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

[47of74]

I see Slanthead Hanity had to ask what Tapeworm's biggest accomplishment was on Twitter.

dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/29/1657457/-100-Days-Hannity-Asks-What-is-Trump-s-Biggest-Accomplishment-Twitter-Hands-Him-His-Ass

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Sean Hannity is having a bad year. Fox News is falling apart with the loss of its CEO Roger Ailes, and its biggest star Bill O'Reilly. Now Ailes' replacement, and close Hannity ally, Bill Shine is also facing a possible ouster. So Hannity is taking to Twitter for solace with a question aimed at sucking up to his friend in the White House, Donald Trump. What could possibly go wrong?

The answers Hannity got were probably not what he expected. There were very few replies that could be taken seriously. Many responses exhibited the brain dead detachment of Trump's cult followers by saying merely "Everything," or "Beating Hillary." A fair number thought the seating of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court represented a Trump achievement. But that's only true if you regard submitting a name to the Senate that couldn't get confirmation without changing the rules (the Nuclear Option) an achievement.

Far more interesting, and entertaining, were the responses from Twitter's reality-based community. They recognized that the question itself was absurd and treated it with the disrespect it deserved. Even so, they were more accurate and substantive than Hannity's army of Trump fluffers. So if you're looking for examples of Trump's biggest achievements in his first 100 days, read on:

 

And he got his ass handed to him in response.

There's some more examples on Daily Kos.

And of course yours truly had to chime in with a response...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@47of74 -- I love your response!! I'm sure Handjob ignored you.

 

"After a tumultuous start, Trump hopes for a smoother agenda on jobs and taxes"

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After 100 days full of fits and starts, President Trump is barreling into the second phase of his presidency focused on attempting to secure big victories that have eluded him on the economic pillars of his agenda. 

With an eye toward keeping his core promise of creating jobs and ramping up economic growth, Trump has fixated on tax reform as the next undertaking of his administration — an opportunity for him to land a first major legislative victory after repeated failures to pass a health-care package.

Sweeping tax reform has been front-of-mind for President Trump, who has taken an interest in the minute details of proposals under consideration by his administration. Aides are also being pressured to front-load the effort with the goal — already delayed — of having a bill approved before the end of this year. 

The prospect that he could do something not accomplished since president Ronald Reagan passed a comprehensive tax reform package in 1986 is especially appealing to Trump. The effort took Reagan some 500 days at one of the high points of his power — the beginning of his second presidential term. Trump, White House aides and outside advisers said, is buoyed by the prospect of accomplishing it in the first year of his first term.

Humbled by their failure on health care, White House aides say they have taken a lesson from the experience and plan to take the lead on the tax-reform effort — including a Trump-led push to build public and stakeholder support for a plan. The bill will be guided by the principles laid out Wednesday in a single-page document that outlined the president’s plan to slash rates and consolidate tax brackets for most taxpayers, aides said.

...

“I think Trump clearly needs to have a couple of legislative victories and put some points on the board when it comes to legislation that’s signed, sealed and delivered,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign economic adviser. “Trump is going to be judged on three things: did he keep his promises to voters; did he revive this economy; and did he get out of this low growth rut.”

The centrality of Trump’s economic agenda to his success as president has crystallized in recent days, after yet another immigration-related effort — an executive order cracking down on “sanctuary cities” that do not let local authorities enforce federal immigration laws — was halted by a federal judge. 

...

Meanwhile, a White House riven by strife and internal disputes remains divided on tenets of the president’s agenda, including the approach to taxes. Some of Trump’s populist advisers remain skeptical of a tax plan that includes large cuts for wealthy earners, and have pushed Trump to focus on keeping his promises to working-class voters.

But people close to the White House say there is a noticeable difference in the approach on taxes compared to health care, in part because new forces are taking the lead on the effort: Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council. The more proactive, planned approach to addressing taxes is also reflective of a change in strategy from a maturing administration, observers say.

A number of Capitol Hill Republicans say that Trump and his administration are improving and beginning to grasp the complexities of running the federal government.

...

By necessity, Congress cannot share the White House’s single-minded focus on taxes.

A slew of other routine issues, but still pressing ones, are coming up on the congressional docket before the end of the year. Congress will have to decide whether to reauthorize a Veterans Affairs health-care program established in the wake of scandals across the agency. A Food and Drug Administration program that charges fees to drug companies seeking approval of new products expires by August. The Federal Aviation Administration needs to be reauthorized by September — as does the nation’s flood-insurance program.

