Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[GreyhoundFan]

One of the themes of this sham administration: "Nobody knows what Trump is doing. Not even Trump."

Spoiler

House Speaker Paul Ryan could not have been more clear.

After meeting with his Republican caucus Wednesday morning on the first day back from their long summer break, he declared at a news conference that Democrats’ call for a three-month extension of the government’s borrowing limit was “ridiculous.”

“That’s ridiculous and disgraceful, that they want to play politics with the debt ceiling at this moment,” he repeated. He called it “unworkable,” said it would jeopardize hurricane response and called out Democratic leaders by name for promoting what “I don’t think is a good idea.”

A couple of hours later, Ryan and other GOP leaders sat in the White House with President Trump, who told them he wants . . . a three-month increase of the debt ceiling, just as Democrats proposed.

Such chaos and confusion at the highest level of American government hadn’t been seen since, well, the day before.

On Tuesday, even as the administration announced that it was ending protection from deportation for the 800,000 “dreamers” — mostly young people who know no country but America — there were signs that Trump had no idea what he was doing. “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,” Michael Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the New York Times reported, citing an anonymous source.

Sure enough, Trump fired off a tweet Tuesday night that revised his position. He called on Congress to “legalize” the dreamers program and vowed to “revisit the issue” if Congress can’t.

Even Trump’s close advisers seem to have little knowledge of, much less control over, what he says and does.

Trump has signaled that he wants to end a free-trade deal with South Korea, even though his national security adviser, his defense secretary and the director of the National Economic Council all object. He and Defense Secretary James Mattis have contradicted each other about whether to talk with North Korea. Chief of Staff John Kelly’s attempts to tone down Trump’s antics have reportedly led Trump to escalate his attacks — on Kelly. Trump has publicly criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions and repeatedly contradicted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner have let it leak that Trump ignored their advice on Charlottesville and other matters.

One imagines a future scene in the Situation Room:

The president: Why don’t we bomb Guam so the North Koreans can’t?

The secretary of state: That’s part of our country, sir.

The secretary of defense: We have thousands of troops there.

The national security adviser: And 150,000 innocent civilians.

The chief of staff: It would be a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.

Ivanka Trump: Please don’t do this, Dad.

Jared Kushner: [Silence.]

The president: It’s settled. We begin bombing in five minutes. Let’s hit Hawaii, too. But not my hotel in Waikiki.

The unreliability of Trump has put an unusual burden on Congress, which is ill equipped to bear it.

Outside the House caucus gathering the morning after Trump’s immigration announcement, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an immigration hard-liner, angrily opposed legislative action for the dreamers, saying they can “live in the shadows” and demanding GOP leaders not “divide our conference over an amnesty act.”

Minutes later, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), took the opposite view, threatening to use a “discharge petition” with Democrats to force a vote on protecting the dreamers if the House doesn’t act.

Ryan put the responsibility right back on Trump for the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) legislation. “We will not be advancing legislation that does not have the support of President Trump, because we’re going to work with the president on how to do this legislation,” he said. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged Trump to lead.

But what does Trump support?

“We love the dreamers. . . . We think the dreamers are terrific,” Trump said last week, four days before putting them in jeopardy of deportation.

“I have a great heart for the folks we are talking about, a great love for them,” Trump said on the same day his administration announced the end of protection for the dreamers.

What does the president want? Nobody knows — not his advisers, not his fellow Republicans in Congress, and probably not Trump himself.

 

[47of74]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

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

  Reveal hidden contents

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.

Sessions is one of the dipshits in this administration that I absolutely despise.  He perverts justice for his own evil ends.

[GreyhoundFan]

"What if our system can’t handle Trump’s out-of-control self-dealing?"

Spoiler

Two new investigative reports out today vividly describe in fresh detail the scope and scale of President Trump’s business conflicts of interests and the damage they are inflicting on our political system.

The reports, taken together, raise the question: Can our system handle the unprecedented conflicts and self-dealing that this president is engaged in?

