Graham for Trump and (again) against the constitution

Graham urges Senate rules change to speed impeachment trial

Seeking to break a deadlock over President Donald Trump’s impeachment, a top Republican said Sunday he will push a change in rules that would allow a Senate trial to move forward immediately if Democrats do not agree to its format this week.

He is urging blatantly unconstitutional behavior upon the senate, reportedly to please the Duce and express his impatience.

The constitution consigns the role of prosecuting in the senate to the house.

Can't proceed without prosecution and can't deny that role to the house.

But it seems there is a concerted strategy of Republicans emerging to force Pelosi to send over the articles of impeachment and thus clear the way for some quick senate cover-up while the press is obsessed with the new Iran/Iraq crisis.

Or just to say fuck it and ditch the thing unconstitutionally.

Lindsey Graham having it both ways

Lindsey Graham Urges Trump To Reopen Government Before Declaring National Emergency Over Border

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged President Donald Trump to reopen the federal government for a short period to see if a deal can be reached with Democrats before declaring a national emergency over border security.

. . . .

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Graham suggested that Trump sign a bill funding the government for three weeks to allow time for further negotiations with Democrats before the president “pulls the plug” on an emergency declaration.

. . . .

The South Carolina Republican added in the interview that he spoke with the president shortly before his television appearance and told him he would support an emergency declaration.

An excellent tirade

Scarborough Slams Sen. Graham For Urging Trump To 'Illegally Seize Power'

"Can you believe Lindsey Graham, a guy who, along with me, throughout the 1990s championed the power of checks and balances, then of course against Bill Clinton, we always talked about Article One and the Constitution and being Constitutionalists. 

"Well, now that same Lindsey Graham, who actually followed John McCain's lead for so long, is actually the Republican who is using his position as Senate chairman of the Judiciary Committee to encourage Donald Trump to declare a national emergency and illegally seize Article One powers if he doesn't get his way on the border wall.

"It is illegal. It will be overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States and if Lindsey doesn't know that, he shouldn't be in Congress. 

"It's that obvious. The courts will overturn this . . . .

"But Lindsey says it's not going Donald's way, so let's just declare a national emergency. 

"We can rob money from people that are suffering in Puerto Rico, we can rob money from people suffering in California. 

"We can rob money from our military men and women, even though the Armed Services chairman has said that would be deplorable. It is truly deplorable.

"And if that's not bad enough, the Iowa Republican congressman Steve King, a man who has long shared a mutual admiration with Donald Trump, spoke his truth in declaring himself a white supremacist. 

"In days past, he would have immediately been censured and removed from the Republican party. 

"He's just mirroring the president's views after that deadly march, is a member in good standing of the House and the Republican party.

. . . .

But I can tell you this today -- Trump is leading this horror show but you know who I hold accountable?

"Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Steve King. and all the Republicans on Capitol Hill that are ducking their heads. They are the co-conspirators, complicit by their action or, more importantly, by their silence. 

"The party of Lincoln and the party of Reagan, they're suffering through a massive moral collapse. It is sad and it is dangerous for this country and I believe it is the beginning of the end."

This asshole does love to piss in Democrats' faces

even when the occasion does not actually call for so much as mention of any Democrat, for any reason.

Graham: 'Obama-like mistake' for Trump to withdraw troops from Syria

Oh, and you certainly wouldn't want to be Obama-like at all, would you, little Donnie?

Noooo, you wouldn't want that.

The usual senior GOP senators agree the Saudi Prince ordered the murder

Saudi crown prince 'ordered, monitored' killing of Khashoggi, Corker says

Lawmakers briefed Tuesday by CIA Director Gina Haspel accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of being responsible for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN after a briefing with Haspel that the prince, known as MBS, "ordered, monitored, the killing" of the father of four.

Corker added, "And if he (MBS) were in front of a jury, he would be convicted of murder in about 30 minutes."

Corker was one of several lawmakers who emerged from a small briefing with the CIA director appearing convinced of the prince's responsibility for the killing.