There also is work to be done on the annual defense policy bill — influenced this year by the ongoing showdowns with North Korea, Russia and Syria — a must-pass piece of legislation that is often used as a way to pass other unrelated items. And the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, but lawmakers in both parties warned in recent days that the House and Senate have not started working on a new budget plan.

...

Meanwhile, Democrats are warning Trump that bipartisanship may be the only way to govern effectively. 

“Look, you’ve had experience for 100 days,” said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), as if he were speaking directly to Trump. “Your party is a divided party — you found that out. Some things you thought you were going to be able to do you haven’t been able to do, not because of Democratic opposition but Republican division.:

He added: “That ought to tell you that on important, must-do issues, you’re well-advised on a bipartisan basis to get those done.”

Yeah, because jobs and taxes are so easy.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Winners and losers from President Trump’s first 100 days". Spoiler alert -- the #1 loser is Lord Dampnut.

 

"Trump exposes the myth of ‘running government like a business’"

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“Government should be run like a business,” goes the quasi-proverb. In years past, Meyer’s golden parachute would be this month’s best evidence of why that supposed maxim makes little sense. But now that proof sits in the Oval Office. As Donald Trump’s presidency reaches 100 days, we are seeing firsthand the results of a government run like a business, and the results are not pretty.

From early in Trump’s business career, there has been a consistent verdict: The 45th president is driven by impulse and the short term. Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” won Trump’s admiration with a 1985 article that described him (in the New Yorker’s words) as a “ham-fisted thug.” Whether it be Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka or numerous other failures, Trump has consistently bought into ventures brought to him because of the exposure in the short term, regardless of the viability in the long term.

Now that approach has been brought to the White House. As The Post reported Thursday, the president “often seems more interested in short-term accomplishments — and positive cable news headlines — than longer-term policy goals.” This explains why Trump has been so uncompromising on executive orders — where he does not have to deal with anyone else — and so yielding on legislative and diplomatic negotiations. Just this month, he has caved to Democrats on health care, China on currency manipulation, and Canada and Mexico on the North American Free Trade Agreement. What’s important is not the long-term policy outcome but the near-term impression of success.

Many will want to ascribe this short-term, impulsive thinking to Trump alone. The truth, however, is that corporate America rewards this approach. We see this in the “stock price first” approach of big corporations, which values higher prices and bigger dividends over investment in the company’s future. In the long run, that hurts Americans as a whole, as investment in infrastructure, innovation and other improvements is lost.

But let us return to Trump. Now he has a tax “plan.” I say “plan” because the administration has put forward only bullet points, with many specifics missing. There are no budget projections, no economic projections and no clear strategy on how the “plan” will get through Congress. (Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration would consider both working with Democrats and ramming the bill through on party lines.)

Pushing this “plan” through Congress will mean making deals, whether that be with Republicans concerned about the impact on the deficit, interest groups that object to eliminating specific deductions or Democrats concerned about, well, almost everything. But that doesn’t concern Trump. What he cares about is the image: As The Post reported, the president is “desperate to notch tangible victories.” What his tax proposal does to the deficit or — far more importantly — inequality is of little concern. The details don’t matter so long as something gets done for him to show off.

Obviously, this is no way to run a country. The New Deal, the moon landing and the Constitution itself were not created with short-term returns in mind. America’s success is not measured in returns to investors. Among the many myths that Trump’s presidency will hopefully dispel, “government should be run like a business” should be the first to die.

I couldn't agree more. Government is not a business. It shouldn't be run like one.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment"

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One hundred days, too many of them filled with needless drama and gratuitous insult, and still I remember the first full one. Still it makes me cringe.

That was when Donald Trump visited and made remarks at the C.I.A. He had fences to mend with the American intelligence community, whose failure to fall fawningly in line with his nascent administration had prompted him to compare them to Nazis. He stood before a wall of stars that commemorated lives sacrificed for country.

And what message did he bring? What manner did he summon?

He lied, saying that the media had invented his feud with the agency. He lashed out at suggestions that his inaugural crowds hadn’t been the biggest and most orgiastic. To top it all off, he crowed about how often he’d claimed the cover of Time magazine, because who isn’t fascinated by that? Who doesn’t want a running tally? Whose heart doesn’t beat faster when Trump yet again ponders the glory of Trump?

He was president at that point. Vindicated. Inaugurated. He could decide to be big. But he chose to be small, and it was clear then, if it hadn’t been before, that there would be no pivot to dignity, which was either beyond his capabilities or outside his interests.

Most historians, political analysts and other observers are taking stock of him at this presidential mile marker in terms of his legislative cul-de-sacs, his policy flips and flops, his executive actions and his foreign policy, such as it is.

