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Maybe youd better sit down for this one. According to a report by Politico, corned-beef dirigible Donald Trump, a skill-free inheritance baby with a virtually unbroken lifelong track record of incompetence and failure, has found that running the United States government is a tougher job than lending his name to mail-order steak delivery scams run by other people. Because he is a world-historically stupid idiot who could not tell the difference between his face and his ass even if they werent identical to each other, this has come as quite a shock to him.

Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, begins the article, neatly capturing the blithe, criminal ignorance that characterizes both Trump himself and the many dozens of millions of morons who thought he should be the leader of the free world. Yes, being the president is a harder job than Donald Trump would expect, because Donald Trump had never previously held an actual job, because actually, spending your inheritance on a succession of failed cons is not an actual job.

None of the revelations in here are all that surprising, if youve paid attention at any point in the more than 40 years Trump has spent as a professional horses ass marginally enriching himself off a succession of sleazy branding schemes (or in the over 200 years the presidency of the United States has spent being an actual job). The fun is in the wording. Our new president occupies a wild outer range of blundering, arrogant stupidity, far beyond that typically euphemized in newspaper-ese, and the effort to describe the former truthfully and accuratelybut without using such frank and impolite words as stupid and ignoramus and spray-tanned fart balloonvery nearly breaks the latter.

Heres a low-key savage example, from the third paragraph:

Yet it has become apparent, say those close to the president, most of whom requested anonymity to describe the inner workings of the White House, that the transition from overseeing a family business to running the country has been tough on him.

Overseeing a family business is great. This is the way you put it when you want to say that the presidents last gig was as the ornamental figurehead of a penny-ante hustling operation run by his hare-brained childrenwho even in their vacuity knew better than to let him handle any responsibility more sophisticated than ogling the Miss Universe contestantsbut you also would like to maybe interview him or them at some point in the future. This is what youre left with when the leader of the free world is incapable of thinking and operating and leading from anywhere in the vast ocean of specificity and nuance dividing Get me some more cash and Here is what brand of tanning spray the new press secretary should use, and which parts of his face must be sprayed with it. Overseeing a family business.

The transition from that to being the president has been tough on him. Doing things that you are not qualified to do is tough! Who could have predicted that this would be a challenge for a butter-soft septuagenarian nincompoop?

I love this article so much. Nearly every sentence contains some marvel of delicacy. The new president often asks simple questions about policies, proposals and personnel. When confronted with details, he has been known to quickly change the subject or direct questions to one of his chief advisers. His aides joke that they wish their boss would spend more time at his Mar-A-Lago estate. How many ways can you avoid saying that the president is a bumbling, pillow-fisted shit-for-brains, in a story about that exact fact?

Heres the most incredible example. We learn that after unflattering details (what other kind could there be? Hes Donald Trump!) of his phone conversations with other foreign leaders were leaked to the press, Trump grew paranoid about National Security Council staffers and launched an investigation into the source of the leaks. We also learn this (emphasis added):

In turn, some NSC staff believe Trump does not possess the capacity for detail and nuance required to handle the sensitive issues discussed on the calls, and that he has politicized their agency by appointing chief strategist Bannon to the council.

The President of the United States of America is too stupid to participate in discussions held expressly for his benefit. That is what some NSC staff have said, here. Talking to him is a waste of time, because hes literally incapable of grasping what is being talked about, and he just gets mad, like a baby. Like a big red baby with a sensitive heinie.

Its not all bad times and tantrums for Trump, though.

For all his frustrations, Trump has reveled in the trappings of the presidency. He has taken a liking to the Oval Office, where he spends much of his time working. Following a recent gathering of business leaders, he brought the group into the storied room and showed them around.

Sometimes he wanders around his office, pecking at the shiny stuff, like a fucking bird.

[Politico]

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Donald Trump Stunned To Learn Presidency Is An Actual Job, His First - Deadspin

Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor following talks at the Kremlin on Friday. POOL / Reuters

"Russian-American relations have degraded especially hard over the past five years or so, and of course, they need to be restored in the interest of both the Russian and the American people," the Russian president said, according to the agency.

"We've heard what the elected president, Mr. Trump, who has now assumed office, thinks of this, we've always welcomed it, and we expect that these relations will be fully restoring across all dimensions, but this depends not just on us, but also on the Americans," Putin said.

Such a meeting could help solve various international conflicts, and strengthen the fight against terrorism, the Kremlin said.

The White House has not yet commented on the possibility of such a meeting. During the U.S. presidential campaign, both men expressed admiration for each other. Also, U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia attempted to influence the American election to Trump's advantage.

Ljubljana was the site of a meeting between Putin and President George W. Bush in 2001.

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Putin Hails Slovenia's Offer to Host Summit With Donald Trump - NBCNews.com

New York Times

A Gift for Donald Trump New York Times If you could give Donald Trump the gift of a single trait to help his presidency, what would it be? My first thought was that prudence was the most important gift one could give him. Prudence is the ability to govern oneself with the use of reason. It ...

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A Gift for Donald Trump - New York Times

New York Times

Donald Trump, Middle-School President New York Times In a chilling article in The Times this week, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman described President Trump's Keystone Kops White House where aides meet in the dark because they can't figure out how to use the light switches (setting them to on might be ... Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After StumblesNew York Times Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World? | Time.comTime all 99 news articles »

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Donald Trump, Middle-School President - New York Times

California schemin' Photo by AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais; illustration by Matt Tinoco

One of President Donald Trump's favorite threats is cutting federal government funding to states, cities, and other entities that refuse to cooperate with his policies. On January 25, he issued an executive order titled "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," which warns "sanctuary cities" that they could lose federal funds if they continue to protect undocumented residents from deportation. After an appearance by Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California-Berkeley was canceled amid violent protests, Trump tapped out the following tweet:

And during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Trump doubled down on California: "If we have to, we'll defundWe give tremendous amounts of money to California. California in many ways is out of control, as you know."

