Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[Howl]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Alas, with so many cowards, I don't think there is much bravery to be found in Congress.

If the health care fiasco is any indication, the Republican majority is too incoherent and fragmented to form a unified coalition on any topic, much less cooperate with any Democrat.  They'll be blocked from rational action by the ultra right/Tea Bagger wing of their own party. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is hurting his presidency by continuing to go it alone"

Spoiler

Faced with a stalled agenda and weak poll numbers, President Trump has resorted to a familiar presidential tactic: running against Congress. The president has stepped up efforts to blame Democrats for not passing legislation, even though they are a minority in both chambers. In recent weeks, he has attacked at least two Republican senators at campaign-style rallies and criticized others on Twitter. He has opened a rift with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has questioned Trump’s understanding of the legislative process.

We have seen from our individual perspectives — one as White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton during his first year in office, the other as Senate majority leader at the same time — the challenges and opportunities presented by a president’s inaugural year. All presidents face the temptation to try to go it alone, but that’s no way to set the stage for a successful presidency.

The only way for an administration to move past early mistakes is to work with, rather than against, the legislative branch, keeping a focus on policy priorities and avoiding getting bogged down by infighting and inside-the-Beltway clashes.

The Clinton administration, like all administrations, had its share of early stumbles. Some were the result of events beyond anyone’s control. Others were self-inflicted wounds. Yet at no point did the White House consider abandoning its efforts to work with Congress. Instead, the president and his team crafted an economic plan designed to deliver on core campaign promises — and negotiated fiercely to secure the necessary votes.

A key element of this effort was outreach to the opposing party. Despite the fact that his fellow Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, Clinton understood that it is always preferable to pass legislation with bipartisan support. Chief executives have a responsibility — to themselves and to the country — to reach across the aisle. With this in mind, the administration courted Republicans from both chambers, even when the chances of winning their support for the president’s economic plan were slim.

Initial efforts did indeed prove unsuccessful: No Republican lawmaker supported Clinton’s economic plan. But by demonstrating respect for its political opponents, and a willingness to listen to differing views, the administration set the stage for policy victories in the years that followed. GOP members crossed the aisle to advance key priorities for the president, including ratifying the North American Free Trade Agreement, helping to pass a welfare-to-work program and joining in compromises that led to a balanced budget.

Nor was outreach limited to the opposition. Clinton understood that members of his own party were critical allies and that even commanders in chief cannot simply order lawmakers to follow their lead. The White House engaged in tireless back-and-forth with fellow Democrats as the economic plan moved forward. In hindsight, it improved the final legislation in many ways, creating policies that were better than the ones either branch initially proposed. In other instances, both branches had to compromise, understanding that giving ground on some elements of a bill was a far better outcome than not passing a bill at all. Ultimately, the bill laid the groundwork for millions being lifted from poverty, tens of millions of new jobs and, what’s more, strong approval ratings for the president, showing that good politics stems from good policies.

Just as a president cannot dismiss Congress, neither can Congress dismiss a president. This is especially true in the first year. Lawmakers cannot easily wash their hands of a candidate they endorsed less than 12 months ago. True, the House and Senate lack the ability to steer the White House in the direction they choose. But by nominating a leader of their party and vouching for him on the campaign trail, a president’s congressional allies assume responsibility for bringing out the best in him once he takes office and for helping him transition into his new role.

We know from experience that cooperation — between branches of government and between parties — can be frustrating and tedious, with no guarantee of success. But a democracy such as ours depends on principled compromise. All Americans benefit when the White House and Congress work together, ideally in a bipartisan fashion, to improve the lives of the men and women they represent. We are all worse off, especially in times of crisis, if a president becomes isolated and unable to effectively lead.

During the campaign, Trump promised, “I alone can fix it.” That approach may work on a campaign or in a privately held business. It is not in keeping with the way our forebears wrote the Constitution and established our branches of government — and it is not what leads to a successful presidency.

We all know that the TT is incapable of actually working with (instead of against) anyone.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Pastors who stood by Trump after Charlottesville plead for him to show ‘heart’ for ‘dreamer’ immigrants"

Spoiler

Pastor Jentezen Franklin looked at President Trump across his desk in the Oval Office last week and made an impassioned plea for empathy.

For several minutes, Franklin, leader of a multiethnic megachurch near Atlanta, pressed Trump to understand the plight of the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who had been brought to the United States illegally by their parents, received legal status under the Obama administration and now feared that Trump would order their deportation.

“I know these kids,” Franklin recalled telling Trump.

“They are good kids?” Trump asked, according to Franklin.

“Yes, sir,” Franklin said he replied. “They are.”

Then the pastor, a father of five, noted the president’s love for his own kids. “I want to see that kind of heart toward these children,” Franklin said he urged.

The extraordinary meeting represented an opportunity for Franklin and a handful of black, Hispanic and white evangelical pastors to describe to the president the racial tensions they know, three weeks after Charlottesville and just days before the president’s anticipated Tuesday announcement of a delayed rollback of the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. It also illustrates why Franklin and other members of an evangelical advisory board formed during last year’s campaign have decided to remain by Trump’s side despite widespread calls for them to resign after his response to the white-
supremacist demonstrations.

