Trump 18: Info to Russia, With Love

[fraurosena]

29 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief: "Trump takes a moment to brag that less than half the country thinks he’s doing a good job"

  Hide contents

This is a very weird tweet.

... <dumb tweet from twitler>

By itself, it’s weird. The president is thanking America for its support … while pointing out that less than half of the country thinks he’s doing a good job? Sure, 48 percent is more support than he earned in the November election, when he pulled about 46 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 48. But generally speaking, a 48 percent approval rating for a president is not what you might call “high.”

Setting that aside, though, it’s even weirder because that 48 percent isn’t even a good number by Trump standards! It’s from a poll from Rasmussen Reports, as the image indicates. Over the course of Trump’s presidency, Rasmussen has almost always showed stronger support for Trump than other polls, as data from HuffPost Pollster makes obvious.

,,,

So what Trump is doing is the equivalent of entering an Olympic diving competition and only reporting the high scores from the judges. It’s not a good representation of how he did overall. In Pollster’s running average, Trump is actually at 39.8 percent approval, worse than the 48 percent he touts. In RealClearPolitics’ average, he does slightly better: 39.9 percent.

There’s a reason that Rasmussen’s numbers are generally higher than other polls. It is not only a Republican-leaning pollster, but it surveys only likely voters, a group that skews more heavily Republican. Since Trump was inaugurated, likely voter polls have shown higher approval ratings for Trump than polls that survey all Americans. Gallup, for example, surveys all adults. In Gallup’s polling, Trump’s at 39 percent.

Are you sensing a trend?

But notice, too, how those red Rasmussen dots have trended since Trump was inaugurated. Forty-eight percent is actually a mediocre poll even just within Rasmussen’s results. In the 87 approval numbers Rasmussen has tallied since Jan. 20, Trump’s been at 48 percent 10 times. He’s been under 48 percent 37 times — and over it 40 times. Trump’s median approval rating in Rasmussen polls? Forty-eight percent.

His average? Slightly higher, at 48.6 percent. This is a below-average Rasmussen poll that Trump wants to celebrate for some reason.

One possible reason was that it was highlighted by Matt Drudge on Twitter on Wednesday.

...

Drudge tried to frame Trump’s numbers positively by comparing Trump’s 48 percent to the 47.9 percent average for Barack Obama. But that 47.9 percent for Obama was from Gallup‘s numbers — meaning that the comparison should have been not 48 to 47.9, but 39 to 47.9, using the Gallup daily average we mentioned above. Trump is just above Obama’s all-time low of 38 percent in Gallup polling, which is a better analogy than the one Drudge used.

So let’s now set that all aside and go back to the initial point. Trump would like us to take a minute from our day to know that he is considered to be doing a good job by less than half of the likely voters in the country — a subset of the overall, more-hostile population of American adults.

Okay. Now we know, Mr. President. Thanks.

Alternative math, I guess.

This article underscores what I've said a few times already: poll results can be and are manipulated to say exactly what someone wants them to say. So thanks for posting it, @GreyhoundFan!

[VixenToast]

Oh @IrishCarrie Gobshite is a beautiful word. Bless the people across the pond. They have much better words than we do. 

[AuntK]

Watching Hillary giving Commencement address (live) at Wellesley. OMG!! She is throwing major shade at the Trumpster and Rethuglicans! It is AWESOME!!!! She is hitting everything!!

[Penny]

16 minutes ago, AuntK said:

Watching Hillary giving Commencement address (live) at Wellesley. OMG!! She is throwing major shade at the Trumpster and Rethuglicans! It is AWESOME!!!! She is hitting everything!!

Boy TT is going to be tweeting about this when he gets back. Or maybe there will be more going on and he won't find out about this speech.

[candygirl200413]

Ruthless Hillary is my favorite Hillary, that speech was absolutely wonderful!

But I am also waiting for his tweet storm, I also wonder if he'll talk about it to foreign leaders and cry/wine about it.

[fraurosena]

We all thought G.W. Bush was rather stupid. But just compare these two messages on Ramadan.

 

[onekidanddone]

Please.. .. Stop talking and just go away 

Trump ruffles feathers by calling Germans ‘bad’ _ on trade

Quote

TAORMINA, Sicily (AP) — President Donald Trump has said Germans are “bad” for having a large trade surplus with the United States, drawing attention to a contentious issue at a summit of world leaders where trade is already a sticking point.

As the leaders of seven wealthy democracies gathered for difficult talks on trade and climate change, Germany’s Der Spiegel reported that Trump had told EU leaders the day before that the Germans were “bad, very bad.”

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn sought to clarify the situation Friday, noting that the president “said they’re very bad on trade, but he doesn’t have a problem with Germany.”

