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Trump 21: Tweeting Us Into the Apocalypse


Destiny

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I don't know where I am really over Sessions. His racist, Klan supporting white sheet wearing, self can go fuck off. However, his being fired over his rescuing himself is the only reason why I want to see him stay.  Stay at least until TT is frog marched through the ellipse.  Anybody orange shit stain would put in Session's stead would happily shred the Constitution fuck face happy. There is no good answer. 

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The way I see it, anyone that Trump could possibly appoint would be just as racist as Sessions and just as much a threat to civil rights because Trump doesn't appoint any nice sensible people and nice sensible people wouldn't want the job after all this. He'd demand the loyalty pledge and the merit badge for promising to fire Mueller. 

Sessions is, so Sessions might as well stay because Trump makes both of them miserable and because it'll keep him from firing Mueller, for now. 

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Typical of a bully, all talk... "Trump famously said, ‘You’re fired!’ But he tends to demean rather than dismiss."

Spoiler

Before he entered politics, two words defined Donald Trump in the public imagination: “You’re fired!”

But now that he is president, that simple phrase is one Trump can’t quite bring himself to utter.

On Tuesday, after a week of repeatedly humiliating his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in both tweets and media interviews, Trump again refused to say, definitively, just what it would take for him to fire a man he has described on Twitter as “beleaguered” and “VERY weak.”

“I’m very disappointed with the attorney general, but we will see what happens,” Trump said when pressed by reporters in a Rose Garden news conference about why he has not just fired Sessions. “Time will tell. Time will tell.”

With Sessions — as with other administration staffers who have fallen out of favor — the president has taken a passive-aggressive approach, preferring to demean, diminish and demoralize subordinates as a way of making his displeasure known.

“Presidents have people in their Cabinet they’re less than enamored with, but they don’t go out in public and demean them, denounce them,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian. “They do things with a certain decorum, and this man lacks presidential decorum. He is so vulgar in the way he proceeds and is so lacking in good taste.”

The installation of wealthy Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci as his new communications director on Friday so far seems to have only heightened the 71-year-old president’s existing tendencies. Trump has an impulse for trash talk and public combat — but enough unease about actually dismissing staff that he often leaves it to others to handle the seminal moment.

When Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director, for example, he dispatched his personal bodyguard, Keith Schiller, to FBI headquarters to deliver the message; Comey, traveling in Los Angeles, learned of his termination through news reports.

“This is how Trump tells people they need to move along,” said an informal adviser in frequent touch with the White House, speaking anonymously to offer a candid assessment. “Who wants to put themselves in a position where they’re going to be subjected to that?”

In the past week, Trump has savaged his attorney general on social media and to reporters, a cruel strategy designed, some White House officials said, to prompt Sessions to tender his resignation. 

The president has frequently mused both publicly and privately — and in belittling fashion — about the fate of his aides, including White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and departing press secretary Sean Spicer. He hired Scaramucci over the vociferous objections of both men, a decision that prompted Spicer to announce his resignation and left Priebus more isolated. Many White House officials are now buzzing about what, if anything, might prompt Priebus to depart the West Wing before his stated goal of staying at least a year.

But Dallek said the president still clearly struggles with the catchphrase that made him famous as a reality television star on “The Apprentice.” 

“He can’t seem to fire them, but he doesn’t hesitate to abuse them publicly,” Dallek said. Referring to last year’s campaign, he added, “It’s like when all the women accused him of groping and so forth, he tried to demean them and say, ‘We have evidence against them.’ But he never brought it forward. He never sued.”

Trump also gave his new communications chief a broad mandate to overhaul his West Wing, with an emphasis on rooting out leakers, real and perceived. For months now, Trump has fumed about leaks of all kinds — from the serious, such as unauthorized disclosures of sensitive intelligence, to the more frivolous, including embarrassing revelations about White House machinations and feuding.

Scaramucci and his allies almost immediately began discussing a possible purge, circulating an informal list of press staffers whose jobs are in jeopardy — many of them Priebus loyalists. 

On Tuesday, clad in blue-tinted aviator sunglasses, Scaramucci said he is willing to overhaul the entire press operation in an effort to plug the leaks that have so infuriated the president. 

“I’m going to fire everybody, that’s how I’m going to do it,” Scaramucci said, offering a statement of broad authority more typically reserved for a chief of staff. “You’re either going to stop leaking or you’re going to get fired.” 

The Trump White House is one in which loyalty is prized above almost all else but not necessarily returned, especially to staffers considered outside the president’s inner circle.

One former Trump adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment, said Trump is looking for “original gangsters” and “wants people who will take bullets for him.”

The first to leave the West Wing on Tuesday was senior assistant press secretary Michael Short, who resigned after a report emerged in Politico hours earlier saying that he would be fired in Scaramucci’s quest to uproot leakers. The White House did not produce any evidence, however, to show that Short had ever leaked damaging information.

And in a theatrical if disingenuous twist, Scaramucci — who confirmed Short’s ouster to Politico — told reporters moments later that the fact that the news had trickled out before anyone had personally talked to Short was yet another challenge he was trying to manage in Trump’s chaotic West Wing. 

“This is the problem with the leaking, which I really don’t like,” Scaramucci said. “Let’s say I’m firing Michael Short today. The fact that you guys know about it before he does really upsets me as a human being and as a Roman Catholic, you got that? So I should have the opportunity, if I have to let someone go, to let the person go in a very humane, dignified way.”

Because Trump has proved himself so rarely willing to actually fire anyone, some staffers have weathered rocky periods simply by lowering their public profile and quietly remaining in the West Wing until their perceived misstep recedes from memory. Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s senior strategist, was once likened to a terminally ill patient entering hospice care but has since at least partially resuscitated his stature within the White House. 

Spicer, who resigned under contentious circumstances but plans to stay on through August, also was part of an odd tableau Tuesday. The departing press secretary looked cheerful and relaxed on the White House grounds, walking with former campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, taking photos with visitors and watching the Marine One helicopter take off from the South Lawn.

Asked about Scaramucci’s expected purge of more junior aides close to him and Priebus, Spicer told reporters that Scaramucci has the authority to remake the press team in his own image but defended the current staff. 

“Obviously I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done here, but he’s in charge now,” Spicer said. “I’m proud of the people and the products and what we’ve done.”

In some ways, Trump-the-president is similar to Trump-the-reality-TV-star, at least according to Clay Aiken, a well-known contestant on “American Idol” who also appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012.

In an interview on the podcast of the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., Aiken’s home town, he said that on “Celebrity Apprentice,” Trump left the tough work of terminating contestants to others — in this case, NBC executives and producers.

“He didn’t make those decisions,” Aiken said. “He didn’t fire those people.”

 

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"Trump blasts ‘fabricated’ Syria story, appears to confirm covert CIA program"

Spoiler

President Trump lashed out at The Washington Post in a string of tweets Monday night, saying the newspaper had “fabricated the facts” about his decision to end a covert program aiding Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” Trump wrote in one tweet.

...

Trump appeared to be referring to a Post story last week on the phasing out of a covert Obama administration program in which the CIA armed and trained moderate Syrian rebels battling forces loyal to Assad in the country’s civil war. The Post reported that the Russian government had long opposed the program, seeing it as an assault on its interests. Trump decided to scrap the program nearly a month ago after meeting with his CIA director and national security adviser ahead of a July 7 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Post’s story.

The White House did not dispute the story when it ran last week. In remarks at a national security forum in Colorado on Friday, Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, appeared to confirm that the program had been shut down, then attempted to walk back his comments, as Politico reported.

In tweeting about the secret program, Trump, too, seemed to confirm its ending.

A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment on Trump’s tweets Monday night.

It is not clear what caused Trump to take issue with the story, but Politico media reporter Hadas Gold noted that Fox News host Tucker Carlson discussed it in a segment Monday night that was critical of the Syrian initiative.

...

Trump went on to accuse The Post of reporting “fake news” and suggested that the newspaper was being used as a “lobbyist weapon” to help Amazon avoid taxes. He has made similar accusations in the past, both as a candidate and as president.

