Word For The Day Thursday, February 23, 2017 - Dudgeon

Breaking news: Donald Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Former President Donald Trump failed to impress everyone in a room full of top CEOs Thursday at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, multiple attendees told CNBC. “Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one CEO who was in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speaking.

Former Trump advisor Sloppy Steve Bannon has been making a lot of threats lately. Even though he tries to act like a tough guy, he's not. He needs to march his grifty ass to report to prison on July 1st to begin a 4-month sentence for contempt of court after failing to comply with a lawful subpoena issued by the January 6th Committee. And, of course, the threats Bannon issues involve being carried out by Trump supporters, the same people he ripped off with his We Build the Wall scam, which he pleaded not guilty to several charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and scheming to defraud in connection with $15 million in donations going to the wall scam.

Crackpot Evangelical Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is floating a nonsensical idea to put Merrick Garland in jail to appease the MAGA cult. Maria: Thank you so much for being here and Congresswoman, I want to start with you because the DOJ said it will not prosecute Merrick Garland over these contempt of Congress charges. They sent a letter to Speaker Johnson, your next move in the House. Luna: Yeah, so actually several months ago I introduced a resolution for something called inherent contempt of Congress. So this is something that Congress has the authority to do and it hasn't been done since the early 1900s and essentially what that does is, I anticipated that the Department of Justice would not do their job and so I had this really teed up and ready to go. I've brought this to Speaker Johnson's attention and what that allows Congress to do is really be the punitive arm and really hold Garland accountable by using the Sergeant at Arms to essentially go and get him as well as the tapes, bring him to the wall of the House and really be a check and balance on the Department of Justice. Again, this hasn't been done since the early 1900s but that vote will be coming to the floor and hopefully we will be able to bring some accountability. I know that if this goes to courts as Johnson has stated, that's really going to get stuck there. It's not going to do anything and the American people deserve more than strongly worded letters.read more

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. The actual roadmap for 2024 might have moved when you were not looking. Maybe—and it’s a big maybe, admittedly—the biggest detour in politics right now is parked in the driveway. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In ways subtle and overt, the electric vehicle has become the avatar for clean energy in the minds of voters, which may prove to be a political clunker for Democrats, despite having the stronger story to tell.

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is hoping to leverage Donald Trump’s recent criminal conviction in a bid to sway voters, debuting a new television advertisement on Monday that calls the presumptive Republican presidential nominee “a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The ad, part of a $50 million investment that will air in battleground states in June, marks the Biden campaign’s first attempt using Trump’s legal woes in its advertising campaigns since the former President was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up an affair in his New York criminal trial last month.

Fox News host Harris Faulkner made a bizarre analogy favoring diminished Donald. She's upset that MSNBC contributors have praised President Biden and are unfriendly to Trump. Do you understand the Fox News/Harris Faulkner "logic"? Faulkner played a video mashup. MSNBC: This was a great week for the president. He's having these back-to-back weeks both the national stage and domestically. The president is playing chess, and the former president, at best, is playing like Hungry Hungry Hippo. Well, if that, maybe Uno.