Edward Isaac-Dovere/Atlantic:
Bernie Sanders Just Hired His Twitter Attack Dog
David Sirota had been working unofficially for Sanders while savaging the other Democratic candidates on Twitter
Sirota’s hiring as a senior adviser and speechwriter was announced by the Sanders campaign on Tuesday morning after The Atlantic contacted the campaign and inquired about the undisclosed role Sirota held while attacking other Democrats.
...
When people have questioned his tactics, Sirota has called them “mentally incapacitated.” Responding in mid-January to those who criticized him online for preemptively railing against the record of O’Rourke, who had not yet entered the race but had been a huge source of concern for Sanders allies since talk of O’Rourke’s potential presidential run picked up last year, Sirota tweeted, “The screaming temper tantrums by Democratic Party operatives whenever reporters scrutinize a lawmaker’s voting record is something to behold. These people quite literally hate democracy.”
At another point, he said his critics “are deranged and/or running a deliberate disinfo campaign.” “Positively unhinged,” he wrote about them a separate time.
Lest you think the above is a hit piece on Bernie, it’s not. It’s questioning Sirota’s honesty (read the piece). And it’s the talk of twitter. Well, other than Devin Nunes’ cow and George Conway.
Matt Ford /TNR:
Devin Nunes’s Ridiculous Lawsuit Is a Masterpiece of Republican Grievance
Several Twitter users mocked the congressman, and he won't stand for it.
What horrible things did these accounts say about Nunes to warrant the judiciary’s intervention? The account named “Devin Nunes’ Mom” receives the most attention in the complaint. Its owner frequently posted caustic remarks about him and his actions toward the Russia investigation. One tweet said that Nunes was unfit to run the House Intelligence Committee, while another joked that he was “voted ‘Most Likely to Commit Treason’ in high school.” Some tweets are indistinguishable from legitimate political criticism. Others are more puerile, implying that Nunes wanted to commit sexual acts with Trump and other top Republicans.
Aaron Blake/WaPo:
The ridiculousness of Devin Nunes suing ‘Devin Nunes’ cow’ — and what it really signals
So feel free to chuckle about the spectacle of Devin Nunes suing “Devin Nunes’ cow” — especially given Nunes’s past opposition to “frivolous lawsuits” — but know that this most likely isn’t about his purported cow or what it said. Nunes is telegraphing an expansive effort to go after people who hurt Republicans with their public discourse. Its potential impact, not so much legally as from personal behavioral standpoint, shouldn’t be so casually dismissed.
WaPo:
‘A total loser!’: Trump lashes out at George Conway, who has been questioning his mental health
Conway also suggested his own tweets questioning the president’s mental health were aimed in part at avoiding conflicts with his wife.
“It’s so maddening to watch,” said Conway, a longtime Washington attorney who is well-known in conservative circles. “The mendacity, the incompetence, it’s just maddening to watch. The tweeting is just the way to get it out of the way, so I can get it off my chest and move on with my life that day. That’s basically it. Frankly, it’s so I don’t end up screaming at her about it.”
Conway has been a persistent critic of Trump’s policies and actions, frequently going on Twitter to question whether the president is operating within the Constitution and other accepted boundaries. But the criticism recently has become more personal, and he has often attacked Trump just after his wife defends the president on television.
David Mastio and Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
Trump's tweets read like your crazy uncle in the attic, but we'll only worry if he shuts up
Jill: I agree with you, Trump is not getting worse. That’s the problem. He’s been this bad forever, since long before his campaign.
It is simply hard to become accustomed to a president who, after tweeting his support for New Zealand in the wake of the mosque shootings, airs his grievances about Judge Jeanine — who was recently suspended from Fox News after she suggested a Muslim congresswoman might not support the U.S. Constitution.
For every bit of appropriate presidential boilerplate, there are multiple Trump-era outrages that go by virtually unnoticed at this point. Just in the last couple of days, lobs at not only the “Fake News Media” but the “Corrupt Media” (“the absolute Enemy of the People and our Country itself!”), a false claim of Democrats "trying to steal a presidential election,” references to “low-IQ” Joe Biden and “total loser” “Mr. Kellyanne Conway” (that would be the White House counselor’s husband, George, who has been warning about Trump’s mental state).
Ariel Edwards-Levy/HuffPost:
Fewer Than 20 Percent Of Americans Say Trump Opposes White Nationalism
Most of the president’s supporters said white Americans face a lot of discrimination.
Just 19 percent of Americans say they believe that President Donald Trump personally opposes white nationalism, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey found. Thirty-nine percent said he supports white nationalism, while 20 percent said he doesn’t have a strong opinion on the movement either way. The rest said they weren’t sure.
The poll was taken after last week’s mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques. The alleged gunman, an Australian white supremacist, mentioned the president by name as part of a rambling manifesto. Trump denounced the shooting as a “horrible act” but did not directly express condolences to the Muslim community in New Zealand or in the U.S. Trump also said he did not see a rise in white nationalism around the world.
“The president is not a white supremacist. I’m not sure how many times we have to say that,” Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said Sunday in response to criticism of Trump’s reaction.
The perception that Trump personally supports white nationalism appears to have risen slightly since the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when 31 percent said he held those beliefs ― a change due largely to increased conviction among his political opponents. Trump condemned the violence at Charlottesville but later soft-pedaled that denunciation, assigning blame to “both sides” and arguing that the group of white nationalist rallygoers included “some very fine people.”
Martin Lederman/WaPo:
Why there may be much less — and much more — to the Mueller report than people expect
Whatever the historical practice has been, it’s virtually certain in this case that Barr, Mueller and the FBI will, at a minimum, inform the intelligence committees about whatever evidence Muller has collected concerning whether Trump is compromised with respect to Russia and, if so, in what way and to what effect. Mueller’s general conclusions on those questions, and at least an outline of the evidence supporting them, aren’t the sorts of things the Justice Department realistically could or should omit in its required reporting.
At that point, it will primarily be the responsibility of the chairs of the committees — Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in the Senate and Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) in the House — to assess how much of the information they can share with the rest of Congress and the public. This isn’t something that’s commonly done with the results of counterintelligence investigations, for obvious reasons: In the ordinary case, much of the information is classified, because it could reveal sensitive sources or methods and because there’s an interest in not revealing to the foreign subjects of the investigation what our government has learned about their activities.
This isn’t remotely an ordinary case, however. Congress and the public have a critical need to know whether and to what extent the president is compromised and whether he is fit to respond to the Russian threat without fear or favor. It’s therefore safe to assume Mueller will try to convey such information in a form that permits the greatest possible dissemination, consistent with national security imperatives.
One has to assume that’s part of the reason Trump is freaking out (to use a term from my youth).
NBC:
Ex-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara explains why he considered taping a call with Trump
The former New York prosecutor, who was fired by the president, discussed his thinking about Trump on "The Beat with Ari Melber."
Asked if he was concerned about Trump having "an illicit motive" regarding SDNY investigations involving Trump, Bharara responded, "I was," adding, "But I was mostly concerned of the appearance of it."
Ultimately, Bharara decided against recording Trump as it was "a bridge too far," he said, opting instead not to call the president back.
"It's something we discussed and talked about, did not think it was appropriate, did not think it was the right thing to do," Bharara said on "The Beat." "So we didn't do it."
Ok, let’s finish with: