Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[hoipolloi]

5 hours ago, wotdancer said:

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.

When I worked for the Army, about a million years ago, the vast majority of soldiers were professionals, proud of what they did and the way they did it. What's more, they made every effort to appear & behave as professionals on all occasions.

It's hard to imagine that any decent service member, regardless of politics, has much if any respect for this completely unprofessional president -- and that's about the least critical thing one can say of dolt 45.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Trump betrays everyone’: The president has a long record as an unpredictable ally"

Spoiler

President Trump prepared for the pivotal meeting with congressional leaders by huddling with his senior team — his chief of staff, his legislative director and the heads of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget — to game out various scenarios on how to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and provide Hurricane Harvey relief.

But one option they never considered was the that one the president ultimately chose: cutting a deal with Democratic lawmakers, to the shock and ire of his own party.

In agreeing to tie Harvey aid to a three-month extension of the debt ceiling and government funding, Trump burned the people who are ostensibly his allies. The president was an unpredictable — and, some would say, untrustworthy — negotiating partner with not only congressional Republicans but also with his Cabinet members and top aides. Trump saw a deal that he thought was good for him — and he seized it.

The move should come as no surprise to students of Trump’s long history of broken alliances and agreements. In business, his personal life, his campaign and now his presidency, Trump has sprung surprises on his allies with gusto. His dealings are frequently defined by freewheeling spontaneity, impulsive decisions and a desire to keep everyone guessing — especially those who assume they can control him.

He also repeatedly demonstrates that, while he demands absolute loyalty from others, he is ultimately loyal to no one but himself.

“It makes all of their normalizing and ‘Trumpsplaining’ look silly and hollow,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist sharply critical of Trump, referring to his party’s congressional leaders. “Trump betrays everyone: wives, business associates, contractors, bankers and now, the leaders of the House and Senate in his own party. They can’t explain this away as [a] 15-dimensional Trump chess game. It’s a dishonest person behaving according to his long-established pattern.”

But what many Republicans saw as betrayal was, in the view of some Trump advisers, an exciting return to his campaign promise of being a populist dealmaker able to cut through the mores of Washington to get things done. 

In that Wednesday morning Oval Office meeting, Trump was impressed with the energy and vigor of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) relative to the more subdued Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Far from fretting over the prospect of alienating McConnell and Ryan or members of his administration, he relished the opportunity for a bipartisan agreement and the praise he anticipated it would bring, according to people close to the president. 

On Thursday morning, he called Pelosi and Schumer to crow about coverage of the deal — “The press has been incredible,” he told Pelosi, according to someone familiar with the call — and point out that it had been especially positive for the Democratic leaders. 

At the White House later that day, Trump asked Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) how he thought the deal was playing. “I told him I thought it was great, and a gateway project to show there could be bipartisan progress,” King said. “He doesn’t want to be in an ideological straitjacket.”

In some ways, White House officials said, Trump is as comfortable working with Democrats to achieve policy goals — complete with the sheen of bipartisan luster — as he is with Republicans. Though he did not partner with Democrats to spite McConnell and Ryan, aides said, he has long felt frustrated with them for what he perceives as their inability to help shepherd his agenda through Congress, most notably their stalled efforts to undo former president Barack Obama’s signature health-care law. 

On Thursday, Trump took to Twitter to express dissatisfaction with his adopted political party, complaining about Obamacare: “Republicans, sorry, but I’ve been hearing about Repeal & Replace for 7 years, didn’t happen!” He also bemoaned the legislative filibuster, which requires Republicans to work with Democrats to meet a 60-senator threshold for most votes, writing, “It is a Repub Death wish.”

Ari Fleischer, press secretary under President George W. Bush, said that Trump deserves credit for staving off, at least in the short term, a possible default and government shutdown. 

“It’s going to internally hurt him that he didn’t work with Republicans on this one, but by avoiding a mess, he likely saved Republicans from themselves,” Fleischer said. “I consider it a small victory that congressional Republicans didn’t once again trip themselves up over this issue. At least for now.”

King, a moderate who represents a Long Island district that Trump carried, said: “I think this could be a new day for the Republican Party.”

Trump’s agreement with the Democrats is hardly the first time the president has flouted his allies, including those around the world, sending them skittering nervously in response to a threat or a sudden turnabout. 

In April, Trump thrust Canada and Mexico — as well as many of his advisers and Cabinet officials — into a state of panic during a frenetic, if brief, period when he threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. In May, speaking in front of NATO’s sparkling new headquarters, Trump alarmed European allies when he chastised them for “not paying what they should be paying” and refused to embrace the treaty’s cornerstone — that an attack on one represents an attack on all. And in September, as the crisis with North Korea escalated, Trump abruptly threatened to withdraw from a free-trade agreement with South Korea.

Foreign diplomats euphemistically describe the president as “unpredictable,” and even those with good relationships with the United States say they are “cautiously optimistic” that Trump’s behavior will continue to benefit their nations.

On the issue of the debt-ceiling extension and short-term government funding, a GOP aide familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said many Republicans viewed Trump’s decision as “a spur-of-the-moment thing” that happened because the president “just wanted a deal.”

“He saw a deal and wanted the deal, and it just happened to be completely against what we were pushing for,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Our conclusion is there isn’t much to read into other than he made that decision on the spot, and that’s what he does because he’s Trump, and he made an impulsive decision because he saw a deal he wanted.” 

