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Donald Trump and his Coterie of the Craven (part 16)


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"The ‘Oh, never mind’ president"

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In his first annual message to Congress, John Quincy Adams, among the most experienced and intellectually formidable presidents, warned leaders against giving the impression that “we are palsied by the will of our constituents.” In this regard, if in no other, the 45th president resembles the sixth.

Donald Trump’s “Oh, never mind” presidency was produced by voters stung by the contempt they detected directed toward them by the upper crust. Their insurrection has been rewarded by Trump’s swift shedding of campaign commitments, a repudiation so comprehensive and cavalier that he disdains disguising his disdain for his gulled supporters.

The notion that NATO is obsolete? That China is a currency manipulator? That he would eschew humanitarian interventions featuring high explosives? That the Export-Import Bank is mischievous? That Obamacare would be gone “on Day One”? That 11.5 million illegal immigrants would be gone in two years (almost 480,000 a month)? That the national debt would be gone in eight years (reducing about $2.4 trillion a year)? About these and other vows from the man whose supporters said “he tells it like it is,” he now tells them: Never mind.

The president, whose almost Sicilian sense of clan imparts new meaning to the familiar phrase “family values,” embraces daughter Ivanka’s belief that America suffers from an insufficiency of entitlements, a defect she (and he, judging from his address to a joint session of Congress) would rectify with paid family leave. Her brother Eric has said (to Britain’s Telegraph) that he is “sure” that 59 cruise missiles flew because Ivanka said to her father about Syria using chemical weapons, “Listen, this is horrible stuff.”

Although a senior Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, has stipulated that presidential powers to protect the nation “will not be questioned,” still they persist, those impertinent questioners. They do because when candidate Trump’s open-mic-night-at-the-improv rhetoric of quarter-baked promises and vows is carried over into the presidency and foreign policy, there are consequences, especially when his imprecision infects his subordinates.

One cannot erase with an “Oh, never mind” shrug Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s statement that the “message” foreign leaders should take from the Syrian attack is “if you violate international norms, if you violate international agreements, if you fail to live up to commitments, if you become a threat to others, at some point a response is likely to be undertaken.” It is not true that the United States will respond, other than rhetorically, to all crossings of those four red lines. If, as Tillerson says, the United States is committed to “holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” the United States is going to need a much bigger military than even the president’s proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending would purchase.

If the attack on Syria was intended to buttress an international norm and enforce an international agreement concerning chemical weapons, it was not clarifying for press secretary Sean Spicer to say that you will see a presidential “response” if someone uses chemical weapons or “a barrel bomb.” This is a nasty but conventional munition that turns scrap metal into shrapnel.

...

Messages are important, whether delivered by words or missiles or words about missiles. Trump’s retreat from positions that enchanted his supporters is a matter mostly between him and them. How he addresses the world, however, will reveal whether he has gone from candidate to commander in chief without becoming presidential.

I'm not often in agreement with George Will, but he writes so well. The bolded parts are my favorites, especially open-mic-at-the-improv.

 

 

Another interesting opinion piece: "Trump’s dangerous ‘good cop, bad cop’ foreign policy"

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Foreign leaders and local interlocutors, a.k.a. pundits, might as well take a vacation for the next few minutes until President Trump’s next foreign policy “strategy” surfaces from deep within his amygdala.

For to presume a strategy when Trump toys with potentially lethal nations — threatening to tear apart the nuclear agreement with Iran or putting North Korea on notice that doom may befall it any moment — is to imagine that a toddler has given grave consideration to the gravitational aspects of toppling his brother’s Lego edifice.

Theories, nevertheless, abound as the world wonders, no doubt with fear and loathing, what the president of the United States is going to say or do next. It does seem at times that Trump won’t be satisfied unless and until he has managed to prompt a nuclear confrontation with some nation — or two.

One theory goes that by talking tough, Trump is alerting the world that the United States is no longer the weak sister, if I may use an old expression, it had become under President Barack Obama. The world will tremble at the thought of engaging the United States except to please her, goes such thinking.

Let me clarify: Trump is rattling his borrowed saber because that’s what he does. The bully in chief no longer has to file lawsuits to try to evict widows from their homes for monetary gain. Now he has a military — the world’s most powerful, to be precise — and can decide over chocolate cake to fire missiles at Syria.

Another extant theory concerns the contradictions within his administration. While U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley talks tough on Russia, Trump protects his benign bromance with President Vladimir Putin. This surely has nothing to do with a recent Reuters report that a Russian government think tank came up with a plan to influence the 2016 election.

...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, pounds Iran with one fist, saying it’s not complying with the nuclear agreement fashioned by his predecessor, John F. Kerry. With the other, he pens a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) saying that Iran is in full compliance. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, rather than quaking, tweeted Friday: “We’ll see if US prepared to live up to letter of #JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] let alone spirit. So far, it has defied both. Should I use my highlighter again?”

This isn’t to make light of the Iran agreement, about which Trump may be right. It was a lousy deal. But it apparently was the only one possible in July 2015 after months of negotiations among Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States — plus Germany and the European Union. What, pray tell, does Trump think will happen if the United States unilaterally shreds the deal?

...

Good cop, bad cop may be useful in reducing a prisoner to confession, but the contradictory messages emanating from Washington serve mostly to confuse — and not in a good way. Trump, by conveying to allies and non-allies that he’s likely to do anything at any moment, is telegraphing not strength but instability and impulsivity. The overarching sense is that no one is in charge, or at least no one not wearing a water-squirting boutonniere.

To countless Americans, it feels as though Trump is making the world a less safe place, explaining in part Gallup’s recent report that at nearly 100 days, Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president since the poll began in 1953. Rather than a master strategist, he’s a human grab bag of tactics wandering erratically everywhere in search of someone or something to conquer. The notion that he has a plan that he is just not sharing would be edifying if evidence to the contrary weren’t so convincing.

For now, it seems equally likely that Trump discovered his foreign policy strategy in a Chinese fortune cookie left behind at Mar-a-Lago by a visitor. The amygdala would have signaled Trump’s head to nod in agreement upon reading the message: “Soon you will be emperor of the world.”

 

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"Nearing 100 days, Trump’s approval at record lows but his base is holding"

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President Trump nears the 100-day mark of his administration as the least popular chief executive in modern times, a president whose voters remain largely satisfied with his performance, but one whose base of support has not expanded since he took the oath of office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Trump’s first months in office have produced some tangible successes. Beyond the continued enthusiasm of his most loyal supporters, a small majority of Americans see him as a strong leader. A bigger majority approves of his efforts to pressure U.S. companies to keep jobs in this country. Those who say the economy is getting better outnumber those who say it’s getting worse by the biggest margin in 15 years in Post-ABC polling.