The two investigative reports, one from USA Today and the other from the government watchdog group Public Citizen, together show how Trump’s refusal to divest himself from his global business holdings has created a new ecosystem, outside the view of the public and the oversight capabilities of other branches of government. In the new Trump ecosystem, the world’s wealthiest people and corporations can buy direct access to the president, simultaneously lining his pockets while achieving their own personal or policy goals.

For the first time in the nation’s history, USA Today concludes, “wealthy people with interests before the government have a chance for close and confidential access to the president as a result of payments that enrich him personally.” This Trumpian ecosystem is completely unprecedented; as former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub told the newspaper, “We never thought we’d see anyone push the outer limits in this way.”

Our system is not prepared to hold Trump or these outside influence peddlers accountable because no one — not the framers of our Constitution or lawmakers of any era in U.S. history — ever anticipated a president who would retain a lucrative stake in such a far-reaching business empire once in office, despite the blatant and extensive conflicts of interest it has set in motion. Worse, no one envisioned that a president would so brazenly snub his nose at ethical standards intended to uphold the simple credos that access to the president of the United States is not for sale and the presidency is not a profit-making enterprise.

It’s precisely because such contempt for ethics was unimaginable that no constraints against Trump-like behavior were ever put in place. And now we are beginning to see the effects of his running roughshod over the standards that distinguish a functioning democracy from a kleptocracy.

The USA Today report shows how Trump, despite his claims that he would “drain the swamp” of lobbyists, has simply given wealthy people direct access to him. All they have to do is pay the hefty membership fees at one of his private golf clubs. Initiation fees can exceed $100,000, and members pay annual dues on top of that.

USA Today’s reporting methods on this story themselves reflect the Trump administration’s utter disdain for transparency, a crucial component of government accountability. Trump has abandoned the Obama-era policy of releasing the White House visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service and has refused to release records of visitors to the private clubs he has treated as his weekend White Houses, such as the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. The clubs’ membership rolls are secret as well. As a result, the public doesn’t know who is paying to see the president, or why.

But USA Today was able to determine who the members of Trump’s clubs are by using social media and a publicly available website where golfers post their handicaps. The paper discovered that those members include “dozens of lobbyists, contractors and others who make their living influencing the government” and who now have direct access to him based on their ability to afford the fees at clubs owned by Trump.

As a result, these club members could be influencing Trump’s thinking on a range of issues, using their wealth and access to shape policy, operating out of public view and in the confines of the luxurious private accommodations only available to the nation’s wealthiest people.

Meanwhile, the Public Citizen report, aptly titled “President Trump, Inc.,” is even more shocking, if that’s possible. It details how Trump’s promise before assuming office to transfer control of his business empire to his sons “merely amounted to reshuffling his businesses holdings, with himself remaining the ultimate beneficiary.” In this “meaningless shell game,” Public Citizen notes, “each of the entities to which Trump transferred his assets ended up under the control of a revocable trust that operates for the benefit of Trump.” As a result, Trump is open to being paid, influenced and, as the report warns, even “leveraged” by an adversary — suggesting that some might try buying access to influence the president’s actions, while others might use information about his business liabilities against him, possibly making him vulnerable to a different sort of manipulation.

Public Citizen was able to trace the president’s holdings using his federally required financial disclosure forms, which are less detailed and revealing than his tax returns would be but still showed that he maintains a “stake in more than 500 businesses, with many of those businesses holding stakes in one another in a bewildering tangled mess.”

These businesses include his golf clubs and hotels, like his new one in Washington that has become both a new hub of official Washington and a profit center for the president and his family. Yet despite being complicated, these disclosure forms nonetheless provide “a roadmap to wealthy individuals or corporations, foreign or domestic, friend or foe, to select their preferred vehicle to ingratiate themselves to, or gain leverage on, the president of the United States,” the report notes.

In the old days, meaning as recently as a year ago, rich people and corporations looking to influence government would donate to political campaigns and super PACs. Trump has made all of that superfluous to influencing his presidency, with the added bonus (for him) that the payments increase his personal wealth.