From the outset, the meeting did not go as Republican leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had hoped. They began by pushing for an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling, with Mnuchin lecturing the group of longtime legislators about the importance of raising the debt ceiling, according to three people familiar with the gathering who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It was just odd and weird,” one said. “He was very much a duck out of water.”

The treasury secretary presented himself as a Wall Street insider, arguing that the stability of the markets required an 18-month extension. 

At one point, Schumer intervened with a skeptical question: “So the markets dictate one month past the 2018 election?” he asked, rhetorically, according to someone with knowledge of his comment. “I doubt that.”

At another, Pelosi explained that understanding Wall Street is not the same as operating in Congress. “Here the currency of the realm is the vote,” she told reporters in a news conference Thursday, echoing the comments she had made privately the day before. “You have the votes, no discussion necessary. You don’t have the votes, three months.”

The Republican leaders and Mnuchin slowly began moderating their demands, moving from their initial pitch down to 12 months and then six months. At one point, when Mnuchin was in the middle of yet another explanation, the president cut him off, making it clear that he disagreed.

The deal would be for three months tied to Harvey funding, Trump said — just as the Democrats had wanted.

On Friday morning, at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, numerous lawmakers vented their frustrations to Mnuchin and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. One of them, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), stood up to say he thought Trump’s snub of Ryan — who had publicly rejected Democrats’ offer hours before Trump accepted it — was also a snub of Republicans at large.

“I support the president, I want him to be successful, I want our country to be successful,” Zeldin said in an interview afterward. “But I personally believe the president had more leverage than he may have realized. He had more Democratic votes than he realized, and could have and would have certainly gotten a better deal.”

Democrats remain skeptical about just how long their newfound working relationship with Trump will last. But for Republicans, the turnabout was yet another reminder of what many of them have long known but refused to openly admit: Trump is a fickle ally and partner, liable to turn on them much in the same way he has turned on his business associates and foreign allies. 

“Looking to the long term, trust and reliability have been essential ingredients in productive relationships between the president and Congress,” said Phil Schiliro, who served as director of legislative affairs under Obama. “Without them, trying to move a legislative agenda is like juggling on quicksand. It usually doesn’t end well.”

Quicksand -- that's an appropriate image.

[GrumpyGran]

So he's taken his cabinet, with the exception of Chao, who's husband probably said "Fuck, No!" to Camp David to "work." Another blow to his devoted zombies, they lose the power of "Obama vacationed during blah, blah, blah." Surely they could have worked from the White House, that's kind of it's purpose. I wonder if Kelly went along to prevent any displays of inappropriate "work." They're not working, he just needed some serious stroking so they're all sitting around giving him verbal blowjobs.

[Howl]

10 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

They're not working, he just needed some serious stroking so they're all sitting around giving him verbal blowjobs

The last one of those (the first full cabinet meeting in June) was pretty awesome for it's pathetic sycophant quotient.  

Sycophant synonyms: 

yesman, bootlicker, brownnoser, toady, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, spaniel, doormat,  stooge, cringer, suck, suck-up

 

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

So he's taken his cabinet, with the exception of Chao, who's husband probably said "Fuck, No!" to Camp David to "work." 

Thanks for telling me about Camp David! I kept seeing these pictures on Twitter of Pence "looking presidential", but I was more interested in reading about Irma, than taking the time to see what Hurricane Orange was up to.

[onekidanddone]

22 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘Trump betrays everyone’: The president has a long record as an unpredictable ally"

Well err yes, but this time it the American people and the rest of the globe.

29 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Thanks for telling me about Camp David! I kept seeing these pictures on Twitter of Pence "looking presidential", but I was more interested in reading about Irma, than taking the time to see what Hurricane Orange was up to.

What exactly is 'presidential'?  Because I think to the Repubs it is an old white man. They never said Obama looked 'presidential'.  Quite the opposite being a Obama, being a Muslim, Kenyan black guy. And don't even get them started on Mrs. Clinton ever looking presidential.

[Cartmann99]

30 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

What exactly is 'presidential'?

I just meant that Pence is more skilled at looking like he cares when talking about people affected by disasters, answering reporters questions without losing his temper and yelling "Fake News!", and not spending his days whining about how unfairly he believes he's being treated.

I saw what he did to Indiana, and I definitely don't want Pence as our president, but he is better at playing this game than Trump. It's sad that the bar is so low, but that's where we are right now.

That said, if we chose one of us at random to go out and make an impromptu speech about a disaster that happened here, any of us could do a better job than Trump. Just don't forget to ask Rufus to bless the United States, and wear a damn flag pin during your speech.

 

[onekidanddone]

28 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

I just meant that Pence is more skilled at looking like he cares when talking about people affected by disasters, answering reporters questions without losing his temper and yelling "Fake News!", and not spending his days whining about how unfairly he believes he's being treated.

<sniped for space>

Just don't forget to ask Rufus to bless the United States, and wear a damn flag pin during your speech.

The scary thing about  Pence is that he can do as much and maybe even more harm than Trump, but it won't make the news in a reality show fashion.

We know this country was founded on a belief in Rufus, because Trump tells me so.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump has spent his whole presidency making Democrats stronger"

Spoiler

Be wary of anyone who purports to understand the deep meaning of President Trump’s decision to side with the Democrats on short-term budget issues. Nobody knows what he’s up to, and this probably includes Trump himself.