But that minimizes and, yes, normalizes the most distinctive aspect of Trump’s presidency, which is his complete and consistent rejection of the conventional etiquette of the office — of public comportment that speaks to the best in us, not the worst.

The other presidents in my lifetime have at least done a pantomime of the qualities that we try to instill in children: humility, honesty, magnanimity, generosity. Even Richard Nixon took his stabs at these. Trump makes a proud and almost ceaseless mockery of them.

And while I worry plenty that he’ll achieve some of his most ill-conceived policy goals, I’m just as fearful that he has already succeeded in changing forever the expected demeanor of someone in public office.

All around me people shrug and yawn at his latest petulant tirade, his newest baseless tweet, his freshest assertion that the numbers that the rest of us see are just optical illusions and he really did win the popular vote. Even outrage grows boring, and it begins to feel pointless: His obnoxiousness isn’t going to get him impeached.

Besides, the mendacity, the grandiosity: That’s just Trump being Trump. It’s old news by now. Many readers will get this far in this column and wonder why I and other naysayers don’t just let it go and cut him a break. As if we’re stuck on piddling things and his bearing is nothing more than peculiar.

...

But who among the presidents of the last half-century has been so publicly cavalier about conflicts of interest, so blithe about getting away with whatever grifts he could, so lavishly meanspirited and so proudly rude? Who among those presidents made so little concession to decorum?

Who stooped so low, on the campaign trail or in office, as to ridicule a disabled journalist and make light of a prisoner of war’s ordeal? Who talked incessantly about how heroic his election was, summoning more energy for self-congratulation than he ever exhibited for the praise of others?

Who taunted his adversaries with such abandon? Who made such a spectacle of his grievances that he invented a phenomenon: sore winning?

Trump’s fans can excuse and explain all of this, and there are glimmers of merit in some of what they say:

He is owning up to, and not laboring to disguise, the emotional currents that move most politicians. He has honed his vanity into a kind of weapon, so it’s useful if not honorable. There’s a candor to the way he does things; a boldness and an authenticity, too. Politicians who feigned rectitude didn’t take the country where it needed to go. Why not give a shot to one who doesn’t bother much with the pretense?

...

But I’m sickened by the lack of deference that he still shows toward traits that we’ve long and rightly extolled. It’s one thing to fall short of them, as so many presidents have. It’s quite another to step onto the inaugural stage, put your hand on the Bible and then go out of your way to belittle the past presidents who are sitting, respectfully, just a few feet away.

That’s what Trump did on the afternoon before he went to the C.I.A., and on both occasions he wasn’t just assaulting propriety. He was fashioning a new model of leadership. He was saying that it could strut and seethe and whine like this. He was consigning an entire roster of virtues to the junkyard of the quaint.

...

The writer is correct. The complete blowing up of polite and adult behavior by someone who is supposed to be representing the American people is a terrible accomplishment.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump has already started building a legacy. It’s highly negative."

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President Trump’s election provoked extraordinary fears that he would become an American strongman in the mold of authoritarian leaders he admires such as Vladimir Putin of Russia or Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Unlike those countries, however, the United States has a very robust set of institutional checks and balances that are supposed to prevent any one individual from acquiring excessive power. The empirical question, then, is whether that system would successfully contain a president who displayed little respect for legal or ethical constraints.

At the 100-day mark, it seems clear that the system is working properly and that Trump is more likely to go down in history as a weak and ineffective president than as an American tyrant. Apart from the appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, he has failed to carry through on any of his major campaign promises such as stopping Muslim immigration or building his “big, beautiful” wall. His most abject failure was the effort to replace Obamacare with the American Health Care Act, which had to be withdrawn for lack of votes. This absence of winning (is it called “losing”?) unfolded even as the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency.

There are multiple sources of this weakness. Most immediate is Trump’s own ignorance of the workings of the U.S. government and the inexperience of the advisers he chose to surround himself with. He seems to have come into office believing he could run the country the way he ran his family business, through executive orders. But the American system puts Congress in the driver’s seat for any major initiatives, and presidents are powerful only to the extent that they can build legislative coalitions. Trump failed to do this on health care, and he is no more likely to succeed with tax reform or infrastructure.

Trump’s second weakness is structural. To be a powerful president, he would have had to reach out beyond the narrow base that brought him victory in the electoral college, just as President Ronald Reagan succeeded in doing. Trump has sought the opposite, doubling down on his core supporters while doing everything possible to undermine trust on the part of Democrats and independents. In theory, he could create a bipartisan coalition on an issue popular with Democrats such as infrastructure, but at this point they are unlikely to want to rescue what looks like a failing presidency.

