monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Why would two Republican administrations be so concerned with spin and so uninterested in serious political problems?

Comey writes that Obama sat alone with him in the Oval Office

Literally zero Senate Republicans voted against Andrew Wheeler: "If embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt were to leave office, the reins of the agency could fall to a former Senate aide and coal mining lobbyist who was confirmed 53-45 Thursday afternoon to become second-in-command at EPA."

Andrew R. Wheeler is an American lawyer and lobbyist who specializes in energy and environmental policy. Since 2009, he has been a co-leader of the energy practice at the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels. Wheeler was previously an aide to U.S. Senator James Inhofe and a staffer on the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Wheeler is a critic of nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions and has supported the continued use of fossil fuels.[1]

He's also a climate warming denier, of course.

and think the timing of its release does more harm than good.

Revealed: Secret rightwing strategy to discredit teacher strikes
A nationwide network of rightwing thinktanks is launching a PR counteroffensive against the teachers’ strikes that are sweeping the country, circulating a “messaging guide” for anti-union activists that portrays the walkouts as harmful to low-income parents and their children.

The new rightwing strategy to discredit the strikes that have erupted in protest against cuts in education funding and poor teacher pay is contained in a three-page document obtained by the Guardian. Titled “How to talk about teacher strikes”, it provides a “dos and don’ts” manual for how to smear the strikers.

Top of the list of talking points is the claim that “teacher strikes hurt kids and low-income families”. It advises anti-union campaigners to argue that “it’s unfortunate that teachers are protesting low wages by punishing other low-wage parents and their children.”

The “messaging guide” is the brainchild of the State Policy Network (SPN), an alliance of 66 rightwing “ideas factories” that span every state in the nation. SPN uses its $80m war chest – funded by billionaire super-donors such as the Koch brothers and the Walton Family Foundation that flows from the Walmart fortune – to coordinate conservative strategy across the country.

Revealed: Secret rightwing strategy to discredit teacher strikes

President Trump plans to pardon I. Lewis Libby Jr., who as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted of perjury in connection with the leak of a C.I.A. officer’s identity, a person familiar with the decision said on Thursday.

Mr. Libby’s case has long been a cause for conservatives who maintained that he was a victim of a special prosecutor run amok, an argument that may have resonated with the president. Mr. Trump has repeatedly complained that the special counsel investigation into possible cooperation between his campaign and Russia in 2016 has gone too far and amounts to an unfair “witch hunt.”

Before he ran for office, Donald Trump made millions by selling his name to adorn other people’s products. There was Trump deodorant. Trump ties . Trump steaks. Trump underwear. Trump furniture. At one time, there was even a Trump-branded urine test.

Now, almost all of them are gone.

In 2015, Trump listed 19 companies that were paying him to produce or distribute Trump-branded consumer goods.

In recent weeks, only two said they are still selling Trump-branded goods. One is a Panamanian company selling Trump bed linens and home goods. The other is a Turkish company selling Trump furniture.

Of the rest, some Trump partners quit in reaction to campaign-trail rhetoric on immigrants and Muslims. Others said their licensing agreements had expired. Others said nothing beyond confirming that they’d stopped working with Trump. Their last Trump goods are now being sold off, often at a discount.
[...]
The Trump Organization sells its own name-branded merchandise. Last year, it opened an e-commerce site, www.TrumpStore.com, with an inventory of Trump T-shirts, teddy bears and key chains.

But the licensed-merchandise business was something different. It allowed Trump to make money off other people’s work, other people’s products, other people’s marketing.

All Trump had to do was sell something that he could never run out of.

President Trump plans to pardon I. Lewis Libby Jr., who as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted of perjury in connection with the leak of a C.I.A. officer’s identity, a person familiar with the decision said on Thursday.

My computer is out for a while so I wondered if I can manage on my granddaughter's tablet. I can but its way more trouble.

who are loyal to their boss....”

Quote:

who are loyal to their boss....”

Since when is loyalty a criminal offense?

Maybe you could show me where I made that claim?

Quote:

Maybe you could show me where I made that claim?

Maybe you can show me where Trump said that is why Libby was pardoned?