Some corporate leaders took public stands against Trump and resigned from advisory boards, but the evangelicals have been conspicuous in their choice to stay put. One quit. But, for the most part, the group remains intact — with its members committed to using their direct access to the president to pursue their agendas.

Franklin said he doesn’t think Trump is racist — but he feels that had he resigned in protest over Charlottesville, he would not have been there to make the case for young immigrants.

“If I resign every time [the president] does something I don’t agree with, then I lose the ability to have influence and speak up for the ‘dreamer’ children [and] the minorities that feel offended and hurt by the Charlottesville incident,” he said.

Bishop Harry Jackson, an African American pastor from Beltsville, Md., who has spoken out against abortion and same-sex marriage, said he sees his role on the board partly to influence others on issues such as criminal justice that are important to the black community.

“That is why I am supposed to be there,” said Jackson, who was among the pastors who saw Trump in the Oval Office on Friday. “I believe I am affecting other people on that board.”

Unlike previous presidents’ faith advisers, who often spanned denominations, Trump’s board is exclusively evangelical. It started out as a mix of 25 pastors that included Southern Baptists, prosperity gospel preachers and lobbyists for social conservative causes with different political priorities, but who share opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. Among them were two women, three African Americans and one Hispanic. Many of them were known to Trump largely because they were fixtures on television.

The group formed after a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting as Trump was seeking to solidify his hold on the GOP’s core supporters.

A few cracks in the board began to become apparent after Charlottesville.

Some of the group’s staunchest Trump backers, such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., stepped forward to defend the president. Many issued statements on social media condemning racism but without mentioning the president.

An African American member quit. A.R. Bernard, who runs a large church in Brooklyn, said that he had been willing, at first, to overlook Trump’s flaws — but that the president failed to grow into his new role.

“I believed he would understand the need to change and to present himself as a leader, to model leadership,” Bernard said of his decision to stay on the board after the release last fall of the tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals. But, if pastors put confidence in politicians that should be placed in God, he said, “we can become guilty of political idolatry.”

In private, some members began to debate how to handle the situation. The group convened a conference call “to make sure we were on the same page,” recalled South Carolina televangelist Mark Burns in a recent interview, likening his role to that of a modern-day Daniel — “a voice of God in the ear of the king.”

Some said they felt that remaining on the board was the Christian thing to do — to stick with a man in times of trouble.

“I work with fallen people,” said Jackson, adding that few of his congregants have questioned his decision.

For many, there is a pragmatic reason to stand with Trump. The president won the election with the support of 81 percent of white evangelicals. His victory came during what several board members describe as an “existential crisis” in their communities as social conservatives have seen their influence declining and their values threatened by the public’s embrace of gay rights. Today, they are standing by the man who promised to reverse those trends and took quick steps to do so, first with his pick of religious conservative Mike Pence as vice president, then, after the election, with his nomination of socially conservative Judge Neil M. Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.

Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, called Gorsuch a “home run for evangelicals.”

Richard Land, a longtime Southern Baptist leader who said he has worked with every president since Ronald Reagan, said Trump has granted board members “the most access we’ve had to an administration in our lifetime.”

“We are not lemmings,” warned Robert Jeffress, a TV host and pastor of a 13,000-member Dallas church, confirming the transactional nature of the relationship. He will always count Trump as a friend, Jeffress said, but his public alliance rests on the president’s commitment to key policies: “If he ever renounced or returned on these major positions, I think he would see a lot of support evaporate.”

In forming the board last year, organizers looked for “people [Trump] had a preexisting relationship with, or at least some chemistry,” recalled Johnnie Moore, founder of a faith-focused PR company, who recalled building the panel with Paula White, a Florida-based televangelist, Tim Clinton, president of the nearly 50,000-member American Association of Christian Counselors, and politicians Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson.

In many cases, the roots of that relationship were on TV. Trump has long been fascinated by the power of Christian television, recalled Burns. In 2002 — the same year reality TV producer Mark Burnett courted Trump to star in “The Apprentice” — White said Trump called her after watching her sermons and invited her to New York. She remained in close contact and delivered an invocation at his inauguration.

White did not respond to requests for comment.

The group keeps its eye on big-picture social issues around which members unite, said Moore, rather than everyday policy decisions where their priorities are more split.

Membership has evolved, and people not listed among the 25 often attended, according to Moore, playing down the significance of Bernard’s departure from a group he describes as “unofficial.”

Several members who say they supported Trump reluctantly now say the president has “exceeded expectations.”

They describe him as attentive and responsive, and tell lively tales of intimate White House visits. After a dinner in May, before Trump signed an executive order designed to ease restrictions on churches’ political influence, the president took some pastors upstairs and offered them a photo op on the Truman balcony.

