Backup for @realDonaldTrump's wiretapping tweets

The FBI, Justice Department, and British intelligence may have all publicly denounced Donald Trump's early morning tweets about President Barack Obama personally wiretapping Candidate Trump at Trump Tower, but I discovered during a trip to the supermarket this afternoon that a major defiler of newsprint has joined Trump's friends at Fox & Friends in backing him up.

If it's in the National Enquirer -- the only publication the current resident of the White House allows next to his toilet -- it must be true.

Your semi-regular reminder that there are Americans stupid enough to believe the National Enquirer....

...and they all voted for Donald Trump last Tuesday.

"Hillary & Huma GOING TO JAIL!" Headline on the 11/21/2016 issue
of National Enquirer seen at the supermarket on November 15, 2016.

One Thing We Can Do Today.

I had a plan for this morning. Though I'm a digital subscriber to The New York Times, I was going to run out early and buy a print copy of today's paper with its headline about America's first woman president. I was going to put it away with these copies from 2008 for my one-year-old granddaughter.

Yes, We Did.

I have no desire to buy (or even see) a print copy of the Times this morning, but I have another plan. I want anyone who reads this to think about subscribing to the Times or the Washington Post, or your local newspaper that probably endorsed Hillary Clinton along with every major print publication in the nation.  In many ways, last night's result was a victory of the illiterate reality-television world over the world of printed words. Subscribe to the Times if only to prove the man wrong who unfailingly and gleefully refers to this essential national publication as the "failing @NYTimes" whenever he tweets about it.

The failing @nytimes reporters don't even call us anymore, they just write whatever they want to write, making up sources along the way!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016

I don't work for the Times or the Washington Post or any other newspaper, but I consider subscribing to at least one paper as a civic duty of anyone concerned about the First Amendment. Think about it as a non-deductible charitable contribution if you need to. Think about it the same way you think about contributing to your local PBS or NPR station. We need them all all the time, but we will need them all even more over the next four years.

Weighty Questions Being Weighed by National Enquirer

Seen at the supermarket
on August 11, 2016.

Why is Donald Trump's newspaper of record so obsessed this month with running fictional stories about the weight of the most prominent Democratic women?

Seen at the supermarket today, September 1, 2016.

There is no way that Michelle Obama has gained 95 pounds this year or that Hillary Clinton has gained 103 pounds, no matter how skilled the Enquirer's Photoshop magicians may be. Could this have anything to do with Donald Trump's own health, or questions about his official sub-200-lb weight?

The nation's favorite checkout-counter reading endorsed Donald Trump in March, and he returned the favor in July.

"I've always said, Why didn't the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer Prize for Edwards, and O.J. Simpson, and all of these things?" -- Donald J. Trump, July 22, 2016

UPDATE 7/19/2022: My original video link from 2016 has gone black, so here's another link from Mediaite with Trump's praise of the Enquirer: https://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-wonders-out-loud-why-didnt-the-national-enquirer-get-the-pulitzer-prize/