. . . .

"I left the briefing with high confidence that my initial confidence is correct," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, who said he is highly confident that the prince is responsible for the murder.

. . . .

The Trump administration has argued there is no "smoking gun" tying the prince to the murder, but Corker said Haspel presented the senators with information they hadn't heard before.

"There's not a smoking gun," said Graham, who then referred to reports that the Saudi team included a forensic expert who arrived with equipment to dismember Khashoggi's body. 

"There's a smoking saw," Graham said.

The Duce's favorite Secretary of State, ex-CIA boss Mike Pompeo, still sides with nitwit and liar Donald Trump, pretty much ignoring reality and the clear and firm position of the agency he used to head.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis traveled to Capitol Hill last week without Haspel for a closed-door briefing on Yemen for Senate lawmakers at which they emphasized the strategic importance of the US-Saudi relationship and defended the administration's response to Khashoggi's murder.

Pompeo said after the briefing that there was "no direct reporting" that connected the prince to the killing. 

The CIA has concluded that the crown prince personally ordered Khashoggi's killing, according to a senior US official and a source familiar with the matter.

Trump tries to deflect

Top Republicans slam Trump for statement backing Saudi Arabia

Top Senate Republicans slammed President Donald Trump for his statement backing Saudi Arabia in the wake of the death and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, tweeted Tuesday, "I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

The criticism follows an official statement the White House released Tuesday, under the subject line "Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia."

. . . . 

Later in the day at a news conference, Trump said he was "not going to destroy the economy of our country" over Khashoggi's death by giving up arms deals to Saudi Arabia.

Of course, nobody has asked him to do that.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote in a series of tweets Tuesday, "One thing I learned during the Obama years is that when you look the other way regarding problems in the Middle East, it seldom works out."

Graham said former President Barack Obama "chose to look the other way as Iran took increasingly provocative actions," and said, "Each time it led to even worse Iranian behavior and created even larger problems for the future."

"Likewise, it is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal #Khashoggi," Graham continued.

That bullshit drive-by shot at the Obama administration is standard Trumpist shit from a guy who has more and more become a mini-me for the asshole in the White House, doubtless aimed at diminishing the anger his criticism will arouse in the Duce.

Of course, the issue is not the arms deals and not the close cooperation of the Saudis and the US in the Middle East, but the prince in particular and his criminal leadership.

The US should freely and fully criticize him and such features of the Saudi regime as the following.

Saudi Arabia tortured activists including women, rights groups claim

Saudi Arabia has tortured, sexually harassed and mistreated several human rights activists detained since May this year, including women, two leading international rights groups have alleged.

Activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly, with marks on their bodies and uncontrolled shaking of the hands, Amnesty International said, citing three separate testimonies.

One of the activists reportedly tried to take her own life repeatedly inside the prison, according to the testimonies, Amnesty said.

"In one reported instance, one of the activists was made to hang from the ceiling, and according to another testimony, one of the detained women was reportedly subjected to sexual harassment, by interrogators wearing face masks," the rights group said in a statement Tuesday.

Birthright

Trump reignites debate in Congress over ending birthright citizenship

Ryan has said flat out it would require a constitutional amendment.

But a number of congressional followers of the Duce have urged that the congress can command courts to interpret the 14th in such a way as to deny birthright citizenship to children of illegals.

That, too, is bullshit, but it's a kind of bullshit very popular among the "low information voters" who comprise the bulk of the non-rich Republicans.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a critic-turned-ally of the President, said on Tuesday that he plans to introduce legislation in line with Trump's vow of executive action, while Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa, an immigration hardliner who has been rebuked by members of his own party for incendiary comments on immigration and diversity, seized on the President's remarks to promote legislation he has previously introduced to end birthright citizenship as it currently exists.

It's not likely that any legislation challenging birthright citizenship would pass out of Congress, in part because there's no broad base of support on Capitol Hill in favor of doing so and any effort to challenge the policy would be highly divisive.