In July, a day-long working session in the Eisenhower Building was broken up by an impromptu invitation to the Oval Office, after which Moore tweeted a photo of pastors praying over the president.

Burns thinks their “biggest focus is covering the president in prayer and being a moral voice to him.” Not all agree. “We are not spiritual counselors,” said Land. Their role, he said, is to give the president “advice” and “feedback on policies.”

After Charlottesville, some communicated directly with their vast networks, affirming Trump as a president worth fighting for. White appeared with her husband , former keyboardist for the rock band Journey,on the “Jim Bakker Show,” where she compared the embattled president with the biblical Jewish Queen Esther, whom she described as an unconventional leader who saved her people from persecution. Like Esther, White suggested, God raised Trump into leadership.

“When you are fighting against the plan of God, you’re fighting against the hand of God,” White said.

Some said they have used their proximity to Trump to try to open his eyes on race.

On Friday, the group was at the White House complex discussing Charlottesville and Hurricane Harvey, plus other topics, when an aide arrived to bring a handful of members to the Oval Office. Franklin said the group included black, Hispanic and white pastors.

In the few minutes that the pastors spent in the Oval Office, they tried to tell Trump what the world is really like for blacks and Hispanics.

“Get in the other man’s shoes a little bit,” Franklin said he told Trump.

A White House official said Trump appreciated the pastors’ comments. On DACA, which Trump during the campaign promised to end, the official described the pastors meeting as one of many factors influencing Trump’s thinking.

“He takes the conversations seriously and listens to the individuals,” said the official.

As for the immigrant children, Franklin issued a statement Monday saying he was “concerned to see DACA expire” but expressing gratitude that Trump was granting a “generous six-month extension to dreamer kids” that would put the onus on Congress to act. Franklin called for the affected immigrants to receive a path to citizenship, but said in an interview he does not know what Trump would do if such a bill came to his desk.

Although he said he believed that Trump would sign such a bill, he could not be certain.

“He’s a politician,” Franklin said. “What he does is what he does.”

It's interesting, but not surprising, that his religious advisory group consists solely of evangelicals.

[47of74]

Here's an idea, market the house to der Trumpenführer as a weekend getaway

Quote

The monstrosity at 4923 Kessler Blvd. East Drive, known colloquially as the Kessler mansion, just hit the market . . . for the seventh time in five years. This go-around, it’s asking $1.75 million — arguably, a bit much for a house that’s been called the “unsellable” “ugliest house in America” for its “Midwestern Vegas Versailles” aesthetic.

The home, whose recent listing was first spotted by Curbed, is the bizarre brainchild of “almost-famous pimp-turned-construction mini-magnate” Jerry A. Hostetler, who died in 2006 at age 66. Police dubbed him the area’s “Mr. Big” after he pleaded guilty to pandering and running prostitutes. (The nickname worked on a few levels: He was 6-foot-2 and weighed as much as 500 pounds.)

The 11-bedroom, seven-bathroom thing that resulted is undeniably repulsive: a mishmash of rough-hewn stone, glass blocks, rustic tile, wildly textured ceilings, shiny marble, round columns, oddly shaped windows of all geometric persuasions and senselessly undulating balconies. All that glorious home décor gone wrong is spread over a whopping 29,500 square feet.

The house and 1.66-acre grounds contain statues of the following: women in various states of undress, dolphins, lions and, of course, gargoyles. Sadly, some previous standouts — a nymph fountain, a 6-foot-tall mermaid sculpture and a polar bear statue — were sold off to appease creditors.

Here's the listing on realtor.com.

Of course it's probably not gold plated enough for fornicate face's liking.

[Cleopatra7]

On 9/3/2017 at 6:19 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

"In action after action, Trump appeals primarily to his dwindling base"

  Reveal hidden contents

President Trump pardoned a tough-on-immigration Arizona sheriff accused of racial profiling. He threatened a government shutdown if Congress won’t deliver border wall funding. He banned transgender people from serving in the military. And he is openly contemplating ending a program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants who consider the United States home.

These and other moves — all since Trump’s widely repudiated remarks about the hate-fueled violence in Charlottesville less than a month ago — are being heartily cheered by many of his core supporters. But collectively, they have helped cement an image of a president, seven months into his term, who is playing only to his political base.

Trump’s job-approval numbers remain mired in the 30s in most polls, and several new findings last week gave Republicans interested in expanding the party’s appeal fresh reason to worry. A Fox News survey, for example, found that majorities of voters think that Trump is “tearing the country apart” and does not respect racial minorities.

The findings come ahead of what could be another turbulent stretch in Trump’s presidency. He and Congress are seeking this month to keep the government funded and raise the nation’s debt ceiling, amid a Russia probe that is gaining steam and continuing feuds between Trump and fellow Republicans.

In interviews, White House aides and advisers played down concerns about Trump’s standing in the polls, with some suggesting his numbers are more a reflection of broader disgust with Washington. Some also said it is important to keep Trump’s base energized at a time when he has yet to deliver on legislative promises and has seen some erosion among key constituencies, including working-class whites.