...

Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos purchased The Post personally in 2013. It is not owned by Amazon.

Trump’s remarks came at the end of a day filled with Twitter attacks. Those on the receiving end of the president’s outrage included Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y); Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House panel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election; senators voting against debate on Obamacare repeal legislation; and the “fake news” media generally.

In perhaps his most noticed tweet of the day, Trump took a swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, calling him “our beleaguered A.G.” and questioning why Sessions was not investigating “Crooked Hillary’s crimes & Russia relations.”

He is truly a menace.

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8 hours ago, JMarie said:

Another day, another campaign rally (this time in Ohio).

Of course.  Why do any hard work when you can travel around the country getting your ego stroked.  I guess if I had to choose between him going to rallies or staying in D.C. and helping to get his insane legislation passed, I'll take the rallies.  They, at least, do minimal damage.

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15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is incredibly noteworthy. Breitbart represents the alt-right, white-supremasist voters. If they drop their support for the presidunce, he's going to lose an incredibly large chunk of his BT base. And the repercussions of that for the 2018 elections are immense.

I think the shoe is bound to drop before then.  Trump is not getting shit done for them.  He can only constantly crow about himself like demented elderly toddler.  

Between gerrymandering and Russian meddling I wouldn't count on the Democrats taking either chamber of Congress in 2018, but only if Trump is becoming a memory by this time next year.

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@wotdancer -- that is unreal.

 

"At Ohio campaign rally, Trump offers an ‘unfiltered’ view of his presidency"

Spoiler

YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO — About 300 miles from Washington, President Trump on Tuesday night offered a view of his presidency free of what he called the “fake-news filter.”

Over the course of nearly an hour, Trump touted the work of his administration in getting gang members and other illegal immigrants “the hell out of our country,” and he promised a continuing crackdown on “sanctuary cities.”

Trump praised the Senate for taking a procedural vote earlier in the day that he said would help deliver “great health care for the American people.” He said he was working hard on “the single biggest tax cut in American history,” and he reiterated plans to spur $1 trillion in new spending on the country’s roads, bridges and other ailing infrastructure, making no metnion that bills have yet to be introduced on either count.

And here in the heart of the industrial Midwest, Trump promised to refill lost manufacturing jobs in factories or to “rip ’em down and build brand-new ones.”

“That’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said at a campaign rally in a packed hockey arena that holds 7,000 people.

Appearing before a crowd of adoring supporters, the president was far removed from the challenges of the Russia investigation and other vexing issues that have contributed to the lowest job approval rating for a U.S. president at this point in his tenure.

When reminders of those troubles surfaced, they were quickly whisked away. That included a young protester who unfurled a Russian flag and who was wrestled out of the arena by local police.

“Boy, he’s a young one, he’s going back home to mommy,” the president declared to the delight of the crowd. “He’s in trouble. And I bet his mommy voted for us.”

The rally here was the latest in a string that Trump has held since taking office in states that he won last year. But he took too much credit Tuesday for what happened in Youngstown.

Appearing at a veterans hall prior to the rally, Trump said Democrats usually win Youngstown, “but not this time.” In fact, Democrat Hillary Clinton bested Trump in Youngstown and edged him out in surrounding Mahoning County.

Still, it was clear from the outset of his remarks that Trump was in his element.

“I’m here this evening to cut through the fake-news filter and speak directly to the American people,” Trump said in the first of many shots at the media, which he later dubbed as the “fake, fake, fake news.”

As he started to detail his achievements, Trump offered an assessment of his work that he said he knew the media — whom he called “a dishonest group of people” — would not share.

“I think, with few exceptions, no president has done anywhere near what we’ve done in his first six months,” Trump asserted.

“But they don’t let you know,” he said, motioning toward the media assembled in front of him. “They don’t want to write about it.”

Near the top of his speech, Trump talked up Tuesday’s vote in the Senate — by a 51-to-50 margin, with Vice President Pence breaking the tie — that will let debate on a health-care bill move forward. It remains unclear what if any legislation the chamber will ultimately pass in the coming days.

“We’re now one step closer from liberating our citizens from this Obamacare nightmare and delivering great health care for the American people,” Trump said.

Later, he reflected on how he is perceived by some of his critics.

“Sometimes they say: ‘He doesn’t act presidential,’” Trump relayed. “And I say: ‘Hey look, great schools, smart guy, it’s so easy to act presidential, but that’s not going to get it done.’ . . . It’s much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what we’re doing here tonight.”

Trump continued: “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president who has ever held this office. That I can tell you. It’s real easy. But sadly we have to move a little bit faster than that.”

Trump also hit hard on the themes of immigration and jobs — two staples from his days on the campaign trail last year.

“I rode through your beautiful roads, coming up from the airport,” he said. “And I was looking at some of those big, once incredible job-producing factories. And my wife, Melania, said: ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘Those jobs have left Ohio.’ ”

But, Trump said: “They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. They’re coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”

Turning to the subject of trade, Trump promised a much better version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), either by revamping the pact with Mexico and Canada or ditching the agreement and starting over.

“We will no longer be the stupid people who get taken care of by their politicians so badly because they don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump promised.

Speaking of another campaign promise for which Trump has little to show, he urged some patience.

“Don’t even think about it. We will build the wall,” Trump said, referring to the promised barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.

He finished the night on an upbeat note, reprising his campaign rallying cry from last year.

“We will not fail,” Trump said. “We cannot fail. We will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again.”

Good grief

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I cannot believe the audacity of that idiot pigheaded waste of space. Banning trans from the military? Whaaaaaat?

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"Trump’s speech to Boy Scouts irks some in ‘nonpartisan’ organization"

Spoiler

Lavinia Falck had spent six days at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, getting to know teenagers from around the world. Then, she and her friends gathered on the grass to hear from a special guest: the president of the United States.

“By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a Jamboree?” President Trump said during a rambling speech Monday in which he used harsh language, recounted election-night victories and New York cocktail parties, and attacked his political opponents.

“Everyone around me was booing,” said Falck, 17, a member of the co-ed Venture Scout program run by the Boy Scouts. She remembered looking at her new friends and wishing she’d been allowed to stay at her bunk, noting that the booing for Obama was particularly upsetting because attendees had been directed not to jeer Trump. “Scouts are supposed to be courteous and friendly and all these things, and it was really un-Scoutlike for everyone around me to boo.”

Trump’s speech at the Jamboree in Mount Hope, W.Va., broke with years of tradition — presidential traditions and Scouting traditions both. Past presidents had used these moments to extol American exceptionalism and civic virtues — such as service and honesty — that have long been pillars of the Boy Scout ethos.

Trump did a little of that before veering into a speech about his own exceptionalism.

“It pivoted to essentially a typical Trump rally. And it was not a campaign-rally audience. It was an audience of young boys and young men, who’ve come from around the country to celebrate Scouting,” said Robert Birkby, a former Eagle Scout who wrote three editions of the Boy Scout Handbook. “He did not share in the event. He shared of himself.”

By Tuesday, Trump’s speech had prompted a backlash from many current and former Scouts and their families, who say it was not only inappropriate but also undermines efforts to diversify and modernize the century-old organization.

On social media and in interviews, many said they thought national leaders should have cut short or condemned the speech, which included strong language — “Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” — and a reference to cocktail parties attended by “the hottest people in New York.” Trump at times tried to raise issues more traditionally discussed at Boy Scout gatherings, such as character and perseverance. But he also lingered on his campaign fight against Democrat Hillary Clinton and seemingly joked about firing his health and human services secretary over Republicans’ inability, so far, to pass health-care legislation.

In a statement Tuesday, the Boy Scouts of America called itself “wholly nonpartisan” and said it is routine to invite the president to its Jamboree, which occurs every four years at the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve. Obama provided a video statement during a previous Jamboree.

“This 80-year-old custom of inviting Presidents to speak to Scouts is in no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies. Rather, the speaking invitation is based on our Duty to Country, from the Scout Oath, and out of respect for the Office of the President of the United States,” the organization said.