But the president’s balance sheet overall tilts toward the negative. Majorities of Americans say Trump has not accomplished much during his first months as president. Meanwhile, he shows little improvement on his temperament and honesty, and while he’s gained ground on empathy, over 6 in 10 still say he does not understand the problems of people like them.

With a week remaining before his 100th day in office, Trump has yet to achieve a major legislative accomplishment, having been dealt a major setback when Republicans in Congress decided not to proceed with a vote on a health-care bill supported by the White House. His clearest achievement is the successful nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court seat previously held by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Executive actions on trade, immigration, climate and government organization have pointed the direction he wants to take the country, though his controversial proposed travel ban that affects a number of Muslim-majority nations remains blocked by the courts. Trump and others in his administration have attacked the courts, accusing them of overreach, but nearly 6 in 10 people see their actions as a legitimate role for the judicial branch.

Overseas, he has demonstrated his willingness to use military force, with targeted strikes in Syria and the use of one of the biggest non-nuclear devices in the U.S. arsenal in Afghanistan. But tensions with North Korea remain high and the administration’s policy in the Middle East remains cloudy.

The 100-day marker is in part an artificial measuring post for any president, but by comparison, Trump has reached this point in his presidency faring worse to much worse than other recent presidents. An electorate that was deeply divided throughout the 2016 campaign remains so today, with opposition seemingly hardened and unyielding on most questions regarding his presidency.

The president’s approval rating stands at 42 percent, the lowest recorded at this stage of a presidency dating to Dwight Eisenhower. Trump’s 53 percent disapproval rating is 14 percentage points higher than Bill Clinton’s 39 percent disapproval in April 1993, the worst before Trump. Eight years ago, then-president Barack Obama’s approval was 69 percent, his disapproval 26 percent.

The Post-ABC poll finds 43 percent of Americans said they strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance. That’s also the worst by far of any president since George H.W. Bush by more than double. In the spring of 1993, 21 percent said they strongly disapproved of Clinton’s performance.

...

There are no signs of major slippage in support among those who voted for Trump. His approval rating among those who cast ballots for him stands at 94 percent. Among Republicans, it is 84 percent. Asked of those who voted for him whether they regret doing so, 2 percent say they do, while 96 percent say supporting Trump was the right thing to do.When asked if they would vote for him again, 96 percent say they would, which is higher than the 85 percent of Hillary Clinton voters who say they would support her again.

Trump is also satisfying the substantial share of the electorate that voted for him with some reservation. Among Trump voters who say they were “somewhat enthusiastic” or less excited about supporting him, 88 percent approve of his current performance and 79 percent say he understands the problems of people like them.

Bill Clinton also had a rocky start to his presidency, which colored public judgments of his presidency by the 100-day mark. Although just 42 percent say Trump has accomplished either a great deal or a good amount so far, that is slightly higher than the 37 percent who said the same about Clinton in 1993.

Similarly, judgments on whether campaign promises have been kept put Trump on about equal footing with Bill Clinton — 44 percent and 42 percent respectively. Also, Trump’s 53 percent positive rating on strong leadership is almost identical to that of George W. Bush’s at this point in his presidency, but much lower than Obama’s 77 percent rating.

Of those who say Trump has not accomplished much, 47 percent pin the blame on him while about a quarter blame congressional Republicans. Only 7 percent say Democrats are to blame.

One of Trump’s biggest deficiencies compared with other presidents is whether he is honest and trustworthy. Fewer than 4 in 10 (38 percent) say he is. At this point in their presidencies, 74 percent said Obama was honest, 62 percent said George W. Bush was honest and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed 61 percent said Clinton was honest.

Another gap is on the question of whether Trump can be trusted in a crisis. The poll finds that 43 percent — about the same as Trump’s approval rating — say he can be trusted; 73 percent said so for Obama and 65 percent for George W. Bush at this point in their presidencies.

On the specific question of how Trump has dealt with North Korea, 46 percent say he has been about right in his posture, 37 percent say he is too aggressive and just 7 percent say he is too cautious.

On most questions about his performance or characteristics, Trump receives more negative than positive ratings. The most notable exception is his effort to pressure U.S. companies on the issues of keeping jobs at home, where 73 percent of Americans approve, including 54 percent of Democrats.

Another issue where the public sides with Trump rather than his critics is whether it is a conflict of interest for Trump to spend time at his own properties. A 54 percent majority say he has the right to travel where he wants to go. But on another question, about 6 in 10 Americans say they disapprove of the major White House roles Trump has given to his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner.

Trump has net negative ratings on such questions as temperament — just as he did during the campaign — as well as on judgment to serve as president, and on whether he operates from a consistent set of principles. He has said he likes to be unpredictable.

Half disapprove of the major changes he has proposed for government spending, while nearly 6 in 10 say he is out of touch with the concerns of most people. But on this question, the public is even harsher in judging the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Democrats have lost considerable ground on this front. The 28 percent who say the party is in touch with concerns of most Americans is down from 48 percent in 2014 and the biggest drop is among self-identified Democrats, from 83 percent saying they are in touch to just 52 percent today. That is a reminder that whatever challenges Trump is having, Democrats, for all the energy apparent at the grass roots, have their own problems.

The Post-ABC survey reveals a persistent gender gap, with women generally more negative toward the president than men, including double-digit gaps on Trump’s attributes such as honesty and temperament. Just over one-third of women (35 percent) approve of the way he is handling the job of president compared with 48 percent of men. Even fewer women, 29 percent,say they approve of the changes he is proposing for government spending compared with 45 percent of men.

Despite the public’s skepticism of Trump’s first 100 days, the survey finds little evidence voters would render a different verdict from last November, when Trump won key states needed to secure victory in the electoral college despite Clinton winning more votes nationwide.

...

 

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So dumb question, but as I watch John Oliver (a beacon of light since this election occured) he had a few clips of orange fuckface and it really hit me, how did this man EVER make some type of business deal?! He has such limited vocab and can't form real sentences.

 

Also he had an interview with AP, and I'll just leave a tweet storm by a reporter as well as the actual transcript cause everyone's brain will melt trying to decode anything he says.

and the transcript

Transcript of AP interview with Trump

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5 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Also he had an interview with AP, and I'll just leave a tweet storm by a reporter as well as the actual transcript cause everyone's brain will melt trying to decode anything he says.

and the transcript

Transcript of AP interview with Trump

Holy fuckola. As you probably saw, I posted about the actual article AP wrote after this interview. What a watered down version of this transcript that was, and the article was bad enough as is.