Nonetheless, his recent foray into bipartisanship provides the occasion to explore the path he chose not to take at the beginning of his administration. He had the opportunity to put Democrats in a tight spot. Instead, he has spent his energies since Jan. 20 strengthening the hand of his opponents and weakening his own party.

If Trump had opened his presidency by detailing a major infrastructure plan, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his colleagues would have had no choice but to cooperate, as Schumer himself signaled at the time. If Trump had also lived up to the promises of his campaign by proposing to make Obamacare better and not simply pushing for repeal, he might have fostered a similar spirit of bipartisan engagement.

He could have linked these Democratic-friendly ideas with an early call for tax cuts as part of tax reform, which would have made Republicans happy, as has his ongoing work to eviscerate Obama-era business regulations.

All this might have added to the deficit in a big way, but Trump has always lived on debt. This course would have been seen by some critics as philosophically muddled and by some conservatives as betrayal. But you can imagine that the prevailing wisdom in Washington would have praised him for breaking through “stale” political categories and “rising above” the old partisan fights. He could also have given himself more bargaining room by putting everyone, Democrats as well as Republicans, in play.

It could be that Trump’s latest move is a reach for this lost chance, although it seemed to be more impulse than strategy. It was also sudden. No one on either side was prepared for Trump’s embrace of Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) suggestion to pass hurricane relief now and to set up December as the time for serious haggling. Democrats are likely to have more leverage then.

Being who he is, Trump might have wanted to take a slap at his putative allies, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), both of whom he seems to dislike intensely. And perhaps he was looking for a few days of good headlines. Pelosi reported he reveled in the great media coverage he received, as good an indicator as any that this is a guy who operates day to day.

Trump’s problem with moving from a relatively small policy gesture to an entirely new approach is that the immediate past cannot be erased.

He is a far weaker figure today than he was when he was inaugurated. His poll numbers are terrible, the Russia story has ballooned in importance, and Democrats are in no mood to throw him any lifelines. His words and actions on race and deportations have erected new moral barriers to any pragmatic turn toward working with him. “All he’s done in eight months,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide, “is make the price of cooperation a lot higher.”

In the meantime, he has filled his Cabinet largely with conservative loyalists, further complicating any triangulation strategy involving Democrats. One member of his inner circle who might be best positioned to work with Democrats, Gary Cohn, his senior economic adviser, is apparently so on the outs that there are reports he may soon be gone. Trump might have run against GOP orthodoxy in the primaries, but so much of what he has done so far would have been in any right-wing Republican’s playbook.

He is still somewhat distinctive in his nativism, but this hardly bodes well for cooperation with progressives and moderates. And oddly enough, the departure of nationalist-in-chief Stephen K. Bannon removed one voice in his circle advocating positions on infrastructure, trade and taxes that had at least something in common with Democratic views.

Democrats will certainly try to press the temporary advantage they seem to have on behalf of immigrants endangered by Trump’s moves against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They’ll also push for Obamacare funding, an end to the debt ceiling and a variety of budget concessions.

We should have learned long ago that looking for coherence from this president is a fool’s errand. He may have happened on a wiser political strategy too late to do himself much good but just in time to hurt his already ailing party even more.

I hope the Dems do come out of this stronger.

[Cartmann99]

Article about Paula White, Trump's spiritual advisor and prosperity gospel huckster:

Spoiler

Paula White, the closest thing President Trump appears to have to a spiritual adviser, gave her lengthiest public statements Saturday about the president, saying she’s seen him “on many occasions” show repentance and that her belief that God elevated Trump extends to all leaders — including former president Barack Obama and Trump’s presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

White, 51, is leader of the New Destiny Christian Center, a huge Pentecostal church near Orlando. Her luxurious lifestyle and celebrity adherents — including Michael Jackson, Tyra Banks and now Trump — has made her both beloved and controversial.

White has been a counselor and friend to Trump for more than 16 years, she said Saturday at the annual meeting of the Religion News Association, a convention for religion journalism. White is the chair of Trump’s informal evangelical advisory board. She was speaking on a panel about the rise of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians like herself.

While speaking about the way Christians impact politics — and how she and her board impact Trump — White began speaking about Trump’s spiritual character. The president stirred controversy during the campaign by saying he has never sought God’s forgiveness and doesn’t like to have to ask for it.

“Our president 100 percent is a Christian who understands receiving faith by the grace of the lord, Jesus. He understands repentance, and I’ve seen him on many occasions in private and even in public,” she said. Trump is “a person of repentance.”

“I’ve also watched a man grow just like we are all growing,” she added.

 Asked by a reporter to be more specific about what the president has repented for, White said that was private.

“That’s a very personal conversation that, as a pastor, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing that about someone’s individual life. But I can say again, things that we all would face in life,” she said.

Then she appeared to reference the leak during the campaign of an audiotape of Trump bragging about being able, as a celebrity, to sexually assault women.

“I think we all know there was a challenging time he faced during the campaign,” White said, noting she was one of three people he reached out to then. “He said, ‘I have become a better man.’ If he says ‘I’m a changed man,’ he knows like all of us, prayerfully, I’m better tomorrow than I am today.”

Religion reporters followed up, asking her what it means to be a good person — in private, and not to show repentance in public?

“I don’t agree all his actions are completely contrary to that. That’s a very strong statement,” White said. “. . . I don’t know if I would agree with that. I know on a very private level this is a man of repentance. Not just with me, but with other pastors,” she said.

