Trump 24: Fiddling, er, Tweeting While Rome Burns

[GrumpyGran]

10 minutes ago, WiseGirl said:

I too love that quote me but you are right, it is all too true. Wonder who missed their shift?

Pence. He was off indulging in a publicity stunt(secretly campaigning). But Dumpy told him to go. Or so he says. Win for both of them. Everybody else on staff says "Oh, shit!" Can't imagine what Monday morning in the West Wing is like.

[47of74]

 

I know this was from May but it's still relevant.

 

 

[VixenToast]

I've been learning Swedish in hopes that if it gets bad here, maybe I could go there. Hallå Svenskar. Jag tycker om kaffe. Nej, jag älskar kaffe!! Now I'm Swedish, because coffee, right? In reality, my grandmother was 99% Swedish (1% Danish), I actually do love coffee, and most importantly I totally want to live somewhere with laws like Sweden. And also, Sweden is beautiful.

 

(I can only think of two FJers from Sweden off the top of my head, though I'm sure there is more.)

I have no important skills to offer, and I am of very low income. I would never be accepted, sadly.

[GreyhoundFan]

48 minutes ago, VixenToast said:

I've been learning Swedish in hopes that if it gets bad here, maybe I could go there.

... and most importantly I totally want to live somewhere with laws like Sweden. And also, Sweden is beautiful.

I actually talked with a representative of the embassy of Iceland about moving there. Their laws are good for women, the weather is to my liking, and the standard of living is good. Unfortunately, it's not likely. I asked my manager if my company would consider opening an office there, but that's not going to happen.

[Palimpsest]

7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Their laws are good for women, the weather is to my liking, and the standard of living is good.

But, but, but ... would Sammy like it? My pups want to know.

[GreyhoundFan]

13 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

But, but, but ... would Sammy like it? My pups want to know.

I think so. He loves cold weather and adventures! However, I think my mother would be miserable if we both moved that far away and Sammy would miss seeing her. Grandma loves to spoil him, don't ya know?

[JMarie]

It's all Ivana's fault.  Thanks a lot, Ivana!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/ivana-trump-cbs-interview/index.html

Quote

Ivana Trump also said she still talks to her ex-husband weekly and has encouraged him in his Twitter habits.

"I said, 'I think you should tweet. It's a new way, a new technology. And if you want to get your words across rightly, without telling The New York Times, which is going to twist every single word of yours, this is how you get your message out,'" Trump said she told her ex-husband.

 

[GrumpyGran]

I am literally looking at real estate in Costa Rica right now.

[Rachel333]

One of Trump's tweet's today:

Quote

Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!

What?

[GrumpyGran]

5 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

One of Trump's tweet's today:

What?

...on the golf course. It was hard! Just getting in and out of the golf cart...

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s golf clubs in Scotland lost more than $24 million in 2016"

Spoiler

President Trump's two name-branded golf courses in Scotland lost more than $24 million in 2016 — more than twice what they'd lost the year before — as revenue from golfers and overnight guests dropped, according to documents filed with the British government.

The filings, one of which was first reported by the Associated Press, show that both clubs struggled even as their namesake became one of the most famous men in the world.

At Trump International Golf Links, a course that Trump opened in 2012 near Aberdeen on Scotland's northeast coast, losses increased 28 percent in 2016 to 1.4 million British pounds, or about $1.8 million.

The numbers were much larger at Trump Turnberry, a legendary 111-year-old course that he bought in 2014. There, losses more than doubled in 2016, to 17 million pounds, or $23 million.

A Trump Organization spokeswoman declined to comment.

Trump is not a beloved figure in the United Kingdom: Over the summer, a Pew Research Center poll found that only 22 percent of Britons had confidence that he would do the right thing.

But in the corporate filings, the Trump Organization did not blame politics for the declining revenue at its golf courses in Scotland. For the Aberdeen course losses, the Trump Organization instead blamed falling oil prices. The North Sea oil fields are an economic lifeline for the Aberdeen region, and the Trump Organization said locals spent less as prices fell.

At Trump Turnberry, the company said, the losses were caused partly by renovations that kept part of the resort closed for six months. The resort has since reopened, and the club opened a second golf course this year named after Scottish icon Robert the Bruce.

“The directors believe that the resort will return to profitability in the short to medium term,” wrote Eric Trump, the president's son, in the Turnberry filing.

These figures are the latest evidence that Trump's decision to retain ownership of his business — even while serving as president — has unleashed forces that are pulling his properties in opposite directions.

For some properties — the ones that can offer guests and members a hope of direct access to the president or his aides — the presidency seems to have been a boon. The Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where Trump spends his weekends in the winter, doubled its initiation fee in January. Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington — frequented by trade groups and foreign leaders seeking to curry favor with the administration — has seen revenue soar.

But other properties, deprived of presidential visits, have faltered. His golf courses in Los Angeles and the Bronx have reported declining revenue. His hotel in Manhattan's SoHo has reportedly contemplated layoffs.

The Scotland courses were clearly vulnerable to political backlash: To succeed in Scotland, he needs to attract wealthy foreign tourists to the Trump brand, even as his political brand is based on convincing Americans that foreigners are fleecing them.