Trump, Cohn added, had noted that “his dad is from Germany” and said: “‘I don’t have a problem with Germany. I have a problem with German trade.”

The president of the European Union’s executive Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said Trump was “not aggressive” in his comments and called the report “exaggerated.”

It’s not the first time Trump has taken aim at Germany’s trade success.

In January, he said that German car manufacturers like BMW could face U.S. tariffs of up to 35 percent if they set up plants in Mexico instead of in the U.S. and try to export the cars to the U.S.

Trump has said he wants trade to be balanced and fair as well as free so that it benefits U.S. workers and companies. He has focused on relationships where the U.S. buys more than it sells in its partners’ markets— as is the case with Germany and China.

He has pushed back against earlier G-7 agreements to “fight all forms of protectionism.” G-7 finance ministers meeting in Bari, Italy, earlier this month could agree only on saying that that they are “working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies.”

Trump is not the only leader to criticize Germany’s trade surplus. Then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy said last year that it wasn’t good for the eurozone economy.

Germany’s trade surplus with the United States is part of its large overall surplus with the rest of the world. Last year, Germany ran a current account surplus — the broadest measure of trade and investment flows — of 8.7 percent of annual economic output. The country benefits from competitive goods such as luxury autos and industrial machinery that are in demand in the rest of the world. A weaker euro has helped the export performance. Germany, however, can’t do much about the euro: its exchange rate has been driven down by troubles like the debt woes in Greece, and the policies of the European Central Bank.

Further complicating the picture, some large German companies also invest, hire and produce in the United States. BMW, for instance, makes sport-utility vehicles in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and last year exported 70 percent of them — or 288,000 vehicles —to the rest of the world. Daimler AG makes Mercedes-Benz cars in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, while Volkswagen has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A German government spokesman says trade surpluses like the one that’s provoking Trump’s ire are the result of market factors and are “neither good nor bad.”

Spokesman Georg Streiter didn’t comment directly on Trump’s reported comments. He said that, in general, Germany’s current account surplus reflects economic factors that are largely outside the government’s direct control.

He said it was “also caused by factors that cannot, or at least cannot directly, be influenced by economic or financial policy measures in Germany.” That includes not only the euro exchange rate but the price of oil or changes in demographics.

 

[47of74]

59 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

We all thought G.W. Bush was rather stupid. But just compare these two messages on Ramadan.

 

God what a fuckhead.

Can you imagine the screaming the reich wing would have done if President Obama had done anything remotely similar with a Christian leader, such as the Pope? 

[fraurosena]

I'm not sure if this is smart of them, or something dubious. But somehow it doesn't feel right to me.

Trump PAC Says 1-800 Ad Approach Is Building Supporter Data

Quote

ost political campaigns and groups aim to reach likely voters, people who have voted in recent elections. But pro-Donald Trump group Great America PACwants to uncover a different breed, people who rarely or never vote but support the GOP presidential nominee. To do that, the organization is taking a novel approach to political TV advertising: It's running direct-response 1-800 ads to garner donations and data.

The group is running a 1-800 number at the bottom of ads including one featuring former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. The goal is to entice people who rarely engage in the political process to call and "pledge" their support for Mr. Trump, then donate a few bucks. [...]

"Call (800) 515-8816 Now & Press 1 to take the Trump Unity Pledge," urged some versions of Great America PAC ads featuring Mr. Giuliani. "America's leadership can and must be better, and with Donald Trump as president it will be," he says in the spot. The group has varied the wording of its direct response messaging based on the current news cycle. A call prompts a recorded voice asking people to press 1 to pledge their support for Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani then takes over, explaining that Great America PAC was established to help generate grassroots support for a candidate who hasn't spent his life building a supporter base. [...]

The PAC's digital ads are squarely aimed at fundraising and data collection, too. "Do you support Trump? If yes, click here," say many ads that have been spotted online by digital ad tracker Moat Pro over the past few months. The ads link to a "petition" page asking people to provide their name, email address and zip code if they believe Mr. Trump should be the next U.S. president. One more click brings them to a donation page.

The group, because it is registered as a hybrid PAC, is not subject to FEC regulations that prohibit super PACs from giving funds directly to the candidates they support. Great America PAC has collected thousands of $5 online donations that are earmarked for the Trump campaign. Along with those "conduit contributions" come donor contact information. According to Mr. Backer, that data is used to create "universes of look-alikes," allowing Great America PAC to expand its voter targets to include people with similar demographics to its supporters.

This bolded part gets my hackles up. I smell deception here, but I don't know enough about these things to tell if it's just my personal bias or if something is truly wrong. Can anyone with more knowledge about PACs, super-PACs, hybrid PACs and FEC regulations enlighten me?

