Douchebaggery

Politico reports: President Trump on Monday shared an op-ed from a writer claiming to be an anonymous senior member of his administration who harshly criticizes federal workers as disloyal to the White House and worthy of losing their jobs. The writer of the op-ed, headlined “I’m a Senior Trump Official and I Hope a Long Shutdown Smokes out the Resistance,” …

The Hill reports: White House chief economic adviser Kevin Hassett said furloughed workers are “better off” because they didn’t have to use vacation days over the holidays due to the government shutdown. Hassett told PBS during an appearance on “NewsHour” that the timing of the shutdown coming during the holidays allowed furloughed workers to avoid having to use vacation days. …

The Week reports: A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday night that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, must be “invalidated in whole” because its individual mandate provision is unconstitutional. District Judge Reed O’Connor argued the mandate is “essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA,” and that it cannot “be fairly read as an …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: In an exchange with high school students that was caught on tape, a Republican congressman from New Jersey was tongue-tied over the prospect of same-sex couples adopting children and suggested kids would be better off in orphanages than with LGBT families. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) made the remarks May 29 when addressing student …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Friday said he “fell asleep” watching Barack Obama tear into him during a rare public speech that framed Trump as a threat to democracy. “I’m sorry I watched it, but I fell asleep,” Trump said, during his own speech in North Dakota. Trump added that he was not amused by Obama‘s taking credit for …

The Daily Beast reports: The flag at the White House was raised back to full-staff Monday morning, just hours after it had been briefly lowered to recognize the death of John McCain. The move breaks with a tradition that has normally seen sitting senators who die in office have flags lowered until burial — as well as the extraordinarily public …

Arizona Central reports: Kelli Ward suggested Saturday that the statement issued Friday by U.S. Sen. John McCain’s family about ending treatment for brain cancer was intended to hurt her U.S. Senate campaign. McCain died Saturday hours after her remarks. Ward, a conservative former state senator from Lake Havasu City, is in a three-way race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination …

The Washington Post reports: It got off to a bad start, and President Trump’s venomous relationship with Sen. John McCain probably won’t end well either. The president was reportedly disinvited to McCain’s funeral months ago, after McCain’s battle with brain cancer took a turn for the worse, and now the veteran Arizona Republican senator has decided to discontinue medical treatment. …

Axios reports: Authorities in Iowa on Tuesday filed charges against an undocumented immigrant in connection with a recovered body believed to be that of 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared from her home a month ago. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich emailed Axios’ Mike Allen to make sure that we’d be covering this story, which Fox News led …

Last month homocon Chadwick Moore was supposedly banned by Grindr for posting an anti-trans message in his profile, sending Moore to Twitter where he whined to the FBI, who are surely interested in helping him get dick. Last night Moore took his butthurt to Fox News to attack Vermont gubernatorial nominee Christine Hallquist. Media Matters has the transcript: CHADWICK MOORE: …

Politico reports: Several times in the first year of his administration, President Donald Trump wanted to call Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the middle of the afternoon. But there was a problem. Midafternoon in Washington is the middle of the night in Tokyo — when Abe would be fast asleep. Trump’s aides had to explain the issue, which one …

Axios reports: Like an NFL coach reviewing game film, Trump likes to watch replays of his debate and rally performances. But instead of looking for weaknesses in technique or for places to improve, Trump luxuriates in the moments he believes are evidence of his brilliance. Trump commentates as he watches, according to sources who’ve sat with him and viewed replays …

Glorious Leader was watching “fake news” CNN at midnight: President Trump targeted LeBron James on Friday night in a tweet that takes a swipe at the NBA player and calls CNN host Don Lemon “the dumbest man on television.” In the CNN interview, James criticized Trump for using sports to “kind of trying to divide us.” CNN noted that although …

CNN reports: Ivanka Trump said Thursday she does not believe the press is the enemy of the American people, putting her at odds with a view repeatedly expressed by her father, President Donald Trump, and his White House, which declined to take a stand on the issue hours later. Asked at an Axios event at the Newseum in Washington if …

“I’ve been hearing the left talking about these things — fascism, Nazism on the right — and when you look at the actual history and how these things evolved, and you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say ‘Wait a minute, those two are very heavily aligned.’ You see the Nazi platform from …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump on Tuesday night used his Twitter account to promote a video of his supporters at a Florida campaign rally chanting “CNN sucks!” The action was Trump’s latest display of animus toward the network, which he has repeatedly called “fake news” and refused to field questions from its reporters at news conferences. Eric Trump, one …

Junior is reacting to a New York Post opinion column: Hillary Clinton is up to something. Five times in the last month alone, she sent e-mails touting her super PAC’s role in combating President Trump. Most seized on headline events, such as the family-separation issue at the southern border. And the day after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his …

“Rape used to have a narrow definition. Rape used to have a definition where it was — it was brutality, it was forced sexual attack and penetration. Now it’s become, really, any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had. And so now the left has made it so that women who are, maybe are — I don’t …

The Week reports: President Trump responded on Twitter Sunday to comments from LaVar Ball, the father of a UCLA basketball player, which downplayed the president’s role in getting his son, LiAngelo Ball, and two other student athletes, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, released from shoplifting charges in China. “Who?” the elder Ball said to ESPN Friday when asked about Trump’s …

The New York Daily News reports: An unrepentant Pharmo Bro taunted prosecutors and predicted his odds of dodging prison time were pretty good after his Friday conviction for securities fraud and conspiracy. “I’m one of the richest New Yorkers there is, and after today’s outcome it’s going to stay that way,” the cocky Martin Shkreli declared via livestream video from …