“As one of America’s largest youth-serving organizations,” the statement continued, “the Boy Scouts of America reflects a number of cultures and beliefs. We will continue to be respectful of the wide variety of viewpoints in this country.”

Randall Stephenson, national president of the Boy Scouts of America and chairman and chief executive of AT&T, declined to comment via an AT&T spokesman Tuesday. His company is trying to complete an $85 billion merger with Time Warner — a settlement the Justice Department is evaluating, using its antitrust powers. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is an Eagle Scout and also was president of the Boy Scouts from 2010 to 2012; Tillerson visited the Jamboree last week for the unveiling of a statue in his honor.

By midday Tuesday, the organization’s Facebook page included hundreds of comments from former Scouts and parents of Scouts, calling for the organization to make a stronger statement condemning the speech. Many threatened to pull out of Scouting.

The controversy comes as the venerable organization, which has promoted civic engagement and character development among children since 1910, strives to stay relevant and appear inclusive. Membership in the Boy Scouts has dwindled by a third since 2000, to just more than 2 million as of 2016.

The organization has sought to reach out to Hispanics through its Valores para Toda la Vida (Values for Life) program. It founded its co-ed Venturing program, which focuses on outdoor exploration for teens and young adults, in 1998 and has opened some of its other programs to girls, though so far not its prestigious Eagle Scout program. The organization rescinded its ban on gay members in 2014 and in January announced that it will allow transgender members.

The efforts have in part been an effort to keep from driving away parents and students in more liberal areas of the country, said Alvin Townley, a Georgia-based author who wrote “A Legacy of Honor,” a history of the Eagle Scouts, who have earned the highest level of achievement in the organization. He suggested that the political nature of Trump’s speech undermines that goal.

“No president has used the Jamboree as a backdrop to advance a political agenda. And I certainly would not want anyone to misunderstand President Trump’s remarks as anything particularly endorsed by the Boy Scouts of America,” Townley said. “Scouting is a vital institution for America. And Scouting’s vitality relates directly to its inclusion of people from different backgrounds and different perspectives.”

Trump’s remarks were the last straw for at least one former Scout. Eric Styner, 31, who works in quality assurance at a technology company in Seattle, said Tuesday that he had decided to renounce his status as an Eagle Scout. Only a fraction of Scouts reach that rank, which requires them to earn 21 merit badges and complete a major service project, among other tasks. Some of the country’s most prominent leaders, including several members of Trump’s Cabinet, are Eagle Scouts.

Styner said he gradually became alienated from the Scouts, beginning at age 14, when he was rankled by the requirement that a Scout profess a belief in God to pass his Eagle Scout Board of Review. He was further disillusioned when the Scouts held fast to a gay ban even after many states had legalized same-sex marriage. Trump’s speech clinched it, he said.

“He went on for 30 minutes and they didn’t just say, ‘Hey, man, can you just steer it to values and the sorts of things we’re trying to teach these kids rather than being vengeful?’ ” Styner said.

Some defended the organization, saying that it did the right thing by inviting Trump. The problem, they said, was Trump.

“There were parts of the speech that were good, where it tried to be inspirational,” said Gena Brown, 43, a Georgia teacher who has two boys in Scouting. Brown, who serves as a Cub Scout master, watched the speech on YouTube. “But those parts were overshadowed by the mocking of President Obama and Hillary Clinton and the talk about economics and health care and the cocktail parties in New York.”

Among those who liked Trump’s speech was Shelby Lang, 15, also a Venture Scout from Pittsburgh. Her mother, Jennifer, said she got a text immediately after the speech saying, “That was pretty cool.” Trump, the girl wrote, “gave a huge ‘never quit, never give up, do what you love’ speech.”

Jennifer Lang, 43, a history teacher, said she was stunned to see so many negative reviews of the same remarks. “Some of the things the guy said, I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, but overall it was a positive speech,” she said. “There were some jabs and pokes, and I saw them as more goofy than malicious.”

For Falck, who attended the speech Monday, it was just one way in which Scouting sometimes makes her feel like an outsider, she said. On the first day of the Jamboree, a leader chastised her and her friends for wearing Nike running shorts that the leader said were inappropriately short. But the boys, she said, don’t seem to get the same chiding when they catcall the smaller number of girls present.

Despite her negative experiences, Falck said she plans to stay in the program, which she said has exposed her to amazing new experiences. Just Monday morning, she said, they did a “canopy tour” on a zip line that soared above the dense forest that surrounds the camp.

“I just really like the friends that I’ve made, and I want all the Scouts who do share my views to be able to still have these opportunities and not feel like we got kicked out by a bunch of people who are just acting poorly,” she said.

Agent Orange can't hold it together for a full speech anywhere, it seems.

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The 1980s song "Lies, Lies, Lies" by The Thompson Twins keeps running through my mind: "26 hours, 29 Trumpian false or misleading claims"

Spoiler

In a period of less than 26 hours — from 6:31 p.m. on July 24 to 8:09 p.m. on July 25 — President Trump made two fired-up speeches, held a news conference and tweeted with abandon, leaving a trail of misinformation in his wake. Here’s a roundup of his suspect claims.

National Scout Jamboree at Glen Jean, W.Va., 6:31 p.m. EST, July 24, 2017

“19th Boy Scout Jamboree, wow, and to address such a tremendous group. Boy, you have a lot of people here. The press will say it’s about 200 people. It looks like about 45,000 people. You set a record today. You set a record. That’s a great honor, believe me.”

The figure of 45,000 is not official but if so, that would not be a record. The most-attended single-site jamboree was held in 1964, in Valley Forge, Pa., with 50,960 attendees. In 1973, the jamboree was held in two sites, in Idaho and Pennsylvania, for a total of 73,610 attendees. (Those are raw numbers. In terms of percentage of Boy Scouts attending, 2010 holds the record.) At last count, 26,000 Scouts were expected at the 2017 event, suggesting it would fall well short of the record.

“Our stock market has picked up — since the election November 8th. Do we remember that date? Was that a beautiful date? What a date.”

Trump equates the rise of the stock market since the election as a demonstration of a good economy. But the stock market had already been rising for years before he was elected — and he called it “a big, fat, ugly bubble.”

“And you know we have a tremendous disadvantage in the Electoral College — popular vote is much easier.”

According to a tally by John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College, every Republican president since Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 won a larger share of the electoral college votes than Trump, with the exception of George W. Bush (twice) and Nixon in 1968.

“We had the best jobs report in 16 years. The stock market on a daily basis is hitting an all-time high.”

Trump appears to referring to the fact that the unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in June, which is a 16-year low. (This was a slight increase from 4.3 percent in May.) The unemployment rate was 4.8 percent in January, when Trump took office — and when he campaigned for president he routinely said the unemployment numbers were phony and were actually as high as 42 percent. (The actual jobs report was nothing special, with fewer jobs created than in June 2016.) As we noted, during the campaign Trump often said the stock market was in “a big, fat, ugly bubble.” Now he celebrates its continued rise.

“And very soon, Rick, we will be an energy exporter. Isn’t that nice — an energy exporter? In other words, we’ll be selling our energy instead of buying it from everybody all over the globe.”

The United States is already exporting energy, and has exported more than it has imported since 2015. Led by the hydraulic fracturing techniques, the United States and the rest of the world have been in the midst of an energy revolution that began nearly 15 years ago. Saudi Arabia leads the world with one-fifth of the world’s oil reserves.

Twitter, through the night and into morning

...

The Washington Post is owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Amazon does not own The Post, but in any case the president’s claims about “no-tax” Amazon are out of date. Amazon used to lobby to keep Internet sales free from state taxes, but no more. As of March, Amazon is collecting sales tax on purchases in every state that has one.

...

Trump is referring to efforts by a Ukrainian-American operative to expose former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s ties to the Russian government. But the comparison to the Russian probe is overblown and facile, making a similar criminal probe problematic.