[GreyhoundFan]

4 hours ago, AuntK said:

Watching Hillary giving Commencement address (live) at Wellesley. OMG!! She is throwing major shade at the Trumpster and Rethuglicans! It is AWESOME!!!! She is hitting everything!!

The WaPo published the full transcript, complete with annotations. The notes are quite interesting.

 

Confusion, thy name is Agent Orange administration member: "Top White House officials unveiled series of contradictory messages on top priorities as Trump traveled abroad"

Spoiler

As President Trump traveled on a whirlwind trip overseas this week, top officials in Washington unveiled a series of a contradictory messages on some of his highest priorities.

On Thursday morning, White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney told a Senate panel that the massive tax cut plan they hoped to move through Congress this year would be fully offset by eliminating scores of tax breaks.

“We're going to lower rates, we're going to simplify it but we're going to get rid of this whole host of deductions and some of which are massive and said, look, the most defensible conservative with a small 'c' way to look at this is to say it's own policies, those will be deficit neutral,” Mulvaney said.

A few minutes later, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told another Senate panel something very different. He said the massive cut in tax rates would be offset in large part because the economy would grow a tremendous amount.

“It would be paid for with economic growth and base broadening,” Mnuchin said.

The nuance might seem small, but it is the economic equivalent of comparing cats and dogs. The nuance can be measured, literally, in trillions of dollars.

Mulvaney and Mnuchin, two of the most influential economic advisers within the Trump administration, gave contradictory answers to the same question, on the same day, testifying before the same chamber of Congress.

It fits a pattern of confusing and often opposing economic pronouncements emerging from a White House which has struggled to translate thematic campaign promises into concrete economic policies.

The White House has offered conflicting — sometimes opposing — ideas on financial regulation, trade policy, tax policy, infrastructure, health care policy and the deficit.

So far, four months into the Trump administration, many of these initiatives are stalling or slowing, in part because lawmakers and even senior White House officials aren’t sure precisely what the Trump administration’s position is.

Trump has said he wants to consider breaking up the largest American banks, and White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn told senators during a private meeting that they were supportive of a modernized version of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that prohibited commercial banks and investment banks from merging. Mnuchin, meanwhile, has said the White House does not support this and doesn’t want to force large banks to split in two.

On trade policy, Trump vowed to label China a “currency manipulator” and then said the country manipulate its currency. Then Mnuchin said China only stopped manipulating its currency once Trump was elected. (Data shows this is not the case; it happened years before.)

Trump also prepared to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, but he was talked out of it at the last minute and has now decided to renegotiate the trade pact. But it remains unclear, regarding NAFTA, the specific things the U.S. wants to change.

On health care, Trump vowed during the campaign not to make cuts to Medicaid. But his budget would cut — according to Mulvaney — somewhere between $800 billion and $1.4 trillion in future Medicaid spending over 10 years.

On infrastructure, Trump has said he wants to put together a $1 trillion package of projects. Cohn directed others on the team to assume this would cost $200 billion in public money, which would be matched with $800 billion in private funds. But Trump has said he might do it with only public money. And he has said the infrastructure plan might be combined with his broader tax overhaul effort as a way to lure Democrats. But Mnuchin has said the two issues would not be combined.

Perhaps nowhere has the White House been as hard to pin down as on their tax strategy. Mnuchin wanted a complete overhaul of the tax code by August, but now they are hopeful it might happen by the end of the year.

Mulvaney's new description of the tax plan, which relies on eliminating tax breaks to offset the rate cuts, creates a new set of challenges. If the White House insists that a central part of their tax plan will cut taxes for the middle class, they will have to raise taxes on someone else. Otherwise, the plan cuts revenue and adds to the deficit.

That's why Mnuchin's description is so significant. He says that the economic growth that would come from cutting taxes would replace this revenue, but this clashes sharply with Mulvaney's description of the plan.

On Thursday, he told the Senate Finance Committee he would not raise the Social Security retirement age to offset the tax cuts, he would not change the earned-income tax credit, would not change the mortgage-interest tax deduction, and had no plans to change the New Markets Tax Credit.

These statements came during pointed questioning from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was trying to pin the administration down on certain details. It was a revelation, until a short time later, when Mnuchin appeared to put all those things back on the table.

“We're looking at everything,” Mnuchin said. “Nothing is off the table as far as we're concerned.”

 

[Zola]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

We all thought G.W. Bush was rather stupid. But just compare these two messages on Ramadan.

 

Hilarious - one of the replies says, "I love how Bush is holding the phone in that letterhead"

and he totally is - wtf.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

 

4 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I'm not sure if this is smart of them, or something dubious. But somehow it doesn't feel right to me.

