‘Winter is coming’: Allies fear Trump isn’t prepared for gathering legal storm



..Trump announced Wednesday that

  2. Greg Katsas,
  3. Uttam Dhillon and
  4. Makan Delrahim — have departed, and a fourth,
  5. Stefan Passantino, will have his last day Friday.






  1. such as the travel ban affecting majority-Muslim countries and
  2. “zero tolerance” family separation, as well as on possible
  3. ethical misconduct throughout the administration or the Trump family’s private businesses.












It may have just confirmed a key New York Times scoop. 

Well, if the newly released Nunes memo is correct, House Republicans and the Trump administration just confirmed the Times’scoop. In the process, they blew up their core argument against the investigation. The investigation isn’t the fruit of the poisonous dossier (though the dossier did play a role); it existed before the dossier

.. From the beginning of the Russia investigation, it has always been the case that two things could be true at once: FBI agents could have engaged in misconduct (including misconduct motivated by political bias) and the Russia investigation could be legitimate, necessary, and based on information obtained not through Democratic opposition research but through legitimate intelligence-gathering methods.


  1. FBI agents could have engaged in misconduct (including misconduct motivated by political bias) and

Harvey Weinstein Is Fired After Sexual Harassment Reports

“In light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days, the directors of the Weinstein Company — Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar — have determined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with the Weinstein Company is terminated, effective immediately,”

.. In an interview, Mr. Maerov said it had been brought to the board’s attention on Sunday that Mr. Weinstein had violated the company’s code of conduct in the past week. But he would not specify what the violation was.

.. “I see this as a tipping point,” said Jenni Konner, who co-produced, wrote and directed the HBO series “Girls.” “This is the moment we look back on and say, ‘That’s when it all started to change.’”


Why Trump’s Vengeful Tweeting Matters

He’s crass, vicious, and petty.

.. It’s a sad symbol of our times that one feels compelled to actually make an argument why the president is wrong here. The pitiful reality is that there are people who feel like the man who sits in the seat once occupied by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan should use his bully pulpit for schoolyard insults and vicious personal attacks. But this is what we’re reduced to. So, here goes. –

.. First, it is simply and clearly morally wrong to attack another person like this. I’m tired of hearing people say things like, “This is not normal.” Normality isn’t the concern here. Morality is. It doesn’t matter if Mika has been “mean” to Trump. Nor does it matter that we can point to any number of angry personal attacks on Trump from others. We have to get past the idea that another person’s bad acts somehow justify “our” side’s misconduct. Morality is not so situational. Trump is under a moral obligation to treat others the way he’d like to be treated, to love his neighbor as he would love himself. Yes, he can engage in ideological and political battles, but to attack another person in such vicious terms is to cross a bright line.

.. Second, it’s not classist or elitist to make this moral argument. It’s no justification to argue that Trump simply speaks the way “real Americans” do, or that he’s brought into public the language that “everyone knows” people use behind closed doors. People of every social class and economic standing have the same moral responsibilities, and our society suffers when we relax those responsibilities, whether for a steelworker in a mill outside Pittsburgh or the real-estate developer in the Oval Office.

.. Third, even if your ethics are entirely situational and tribal, Trump’s tweets are still destructive. Attacking Mika like this doesn’t silence her or anyone at MSNBC. It doesn’t move the ball downfield on repealing Obamacare. It does, however, make more people dislike Donald Trump. It’s a misuse and abuse of the bully pulpit, all the more galling because it comes at a time when the positive parts of his agenda truly do need public champions.

.. Fourth, please stop with the ridiculous lie that this is the only way to beat the Left. Stop with any argument that this kind of pettiness is somehow preferable to the alleged weakness of other Republicans. There are thousands of GOP office-holders who’ve won their races (including by margins that dwarf Trump’s, even in the toughest districts and states) without resorting to Trump-like behavior. In fact, at the state level many of these same honorable and moral people are currently busy enacting reforms that the national GOP can only dream about.

.. The election is over. Trump isn’t running against Hillary Clinton anymore. Americans are no longer faced with the awful choice of either pulling the lever for an unfit candidate or voting for someone who has no chance of winning. If there were ever a time for Republicans to show some backbone, to tell their president that some conduct is out of bounds, it’s now, early in his first term, when he has time to turn the page and put his past misconduct in the rear-view mirror.

.. while also condemning Trump’s vile tweets and criticizing his impulsiveness and lack of discipline. A good conservative can even step back and take a longer view, resolving to fight for the cultural values that tribalism degrades. Presidents matter not just because of their policies but also because of their impact on the character of the people they govern. Conservatives knew that once. Do they still?