacted to Chris Cillizza’s analysis (see the update of July 31, 10:33 am) in a tweet, reproduced under James Comey.
  16. July 31, 1:25 pm:
    • I don’t know if Mark Perry is making too much of what happened at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City.[25] But this does seem like the sort of thing that could fracture Donald Trump’s authoritarian populist base.

Trade

Burgess Everett, “‘Like a Soviet-type economy’: GOP free traders unload on Trump,” Politico, July 24, 2018, https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/07/24/trump-farmers-bailout-reaction-republicans-congress-737517


Donald Trump

Read Paul Waldman’s article if you’re looking for writing that drips contempt for Donald Trump with every word. Read it even if you aren’t because this is how anybody who knows anything about anything feels when Trump treads on their area of expertise. It’s how I feel when I see Trump on unauthorized migration. It’s how pro-trade Republicans feel about Trump’s tariffs, and worse, his plan to bail out adversely affected farmers.[26] It shows up again and again and again; one can’t even wrap one’s mind all the ways that Trump is not merely incompetent but adamantly delusional.

As to the recording of Trump and Michael Cohen,[27]

Meanwhile, Michael Avenatti says of Michael Cohen,

Here, apparently, is what Avenatti wants:

The whole angle of Michael Cohen is bizarre in ways that certainly reflect poorly on Trump but are also simply bizarre in their own way. Jonathan Turley argues that Cohen repeatedly put his client (Trump) in the worst possible legal position.[28] This seems to be part of another thread that keeps coming up here where Trump often, if not reliably, hires terrible lawyers. This seems completely over the top to me even for a delusional raging narcissist, let alone delusional raging narcissist-in-chief. And umm, meanwhile, be sure to read Stephanie McCrummen’s article on a pastor wrestling with how to address the commandment against adultery for a flock that strongly supports Trump.[29]

I’ve backtracked on this now,[30] but the original reason I thought that Trump would somehow be gone by August was a life lesson I took from the dot-com crash: If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, and it cannot last. Trump is certainly putting that to the test and, to be honest, I’m amazed that, so far at least, that lesson seems inapplicable. I’m still left really wondering how this can be.

On that note, Joe Scarborough first builds up his own credibility by impugning the credibility of 1) those who thought Barry Goldwater’s defeat meant the end of conservatism, 2) those who thought the 21st century would be a conservative epoch, and 3) those who failed to predict Trump’s victory in 2016. That’s actually a non sequitur, but let’s move on. His next move is to pull some “laws” of politics out of his ass and to declare that Trump is finally feeling the effects of gravity. It’s certainly true that Trump has been skating by scandals that would have taken down any other politician for a while, but this looks . . . I’m tempted to call it post hoc but it hasn’t actually materialized yet. Yes, Trump has had to back down on three things,[31] but what’s really needed here is something that satisfactorily explains how Trump gets to remain president despite breathtaking corruption.

They called Ronald Reagan the “teflon president” but where you might—I certainly did—disagree with Reagan’s morality, at least you could discern that it existed. With Trump, there isn’t even the pretense of morality and, largely because social conservatives think they are already losing the culture war to Satan, many—I need to emphasize here, not all—social conservatives refuse to even blink as they continue to support a man who would, if Satan exists, be Satan’s president.[32] And morality is far from Trump’s only liability—I’ve been calling him a delusional raging narcissist, in part based on a psychological description of narcissistic rage,[33] for a while now. By any non-authoritarian populist standard, the man is almost certainly a criminal and is certainly a self-absorbed and arrogant idiot. But mainstream Democrats refuse to breathe the word impeachment and even those elected Republicans who don’t fully embrace the shitshow live in terror of his base, a base that demonstrates a determination to support him come hell (which arguably has already arrived) or high water (rising sea levels).

Stephanie McCrummen, “Judgment days,” Washington Post, July 21, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/21/feature/god-trump-and-the-meaning-of-morality/

Chris Cuomo, Kara Scannell, and Eli Watkins, “CNN obtains secret Trump-Cohen tape,” CNN, July 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-tape/index.html

Jonathan Turley, “Michael Cohen’s Trump tape problem,” Hill, July 24, 2018, http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/398520-michael-cohens-trump-tape-problem

Paul Waldman, “Is this the administration’s dumbest idea yet?” Washington Post, July 24, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/07/24/is-this-the-administrations-dumbest-and-most-trumpian-idea-yet/

Burgess Everett, “McConnell, Ryan pitch Trump on plan to avoid shutdown,” Politico, July 25, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/25/mcconnell-ryan-trump-shutdown-741266