The country is facing an avalanche of crises, from natural disasters to the Russia investigation to Trump’s venal immigration policy to North Korea. Yet holding Trump accountable, and fixing oversight so that it actually works for the new ecosystem he has created, might be one of the greatest emergencies Congress faces, before Trump’s approach becomes the new, and normalized, way of doing business in Washington. But the GOP-controlled Congress is unlikely to act to rein in Trump’s ethical transgressions when it comes to his self-dealing. With no accountability, Trump will continue to rewrite the rules, opening the door for a future of new abuses — perhaps including some that, just as in the pre-Trump era, we cannot even imagine now.

The Public Citizen article that is linked in the spoiler is especially interesting. The graphics of the holdings of the grifter-in-chief are eye-opening.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Does Trump just hate the Republicans?"

Spoiler

President Trump, intentionally or not, has once again bollixed up Republican plans. The Post reports:

President Trump confounded leaders from his own party on Wednesday by siding with Democrats on plans to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling, upending negotiations on a variety of crucial policy areas in the fall and further damaging his relationships with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Trump made his position clear at a White House meeting with congressional leaders, agreeing with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on plans for a three-month bill to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for the same amount of time.

That seems to increase Democrats’ leverage in December. They will have the votes that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will need to pass a final budget and raise the debt ceiling. This will give them the perfect opportunity to push forward their own priorities, including passage of a legislative fix for his decision (another stink bomb thrown into the GOP cloakroom) to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order President Barack Obama issued.

Republicans — some of who had dreams of attaching spending cuts to the debt limit bill — were left flummoxed. The Hill reported:

Other Republicans, possibly surprised to see the Republican president cut a deal with Democrats, soon raised their concerns.

“The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).

Ryan earlier in the day called the idea of adding a three-month extension of the debt ceiling to Harvey aid “ridiculous” after the Democratic leaders proposed it. The initial Democratic offer did not mention the government funding, but it has long been seen as legislation that could be paired with a debt limit hike.

If the deal clears Congress, the package would set up an end-of-the-year cliff on both funding the government and the debt ceiling.

Trump’s deal with Democrats also raises new questions for both parties about what will happen next on immigration reform.

Meanwhile, Ryan is painting himself into a corner on DACA:

Ryan said Wednesday that Trump “made the right call” in rescinding DACA because Obama had “overstepped his constitutional bounds.” But he added that he was “also encouraged by the fact that he gave us time to work out a consensus, to find a compromise” on the issue.

“Look, I think people should rest easy, and I think the president made the right call, and the president also gave us the time and space we’re going to need to find where that compromise is,” he said, referring to a March deadline set by Sessions.

It’s not clear what compromise he has in mind, but thanks to the president, the Democrats will have the leverage at the end of the year.

It’s hard to tell whether Trump intends to undercut his own party or is just so clueless that at any given moment he will agree to whatever is put in front of him, provided he is favorably disposed at that moment to the person making the proposal. It is actions like today’s that suggest Trump will never achieve more complex legislative agenda items (such as tax reform). He’s entirely unreliable and easily hoodwinked to undercut Republicans’ objectives. There is political karma here insofar that Ryan justified his support for Trump on the grounds he would help Ryan pass conservative agenda items. In fact, he’s been more help to the Democrats who would like nothing to come of tax reform, Obamacare repeal and many other GOP objectives. Well, that’s what Republicans get for electing a know-nothing, unfit president with no ideological bearings and no ability to maintain consistent views from one day to the next.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Attorneys general from 15 states, D.C. sue to save DACA"

Spoiler

A group of attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Wednesday to stop the administration from winding down the DACA program, which granted a reprieve from deportation to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.

The suit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, alleges that rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was a “culmination” of President Trump’s “oft-stated commitments — whether personally held, stated to appease some portion of his constituency, or some combination thereof — to punish and disparage people with Mexican roots.”