At the same time, Trump allies pointed to his visits to areas ravaged by Hurricane Harvey — the latest on Saturday as he sought to show empathy for victims and emergency responders in Texas and Louisiana — as evidence of a president seeking to unite the country. The crisis in North Korea presents another test of Trump’s ability to bring the nation together.

And heading into the fall, Trump aides and advisers argue that a major push for tax cuts has the potential to boost Trump’s standing among Americans well beyond his base. Though there is no concrete plan and many thorny issues remain, Republicans in Congress are hoping to rally behind legislation that would demonstrate an ability to govern that so far has been elusive during Trump’s tenure.

“Voters are very skeptical it will happen,” said Tony Fabrizio, who served as Trump’s pollster during last year’s election. “If the president can get a tax-reform package passed, it will confound their expectations and be a huge win.”

Trump plans to pitch the idea of tax legislation this week in North Dakota, marking the second trip in as many weeks aimed at building momentum for both corporate and personal income tax cuts. Both this visit and one last week to Missouri are being staged in states Trump won last year and where there is a Democratic senator whose support could be crucial to the fate of any legislation.

For an un­or­tho­dox president, such trips are fairly traditional ways to build pressure on Congress to act and have given more mainstream Republicans some reason for hope about Trump’s engagement following the GOP failure to pass health-care legislation.

In the meantime, though, many in the GOP are openly questioning Trump’s words and actions on issues that are divisive, even among Republicans. Trump’s assertion that many “fine people” marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville drew condemnation across party lines.

And some in the GOP say other recent choices appear designed to bolster the president’s standing only among his most loyal supporters. In recent weeks, Trump has continued his practice of holding campaign-style rallies in states he won, creating an echo chamber of support with his most loyal backers.

“It’s almost as if he’s the pilot of a plane that’s in a terrible downward spiral and he’s insisting on continuing to do things to make it worse,” said John Weaver, who was chief strategist for the 2016 presidential campaign of Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio). “You can’t govern like that, and you can’t win reelection like that, and you can’t take your party into the 2018 midterms like that.”

Recent polling has underscored the narrow band of support Trump enjoys for some of the policies he is advocating.

Only 34 percent said Trump did the right thing by pardoning former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, while 60 percent said he did the wrong thing, according to an NBC/SurveyMonkey poll released last week. Arpaio, a major Trump booster during last year’s campaign, was convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

In the same survey, only 30 percent said they oppose the policy begun under President Barack Obama that has provided two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 immigrants known as “Dreamers” who have been in the country illegally since they were children. Sixty-four percent voiced support for the policy, which Trump has threatened to dismantle. He plans to announce his intentions on Tuesday.

Some leading Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), on Friday urged Trump not to rescind the program.

Speaking more broadly, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said that Trump “is a president for all Americans, and his agenda reflects that.”

“This fall, he will be focused on funding recovery efforts for Texas and Louisiana following Hurricane Harvey and bringing real tax relief to American families,” she said. “He’s also been focused on renegotiating unfair trade deals, rebuilding our nation’s military and many issues that all Americans, regardless of their party identification or who they voted for, can get behind.”

Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken actions with little crossover appeal to Democrats or independents but strongly backed by Trump voters, including efforts to ban entry to the United States from a group of majority-Muslim countries and pull out of the Paris climate change accord.

Polls have also showed majorities of Republicans favoring a border wall but only small percentages of Democrats in support. In the Fox News poll, only 18 percent of overall voters thought it was a good idea to shut down government to force the issue — an idea Trump appears to have backed away from, at least for now.

Trump boosters say he is merely following through on his campaign promises.

“He is part of his base,” said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who advised Trump during the general election. “When he does these things, the base likes it, but he’s doing it because he believes it.”

Others suggest there is more political calculation involved.

“He’s stoking his base with rhetorical messaging in part because it’s taking longer than hoped to get some of his major campaign promises checked off,” said one Republican strategist close to the White House, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump associates say it’s also important to keep the base energized so that they turn out for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections and for Trump’s reelection bid. Some of Trump’s supporters last year were not regular voters.

Trump’s job approval rating dipped to 34 percent last week in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, matching his low mark for the year. Recent polls have showed erosion among Republicans and subgroups such as white working-class voters, who were key to Trump’s election last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton. A poll by Fabrizio’s firm, for example, showed the number of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance rising from 19 percent in June to 25 percent in August.

Fabrizio, who said he has not done work for Trump since the election, characterized the erosion as “negligible” and pointed to a Fox News finding that 96 percent of Trump voters remain satisfied with their vote from last year. That is higher than the 93 percent of Clinton voters who remain satisfied.

Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster and strategist, argued that after an uptick following the election, Trump’s favorability has basically fallen back to where it was during a campaign season in which voters faced a choice between two largely unpopular candidates.

The good news for Trump, Goeas suggested, is that many people who don’t like Trump are turned off by his personality rather than the issues he’s pushing. That creates the possibility of broader acceptance if he’s successful in pushing tax cuts.