Timothy L. O’Brien, “New Cohen Tape Surfaces a Bigger Trump Fish,” Bloomberg, July 25, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-25/new-cohen-recording-surfaces-a-bigger-catch

Stephen Collinson, “Why Trump blinked,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-putin/index.html

Rebecca Davis O’Brien et al., “Trump Organization Finance Chief Called to Testify Before Federal Grand Jury,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-organization-finance-chief-called-to-testify-before-federal-grand-jury-1532622947

Evan Osnos, “The G.O.P. Stands By as Trump Upends American Security,” New Yorker, July 30, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/30/the-gop-stands-by-as-trump-upends-american-security

Mark Perry, “Veterans Hit a Breaking Point With Trump,” American Conservative, July 31, 2018, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/veterans-hit-a-breaking-point-with-trump/


Golden Showers

We still don’t know much about what the fuck Donald Trump agreed to with Vladimir Putin.[34] During a grilling by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

[Mike] Pompeo said there’s an agreement to establish business-to-business exchanges between Russia and the United States that had existed in the past but had faded in recent years.

He said there was also talk about “re-establishing a counterterrorism counsel that was held at the level of the deputy secretary of many years” but eventually stopped functioning.

The leaders also agreed to see what can be done in Syria to resettle million of displaced refugees who have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and other countries, according to Pompeo. He said they decided that should be done “through the political process in Geneva.”[35]

But nothing about sanctions or any other “important verbal agreements” that Russians allege to have been made. Senators also complained about Trump’s decreasing transparency on conversations he holds with foreign leaders.[36]

I am reminded of the ascent of capitalists who insisted on breaching a wall of secrecy that royalty maintained around their foreign policies, insisting that ordinary people were not competent to comprehend what transpired. The kings did not win that conflict,[37] and I am skeptical that Trump can long prevail here.

Adam Davidson, “A Theory of Trump Kompromat,” New Yorker, July 19, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news-desk/swamp-chronicles/a-theory-of-trump-kompromat

Alexander Bolton, “GOP to White House: End summit mystery,” Hill, July 21, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398131-gop-to-white-house-end-summit-mystery

Eugene Scott, “Trump has now walked back his walk-back on U.S. intelligence and Russia,” Washington Post, July 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/23/trump-has-now-walked-back-his-walk-back-on-u-s-intelligence-and-russia/

Alexander Bolton, “Pompeo spars with senators at testy hearing,” Hill, July 25, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398916-pompeo-spars-with-senators-at-testy-hearing

Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, and Marshall Cohen, “Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting,” CNN, July 27, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html


James Comey

Referring to Chris Cillizza’s analysis,

Philip Ewing, “Rosenstein Impeachment Sputters On Capitol Hill, But Political War Likely Will Rage On,” National Public Radio, July 26, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/07/26/632660199/rosenstein-impeachment-sputters-on-capitol-hill-but-political-war-likely-will-ra

Eli Watkins, “NYT: Mueller looking through Trump’s tweets,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/trump-twitter-mueller/index.html

Aaron Blake, “Rudy Giuliani just obliterated the goal posts on Trump-Russia collusion,” Washington Post, July 30, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/30/rudy-giuliani-obliterates-the-goal-posts-on-trump-russia-collusion/

Chris Cillizza, “The secret Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani know about the Russia probe,” CNN, July 31, 2018, https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/31/politics/donald-trump-rudy-giuliani/index.html


Ridesharing

Faiz Siddiqui, “A new study says services like UberPool are making traffic worse,” Washington Post, July 25, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/07/25/a-new-study-says-services-like-uberpool-are-making-traffic-worse/


Unauthorized migration

Tal Kopan, “Hundreds of separated children not reunited by court-ordered deadline,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/family-separations-deadline/index.html

Andrea Castillo, “Judge demands independent audit of conditions at detention centers for migrant children,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-flores-ruling-20180727-story.html

Tal Kopan, “Judge strikes down law underpinning Sessions’ anti-sanctuary city push,” CNN, July 27, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/trump-sessions-defeat-sanctuary-cities/index.html

Nick Miroff, Amy Goldstein, and Maria Sacchetti, “Nick Miroff, Amy Goldstein and Maria Sacchetti,” Washington Post, July 28, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/deleted-families-what-went-wrong-with-trumps-family-separation-effort/2018/07/28/54bcdcc6-90cb-11e8-8322-b5482bf5e0f5_story.html

Doina Chiacu, “Trump threatens U.S. government shutdown over border wall,” Reuters, July 29, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-threatens-u-s-government-shutdown-over-immigration-idUSKBN1KJ0H7

Rebecca Morin, “Trump: ‘I would have no problem doing a shutdown,’” Politico, July 30, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/30/trump-government-shutdown-2018-749760

Samantha Schmidt, “Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules,” Washington Post, July 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/07/31/trump-administration-must-seek-consent-before-giving-drugs-to-migrant-children-judge-rules/


  1. [1]Chris Cuomo, Kara Scannell, and Eli Watkins, “CNN obtains secret Trump-Cohen tape,” CNN, July 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-tape/index.html; Jonathan Turley, “Michael Cohen’s Trump tape problem,” Hill, July 24, 2018, http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/398520-michael-cohens-trump-tape-problem
  2. [2]Faiz Siddiqui, “A new study says services like UberPool are making traffic worse,” Washington Post, July 25, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/07/25/a-new-study-says-services-like-uberpool-are-making-traffic-worse/
  3. [3]Emily Badger, “Is Uber Helping or Hurting Mass Transit?” New York Times, October 16, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/upshot/is-uber-helping-or-hurting-mass-transit.html; Katie Dowd, “Why is San Francisco traffic so bad? Uber and Lyft are to blame, says city,” SFGate, December 13, 2016, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-traffic-Uber-Lyft-SFMTA-blame-10791265.php; Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, “SFPD: Uber, Lyft account for two-thirds of congestion-related traffic violations downtown,” San Francisco Examiner, September 25, 2017, http://www.sfexaminer.com/sfpd-uber-lyft-account-two-thirds-congestion-related-traffic-violations-downtown/; Heather Somerville, “San Francisco investigating whether Uber, Lyft are public nuisances,” Reuters, June 5, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-san-francisco-rideservices-idUSKBN18W2F3
  4. [4]Timothy L. O’Brien, “New Cohen Tape Surfaces a Bigger Trump Fish,” Bloomberg, July 25, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-25/new-cohen-recording-surfaces-a-bigger-catch
  5. [5]Alexander Bolton, “Pompeo spars with senators at testy hearing,” Hill, July 25, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398916-pompeo-spars-with-senators-at-testy-hearing
  6. [6]Stephen Collinson, “Why Trump blinked,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-putin/index.html
  7. [7]Philip Ewing, “Rosenstein Impeachment Sputters On Capitol Hill, But Political War Likely Will Rage On,” National Public Radio, July 26, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/07/26/632660199/rosenstein-impeachment-sputters-on-capitol-hill-but-political-war-likely-will-ra
  8. [8]Olivia Beavers, “Meadows backs off impeaching Rosenstein after leadership talks,” Hill, July 26, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/399010-meadows-swaps-rosenstein-impeachment-efforts-for-contempt-after
  9. [9]Eli Watkins, “NYT: Mueller looking through Trump’s tweets,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/trump-twitter-mueller/index.html
  10. [10]Timothy L. O’Brien, “New Cohen Tape Surfaces a Bigger Trump Fish,” Bloomberg, July 25, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-25/new-cohen-recording-surfaces-a-bigger-catch
  11. [11]Rebecca Davis O’Brien et al., “Trump Organization Finance Chief Called to Testify Before Federal Grand Jury,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-organization-finance-chief-called-to-testify-before-federal-grand-jury-1532622947
  12. [12]Stephen Collinson, “Why Trump blinked,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-putin/index.html
  13. [13]Burgess Everett, “McConnell, Ryan pitch Trump on plan to avoid shutdown,” Politico, July 25, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/25/mcconnell-ryan-trump-shutdown-741266
  14. [14]Tal Kopan, “Hundreds of separated children not reunited by court-ordered deadline,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/family-separations-deadline/index.html
  15. [15]Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, and Marshall Cohen, “Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting,” CNN, July 27, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html
  16. [16]Tal Kopan, “Judge strikes down law underpinning Sessions’ anti-sanctuary city push,” CNN, July 27, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/trump-sessions-defeat-sanctuary-cities/index.html
  17. [17]Andrea Castillo, “Judge demands independent audit of conditions at detention centers for migrant children,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-flores-ruling-20180727-story.html
  18. [18]Nick Miroff, Amy Goldstein, and Maria Sacchetti, “Nick Miroff, Amy Goldstein and Maria Sacchetti,” Washington Post, July 28, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/deleted-families-what-went-wrong-with-trumps-family-separation-effort/2018/07/28/54bcdcc6-90cb-11e8-8322-b5482bf5e0f5_story.html
  19. [19]Doina Chiacu, “Trump threatens U.S. government shutdown over border wall,” Reuters, July 29, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-threatens-u-s-government-shutdown-over-immigration-idUSKBN1KJ0H7
  20. [20]Rebecca Morin, “Trump: ‘I would have no problem doing a shutdown,’” Politico, July 30, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/30/trump-government-shutdown-2018-749760
