Counterview: Trump’s Cynical Exploitation Of Navy SEAL’s Wife

During President Trump’s congressional address on Tuesday night, he offered a tribute to William “Ryan” Owens, the Navy SEAL killed in a raid in Yemen, a raid Trump approved at a dinner that included his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Owen’s wife Carryn, seated next to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was seen looking up to the ceiling in tears while applause carried on for several minutes.

• • •

End The White House Press Briefing

Last week when Sean Spicer expelled CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and others, apart from the habitual antics of a juvenile administration, perhaps it was a harbinger of a new post-briefing era. While this administration’s anti-First Amendment frolicking is repulsive, it could just be President Trump and Sean Spicer did us all a favor. I say we end the White House press briefing.

• • •

Trump’s Loyalty Test: This Is What Authoritarian Regimes Do

When President Donald Trump -shudder- ordered Press Secretary Sean Spicer to the podium on Saturday for his first newspeak, it wasn’t just about Trump’s vanity or ego, it was also a test. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” Spicer claimed. Regardless of Spicer’s politics, you know this man does not believe what he said. You know Spicer does not believe Trump’s inauguration crowd was larger than President Obama’s 2009 inauguration crowd. Anyone still clinging to the last smoldering shreds of reality knows this.

• • •