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said the deterioration in Trump’s overall job approval has been fairly typical of recent presidents during their opening stretch in office. What’s different, he said, is that Trump started from a much lower point that other presidents.

Even Trump’s detractors acknowledge that he seems to have a core group of supporters unlikely to abandon him regardless of what transpires in Washington. That in part explains Trump’s frequent travel for campaign-style rallies, said Rick Wilson, a GOP strategist and frequent Trump critic.

“There’s nothing he’s got right now except adulation from his base,” Wilson said. “He could eat a live baby on stage and they’d forgive him. He can do no wrong.”

A Monmouth University poll released last month showed about a quarter of respondents saying that not only do they approve of Trump, but that they also “cannot see Trump doing anything that would make them disapprove of him.”

Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant, said Trump appears to be battening down with his base in anticipation of fallout from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election. If things get rough for Trump, the defense of core supporters becomes even more crucial, she said.

“If you look at it through that lens, it makes sense,” Marsh said. “Any other president would have spent their time trying to expand their support.”

Sadly, the article is correct. He only cares about his base and his base won't abandon him. The baby-eating image is disturbing.

It's worth noting how different Trump and the GOP treat their base versus the Democrats. For Trump and the Republicans, their base is sort of like a trophy wife. Sure, the couple may look odd together and both parties may be with each other for questionable reasons, but they've decided they're going to be together regardless of what society says. In comparison, the Democrats treat their base like a "booty call" they're ashamed to be seen in public with. Sure, the Democrats will court their base during election time when they need their votes, but the rest of the time the attitude is, "I don't know you. Stop trying to contact me."

[GreyhoundFan]

Another good one from Jennifer Rubin: "And Trump didn’t have the nerve to make the announcement himself"

Spoiler

President Trump never manages to take responsibility for any political failure or controversy. We saw this vividly in his handling of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. He could not even manage on an issue of such grave importance to deliver the message personally. Instead, he sent out longtime anti-immigrant advocate Attorney General Jeff Sessions (never has there been a harsh measure limiting immigration, nor any border extravagance he did not support) to deliver the news. He declared that the program would be “rescinded.” He blithely declared, “We cannot admit everyone who would like to come here.” But DACA recipients are already here and were brought here as children. The action is so indefensible that Session had to resort to platitudes from the anti-immigrant handbook. One wonders how his speech writer could have penned such a line as “there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.” That is rich for someone who is forcing a gratuitously cruel action. Invoking the fear of criminality, Sessions of course ignored that DACA recipients have already been screened for criminal activity. They are among the safest immigrants we have.

Sessions announced in advance he would not take questions, one more sign of the intellectual cowardice and lack of accountability that are the hallmarks of the anti-immigrant advocates pushing for DACA repeal.

Trump hid behind a tweet telling Congress to fix DACA. He declared, “Congress, get ready to do your job – DACA!” He claims to “love dreamers.” That’s entirely disingenuous. There was no need to pull the trigger on DACA. No lawsuit compels it; the aggressive conservative attorneys general haven’t even filed their threatened lawsuit, which could take years to reach a final decision. It is Trump who is setting in motion a disruptive and fear-inducing measure that affects 800,000 or so young people brought here as children. It is Trump who could, but has not, presented actual legislation to Congress. It is Trump who could insist, but has not, that DACA legislation be included in the debt-ceiling measure, the Harvey relief funding bill, the budget or other must-pass legislation.

The false emergency in the form of a faux constitutional deadline that Trump and Sessions hide behind is belied by the conditions they place upon DACA’s repeal. Trump will allow pending applications filed before today to be processed. How is that possible if the measure is unconstitutional? Trump will also reportedly allow those with permits that will expire before March 5, 2018, to renew their permit for two years. How is that possible if the measure is unconstitutional? In trying to soften the blow of a heartless policy, the Trump administration reveals that it is making up constitutional rules as it goes along.

Then there is the claim that immigration officials will not prioritize DACA recipients for deportation. That’s worthless. Trump has already “prioritized” criminals for deportation but has somehow wound up deporting hundreds of noncriminals. TIME recently reported:

In a four-day operation at the end of July [in San Diego], ICE arrested 650 people. Of those, 457 weren’t targets of the raid. In other words, a full 70% of the immigrants swept up in this operation were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. …

In fiscal year 2016, non-criminals made up 42% of removals. Under the Trump Administration, that proportion has so far increased slightly. According to data provided to TIME by ICE, which is not considered final until the end-of-year report, 44% of removals haven’t had criminal records so far in fiscal year 2017.

“It’s basically a push through a lot of different ways to try to deport as many people as possible without regard to whether or not they’re a public safety threat,” says Kate Voigt, associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Trump has more than doubled the number of arrests of noncriminal illegal immigrants. (“According to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided to members of the media Thursday evening, ICE made 75,045 administrative arrests of undocumented immigrants from January to June of 2017. Administrative arrests are used for routine arrests made based on immigration status. Of those, 19,752 of the undocumented immigrants were classified as non-criminals, which is 26% of the total.”)