This does not mean, however, that Trump will be an inconsequential president. His main legacy will be a highly negative one: the first president to undermine a whole series of informal norms about American government. He and his family have not even pretended to avoid conflicts of interest after taking office. Meanwhile, the administration is rolling back transparency laws as it loads its staff with former lobbyists, despite its “drain the swamp” slogan.

The second negative legacy has to do with government service. The Trump administration has done nothing but express contempt for the public servants who run the government. Administration officials have shown no particular urgency in appointing the hundreds of mid-level officials needed to run the government, declared a hiring freeze and pay cap, and solicited ideas for which government agencies to eliminate entirely. The administration seems not to realize that the federal government actually has fewer full-time workers than it did in the 1960s, despite the fact that it is processing five times the amount of money (the gap being made up by contractors). What bright young person is going to want to go to work for the State Department when the secretary of state has abetted its marginalization?

Third, Trump is the first president in living memory who has not paid even lip service to the importance of democracy or human rights around the world. His embrace of Abdel Fatah al-Sissi of Egypt and his congratulations to Erdogan after the Turkish strongman consolidated his presidential powers send powerful signals that the world’s leading democracy no longer cares about democracy elsewhere.

...

 

Yup, highly negative. But, that seems to be what his "base" loves.

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@47of74 -- I love your response!! I'm sure Handjob ignored you.

 

"After a tumultuous start, Trump hopes for a smoother agenda on jobs and taxes"

Yeah, because jobs and taxes are so easy.

Humbled by their failure on health care, White House aides say they have taken a lesson from the experience and plan to take the lead on the tax-reform effort

Somebody said "humble" and "Trump" in the same article?  Really?

[47of74]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@47of74 -- I love your response!! I'm sure Handjob ignored you.

 

"After a tumultuous start, Trump hopes for a smoother agenda on jobs and taxes"

Yeah, because jobs and taxes are so easy.

Handjob!  Good nickname for Slanthead!  Gonna file it away for future use! 

[JMarie]

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/29/donald-trump-first-100-days-op-ed/22061787/

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To mark his first 100 days in office, President Donald Trump released a glowing review of himself in the form of an op-ed published by theWashington Post.

"One hundred days ago, I took the oath of office and made a pledge: We are not merely going to transfer political power from one party to another, but instead are going to transfer that power from Washington, D.C., and give it back to the people," Trump's op-ed began. "In the past 100 days, I have kept that promise — and more."

The Washington Post's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, told Mic via email the newspaper solicited the piece from the White House.

"We asked for the piece and were happy to get it," Hiatt said.

In his op-ed, Trump touted his "success" at giving the country back to the American people — and above all else, bringing jobs back to the United States.

Trump said government agencies would continue to enforce the new "buy American" rules, which provide preferential treatment to U.S. companies that hire American workers. However, as Mic previously reported, the president doesn't appear to abide by his own rules. Trump's own line of shirts are made in China, Bangladesh, Honduras and Vietnam; Trump's eyeglasses, made in China; and Trump's home goods, made in Turkey, Germany, China, India and Slovenia.

In the op-ed, Trump also reiterated his strong desire to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, an agreement he called "the worst trade deal ever" during his presidential campaign. "We've lost nearly a third of our manufacturing jobs in the 23 years since that terrible deal was approved," he wrote.

However, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, NAFTA was a contributing factor in the tripling of North American regional trade from $290 billion in 1993 to more than $1.1 trillion in 2016.

With rather interesting timing — given thousands of people marched outside the White House on Saturday for the People's Climate March — Trump gloated, "We've canceled restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas and clean coal."

Trump also bragged about his role in ending sanctuary cities, fighting drug cartels and bombing Syria. He boasted about being the first president in 136 years to confirm a new Supreme Court justice in the first 100 days of an administration, but that was more a timing coincidence than an accomplishment. As Politifact reported, "The reality is that very few presidents are presented with the opportunity to appoint and confirm a new Supreme Court justice within their first 100 days. Other than Trump, just four presidents since 1900 have had that chance: Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Harry Truman and William Harding."

And, in perhaps the op-ed's oddest paragraph — published on the website of one of the nation's most-read newspapers — Trump blasted the mainstream media for allegedly "concealing" America's issues.

Of course it's a glowing review.

[kunoichi66]

Good and gentle denizens of FreeJinger, I hope you will help me.

 

I have been hired to write a book about Trump's first one hundred days in office. I've got books and websites and I will be going through these threads again to pick out good articles and op-eds for using as research, but if anybody has any additional research which they think might be helpful, or they think I should look at, could I please ask for them?