I've said half jestingly before that the man is (going) senile. But, by Rufus, I think it really might be true. Or at least, he's certainly not got all his marbles in a row.

He rambles, contradicts himself constantly, boasts, lies (and seems to believe them too), falsely accuses, boasts, and rambles some more. 

Here are some of the things I literally laughed out loud at:

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TRUMP: Yeah, it's funny: One of the best chemistries I had was with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel.

(Crosstalk) AP: Really?

TRUMP: Chancellor Merkel.

TRUMP: And I guess somebody shouted out, "Shake her hand, shake her hand," you know. But I never heard it. But I had already shaken her hand four times. You know, because we were together for a long time.

AP: Did you expect you would have good chemistry with her?

TRUMP: No. Because, um, I'm at odds on, you know, the NATO payments and I'm at odds on immigration. We had unbelievable chemistry. And people have given me credit for having great chemistry with all of the leaders, including el-Sissi. [...]

TRUMP: I think the 100 days is, you know, it's an artificial barrier. It's not very meaningful. I think I've established amazing relationships that will be used the four or eight years, whatever period of time I'm here. I think for that I would be getting very high marks because I've established great relationships with countries, as President el-Sissi has shown and others have shown. Well, if you look at the president of China, people said they've never seen anything like what's going on right now. I really liked him a lot. I think he liked me. We have a great chemistry together. ...

Here's the thing. People lie. Especially those sychophantic, sniveling, mealy mouthed minions of yours. Good chemistry my ass. 

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AP: Do you feel like you've been able to apply that kind of a relationship to your dealings with Congress as well?

TRUMP: I have great relationships with Congress. I think we're doing very well and I think we have a great foundation for future things.[...]

AP: Is it this deal that's between the Tuesday Group and the Freedom Caucus, is that the deal you're looking at?

TRUMP: So the Republican Party has various groups, all great people. They're great people. But some are moderate, some are very conservative. The Democrats don't seem to have that nearly as much. You know the Democrats have, they don't have that. The Republicans do have that. And I think it's fine. But you know there's a pretty vast area in there. And I have a great relationship with all of them. Now, we have government not closing. I think we'll be in great shape on that. It's going very well. Obviously, that takes precedent.

Wait. What? Is he just dissing his own - very divided - party here?

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AP: So in terms of the 100-day plan that you did put out during the campaign, do you feel, though, that people should hold you accountable to this in terms of judging success?

TRUMP: No, because much of the foundation's been laid. Things came up. I'll give you an example. I didn't put Supreme Court judge on the 100 (day) plan, and I got a Supreme Court judge.

AP: I think it's on there.

TRUMP: I don't know. ...

Now that there is the first honest thing he's said since his inauguration. He doesn't even know what was in his own 100 day plan!

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AP: Can I ask you, over your first 100 days — you're not quite there yet — how do you feel like the office has changed you?

TRUMP: Well the one thing I would say — and I say this to people — I never realized how big it was. Everything's so (unintelligible) like, you know the orders are so massive. I was talking to —

AP: You mean the responsibility of it, or do you mean —

TRUMP: Number One, there's great responsibility. [...] So it's far more responsibility. (unintelligible) ....The financial cost of everything is so massive, every agency. This is thousands of times bigger, the United States, than the biggest company in the world. The second-largest company in the world is the Defense Department. The third-largest company in the world is Social Security. The fourth-largest — you know, you go down the list.

AP: Right.

TRUMP. It's massive. And every agency is, like, bigger than any company. So you know, I really just see the bigness of it all, but also the responsibility. 

I am utterly astounded by this depth of ignorance. 

For most of the interview, he seems to be echoing things he has been told to say and repeating subjects he's been told to focus on. But his gigantic ego cannot stay hidden for long, and when he does put forth his personal observations, he comes across as as childlike. Ignorant and unintelligent, yet full of swagger and self aggrandization.

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Trump's interview was a word salad that made fundie-speak sound coherent and intelligent.  I read the comment sections on a couple of articles.  The Trump sycophants keep chanting liberal media lies, Hillary followers are still upset, he won, snowflake, more intelligent than Obama, and of course 8 more years!    

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Lord Dampnuts has decided to postpone his dinner with the Supreme Court;

thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/330161-trump-will-host-dinner-for-supreme-court-justices

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President Trump planned to have dinner with the justices of the Supreme Court on Thursday evening, but the White House said Sunday evening the event will take place on a future date because of scheduling conflicts. 

 

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2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

And people have given me credit for having great chemistry with all of the leaders, including el-Sissi.

Did he met the ghost of Empress Elisabeth aka Sissi or he meant Abdel Fattah el Sisi President of Egypt?

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Of course they voted for Lord Dampnuts but now that they'll be personally affected they don't want him to do what he promised...

kwwl.com/story/35222700/2017/04/24/fearing-a-worker-shortage-some-farmers-push-back-on-immigration

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President Donald Trump's hard line against immigrants in the U.S. illegally has sent a chill through the nation's agricultural industry, which fears a crackdown will deprive it of the labor it needs to plant, grow and pick the crops that feed the country.

Fruit and vegetable growers, dairy and cattle farmers and owners of plant nurseries and vineyards have begun lobbying politicians at home and in Washington to get them to deal with immigration in a way that minimizes the harm to their livelihoods.

Some of the farm leaders are Republicans who voted for Trump and are torn, wanting border security but also mercy toward laborers who are not dangerous criminals.

Farming uses a higher percentage of illegal labor than any other U.S. industry, according to a Pew Research Center study.

 

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8 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

So dumb question, but as I watch John Oliver (a beacon of light since this election occured) he had a few clips of orange fuckface and it really hit me, how did this man EVER make some type of business deal?! He has such limited vocab and can't form real sentences.

<snip>

Transcript of AP interview with Trump

I agree about the clips from John Oliver. They show that Agent Orange really is limited.

The WaPo, as usual, did an annotated transcript of the AP interview. I always like reading the notes.

 

"The first brick hasn’t been set, and Trump’s border wall is already going south on him"

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...

Mexico won't pay for it. Democrats hate it. Border-state Republicans don't like it. Congressional Republican leaders would rather not undertake it. There could be an avoidable government shutdown over it.