Trump PAC Says 1-800 Ad Approach Is Building Supporter Data

This bolded part gets my hackles up. I smell deception here, but I don't know enough about these things to tell if it's just my personal bias or if something is truly wrong. Can anyone with more knowledge about PACs, super-PACs, hybrid PACs and FEC regulations enlighten me?

I don't know much about the regulations, but HuffPo published an article about hybrid PACs.

[fraurosena]

I was in two minds where to post this one. First I thought it would go nicely in the Spicey thread, but as its also about the American press corps during the foreign trip, I decided to post it here:

Sean Spicer and the rest of Trump’s press team iced out during first foreign tour

Quote

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has been quiet during his first international trip, leaving many of us back home wondering what’s up. His Twitter has been fairly dormant, and his usually active press secretary Sean Spicer hasn’t held a single press conference since the president jetted off from the White House more than a week ago.

Now, it seems as if Spicer may be just as in the dark as the rest of us.

On Wednesday, Trump attended a meeting with the European Union at their new headquarters in Brussels. But unlike the rest of the foreign dignitaries, who came with their press corps in tow, Trump was without any of his media team. Where was Spicer, you ask? Sitting at a cafe outside the EU, with deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sanders later explained that the responsibility of the meeting had been passed to the National Security Council’s press team. But the EU meeting wasn’t the first time during the foreign tour that Spicer found himself slighted.

During Trump’s meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Spicer was noticeable absent. A White House official told CNN that Spicer, a practicing Catholic, was hoping to meet the Pope, and was “fuming” when he was left off the list of those who would be joining Trump at his audience. Even more upsetting, the official said, those who were invited were fellow advisors, like the president’s daughter Ivanka, his son-in-law-turned-advisor Jared Kushner, his communications advisor Hope Hicks, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security advisor H.R. McMaster. Even Trump’s former bodyguard and his social media advisor bypassed Spicer on the invite list.

This all comes amid news that Spicer might be on the outs.

Team Trump’s radio silence abroad is unusual for a president’s first foreign trip. Al Fleischer, the press secretary for George W. Bush’s White House, said that during his time, the press team didn’t go a single foreign trip without holding a conference.

“It’s highly unusual for a president, but it’s highly disciplined for Donald Trump,” he said. “Trump needed a break from a domestic downward spiral he was in when he left the United States and the substance of this trip and the good reception he’s receiving is giving him that break,” he added. “If he would have held press conferences, he would have competed against the messages he wanted to send.”

While Spicer and the team of U.S. journalists has been left out of press conferences, however, that doesn’t mean things aren’t happening. During Trump’s stop in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Tillerson held a conference with multiple Saudi news organizations– without U.S. journalists present.

U.S. media was left out again during Trump’s arrival and formal introduction to the leaders of the European Union.

It seems the administration is very, very afraid of the US media. Why else shut them out like this? 

[47of74]

A company in Mexico is marketing Man Baby themed TP, and most of the proceeds will go to help migrants.

boingboing.net/2017/05/25/mexico-markets-trump-themed-tp.html

Costco should sell 30 packs of this.  Of course all the Branch Trumpvidians would be showing what snowflakes they are if Costco or any other store here did that.

 

 

[onekidanddone]

Boom part 2

Senate Intelligence Committee requests Trump campaign documents

Quote

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, has asked President Trump’s political organization to gather and produce all Russia-related documents, emails and phone records going back to his campaign’s launch in June 2015, according to two people briefed on the request.

The letter from the Senate arrived at Trump’s campaign committee last week and was addressed to the group’s treasurer. Since then, some former staffers have been notified and asked to cooperate, the people said. They were not authorized to speak publicly.

The demand follows a Senate request months earlier for the campaign committee to preserve documents.

Dozens of former staffers are expected to be contacted in the coming days to make sure they are aware of what they are required to produce and how to submit those documents, the people added.

The letter was signed by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the Senate committee’s chairman, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s ranking Democrat. Spokespeople for Burr and Warner declined to comment.

he request to Trump’s political operatives represents the first time that Trump’s official campaign structure has been drawn into the Senate committee’s ongoing bipartisan investigation. That investigation is separate from the federal probe being led by the Justice Department’s special counsel, former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III.

In recent months, several Trump campaign associates, such as Roger Stone and Carter Page, have been contacted by Senate investigators, but the campaign itself had not been asked to preserve and produce materials.

Trump’s campaign committee is now led by former deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner and John Pence, a nephew of Vice President Pence. It is based in New York at Trump Tower. Glassner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment.

 

[Howl]

Y'all, the shit is hitting the fan, and on a FRIDAY.   WaPo: Kushner Asked Russian Envoy To Set Up Secret Moscow Backchannel &nbsp;

Spoiler

 

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to the United States discussed setting up a secret communications channel between Trump’s transition team and Moscow in December, the Washington Post reported late Friday.