Thank you in advance!  Any and all support would be greatly appreciated!

Kunoichi66

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

2 hours ago, kunoichi66 said:

I have been hired to write a book

Sounds great! What percentage will you be paying us to do your research for you? 

Thanks in advance! 

PPOD

[kunoichi66]

35 minutes ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

Sounds great! What percentage will you be paying us to do your research for you? 

Thanks in advance! 

PPOD

whoop, completely forgot to add that in!  Thanks for the reminder.

How does two to three dollars for every article\video sound? I'm just starting out, so I'm not exactly being paid the big money for this kind of work yet.

 

edited to add: I think I may have overstepped the boundaries of FJ by doing this, I apologise.  Can I rescind my offer, with sincere apologies to everyone!

[47of74]

You know you're an orange fuckhead when even Reagan's people are calling you out on your bullshit.

huffingtonpost.com/entry/adviser-trump-divisive-speech_us_5905617fe4b02655f83e0aef?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

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David Gergen, a CNN political analyst who advised GOP Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan — and Democratic President Bill Clinton — said he found the speech “deeply disturbing” with little change from Trump’s bombastic, divisive campaign messages.

Trump slammed the press — again ― as “fake news,” vowed to topple Obamacare and promised to build the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. “Don’t worry, we’re going to have the wall,” Trump said at the rally marking his 100th day as president. “Rest assured. Go home, go to sleep.”

Gergen said on a CNN panel following Trump’s speech that bringing “your campaign speech into the presidency is something presidents rarely do.” He added: “I think this is the most divisive speech I’ve ever heard from a sitting American president.”

He “played to his base,” Gergen added. “He treated his other listeners — the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him or oppose him — he treated them basically as, ‘I don’t care, I don’t give a damn what you think because you’re, frankly, the enemy.’”

 

[47of74]

And also fuckhead is whining because people want to have healthy, pain free existences..

rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-melts-down-over-preexisting-conditions-focus-on-north-korea-focus-on-other-things-than-your-knee/

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“Preexisting [conditions] is going to be [in the Obamacare replacement bill and we’re also going to create [high risk] pools and pools are going to take care of the preexisting [conditions].”

As Dickerson pressed for details, Trump began to get annoyed.

“Look, if you hurt your knee, honestly, I’d rather have the federal government focus on North Korea, focus on other things than your knee or than your back, as important as your back is,” Trump declared. “I would much rather see the federal government focused on other things.”

Fuck you you orange fuck.

[HarryPotterFan]

High risk pools. Great. So we just won't be able to afford health insurance. Asshole.

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

And also fuckhead is whining because people want to have healthy, pain free existences..

rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-melts-down-over-preexisting-conditions-focus-on-north-korea-focus-on-other-things-than-your-knee/

Fuck you you orange fuck.

He just keeps feeding the opposition more and more material. I hope our side is keeping all this on file to use.  How can people still think he is for the "little" guy.  When they lose their health insurance are they going to blame orange shit stain or continue to be  zombies and blame Obama?

Edited becase spilling  spelling as usual

[47of74]

Oh my fucking God, someone implanted a spine in House Democrats;

politico.com/story/2017/04/30/democrats-trump-no-compromise-237791

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Democrats couldn’t be less interested in the whole Jared Kushner vs. Steve Bannon drama, and they have given up on the idea that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law will push him to work across the aisle on tax reform or anything else.

“There is zero chance of any of this working out that way, and it doesn’t matter who you’re changing,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who notes that many of his colleagues who once decried his absolute opposition to Trump now agree with him. “At the end of the day,” he added, “this is Donald Trump, and we don’t want to work with him.”

As far as Democrats are concerned, the idea of a moderate, post-partisan staff rising to guide Trump into building bridges with them — even for the sake of building actual bridges as part of infrastructure investments Trump talks about and they agree are needed — has now entered the realm of complete fantasy.

“This notion of the battle between Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon and who prevails is irrelevant in many ways to the policies,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), one of the chairs of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, about the discord among Trump’s most senior advisers. “What Democrats are responding to is the substance of the policies: It doesn’t matter who wins the internal battles in the White House.”

I would have told the Republicans to fuck off years ago instead of allowing them to fester in Congress and install that orange fuck in the White House.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump guarantees protection for those with preexisting medical conditions — but it’s unclear how"

Quote

President Trump tried Sunday to reassure anxious Republicans that the latest proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act would continue to protect those with preexisting medical conditions, although he struggled to fully articulate what form those protections would take.