And yet President Trump's budget director is pushing Congress to spend $1.4 billion to start building his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The political tension could backfire for the president. Trump's insistence on a wall is increasingly doing what some had warned it would do: It's undermining his relationship with Congress, it's putting Republican leaders in a no-win scenario on whether to fund it and it could potentially derail the president's ability to get anything else done.

Here's why:

1. It's building a wall between Trump and his party

“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.”

That's Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), whose district spans about 40 percent of the entire southern border, in a statement in January.

Hurd still doesn't support it — nor, according to a recent survey of border-state lawmakers by Wall Street Journal — do any lawmakers in Congress who represent constituents on the border. That includes the Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas.

Trump says his wall will “secure, protect and defend” Americans. But right now, he can't even sell Republican lawmakers whose constituents would ostensibly benefit the most from it.

Pushing wary lawmakers to embrace the wall anyway risks further straining Trump's relationship with his party, both with border lawmakers and with GOP leaders trying to avoid a shutdown next week. Speaking of ...

...

2. It's threatening a government shutdown

Congress is facing a deadline of midnight Friday to pass a spending bill to keep the government open. Both Democratic and Republican leaders say they are successfully navigating the sinkholes that come with such a spending debate. (Similar political dynamics shut down the government in 2013 and very nearly in 2015.)

Funding Trump's border wall has not part of that bipartisan plan. It's just too risky a debate to undertake when a government shutdown is on the line: Conservative Republicans are wary of the untold billions it will cost, border-state and basically all Democrats oppose it. That's more than enough opposition to kill any spending bill.

But the Trump administration has a different perspective. April 29 marks the president's 100th day in office, and he badly needs a win. He's looking to score one by getting funding for his centerpiece campaign promise. “We want wall funding,” Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told the Associated Press on Thursday.

It's not clear how Republican leaders can appease their president by funding the wall while avoiding a shutdown. And that impasse is a big reasons budget experts say it's 50/50 the government shuts down next week.

...

3. It's uniting Democrats

Democrats have their own divisions to deal with. But opposing Trump's wall is a near-perfect rallying cry nearly everyone in their party can get behind. It's just too good of an opportunity to whack Trump and Republicans in Congress.

If Congress funds Trump's wall, Democrats can argue Trump has broken yet another campaign promise by building a wall without getting Mexico to pay for it. (Trump says he eventually will force Mexico's hand.) They can also argue Republicans are raising the deficit and that they're teetering on a shutdown when they control Washington because of this wall.

...

Perhaps most importantly, Democrats have public opinion on their side.

While popular with his base, Trump's wall has never been that popular with the United States. Fifty-four percent of Americans oppose building a wall along the entire Mexican border, according to CNN exit polling from the 2016 election. (Trump has said he's willing to skip some parts.)

A recent KVUE Austin poll found that in Texas (Trump country), 61 percent oppose his wall.

4. It's blocking Trump's ability to get other things done

Trump's relationship with Congress right now isn't great.

Democrats despise him. Republicans want to work with him, but his leverage with the party is questionable. (Witness Republicans' inability a few weeks ago to pass a health-care bill despite Trump's urging and growing evidence in places like Georgia that Trump's political sway won't make-or-break elections.)

Trump can't afford to exacerbate tensions with either side of Congress if he wants to reform the tax code or restart health care, or — siren alert — avoid another government shutdown in October, when Congress has to pass a spending bill for 2018.

Ironically for the president, pushing his centerpiece campaign promise right now is undermining the rest of his agenda by pushing the very people he needs to pass laws away from him.

 

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3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Holy fuckola. As you probably saw, I posted about the actual article AP wrote after this interview. What a watered down version of this transcript that was, and the article was bad enough as is.

I've said half jestingly before that the man is (going) senile. But, by Rufus, I think it really might be true. Or at least, he's certainly not got all his marbles in a row.

He rambles, contradicts himself constantly, boasts, lies (and seems to believe them too), falsely accuses, boasts, and rambles some more. 

Here are some of the things I literally laughed out loud at:

Here's the thing. People lie. Especially those sychophantic, sniveling, mealy mouthed minions of yours. Good chemistry my ass. 

Wait. What? Is he just dissing his own - very divided - party here?

Now that there is the first honest thing he's said since his inauguration. He doesn't even know what was in his own 100 day plan!

I am utterly astounded by this depth of ignorance. 

For most of the interview, he seems to be echoing things he has been told to say and repeating subjects he's been told to focus on. But his gigantic ego cannot stay hidden for long, and when he does put forth his personal observations, he comes across as as childlike. Ignorant and unintelligent, yet full of swagger and self aggrandization.

I read this... TERRIFYING that the "leader of the free world" (whatever that phrase supposedly means) is like this. Anybody else talking like this would be considered a candidate for "memory care" (as the TV ads call it).

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WaPo's take on the tangerine toddler's 'tell'. It was written more than a year ago, but is still relevant.

How do you know Donald Trump is exaggerating? If he uses the word ‘everybody.’

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As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump has some interesting and unique rhetorical patterns. He repeats himself. He uses interruptions in his speeches to rile up his crowd and foster an "us-versus-them" atmosphere. And above all, he tries to project confidence -- impenetrable, invincible confidence.

Perhaps that desire explains why he so often speaks for "everyone" or "everybody." Trump regularly makes assertions about what "everyone" thinks or knows, although those assertions are almost always debatable at best and flat-wrong at worst.

This device is more often employed when Trump is defending himself or attacking an opponent. [...]

And Trump's assertions about what "everyone" knows predate the election. There was even a time, in 2013, when "everybody" knew that his hair was real. Yet somehow the questions have persisted.[...]

One of the biggest knocks on Trump as a candidate is that he doesn't know his way around the issues. He counters that argument by saying he has a "great brain" and that he knows how to make tough decisions under pressure. Using the word "everyone" when making an assertion about a policy idea serves a few purposes: It theoretically makes it easier for voters to hop on board (Everyone thinks that? Well, I sure do, too!), and it gives Trump's statements more weight. It's not just Trump saying these things – it's ALL of us!

As with much of what Trump says -- from Mexico building his border wall to being the greatest jobs president God ever created -- Trump is clearly hoping that saying it makes it true. If he says everyone knows it, no matter how few people actually believe it, perhaps everyone will soon enough.

 

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"Six different ways of looking at a Trump tweet"

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The Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano has been one of the Trump administration’s most stalwart defenders in its first 100 days. In his latest at the National Interest, Carafano argues that, all appearances to the contrary, the administration really has a coherent foreign policy strategy. Carafano further argues that the appearances are confusing more critical commentators such as myself:

Since the early days of the campaign, one thing has been clear: trying to stitch together an understanding of Trump’s foreign and defense policy based on Trump’s tweets and other off-hand comments is a fool’s errand. That has not changed since the Donald took over the Oval Office.