White was also asked about comments she made on the “Jim Bakker Show” about Trump being anointed by God. The show was aired last month.

“Because God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority it is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down,” she said on the show.

She was asked Saturday if God selects all people in authority — including Obama, of whom Trump was a constant critic during Obama’s presidency — and if opponents of Trump are fighting the plan of God.

“Thanks for bringing up the elephant” in the room, she said to laughs.

“I’m a preacher, and I got a little fired up,” she said of her comments during the Bakker show. “And I said some things invariably I wish I would not have said. Some things that could most definitely and have been taken out of context. Do I believe God raises up authority? Do I believe he sets one up and puts one down? . . . I don’t believe that just for Trump, I believe that had Hillary been in. I believe that for Obama.

“If I believe authority is raised by God — I understand I don’t understand all things. And what those purposes are. He’s a sovereign God.”

White was asked a couple times to clarify what was taken out of context and what she regretted saying. She did not give specific answers. She said the full conversation on the Bakker show was about different types of prayer and how all people in their personal lives fight “against the hand of God . . . the headlines were quite different than what it was really being said.”

White is one of a few dozen evangelical leaders who meet regularly — and informally — as an advisory board to Trump. White goes to Washington at least every couple weeks to visit with him. Unlike previous faith advisory councils to past presidents, this one is unofficial, and its influence and priorities have not been public. However, last week members made news when some said they have focused with Trump on advocating for a solution for “the dreamers,” or underage immigrants brought to the United States by adults and whose legal status is unsafe. Trump last week said the Obama-era program protecting them temporarily, called DACA, would expire within six months.

Members of the board said it was their advocacy for the young people that led to the six-month window.

White was asked what she advocates with Trump. She didn’t offer any specific policies but said she was a presence for “the faith community.”

“The community needs, the things that are concerning to us in the faith community, to make sure that door and that access continues for people of faith,” she said.

A reporter asked White about the concern that has been voiced since Trump’s campaign by some religious minorities and people of color, including after a deadly protest in Charlottesville after which Trump presented as equal white-supremacist marchers and counterprotesters. He later condemned the white supremacists. White is the pastor of a majority African American congregation.

“I know this will open up a lot, but our president is not a racist,” she said. White went on to detail her own work on racial bridge-building through her life. “This is not new for me. But I can tell you right now, as a white person, I don’t think any of us who are white can fully understand what it is to be a black person in America today. What I do know is our nation has such work to do, and I believe it has to start with the community of faith.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/09/trump-pastor-paula-white-the-president-100-percent-is-a-christian-a-person-of-repentance/?utm_term=.f32915760b06#comments

I'm interested to see if she gets invited to appear again on Jim Bakker and the Temple of Doom Buckets, after trying to walk back her comments from last month. For those who don't follow Bakker, he's a big fan of Trump, and has said that those who oppose Trump are possessed by demons. 

A video from his show back in 2013 about the Obama administration:

 

[fraurosena]

Ummmmm...

 

... I don't think this administration quite knows how this works. 

[GrumpyGran]

12 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Article about Paula White, Trump's spiritual advisor and prosperity gospel huckster:

  Reveal hidden contents

Paula White, the closest thing President Trump appears to have to a spiritual adviser, gave her lengthiest public statements Saturday about the president, saying she’s seen him “on many occasions” show repentance and that her belief that God elevated Trump extends to all leaders — including former president Barack Obama and Trump’s presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

White, 51, is leader of the New Destiny Christian Center, a huge Pentecostal church near Orlando. Her luxurious lifestyle and celebrity adherents — including Michael Jackson, Tyra Banks and now Trump — has made her both beloved and controversial.

White has been a counselor and friend to Trump for more than 16 years, she said Saturday at the annual meeting of the Religion News Association, a convention for religion journalism. White is the chair of Trump’s informal evangelical advisory board. She was speaking on a panel about the rise of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians like herself.

While speaking about the way Christians impact politics — and how she and her board impact Trump — White began speaking about Trump’s spiritual character. The president stirred controversy during the campaign by saying he has never sought God’s forgiveness and doesn’t like to have to ask for it.

“Our president 100 percent is a Christian who understands receiving faith by the grace of the lord, Jesus. He understands repentance, and I’ve seen him on many occasions in private and even in public,” she said. Trump is “a person of repentance.”

“I’ve also watched a man grow just like we are all growing,” she added.

 Asked by a reporter to be more specific about what the president has repented for, White said that was private.

“That’s a very personal conversation that, as a pastor, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing that about someone’s individual life. But I can say again, things that we all would face in life,” she said.

Then she appeared to reference the leak during the campaign of an audiotape of Trump bragging about being able, as a celebrity, to sexually assault women.

“I think we all know there was a challenging time he faced during the campaign,” White said, noting she was one of three people he reached out to then. “He said, ‘I have become a better man.’ If he says ‘I’m a changed man,’ he knows like all of us, prayerfully, I’m better tomorrow than I am today.”

Religion reporters followed up, asking her what it means to be a good person — in private, and not to show repentance in public?

“I don’t agree all his actions are completely contrary to that. That’s a very strong statement,” White said. “. . . I don’t know if I would agree with that. I know on a very private level this is a man of repentance. Not just with me, but with other pastors,” she said.

White was also asked about comments she made on the “Jim Bakker Show” about Trump being anointed by God. The show was aired last month.