"At this point, it's really a minority within the Republican Party that's advocating for the end of birthright citizenship," said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. 

"There have been bills that have been introduced since the early 1990s that would limit or end birthright citizenship, but they have never had enough support to pass even out of committee, much less out of Congress."

. . . .

Legislation like what King has introduced does not attempt to alter the text of the Constitution as it is written, but rather seeks to reinterpret the way a key passage of the 14th Amendment is commonly understood. 

The bill would restrict birthright citizenship so that children born in the United States to unauthorized immigrants would not automatically be granted citizenship. 

It currently has 48 cosponsors, all of whom are House Republicans.

Many legal experts believe, however, that efforts to reinterpret the 14th Amendment would not pass constitutional muster.

Second only to Graham, the man is a vicious shithead

Or maybe second to Trey Gowdy.

Cotton says Feinstein, Ford lawyers, will be investigated

It's only allowed by the right, and only when the perp is one of their own

One of these guys is not like the others

All four went off in the congress, though nobody went off anywhere near as viciously and absurdly as Brett Kavanaugh - unless we're counting Lindsey Graham, second only in disgrace to the Feodor in the White House.

(Do they feel the same way about sexual assault? Maybe.)

And Peter Strzok, who aimed his ire at one person and was actually the least disrespectful of them all, was blamed for it by Dems as well as by GOPsters.

The rage - faux or real - of all the others was not only given a pass but participated in by the right.

Too much to hope for?

That, in the face of Dr. Ford's testimony, Kavanaugh withdraws or Bozo tells him its over.

She is just way too believable.

Will the GOP really walk the plank to get another conservative on the court before the midterms?

To hear Lindsey Graham in a rage (faux or real or a bit of both?) as we did, they are convinced they have to do this before the midterms because the Democrats won't let them fill that second seat if they win the senate.

And the GOPsters seem really very concerned they are going to lose the senate.

Update.

Nope. He's in the senate protesting his innocence after spending many minutes angrily attacking Democrats like an exceptionally enraged Trump.

He's trying to gain credibility through anger.

He appears genuinely emotional distraught, as would make sense whether innocent or guilty.

He claims he never had intercourse during high school or for many years thereafter.

The president non grata

Trump sits alone 'sulking' as Washington pays its respects to John McCain

Donald Trump’s absence – perhaps at the White House, maybe even on the golf course – will . . . underscore the antipathy between him and McCain, who made clear he did not want Trump at his funeral.

. . . .

Last Saturday, Trump gave a grudging response to McCain’s death. 

Past presidents, senators and various organisations unfurled lyrical tributes. 

Trump resorted to Twitter to offer his “deepest sympathies and respect” to McCain’s family. 

He added, complete with jarring exclamation mark: “Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

According to the Washington Post, which dubbed Trump “president non grata”, White House aides had written a statement that honoured McCain’s service as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and his long career on Capitol Hill and described him as a “hero” – only for Trump to veto it in favour of the 21-word tweet.

Then came a flag farce. 

The stars and stripes flew at half-mast at the White House, as is protocol, yet on Monday morning it was back at full mast, prompting widespread criticism – especially as flags remained lowered on other federal buildings. 

Gen Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, tweeted a photo of the flag flying high above the executive mansion with the comment: “Remember this image the next time this president talks about disrespecting veterans.”

By afternoon the blunder had been corrected. 

Trump, who seldom backs down, issued a statement that began with a negative: “Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment.”

. . . .

Trump acknowledged McCain in public remarks that night. 

But he will play no part in the senator’s lying in state in the US Capitol rotunda on Friday, where Vice-President Mike Pence will deliver remarks and present a wreath; nor at the national memorial service on Saturday where Bush, Obama and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger will be among those delivering tributes; nor at his burial at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis on Sunday, where Senator Lindsey Graham and Gen David Petraeus will speak.

Once again, Trump has defied the conventions of the capital and found himself an outcast.