That is not to say that none of Trump’s rhetoric matters. He has given some serious speeches and commentary. But pundits err when they give every presidential utterance equal merit. A joint address to Congress ought to carry a lot more weight than a 3 a.m. tweet about the Terminator.

As someone who just wrote a book lamenting that many academics make a mistake in treating all words equally, I can sympathize with Carafano’s position. That said, when foreign populations react to some of Trump’s more careless words, I think it’s a thing.

More importantly, sometimes a single tweet of Donald Trump’s can tell us a great deal about the man and how he is doing as president. So, in response to a challenge from the Boston Globe’s Michael Cohen, let me offer six different ways of looking at a Trump tweet from yesterday:

... <Tweet about Mexico paying for the wall>

The article then goes on to list six different interpretations. I think it's worth a read, but here's a list of the six, without explanation:

Quote
  1. Trump cannot write his way out of a paper bag.
  2. Trump lies a lot.
  3. Trump won’t honor many of his campaign promises.
  4. Trump continues to make promises that he will not be able to honor.
  5. Weirdly, Trump’s tweet steps on one of his few tangible policy accomplishments.
  6. Trump is explaining — which means that he’s losing.

 

Yup, I agree with all six.

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This is a good, but lengthy editorial that summarizes much of our global nightmare: "President Trump’s first 100 days In his words and ours"

 

How much do you want to bet that he'll screw this up? "Under fire for recent Holocaust flubs, Trump will headline Days of Remembrance ceremony"

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On Tuesday, President Trump, like others before him, will deliver the keynote address at a ceremony commemorating the Holocaust.

A president's participation in the Days of Remembrance ceremony, hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, is not new; every president since the museum opened in 1993 has done so.

But unlike his predecessors, Trump — as a candidate and as president — has been widely criticized by Jewish organizations for what they see as a lackluster and slow response to the recent spike in anti-Semitic incidents across the country. His young administration also has been faulted for a couple of recent flubs about the Holocaust.

This means that the speech Trump will deliver during the week-long commemoration of the Holocaust could be a critical step for him to appease some of his critics.

Just a few months ago, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the president was criticized for a statement that failed to mention Jews and instead used a more general phrase, "innocent people."

...

Spicer's gaffe and his subsequent apologies rocketed around the Internet, even inspiring another satirical Spicer skit on Saturday Night Live.

It also prompted a statement from Goldstein, who called on Trump to fire his press secretary. He described Spicer's remarks as "the most offensive form of fake news imaginable." Goldstein also didn't appear moved by Spicer's multiple apologies, calling them "a bureaucratic response to an outcry."

The week-long Days of Remembrance began Sunday.

During Tuesday's ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda, a Holocaust survivor accompanied by a member of Congress will light six candles in memory of the victims, according to a news release from the museum. The annual observance will open with a procession of flags from each of the U.S. Army liberating divisions to commemorate the American troops who liberated the Nazi concentration camps.

 

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Yeah, Man Baby has his fee fees hurt that people are not kissing his ass and calling it ice fucking cream.

cnn.com/2017/04/24/politics/donald-trump-first-100-days-plans/index.html

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President Donald Trump lives for superlatives -- he wants the biggest, the best, the greatest. So it's no surprise he's already fuming about uncomplimentary reviews of his first 100 days in office.

Trump is approaching the first symbolic milestone of his presidency on Saturday with a familiar mix of bluster and smokescreens, meant to disguise the reality that he has produced one of the least-prolific first 100 day debuts of any president in modern history.

"No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!" Trump wrote on Twitter Friday, despite playing up the significance of the first 100 days marker in the past.

Mexico is not paying for the wall. His travel ban has twice been blocked by the courts. He has failed to mobilize a Republican monopoly on power in Washington and his big legislative goal -- repealing Obamacare -- crashed.

 

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It's our daily "Wut?" time!

'Get to Mars during my first term': Donald Trump talks to Nasa astronauts in livestream

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Donald Trump instructed Nasa astronauts to get to Mars within his first term - or failing that, his second term, in a livestream with Peggy Whitson. [...]

Appearing to forget he had signed a bill directing Nasa to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s, Mr Trump asked: "Tell me, Mars, what do you see a timing for actually sending humans to Mars?"

Politely, Ms Whitson replied: "Well, I think as your bill directed it will be approximately in the 2030s".

Mr Trump said: "We want to do it during my first term and at worst during my second term so we want to speed that up, OK? "

 

Two comments.

1. He does know that one needs ebil science to get to Mars, right? 

2. Righteous Rufus! He needs an astronaut who has not been on earth since November 2015, to remind him what is in his own bill that he signed less than three months ago.

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5 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

It's our daily "Wut?" time!

'Get to Mars during my first term': Donald Trump talks to Nasa astronauts in livestream

Two comments.

1. He does know that one needs ebil science to get to Mars, right? 

2. Righteous Rufus! He needs an astronaut who has not been on earth since November 2015, to remind him what is in his own bill that he signed less than three months ago.

Lord Dampnuts probably is probably wanting to build a Trump property on Mars so he can rake in cash from there. 

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1 minute ago, 47of74 said:

Lord Dampnuts probably is probably wanting to build a Trump property on Mars so he can rake in cash from there. 

Actually, I don't think it's such a bad idea. Let's put all our efforts into getting to Mars, build him a little palace Including a golf course, of course, and then put him and his whole administration, and the GOP into a spacecraft. Send them off on a looooong vacation. With just enough fuel to get there, not back.

 

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"The Daily 202: 15 Trumpists who did not survive the first 100 days"

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THE BIG IDEA: In any normal administration, the failure of Andy Puzder to become secretary of labor would be a major data point in accounts of the president’s first 100 days.

It would be difficult, for example, to tell the story of Barack Obama’s first 100 days without mentioning Tom Daschle. Or Bill Clinton’s without mentioning Zoe Baird. Or George H.W. Bush’s without mentioning  John Tower.

But nothing about Donald Trump is normal, and the fast food CEO is already a forgotten footnote in the frenzied opening chapter of his administration.