As Republicans have tried to find a health-care bill on which they can reach a consensus, Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed to support an amendment that would allow insurance providers in some states to deny coverage or charge higher premiums to people with preexisting conditions or costly health problems, as long as that state set up “high-risk pools” that could instead help cover the cost of care. Proponents say this would lower premiums for healthy individuals, but critics say it would dramatically drive up costs for those who are seriously ill. Democrats, along with many Republicans, have argued that the popular preexisting protections should stay as they are.

In an interview with CBS News's “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday morning, Trump said “this bill has evolved” over the past several weeks and will “beautifully” protect those who have preexisting medical conditions. He highlighted the proposal to set up high-risk pools — but he also repeatedly seemed to suggest continuing the current mandate.

“Preexisting conditions are in the bill — and I mandate it. I said, 'Has to be,'" Trump said, later adding that the proposal has “a clause that guarantees” protection for those with preexisting conditions.

At another point in the interview, the president said, “Preexisting is going to be in there, and we're also going to create pools, and pools are going to take care of the preexisting.”

...

Okay, so "has to be". Yeah, just like Congress "had" to vote on the first Ryan Deathcare act a month ago and the wall "had" to be funded or the government would close down last Friday. I wouldn't believe him if he said Thursday followed Wednesday, so I'm certainly not going to believe him on something as important as healthcare, which he clearly still does not understand.

 

Quote

...

When asked to clarify the president's comments, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that under the current proposal, the changes being discussed would apply only to those who don't have continuous health insurance coverage. Spicer did not directly say whether the president supports this approach or whether Trump instead wants to keep the full protections in place.

“The waiver would allow states to take different approaches to incentivize people to obtain coverage before they fall ill,” Spicer said. “Under Obamacare's rules, many people are waiting until they need significant medical services before they buy insurance.”

...

Lovely, have Spicey, who can't get any facts straight, talk about this complex, and ever-changing subject. Maybe he didn't say whether the tangerine toddler supports this approach because nobody has any idea where the tangerine toddler stands; and even if they did, he'll probably change his mind in 15 minutes.

 

Quote

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On NBC's “Meet the Press,” Vice President Pence touted that proposal and singled out Maine's use of the high-risk pools last decade to protect those at the most risk in terms of health. Maine's two senators — Susan Collins (R) and Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats — appeared on the show after Pence and noted that their state's high-risk pool was well funded through a large assessment on every health-care plan in the state and that it was left with a $5 million surplus when it ended because the ACA replaced it.

“It's all in the details, because what's being proposed doesn't have the subsidy, for example, that made the Maine high-risk pool successful,” King said. “It's worth looking at, but I don't think it is a panacea, and I don't think it necessarily is an easy answer to the dilemma of preexisting conditions."

It's interesting that Lurch would single out Maine. As was said by Susan Collins and Angus King, Maine's high-risk pool is not like the one being proposed by Lyan. Also, the scale is quite different. Maine has relatively few residents. Can you imagine trying to scale it to the whole US?

[Audrey2]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

snip

It's interesting that Lurch would single out Maine. As was said by Susan Collins and Angus King, Maine's high-risk pool is not like the one being proposed by Lyan. Also, the scale is quite different. Maine has relatively few residents. Can you imagine trying to scale it to the whole US?

We all know what would happen to this plan on a national scale. The Republican Congress would cut taxes drastically, then raid the high risk pool because they need funds to run the government. They'd promise to pay it back, but we know how that goes. Social Security, anyone?

[HarryPotterFan]

As someone with preexisting conditions this crap gives me a tremendous amount of anxiety. 

[GreyhoundFan]

5 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

We all know what would happen to this plan on a national scale. The Republican Congress would cut taxes drastically, then raid the high risk pool because they need funds to run the government. They'd promise to pay it back, but we know how that goes. Social Security, anyone?

Exactly. That money would go to tax breaks for billionaires and large corporations.

 

"Hasan Minhaj’s harshest burns at the White House correspondents’ dinner"

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...

— “I would say it is an honor to be here, but that would be an alternative fact. It is not. No one wanted to do this. So of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant.”

— “Don Rickles died just so you wouldn’t ask him to do this gig, all right? RIP to Don Rickles, the only Donald with skin thick enough to take a joke like that.”

— “A lot of people in the media say that Donald Trump goes golfing too much. . . which raises a very important question: Why do you care? Do you want to know what he’s not doing when he’s golfing? Being president. Let the man putt-putt! . . . The longer you keep him distracted, the longer we’re not at war with North Korea.”

