A Monday Morning Trump Dump

Last week was not a good week for Donald Trump. Given how many shoes seem to be droppable in his many and varied scandals, I suspect we'll be saying that for most weeks to come. Here's some stuff…

  • Nate Silver attempts to answer the unanswerable question as to how much Russian meddling had to do with Trump winning the presidency. He doesn't really know and I doubt anyone ever will.
  • A year ago, correspondents for Slate made a lot of predictions about Trump's first year and now it's time to score how they did. Not bad, guys…
  • Obama's chief economist Jason Furman thinks Trump's forecasts for the American economy are absurd. One wonders if anyone's chief economist (including Trump's) really believes them.
  • Trump's National Security Adviser Says Proof of Russian Election Meddling Is "Incontrovertible." Trump apparently says that's Fake News and we shouldn't listen to his National Security Adviser. Is it? If so, why is this person his National Security Adviser?
  • Since it's Presidents Day, the New York Times asked scholars to rank our presidents, best to worst. Trump did not do well even among Republican scholars. I always regard any of these rankings as click bait and not much more but if you're baited to click, here's the link.
  • Thomas Friedman dives into the theory that Trump is either being blackmailed by Russia, could be blackmailed by Russia or is really, really foolish with regard to Russia. I'm not sure which one I'd fear most.
  • Must Trump testify in Robert Mueller's investigations? Joe Conason thinks he does and Conason's probably right. Which doesn't mean he will.

John Oliver had a strong season-opener last night, focusing on the hard-to-argue premise that Trump is becoming the most mocked and ridiculed person on this planet. If you didn't see it, the show reruns many times this week. I suspect once a week at Comedy Central, they have a little ritual where everyone responsible for letting Oliver get away gathers in a room and they just kick each other for forty-five minutes.