-- The first three tumultuous months of Trump’s term have seen a perhaps unprecedented number of personnel casualties. A big part of the problem is that his transition team did a lousy job of vetting. Red flags that might have been discovered by a simple Google search didn’t emerge in some cases until after nominees were named publicly. The president also gravitated toward billionaires as he stocked the government, and the richer someone is the more conflicts they are likely to have. Complying with the requirements of the Office of Government Ethics proved too onerous for some. The premium that this president places on loyalty over experience and qualifications cost others their postings. Backstabbing and palace intrigue — which created a brutal, joyless work environment in the West Wing — drove others away after only weeks in their dream jobs.

-- Trump’s pick for deputy commerce secretary, Todd Ricketts, withdrew last Wednesday. The son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, a major GOP donor, could not easily unload his share in some of the family’s holdings, such as the Chicago Cubs.

The president’s nominee for Navy secretary, venture capitalist Philip Bilden, also cited his inability to meet the OGE ethics agreement when he pulled out in February.

Trump’s first choice for Army secretary, billionaire high-frequency trader Vincent Viola, apparently dropped out for similar reasons. When his company was planning to go public in 2014, though, it disclosed that regulators were looking into its trading practices. It also came out that he was involved in an altercation last summer, in which he allegedly punched a concessions worker at a racehorse auction. (He was never charged.)

-- Puzder’s withdrawal never got much attention because it happened just two days after Trump fired Michael Flynn as his national security adviser over his contacts with the Russian ambassador. These conversations are part of a gray cloud that continues to hang over the White House.

...

It's still not clear how much of Puzder’s past, if any, Trump knew about before he named him to run the Labor Department. The vetting process became especially messy after Trump fired Chris Christie as head of the transition team just days after the election. The president was reportedly prodded by son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail as U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Christie’s ouster was part of a broader purge that put family members and conservative hard-liners linked to Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions in charge of the effort.

-- Because the president has no fixed ideology, the people who occupy decision-making jobs in the government matter more than usual. That’s why the turmoil has been especially significant.

-- The deputy White House chief of staff didn’t even survive until the end of March. Katie Walsh, who had been Reince Priebus’s deputy at the Republican National Committee, abruptly left her West Wing post the week after the collapse of the president’s health-care plan in the House. The administration claimed she was leaving to assist a pro-Trump outside group, even though several loyalists were already helping the effort.

-- Boris Epshteyn, who as a special assistant to the president was in charge of managing all TV appearances by White House officials, also didn’t make it until the end of the first quarter. Russian-born, he got plugged into Trump World because he was a college buddy of Eric Trump at Georgetown. But Boris lost juice after antagonizing key people at the very networks with which he was supposed to be building bridges. “Earlier this year, Epshteyn threatened to pull all West Wing officials from appearing on Fox News after a tense appearance on anchor Bill Hemmer’s show,” Politico reported shortly before his departure. “Epshteyn also earned a reputation as someone who is combative and sometimes difficult to work with, even when he arrives at studios as a guest of a network. He has offended people in green rooms with comments they have interpreted as racially insensitive and demeaning.” He got a soft landing at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which the administration sees as a friendly media platform.

-- Gerrit Lansing gave up his job as the White House’s chief digital adviser after a month because he was unwilling to cut financial ties to a company in which he held an ownership stake, Politico reported last week: “The Republican Party’s top digital strategist in 2016 got a nearly $1 million payout from a firm he co-founded that collected online contributions to the party and [Trump] — despite earlier claims that the strategist had severed his ties to the company. … The controversy put White House press secretary Sean Spicer in an awkward spot. As the RNC’s chief strategist, Spicer denied to Politico in mid-2016 that Lansing had any financial stake in Revv. ‘He has zero connection to Revv,’ Spicer said then. ‘He had to sever the ties.’ In fact, Lansing never did. He received a $909,000 payout from the company last year. ‘The statement that was issued last year was based on information provided by Gerrit,’ Spicer [said last week].”

-- Others who were poised to get plum jobs in the White House never even got the chance to report for work:

Anthony Scaramucci was named as the head of the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs, but three weeks later it was taken away from him. The problem reportedly was the sale of his firm, SkyBridge Capital, to a division of HNA Group, a politically connected Chinese conglomerate.

Jason Miller was supposed to be White House communications director until he suddenly announced on Christmas Eve that he wanted to focus on his family instead. Suggestive tweets from the account of A.J. Delgado, an adviser to Trump’s campaign and a member of the transition team, added intrigue and raised questions that were never answered. Miller instead took a job at Teneo Strategy, the firm founded by former Bill Clinton loyalists which Republicans used to frequently attack.

Monica Crowley was going to oversee communications in a senior job on Trump’s National Security Council, but she was felled by a plagiarism scandal the week before Trump took office. In March, she registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

-- The NSC was a hotbed of dysfunction until recently when Flynn’s replacement, H.R. McMaster, finally asserted himself fully. Deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, who had been brought on by Flynn, is expected to leave her post soon to become U.S. ambassador to Singapore. McFarland initially resisted but later accepted the reassignment, an administration official told Abby Phillip on April 9. McMaster also removed White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon from the principals committee as part of a shake-up.

Trump’s own pick to be the NSC’s senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig Deare, was dismissed in mid-February after word got back to the White House that he’d trashed the president [and Bannon] during an off-the-record event hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center. Deare had complained to a group of academics that senior national security aides did not have access to the president.

Deare, of course, is not the only Trump appointee to get fired for being insufficiently loyal: A senior adviser to Ben Carson was escorted out of the Housing and Urban Development department headquarters by security after someone completing his background check found a critical op-ed he wrote about Trump last fall for The Hill. Shermichael Singleton, one of Trump’s relatively few African American political appointees, had been planning a cross-country tour for Carson.

-- Today is Day 95. Will anyone else be gone before the week is over?

...

 

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6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Holy fuckola. As you probably saw, I posted about the actual article AP wrote after this interview. What a watered down version of this transcript that was, and the article was bad enough as is.

I've said half jestingly before that the man is (going) senile. But, by Rufus, I think it really might be true. Or at least, he's certainly not got all his marbles in a row.

He rambles, contradicts himself constantly, boasts, lies (and seems to believe them too), falsely accuses, boasts, and rambles some more. 

Here are some of the things I literally laughed out loud at:

Here's the thing. People lie. Especially those sychophantic, sniveling, mealy mouthed minions of yours. Good chemistry my ass. 

Wait. What? Is he just dissing his own - very divided - party here?

Now that there is the first honest thing he's said since his inauguration. He doesn't even know what was in his own 100 day plan!

I am utterly astounded by this depth of ignorance. 

For most of the interview, he seems to be echoing things he has been told to say and repeating subjects he's been told to focus on. But his gigantic ego cannot stay hidden for long, and when he does put forth his personal observations, he comes across as as childlike. Ignorant and unintelligent, yet full of swagger and self aggrandization.