. . . .

In April, there was a glaringly obvious, Trump-shaped hole at former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral in Houston, where his wife Melania Trump was photographed alongside past presidents and first ladies, looking curiously happy.

. . . .

Along with the Bush funeral, Trump was not invited to the wedding of Prince Harry and American actor Meghan Markle.

Lindsey Graham just gave Bozo permission to fire Jeff Sessions. After the midterms.

MSNBC

Of course, he lies that the president lacks confidence in Graham's ability to faithfully, fairly, and impartially see to the enforcement of the law.

The Duce has made it abundantly clear he is pissed Sessions isn't playing the role of his mob consigliere, stopping Mueller coming after him and his gangsters.

Mike Pence lies for his boss as numerous leading GOPsters criticize him

Trump and Putin

Mike Pence: Trump "will always put the prosperity and security of America first"

Vice President Pence is speaking at the Commerce Department today and mentioned President Trump's meeting with Putin at the top of his remarks.

"The world saw once again that President Donald Trump stands without apology as leader of the free world," Pence said. 

"Earlier today, President Trump completed what he described as a direct, open, and deeply productive dialogue with President Putin in Helsinki. As the President said, it was a constructive day. But it was only the beginning."

Pence continued: "Disagreements between our countries were discussed at length, and what the world saw, and the American people saw, is that President Donald Trump will always put the prosperity and security of America first."

Since the meeting — in which Trump declined to side with US intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election — numerous Republicans and Democrats have criticized his performance.

John McCain, John Cornyn, Trey Gowdy, Bob Corker, Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, and Orrin Hatch, for example.

Well, everyone would just admit the peace prize has long been a load of crap

As Maureen Dowd pretty much has.

Trump: Our Cartoon Nobel Laureate

“The guy who said he could be as presidential as any president except for Abraham Lincoln is instead about as presidential as Yosemite Sam,” says his [Trump's] biographer Tim O’Brien. 

“I really think of him as Yosemite Sam — just hopping around in anger, firing his gun wildly, sometimes at his own foot. He was so unhinged and ranting in that call to ‘Fox & Friends’ this week that even the hosts couldn’t wait to get him off the air.”

Yet Lindsey Graham, who once labeled Trump “a kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office,” told Fox News on Friday: “Donald Trump convinced North Korea and China he was serious about bringing about change. 

We’re not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”

And here’s the part that would drive Trump haters into a frenzy: If he could pull off denuclearizing North Korea, he would deserve it more than Barack Obama did when he had that bouquet thrown at him seconds into his presidency.

And Trump certainly would deserve it more than Henry Kissinger, who won the prize in 1973 for his efforts to end the Vietnam War, after privately persuading Richard Nixon to keep it going for years and while secretly bombing Cambodia.

If he won, President Trump would be within his rights when he claimed it as a personal victory since he decimated the State Department to the point that we wondered if interns in Foggy Bottom were crafting North Korea policy.

It would be a paradox: The man so many Americans loathe as a villain taming a charter member of the Axis of Evil.

War with North Korea would be worth it, they think

Lindsey Graham: War with North Korea would be 'worth it' in the long run

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that a war with North Korea would be “worth it” in the long term.

Graham made the comments in an interview with CNN.

"All the damage that would come from a war would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security," the senator told CNN.

Graham’s remark comes amid reports that the U.S. is prepared for the possibility of a military strike against North Korea.  

Korean leaders are pushing diplomacy in the troubled region in the weeks following the Winter Olympics. South Korea’s president told President Trump in a phone call earlier this week that he is planning to send a special envoy to Pyongyang.

Graham has in the past repeated a warning that the U.S. is “headed toward a war” with North Korea and praised Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric against the country. He praised the Trump administration for drawing a hard line on North Korean aggression and also told CNN that he is “completely convinced” that Trump rejects a containment policy.

"They've drawn a red line here and it is to never let North Korea build a nuclear tipped missile to hit America,” he said.