“Because God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority it is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down,” she said on the show.

She was asked Saturday if God selects all people in authority — including Obama, of whom Trump was a constant critic during Obama’s presidency — and if opponents of Trump are fighting the plan of God.

“Thanks for bringing up the elephant” in the room, she said to laughs.

“I’m a preacher, and I got a little fired up,” she said of her comments during the Bakker show. “And I said some things invariably I wish I would not have said. Some things that could most definitely and have been taken out of context. Do I believe God raises up authority? Do I believe he sets one up and puts one down? . . . I don’t believe that just for Trump, I believe that had Hillary been in. I believe that for Obama.

“If I believe authority is raised by God — I understand I don’t understand all things. And what those purposes are. He’s a sovereign God.”

White was asked a couple times to clarify what was taken out of context and what she regretted saying. She did not give specific answers. She said the full conversation on the Bakker show was about different types of prayer and how all people in their personal lives fight “against the hand of God . . . the headlines were quite different than what it was really being said.”

White is one of a few dozen evangelical leaders who meet regularly — and informally — as an advisory board to Trump. White goes to Washington at least every couple weeks to visit with him. Unlike previous faith advisory councils to past presidents, this one is unofficial, and its influence and priorities have not been public. However, last week members made news when some said they have focused with Trump on advocating for a solution for “the dreamers,” or underage immigrants brought to the United States by adults and whose legal status is unsafe. Trump last week said the Obama-era program protecting them temporarily, called DACA, would expire within six months.

Members of the board said it was their advocacy for the young people that led to the six-month window.

White was asked what she advocates with Trump. She didn’t offer any specific policies but said she was a presence for “the faith community.”

“The community needs, the things that are concerning to us in the faith community, to make sure that door and that access continues for people of faith,” she said.

A reporter asked White about the concern that has been voiced since Trump’s campaign by some religious minorities and people of color, including after a deadly protest in Charlottesville after which Trump presented as equal white-supremacist marchers and counterprotesters. He later condemned the white supremacists. White is the pastor of a majority African American congregation.

“I know this will open up a lot, but our president is not a racist,” she said. White went on to detail her own work on racial bridge-building through her life. “This is not new for me. But I can tell you right now, as a white person, I don’t think any of us who are white can fully understand what it is to be a black person in America today. What I do know is our nation has such work to do, and I believe it has to start with the community of faith.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/09/trump-pastor-paula-white-the-president-100-percent-is-a-christian-a-person-of-repentance/?utm_term=.f32915760b06#comments

I'm interested to see if she gets invited to appear again on Jim Bakker and the Temple of Doom Buckets, after trying to walk back her comments from last month. For those who don't follow Bakker, he's a big fan of Trump, and has said that those who oppose Trump are possessed by demons. 

A video from his show back in 2013 about the Obama administration:

 

Oh, this woman. She's good at saying a whole lot of nothing. I can't believe people think he's religious because he talks to this shyster. 

And don't get me started on Jim Bakker. You'd be better off getting your religious advice from one of those guys who goes to prison and then finds Jesus.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Jennifer Rubin: "I’m not buying the new conventional wisdom about Trump"

Spoiler

Oh, puh-leez. President Trump is not an “independent,” as right-wing Republicans now would like to believe. (Didn’t they spend the campaign trying to convince fellow Republicans that he was really a conservative?) Trump ran for the GOP nomination, captured the party and now hypes every bad idea that the party’s most extreme elements have espoused — tax cuts for the rich, anti-immigrant hysteria, fear-mongering on crime, know-nothingism on climate change, anti-government animus, and bigotry toward the LGBT community (hence the totally unnecessary ban on transgender recruits to the military). Much as Republicans might like to disown him, they cannot. They remain responsible for nominating the most unfit person ever to hold the office.

Between conservatives miffed about the debt ceiling and journalists pining for a “Trump surprised the political establishment” story line (a variation on the “pivot” stories), one would think Trump thought his deal out in advance and had a carefully constructed plan to reorganize the two-party system. From everything we know — including accounts from aides who discussed the game plan before the meeting — Trump acted on the spur of the moment, on impulse out of personal pique. (He really does not like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan). A new, “more presidential” Trump (how many times have we heard that?) did not emerge last week; the same narcissistic personality who puts his own “winning” above any other concern simply reappeared.

Democrats generally don’t want the president to do things, because most everything he wants to do, in their minds, is dangerous, foolish and/or hurts their constituents. They want the Trump of health care — stymied, erratic, frustrated and ignorant — to be the Trump of tax reform. They want him to make a mess, render a deal impossible and leave Republicans looking like dopes. Democrats have no illusions that they will pass a tax bill to their liking; they merely want Trump to hinder the Republicans’ chances of passing a tax bill that includes big giveaways to the richest Americans. And the latter is looking awfully promising at this point.

Republicans had oodles of problems on tax reform even before Trump made his deal on the debt ceiling. They don’t have savings from repeal of Obamacare to offset the huge revenue losses their plan would produce. Republicans cannot agree on how to pay for — or even whether they should pay for — tax cuts that largely benefit the rich. Pro-business Republicans want “full expensing” for capital investments; others want as flat a tax code as possible. Some insist tax reform is needed, while others just want cuts. The president, who gives speeches vague in content but that raise expectations sky-high, is of little help on substance (other than pushing real estate gimmicks). Worse, he is just as likely to undercut the House, as he did on health-care legislation, after House Republicans pass something as he is to push for Senate passage. When Obamacare backlash began, Trump decided the House’s bill was “mean”; if a tax plan tilted to the rich passes the House and stirs criticism one can easily imagine Trump trashing a bill he helped design.