— “We gotta address the elephant that’s not in the room. The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow; it is a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”

— “There was also another elephant in the room, but Donald Trump Jr. shot it and cut off its tail.”

— “Jeff Sessions couldn’t be here tonight, he was busy doing a pre-Civil War reenactment. On his RSVP, he just wrote ‘NO.’ Just ‘no,’ which happens to be his second favorite n-word.”

— “Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Nazi Steve Bannon.”

— “Betsy DeVos couldn’t be here; she’s busy curating her collection of children’s tears.”

...

— “Mike Pence wanted to be here tonight, but his wife would not let him because apparently one of you ladies is ovulating. So good job, ladies. Because of you we couldn’t hang out with Mike Pence.”

...

— “[Sean Spicer] has been doing PR since 1999. He has been doing this job for 18 years. And somehow, after 18 years, his go-to move when you ask him a tough question is denying the Holocaust. That is insane! How many people do you know that can turn a press briefing into a full-on Mel Gibson traffic stop?”

— “Donald Trump is liar-in-chief. Remember, you guys are public enemy number one. You are his biggest enemy. Journalists, ISIS, normal-length ties.”

...

— “Even if you guys groan, I’ve already hired Kellyanne Conway; she’s gonna go on TV on Monday and tell everybody I killed, so it really doesn’t matter.”

...

— “It was all fun and games with Obama, right? You were covering an adult who could speak English. And now you’re covering President Trump, so you gotta take your game to a whole new level. It’s like if a bunch of stripper cops had to solve a real-life murder.”

...

— “[Donald Trump] tweets at 3 a.m. sober. Who is tweeting at 3 a.m. sober? Donald Trump, because it’s 10 a.m. in Russia. Those are business hours.”

— “This has been one of the strangest events I’ve ever done in my life. I’m being honest with you. I feel like I’m a tribute in ‘The Hunger Games.’ If this goes poorly, Steve Bannon gets to eat me.”

— “Fox News is here. I’m amazed you guys even showed up. How are you here in public? It’s hard to trust you guys when you backed a man like Bill O’Reilly for years. But it finally happened. Bill O’Reilly has been fired. But then, you gave him a $25 million severance package. Making it the only package he won’t force a woman to touch.”

...

— “It’s 11 p.m. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how badly Nicki Minaj did at this dinner. And he’ll be doing it completely sober. And that’s his right. And I’m proud that all of us are here to defend that right, even if the man in the White House never would.”

Last year, they had Larry Wilmore, who I think is so funny. I wasn't familiar with Hasan Minhaj, but he did a good job.

[47of74]

Now fuckhead wants to invite his buddy Duterte to the White House

rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-didnt-consult-state-department-before-inviting-brutal-philippine-dictator-to-white-house/

Quote

President Donald Trump invited brutal Philippine strongman Pres. Rodrigo Duterte to the White House without first consulting the State Department or the National Security Council to ask about our country’s relationship to the Duterte regime, said The Hill on Sunday.

According to the New York Times, both the National Security Council and the State Department were caught completely by surprise when the White House announced on Sunday that Pres. Trump had invited Duterte to Washington — in spite of the fact that the Philippine president has overseen the mass execution of 7,000 people as part of his government’s “war on drugs.”

“Now, administration officials are bracing for an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups. Two senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally,” reported the Times.

Human rights groups heaped scorn upon Trump’s decision, calling it ill-advised and under-informed.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, 47of74 said:

snip

Human rights groups heaped scorn upon Trump’s decision, calling it ill-advised and under-informed.

snip

Ill-advised and under-informed: that pretty much describes everything to do with Agent Orange and his administration.

 

This is a long article, so I won't do much quoting, but it's interesting: "This is precisely how not to interview Donald Trump on tax reform"

Quote

(starts with info about stupid Tweets from Faux News and an interview they did with Agent Orange)

That is Fox’s Martha MacCallum, interviewing the president on a range of issues. During the conversation, Trump hailed his election win, said he “couldn’t care less about golf” and casually mentioned making Congress more pliable. The segment above, though, stands out as a remarkable abrogation of the network’s responsibility when talking to this highly unorthodox president.

...

He’ll often brush aside questions about his tax returns by citing the results of the election. If he won, it proves that Americans don’t care about his tax returns, right? Well, no. Past presidents have released tax returns not simply to check a box on a pre-election list, but so that when they later discuss the subject of taxes, Americans can feel confident that their presidents are not acting solely to benefit themselves. Trump’s taxes are simultaneously far more complicated than past presidents’ tax returns and far less open to the American public.