Here's the thing: Trump can't just yank funding from states or cities or universities that upset him. Yet the matter is far from resolved: Several cities and one state have already filed lawsuits against the Trump administration over its threats, all but ensuring a battle that could end up before the Supreme Court. Here's what you need to know about the legal issues behind this fight.

The short answer is that Congress, not the White House, has ultimate power over the federal purse. The president's budget requests may direct Congress how to allocate federal spending, but the matter is not entirely in his hands. And he has no authority to withhold or rescind spending that's already been authorized.

Hypothetically, Congress could pass a law or budget bill that puts conditions on the federal funding provided to, say, out-of-control California. But numerous Supreme Court decisions protect state and local governments against this type of vindictive policymaking. When the federal government raised the national minimum drinking age to 21 in 1984, it prodded states into enforcing the new law by stipulating that any state that didn't comply would lose 5 percent of its federal highway construction funds. South Dakota wasn't happy about this and filed a lawsuit against the federal government. South Dakota v. Dole worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which found that the federal government can apply conditions to fundingwith a few limits. One of those limits is the stipulation that any conditional spending must not be "coercive." As Justice William Rehnquist wrote, there is a point when "pressure turns into compulsion," and a state might unconstitutionally be forced to comply because it needs the federal money to operate. Additionally, conditional funding can only apply to new money, not funding that's already been committed.

As a practical matter, states and cities receive federal money through hundreds of different appropriations bills and programs. If Trump and congressional Republicans wanted to effectively defund California, they would have to modify each federal spending provision that affects the state. Conceivably, they could pass a bill that instructs the Department of the Treasury to stop sending money to Sacramento, but that would spark an enormous constitutional crisis.

Yesbut again there are limits. When the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare in 2012, it also considered the law's expansion of state Medicaid programs. The Affordable Care Act had threatened to cut off all Medicaid funding to states should they fail to expand the program in accordance with its standards. Citing South Dakota v. Dole, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that this ultimatum was "a gun to the head" of the states. For many states, federal Medicaid money comprises more than 10 percent of total revenue, and losing that money would effectively cripple them. Six other justices agreed with Roberts on this point, and Medicaid expansion was left to the states.

The 10th Amendment of the Constitution says that any power not delegated to the federal government becomes the responsibility of the states. This is the basis of America's federal system, whereby states have the freedom to pass laws that are distinct from those passed by Congress.

The Supreme Court has long interpreted the 10th Amendment as the foundation for a check on federal power. Take the case of Printz v. United States. After Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993, a Montana sheriff named Jay Printz challenged its requirement that local law enforcement agencies conduct background checks on gun buyers. He argued that Congress was acting outside of its authority to compel state-level officials to enforce federal law. In 1997, five Supreme Court justices, led by Antonin Scalia, agreed.

The Printz decision underscores what Duke University law professor Matthew Adler calls "an external constraint upon congressional poweranalogous to the constraints set forth in the Bill of Rightsbut one that lacks an explicit textual basis." In other words, decades of Supreme Court rulings on the 10th Amendment have formed an effective check on federal power by the states. And that could mean that just as Printz was allowed to resist conducting federally mandated background checks, a court could find that officials in sanctuary states and cities are allowed to avoid enforcing federal immigration law.

In the past, the 10th Amendment has provided cover for advocates of states' rights and efforts to resist federal civil rights efforts such as integrating schools. More recently, the 10th Amendment became a rallying cry for the Obama administration's opponents. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is a big fan of the 10th, and tea partiers and "Tenthers" invoked the amendment to push back against Obamacare and even call for secession.

Now it's liberals who are warming to the promise of the 10th Amendment. San Francisco's recently filed federal lawsuit against the Trump administration argues that, defunding aside, the anti-sanctuary-city executive order violates the 10th Amendment. The city claims that it is within its rights to not cooperate with federal authorities under the "anti-commandeering" precedent set in Printz, which says higher jurisdictions may not "commandeer" local resources to enforce federal rules. Likewise, Massachusetts has also invoked the 10th amendment against Trump's "Muslim ban" executive order. Several Boston suburbs have also cited the 10th in their lawsuits against the administration's sanctuary city order, as has Santa Clara County, California, the home of Silicon Valley. Last week, Portland's mayor issued a statement that the 10th Amendment protects its sanctuary city policies too.

The feds depend on state and local officials to enforce their policies. The federal system is set up to encourage cooperation between state and federal officials. If that falls apart, Trump will have difficulty enacting his agenda. As Yale law professor Heather Gerken recently argued on Vox, "Even if President Trump spends enough political capital to win this or that battle against blue cities and states, he cannot win the war. The federal government doesn't have the resources to carry out Trump's policies."

The funding question remains up in the air since Trump hasn't given any indication to how, exactly, he would defund cities and states. However, given that California is in the process of passing legislation that effectively makes the entire state a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, and given that its elected officials have been vocal about their opposition to Trump, we could see a California v. U.S. case in the near future if Trump tries to follow through. On Monday, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra reiterated his commitment to pushing back against Trump's defunding threat. "We will fight anyone who wants to take away dollars that we have earned and are qualified for simply because we are unwilling to violate the Constitution under these defective executive orders," he said.

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Here's Why Donald Trump Can't Defund "Out-of-Control" California - Mother Jones