Intercepts of Russian communications show Ambassador Sergey Kislyak said Kushner suggested setting up the secure backchannel and even proposed using communications equipment in stateside Russian diplomatic facilities, according to the report, which cited anonymous U.S. officials briefed on the intercepts.

Kislyak was taken aback by Kushner’s proposal to use Russian equipment, according to the Washington Post, and reported it to his superiors in Moscow in intercepted communications that U.S. officials later reviewed.

Kushner reportedly made the proposal at a meeting attended by President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced out after it came to light that he lied about discussing U.S. sanctions against Russia with Kislyak before inauguration

 

Tee hee.  Jared and Ivanka are observing Shabbat, so incommunicado.  Is Trump on his way home or is he still making an ass of himself abroad and trying to destroy NATO and the European Union?  The latter is, by the way, Russia's favorite wet dream. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Pinocchio is at it again: "President Trump’s claim that he’s already saved ‘millions of jobs’ on his foreign trip"

Spoiler

“Just arrived in Italy for the G7. Trip has been very successful. We made and saved the USA many billions of dollars and millions of jobs.”
— President Trump, in a tweet, May 26

All presidents like to claim their foreign travels are a success. But this tweet by President Trump sets a record for bravado — in less than a week, he’s already made and saved “millions of jobs” for the United States.

...

How is this possible?

The Facts

During his trip, the president traveled to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome and Brussels, and is now attending the Group of Seven summit in Sicily. That’s a meeting of leaders of most of the world’s industrial powers for discussions on economics and security.

In Saudi Arabia, the president announced a $110 billion arms deal and the Saudis said that business leaders had signed deals “potentially” worth more than $200 billion over the next 10 years. In a speech, Trump claimed that “we signed historic agreements with the Kingdom that will invest almost $400 billion in our two countries and create many thousands of jobs in America and Saudi Arabia.”

But it’s one thing to announce such deals and another thing to actually follow through with them. At the time of the signing, such deal numbers are especially inflated, which is why the word “potentially” slips into the talking points. At least some of the Saudi investments predated Trump’s election, but apparently have now been repackaged as a deliverable on the president’s trip.

As for the number of jobs, thousands appears to have morphed into millions. But an analysis published by The Washington Post reported that the U.S. companies involved would not confirm any specific number of jobs saved or supported, suggesting that Trump’s original estimate of “thousands” was more guesswork than reality. Our colleague Steven Mufson reported that the deals would create jobs — in Saudi Arabia. “Most of the deals unveiled Saturday were memorandums of understanding rather than solid contracts, and thus still require further negotiation,” he added.

A White House official said Trump was not talking just about the Saudi deals but “benefits to trade from the entire trip from Saudi Arabia to the G7.” He noted that “any improvement on trade would save many jobs. Stopping even one bad trade deal can save millions. Changing the infrastructure of global trade to tilt it back toward the U.S. would save and create millions.”

Hmmm. There was no specific change in bilateral or multilateral trade arrangements announced on the trip. So Trump appears to be claiming jobs have been saved from agreements still to be negotiated.

Predicting the impact on jobs from trade agreements often is a fool’s errand. Most mainstream economists do not believe that the number of jobs is significantly affected by trade policy. The composition of the workforce may change — which is why some communities may be adversely affected by trade deals while others gain — but in general the gains or losses, measured against the overall size of the U.S. economy, is minimal.

There is, of course, a long history of presidential administrations touting imaginary job gains from trade deals. “I believe that NAFTA will create 200,000 American jobs in the first two years of its effect,” President Bill Clinton said in 1993, when he signed supplemental agreements to the North American Free Trade Agreement. “I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first 5 years of its impact.”

Clinton was relying in part on analyses generated by the well-respected Peterson Institute for International Economics. Two years later, after a financial meltdown in Mexico and collapse of the peso evaporated any job gains from NAFTA, the economist who generated the forecasts famously said he would stay away from job forecasting in the future.

Trump has habitually claimed that NAFTA was a massive job killer. But that’s also false.

“NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters,” concluded the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. “The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of U.S. GDP [gross domestic product]. However, there were worker and firm adjustment costs as the three countries adjusted to more open trade and investment.”

The Pinocchio Test

In claiming job savings from trade deals not yet concluded, Trump is counting his chickens before they hatch. Even if he succeeds in reorienting U.S. trade policy, jobs gains are still likely to be illusionary. That’s all the more reason to be cautious about such pronouncements. Ultimately any gain in jobs under Trump’s presidency will be recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the reality may not live up to the hype.

Four Pinocchios

 

So, is Ivanka Geppetto to the TT's Pinocchio?