One fundamental difference is that Ukraine is considered a U.S. ally, and Russia is considered an adversary. Moreover, U.S. intelligence officials found a top-down effort, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to illegally hack and release information in a deliberate attempt to meddle in the U.S. election and undermine the democratic system. There is no such evidence of a top-down effort in the Ukrainian case.

Instead, a Ukrainian American Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa began looking into Manafort’s ties to Viktor Yanukovych, a former pro-Russia president of Ukraine, as a part of her volunteer work in 2014. She apparently received some guidance from the Ukrainian Embassy in order to locate public documents. That’s entirely different from state-sponsored illegal hacking. There’s also no evidence that the DNC used information gathered by Chalupa or that the Ukrainians coordinated opposition research with the DNC.

...

Trump conflates a number of issues here in his continuing effort to force his attorney general from office because of his anger that Sessions followed Justice Department guidance and recused himself from the Russia probe.

The Clinton email issue was exhaustively investigated by the FBI, with the conclusion a year ago that she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information but did not intend to violate any laws. “In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” FBI Director James B. Comey said in July 2016.

There is no evidence that Clinton was involved in the question of whether the Democratic National Committee’s servers should be turned over to the FBI as part of the investigation into Russian-linked hacking after the DNC was hacked. The FBI and the Democratic National Committee disagree on whether the FBI requested access to the DNC’s servers. Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the bureau made “multiple requests at different levels” to access the DNC’s servers, but the DNC said the FBI never requested access.

The DNC allowed a private company, CrowdStrike, to review its database and share findings with the FBI. “We got the forensics from the pros that they hired which — again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute,” Comey said.

It’s worth noting here that the DNC was the victim in this instance, and yet Trump without evidence seems to be accusing it of a crime. Moreover, it was Trump himself who said after the election that it would be not be appropriate to investigate Clinton any further, so Sessions presumably was following his guidance.

...

Here, Trump reprises a Four-Pinocchio claim from the presidential campaign.

Andrew McCabe, who is now the acting FBI director, became part of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails long after his wife, Jill McCabe, unsuccessfully ran for a Virginia Senate seat. The political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) gave $452,500 to McCabe, and the state Democratic Party gave her campaign an additional $207,788. That was about one-third of the $1.8 million budget for her campaign.

McAuliffe is close to Clinton, but there is no evidence she knew of the contributions. Moreover, it stretches the imagination that McAuliffe would know that the husband of someone he was supporting in a Virginia legislative race was going to be promoted months later to a position of authority in the email case.

Why is McCabe acting FBI director? Because Trump fired Comey.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, gave a lengthy statement explaining his side of the story and denying any collusion. That is not Kushner “proving he did not collude with the Russians”; the special counsel’s investigation is still under way.

As a part of his statement, Kushner said: “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required.”

Trump news conference, 3:30 p.m., July 25, 2017

“Lebanon is on the front lines in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.”

Trump made this comment at a joint news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. But Hariri is only in power because of a deal he struck with Michel Aoun, Hezbollah’s main Christian ally, to make Aoun president. Hezbollah, the militant group, dominates the Lebanese cabinet and is more powerful than the official Lebanese army, recently launching an operation against a militant group in the eastern town of Arsal. So it’s a bit odd for Trump to suggest the  Lebanese government is fighting Hezbollah.

“Obamacare is a disaster. It’s failing on every front. It’s too expensive. It gives horrible coverage.”

Trump continues with his overheated rhetoric on the Affordable Care Act, with as usual few specifics.
Credible estimates suggest the health-care law boosted the number of people with health insurance by 20 million. The Congressional Budget Office, in its reports on the GOP replacement bills, said that the individual market would be stable in most markets at least for the next 10 years under the Affordable Care Act.

As for Obamacare being too expensive, most people who participate in the exchanges receive tax subsidies that shield them from premium increases. The health-care costs have slowed since the passage of the ACA, though the jury is out that the law is mostly responsible. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that cumulative premium increases were 63 percent for 2001-2006, 31 percent for 2006-2011 and 20 percent for 2011-2016.

Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio, 7:14 p.m., July 25, 2017

“Don’t even think about it, we will build that wall.”

Congress refused to provide funding for the wall in the 2017 budget and prospects for funds being approved in the 2018 budget are dim because of continued congressional opposition. Trump has all but dropped mention of the notion of Mexico paying for the cost of the wall, a key campaign promise.

“After years and years of sending our jobs and our wealth to other countries, we are finally standing up for our workers and our companies”

Of course, Trump himself has a long history of outsourcing a variety of his products and has acknowledged doing so. (During the campaign, we counted at least 12 countries that made Trump products.)

Even during Trump’s “Made in America” week, when he urged manufacturers and consumers to “buy American, hire American,” his family’s company continued to rely on foreign workers.  Another of Trump’s golf courses recently filed a request to hire 10 foreign workers to be waiters. Further, the fashion line of Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser to the president, is out of step with the principles championed by her father.

“Unemployment last month hit a 16-year low.”

Trump once again is referring to the fact that the unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in June, which is a 16-year low. (This was a slight increase from 4.3 percent in May.) The unemployment rate was 4.8 percent in January, when Trump took office — and when he campaigned for president he routinely said the unemployment numbers were phony and were actually as high as 42 percent.

“Since my election, we’ve added much more than 1 million jobs. Think of that.”

It’s unclear why Trump would give himself credit for jobs created in the last three months of President Barack Obama’s term. In the five months since Trump took office, 863,000 jobs have been created — fewer than the last five months of Obama’s second term. Indeed, Trump is falling behind on his promise to create 10 million jobs in his first term.

“We’ve achieved an historic increase in defense spending.”

Trump’s proposed defense increase is relatively modest — and not yet been approved by Congress.

“Boy, have we put those coal miners and coal back on the map.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 800 jobs have been created in the coal industry since Trump became president — an increase of less than 2 percent. Administration officials often misleadingly refer to “mining” jobs, which mostly consist of jobs in the oil sector, which has rebounded from a price slump that has little to do with administration policies.

“We can’t believe you gave [Iran] between $100 and $150 billion when they were ready to fail.”

In knocking the international agreement with Iran to freeze its nuclear ambitions, Trump makes it sound like the Obama administration provided the Islamic republic with U.S. taxpayer money. Because of international sanctions over its nuclear program, Iran had billions of dollars in assets that were frozen in foreign banks around the globe. With sanctions lifted, in theory those funds would be unlocked.

Trump uses too high an estimate of the funds made available to Iran. The Treasury Department has estimated that once Iran fulfills other obligations, it would have about $55 billion left. (Much of the other money was obligated to illiquid projects in China.) For its part, the Central Bank of Iran said the number was actually $32 billion, not $55 billion.

“[Harley Davidson says] when we sell a motorcycle in certain countries we have as much as 100 percent tax to pay.”

Trump probably is referring to the tariff that Harley-Davidson faces in India, which imposes a 100 percent import tariff on motorcycles. But the company has been able to get around the tariff by assembling its bikes in India. In March 2017, when Trump introduced this talking point, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported: “In India, where big touring motorcycles and cars are saddled with a 100% import tariff, Harley’s sales have grown by a brisk 30% in the past two years. That’s largely because the company has been able to get around the tariff by assembling bikes In India, something it’s done in that country since 2011.”

“We have cut illegal immigration on our southern border by record numbers — 78 percent.”

Trump’s anti-illegal immigration rhetoric has contributed to lower border crossings along the Southwestern border, experts say. Despite seasonal trends, apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border declined steadily since October 2016. In April 2017, apprehensions reached their lowest point since at least 2002. But since then, apprehensions are climbing again, more in line with seasonal trends.

The figure Trump uses is exaggerated; he is comparing data from November or December 2016 (before he was inaugurated) compared to the lowest point in April 2017. There was just an 8.1 percent decline from February 2017 (the first full month of data from his presidency) through June 2017 (the latest data available).

“We are throwing MS-13 the hell out of here so fast … We are actually liberating towns and cities.”

This is yet another exaggeration. Earlier this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the largest gang surge to date. While about 1,000 gang members or affiliates were arrested, they were not yet deported out of the country as of June 2017. Moreover, just 104 were associated with MS-13.

