monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

This transgender thing doesn't make any sense. What is Trump thinking here? Is this some move to get Conservatives back on his side after the attack he's put on Sessions?

If by "boner pills" Molloy means Viagra or something similar

the $84 million, in the main, is spent on veterans, not active duty personnel.

Is Molloy suggesting our vets don't deserve "boners" and this is a frivolous expense?

Besides, I thought the whole transgender thing was about the personal identity and essence of a individual and not how they get off sexually. The comparison is an indication of how Molloy and the Washington Post views transgenders...in, primarily, sexual (not gender) terms.

The military manual that addresses such things now contains a warning to female members of the military that they need to be cognizant that they may find naked women who look exactly like naked men in their shower rooms and they will just have to accept it. So much for their rights.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said, "The president's decision was the absolute right decision. ... It's about time that a decision is made to restore the warrior culture and allow the U.S. military to get back to business."

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If by "boner pills" Molloy means Viagra or something similar

of course that's what she meant

Geeze, no **** Sherlock?

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the $84 million, in the main, is spent on veterans, not active duty personnel.

That may be so but it is still an expenditure

And so is the money they spend on heart surgery and insulin for diabetics. What's the point? She clearly was sneering at an expenditure for ED drugs. What's the logic here? If it's OK to spend $80 million on silly
boner pills" we should be willing to spend $8 million on silly hormone drugs and sex change operations?

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Is Molloy suggesting our vets don't deserve "boners" and this is a frivolous expense?

Of course not. The obvious point here is that this move is motivated by or is an appeal to bigotry against transgender individuals.

Only obvious to you and your fellow travelers. I take it that's the point she was trying to make but it's only obvious if you guessed where she was going and agreed with her. Whether or not bigotry has anything to do with the decision, the fact that the Pentagon spends any money on "boner pills" doesn't remotely prove it.

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Besides, I thought the whole transgender thing was about the personal identity and essence of a individual and not how they get off sexually. The comparison is an indication of how Molloy and the Washington Post views transgenders...in, primarily, sexual (not gender) terms.

The second sentence is silly.

Really? There were any number of expenditures they could have cited in comparison to the cost of Transgender medical care. It was a coincidence that they chose the spend on "boner pills?" I think not.

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The military manual that addresses such things now contains a warning to female members of the military that they need to be cognizant that they may find naked women who look exactly like naked men in their shower rooms and they will just have to accept it. So much for their rights.

And they might have to shower with negroes too and just accept it. So much for their rights.

Talk about silly. A woman showering with a naked man is nothing like showering with a black woman.

How elegant. Maybe Scaramucci should consider a career in diplomacy or as an advance man for a Mafia enforcer.

How elegant. Maybe Scaramucci should consider a career in diplomacy or as an advance man for a Mafia enforcer.

Obama official made 'hundreds of unmasking requests,'

An Obama official made “hundreds of unmasking requests” during the final year of the previous administration, according to a letter from a top Republican who raised new concerns that officials sought the identities of Trump associates in intelligence reports for “improper purposes.”

“[T]his Committee has learned that one official, whose position has no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration,” he wrote to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Only one request, Nunes wrote, “offered a justification that was not boilerplate and articulated why” the identity was needed for official duties.

Explaining his concerns, Nunes said in the letter that “Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports” without offering any “meaningful explanation” as to why they needed or how they would use the information.

Nunes’ letter appears to make reference to Power as the official who made “hundreds” of requests.

Fox News asked a spokesman for Brennan for comment but there was no immediate response.

Senate Rejects Slimmed Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, seemingly derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle the health care law.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, cast the decisive vote to defeat the proposal, joining two other Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in opposing it.

The 49-to-51 vote was a huge setback for the majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has spent the last three months trying to devise a repeal bill that could win support from members of his caucus.

The truncated Republican plan was far less than what Republicans once envisioned. Republican leaders, unable to overcome complaints from both moderate and conservative members of their caucus, said the skeletal plan was just a vehicle to permit negotiations with the House, which passed a much more ambitious repeal bill in early May.

The so-called “skinny” repeal bill, as it became known at the Capitol this week, would still have broad effects on health care. The bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 15 million next year compared with current law, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Premiums for people buying insurance on their own would increase by roughly 20 percent, the budget office said.

[...]

Donald Trump apparently subscribes to the Bill Lumbergh school of management.
In the film Office Space, Lumbergh was the obnoxious boss who, rather than fire a troublesome employee, made life increasingly uncomfortable for him in the hopes that he would quit on his own.
Lumbergh took away his precious stapler and moved his desk across the office, then down to a dark storage room. He eventually stopped paying him, without ever telling him he was terminated.
Jeff Sessions, Mr Trump's attorney general, is travelling down a similar path.
Inside the White House and across the executive branch, a chilling thought is spreading.
Mr Sessions stuck his neck out to endorse Mr Trump's candidacy before anyone else of national significance. He served as a close adviser during the campaign and a fierce advocate, taking to the airwaves and appearing in spin rooms to defend Mr Trump through all the various controversies and conflagrations.
If the Alabaman could end up on the president's chopping block, is anyone safe?
Already there is talk that chief of staff Reince Priebus is on thin ice. Press Secretary Sean Spicer is already out, as is one of his deputies. Several former Sessions aides have prominent positions within the Trump White House. Over at the State Department, Secretary Rex Tillerson has taken a "few days off", according to a press spokesperson, amid reports that he is growing increasingly frustrated in his job.
It's an exceeding unusual position for an administration to find itself in, just six months into its four-year term.
Mr Sessions served as a senator from Alabama for 20 years prior to taking the job to head Mr Trump's Justice Department, and he still has many friends in the chamber. As the president has ramped up his criticism of the attorney general, many in Congress - on both sides of the aisle - have voiced their disapproval.
More than that, Democrats have publicly and Republicans have quietly let it be known that if Mr Trump were to fire Mr Sessions, it would be extremely difficult for the Senate to confirm whomever the president chooses as a successor. That would leave Mr Rosenstein, who appointed independent counsel Mueller, in charge of the Justice Department. That's probably not an optimal outcome in the president's mind.
Getting crosswise with Senate Republicans at this point may not be the best strategy for the president, as his healthcare reforms hang by a thread in that chamber and other items - like tax reform and federal budgeting - lurk on the horizon.
Time and time again Republicans in Congress have groused about presidential "distractions" that get in the way of their efforts to advance their legislative agenda. Unceremoniously kicking one of their own to the curb would certainly qualify.

He's used these tactics time and time again in business, and doesn't seem capable of understanding the difference now he's 'leader of the free world.'

One adjective that never comes to mind when describing Trump is statesmanlike.