[onekidanddone]

14 minutes ago, Howl said:

Y'all, the shit is hitting the fan, and on a FRIDAY.   WaPo: Kushner Asked Russian Envoy To Set Up Secret Moscow Backchannel &nbsp;

Tee hee.  Jared and Ivanka are observing Shabbat, so incommunicado.  Is Trup on his way home or is he still making an ass of himself abroad and trying to destroy NATO and the European Union?  The latter is, by the way, Russia's favorite wet dream. 

Yo Jared....Good Shabbos, I know I'll have one.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kick Donald Trump’s Circus Out Of Town"

Spoiler

I’m increasingly convinced that the real reason Ringling Bros. has gone out of business is that when it comes to circuses, the Trump White House was just too much competition.

For sure, it’s a sordid extravaganza with a lot more than three rings. The high wire acts alone are worth the price of admission, and the clowns — one of whom is also the putative ringmaster — are unintentionally hilarious, if sinister, as clowns so often seem to be. To some. Not me.

But as guiltily entertaining as current events may be for political wonks, nerds and sadomasochists, this whole mess of an administration, with a special emphasis on the Russia connection and Donald Trump’s clumsy, thuggish attempts at a cover-up, is deadly serious business. It’s crucial to get to the bottom of whether Trump’s campaign knew and approved the hacking of our elections, but also vitally important to remember that while we’re transfixed by that particular mayhem there’s a lot of other rotten stuff going on, too.

Like that continued stinker of a health care reform bill which the Congressional Budget Office still says will cause the number of uninsured people to increase by more than 20 million over the next 10 years.

Attention must be paid. Trump’s proposed budget released on Tuesday devastates just about everything but defense expenditures. (At bottom, when it comes to increasing employment, Trump’s exclamation of “jobs, jobs, jobs!” really comes down to “guns, guns, guns!” — manufacturing more and more weapons — which inevitably will have him itching for a war in which to use them.)

Despite Trump’s campaign promises, Medicaid is under the knife for hundreds of billions, a move that will harm millions who voted for him. Food stamps are slashed by $190 billion, the earned income tax credit by $40 billion. Money for the State Department and other Cabinet-level departments is severely cut back, funding for the Environmental Protection Agency is reduced by 31 percent to $5.65 billion, including a 25 percent reduction in the Superfund charged with cleaning up toxic waste sites.

But as The New Republic’s Alex Shephard points out, not only is this deeply immoral, “It’s also a brazen accounting scam,” claiming deficits created by the proposed budget will be offset by $2 trillion in economic growth — growth that already has been pegged to cover deficits created by proposed tax cuts. Shephard wrote:

This reaffirms two things about Trump. The first is that, despite his campaign rhetoric, Trump is governing as a typical steal-from-the-poor-to-pay-the-rich Republican. The second is that this administration’s cynicism is only matched by its incompetence. Its Madoff-esque accounting tricks are so brazen that they would be laughable if they weren’t so horrific.

As we’ve seen too often, the incompetent can cause irreparable damage, and this load of bull crashing through the White House china shop is taking maladroitness to new levels of pandemonium. True, once this budget proposal goes through the congressional wringer, the result will bear little semblance to what was released this week — many of the cuts will shrink or even disappear completely — but it’s close enough to the GOP wish list that the rich will continue getting richer and the lower end of the income inequality charts will feel a ton of pain. Mission accomplished.

And speaking of both laughable and horrific, the Trump administration’s nonexistent efforts to “drain the swamp” of undue influence press on with Eric Lipton’s New York Times report that the Trump gang “has moved to block an effort to disclose the names of former lobbyists who have been granted waivers to work in the White House or federal agencies.

Dozens of former lobbyists and industry lawyers are working in the Trump administration, which has hired them at a much higher rate than the previous administration. Keeping the waivers confidential would make it impossible to know whether any such officials are violating federal ethics rules or have been given a pass to ignore them.

This is part of a continuing feud between the White House and Walter M. Shaub Jr., head of the Office of Government Ethics, who has the effrontery to demand that Trump appointees be held to standards of conduct.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is issuing draconian edicts on drug sentencing; Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is trying to divert funds from work-study programs and student loan forgiveness to charter school vouchers and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke says extracting oil and gas in the United States is “better for the environment.”

This circus is out of control. All the animals are out of their cages.

Which tortuously but inevitably brings us back to Donald Trump and Russia, proof apparent that the wheels came off the circus wagons months ago. It was stunning on Tuesday to hear former CIA director John Brennan tell the House intelligence committee that not only had Russia “brazenly interfered” in the 2016 election but that:

I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. And it raised questions in my mind again whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.

