Wondering on Wednesday (v141)

Well, well, well - another Wednesday's here already.  Boy, time sure flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?

I wondered yesterday (a day early, I know) why we don't hold traditional media outlets to the same standard we're trying to use for social media outlets, and why fake accounts on Facebook seem worse than a lying, tweeting president. I will always wonder about that.

Staying in the same vein, I wonder how anyone can not love the fact that the president, after months of saying there was no collusion, is now saying that collusion is not a crime.  What on earth can it matter, if there was none? Why send the minions out with this message, unless...

Sarah Sanders, the president's Press Secretary, who happens to be the person most likely to lie on behalf of the president - lie, or 'clarify,' I should clarify - talked today about how the press has a history of misbehaving.

The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risks valuable national security tools. One of the worst cases was the reporting on the US ability to listen to Osama bin Laden's satellite phone in the late 90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence.

The CNN report linked above points out that her example was debunked a long time ago, not that it matters. Because she went on to say,

We fully support a free press, but there also comes a high level of responsibility with that. 

And from the Press Secretary, too, there comes a high level of responsibility; I wonder if Sanders understands that?

Also today, the president 'suggested' that Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III should end the Mueller probe, tweeting

...This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

Now, you may not have been paying close attention, but as recently as June 7th the president was yammering about 13 Angry Democrats. Here's one of dozens of tweets on the subject.

Has Mueller gone and gotten himself four more? Isn't there a limit on these things?

Seriously, I can't help wondering whether all of the Trumpeters will now start using 17 instead of 13, just like the president told them to , or will they stay with 13?

The other big wondering, of course, is whether Sessions will do what the president opined, You know that it was only an opinion, right, not an order or a proclamation or a presidential policy or anything. According to Rudy Giuliani, anyway --and the opinion was almost certainly based on the start of the Manafort trial.

Trump himself wondered why no one told him that Manafort was under investigation, as if he might not have hired him had he only known.

Which is pretty silly - I mean, there's no way he would have paid any attention, right? After all, he ignored information about Russian interference in our elections, information he was given repeatedly by all of the experts, including his own experts; and that information, sadly, he still does not fully believe.

And that's our final segue of this Wednesday: back to the Press Secretary, and her defense of the president's comment that to go out and buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, and you even need one of those in order to buy anything. Clearly, the statement is not true, but it riled up the base on voter suppression, so that's good.

But what was so wonder-ful was Sanders' statement on why Trump told the lie in the first place:

...the president wants to see the integrity of our election systems upheld. And that's the purpose of his comments.

I wonder how she sleeps at night.