The Washington Post has a new article on Jared and Ivanka amending their financial disclosures to disclose additional assets. That's not the interesting part of the story.

The interesting part is how together they have earned more than $100 million since 2016 and have more than $200 million in assets. [More....]

[Note: I wrote this Wednesday and it got stuck in draft mode]

Donald Trump's recent interview with the New York Times reads like a self-pity party. He berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his recusal on the Russia Probe and said he wouldn't have hired him had he known he would recuse himself. He said the recusal was unfair to him [More...]

Made in America week is already backfiring, with the attention on Trump clothes and products made in China, Peru and elsewhere.

Some better songs (than Toby Keith):

There are now so many Trump camp lawyers in the Russia investigations,they seem to be stepping on themselves as they try to control the damage to their individual client, without overtly sinking another family member. Sure, there are those who wonder whether one or more of the lawyers are intentionally trying to shift blame to another lawyer's client, but I'm not a conspiracy theorist and while I can't speak to Trump's lawyers, never having heard of them before, I don't think the criminal defense lawyers involved for Kushner or Donald, Jr. play that way. Nor do I think there's a conspiracy by disgruntled FBI agents to leak information obtained from Kushner's team to get back at Trump for firing James Comey. That's just too convoluted for me to buy into.

What I find significant: [More...]

Donald Trump's approval ratings continue to fall. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll says he is down to 36%, the lowest since Gerald Ford.

Approaching six months in office, Trump’s overall approval rating has dropped to 36 percent from 42 percent in April. His disapproval rating has risen five points to 58 percent. Overall, 48 percent say they “disapprove strongly” of Trump’s performance in office, a level never reached by former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and reached only in the second term of George W. Bush in Post-ABC polling.

The actual poll results are here. [More...]

So Donald Jr. released his emails. He has now added page 4:

One of the early emails shows it's the Russian Crown Prosecutor he's going to meet with who according to Goldstone, is working on behalf of the Russian government to help Trump win. Why would anyone believe the prosecutor's current denial was crafted by her rather than the Russian Government? Is there even a "Crown Prosecutor" in Russia? (Turns out there is no such thing and she's a lawyer, but not for the Government.)

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote: Good morning. Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump- helped along by Aras and Emin.

The Trump son responds: [More...]

The Washington Post on Trump's changing Russia stories and on Donald Trump, jr.

The New York Times broke the story. More on Trump jr's two different stories on Russia meetings.

Donald Trump didn't make the G2 meeting on Africa today. Ivanka took his place.

The first daughter was spotted slipping into Trump's seat at a working session on “Partnership with Africa, Migration and Health,” putting her shoulder to shoulder with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Russian President Vladimir Putin was sitting one seat down.

The protests in Germany over the G-20 meetings have been huge.

Iraqi troops finally defeated ISIS in Mosul.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The media is exploding about the Ugly American Donald Trump and his latest tweet about a tv host's plastic surgery.

“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

Trump seems to have a "thing" about blood and women -- first Meghan Kelly and now Mika Brzezinski.

What a shame for America that a man with such a vulgar, low-class way of expressing himself is occupying a desk in the oval office.

P.S. Memo to Donald: You could use a facelift yourself. Have you noticed how much your face has aged since January?

From New York Magazine on Jared's unsuccessful trip to the Middle East to bring peace, Roadmap to Nowhere:

Palestinian leaders were said to be greatly disappointed in Kushner and Greenblatt serving as go-betweens for Netanyahu, as well as Kushner’s unwillingness to state a clear position on the issue of settlements. Al-Hayat even suggested that Trump was considering abandoning his effort to broker Mideast peace after the meeting, though a senior administration official dismissed that claim as “nonsense,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

It appears Netanyahu played Kushner like a fiddle, sending him to Ramallah with a laundry list of demands that he knew Abbas would reject, further delaying the start of any ostensible peace negotiations by instigating a diplomatic crisis he could then blame on Palestinian intransigence.

What's mind-boggling is that he was given this role in the first place: [More...]

Trump is always touting his ability to close a deal. He failed with health care the first time around, and the New York Times reports he's faltering as a closer this time around.

If Republicans do manage to broker a deal — as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, pledged to do during a lively East Room back-and-forth with the president — it is not likely to be because of Mr. Trump’s involvement. Until Tuesday afternoon, the president was largely on the sidelines as the fate of one of his most important campaign pledges played out.

... [O}ver the past few weeks, the Senate Republican leadership has made it known that it would much rather negotiate with Mr. Pence than a president whose candidacy many did not even take seriously during the 2016 primaries. And some of the White House’s efforts have clearly been counterproductive.

The self-created myth of Donald Trump is being peeled away, layer by layer, just like an onion. Pretty soon he'll be standing in front of us naked. (Bob Dylan, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)...."But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.")[More...]

Donald Trump today said there are no tapes of him and James Comey. Why couldn't he have said that initially?

Just more confirmation he just throws things out there as part of his stream of consciousness that have no basis in fact. Either that, or he is unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood, or still has a child-like need to make stuff up to boost his position.