But no matter what conclusions ultimately are reached as to whether or not the Trump campaign knowingly colluded with Russia, the crude attempts by Trump to quash the investigations clearly constitute an obstruction of justice. And that is an impeachable offense.

With the Justice Department’s welcome appointment of a special counsel to oversee the FBI’s investigation of the Russia scandal (including, one hopes, a thorough inquiry into Russian investments in Trump businesses and possible money laundering), the probe finally seems on track and hopefully resistant to whatever further ham-fisted attempts by Trump to shut it down.

But the special counsel does not negate the need as well for an independent bipartisan investigation so that the entire story comes out. As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo and others have pointed out, that counsel’s inquiry can result in the indictment of those who have committed crimes, but, “The simple point is that the most important ‘bad acts’ may well not be crimes. That means not only is no one punished but far, far more important, we would never know what happened.

“…We need a fully empowered commission charged not with investigating and prosecuting criminal conduct but ascertaining, as far as possible, what happened and then bringing that information before the public.”

In other words, we can’t allow this White House circus of horrors to fold its tents and skulk away from truth under the cover of darkness. There’s too much at stake and too much to repair in its wake.

Yes.

[onekidanddone]

Ticktock Donnie, ticktock

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good one: "It Doesn’t F***ing Matter What Obama Did!"

Spoiler

The conversation inevitably goes something like this:

TV News Host: But don’t you think that America is at risk when President Trump divulges top-secret classified info to the Russians?

Trump Surrogate: Did it bother you when Obama did....blah...blah...blah...?

This is the point where I throw my shoe at the TV and usually scream “What the fuck does it matter what Obama did or didn’t do, Jeffrey Lord!? (or Paris Dennard, Kayleigh McEnany, Jason Miller, etc). Trump is the fucking president now!”

Let me be very clear, Trumpsters: it...doesn’t...fucking...matter. Obama’s gone. He’s not the president anymore. The guy you voted for is. You insufferable, horribly disingenuous Stepford Wife-like defenders of the Vag-Grabber-in-Chief really need to learn how to defend his abhorrent behavior without citing something similar you think Obama did. Even if Obama is guilty of everything you claim (which, of course, he isn’t), it still doesn’t matter. If Trump puts America’s security at risk by taunting Kim Jong Un, but Obama once slaughtered a litter of puppies with his bare hands, it... still... doesn’t... fucking... matter.

Didn’t they all vote for Trump because they hated Obama? Thought he was a horrible president that did everything wrong? Didn’t they elect Trump because he was different? The exact opposite of this ‘weak, crooked, terrorist-appeasing Kenyan anti-colonialist non-citizen’? A brilliant, successful bizman outsider who was going to bring a fresh new approach to governing amid the existing “swamp” that was paralyzing Washington? So what’s the first thing they do when their guy’s caught slithering around the bottom of the swamp with his tiny hands in the vag-jar? They point to something Obama did.

When they do that they’re essentially saying, “Yeah, we know our guy is a crooked dumbass, but so was Obama.” What happened to Trump being different? Better? A swamp drainer? Instead, they justify and excuse his myriad gaffes and offenses because the dude they hate was “just as bad.” Am I missing something?

And they do this while Trump’s also reneging on every campaign promise and lying to them 24/7...AND giving away secrets to Russia...AND offending/endangering our allies...AND obstructing justice...AND taking away their healthcare...AND...AND...AND. Ignorance is in fact bliss.

Donald J. Trump is president. Not Obama. The colossal shitstorm that’s blown through the White House since January 20 is all on him. All due to his unprecedented, cringe-worthy words, deeds and unforced errors. Nothing Obama did, said, thought, wished, wrote, mimed, improv’d, or sang matters. Defend Trump if you must, but do so without mentioning Obama’s (or Hillary Clinton’s) name. Try it. I know it’s incredibly difficult. I bet ya can’t...

The author missed "but...her emails..."

[AmazonGrace]

And usually that thing that Obama did that was so bad wasn't even particularly terrible or halfway relevant to whichever Trump shit they're defending. 

[faraway]

So Donnie refuses to commit to the Paris Climate Agreement at G7 while the other 6 are on board. He doesn't even deny global warming, it's simply that protecting the environment harms economic growth. He obviously can't have that, what will the Trumpsters back home say?

[Howl]

When I read about Kushner's attempt to co-opt the Russians into providing a secure back back-channel communication conduit, something pinged in my memory about allegations that a server in Trump Tower set up to communicate only with the Russian Alfa Bank.  As I recalled, the story surfaced and then sank. 

So I googled and up popped a post on Slate dated Oct. 31, 2016 (just a few days before the election) titled Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?