So make no mistake, the promise that DACA recipients won’t have to fear immediate deportation is entirely unreliable.

Trump would like to blame everyone and anyone for his catastrophic decision — President Barack Obama, Democrats, Congress as a whole, state attorneys general. Congress might — if it suddenly is possessed with a sense of urgency and discovers newfound competence — save Trump from himself. But if Congress does not intervene, Trump will be responsible for a gratuitously cruel action.

 

[sawasdee]

@47of74that is undoubtedly THE most bizarre house I have ever seen....

[GrumpyGran]

4 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Here's an idea, market the house to der Trumpenführer as a weekend getaway

Here's the listing on realtor.com.

Of course it's probably not gold plated enough for fornicate face's liking.

WTH! When I saw this I thought this is a Dateline story waiting to happen. Lots of open stairways and stone outcroppings. Did she fall and hit her head/break her neck? Or was it MURDER?

That place is a product of way too much money and a lunatic mind.

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

WTH! When I saw this I thought this is a Dateline story waiting to happen. Lots of open stairways and stone outcroppings. Did she fall and hit her head/break her neck? Or was it MURDER?

That place is a product of way too much money and a lunatic mind.

Did you notice that curtain right next to the black toilet? Wanna bet that's where they hid the body?

 

[GrumpyGran]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Did you notice that curtain right next to the black toilet? Wanna bet that's where they hid the body?

 

I'm thinking you could kill a family of eight in that monstrosity and it would take days to find all of them. Was that an altar for human sacrifice right inside the front door?

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s terrible start at crisis management"

Spoiler

Managing crises is one of the most crucial jobs presidents are hired to do. How presidents handle the highest pressure situations they face defines not only their legacies but also effects the lives of millions. President Trump’s first two major crises — the onslaught of Hurricane Harvey and the rapid escalation of the North Korean nuclear threat — have provided chilling insights into just how ill-suited America’s new president is to one of the most essential roles he must play.

As we have seen in the past — with George W. Bush in Iraq and Barack Obama in Syria — leadership missteps combined with bad policies are toxic combinations. But Bush’s and Obama’s worst missteps were exceptions offset by often effective efforts to produce positive outcomes worldwide. Trump appears to be orders of magnitude different. Thus far the norm for him seems to be to take dangerous or complex situations and make them worse through bad policy, bad process and his flawed character.

For example, while all presidents must deal with natural disasters such as Harvey, Trump has taken multiple steps to compound his maiden disaster’s tragic consequences at home and abroad. Some were relatively minor, just fodder for cable news. His evident lack of compassion, his consistent trivialization of the pain of others through his glibness and his impulse to politically cash in on the suffering of many are all pretty awful. But then there have been the steps that take situations such as this one and make them worse. For example, there is the fact that Trump has actively sought to minimize the influence of the Environmental Protection Agency and has put at its helm a person who sees his job as protecting companies rather than the environment. Consequently, when Superfund toxic dump sites or industrial facilities were damaged by the storm in ways that could further harm the environment, the response was weak and the damage unnecessarily greater. 

Worse, and of global consequence, is the willful failure to at least ask questions about whether the once-in-500-year storm might be associated with climate change. Despite massive evidence that rising temperatures would produce more such disasters, Trump has sought to gut funding for climate research, purge government websites of references to climate change, roll back important environmental regulations, abandon the global climate accord, and effectively make the country and the world less prepared to deal with future such disasters.

North Korea’s rapidly developing nuclear weapons program is certainly the most significant traditional natural security threat the United States faces. Again, while it is tempting to focus on Trump’s bluster and bellicosity as potential sources of enhanced tension or to note how they have had no positive effect on North Korea, the president is making the situation worse in multiple material ways. First, he has not seen fit to appoint an ambassador to South Korea or fill top State Department arms control or diplomatic posts that are vital to managing such crises. Next, he chose this weekend, in the face of North Korea’s apparent test of a hydrogen bomb, to publicly attack our closest ally in this conflict, South Korea, as well as our most vital strategic partner, China.

Further, the president has recklessly threatened to cut off trade with any country that trades with North Korea (a list including China, India and Germany among others) and his administration has floated the idea of backing out of our trade deal with South Korea — at precisely the moment we should be showing it the most support. It is foreign policy malpractice to even threaten such things, much less actually contemplate doing them.

Other presidents have faced similar crises associated with even greater risk and resolved them in ways that made us safer. When President Dwight Eisenhower was under pressure from his own party to confront the Soviet Union as it ramped up nuclear and ICBM programs, he created a process — Project Solarium — that helped shape the view among even his opponents that the best thing to do would be to contain Russia geopolitically, strengthen our capabilities enough to make action by them unthinkable, and focus on letting time and whatever we could do to help it undermine the broken Soviet system from within. This is the only reasonable course with regard to North Korea when the costs of going to war are too high and the weakness of Pyongyang is orders of magnitude greater than it was in the Soviet case. 