The suit says that unwinding the program would damage states because DACA beneficiaries pay taxes, go to state universities and contribute in other ways and that phasing out the program would jeopardize their ability to do those things.

“Rescinding DACA will cause harm to hundreds of thousands of the States’ residents, injure State-run colleges and universities, upset the States’ workplaces, damage the States’ economies, hurt State-based companies, and disrupt the States’ statutory and regulatory interests,” the attorneys general wrote in the suit.

Justice Department spokesman Devin M. O’Malley said in a statement: “As the Attorney General said yesterday: ‘No greater good can be done for the overall health and well-being of our Republic, than preserving and strengthening the impartial rule of law.’ While the plaintiffs in today’s lawsuits may believe that an arbitrary circumvention of Congress is lawful, the Department of Justice looks forward to defending this Administration’s position.”

The states listed as plaintiffs on the suit are New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

In Maryland, Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) is “considering all options” on how to protect the roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the administration was ending the DACA program, saying that officials had reviewed it because of threatened litigation from the state of Texas and others and determined it to be unconstitutional. That is a reversal of the Justice Department’s position in the previous administration.

The program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States as children to obtain temporary work permits and other benefits, will be unwound gradually. Immigrants already enrolled can stay until their two-year work permits expire, and those whose permits expire through March 5, 2018, are allowed to seek renewals if they apply by Oct. 5.

Trump and Sessions cast the decision to end the program as one made out of respect for the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. President Barack Obama, they said, essentially overstepped in ordering the initiative when Congress wouldn’t pass legislation. The president, though, suggested on Twitter he would “revisit this issue” if Congress failed to take action to revive the program.

Legal analysts have said lawsuits to save DACA were likely to face an uphill battle to be successful. That is because the same authority that gave Obama’s Department of Homeland Security the authority to implement the program would give the Trump administration the ability to undo it.

In 2014, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said the program was constitutional but noted that the benefits conferred “could be terminated at any time at DHS’s discretion.”

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D), a naturalized U.S. citizen whose family immigrated from Haiti when he was a child, acknowledged that challenges lay ahead for the plaintiff states. But Racine said the claim that racism spurred the revocation of DACA benefits could be particularly compelling.

He noted that courts, in their rulings on the president’s proposed bans on travel from majority-Muslim countries, have shown a willingness to consider Trump’s comments on the campaign trail as evidence of bias against a specific minority group.

“Look, it’s a tough case,” Racine said. “We think there are enough references to his comments – both before he was president and while he was president – that illustrate a bias against Mexicans.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said those suing believed the “arbitrary and capricious way” that DACA was rescinded made the action unlawful.

“You still need a valid, a lawful justification to end the program,” she said. “Animus cannot provide such a justification.”

The lawsuit from the state attorneys general traces how DACA recipients have become a part of the fabric in the states where they live — attending prestigious schools such as Harvard University and working at state jobs. It alleges that removing their ability to live in the United States without fear of deportation could have severe financial consequences.

The lawsuit says that one expert estimated that rescinding the DACA program would cost New York state $38.6 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

“We know that when bullies step up, you have to step to them and step to them quickly, and that’s what we’re here to do today,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D), a frequent critic of Trump, said at a news conference to announce the lawsuit.

The lawsuit notes that Trump, in the past, made positive statements about DACA recipients but also alleges he has “a long history of disparaging Mexicans, who comprise the vast majority of DACA grantees,” citing as evidence his public statements.

The suit says revoking DACA would violate components of the 5th Amendment, along with the Administrative Procedure Act, which “prohibits federal agency action that is arbitrary, unconstitutional, and contrary to statute.” It asks a judge to stop the administration from rescinding DACA as well as bar the government from using DACA recipients’ information, which they submitted to the government voluntarily, to deport them if the program is revoked.

More lawsuits are coming, I'm sure.

[onekidanddone]

On 9/5/2017 at 4:03 AM, fraurosena said:

Can Congress learn a thing or two from what they did back when Andrew Johnson was president?

