Donald Trump and his family's travel and vacation expenses will result in 1,100 Secret Service agents working overtime this year, and the Secret Service today said it will run out of money November 30.

The spending limits are supposed to last through December, but the cost of protecting the president and members of the extended first family, who have traveled extensively for business and vacations, has strained the Secret Service, local governments and at least one other federal agency, the Coast Guard.

Presidential travel for Trump and the first lady — who fly to their oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., and to their golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on many weekends — has added costs for taxpayers and complications for the government. The Secret Service also must provide protection for Trump’s four adult children.

There is a hugely scathing (and in my view, pretty accurate) op-ed in today's New York Times by Frank Bruni, The Week When ... Trump Resigned.

Bruni opines that Trump voluntarily abdicated the Oval Office on Tuesday: [More...]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders today at the press briefing:

“White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

Am I the only one who sees Jared's and Ivanka's hand in this?

The Washington Post must have been in a hurry to get this news out. It's rare to seem them print a typo like this:[More...]

Donald Trump may already be a lame-duck. He is so embattled that none of his plans are going through and Congress is practically at a stand-still.

The White House announced yesterday he was ending two advisory commissions: one on manufacturing and one on infrastructure.

"[Donald Trump] has announced the end of the Manufacturing Council and the Strategy & Policy Forum. In addition, the President's Advisory Council on Infrastructure, which was still being formed, will not move forward," a White House official said Thursday.

The Teflon Don he is not. Republicans are so concerned about his effect on their re-election, they are distancing themselves from his as much as possible. Democrats just want to scrape him off the bottom of their shoes. His chances of doing anything while occupying a desk in the Oval Office are zilch.

Will he resign? Don't count the chickens before they're hatched. The pressure must stay on and the media must do the job now they failed to do during his campaign. [More...]

Donald Trump keeps imploding. Here's the transcript and video of his latest debacle. How bad was it?

“You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest – because I don’t know if you know, they had a permit,” Trump helpfully explained to the astonished press corps at Trump Tower. “The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: there are two sides to a story.”

From Richard Wolffe at the Guardian:

Sadly for Trump, there is only one side to the political reaction to his comments: sheer disgust. As an apologist for racist protestors – even though they obtained a precious permit – Trump has magically created a sense of spine in his own Republican party.

I agree about the disgust, but I do not think Republicans have that kind of spine. I wish they did.

Trump's response to Charlottesville is utterly predictable. Since he has such a limited playbook, his reaction to the negative publicity is also likely to be predictable. Which member of his team will he turn on and blame for the negative reaction? I suspect it will be the one who encouraged him to walk down this thorny path. Steve Bannon comes to mind. [More...]

Donald Trump returned to Trump Tower yesterday. He was met by throngs of protesters and Bronx cheers.

Trump Protesters are a very very diverse group. Not so much Trump supporters (from one of his campaign rallies):

Via Reuters: Guam has issued safety guidelines to follow in case of a nuclear attack:

Guam posted emergency guidelines on Friday to help residents prepare for any potential nuclear attack after a threat from North Korea to fire missiles in the vicinity of the U.S. Pacific territory.

The main safety advice seems to be:

Do not look at the flash or fireball – It can blind you," it said. "Take cover behind anything that might offer protection."

"Remove your clothing to keep radioactive material from spreading. Removing the outer layer of clothing can remove up to 90% of radioactive material," read the guidelines of what to do if caught outside.

Until I read that Donald Trump and his entire family have taken a sudden trip across the globe, I'm not worried. I don't think he cares a whit about putting Americans in danger -- so long as his children and and extended family is safe.

Is anyone surprised that he's only had a desk in the oval office for 7 1/2 months and he's already got his tiny finger on the button, itching to push it?

Here is Donald Trump's signing statement on the Russia Sanctions bill. The meat:

....Still, the bill remains seriously flawed – particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate. Congress could not even negotiate a healthcare bill after seven years of talking. By limiting the Executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people, and will drive China, Russia, and North Korea much closer together. The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President. This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice.

....I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.

He is such an embarrassment to America.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a press release today stating it is "waiving" the law to start building sections of Donald Trump's "border wall" in San Diego.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a waiver to waive certain laws, regulations and other legal requirements to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international border near San Diego. The waiver will be published in the Federal Register in the coming days.

... The [San Diego]sector remains an area of high illegal entry for which there is an immediate need to improve current infrastructure and construct additional border barriers and roads. To begin to meet the need for additional border infrastructure in this area, DHS will implement various border infrastructure projects. These projects will focus on an approximately 15-mile segment of the border within the San Diego Sector that starts at the Pacific Ocean and extends eastward, to approximately one mile east of what is known as Border Monument 251.

[More...]

Anthony Scaramucci is out as Trump's Communications Director. He lasted 9 days. Reports are it was at the best of the newly installed John Kelly.

The New York Times reports Page 6 is having a field day with the reports that his wife filed for divorce and gave birth to their second child just last week while he was in D.C.

They ought to install revolving doors at the White House.

Over at Yahoo News, Robert Reich has a column, Donald Trump: The Biggest Loser. [More...]

Reince Priebus is out as Donald Trump's Chief of Staff. John Kelly, currently the head of Homeland Security, will replace him.

Donald Trump seems to be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. He and his inexperienced family members, masquerading as policy makers, are the problem, not his underlings.

Every thing he does is a fail.

Don't miss this article by Ryan Lizza in today's New Yorker. Anthony Scaramucci called him last night and went beserk over Lizza's reporting who was eating at the White House last night. He demanded to know who leaked it and when Lizza would not say, he unleashed his fury on leakers, threatened to fire the whole team, and in a graphic, expletive-filled tirade, went after Chief of Staff Reince Priebus:

They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a f*cking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the f*cking thing and see if I can c*ck-block these people the way I c*ck-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

Same thing when he talked about Steve Bannon: [More...]