The most recent return for which we have any information comes from 2005. That’s the one that was revealed during Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC last month. From that, we learned that Trump’s personal tax rate was not 35 percent. Instead, it was effectively 24 percent, paying out $38 million on $153 million of income.

...

The article goes on to discuss that the tax "plan" being pushed by Agent Orange and Mnuchin includes repealing the AMT. Without that, in 2005, the only year we have any data for, he would have gone from paying 24 percent to FOUR percent. I don't know about you, but I pay far more than that.

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

casually mentioned making Congress more pliable

translation:  Congress, especially those pesky Democrats, stops voting against stuff Trump's in favor of

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, JMarie said:

translation:  Congress, especially those pesky Democrats, stops voting against stuff Trump's in favor of

I'm assuming one or more of Agent Orange's sycophants are busily digging up dirt on individual members of Congress, so they can be pressured.

 

"President Trump’s first 100 days: The fact check tally"

Quote

President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered. He earned 59 Four-Pinocchio ratings during his campaign as president. Since then, he’s earned 16 more Four-Pinocchio ratings.

But those numbers obscure the fact that the pace and volume of the president’s misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up. The president’s speeches and interviews are so chock full of false and misleading claims that The Fact Checker often must resort to roundups that offer a brief summary of the facts that the president has gotten wrong.

As part of our coverage of the president’s first 100 days, The Fact Checker team (along with Leslie Shapiro and Kaeti Hinck of the Post graphics department) produced an interactive graphic that displayed a running list of every false or misleading statement made by the president. We also catalogued the president’s many flip-flops, since those earn Upside-Down Pinocchios if a politician shifts position on an issue without acknowledging he or she did so.

So here are the numbers for the president’s first 100 days.

488: The number of false or misleading claims made by the president. That’s an average of 4.9 claims a day.
10: Number of days without a single false claim. (On six of those days, the president golfed at a Trump property.)
4: Number of days with 20 or more false claims. (Feb. 16, Feb. 28, March 20 and April 21.) He made 19 false claims on April 29, his 100th day, though we did not include his interview with “Face the Nation,” since that aired April 30.

While the president is known to make outrageous claims on Twitter — and that was certainly a major source of his falsehoods — he made most of his false statements in unscripted remarks before reporters. (Interviews were another major source of false claims.) That’s because the president would rely on talking points or assertions that he had made in the past — and continued to make, even though they had been fact-checked as wrong.

This makes Trump somewhat unique among politicians. Many will drop a false claim after it has been deemed false. But Trump just repeats the same claim over and over.

In particular, the president repeatedly took credit for events or business decisions that happened before he took the oath of office — or had even been elected.

...

Judging from Trump’s repeated false claims, one would think that he is not a regular reader. But on March 21, Trump remarked that the news media was too judgmental about his statements. “If it’s off by 100th of a percent, it’s like I end up getting Pinocchios,” he said.

That’s a start. Hope springs eternal.

The interactive graphic is great, though horrifying.

[GreyhoundFan]

Classy and elegant as ever: "Trump, in New TV Ad, Declares First 100 Days a Success"

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday released a triumphant campaign advertisement declaring his first 100 days in office a success, and branding news media that have reported otherwise as “FAKE NEWS.”

The 30-second television advertisement and a series of more targeted versions that are to run online are the latest examples of Mr. Trump’s extraordinarily early return to politicking at a time when most presidents would be spending their time pushing through their highest legislative priorities.

It follows a frenetic week in which Mr. Trump, after having rejected the 100-day mark as an indicator of the success or failure of his presidency, sat for several interviews and dispatched his top advisers for virtually nonstop briefings. They all made the case that he had accomplished significant things since taking office, despite Mr. Trump’s lack of major legislative achievements.

“America has rarely seen such success,” the narrator says, listing the confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, companies investing in jobs in the United States, the elimination of “regulations that kill American jobs” and the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“The biggest tax cut plan in history,” the voice intones, without mentioning that Mr. Trump has yet to offer any legislation — or even a set of policy prescriptions — for reordering the tax code to achieve the enormous cuts for businesses and individuals that he has endorsed.

...

The advertisement is paid for by Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, for which he filed papers in January, on the day he was sworn in.

Mr. Trump’s campaign said it would spend $1.5 million to air the advertisement throughout the country, a relatively small sum that does not indicate a major national public relations campaign. But it underscores Mr. Trump’s strategy of returning remarkably early to partisan politics, including a series of re-election campaign rallies that began only weeks into his presidency.

...

The Emperor of Delusionalville is now buying TV ads. This is a good reason for me to not watch TV anymore, or at least DVR everything, so I can fast-forward through said ads.