Congress learn? Errr ..all signs point to no.

[Howl]

I was listening to NPR today trying to explain how Trump has completely screwed his own party and given quite a bit of leverage to Democrats by agreeing to the 3-month extension.  It was glorious, but at the same time, it's just another indication that Trump is so mentally challenged that he couldn't find his butt with a flashlight. That he is totally, utterly, completely unpredictable is another terrifying indicator that he's governing by making impulsive, random decisions. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Nothing there but a pile of orange slime: "Trump offers us a glimpse behind the curtain. There’s nothing there."

Spoiler

One of the most cynical quotations in history is also one of the most widely attributed. Let’s ponder the version associated with Groucho Marx: “Sincerity is the key to success. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

From the moment Donald Trump opened his quest for the presidency, this idea has defined him and served as an organizing principle of his politics.

He presented himself as the guy who said whatever was on his mind, who didn’t talk like a politician, who didn’t care what others thought and who railed against “political correctness.”

In fact, just about everything that comes out of his mouth or appears on his Twitter feed is calculated for its political and dramatic effect. Trump is the exact opposite of what he tries to project: The thing he cares about is what others think of him. So he’ll adjust his views again and again to serve his ends as circumstances change. He’s not Mr. Fearless. He’s Mr. Insecure.

Putting aside the catastrophe of his presidency, this approach has worked remarkably well for Trump. But when the input on which he bases his calculations is garbled or contradictory, he doesn’t know which way to go. Lacking any deep instincts or convictions, he tries to move in several directions at once, an awkward maneuver even for an especially gifted politician. In these situations, Trump offers us a glimpse behind the curtain, and we see there is nothing there.

This is the most straightforward explanation for the fiasco created by the president’s mean-spirited decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. Trump was trying to square incompatible desires: to look super tough on immigrants to his dwindling band of loyal supporters, and to live up to his expressions of “love” (you have to wonder why Trump throws this word around so much) for the 800,000 residents who were brought to the United States illegally as children, conduct productive lives and are as “American” as any of the rest of us.

His solution is a non-solution. First, Trump showed how little he believes in his policy — of ending DACA but delaying its death sentence by six months — by having Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the administration’s ad hoc director of nativist initiatives, make the announcement.

Trump shifted responsibility for his impossible political dilemma to Congress. It’s true that Congress should have acted on this long ago, but Trump undercut his claim by not telling his allies what he wanted done. He was simply tossing the choices down Pennsylvania Avenue in the way a lousy neighbor might hurl unwanted debris into the yard next door.

And then, when the bad reviews poured in, Trump backed away from even his muddle of a policy. He tweeted that if Congress didn’t act, “I will revisit this issue!” So a six-month delay might not really be a six-month delay. It might be extended. Or maybe not. Who knows? Adding an exclamation point to your waffling doesn’t help.

The improvised character of the Trump presidency owes to his inclination to see politics as entirely about public performance. He cares above all about the reactions he arouses day to day and even hour to hour.

There is no strategic vision of what a Trump administration should look like because he doesn’t have any clear objectives of his own. On some days, he buys into the Sessions-Steve Bannon-Stephen Miller nationalist worldview. On others, he goes with his practical generals or his business-friendly Wall Street advisers. He doesn’t resolve the philosophical tensions because they don’t matter to him.

All this underscores what a waste this presidency is. Trump’s campaign was irresponsible in many ways, but it did highlight problems our country needs to grapple with, particularly the vast gap in opportunity and hope between the country’s prosperous metropolitan areas and its economically ailing smaller towns and cities. We are doing nothing to ease this divide, and the policies Trump does embrace by default (he goes with conservatives in Congress on many issues as the path of least resistance) may worsen it. Stasis also rules on health care and infrastructure.

Those who condemn the fundamental cruelty of using “dreamers” to make a political point are right to do so. The mobilization for decency in reaction to Trump has already altered the direction of his weather vane. But there is a larger lesson here: It is a genuinely bad idea to elect a president who worries far more about how his actions look than what they actually are.