This seems to be Trump's view and also that of some, at least, of his military advisors.

But the whole thing has been back-burnered for some weeks, it seems.

He does recall that China jumped in, the first time, does he not? 

A major Republican campaign event and a big soppy kiss to the Christian right

A disgraceful abuse of office and of the nation's central political space, flouting the First Amendment imperative of separation of church and state.

At the Capitol, Tributes to the Rev. Billy Graham

Speakers included McConnell, Ryan, and Bozo.

Was there a single Democrat there?

This massive kiss to the Evangelicals' collective backside from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell calls for a huge WTF

The Rev. Billy Graham's Casket Will 'Lie In Honor' At The Capitol

Throughout his career as a preacher, the Rev. Billy Graham's message of faith drew massive crowds of believers to tents, arenas and stadiums. 

Next week, mourners will have a final opportunity to turn out for Graham.

His casket will lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 28, and Thursday, March 1.

The public viewing for the internationally famous spiritual leader who is credited with changing the face of evangelical Christianity in America, was arranged by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. 

Both Republican leaders will deliver remarks.

This is a goddamned Republican campaign stunt.

These guys make me sick.

This seriously pisses me off.

Trump, in mini-Mussolini mode, attacks in all directions

He thrilled the audience at CPAC.

TV clips on MSNBC show him damning the media as corrupt liars, and daming the Democrats for not really caring about the Dreamers, transferring blame for their danger from himself to them, among many other things.

I cannot stand this vicious nincompoop, this pathological liar, or the people who love him.

I hope they never "get their America back", they never get their way, they choke on their anger and frustration.

As it said on the back window of that pickup, "Fuck Trump! And fuck you if you voted for him!"

The Duce at CPAC

President Trump told a raucous crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday that if Democrats take power in Congress in the midterm elections, they “will take away your Second Amendment.”

“Remember that they will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your Second Amendment,” Trump said told the staunch conservatives.

They might pass taxes to attempt to deal with the huge deficit bang Bozo and his congress have dropped on them.

Taxes he would veto or that might not get through the senate, anyway.

But that Democrats are in any numbers committed to repeal of the 2nd Amendment if false.

Most would likely vote to restore the ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines and tighten up background checks.

But Trump would just veto those measures, too, if the senate didn't kill them with a filibuster.

Most would likely vote to raise the age for purchase of firearms, at least of some types, and ban aftermarket modifications to raise the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles.

Trump and many leading GOPsters are on record supporting such things, so they might actually get through.

I think it likely the hard right loonies of the House won't let them pass in the current congress, despite the fact that Trump and even the NRA seem OK with them.

He added: “By the way, if you only had to choose one, the Second Amendment, tax cuts?”

The audience cheered louder for the Second Amendment — just days after the deadly shooting at a Florida school where 17 people were gunned down.

. . . .

“Don’t be complacent. Don’t be complacent. If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn’t believe, they’ll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen, they’ll take away your Second Amendment.”

In his freewheeling address, Trump asked if the audience wouldn’t “mind if I go off script a bit because it’s sort of boring” and was met with more cheers.

He further stoked the crowd by bringing up Hillary Clinton as he touted his work in his first year in office.

“Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” they chanted, echoing similar refrains from the 2016 campaign trail.

One man in the crowd yelled: “You said you would!”

. . . .

He then returned to his signature pledge to erect a “great wall” along the border with Mexico — eliciting chants of “Build that wall! Build that wall!”

The report does not say he repeated his promise that Mexico would pay for it.

. . . .

Trump also veered into religion, saying the US is a nation that worships God as he remembered the late Rev. Billy Graham.

“Our nation’s motto is ‘In God We Trust.’ This week, our nation lost an incredible leader who devoted his life to helping us understand what those words really mean. He was a leader, a great man,” Trump said.

1956.

Yes, that was when the going was good for the Christian right, the high point of Cold War Christian clericalism in America.

I suppose we should be glad he didn't return to urging police brutality, the torture of terrorists, or the murder of their families.