Waaaaa being president is hard! 

31 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Lord Dampnuts probably is probably wanting to build a Trump property on Mars so he can rake in cash from there. 

First term? Hell why not aim for the Sun.  Really Donnie.. how about you and your sycophants take the next rocket trip to the sun.  How is he going to pay for this trip to Mars? How long does he think it will take to do this.  Does he know they have to have real scientist for this? Every damn time I think he can't get any dumber, there he goes. Mars! That man is such a fuck of wasted space.

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I'm not sure if this has been posted; apologies if it has: "‘When I won,’ Trump thought, ‘now I’ll get good press’"

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If happiness equals reality minus expectations, then we now know why President Trump is so unhappy with the media: His expectations were way too high.

“I used to get great press,” the president told the Associated Press in an interview published Sunday night. “I get the worst press. I get such dishonest reporting with the media. That's another thing that really has — I've never had anything like it before. It happened during the primaries, and I said, you know, when I won, I said, 'Well the one thing good is now I'll get good press.' And it got worse. … So that was one thing that is a little bit of a surprise to me. I thought the press would become better, and it actually, in my opinion, got more nasty.”

In these remarks, Trump once again displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the media, which is to act as a check on power. As Trump has become more powerful — winning the Republican presidential nomination, then the White House — media scrutiny has intensified. That is both logical and appropriate, yet Trump believes the reverse should have happened. He said he was surprised that the media did not reward his winning by easing up.

We have seen this attitude from the White House before.

“I sincerely don't see a lot of difference in coverage from when he was a candidate and when he became the Republican nominee, the president-elect, and indeed the president,” counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway told CNN's Jake Tapper in February. “Some outlets, some people cover him the same way, and it doesn't have a great deal of respect, I think, for the office of the president's current occupant.”

...

It can be hard, at times, to figure out whether Trump is speaking strategically or genuinely. How could anyone be truly surprised that the president or a major-party nominee for president would have to go through the media wringer? Framing tough coverage as disrespectful seems like a political strategy designed to reduce its merit in the eyes of voters.

But it is possible that Trump really did not expect the press to cover him the way it has. He told the AP that he “used to get great press” and added that he has “never had anything like it before” — “it” being the scrutiny he receives now.

Those are true statements. For three decades, Trump was covered through various soft-focused lenses: reality TV star, beauty pageant owner, football team owner, golf course developer, professional big talker. It's not that he was never the subject of an unflattering article, but journalists didn't vet him like a future president because few, if any, imagined he would ever mount a serious campaign — never mind a victorious one.

Trump should have expected things to change, as he got closer to the Oval Office. But his long history of tame coverage set him up for an uncomfortable adjustment that he still has not made.

 

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"Zombies of Voodoo Economics"

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According to many reports, Donald Trump is getting frantic as his administration nears the 100-day mark. It’s an arbitrary line in the sand, but one he himself touted in many pre-inauguration boasts. And it will be an occasion for numerous articles detailing how little of substance he has actually accomplished.

Yet many of these reports will, I suspect, miss half the story. It’s important to note just how little the tweeter-in-chief has managed to achieve; but we also need to focus on what, exactly, it is that he hasn’t achieved.

For Mr. Trump sold himself to voters as unorthodox as well as effective. He was going to be a different kind of president, a consummate deal-maker who would transcend the usual ideological divide. His supporters should therefore be dismayed, not just by his failure to actually close any deals, but by the fact that he evidently has no new ideas to offer, just the same old snake oil the right has been peddling for decades.

We saw that on Trumpcare, where the administration outsourced its policy to Paul Ryan, who produced exactly the kind of plan you might have expected: take insurance away from millions, make it worse for the rest, and use the money to cut taxes on the wealthy. Populism!

And now we’re seeing it on taxes. Mr. Trump has promised to unveil a “massive” tax cut plan next week. This announcement apparently came as a surprise to his own Treasury officials, who obviously don’t have a plan ready. Still, one thing is clear: Whatever the details, Trumptax will be a big exercise in fantasy economics.

How do we know this? Last week Stephen Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told a financial industry audience that “the plan will pay for itself with growth.” And we all know what that means.

Back in 1980 George H. W. Bush famously described supply-side economics — the claim that cutting taxes on rich people will conjure up an economic miracle, so much so that revenues will actually rise — as “voodoo economic policy.” Yet it soon became the official doctrine of the Republican Party, and still is. That shows an impressive level of commitment. But what makes this commitment even more impressive is that it’s a doctrine that has been tested again and again — and has failed every time.

Yes, the U.S. economy rebounded quickly from the slump of 1979-82. But was that the result of the Reagan tax cuts, or was it, as most economists think, the result of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve? Bill Clinton provided a clear test, by raising taxes on the rich. Republicans predicted disaster, but instead the economy boomed, creating more jobs than under Reagan.

Then George W. Bush cut taxes again, with the usual suspects predicting a “Bush boom”; what we actually got was lackluster growth followed by a severe financial crisis. Barack Obama reversed many of the Bush tax cuts and added new taxes to pay for Obamacare — and oversaw a far better jobs record, at least in the private sector, than his predecessor.

So history offers not a shred of support for faith in the pro-growth effects of tax cuts.

Oh, and let’s not forget recent experiences at the state level. Sam Brownback, governor of Kansas, slashed taxes in what he called a “real live experiment” in conservative fiscal policy. But the growth he promised never came, while a fiscal crisis did. At the same time, Jerry Brown’s California raised taxes, leading to proclamations from the right that the state was committing “economic suicide”; in fact, the state has experienced impressive employment and economic growth.

In other words, supply-side economics is a classic example of a zombie doctrine: a view that should have been killed by the evidence long ago, but just keeps shambling along, eating politicians’ brains. Why, then, does it persist? Because it offers a rationale for lower taxes on the wealthy — and as Upton Sinclair noted long ago, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Still, Donald Trump was supposed to be different. Guess what: he isn’t.

...

We might also note that a man who insists that he won the popular vote he lost, who insists that crime is at a record high when it’s at a record low, doesn’t need a fancy doctrine to claim that his budget adds up when it doesn’t.

Still, the fact is that the Trump agenda so far is absolutely indistinguishable from what one might have expected from, say, Ted Cruz. It’s just voodoo with extra bad math. Was that what his supporters expected?

