The Russian connections to the Trump campaign and administration are head-spinning.

Trump has nominated a lawyer to head the criminal division of the Department of Justice who represented the Russian Alfa Bank until this past June.

This position is one of the most powerful in the world of law enforcement.

President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, said on Tuesday that he helped Russia’s Alfa Bank investigate whether its computer servers contacted the Trump Organization.

Mr. Benczkowski said he had agreed to help his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, represent Alfa Bank amid the intense scrutiny of the Trump-Russia investigation knowing that he might be nominated for a job in the Trump administration, a disclosure that prompted incredulity from several Democrats.

Is there anyone in the Trump administration who has no connections to Russian intelligence or Vladimir Putin?

What is going on? This is bizarre.

How about someone with ties to Canada or a South American country or an Asian country or an African country? That would a change.

Gail Collins writes a column about politics in the New York Times. She used to be the chief editorial writer, so she knows more than most pundits.

But what sets her apart is that she is really funny.

This column today has some good laughs.

She begins like this:

Pick your favorite irony:

I can definitely understand if you want to pick No. 2, especially since Trump just finished observing “Made in America Week” with an application to hire 70 foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago.

Those 70 foreign workers, by the way, are cooks, maids, and waiters. Apparently, Mar-a-Lago could not find any Americans who could fill these positions.

Trump is not normal. Nothing he does is normal. Yesterday at a campaign rally, he boasted that he could be the most presidential president since Lincoln. That is, if he wanted to. He likes to compare himself to Lincoln.

E.J. Dionne warns that we are headed into unchartered territory, and the norms of government are collapsing.

Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes. Trump’s ignorant, self-involved contempt for his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” ought to inspire patriots of every ideological disposition to a robust and fearless defiance.

But where are the leaders of the Republican Party in the face of the dangers Trump poses? They’re trying to sneak through a health-care bill by violating every reasonable standard citizens should impose on public servants dealing with legislation that affects more than one-sixth of our economy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan have little time for worrying about the Constitution because they are busy doing Trump’s bidding on health care.

The joke is that Trump doesn’t know what is in the health care bill, not any of them. It would be great if he held a town hall and answered questions about the bill he wants to see, because he couldn’t explain the details. All he can do is rant about Obamacare. He leaves the policy stuff to others.

Trump is not normal.

Peter Greene here reviews an attempt by a Destroy Public Schools group to define “a real reformer.”

He writes:

“Real reformsters don’t admit poverty as any sort of excuse. RR believe that the only accountability is accountability based on test scores. Parents should have control of who gets the money attached to their child. And innovation should happen because the US education sky is falling.

“Big fakes talk accountability without explaining it, “banter on” about how poverty actually affects students, and try to claim pre-school as a growth for old, faily public ed instead of letting privatizers stake out that market unchallenged.

“You’ll note that the tune for the accountability polka has changed a bit since 2014– choice fans are less attached to the idea of test-based accountability now that it hasn’t worked out so well for choicey programs. In fact, CER just cranked out a whole book on the theme of “Maybe we shouldn’t get so picky about accountability and test scores.” Weaponizing test results was only attractive when the weapons didn’t bite reformsters in the butt.

“Teachers Unions

Real reformsters know that unions suck and stand in the path of every good and true reformy idea. Contracts and job security somehow make people not want to be teachers. RR understand that the public school system is just a scam for the unions to suck up tax dollars for their political purposes

“Faux reformers– well, I’m just going to cut and paste this, because if I paraphrase the hatred here you’ll think I’m just exaggerating for effect:

“Issues gobs of praise for the teaching profession, for teachers in general, and begins to make excuses that the job is really much harder than most realize and never fully addresses what stands in their way.

“Discusses, proposes, or advocates having an honest conversation with the union leadership, who (s)he sincerely believes wants what’s best for children.

“These fake reformsters might even brag about having developed a policy by collaborating with teachers. Such people are traitors to the reformy agenda and must be purged. Teachers suck and have no interest in educating children, nor do they care about children or communities or anything.

“School Choice

“Real reformsters support parent choice, and the focus on creating an “environment” where lots of education flavored businesses can thrive. Because really, it’s all about using education tax dollars to provide private businesses with entrepreneurial opportunities.”

It gets better and better.

Know your reformers.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is a rightwing zealot. He has two obsessions that keep him awake at night. He wants vouchers. And, he wants to keep transgender people out of the bathroom of their choice. He runs the State Senate. He is an extremist. As one of the regular readers here said, if Patrick has his way with the bathroom bill, the women’s and girls’ bathrooms will suddenly have some hairy, muscled patrons who look very much like men.

Two sisters testified against the voucher bill, which is intended to offer vouchers to students with disabilities.

First was Abby. This is her testimony:

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:

• My name is Abby Tassin. I am 17-years-old and I have Down syndrome.
• I am testifying against the bill.
• I am going to the 11th grade at Ridge Point High School in Fort Bend ISD.
• I have been going to school in my neighborhood with my friends ever since I was in kindergarten.
• I like going to school with my friends and my sisters.
• Sometimes my teachers give me help and sometimes they don’t.
• Sometimes my teachers follow my IEP and sometimes they don’t.
• Sometimes my teachers follow my behavior plan when I get upset in class and sometimes they don’t.
• When I was in the 6th grade, my teacher flipped me out of my desk.
• She grabbed me and scratched me.
• She told me, “Shut up you stupid Brat.”
• She made me sit in the middle of the floor during class and would not let me get back in my desk.
• I was embarrassed and I was crying.
• Going to school has not always been easy for me.
• My parents have to fight for me to get what I need in school.
• My parents have to fight for me to be in the regular class.
• Now I go to my ARD meetings with my parents and fight for myself.
• But, I do not want to go to private school.
• Giving my parents money for me to leave my school will not help me.
• I want to go to school with my friends and my sisters.
• My best friend is named Nevaeh. She has been my best friend for 8 years.
• She does not have a disability.
• We help each other. We are in theater together. We were on swim team together.
• I don’t want to be treated differently. I just want to be like everyone else and go to school with my friends like everyone else.
• Please help me to stay in my regular school with my friends.
• Please make it easier for me to be able to go to school there.
• Help my teachers be able to help me better.
• Please fight for me and other people like me.
• Please don’t give up. Please vote against this bill. Thank you.