 

[Howl]

16 hours ago, Howl said:

I was listening to NPR today trying to explain how Trump has completely screwed his own party and given quite a bit of leverage to Democrats by agreeing to the 3-month extension.  It was glorious, but at the same time, it's just another indication that Trump is so mentally challenged that he couldn't find his butt with a flashlight. That he is totally, utterly, completely unpredictable is another terrifying indicator that he's governing by making impulsive, random decisions. 

I'm quoting myself here because this morning I had a sudden, very sudden idea about an underlying motive for Trump's action on the 3-month extension, leaving gobsmacked Republicans strewn in his wake.  And that motive is screwing, utterly and totally screwing, Mitch McConnell.  Because Trump never forgets an insult (narcissistic injury) and he has felt insulted by Mitch McConnell more than once:

• At a speech to the Kentucky Farm Bureau,  McConnell noted “Our new president has of course not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process. ”
• McConnell couldn't deliver on incinerating Obamacare; nobody could even find a damned match and Trump's big legislative agenda has gotten bupkis from the Senate. 
• Worst of all, McConnell hasn't protected Trump (or his spawn) re: Russia investigations in the Senate. This, of course, isn't McConnell's job.  

So yeah, I think this was a vicious stab at McConnell, pure revenge. 

[VelociRapture]

Just popping in to briefly say that I'm really glad to see the US Catholic Church so strongly condemn the rollback on DACA. I know it's partly for self-preservation because the Latino community is such a major part of Catholicism now... but it was nice to see them standing on the right side of history this time. So, kudos to Dolan and the rest of them.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

<snip>

So yeah, I think this was a vicious stab at McConnell, pure revenge. 

Good example on why nobody should ever trust Trump EVER.

[Destiny]

Hat tip to@hoipolloi for showing this to me:

Click. You will thank me later.

 

[Howl]

Quote

@Destiny said: Click. You will thank me later. 

THANK YOU!   BEST. VIDEO. EVAH!  Eleventy.    1!!!!!!!1!!!!!!11! 

@hoipolloi and @Destiny: I bow down before the awesome power of your collective YouTube fu. 

That is the real Vicente Fox, verdad?

[Destiny]

13 minutes ago, Howl said:

That is the real Vicente Fox, verdad?

Si!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fox

[TeddyBonkers]

I'm just 100% done with 90% of my family (Ken Alexander School of Statistics). This DACA decision is bringing out even more of their bullshit. I had to explain to several of them that NO, DREAMers do not receive welfare, section 8, food stamps, etc. On the contrary, the vast majority of DREAMers are gainfully employed and have to pay to renew their status every two years.

I shit you not, one of them came back with- "but they get scholarships that I am ineligible for!"

A lot of people get scholarships that I am ineligible for: men, people of Jewish descent, children of deceased veterans, Harvard alumni...

Another thing that I have seen floating around is "Why haven't they applied for citizenship?"

Here's why: Because they CAN'T. There is no pathway for citizenship for a child of an undocumented immigrant. *unless you want to marry a US citizen, but hey, let's leave contract marriages out of it.* Congress has refused to deal with this very real and growing issue for decades and has instead just slapped a bandaid on it instead of doing the hard work of immigration reform.

 

[candygirl200413]

That video is something I didn't know I needed but I'm so glad I've viewed it. Thank you @Destiny and @hoipolloi.

It also blows my mind like many people don't know just how extensive it is to become a citizen.

[hoipolloi]

Not sure what my favorite part is -- a Mt Rushmore for shitty presidents, the mariachi band singing his campaign song, the amazing desk & office accessories (pee tape & Covfefe coffee mug!). It's definitely a win!

[fraurosena]

This is an old article, but with the DACA rescinding, it is appropriate again.

Native American Council offers amnesty to 220 million undocumented whites

Spoiler

A council of Native American leaders has offered partial amnesty to the estimated 220 million illegal white immigrants living in the United States.