Republicans should not fear that Trump will get through tax legislation that suits Democrats instead of Republicans; they should worry that whenever there is a chance to score points in his favor, he’ll be happy to cut their legs out from under them. One cannot construct tax legislation, which is always controversial insofar as it creates winners and losers, when congressional Republicans cannot trust or even predict what the president of their own party will do. Republicans likely will spend weeks flailing away, with periodic outbursts from Trump, only to have Trump bash them at the end, handing Democrats wonderful material for 2018 campaign ads. When Republicans and Trump fail to deliver on yet another GOP agenda item, “Chuck and Nancy” (as he now calls them) can offer him a deal on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. (Trump fixes DACA in exchange for making Republicans look bad, or something nearly as one-sided.)

Republicans backed an erratic, unstable man for president who cares only about his own wealth and glory. Now that they cannot cope with the political monster they created, they prefer to write him off as an independent? No way. Trump’s on you, Republicans.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Another good one from Jennifer: "What happens when know-nothings and amateurs hold power"

Spoiler

Consider the raft of ex-White House officials: Stephen K. Bannon, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci and Sebastian Gorka. None of them had governing experience, let alone White House experience. They all failed spectacularly, displaying qualities that are inappropriate to governance and lacking expertise, discipline and an appropriate temperament to serve in the White House. Michael Flynn had military experience but no White House or senior civilian service; his ethical lapses (e.g., not disclosing work for foreign governments, lying about contacts with Russians) arguably set in motion events that could lead to President Trump’s downfall.

Trump certainly exploited the notion that one doesn’t need expertise to serve in the West Wing — or any part of government. The experts were “stupid” and didn’t know how to make deals, according to him. Businessmen can show how to run things! Wrong. It turns out that knowing something about policy, understanding how Congress and the bureaucracy operate, maintaining one’s credibility and respecting the constitutional guardrails that make certain our president is not a monarch are essential to success.

In the Cabinet, likewise, arrogance, out-of-touchness and lack of political skill have undermined two of the most important secretaries. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s unwillingness to interact with employees beyond his tight-knit staff, dearth of media skills, lack of a sophisticated worldview (e.g., why we like democracies), slow pace and disdain for Congress render him ineffective and virtually invisible. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, worth nine figures and lacking any government experience, hasn’t a clue about how to deal with Congress. CNN reported:

House Republicans unleashed their fury Friday over President Donald Trump’s deal with the Democrats at Steve Mnuchin, with conservatives calling the treasury secretary’s appeal to them to “vote for it for me” insulting and inappropriate. Mnuchin, along with Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney went up to Capitol Hill shortly before a vote on the package, which included money for hurricane aid, a continuing resolution to keep the government open and a three-month extension of the debt ceiling.

Multiple House Republicans emerged infuriated and dissatisfied that they addressed their concerns that the deal wasn’t the right strategy to get some of the spending reforms they’ve been pushing.

It turns out — who knew? — that when the president has no idea what he’s doing and his senior advisers don’t either, the president cannot get his agenda through, ricochets from one scandal to another and winds up with historically low approval ratings.

Now consider two consummate professionals with long years of government service in administrations of both parties, who possess a clear understanding of how Congress and the press operate and have an abundance of competence and integrity. Former FBI director James B. Comey took his oath (to the Constitution) so seriously that Trump had to fire him, or tolerate an FBI director who would refuse to succumb to political pressure. Can’t have an independent FBI director! Then there is former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who did her job by alerting the White House as to Flynn’s misrepresentations about his Russia contacts and then refused to defend a de facto Muslim travel ban obviously premised on religious bigotry. She, too, couldn’t survive the Trump administration.

The pattern is not hard to discern. The unqualified riffraff Trump brought with him was/is not capable of doing jobs that are exceptionally demanding even for talented veterans of government. It’s not a good idea, after all, to appoint Tillerson to a post once held by Henry Stimson, George C. Marshall, Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, to name a few.

Business is business, and government is government. Sometimes public servants go on to illustrious careers in the private sector, but rarely does someone with no government experience nor subject expertise come in at the highest level of government and succeed. The government depends on experienced, knowledgeable and sober-minded public servants. We truly hope the rule of the amateurs and know-nothings is brief, and that the few experienced hands that remain (mostly military or ex-military men) hold things together until a fit president and an administration of qualified and competent people can be found.

Sadly, I think it's going to be a while before an "administration of qualified and competent people can be found."

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

And don't get me started on Jim Bakker. You'd be better off getting your religious advice from one of those guys who goes to prison and then finds Jesus.

Well, Bakker does sort of claim to have found God while incarcerated. 

In his 1996 book, Bakker claims that he had never read the Bible all the way through until he ended up in prison. He claims to have had a religious experience during this time, and also says that he learned that the prosperity gospel he taught during his PTL days was wrong. He does still claim to be innocent of the charges that landed him in prison, though. 

The most important thing to remember about Bakker, is that he believes that God wants Christians to be preppers, so you people better buy some of his damn doom buckets!

Heh, I'm starting to sound like I'm working on a degree about Jim Bakker and doom bucketology.  

[Howl]

21 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Just don't forget to ask Rufus to bless the United States, and wear a damn flag pin during your speech.