 

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"Trump officials pick ‘high priority’ towns for border wall"

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Despite more than a year of campaign rhetoric about a “big, beautiful wall” spanning the entirety of the southern border, the Trump administration plans to start with a much less ambitious footprint focusing only on the most highly trafficked corridors, according to a Department of Homeland Security planning document.

Identified as “high priority” in the document are the border sectors of the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas -- encompassing Rio Grande City, McAllen and Weslaco -- as well as El Paso, Tucson and San Diego.

The areas were selected because of their proximity to urban centers and roads, allowing those who cross to vanish quickly, according to the document, which was made public by congressional committee staffers.

The preliminary plan anticipates adding more than 100 new miles of wall over the next two years, on top of the 700 miles of fencing that already exists, at an initial cost of more than $3.6 billion.

The wall, even on a smaller scope than billed during the campaign, is a sticking point in high-stakes budget negotiations to avert a government shutdown this week.  

The National Border Patrol Council, a union representing Border Patrol agents, hailed the targeted approach as a more practical and effective solution to illegal immigration than a 2,000-mile wall stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

“As long as you put it in strategic locations, it will do a good job,” said Brandon Judd, the council's president.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman emphasized in a statement to The Washington Post that the document is preliminary and that the areas of priority could change, depending on an assessment by the border sector chiefs expected in the coming weeks. 

Of the more than 400,000 illegal immigrants apprehended along the southern border in 2016, nearly half were stopped in the Rio Grande Valley, according to data compiled by the U.S. Border Patrol. Even as border crossers overall have decreased over the past two decades, the number of vulnerable crossers, including unaccompanied children and women with children, from Central America soared in the final years of the Obama administration. 

“Donald Trump sold a seamless wall as the solution to our immigration problems, but a wall is more symbolic. I don’t believe it’s going to produce statistically significant results,” said Joel Villarreal, mayor of Rio Grande City who attended a border summit on April 17 to discuss planning for the wall.

Elected officials in the border towns say their residents have mixed opinions on whether a wall is an effective deterrent to people crossing into the United States illegally.

“Border communities are overwhelmingly in favor of securing the border,” Villarreal said. The question is how. He believes the best solution combines technology -- such as drones and thermal imaging -- and personnel along with physical infrastructure.

There was talk of a border barrier in Rio Grande City after Congress passed the 2006 Secure Fence Act during President George W. Bush’s administration, but the fence that sprang up along other communities in the valley never materialized in Villarreal’s city.  

Private landowners are on edge as they brace for lengthy eminent domain battles with the federal government, Villarreal said. A seamless wall is unfeasible, he said, because of international treaty and flood zone requirements. The winding Rio Grande serves as a natural border with Mexico.

Miles of the existing border fence in other towns were constructed along a levee well north of the river, on U.S. land -- “rendering any property south of the wall worthless,” Villarreal said. “You’re looking at potentially thousands more acres being lost along the border.”

In Mission, a Rio Grande Valley border town next to McAllen, Mayor Beto Salinas said many residents, including himself, eagerly await the pending construction of President Trump’s wall, believing it will offer peace of mind.

“Everyone who lives along the river is afraid,” Salinas said. “The best thing that could happen to us is that we go ahead and build the fence and see if we can stop some of the illegals from coming across. It’s not just one or two of them, it’s 20 or 30 of them at once, every night.”

A few towns over in Weslaco, City Manager Mike Perez said he hears from angry residents about undocumented immigrants trampling through their yards, filling water jugs from their faucets and exchanging wet garments with clean ones hanging from their clothes lines.

“In the country, at night, people are knocking on doors and looking for water,” Perez said. “It can scare the hell out of you.”

Farmers and ranchers complain about damaged crops and barbed-wire fencing being cut, letting their cattle out. But they also don’t want to have to farm around a wall, Perez said.

...

In the San Diego sector, Homeland Security chose Imperial Beach and Chula Vista as priorities for border barriers because it would be easier to build on the region’s federally owned land, the planning document said. The Tucson sector, encompassing Nogales, was chosen to stop drug traffickers and prevent armed conflicts between U.S.-based crews and armed mules affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel. El Paso was included to improve security.

Judd, of the Border Patrol union, said El Paso has traditionally been a major hot spot for smugglers and drug cartels, although fewer illegal crossers are arrested in that city overall than in the other areas identified in the planning documents. 

“If we say, ‘El Paso is not necessarily the problem spot it used to be,’ we’d be projecting,” Judd said. “If we focus everything on Tucson and San Diego, we’d create the funnel for people to go back to El Paso. We’re trying to learn from the mistakes of the past.”

Two decades ago, he said, authorities focused heavily on El Paso and San Diego, but the criminal cartels simply shifted to the Tucson region. “Tucson was wide open,” Judd said. “It was literally the wild west.”

Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) told The Post that there is “no rational motive” in identifying El Paso as a priority, given that the city has been one of the safest in the United States for years and that it already has a fence separating it from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

“It’s part of the president’s goal to incite fear and anxiety about the border for his own political gain,” O’Rourke said. “Apprehensions at the border are at the lowest in modern times, even before Trump was elected.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, during a visit to El Paso on Thursday with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, outraged community leaders by using war terminology to refer to the city as a “beachhead” and “ground zero” against drug cartels and gangs.

The Homeland Security document, released last week by Democratic staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, estimated nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2017 for real estate costs, environmental planning and design for building 34 new miles of a border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley and replacing 28 miles of fencing in San Diego with a wall.

In fiscal 2018, Homeland Security is initially planning for 71 more miles of a border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, Tucson and El Paso sectors -- at an estimated cost of $2.6 billion.

The internal government planning comes as the White House, eager to show progress on a key campaign promise, appears headed toward a budget showdown with Congress over $1.5 billion for the wall, which Democrats have called a “poison bill.” Administration officials have proposed a deal to preserve key Obamacare payments in exchange for border-wall funding as part of a larger spending bill required to keep the government open beyond Friday.

...

He is just not going to give up on the damned wall.

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5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Some of the farm leaders are Republicans who voted for Trump and are torn, wanting border security but also mercy toward laborers who are not dangerous criminals.

Yes, Trump's one-size-fits-all response to illegal immigrants is already having an adverse impact on agriculture.  Whenever someone goes on a rant about illegal immigrants, I query them about who will pick our crops?  It's a huge problem, and we as a nation have generally dealt with undocumented farmworkers in the past by turning a blind eye and appreciating our reasonable food prices.  With fewer immigrants even desiring to work here because of potential repercussions, we'd better set aside more of our paychecks to pay for higher food prices.

Maybe the Duggars will lend a hand or 19--no?  :(

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