Watch: GOP Senator Torches Obama's Weakness On Russia

Matt Vespa at Townhall   . . . "By contrast, President Obama famously pressed the reset button a few weeks into his tenure, six months after Russia invaded Georgia. He mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia our number one geopolitical foe. He asked Dmitry Medvedev in a hot mic moment to wait until after the election to discuss missile defenses because he would have more flexibility. Despite bipartisan support in the Congress, President Obama refused to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. He stood idly by as Russia returned to the Middle East for the first time in 40 years, and he stood idly by, as we’ve heard today, in the 2016 election." . . .

Trump vs. the media

President Trump is changing the norms that empower his media antagonists   Thomas Lifson defends Trumps tweets, but I cannot work up the same enthusiasm. I still support President Trump much more than I admire him (The use of triple personal pronouns in the foregoing is Obama-esque). TD

Pictured: CNN journalists.

. . . "President Trump understands that the current informal-but-very-real rules of the game have allowed Mika and Joe (and the rest of the media-political world as well) free rein to savage him and his family, while he is supposed to be a gentleman and just take it while they get support for attacking him." . . .

Why Trump’s Vengeful Tweeting Matters  . . . "It’s a sad symbol of our times that one feels compelled to actually make an argument why the president is wrong here. The pitiful reality is that there are people who feel like the man who sits in the seat once occupied by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan should use his bully pulpit for schoolyard insults and vicious personal attacks. But this is what we’re reduced to. So, here goes." . . .Read more.

So who is 'presidential'?  "For the last several years, if you disagreed with President Obama or the Democrat agenda on immigration, gay marriage, gender bathroom rights, climate change, higher taxes, more regulations, you could be called xenophobic, sexist, racist, homophobic, and stupid.
"Or to put it in brief form, as Hillary Clinton did, "irredeemable" and "deplorable."
"If you dared disagreed with anything in the climate change agenda, you were called "a denier," and the public was told that you shouldn't be listened to.
"Members of the Tea Party were compared to domestic terrorists." . . .

Who cares what Trump tweets to some media pinhead?  

"What matters to voters is that he is getting things done."

On Morning Joe, Deutsch Calls Pres. Trump “Physically Disgusting,” a “Pig”   "I’m taking the low ground here. "

The MSNBC show is a window on a tiresome and deluded chattering class.
Morning Joe hosts with Valerie Jarrett (Obama's alter-ego)

. . . "The nonsense never ends. The American people know perfectly well that Trump isn’t a saint. They don’t need the media to hold endless powwows on this subject. What’s more, they know that even with his flaws he is a hell of a lot more serious than the smug “sophisticates” always sniping at him."

From Law Nuze: Mika Shouldn’t Just Be Annoyed, She Should Sue The Heck Out of Trump  . . . "Yep, that’s what I said. Mika Brzezinski should consider suing Trump for defamation. After all, sometimes a well-timed civil lawsuit can have some pretty profound consequences. Just ask Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky.   Would I typically advocate litigating over two moronic hate tweets? Absolutely not. I have serious disdain for nuisance lawsuits and the unethical lawyers who make their parasitic living off them. But a successful defamation lawsuit to call out President Trump for his obnoxious twitterbuse of media figures would serve an important purpose, and I’m not the only one who thinks so." . . .

Part 3 of the Project Veritas attack on CNN

Althouse

And this is especially interesting right now, when everyone purports to be shocked that Donald Trump tweeted that Mika Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift": Carr says that Kellyanne Conway "looks like she got hit with a shovel."

"This time the victim of secret filming is Jimmy Carr, who is said to be the Associate Producer for CNN’s "New Day." James O'Keefe tells us Carr is based in Brooklyn, and urges Paul Farhi — the WaPo writer who made much of the failure to say that the victim in Part 1 was based in Atlanta — to take note that he's naming the place." . . .

A word missing from CNN's frontpage: Russia

Ann Althouse   "The narrative has changed."

"I do see — look closely — "Van Jones: O'Keefe video is a hoax." The video is the one where we hear Van Jones say "That Russia thing is just a big nothing-burger." But the teaser on the front page doesn't give us a clue that the video had to do with Russia, and even when you click through, there's no mention of the substance of what we hear Jones say in the video, just the assertion: "CNN's Van Jones says the ambush video of him done by notorious provocateur James O'Keefe is a hoax." 

"And how is the video a hoax? I think Jones is misusing the word, because he does not deny that he is the man in the video or that there's some context that would change the meaning of his statement. He indicates that he could have said other things, but not that he did actually on that occasion say more and O'Keefe had it edited out. 

"ADDED: I'm just noticing that among the things CNN is trying to tease us with this morning is: "Prostitutes: Senate health care bill will devastate us." Prostitutes!

"ALSO: The Washington Post also has a front page that doesn't mention Russia but does — amazing! — have sex workers. Click to enlarge: 

Charles Krauthammer asks: "Why do they even play the game?"

"In sports, the pleasure of winning is less than the pain of losing."

Orange County Register

"In mathematics, when you’re convinced of some eternal truth but can’t quite prove it, you offer it as a hypothesis (with a portentous capital H) and invite the world, future generations if need be, to prove you right or wrong. Often, a cash prize is attached.

"In that spirit, but without the cash, I offer the Krauthammer Conjecture: In sports, the pleasure of winning is less than the pain of losing. By any Benthamite pleasure/pain calculation, the sum is less than zero. A net negative of suffering. Which makes you wonder why anybody plays at all.

"Winning is great. You get to hoot and holler, hoist the trophy, shower in champagne, ride the open parade car and boycott the White House victory ceremony (choose your cause).

"But, as most who have engaged in competitive sports know, there’s nothing to match the amplitude of emotion brought by losing. When the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the 2015 NBA Finals to Golden State, LeBron James sat motionless in the locker room, staring straight ahead, still wearing his game jersey, for 45 minutes after the final buzzer.

"Here was a guy immensely wealthy, widely admired, at the peak of his powers — yet stricken, inconsolable. So it was for Ralph Branca, who gave up Bobby Thomson’s shot heard ’round the world in 1951. So too for Royals shortstop Freddie Patek, a (literal) picture of dejection sitting alone in the dugout with his head down after his team lost the 1977 pennant to the New York Yankees." . . .