What about the hat? 

[PsyD2013]

If the lyrics were not so true, I would be able to laugh

 

[onekidanddone]

Is it January 20, 2020 yet?  Please tell me it is and Trump (or Pence) has to fly away on Marine One.

[fraurosena]

This should scare the shit out of every American voter.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Isn't this ironic? For someone who adores plastering his picture and name on everything, his administration can't distribute an official image: "After nine months, federal offices are still waiting to hang Trump’s picture"

Spoiler

In the lobby of every federal building, just inside security turnstiles and before the elevator banks, a framed photograph of the president has always hung on the wall.

Not so anymore. Nine months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, pictures of the president and Vice President Pence are missing from thousands of federal courthouses, laboratories, military installations, ports of entry, office suites and hallways, and from U.S. embassies abroad.

On the walls are empty picture hooks left when workers took down official portraits of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Jan. 20. Federal employees and visitors passing through the hallways since then have puzzled over the missing images, wondering why the traditional signal of the formal transition of power has yet to occur.

The changeover appears to be tangled in a bit of red tape and mystery.

Federal agencies ordered photographs of their new commander in chief months ago. But they say they are still waiting for the Government Publishing Office, the printer of official portraits, to send them for distribution by the General Services Administration, which owns or leases 9,600 federal buildings across the country.

The Government Publishing Office says it has yet to receive the images from the White House. And the White House says the president and vice president have not yet decided when they will sit for the type of high-quality official photographs usually churned out by the modern GPO, continuing a portrait tradition that began after the Civil War.

“GPO is standing by to reproduce copies of the president and the vice president’s photos for official use in federal facilities and will do so as soon as the official photo files are provided to us,” agency spokesman Gary Somerset said in email.

He added, “I do not have a timeline on when GPO will receive those files from the White House.”

The missing pictures might seem to be a minor matter in an administration consumed with hurricane relief, the North Korean nuclear threat, an investigation into Trump campaign contacts with Russians, illegal immigration and other issues.

Yet to some, the absence of the ubiquitous official photos is puzzling, considering the chief executive’s fame was propelled by reality television and he has never been reluctant to promote his image. Some agencies have been so determined to show the president’s photograph that they’ve improvised, downloading a scowling — and some say unflattering — photo of Trump posted on the White House website.

“You would think Trump would want his portrait spattered all over federal buildings,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who teaches at Rice University and has been critical of Trump.

Obama’s portrait was hung by the third month he was in office in 2009. The GPO printed more than 130,000 of his photographs in three sizes. Employees transferred the digital image from a computer to a printing plate and finally to one of the agency’s four color presses.

President Bill Clinton’s official photo was up by June 1993, the Associated Press reported.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay E. Walters said in a statement: “All agencies who have requested the President’s portrait have received a photo to display. We’re still in the process of creating the official portrait. Once it’s been produced, the White House photo office will distribute it to all of the agencies and other requests.”

The downloaded photos showing up at some government offices are photocopied and stuck into picture frames. The results can be pixelated or shadowy and too saturated. The president is in a dead-serious pose, with the U.S. flag and White House in the background.

Walters said agencies may also request a version of that portrait, as U.S. Customs and Border Protection has.

Still, the president’s image is missing, even in downloaded form, from most agencies — the State Department, the Energy Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to name a few.

Experts say the tradition still carries deep significance.

“It’s a recognition that the president is the leader of the country but also the leader of the government,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. “One aspect of that is to be physically manifested in the buildings.”

Michael Beschloss, another presidential historian, said the administration may just keep the makeshift image in place as a reflection of Trump’s view of the bureaucracy. “This act is intended to convey, deliberately or not, a president who wants to stand at one remove from his own federal government,” Beschloss said.

“If you look at official presidential portraits of the past half-century, the expression in virtually all of them is smiling or at least pleasant,” he said. “This one has a very fierce look, as if he wants to make sure that the world knows that he is a very tough guy.”

It’s not just the likeness of ­POTUS that’s missing. Many Cabinet secretaries’ images are absent, too, in some cases apparently because they don’t want to upstage the president.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s framed photo hangs in the agency’s Washington headquarters. But there is no photo of Secretary Ben Carson at HUD, or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the elegant, formal State Department lobby flanked by flags of the world.

“As soon as the White House official portraits of the President and Vice President are available, the State Department . . . will distribute the White House portraits and the official portrait of the Secretary of State to all offices as well as all posts abroad,” the agency said.

The empty walls are a stark contrast with the tenures of Tillerson’s predecessors, John F. Kerry and Hillary Clinton, whose photos greeting foreign diplomats and dignitaries covered the hallway.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s portrait went up in August, alongside the scowling-Trump image. The same Trump image is also up at the Defense Department headquarters at the Pentagon.

An official at another agency, who requested anonymity because he did not want to openly criticize the administration, was told by senior officials there that the photo of the president from the White House website was not an option because it is not official. “We are patiently waiting” for the GPO to print portraits, he said.

“We ordered hundreds of them back in January,” the official said. “I periodically ask what’s going on, because it’s noticed by employees in our agency that there’s nothing up.”

In February, the absence of a portrait left a Florida congressman who is a disabled veteran particularly unsettled when he visited a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Palm Beach for a medical appointment. Some of his constituents had called him to complain that the hospital had not hung photographs of the president and the new VA secretary.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) helped hang their photos. But the staff took them down later, apparently out of concern that they were not official.