Still, there has been an increase in the rate of gang deportations in general to El Salvador (where MS-13 gang’s roots are) and Salvadoran officials are preparing for more.

“This month in Chicago there have been more than two homicide victims per day.”

The statistic is accurate, according to a database of Chicago-area homicides by the Chicago Tribune. But Trump always uses the outlier city of Chicago in order to paint a picture of widespread increase in violent crimes across the country. Homicides in Chicago are a concern, but it must be noted that overall, violent crime is on a decades-long decline, since the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the early 1990s. An uptick in crime over a two- or three-year period does not necessarily indicate a new crime wave.

“In West Virginia, recent premiums have gone up 169 percent since Obamacare went into effect. In Alaska, over 200 percent.”

This is one of Trump’s favorite talking points on Obamacare, yet it’s still misleading. For 2017, the average increase in premiums before subsidies was 25 percent, so he is cherry-picking the highest end of premium increases.

Moreover, Trump using data from the Department of Health and Human Services that do not take into account the effect of subsidies, which shield 84 percent of people in the exchanges from such extreme premium hikes. On average, eight out of 10 marketplace enrollees receive government premium subsidies, and they are protected from a premium increase (and may even see a decrease) if they stay with a low-cost plan.

“We want millions of Americans lifted from welfare to work and from dependence to independence.”

“Welfare” is a broad term and can apply to people who are working but receiving government assistance. If someone is receiving means-tested assistance, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are not working. In fact, eligibility for benefits often is contingent on searching for a job — in other words, working toward the “independence” that Trump mentions.

“Actually if I get what I want it will be the single biggest tax cut in American history.”

The Trump administration has released no plan beyond a single sheet of paper. Even if it became a reality (there are reports that the tax plan is being scaled back), it still would be smaller than tax cuts passed by Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.

“We have the highest taxes in the world.”

Trump almost never gets this correct. The Pew Research Center, using 2014 data, found that the tax bill for Americans, under various scenarios, is below average for developed countries.

In 2014, according to comparative tables of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), revenue as a percentage of the gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the economy — was 26 percent for the United States.

Out of 34 countries, that put the United States in the bottom third — and well below the OECD average of 34.4 percent.

...

I wonder if he actually believes the crap that comes out of his mouth.

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1 hour ago, VixenToast said:

I cannot believe the audacity of that idiot pigheaded waste of space. Banning trans from the military? Whaaaaaat?

Distraction.  

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Great op-ed: "Donald Trump’s Dominatrix"

Spoiler

At this point I think it’s fair to say that Donald Trump has gone beyond taunting and demonizing Hillary Clinton to a realm of outright obsession.

He’s stalking her.

He can’t stop tweeting about her. Can’t stop muttering about her. On Monday he addressed tens of thousands of boy scouts at their Jamboree, and who should pop up in his disjointed thoughts and disheveled words? Clinton. He dinged her, yet again, for having ignored voters in Michigan, which he won.

The Jamboree, mind you, was in West Virginia.

And it brought together dewy-eyed adolescents, not dyspeptic acolytes of the Heritage Foundation. Most cared more about — I don’t know — camping gear, crafts projects and merit badges than whether the Democratic nominee should have made an additional stop in Grand Rapids and maybe scarfed down a funnel cake in Kalamazoo while she was at it.

But Trump doesn’t meet his audiences on their terms. He uses each as a sounding board for his vanities, insecurities, delusions and fixations. Clinton factors mightily into all of these. She’s his psychological dominatrix.

He keeps telling us that he’s president and we’re not. Does he know that he’s president and she’s not? Does he realize that most Americans can go a whole day, an entire week — verily, a month! — without picturing her at a rostrum, hearing the melody of her stump speech or repeating, “I’m with her”?

At least they could if Trump would shut up about her. I understand that he misses her, but, sheesh, send some Godiva chocolates and move on.

Many political observers have been marveling at recent tweets of his that blasted Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, for not reinvestigating and potentially prosecuting Clinton for supposed crimes. He ripped into Sessions anew at a brief news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

...

But the other half of that equation is Clinton, and it’s just as remarkable that more than eight months after Election Day, Trump is still hauling his vanquished opponent out for public ridicule and marching her toward the stockade. Did Barack Obama do that with John McCain or George Bush with Al Gore or Bill Clinton with the previous George Bush? No, no and no.

Many political observers have noted Trump’s hyperconsciousness of Barack Obama, who was also mentioned in those remarks to the boy scouts, which were so inappropriately political and self-centered that parents actually lodged complaints.

But Clinton is more precious to him. While he merely itches to erase Obama from the history books, he’s desperate to keep her at the center of every page. Beneath all of his braggadocio about the genius of his campaign strategy and the potency of his connection to blue-collar Americans, he knows that he made it to the White House largely because many voters didn’t want her there and he was Door No. 2.

So he reminds them of that. Over and over again.

It would be one thing if he had amassed a trove of accomplishments and watched his approval ratings climb. But the opposite is true, so he depends on a foil who flatters him, a fork in the road that he can portray as rockier and swampier. That’s Clinton’s role, and it’s more important than Jared’s and Ivanka’s and the Mooch’s combined. They whisper sweet nothings. She saves him from damnation.

Don’t look at his campaign’s relationship with Russia. Look at hers with Ukraine! Don’t focus on Don Jr.’s incriminating emails. Focus on her missing ones! And while you’re at it, tally up how many of her donors are on Robert Mueller’s staff and take fresh note of her big-dollar speeches. Seldom has a scapegoat grazed in such a profusion of pastures.

...

He’s more or less back to chanting “lock her up,” as if it’s early November all over again. He has frozen the calendar there so that he can perpetually savor the exhilaration of the campaign and permanently evade the drudgery of governing and the ignominy of his failure at it so far.

Nov. 8 is his “Groundhog Day,” on endless repeat, in a way that pleases and pacifies him. That movie has a co-star, Clinton. If he dwells in it, he dwells with her. He can no more retire her than Miss Havisham, in “Great Expectations,” could put away her wedding dress. Clinton brings Trump back to the moment before the rose lost its blush and the heartache set in.

During the second of their three debates, he was accused of shadowing her onstage, but that was nothing next to the way he pursues her now. His administration slips further into chaos; he diverts the discussion to her. She’s the answer to evolving scandals. She’s the antidote to a constipated agenda — or so he wagers. What stature he has inadvertently given her. And what extraordinary staying power.

 

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24 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Nov. 8 is his “Groundhog Day,” on endless repeat, in a way that pleases and pacifies him. That movie has a co-star, Clinton. If he dwells in it, he dwells with her.

This really is a great op-ed.  I am always stunned that Trump keeps bringing Clinton to the forefront months after the election.  You'd think he would have moved onward and upward, but we are all at the mercy of his chaotic mind, which is haunted by thoughts of Hillary...and covfefe...

 

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2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@wotdancer -- that is unreal.

 

"At Ohio campaign rally, Trump offers an ‘unfiltered’ view of his presidency"

  Reveal hidden contents

YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO — About 300 miles from Washington, President Trump on Tuesday night offered a view of his presidency free of what he called the “fake-news filter.”

Over the course of nearly an hour, Trump touted the work of his administration in getting gang members and other illegal immigrants “the hell out of our country,” and he promised a continuing crackdown on “sanctuary cities.”

Trump praised the Senate for taking a procedural vote earlier in the day that he said would help deliver “great health care for the American people.” He said he was working hard on “the single biggest tax cut in American history,” and he reiterated plans to spur $1 trillion in new spending on the country’s roads, bridges and other ailing infrastructure, making no metnion that bills have yet to be introduced on either count.

And here in the heart of the industrial Midwest, Trump promised to refill lost manufacturing jobs in factories or to “rip ’em down and build brand-new ones.”

“That’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said at a campaign rally in a packed hockey arena that holds 7,000 people.

Appearing before a crowd of adoring supporters, the president was far removed from the challenges of the Russia investigation and other vexing issues that have contributed to the lowest job approval rating for a U.S. president at this point in his tenure.