The “white” problem has been a topic of much debate in the Native American community for centuries, and community leaders have decided the time has come to properly address it.*

Daily Currant reports, “At a meeting of the Native Peoples Council (NPC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico yesterday, Native American leaders considered several proposals on the future of this continent’s large, unauthorized European population.

The elders ultimately decided to extend a pathway to citizenship for those without criminal backgrounds.”

“We are prepared to offer White people the option of staying on this continent legally and applying for citizenship,” explains Chief Wamsutta of the Wampanoag nation. “In return, they must pay any outstanding taxes and give back the land stolen from our ancestors.

“Any white person with a criminal record, however, will be deported in the next 90 days back to their ancestral homeland. Rush Limbaugh will be going to Germany. Justin Bieber will depart for Canada. And the entire cast of Jersey Shore will be returning to Italy.”

Illegal white immigration has been rapidly increasing for nearly 400 years from the European countries of France, Spain and England.  These illegals have ravished the land and colonized areas occupied by the natives.

Some white supporters claim the immigrants are a blessing, arguing that they take all of the menial white-collar jobs that the natives don’t even want.  ‘What native would want to have a cushy salary and a corner office as an accountant, or the excess of power as senator or fortune-500 CEO ?’ they claim.

Others are not so forgiving.  “Why can’t we just deport all of the Whites back to Europe?” asks Ité Omácau of the Lakota people.

“They’re just a drain on our economy anyway. They came over here to steal our resources because they’re too lazy to develop their own back home…  I can’t believe we’re just going to let them pay a fine. They should get to the back of the line like everybody else — behind the Mexicans.”

*For the offended… this is satire.

 

[fraurosena]

YESSSSSS!

[onekidanddone]

Trump:  "I'll them in court"!

Ivanka: "Daddy, they are the court".

Trump:  "I'll them in court"!

Ivanka: "Daddy, can I go with you"?  (look up Trump's visit to North Dakota this past week)

[Cartmann99]

23 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Ivanka: "Daddy, can I go with you"?  (look up Trump's visit to North Dakota this past week)

Trump: Only if you change your shoes.

*Trump points his tiny orange hand at Melania's six inch stilettos, looks back at Ivanka, and gives a thumbs up gesture*

[sawasdee]

At least the American Catholic hierarchy has come out against the cancellation of DACA. But the silence of the Evangelicals on this and so many policies which are antithetical to christianity is deafening.

Why, whenever a Muslim does anything which is actually against their faith - eg a terrorist attack - there are loud cries that the moderate Muslim community isn't condemnatory enough. (I believe they usually are very condemnatory.) But when the TT and his allies attack the poor, the sick, the homeless,the young, the aged - all groups which christians are supposed to help - crickets from the Evangelicals. And when TT, Sessions and co. support racism, division and voter suppression,which I also believed to be against christian principle - again, crickets.

I do NOT believe this is true of all US christians. But the most vocal and visible group is still all in for the TT - and I hope their god does exist, because he will have something to say at the Judgment Day.

A few brave clerics are speaking out, but I think that the rest of the christian church in the US, the ones who have actually understood the teachings of Jesus, need desperately to find their voice - and oppose this perversion of their faith. The Washington march was a start, but much more is needed.

Christianity is a rather beautiful concept - it's the churches I can't abide.

[GrumpyGran]

22 hours ago, Destiny said:

Hat tip to@hoipolloi for showing this to me:

Click. You will thank me later.

 

Fantastic, thanks, guys for the laughs. Putin is not my Papi!

[GreyhoundFan]

How very true: "What happens when a presidency runs on #FakeFears? Real fears are ignored."

Spoiler

Fake fear is our new leader.

Washington’s new ruling class is not governing with compassion, common sense, measured research, knowledge of history or the future. Theirs is a doctrine of fake fears. And these same people also have a problem with things we should actually be afraid of.

Let me explain.