Eisenhower, made wiser by war and experienced in leadership, improved the situation. Trump makes matters worse. And with a looming confrontation with Iran on the horizon because of Trump’s own desire to undo or undermine the nuclear deal with that country and his threats of intervention in places like Venezuela, it seems certain that the likelihood of this president actively making a dangerous world even more dangerous is only going to grow.

I know many FJers are like me, exhausted from the non-stop incompetence and willful damaging of our country and world by the orange menace and his sycophants.

[JMarie]

My thoughts on DACA:

• How will the immigrants be deported?  What staff will be responsible for gathering them?  How will they be sent back to their native countries (commercial flights?  special "immigrant" planes?)  How will they be delivered to a specific area if the immigrants themselves don't remember that specific area?  How will all the deportations be financed?
• How will the U. S. government deal with the loss of taxes that the immigrants pay now?
• If the DACA reversal fails, he can blame Congress (like he blames Congress for failing to overturn Obamacare), and he doesn't suffer any negative effects from not fulfilling a campaign promise (depending on which campaign speech you look at)

 

[fraurosena]

Wow. He's not couching his words, yet this is an utterly dignified and presidential response to the DACA repeal.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Here's an idea, market the house to der Trumpenführer as a weekend getaway

Here's the listing on realtor.com.

Of course it's probably not gold plated enough for fornicate face's liking.

Looks like the architect carefully alternated taking LSD and meth during the design process, while snorting coke to get through the rough patches.  Rufus, that's a butt ugly house. 

[47of74]

(Swear jar time).

Fuck Trump and fuck every last person who voted for that four flushing heartless sack of shit.

Do these fuck sticks not realize that some of the dreamers were brought in as infants or toddlers?  Do they not realize that some of them knew no other home than the United States, and may not even speak all that much Spanish? 

Jesus Christ, these people piss me off so goddamn much.

[AnywhereButHere]

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/349351-trump-says-he-will-revisit-daca-decision-if-lawmakers-dont-act

Quote

President Trump said Tuesday that he would revisit his decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program if lawmakers are unable to pass legislation on the matter in the next six months.

"Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!" he wrote on Twitter.

I can't even with this idiot! It's his campaign promise, but he deflects to Sessions to announce it, just to keep his distance. Now he's deflecting to congress. Do something, or I'll retract it. 

I hate to break it to you, you orange hued, morally naked, wanna be emperor. There is no distance here. You're the instigator of the ruination of countless lives if DACA ends, and anyone with half a brain cell knows it. 

Hopefully, it goes the way of healthcare, because if nothing else, these past 8 months have proven that the republican led government can't even find their ass with both hands. 

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

(Swear jar time).

Fuck Trump and fuck every last person who voted for that four flushing heartless sack of shit.

Do these fuck sticks not realize that some of the dreamers were brought in as infants or toddlers?  Do they not realize that some of them knew no other home than the United States, and may not even speak all that much Spanish? 

Jesus Christ, these people piss me off so goddamn much.

Many of those who are opposed to the whole DACA idea are so far removed from immigration, they don't comprehend what the immigrants are escaping.  They have never experienced crushing poverty (like the Great Potato Famine in Ireland, for example), or war in their home town (the Sierra Leone civil war, for example).  They've had generations of American-born relatives, so they act all high and mighty while ignoring those huddled masses yearning to be free.

[NotQuiteMotY]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

Looks like the architect carefully alternated taking LSD and meth during the design process, while snorting coke to get through the rough patches.  Rufus, that's a butt ugly house. 

All I can think is how expensive it must be to heat that sucker in the winter. All that exposed stone and absolutely nothing fabric to soften and insulate it. 

[AnywhereButHere]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

Looks like the architect carefully alternated taking LSD and meth during the design process, while snorting coke to get through the rough patches.  Rufus, that's a butt ugly house. 

It's trying very hard to be normal, but it's disguise is slipping. Portal to hell right there in Indiana.

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

Do these fuck sticks not realize that some of the dreamers were brought in as infants or toddlers?  Do they not realize that some of them knew no other home than the United States, and may not even speak all that much Spanish? 

Unfortunately, some people in this country just don't give the slightest damn about anybody other than their immediate family, but will act like that crying Nazi guy when they are the ones who need help.

[VixenToast]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

Looks like the architect carefully alternated taking LSD and meth during the design process, while snorting coke to get through the rough patches.  Rufus, that's a butt ugly house. 

I don't usually LOL literally, but I did just now. I'm outside, I really hope I didn't wake anyone. Hehe. 

[candygirl200413]

Really off topic but I don't know if you all have experienced this, but when fuckface has made these type of announcements my face breaks out so badly.

Also in addition to his supporters, fuck everyone who won't take 5 seconds and learn about how ANYTHING works. I was just reading my congressman's tweets on what people thought about his announcement (My district is overwhelming liberal) so I knew with many of these comments weren't people/most likely bots who were just like "we spend 11.3 billion on them!" and "they take all of our jobs!". Fox has done such a fucking disservice and really harmed so many people with their absolute falsehoods. I just get exhausted how some people could care less and actually learn something.