When reminders of those troubles surfaced, they were quickly whisked away. That included a young protester who unfurled a Russian flag and who was wrestled out of the arena by local police.

“Boy, he’s a young one, he’s going back home to mommy,” the president declared to the delight of the crowd. “He’s in trouble. And I bet his mommy voted for us.”

The rally here was the latest in a string that Trump has held since taking office in states that he won last year. But he took too much credit Tuesday for what happened in Youngstown.

Appearing at a veterans hall prior to the rally, Trump said Democrats usually win Youngstown, “but not this time.” In fact, Democrat Hillary Clinton bested Trump in Youngstown and edged him out in surrounding Mahoning County.

Still, it was clear from the outset of his remarks that Trump was in his element.

“I’m here this evening to cut through the fake-news filter and speak directly to the American people,” Trump said in the first of many shots at the media, which he later dubbed as the “fake, fake, fake news.”

As he started to detail his achievements, Trump offered an assessment of his work that he said he knew the media — whom he called “a dishonest group of people” — would not share.

“I think, with few exceptions, no president has done anywhere near what we’ve done in his first six months,” Trump asserted.

“But they don’t let you know,” he said, motioning toward the media assembled in front of him. “They don’t want to write about it.”

Near the top of his speech, Trump talked up Tuesday’s vote in the Senate — by a 51-to-50 margin, with Vice President Pence breaking the tie — that will let debate on a health-care bill move forward. It remains unclear what if any legislation the chamber will ultimately pass in the coming days.

“We’re now one step closer from liberating our citizens from this Obamacare nightmare and delivering great health care for the American people,” Trump said.

Later, he reflected on how he is perceived by some of his critics.

“Sometimes they say: ‘He doesn’t act presidential,’” Trump relayed. “And I say: ‘Hey look, great schools, smart guy, it’s so easy to act presidential, but that’s not going to get it done.’ . . . It’s much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what we’re doing here tonight.”

Trump continued: “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president who has ever held this office. That I can tell you. It’s real easy. But sadly we have to move a little bit faster than that.”

Trump also hit hard on the themes of immigration and jobs — two staples from his days on the campaign trail last year.

“I rode through your beautiful roads, coming up from the airport,” he said. “And I was looking at some of those big, once incredible job-producing factories. And my wife, Melania, said: ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘Those jobs have left Ohio.’ ”

But, Trump said: “They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. They’re coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”

Turning to the subject of trade, Trump promised a much better version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), either by revamping the pact with Mexico and Canada or ditching the agreement and starting over.

“We will no longer be the stupid people who get taken care of by their politicians so badly because they don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump promised.

Speaking of another campaign promise for which Trump has little to show, he urged some patience.

“Don’t even think about it. We will build the wall,” Trump said, referring to the promised barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.

He finished the night on an upbeat note, reprising his campaign rallying cry from last year.

“We will not fail,” Trump said. “We cannot fail. We will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again.”

Good grief

First of all, when has Trump been filtered? Does he even have filters?

Secondly (from the article), when he's bragging about better healthcare, I'm guessing he doesn't realize everyone isn't rich and that healthcare is a stretch or impossible for many, especially under the proposals of the House and Senate.

I suspect there reason Trump keeps mentioning Clinton is that she won the popular vote. He got beat by a woman and just can't deal with it and move on. Therefore, his masculinity has been challenged and compromised, so he must keep berating Clinton to try to regain some of his (perminantly) missing masculinity.

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2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The 1980s song "Lies, Lies, Lies" by The Thompson Twins keeps running through my mind: "26 hours, 29 Trumpian false or misleading claims"

  Hide contents

National Scout Jamboree at Glen Jean, W.Va., 6:31 p.m. EST, July 24, 2017

“19th Boy Scout Jamboree, wow, and to address such a tremendous group. Boy, you have a lot of people here. The press will say it’s about 200 people. It looks like about 45,000 people. You set a record today. You set a record. That’s a great honor, believe me.”

The figure of 45,000 is not official but if so, that would not be a record. The most-attended single-site jamboree was held in 1964, in Valley Forge, Pa., with 50,960 attendees. In 1973, the jamboree was held in two sites, in Idaho and Pennsylvania, for a total of 73,610 attendees. (Those are raw numbers. In terms of percentage of Boy Scouts attending, 2010 holds the record.) At last count, 26,000 Scouts were expected at the 2017 event, suggesting it would fall well short of the record.

That's a nice analysis but I do not believe  that Trump ever was thinking about Jamboree attendance records for a minute. He couldn't give a fuck whether this is a bigger Jamboree than something in the seventies. The way his mind works is, "wow there are a lot of people and they're all here just to see me, this must be the record crowd for a Trump rally. I'm so popular and everyone here loves me." 

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The presidunce has no idea that there is supposed to be a separation of state and religion.

 

And WTF with that camera emoji...?

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Well, if the shoe fits... "Trump and Republicans treat their voters like morons"

Spoiler

As Republicans struggle to figure out which spectacularly unpopular, viciously cruel, and perfunctorily considered version of their health care bill they want to become law, one former member of the House leadership has come out with an extraordinary admission about what a scam the whole project is. In an interview with Elaina Plott of Washingtonian magazine, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who was defeated in a primary in 2014 by a Tea Party extremist, explains that Republicans knew they were lying to their base about their ability to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but they just couldn’t help themselves:

“To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office . . . .” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”

He says he wasn’t the only one aware of the charade: “We sort of all got what was going on, that there was this disconnect in terms of communication, because no one wanted to take the time out in the general public to even think about ‘Wait a minute—that can’t happen.’ ” But, he adds, “if you’ve got that anger working for you, you’re gonna let it be.”

It’s a stunning admission from a former member of the party leadership—that the linchpin of GOP electoral strategy for the better part of a decade was a fantasy, a flame continually fanned solely because, when it came to midterm elections, it worked. (Barring, of course, his own.)

What’s truly remarkable isn’t that a bunch of cynical politicians thought they could ride their base voters’ anger into control of Congress by lying to them about what they could actually accomplish, it’s that their voters actually believed it. And then those voters got even angrier when it turned out that the president had the ability to veto bills passed by a Congress controlled by the other party. Who knew! So instead of looking for a presidential candidate who would treat them like adults, they elected Donald Trump, a man who would pander to their gullibility even more.

Which brings us to where we are today. Republicans couldn’t be bothered for seven years to actually think about what repealing and replacing the ACA might involve, or whether there would be tradeoffs and choices to make, or whether setting up a system that accorded with their conservative philosophy might not actually solve the problems of the health care system. They thought it would be enough to tell their voters to get mad, and worry later about what it would take to keep the promises they made.

So now they find themselves with a bill that nearly everyone hates. If it passes (in whatever form), it will be a disaster for the health care system, and will be a political disaster for them as well. But they’ve convinced themselves that the only thing worse politically would be to not pass anything, because that would incur the wrath of those same base voters. In other words, their current position is, “We know how catastrophic this bill would be. But we got here by lying to these knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers for years, and if we don’t follow through, they’ll punish us.” They believe that their voters will say, “Okay, so I lost my health coverage because of you, but you’ll get my vote again because you kept your promise.”

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of outright malice in what Republicans are doing, because there is. Their contempt for people who struggle economically is boundless. They’ve wanted to destroy Medicaid for decades, and they just might be able to do it. But their strongest motivation right now is fear, fear of the voters they regard as too dim-witted to be able to make a rational judgment about the most consequential policy question one can imagine.

Am I being unkind? Consider what the president is up to at the moment. This morning he announced that he’ll be banning transgender people from serving in the military, serving up a bogus rationale about how they cost too much money. A White House official told Axios that this is a political masterstroke:

“This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to take complete ownership of this issue.”

Yes, the 2018 election will hinge on transgender people serving in the military. That’s mind-numbingly stupid, but to believe it you’d have to think that voters are complete idiots. And as the Post reports, Trump addressed a big crowd of his voters yesterday in Youngstown, Ohio:

Here in the heart of the industrial Midwest, Trump promised to refill lost manufacturing jobs in factories or to “rip ’em down and build brand-new ones.”

