happy Valentine’s Day, anyway

Trump has created such a crisis-rich environment that it’s difficult for me to keep up with the Olympics and Warriors basketball.  I had intended to e-mail the White House to tell POTUS it would be far, FAR cheaper to watch Patton than to spend tens of millions on an actual pavement-crushing military parade.  And the film is much longer than the two-hour spectacle that enthralled The Donny in France — even if he didn’t watch the credits, which I assume he wouldn’t.

But he dropped the idea like a hot bazooka in the rush of a fresh crop of scandals.  Even as I type this, Wolf Blitzer is unpacking the outrage du jour: V.A. Secretary David Shulkin allegedly misled ethics officials about the purpose of a European trip.  I bet Trump just wants to get through this day and have a quiet, candle-lit cheeseburger with Stormy Daniels.

No, wait.  I just found out that Ms. Daniels wants to open up about their fling.  She feels that since Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen now says he paid her off, that invalidates her non-disclosure agreement.

Can you believe all this?

Take the Rob Porter fiasco.  Please.  The issues and sub-issues radiate from it like octopus tentacles.  There are already five White House accounts of its timeline, with plenty more to come.  Central to these chronological inaccuracies is Chief of Staff John Kelly.  Kelly is rapidly becoming the biggest disappointment in the Trump era since Michael Flynn, and until Don Junior and/or Jared Kushner are indicted by Mueller.  We know Kelly is in deep poo because POTUS is talking about what a fine chap the General is.

That nest of viperous lies aside, the most distressing aspect is the stunning disregard for national safety.  Even with the FBI waving red flags, Porter was given a temporary security clearance.  He handled the most sensitive intel generated.  Thirty to 40 more White House employees also have yet to be cleared permanently.

And where to start with the wife beating?  Without the startling photo of Porter’s first wife Colbie Holderness with a black eye, we still might not know of this.  I laud her, Porter’s second wife Jennie Willoughby, and a girlfriend of his for taking the huge risks of speaking out.  Porter has also been dating White House Director of Communications Hope Hicks, but she talks less than Kushner.

Trump finally announced today that he is “totally opposed to domestic violence of any kind”, with his Conscience Ivanka nearby.  Earlier he had Mike Pence denounce it.  It looked to me that Pence would have much preferred being in the Oval Office measuring for new drapes, but he did admit to Lester Holt that the matter could have been handled better.  Pence hastened to assure Holt that he would look into the matter.

The matter has also caught the eye of politically Born Again Trey Gowdy.  Gowdy is in the early stages of one of the most interesting turnarounds in recent memory.  Two weeks ago he was one of the vocal champions of the Nunes Memo, assuring the Fox and Friends sycophants that it would embarrass Adam Schiff.

Gowdy is best known for spending $7.8 million of federal funds as the chair of the House Benghazi investigation.  Not much came of it.  No charges were filed, although it did help make Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server less private.  Her marathon grilling by the committee did little but show her toughness and boost her campaign contributions.  Trump opined that Gowdy “failed miserably” in his quest.

The Nunes memo turned out to be a piffle, not making Watergate look like a parking ticket, as Sean Hannity promised us.  If Trump is man enough to release the Democratic response, it might be even more diminished.  Gowdy rethought things and backed away, saying the memo would not affect the Mueller probe.

But even before that — in fact, the day after he was on Fox “News” — Gowdy decided not to run for re-election.  And today he announced that, as Chair of the House Oversight Committee, he will begin investigating the Rob Porter situation.

Yet Trump’s approval ratings, based on adjusted averages by the website FiveThirtyEight, has risen three points since January 23rd.  You can’t hallucinate weirder shit than this.