Everything that comes out of his mouth has obviously pissed me off, but as a child of immigrants this hurts just so much deeply.

[fraurosena]

12 hours ago, 47of74 said:

(Swear jar time).

Fuck Trump and fuck every last person who voted for that four flushing heartless sack of shit.

Do these fuck sticks not realize that some of the dreamers were brought in as infants or toddlers?  Do they not realize that some of them knew no other home than the United States, and may not even speak all that much Spanish? 

Jesus Christ, these people piss me off so goddamn much.

The only thing that matters is the color of their skin. 'Brown = bad. White people rule.' That's the limit of their thinking process. Age doesn't factor into it at all.

It's like that horrible scene in James Michener's Centennial, when the army decimates a peaceful, unarmed Arapaho village and Colonel Skimmerhorn gives the order to kill everyone, even the children, justifying it by saying: "Nits grow into lice."

[GreyhoundFan]

From Daniel Drezner: "Seven ways of looking at Trump’s DACA decision"

Spoiler

Here are seven ways to look at the Trump administration’s decision to end the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program:

1. There’s the horror of recognizing that DACA beneficiaries, also called “dreamers,” had to provide information to the Department of Homeland Security in order to qualify, and what this means for them. Now the Trump administration will be able to use that information against them. Beyond being cruel, this gambit will alienate any vulnerable segment of the population from the federal government.

2. There’s the numerous tells that Trump himself is not exactly sure what he is doing, particularly this from the New York Times:

The blame-averse president told a confidante over the past few days that he realized that he had gotten himself into a politically untenable position. As late as one hour before the decision was to be announced, administration officials privately expressed concern that Mr. Trump might not fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take, and when he discovered their full impact, would change his mind, according to a person familiar with their thinking who was not authorized to comment on it and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Or this:

...

Seriously, given Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s statement Tuesday I cannot figure out what that tweet means.

3. There’s the way in which this decision unites political analysts on the right and left: They all think that the policy outcome on DACA repeal echoes Trump’s health-care fail.

4. There’s the fact that the business community has come out pretty firmly in opposition to this announcement:

...

5. There’s the ways in which this is a deeply unpopular move with the American people:

Voters overwhelmingly support allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, placing President Donald Trump’s decision to wind down the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program at odds with public opinion.

A majority of voters, 58 percent, think these undocumented immigrants, also known as Dreamers, should be allowed to stay and become citizens if they meet certain requirements — a sentiment that goes well beyond the existing DACA program. Another 18 percent think they should be allowed to stay and become legal residents, but not citizens. Only 15 percent think they should be removed or deported from the country.

Support for allowing these immigrants to remain in the U.S. spans across party lines: 84 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents and 69 percent of Republicans think they should stay.

6. There’s the ways in which even immigrant hardliners seem to be uncomfortable with this change in policy:

...

7. Finally, there is the slowly dawning recognition among the nationalists supporting Trump that they now face the same political dilemma as free traders have faced for decades.

Let me explain this last one. The problem with the politics of free trade is that the benefits are often intangible while the costs are easily observable. Media coverage of trade does not know what to do with news that freer trade lowers the cost of imports or boosts productivity. The media does get covering a plant going out of business because of import competition, however. The narrative about the costs of trade is simple and easily explainable. It focuses the mind on the costs and not the benefits of trade liberalization.

With this DACA move, the easy narrative will be on the suffering of the dreamers themselves. The Atlantic’s David Frum is pretty sympathetic to immigration crackdowns, but he seems on the mark in predicting how this move will play out:

As so often, he did not think it through. Democrats have no incentive to make his deal — and every incentive to thwart it. If Santa asked minority leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer what they would like most for Christmas this year (Trump is president now, so we can say the word “Christmas” again), they might reply: “Some spectacular deportations of people brought to the United States sometime during the 2018 congressional cycle would be perfect.”….

Lacking any concrete proposal to debate, the immigration discussion will instead focus on the personal stories of the most sympathetic DACA beneficiaries.

As local news bombards them with such accounts, GOP members of Congress — facing an already ominous 2018 cycle — will panic and buckle. They will extend DACA without any offsetting concessions at all, punting the rest of the immigration agenda to later.

DACA, like Obamacare, has some issues. Trump’s attempted “fix” of these problems, however, is catastrophic. Politically, Trump has managed to alienate the business community and the American people.

All in all, just another day in the beclowning of the executive branch of the federal government.

How apropos that the TT didn't really understand the implications of his "decision". I think the only people who want DACA to go away are Sessions, Bannon, and Miller.

[candygirl200413]

Sessions and Miller were the backbone to get rid of DACA (I'll edit it when I can find the actual article on it!) and it was evident when he looked like a kid on Christmas all giddy ruining children/young people's lives. I also read this re: fuckface and dreamers

DREAMers Who Met Trump Call Him a ‘Liar’ Now