monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

One would have to be a complete fool not see that all right wing efforts lately have been to move the spotlight off the national embarrassment in the oval office.

You claim to be French, which I don't believe. So the machinations and the mechanisms of the Democratic Party should be well beyond your ken.

What was it like, that silence? That blissful, peaceful sound
That fell on Earth like Christmas snow when potus’s tweets could not be found?

It [collusion] is only a crime if there is a statute forbidding it. There is no such statute.

Paul Waldman‏ @paulwaldman1 8h8 hours ago
.@SenWarren makes key point: a year from now, GOPers will use increase in deficit caused by their tax cut as justification to gut safety net

If anyone thinks China is a superior country to the US (or Canada) then they should put a sock in it and move to Shanghai.

A 10-year-old undocumented Mexican migrant with cerebral palsy, detained last month after undergoing surgery in Texas, has been released to her family.
The release of Rosa Maria Hernandez was confirmed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro.
Her detention, which came after border agents stopped the ambulance taking her to hospital, caused an outcry.
Mr Castro said it was still not clear if she faced deportation from the US.
The ACLU had filed a lawsuit earlier this week seeking the child's release.
"Rosa Maria is finally free," said ACLU lawyer Michael Tan in a statement on Friday.
"We're thrilled that she can go home to heal surrounded by her family's love and support."
He added: "Despite our relief, Border Patrol's decision to target a young girl at a children's hospital remains unconscionable. No child should go through this trauma and we are working to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Oh, that Rick Perry.

Our secretary of energy was in South Africa recently, for Africa Oil Week. Whenever the word “oil” is mentioned, Perry responds like a dog on the scent of a hamburger. So no surprise there. We wouldn’t even have noticed he was gone, except for the part where he suggested that fossil fuels would protect women from sexual assault.

“Let me tell you where people are dying is in Africa,” he told an audience after he returned, launching into a story about a young village girl who yearned to be able to read by electric light instead of a smoky fire.

O.K. so far …

“But also from the standpoint of sexual assault,” Perry continued. “When the lights are on, where you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people’s lives, fossil fuel is going to play a role in that.”

Now we all support electrification of rural villages. But where the heck did the sexual assault part come from? The Department of Energy wasn’t really forthcoming. It just issued a statement saying that while Perry was in Africa “he was told how light can be a deterrent to sexual assault and can provide security in remote areas.”

Environmental groups quickly pointed out that there is a hefty sexual assault problem in places that have more electricity than they know what to do with. But let’s be generous. Maybe he was still quoting that village girl. Do you really think she insisted that the light come from fossil fuels? Inquiring minds want to know.

Rick Perry is an absolutely terrible secretary of energy. We all remember that he took the job without realizing that his central responsibility would be overseeing the safe handling of nuclear materials, a topic he knew nothing whatsoever about. Interested bystanders recalled sadly that Barack Obama’s first secretary was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the second a nuclear physicist.

On the other hand, Rick Perry once shot a coyote while jogging.

He claims.

Anyhow, Perry and Donald Trump are of one mind about the Department of Energy’s new mission, which is making our nation “energy dominant.” Once it was all about energy independence, and that’s going pretty well, thanks to solar and wind power and natural gas. Now, the administration’s obsession is to find new ways to market our fossil fuels, including an increasingly large amount of excess oil.

Perry’s the perfect person for the job. This is a man who once explained that the law of supply and demand is: “You put the supply out there and the demand will follow.”...

Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee.

Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message. The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony.

The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign. In multiple interviews with The New York Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with “mostly scholars.”

Bush 41 and Bush 43 Worry Trump Is Blowing Up the G.O.P.

President Trump is not a favorite in the extended Bush household. Former President George Bush considers him a “blowhard,” only interested in feeding his own ego. Former President George W. Bush, his son, thinks Mr. Trump fans public anger and came to office without any understanding of the job.

And speaking of visits to China... anyone else a bit terrified of what Trump might say or do on his visit there?