She tried to insert a watered-down version of feminism into the candidate’s platform, despite the fact that no mainstream feminist-leaning organizations supported him. When her boss was caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, Kellyanne Conway “as a woman”-ed her way out of it. Confronted about Mr. Trump’s chauvinism, she snapped back that women who were in poverty were not served during the Obama years, as though that somehow undid her boss’s history.
.. I simply cannot dredge up any sympathy for a person who has acknowledged the structural problems most women face only when she is personally facing them, or used them as derailing tactics when she’s losing an argument.
Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump
Decision to withhold information underscores deep mistrust between intelligence community and president
U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
The officials’ decision to keep information from Mr. Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team’s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward U.S. spy agencies.
.. In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information
.. Intelligence officials have in the past not told a president or members of Congress about the ins and outs of how they ply their trade. At times, they have decided that secrecy is essential for protecting a source, and that all a president needs to know is what that source revealed and what the intelligence community thinks is important about it.
.. The intelligence agencies have been told to dramatically pare down the president’s daily intelligence briefing, both the number of topics and how much information is described under each topic, an official said.
.. The current and former officials said the decision to avoid revealing sources and methods with Mr. Trump stems in large part from the president’s repeated expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his call, during the presidential campaign for Russia to continue hacking the emails of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
.. lawmakers have called on the government to release the transcripts of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and to disclose whether Mr. Trump was aware of or directed Mr. Flynn’s conversations.
.. he publicly accused the Central Intelligence Agency and others of leaking information about alleged Russian hacking operations to undermine the legitimacy of his election win.
.. Mr. Trump didn’t explain Wednesday why he asked for Mr. Flynn’s resignation. Instead, he suggested the leaks and the media were to blame for his ouster.
“General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.
.. Mr. Trump said the “illegally leaked” information was from people with political motivations. “People are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton,”
.. Mr. Trump also felt Mr. Flynn did nothing wrong in his conversations with the U.S. ambassador to Russia and had good intentions.
.. “This is not about who won the election. This is about concerns about institutional integrity,” said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior intelligence official.
‘If something happens’: Trump points his finger in case of a terrorist attack
President Trump appears to be laying the groundwork to preemptively shift blame for any future terrorist attack on U.S. soil from his administration to the federal judiciary, as well as to the media.
.. “If something happens blame him and the court system. People pouring in. Bad!” Trump wrote in a tweet Sunday.
.. Then on Monday, Trump seemed to spread that blame to include news organizations. In a speech to the U.S. Central Command, the president accused the media of failing to report on some terrorist attacks for what he implied were nefarious reasons.
“ISIS is on a campaign of genocide, committing atrocities across the world,”
.. Trump did not offer a single example of an attack that had gone unreported to support his accusation.
.. Trump’s terrorism blame-game is in keeping with how he ran his campaign, looking for scapegoats at nearly every turn. He often blamed his own failings — a poor debate performance or a gaffe or a primary loss — on the media or other perceived enemies, and he fed his own conspiracies that his adversaries were out to undermine him.
.. “Trump acts instinctively rather than strategically,” said David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic and a White House speechwriter under President George W. Bush who is sharply critical of Trump. “His instinct to pass blame is very strong. . . . I don’t know whether people will succumb to this.”
Trump’s approach is not without risk. He could come across to many Americans as thin-skinned if he skirts the responsibilities of being commander in chief and looks to assign blame to outside forces.
.. In his commentary, Trump has ignored the screening measures and other counterterrorism precautions that have long been in place by U.S. customs and border officials.
..Asked whether the White House had evidence of Islamic militants “pouring in” to the country, a phrase Trump used in at least two tweets, Spicer said only: “I’m not going to get into specific information that the president has.”
Stephen Colbert weighs in on Trump’s election, offers advice
Colbert explained that a joke is derived from what someone says and how they behave, and he said the closer someone is to the way they behave, it’s less fun to write jokes about them.
“Donald Trump speaks one way and behaves in another, you know? It’s not– not even 180 degrees. There’s some odd, oblique angle going on with him,” Colbert said, adding that there are endless possibilities for jokes about Mr. Trump. “The balls come over the plate with him like shotgun pellets. It’s not like one pitch at a time. Like, you look at something that’s happening, like, well, which one of those balls are we gonna swing at? What he’s talking about or how he’s saying it? Or who he’s saying it to? And what time? And over Twitter?”
.. He later elaborated further and advised Mr. Trump to read the plaque, “The buck stops here” and realize that he must take full responsibility now.
.. “He’s famous for blaming other people for something going wrong,” Colbert said. “That’s over. The buck stops at that desk. And I hope he’s read it because the first time he blames something else for somebody– the first time he blames somebody else for something that he did, I think even people who like him will lose faith because– however you feel about the president, you’ve got to take the punch.”