Barack is Back: Re-entering the political fray after nearly two years of silence, former President Barack Obama condemned the politics of President Trump and his administration in a speech yesterday at the  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“None of this is conservative,” Obama told a full auditorium of students. “It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says the protection of our power and those who back us is all that matters even when it hurts the country.”

Obama appears to have succumbed to pressure from Democratic colleagues to abandon the custom of remaining silent as Trump dismantles his legacy.

“It did not start with Donald Trump,” he told the students. “He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past, but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”

Trump was quick to respond, telling an audience in Fargo, ND,  “I’m sorry, I watched it, but I fell asleep. I found he’s very good, very good for sleeping.”

Obama had his audience up and cheering. He said he decided to speak up “Because in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch brothers and their lobbyists, or too much compromise from Democrats, or Russian hacking. The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference.”

Law and Order: Revealing that he knows nothing about the First Amendment or basic criminal law, President Trump yesterday called for the attorney general to open an investigation into the identity of the anonymous op-ed author who wrote in The NY Times that members of the administration are protecting the republic from the President himself.

“I would say Jeff should be investigating who the author of this piece was because I really believe it’s national security,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump said he believed that if the anonymous writer were to be present in a meeting with officials from China, Russia, or North Korea, it would be a national security threat.

The anonymous author has broken no law by criticizing the president. It’s a First Amendment right to speak. Neither did the opinion piece reveal any classified information

The anonymous author wrote that, “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”

The New York Times responded to Trump with a statement saying, “The President’s threats both underscore why we must safeguard the identity of the writer of this op-ed and serve as a reminder of the importance of a free and independent press to American democracy.”

Advise and Consent:Hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh ended yesterday with Democrats accusing the nominee of dodging their questions on crucial issues that are likely to be in front of the court.

A NY Times editorial says, “He was nominated by a president who undermines daily the nation’s democratic order and mocks the constitutional values that Judge Kavanaugh purports to hold dear.”

The editorial goes on, “Now he’s being rammed through his confirmation process with an unprecedented degree of secrecy and partisan maneuvering by Republican senators who, despite their overflowing praise for his legal acumen and sterling credentials, appear terrified for the American people to find out much of anything about him beyond his penchant for coaching girls’ basketball.”

Indirectly to Jail: Former Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos was sentenced yesterday to just 14 days in jail for his admission that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the 2016 political campaign.

Prosecutors had asked for as much as six months in jail. They say the lies Papadopoulos told delayed the apprehension of a suspected Russian operative who was able to get out of the US.

First time offenders who lie to the feds usually get no time, but the judge said Papadopoulos needed to go away because he had impeded an investigation of “grave national importance.”

Econ 101: In a sign that the economy is humming along, wages rose at their fastest pace since the end of the recession and job growth has extended its streak to 95 months. — Shares of Tesla dropped 6 percent yesterday when the chief financial officer resigned and founder Elon Musk was seen on a webcast smoking marijuana. Investors are worried that there’s a meltdown going on inside Tesla.

Your Call is Very Important: Since Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted the phone number of The NY Times, inviting Trump supporters to demand the identity of the administration official who wrote the anonymous opinion piece trashing the President, the switchboard has been flooded.

Our anonymous source at the Times tells us that many callers have used the auto-operator asking for “Op-Ed” and instead are being connecting to some poor soul whose name sounds vaguely like that. Since anonymity is the thing these days, we’re going to preserve his – or hers. They don’t know who the essayist is and neither does the auto-operator.

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