VA Secretary David Shulkin quickly ordered 1,500 hospitals and clinics in the agency’s far-flung system to download an image of the president posted on the website, print it out and hang it (along with Shulkin’s photograph).

“Though our facilities have been following the correct protocol [by not hanging a photo], we realize that it is more important to display these temporary photos to demonstrate a clear chain of command and respect for our Veterans,” Shulkin’s directive said.

It will be swapped out for the official image, whenever that arrives, VA officials said.

My suggestion is that they use this image, since it is so reminiscent of the TT:

[fraurosena]

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Isn't this ironic? For someone who adores plastering his picture and name on everything, his administration can't distribute an official image: "After nine months, federal offices are still waiting to hang Trump’s picture"

>snip<

I don't get it. Both the presidunce's and penceywise's portraits have been finished for some time now. No need to delay hanging them.

 

 

[Flossie]

Isn't there  picture of Chump as a toddler?  Preferably looking grumpy or throwing a fit.  Photoshop his phone in one hand and make sure that his skin tone is orange-ish.

[sawasdee]

Can't they get even the simplest thing right? #chaoticwhitehouse

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo: "Trump could be removed for political incompetence — using the 25th Amendment"

Spoiler

Eric Posner is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

President Trump’s tenure has exposed a defect in our constitutional system: A president can be impeached and removed from office if convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. He can be removed, under the conventional understanding of the 25th Amendment, if he is incapacitated by mental or physical illness. But there is no obvious solution for a president who has not committed a crime or been disabled by illness, but has lost the confidence of the public because of a failure of temperament, ideology or ability.

The current understanding of the 25th Amendment should be enlarged so as to provide authority to address this problem, through creation of a Presidential Oversight Council empowered to recommend removal of the president on political rather than medical grounds. When both the president’s party and the opposing party lose confidence in the president’s ability to govern, the council would stand ready to evaluate him and make a recommendation to Congress. Congress would be required to vote on its recommendation.

Certainly, the authors of the 25th Amendment had in mind presidents who suffered from illness while in office, such as Woodrow Wilson after his stroke. But they deliberately used broad language that goes beyond psychological or physical disability. The amendment refers to a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” This language does not specifically refer to mental or physical factors as the source of the inability, and thus allows removal of a president whose incompetence results from other reasons — including a failure of temperament, ideology or ability.

The amendment explicitly authorizes Congress to create a “body” that, together with the vice president, is responsible for informing Congress that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. There is no requirement that medical professionals serve in that body. It may consist of whomever Congress chooses.

Congress should create such a council and staff it not with medical professionals (as proposed in a bill this spring by some Democrats in Congress), but with senior elected officials of both parties — the top Republican and Democratic elected officials in Congress, plus a few governors as well. The body would be required to meet periodically and verify that the president is able to discharge his powers and duties. Of course, it would be permitted to consult with medical and mental health experts, but they would not have any power to make decisions.

The council would consist of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and it would be able to declare the president’s unfitness based on a two-thirds majority vote. Such an arrangement means that the president would remain in office unless he lost significant support from his own party, including his own vice president. This would never happen — unless the president was truly incompetent.

But I mean incompetent in a political sense, not a mental sense. By politically incompetent, I mean incompetent to exercise the powers of the presidency in a way that meets the approval of the president’s party as well as the opposing party. This could be because the president’s values fall outside the mainstream (either they have changed while in office or he concealed them while running for office); he lacks the interest or attention span to inform himself about issues; or he lacks management abilities and is unable to govern effectively.

What would be the advantages of this council over impeachment? The problem we currently face is that Trump may be incompetent to hold office even if he has not committed crimes of sufficient weight to justify impeachment. Impeachments are oriented toward specific acts, akin to criminal trials, while the problem we currently face — and may face in the future — concerns the president’s character.

The Presidential Oversight Council, in contrast, would be able to evaluate the president’s overall ability based on all of his behavior in office. Because the council would be a standing body, oversight of the president would be normalized and wouldn’t require the sort of crisis that motivates impeachment proceedings.

Creating such a council would also produce some immediate practical effects. It would allow Republicans to demonstrate the gravity of their concerns about Trump’s behavior without forcing them to take a stand on impeachment, which would surely fail. It would be ready to spring into action if Trump, or any future president, showed signs of incapacity to govern. It would reinforce the notion that the president does not govern alone but must maintain the support of Congress and other institutions in the much-maligned but essential “political establishment.” And it would give notice to Trump and his aides that outrageous behavior will no longer be tolerated and is not shielded by the Constitution.

Sadly, the Repugs who are in control will never agree to this.

[sawasdee]

In the UK, we have the "vote of no confidence" in a Prime Minister. Since the PM is the leader of the majority (or, as at present, the plurality) party,  such a vote can only succeed when the PM has lost the confidence of at least some of their own party, or, in the case of a plurality, of their coalition partners.

If such a vote succeeds, the PM resigns. Sometimes this leads to a General Election (which can be held at any time less than five years after the previous one) and sometimes it leads to the election of a new party leader, and thus PM - although the former is more common. Margaret Thatcher was challenged for the leadership, and knew she would lose a no confidence vote - and resigned.

The US needs a similar device. A vote of no confidence, carried in both houses of Congress, should be enough to enforce the resignation of a President. Under the US Constitution, this would lead to the VP assuming office.

The US desperately needs a get out of jail card.