Billy Graham, RIP

Billy Graham, 99, Dies; Pastor Filled Stadiums and Counseled Presidents

Few, if any, will speak ill of the recently deceased.

But you have to if you are to tell the truth about this man.

He was an immensely popular and successful advocate of the worst, most bigoted, and most stubbornly obtuse version of Christianity now extant in America, fundamentalism, aka Evangelicalism.

He was a determined enemy of atheism, agnosticism, liberal religion, secularism, equality for women, gay rights, and the continuing liberal deconstruction of the long-standing establishment of religion in our country manifest for many decades in the rigorous legal enforcement of Christian sexual morality.

Could that be a swastika tattoo? Maybe. Maybe not.

Background facts.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants a global but merit based immigration system, cutting out not only criminals but the unskilled, untalented, and uneducated, admitting only people capable at least of supporting themselves but by preference of making significant contributions to our culture, economy, and society.

A random Norwegian is far more likely to satisfy those criteria than a random Haitian, Nigerian, or other person from a chronically impoverished country more or less permanently wavering on the edge of being a failed state.

Come to that, more likely than a random Guatemalan, Mexican, or Brazilian.

So immigration law or policy so conceived would very likely have a significantly disparate impact, as regards admission to the US, on persons and communities of different races (Haitians versus Norwegians), and perhaps even ethnicities as defined by blood within races (Serbs versus Scots).

A bug or a feature?

One for Ann Coulter, the Klan, and a lot of white people including, no doubt, some Democrats, but quite the other for Dick Durbin, The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, and the Congressional Black Caucus.

And if that remark about disparate impact suggests the possibility of an eventual legal challenge from the latter group to you, I think you may be onto something.

And now for the flap.

Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa

President Trump on Thursday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and some nations in Africa, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

Mr. Trump’s remarks, the latest example of his penchant for racially tinged remarks denigrating immigrants, left members of Congress from both parties attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. 

He made them during a discussion of an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, those with knowledge of the conversation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting.

When Mr. Trump heard that Haitians were among those who would benefit from the proposed deal, he asked whether they could be left out of the plan, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”

. . . .

The episode at the White House, first reported by The Washington Post, unfolded as Mr. Trump was hosting a meeting with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who are working to codify the protections in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the Obama-era initiative that provided temporary work permits and reprieves from deportation to immigrants brought to the United States as children by their parents.

Also present were Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the majority leader; Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia; Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas; and Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

None of the lawmakers would comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.

Senator Insists Trump Used ‘Vile and Racist’ Language

President Trump on Friday offered a vague denial about the language he chose to use about immigrants during a private meeting with lawmakers at the White House on Thursday, when he reportedly referred to African nations as “shithole countries.”

But Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said on Friday that the president did use the term “shithole,” repeatedly, during the course of the meeting on immigration — which Mr. Durbin attended. 

The senator described Mr. Trump as saying “things which were hate-filled, vile and racist.”

. . . .

In a discussion about immigration from African nations, Mr. Trump asked why he would want “all these people from shithole countries,” according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation. 

Mr. Trump also said the United States should admit more people from places like Norway, an overwhelmingly white country.

“Why do we need more Haitians?” Mr. Trump said, according to several news accounts, including The Washington Post. “Take them out.”

The White House has not denied his use of racially charged rhetoric.

Still, this Durbin remark about the history of the White House is an absolute howler.

“I cannot believe that, in the history of the White House in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday,” Mr. Durbin said on Friday.

Maybe not those exact words, but surely far worse have been said in that room, and by its principle occupants, too.

And while Trump's remarks admit of being interpreted as racist they are not, so to speak, facially racist.

But what adult in the least familiar with American history can doubt that past occupants of the Oval Office have made and laughed at the most egregiously racist remarks imaginable?

Even Lincoln, who fought a war to release black Americans from bondage, did not think they were up to it, and urged that belief in that office, at least briefly thinking they should all be sent back to Africa.