  21. [21]Eugene Scott, “Trump has now walked back his walk-back on U.S. intelligence and Russia,” Washington Post, July 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/23/trump-has-now-walked-back-his-walk-back-on-u-s-intelligence-and-russia/
  22. [22]Aaron Blake, “Rudy Giuliani just obliterated the goal posts on Trump-Russia collusion,” Washington Post, July 30, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/30/rudy-giuliani-obliterates-the-goal-posts-on-trump-russia-collusion/
  23. [23]Chris Cillizza, “The secret Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani know about the Russia probe,” CNN, July 31, 2018, https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/31/politics/donald-trump-rudy-giuliani/index.html
  24. [24]Samantha Schmidt, “Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules,” Washington Post, July 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/07/31/trump-administration-must-seek-consent-before-giving-drugs-to-migrant-children-judge-rules/
  25. [25]Mark Perry, “Veterans Hit a Breaking Point With Trump,” American Conservative, July 31, 2018, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/veterans-hit-a-breaking-point-with-trump/
  26. [26]Burgess Everett, “‘Like a Soviet-type economy’: GOP free traders unload on Trump,” Politico, July 24, 2018, https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/07/24/trump-farmers-bailout-reaction-republicans-congress-737517
  27. [27]Chris Cuomo, Kara Scannell, and Eli Watkins, “CNN obtains secret Trump-Cohen tape,” CNN, July 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-tape/index.html; Jonathan Turley, “Michael Cohen’s Trump tape problem,” Hill, July 24, 2018, http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/398520-michael-cohens-trump-tape-problem
  28. [28]Jonathan Turley, “Michael Cohen’s Trump tape problem,” Hill, July 24, 2018, http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/398520-michael-cohens-trump-tape-problem
  29. [29]Stephanie McCrummen, “Judgment days,” Washington Post, July 21, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/21/feature/god-trump-and-the-meaning-of-morality/
  30. [30]David Benfell, “I, Donald,” Not Housebroken, June 6, 2018, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/06/06/i-donald/
  31. [31]Stephen Collinson, “Why Trump blinked,” CNN, July 26, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-putin/index.html; Burgess Everett, “McConnell, Ryan pitch Trump on plan to avoid shutdown,” Politico, July 25, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/25/mcconnell-ryan-trump-shutdown-741266
  32. [32]Bill Berkowitz, “Are Right-Wing Evangelicals True Christians or Just Another White Identity Cult?” Truthout, March 4, 2016, http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/are-evangelicals-true-christians-or-just-another-white-identity-cult; John Fea, “Evangelical Fear Elected Trump,” Atlantic, June 24, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-history-of-evangelical-fear/563558/; David Goldstein, “Evangelicals have qualms with Trump, but see nowhere else to turn,” McClatchy, June 10, 2016, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article82901192.html?rh=1; Bethania Palma Markus, “Christian leader: Trump reveals that progressives were right about evangelicals all along,” Raw Story, March 1, 2016, http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/christian-leader-trump-reveals-that-progressives-were-right-about-evangelicals-all-along/; Stephanie McCrummen, “Judgment days,” Washington Post, July 21, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/21/feature/god-trump-and-the-meaning-of-morality/; Russell Moore, “Why this election makes me hate the word ‘evangelical,’” Washington Post, February 29, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/02/29/russell-moore-why-this-election-makes-me-hate-the-word-evangelical/; Napp Nazworth, “Conservative Evangelical Author Matt Lewis on Trump, Evangelicals and Stupid Republicans (Interview),” Christian Post, January 26, 2016, http://www.christianpost.com/news/conservative-evangelical-author-matt-lewis-donald-trump-evangelicals-stupid-republicans-155688/; Ray Nothstine, “Who Are the Evangelicals Supporting Donald Trump?” Christian Post, August 30, 2015, http://www.christianpost.com/news/who-are-the-evangelicals-supporting-donald-trump-143997/
  33. [33]George Simon, “Understanding and Dealing with Narcissistic Rage,” Counseling Resource, July 24, 2017, http://counsellingresource.com/features/2017/07/24/understanding-narcissistic-rage/
  34. [34]Alexander Bolton, “GOP to White House: End summit mystery,” Hill, July 21, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398131-gop-to-white-house-end-summit-mystery
  35. [35]Alexander Bolton, “Pompeo spars with senators at testy hearing,” Hill, July 25, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398916-pompeo-spars-with-senators-at-testy-hearing
  36. [36]Alexander Bolton, “Pompeo spars with senators at testy hearing,” Hill, July 25, 2018, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/398916-pompeo-spars-with-senators-at-testy-hearing
  37. [37]Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991).