Fake Fear: The “bad hombres” President Donald Trump talked about during the campaign last year begot this week’s DACA repeal thing. Trump wants us to be afraid of these immigrants, and he’s ready to trash the lives of more than 800,000 Americans looking for a path to legal residency by killing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The truth is that these immigrants, brought here as children by their parents, “have lower incarceration rates than native-born Americans of the same age and education level,” according to a report issued last week by the nonpartisan CATO Institute.

Real Fear: Hurricanes. You know them — from Katrina to Harvey to Irma — millions of people and billions of dollars tell you hurricanes devastate lives, cities and industries.

But Trump refuses to fear them. Earlier this year, he proposed a budget that slashed about $667 million for the disaster preparedness programs run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That budget also proposed $6 billion in cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps rebuild homes and hospitals.

The fake fear administration also killed a post-Katrina rule requiring building projects eligible for federal funding to take such measures as elevating structures in flood zones away from the reach of rising water before they get government cash. And they did this just in time for hurricane season.

But hey, the $108 billion in damage and the 1,800 lives lost in Hurricane Katrina must not mean much when it your moral compass is fake fear.

Fake fear: The apparent crime wave that Attorney General Jeff Sessions keeps warning Americans about.

“We have a crime problem,” Sessions said in February. “I wish the rise that we are seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip. My best judgment, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.”

But the facts say otherwise.

This year is on pace to have the second-lowest violent crime rate of any year since 1990, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice this week that analyzed statistics from the nation’s 30 largest cities.

Real fear: Though we’ve seen more and more horrifying videos of civilians being shot by police officers, we still have little comprehensive data that shows how often this happens and how agencies can prevent these tragedies.

“What we really need to know is how many times police shoot people, not just how many of those people die,” David A. Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who studies police use of force, told The Washington Post earlier this summer.

The Post began compiling this information in 2015, relying on local news, social media and our own reporting.

This is a real fear for real people. This is true whether you’re a black man, such as beloved cafeteria worker Philando Castile, who was doing nothing wrong when he was killed in Minnesota last year by a nervous police officer. And it’s true if you’re a white woman, like nurse Alex Wubbels, who was seen in a viral video last week being roughed up and arrested by a Utah detective for simply doing her job. The fake fear people seem to have little interest in addressing this problem.

The FBI’s weak, self-reporting system that has been the only way to track this was called “embarrassing and ridiculous” by fired FBI director James B. Comey.

Fake fear: Muslims in America. Trump’s attempts at a travel ban, fulfilling his campaign promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” have reinforced a growing and misplaced Islamophobia throughout our country. We’ve seen the fake-fear sentiment in workplaces, in small-town councils trying to mess with mosques that have been peaceful and unnoticed for years, and I even saw it one of my sons’ sports teams this summer.

The truth is, from 2008 to 2016, right-wing extremists carried out twice as many terrorist attacks on U.S. soil than Islamist extremists, according to a recent report from The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund and The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal.

Real Fear: White supremacists in America. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin that said white supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 … more than any other domestic extremist movement.”

They issued this statement just a couple months before the protests in Charlottesville, where an avowed Nazi sympathizer was arrested after a car drove into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. There is no mistaking that was real.

We deserve real care and real concern from our leaders when it comes to real fears. There’s no shortage of them.

Let’s start by calling out #FakeFears when we see them. Washington is full of those these days, too.

 

[wotdancer]

Last night I attended the Air Force Ball at my local base, and told husband that I needed to tell FJ about the toasts. Every year they do a series of toasts - to the president, the chief of staff for the armed forces, the chief of staff for the Air Force, etc etc. This year they had pictures of each person on the screen, and I swear the one of the TT was purposely picked to look idiotic (not that I mind, or that they even had a decent option!) But there was a noticeable quietness in the "to the president!" toast, compared to the much louder ones that followed.

There are so many rules in the military about chain of command and proper etiquette and all that, but it was kind of nice to experience a noncombative reaction to an unliked situation. People either didn't toast that one, or murmured instead of speaking loudly. It made my little anti-TT heart happy.