The Slate article amasses quite a compelling argument that, Yes, it was a Trump Tower server set up to communicate only with Alfa Bank in Russia.  Alfa Bank denied it and so did Trump spokespersons.  Nerd alert! The first part of the article delves into the technical aspects of how the server traffic was found, the patterns noted and why (why not) it was or wasn't innocuous.  The second portion delves into Alfa Bank's founder, Mikhail Fridman, who rose from basically nobody to one of the richest men in Russia in an astoundingly short period of time.  

Spoiler

The researchers were seeing patterns in the data—and the Trump Organization’s potential interlocutor was itself suggestive. Alfa Bank emerged in the messy post-Soviet scramble to create a private Russian economy. Its founder was a Ukrainian called Mikhail Fridman...To build out the bank, Fridman recruited a skilled economist and shrewd operator called Pyotr Aven. In the early ’90s, Aven worked with Vladimir Putin in the St. Petersburg government—and according to several accounts, helped Putin wiggle out of accusations of corruption that might have derailed his ascent. (Karen Dawisha recounts this history in her book Putin’s Kleptocracy.) Over time, Alfa built one of the world’s most lucrative enterprises. Fridman became the second richest man in Russia, valued by Forbes at $15.3 billion...Unlike other Russian firms, Alfa has operated smoothly and effortlessly in the West...To protect its interests in Washington, Alfa hired as its lobbyist former Reagan administration official Ed Rogers. Richard Burt, who helped Trump write the speech in which he first laid out his foreign policy, previously served on Alfa’s senior advisory board.  

Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine.  The article doesn't end with a smoking gun, but Occam's Razor points in one direction.  The content of emails exchanged can't be known between the two servers can't be known.  The author of this article  (Franklin Foer) stands by it, but posted a second article titled Trump’s Server, Revisited: Sorting through the new evidence, and competing theories, about the Trump server that appeared to be communicating with a Russian bank.

Yes, there are other plausible explanations, and yet, and yet, when considering all the Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine...

[apple1]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is a good one: "It Doesn’t F***ing Matter What Obama Did!"

  Hide contents

The conversation inevitably goes something like this:

TV News Host: But don’t you think that America is at risk when President Trump divulges top-secret classified info to the Russians?

Trump Surrogate: Did it bother you when Obama did....blah...blah...blah...?

This is the point where I throw my shoe at the TV and usually scream “What the fuck does it matter what Obama did or didn’t do, Jeffrey Lord!? (or Paris Dennard, Kayleigh McEnany, Jason Miller, etc). Trump is the fucking president now!”

Let me be very clear, Trumpsters: it...doesn’t...fucking...matter. Obama’s gone. He’s not the president anymore. The guy you voted for is. You insufferable, horribly disingenuous Stepford Wife-like defenders of the Vag-Grabber-in-Chief really need to learn how to defend his abhorrent behavior without citing something similar you think Obama did. Even if Obama is guilty of everything you claim (which, of course, he isn’t), it still doesn’t matter. If Trump puts America’s security at risk by taunting Kim Jong Un, but Obama once slaughtered a litter of puppies with his bare hands, it... still... doesn’t... fucking... matter.

Didn’t they all vote for Trump because they hated Obama? Thought he was a horrible president that did everything wrong? Didn’t they elect Trump because he was different? The exact opposite of this ‘weak, crooked, terrorist-appeasing Kenyan anti-colonialist non-citizen’? A brilliant, successful bizman outsider who was going to bring a fresh new approach to governing amid the existing “swamp” that was paralyzing Washington? So what’s the first thing they do when their guy’s caught slithering around the bottom of the swamp with his tiny hands in the vag-jar? They point to something Obama did.

When they do that they’re essentially saying, “Yeah, we know our guy is a crooked dumbass, but so was Obama.” What happened to Trump being different? Better? A swamp drainer? Instead, they justify and excuse his myriad gaffes and offenses because the dude they hate was “just as bad.” Am I missing something?

And they do this while Trump’s also reneging on every campaign promise and lying to them 24/7...AND giving away secrets to Russia...AND offending/endangering our allies...AND obstructing justice...AND taking away their healthcare...AND...AND...AND. Ignorance is in fact bliss.

Donald J. Trump is president. Not Obama. The colossal shitstorm that’s blown through the White House since January 20 is all on him. All due to his unprecedented, cringe-worthy words, deeds and unforced errors. Nothing Obama did, said, thought, wished, wrote, mimed, improv’d, or sang matters. Defend Trump if you must, but do so without mentioning Obama’s (or Hillary Clinton’s) name. Try it. I know it’s incredibly difficult. I bet ya can’t...

The author missed "but...her emails..."

OMG, I so agree. The mute button on my TV remote is getting quite the workout. I just can't with the people mentioned in this article. Paris Dennard is the worst of the bunch (and that is saying a lot). I really wonder about his mental status.