“That’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said at a campaign rally in a packed hockey arena that holds 7,000 people … Trump said: “They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. They’re coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”

In fairness, many people in the area, even Republicans, understand that’s a complete crock. Those jobs aren’t coming back, and the region’s future won’t be built on factories that employ huge numbers of people who can move into high-wage, high-benefit jobs with little preparation. Yet they still show up at his rallies and cheer while he lies right in their faces.

If there’s a note of hope to be found in all this, it’s that this health care effort has been such a farce — in large part because the public has finally begun to clue in to what the Republican proposals might actually mean. That idea terrifies Republicans in Congress, which is why they are pushing through one of the most sweeping and consequential pieces of legislation in American history without a single hearing and with only a few hours of floor debate. Since one version of the bill was voted down yesterday, the current strategy seems to be to pass “skinny repeal,” which would do nothing except eliminate the individual and employer mandates and a tax on medical devices.

If that were to become law, it would immediately destroy the individual insurance market, since you’d be able to wait until you got sick before buying insurance and insurers would still have to cover you. Republicans in Congress don’t know a lot about health care policy, but they know enough to understand that. They’re hoping, however, that the public is too dumb to realize just how destructive the idea would be.

There’s one other path open to them, which is to pass skinny repeal, then go to a conference committee with the House, in which an entirely new bill would be written incorporating the other things Republicans want to do. That bill could then be presented to both houses as a last chance to repeal the hated Obamacare, in the hopes that members would vote for it despite its inevitable unpopularity and cataclysmic consequences for Americans’ health care.

If and when that happens, Republicans will make that same calculation again: This thing is terrible and most everyone hates it, but we have to pass something because we fooled our base into thinking this would all be simple and we could give them everything they want. Or as Trump said during the campaign, “You’re going to have such great healthcare at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it is going to be so easy.”

That was just one of the many lies they were told, and they ate it up. Now we’ll all have to pay the price.

 

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45 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce has no idea that there is supposed to be a separation of state and religion.

 

And WTF with that camera emoji...?

Gurrrlll, seriously? Separation of church and state is so 2016

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A good one from Politico: "13 Trump Scandals You Forgot About: Any other year, one of these could have derailed a presidency."

Spoiler

The first six months of the Trump presidency have been a whirlwind of Russia-related news, with revelations about the Kremlin’s attempt to sway the election and the Trump campaign’s possible role in the effort surfacing nearly every day. But imagine for a moment a world in which the Russia scandal didn’t exist. Pretend that Trump didn’t fire FBI Director James Comey, or that Don Jr. never met with a Russian lawyer and a former Soviet spy promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. Forget that Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort had to register retroactively as foreign agents, or even that Trump said he wouldn’t have hired Jeff Sessions if he’d known the attorney general would recuse himself from the Russia probe.

What you’re left with is still a remarkable amount of other administration scandals—from the State Department’s stay at a Trump hotel to Jared Kushner’s disclosure problems—that would have been major news any other year, with any other president in the White House. Here are a few to remember.

***

Foreign governments are paying Trump

The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution says the president cannot “without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” This means that many of Trump’s continued business dealings—he has refused to divest from his real estate company—could very well be illegal: For one, Trump has hotels all over the world—from Saudi Arabia to the Philippines—and receives foreign money from his overseas holdings constantly.

There’s also the issue of the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., which has become a popular destination for foreign diplomats. A week after the November election, about 100 foreign officials were invited to an event at the property, during which they toured the building and sipped champagne. While Trump promised before taking office that he’d donate all profits earned from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury, he doesn’t appear to have kept that pledge. So far, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all held events at the hotel, but there’s also the trickier matter of how to account for individuals linked to foreign governments. A Trump Organization pamphlet published in May said that “putting forth a policy that asks all guests to identify themselves would impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand.”

In January, the nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) welcomed Trump to the White House by suing him on the grounds that he was already in violation of the Emoluments Clause. The Justice Department responded with a 70-page legal brief defending the president’s conduct and calling for the suit’s dismissal.


The Defamation lawsuit

During the 2016 presidential campaign, 15 women claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Trump, going on the record to accuse him of groping them—in planes, offices, hotels, even golf and tennis tournaments. The then-presidential nominee vehemently denied any accounts of misconduct, and suggested the women weren’t attractive enough to merit his attention. But in January, Summer Zeryos, a former “Apprentice” contestant who had accused Trump of kissing her, grabbing her breast and thrusting his groin toward her in 2007, but whose accusation Trump had dismissed as “totally made up nonsense,” sued Trump for defamation. Zervos’ suit claims that Trump’s malicious response to her and others—he repeatedly called her and other women who came forward “liars”—resulted in “threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage.” In March, Trump claimed that as president, he should have immunity from Zeryos’ suit. It will serve only to “distract a president from his public duties to the detriment of not only the president and his office but also the Nation,” wrote his lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, in a filing. In July, Kawowitz filed a motion for dismissal. It hasn’t yet been granted.


The White House promotes Melania’s jewelry line

The first lady’s bio on the White House website, as first published in January, noted her modeling accolades and charitable causes, but also included what many saw as a blatant endorsement of her products. “Melania is also a successful entrepreneur,” the bio read. “In April 2010, Melania Trump launched her own jewelry collection, ‘Melania™ Timepieces & Jewelry,’ on QVC.” The episode was added to the growing evidence of blurred lines between business and public service in the Trump administration. Facing backlash, the White House quickly removed the QVC plug from the website.


Kellyanne Conway endorses Ivanka’s clothing line

When Nordstrom announced it would stop selling Ivanka Trump's clothing line in February, Trump took to Twitter to defend his daughter. Later that week, not even three weeks after the Melania QVC debacle, presidential aide Kellyanne Conway delivered a ringing endorsement of the brand herself from the White House briefing room, urging Americans, “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff.” The rules are clear on this: Executive branch employees can’t use public office for private gain, to endorse any product or for the private gain of friends. The Office of Government Ethics wrote that “there is strong reason to believe” the action had violated the Standards of Conduct, and Conway was supposedly reprimanded for the mistake by Trump himself—but no disciplinary action was taken.


Wilbur Ross keeps investments that he affects as commerce secretary

In February, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Trump’s then-nominee for head of the Commerce Department, Wilbur Ross, planned on keeping $8.7 million to $41.5 million worth of his investments, primarily in companies that invest in shipping and real estate financing. While Ross said he would sell at least 80 other funds and assets, the holdings he refused to give up include a private company registered in the Cayman Islands, an oil tanker company and a co-investment with the Chinese government. Ethics watchdogs and democratic lawmakers highlighted potential conflicts of interest, given the Commerce chief’s regulatory power and involvement in foreign trade negotiations, but despite these concerns, Ross was confirmed for the position later that month. In his new role, Ross sits on the Committee on Foreign Investment, which deals extensively with China; and he has broad authority under the Oil Pollution Act “with regards to oil-spill response and environmental restoration,” which could have implications for his investments in the medium-range oil tanker operating and owning company, Diamond S. Shipping. Ross has pledged not to take any action that would benefit one of his investments.


Mar-a-Lago jacks up its rates

Trump might travel to Mar-a-Lago—the historic Florida estate his aides have branded the “Southern White House”—to get away from the stresses of 1600 Penn, but guests travel to Trump’s Palm Beach resort to get closer to power. And they’re willing to pay Trump handsomely for the privilege: After the inauguration, the club doubled its initiation fee to $200,000. It’s not only foreign dignitaries that stay at the resort hoping to brush shoulders with the president and his staff—wealthy clubgoers also include New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and actor Sylvester Stallone.

Ethics watchdogs aren’t comfortable with the arrangement—not to mention how expensive it is to transport a president, his aides and security detail down to Palm Beach (or, more recently, his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey) weekend after weekend—but security officials are also wary: Trump has been known to conduct sensitive business with foreign dignitaries on the terrace, in open view of Mar-a-Lago guests, who can enter the property without a background check. And then there’s that time a guest happily posted a photo online of the soldier who carries the nuclear football.