Then came her sister Sarah. This is her testimony:

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:

• My name is Sarah Tassin. I am testifying against the bill.
• I am 15-years-old and am going to the 10th grade at Ridge Point High School in Fort Bend ISD.
• I am two years younger than my sister, Abby, who has Down syndrome.
• We have been very close my whole life and have gone to school together since we were babies.
• My sister would not be interacting with typical peers and learning how to be independent if she went to a private school for kids with disabilities.
• Abby is becoming independent and prepared to be part of our society because she has had the opportunity to go to school with typical kids and learn in the same classes they do.
• While she has not always gotten everything she needs in school and my parents have had to fight for her to be there, she is pushed harder to learn more in regular classes with other kids her age and she has learned how to make friends who are different than her.
• It makes me sad when someone says they would rather send a kid away to another school than take the time to help educate them where and how they need.
• These kids don’t need to be put in a school where everyone is the same and they never learn how the world actually is and understands the standards the world sets. Instead we need to put money and effort into the programs we have for them right where they are.
• Having my sister at school with me means a lot to me. I get to share classes with her, like theatre, and it allows my friends to get to know her. Going to school with her helps them better understand people with disabilities and they learn how to interact with all kids, not just typical kids.
• My sister inspires me to be better every day because she is constantly defying any limits set for her. Please help make sure her school and all other schools in Texas are doing what’s right for my sister and other kids with disabilities.
• I am asking you to vote against this bill and instead fight to make public school better for my sister and all the other kids like her.
• Thank you.

David Rothkopf catches the essence of the Trump era: It is America’s “Golden Age of Stupidity.”

“Hello, you have reached the United States of America. We’re sorry no one is here to take your call right now. We have taken leave of our senses and are unsure when they’ll return. Please try again in three-and-a-half years.”

Clovis, like many in the administration, is a climate-change “skeptic.” So, too, is Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. As giant chunks of Antarctica snap off the continent’s ice pack and weather patterns continue to confirm the conclusions of 97 percent of the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change is real, Trump has surrounded himself with people such as Clovis and Pruitt who simply disregard the facts, putting all of us at risk….

He neglects to mention the willfully disastrous choice of rightwing religious fanatic and libertarian ideologue Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education. She is a triumph of wealth over intellect. Her goal is to demolish America’s great public school system, about which she knows nothing. You can’t make America great again by attacking its education system; you can make it great only by improving its schools. DeVos belittles the public schools because they were started in the 1800s; will she also belittle the Constitution because it was written in the 1700s?

The opposite of knowledge is ignorance. But the willful disregard of knowledge — regardless of motive — is stupidity. That is because those who battle facts are at war with reality. It is an unwinnable proposition. Furthermore, specialized knowledge, particularly that of scientists, is essential if we are to do what leaders must, anticipate change, understand its consequences and harness the opportunities it presents. Trump, in waging a systematic campaign to rid the government of the experts and ideas he sees as threats to his agenda, has done more than just usher in a Golden Age of Stupidity. He is unwittingly asking a question it doesn’t take an expert to figure out: “What happens when you lobotomize the world’s leading power?”

This Washington Post editorial rightly calls out Trump’s unseemly behavior, first, by calling on Attorney General Sessions to open a criminal investigation of his defeated political opponent, who was previously investigated by the FBI; and second, by turning the Boy Scout Jamboree into an opportunity to belittle former President Obama and call the nation’s capitol a “cesspool” and a “sewer.” Trump even said (falsely) that Obama had never spoken to the Boy Scouts. In a matter of minutes, someone produced a photograph on Twitter of…Obama speaking to the Boy Scouts.

Some on Twitter have likened Trump’s disgusting performance before the Boy Scouts as akin to a Hitler Youth Rally.

This man is–dare I say–un-American. He ignores and dismisses cherished traditions, like upholding the independence of the judiciary. He uses his bully pulpit and his itchy Twitter finger to harass those who dare to disagree with them. He has embarrassed the national leadership of the Boy Scouts by bringing his partisan rant before the assembled scouts, who believe in service and fair play, concepts that are alien to Trump.

Everyone is simply a tool to be used by him. When they no longer serve his purpose, he tosses them away, as Sessions is now discovering.

Will Trump remove Sessions so he can find a pliable Attorney General who will fire Mueller?

When will the decent Republicans say “enough is enough.” Trump will destroy the Republican party and destroy everything good that our nation is supposed to stand for.

How low can he go? He showed us at the Boy Scout jamboree. For this man, there is no bottom. He just keeps diving and trying to drag the rest of us down with him.

For the umpteenth time, the Texas state senate passed a voucher bill for students with disabilities. It is heading now for the House. Up until now, the House (also Republican controlled) has turned down the senate’s voucher bill. The House of Representatives believes in local control. The state senate believes in Betsy DeVos and ALEC.

The senate bill is the camel’s nose under the tent. First, vouchers for students with disabilities (although the students abandon their federally-protected rights when they leave the public schools), then will come a parade of other small groups, then everyone.

It is so transparent.

Here is the latest bulletin from Phyllis Bush on her battle against what she calls “cancer schmanzer.”