In March, Democrats proposed legislation titled “Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act,” (fondly known as the “Mar-a-Lago Act,” which would force Trump to release the resort’s guest records. In July, CREW won its own ethics lawsuit demanding that the Department of Homeland Security release Mar-a-Lago’s records by this fall.


Trump’s campaign pays his businesses

In February, Federal Election Commission reports revealed that Trump’s campaign paid $12.8 million to his own companies over the course of the 2016 election. Those millions were funneled to Trump’s TAG Air, for campaign trips; Trump Tower, for rent and utilities; Trump Restaurants; Trump Ice, for beverages and office supplies; Trump’s Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, his golf clubs; and his son’s Charlottesville vineyard, for rent, catering and lodging.

And as one election ended, soliciting campaign donations for the next one quietly began. A Wired analysis this July found that Trump had already spent $600,000 of his 2020 reelection campaign funds on rent at Trump Tower, legal consulting for the Trump Corp., golf at Trump’s golf course, Trump’s hotels and Trump’s water bottles.


The Kushners tout Jared’s White House connections to do business in China

In May, Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer pitched Chinese investors in Beijing on a Kushner development project in Jersey City, telling them that if they put at least $500,000 into the project they would be rewarded with EB-5 investor visas (also known as “golden visas”) to immigrate to the United States. Kushner, whose role in the White House includes advising on China policy, stopped running his family’s company in January; but Meyer mentioned her brother by name at the Beijing event, reminding guests he was now serving in the White House and adding that the project “means a lot to me and my entire family.” Critics immediately sounded the alarm: It appeared the Kushners weren’t averse to using their high-ranking White House connections to buoy their business. They pivoted quickly, canceling future visits to China in the wake of intense scrutiny and issuing an apology.

But in July, CNN discovered that Kushner’s name has again been used to lure Chinese investors for the same New Jersey development, this time in online promotions written by businesses working with Kushner Companies. He’s referred to as “the celebrity of the family,” and in a post that has since been removed, as the guy who “got Trump elected.” CNN also found a post by the Chinese company Qiaowai, also recently deleted, again mentioned Kushner and his connection to the White House, adding, “Given this, in the Trump era, the EB-5 program is likely to receive support and be expanded.”

When asked by CNN about the Web pages, a Kushner Companies spokesperson said they were unaware of them and would be “sending a cease-and-desist letter” to the companies who used Kushner’s name without his approval.


Kushner fails to disclose key assets

In May, a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that Kushner neglected to disclose large stakes in the real estate investment platform Cadre, valued at $800 million, when he filed his government financial disclosure form. Kushner’s ties to Cadre mean he’s also entangled in business with Goldman Sachs and billionaires George Soros and Peter Thiel, fellow investors in the company. Also absent from his form? Nearly $1 billion in loans. In July, CREW filed a lawsuit against Kushner, asserting, “It is impossible to ensure that senior government officials are behaving ethically if they fail to disclose key assets.”

In the wake of the July revelation that Kushner had joined his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., in a mysterious meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer and former Soviet spy, Kushner released a revised form. It revealed, among other things, that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, made at least $19 million in outside business; that they shared an art collection worth $5 million to $25 million; that Kushner had left out more than 70 assets worth more than $10 million from his first form; and that, although he has recused himself from “particular matters” in sectors that might affect Cadre, his previously undisclosed stake in the company is valued at between $5 million to $25 million.

Financial disclosure forms are commonly revised, but former Office of Government Ethics Director Don Fox told the Wall Street Journal that “the number of omissions on Mr. Kushner’s initial form was unusually high.” Ethics experts worry that failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest mean Kushner could make policy decisions motivated by business strategy without public accountability.


Ivanka and Jared are still making a lot of money from their businesses

Ivanka’s first financial disclosure went public in July, revealing that even though she’s stepped away from leadership roles within the family business and her fashion brand, the first daughter has received at least $12.6 million in income from her business ventures since early 2016. In fact, Jared and Ivanka’s most recent disclosures show the couple continues to cash in from a wide-ranging business empire worth as much as $761 million as they carry out their government service—a big problem, according to ethics experts warning about the potential for conflicts of interest.


Trump’s products aren’t made in America

In July, the president traveled around the country for Made in America week. He rode firetrucks, waved flags, and most of all heralded the importance of buying and manufacturing in America. But soon it became clear that he doesn’t practice what he preaches—his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line is not made in America, and his restaurants and hotels are actively hiring more foreign workers. Similar hypocrisies came to light when, during the election, Trump placed emphasis on buying American while it was revealed that dozens of other goods he produced were manufactured overseas. In her defense, Ivanka’s brand president, Abigail Klem, told the Washington Post that manufacturing goods in the U.S. “at a large scale is currently not possible”; and in 2015, Trump defended his China-manufactured ties by arguing that “[the Chinese] have manipulated their currency to such a point that it’s impossible for our companies to compete.”

In July, a FOIA request by the Washington Post revealed that the State Department in February shelled out $15,000 to stay in Trump’s new Vancouver hotel when members of the Trump family traveled there for the hotel’s grand opening. The Secret Service, which handles security for domestic travel, has already spent millions on stays at Trump Tower in New York and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. But this was the first real evidence of the State Department spending taxpayer money at Trump-branded properties. The State Department didn’t say explicitly why it accompanied the Trumps, telling the Post, “Embassy and consulate personnel work with the Secret Service to provide assistance on security matters as necessary for conditions in the particular host country.”


The administration sidelines climate scientists

When Mark Zuckerberg flew to Glacier National Park in July, the Facebook CEO was to be shown around by two of the park’s climate experts, Daniel Fagre and Jeff Mow—but at the last minute, top officials at Trump’s Department of the Interior made sure the tech billionaire wouldn’t be meeting either of them. The administration defended the cancellation as a move to save money, saying it would be a waste of government resources to send Zuckerberg into the park with such a large group; but Fagre, a research ecologist, and Mow, who focuses on Glacier’s retreating ice sheets, were puzzled. The tour was kept quiet on social media, too, after the Trump administration forbade National Park staff from posting about it online.

To many, this was interpreted as another of the Trump administration’s moves to undermine the long-held scientific consensus that man-made climate change is happening. Since Trump took office, the Interior Department and EPA made revisions to their Climate Change websites, deleting much of the substantive content on environmental risks. In June, dozens of top Interior officials, including those focused on climate and other environmental issues, were involuntarily reassigned to unrelated departments; and in July, Trump nominated climate-change skeptic Sam Clovis, a campaign aide with no experience in science, to be the head of science at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It is amazing that if even one of these things happened during a Democratic presidency, the Repugs would have hauled the players in to testify seconds later and would have been erecting crosses on the south lawn.

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I am really upset about Trump's ban on transgendered people serving.

I served in the military under don't ask, don't tell which I did not agree with at the time. There were many people I knew to be gay that were also serving, but they couldn't live openly and it wasn't fair. I am no longer active duty but we are now associated with a military base and our kids go to school on a military base so we know a lot of active duty families. It is so nice to be able to see gay couples being able to live openly. No one bats an eye. People adjusted to the new norm very quickly and while I am sure they still face discrimination they have the support of the command behind them

I don't see why it has to be different with people that happen to be trans. If it is really about cost perhaps look into whether completely a surgical transition during active duty is appropriate. I highly doubt it is about cost though. It is just a reason to single people out.

Oh and by the way...

The Pentagon spends 5 times more on Viagra than transgender services

Now, we will see what actually happens, since I can't see how official policy can come from a tweet and this may turn out to be nothing more than a distraction from the ACA vote but best case he put a group of people that are already struggling for acceptance in a bad spot. 

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2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce has no idea that there is supposed to be a separation of state and religion.

 

And WTF with that camera emoji...?

One of the responses to the above tweet:

Quote

hey donald......donald......just got off the phone with god.....he says u suck

 

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