The Scottish courses were a risky bet even before Trump got into politics. A Reuters investigation in 2016 found that Trump had invested hundreds of millions in each but had not come close to recouping his losses.

At the Aberdeen course, the Trump Organization's plans seem to rely on a massive development at the property, including a new golf course and thousands of homes. But those plans have been held up by Scottish authorities, who worry about environmental damage.

Trump had also hoped to attract the Scottish Open to that course, seeking to establish it as a premier destination for golf tourists. But this summer, the Scottish Open's corporate sponsor seemed to quash that idea.

“Trump, I don’t need to tell you, is a great golf course, but there are issues if we went there,” Martin Gilbert, chief executive of sponsor Aberdeen Asset Management, said in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper. “The worst thing would be if he came!”

At Turnberry, a visiting Washington Post reporter earlier this year spotted one sign that Trump's political persona seemed to be turning some customers off. The Post reporter was there to look for a fake Time magazine cover — with fake headlines celebrating Trump's success as a TV star — that had been hung up in a number of Trump golf clubs.

The cover had been hung in a bar at Turnberry. But by the time the reporter visited in June, it had been taken down and replaced by an old photo of the course.

Why had it come down? An employee said the reason wasn't because it was fake.

The actual reason: because it was a photo of Trump.

“We certainly have been hearing more grumbling about all the stuff like that up on the walls since his election,” the employee said. “From Americans, mostly, funny enough. That’s why we all assumed they started taking some of his photos off the walls.”

I'm surprised he hasn't tweeted anything nasty about Scotland.

[Rachel333]

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/10/08/donald-trump-defends-paper-towels-in-puerto-rico-says-stephen-paddock-was-probably-smart-in-bizarre-tv-interview-analysis.html

Quote

Trump, as he so often does, called the media “fake.” And then he, it seemed, took credit for coining the word “fake.”

“I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake.’ I guess other people have used it, perhaps, over the years, but I’ve never noticed it,” he said.

Trump would not have even been correct if he meant to refer specifically to the phrase “fake news.”

Uh...

[Destiny]

One of Trump's tweet's today:

Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!

What?

I forwarded that to one of my Puerto Rican friends today. The response included so many fucks even I blushed lol.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm surprised he hasn't tweeted anything nasty about Scotland.

I think he's scared the Scots will call him a bawbag again. 

[GrumpyGran]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump’s golf clubs in Scotland lost more than $24 million in 2016"

  Hide contents

President Trump's two name-branded golf courses in Scotland lost more than $24 million in 2016 — more than twice what they'd lost the year before — as revenue from golfers and overnight guests dropped, according to documents filed with the British government.

The filings, one of which was first reported by the Associated Press, show that both clubs struggled even as their namesake became one of the most famous men in the world.

At Trump International Golf Links, a course that Trump opened in 2012 near Aberdeen on Scotland's northeast coast, losses increased 28 percent in 2016 to 1.4 million British pounds, or about $1.8 million.

The numbers were much larger at Trump Turnberry, a legendary 111-year-old course that he bought in 2014. There, losses more than doubled in 2016, to 17 million pounds, or $23 million.

A Trump Organization spokeswoman declined to comment.

Trump is not a beloved figure in the United Kingdom: Over the summer, a Pew Research Center poll found that only 22 percent of Britons had confidence that he would do the right thing.

But in the corporate filings, the Trump Organization did not blame politics for the declining revenue at its golf courses in Scotland. For the Aberdeen course losses, the Trump Organization instead blamed falling oil prices. The North Sea oil fields are an economic lifeline for the Aberdeen region, and the Trump Organization said locals spent less as prices fell.

At Trump Turnberry, the company said, the losses were caused partly by renovations that kept part of the resort closed for six months. The resort has since reopened, and the club opened a second golf course this year named after Scottish icon Robert the Bruce.

“The directors believe that the resort will return to profitability in the short to medium term,” wrote Eric Trump, the president's son, in the Turnberry filing.

These figures are the latest evidence that Trump's decision to retain ownership of his business — even while serving as president — has unleashed forces that are pulling his properties in opposite directions.

For some properties — the ones that can offer guests and members a hope of direct access to the president or his aides — the presidency seems to have been a boon. The Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where Trump spends his weekends in the winter, doubled its initiation fee in January. Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington — frequented by trade groups and foreign leaders seeking to curry favor with the administration — has seen revenue soar.

But other properties, deprived of presidential visits, have faltered. His golf courses in Los Angeles and the Bronx have reported declining revenue. His hotel in Manhattan's SoHo has reportedly contemplated layoffs.

The Scotland courses were clearly vulnerable to political backlash: To succeed in Scotland, he needs to attract wealthy foreign tourists to the Trump brand, even as his political brand is based on convincing Americans that foreigners are fleecing them.

The Scottish courses were a risky bet even before Trump got into politics. A Reuters investigation in 2016 found that Trump had invested hundreds of millions in each but had not come close to recouping his losses.

At the Aberdeen course, the Trump Organization's plans seem to rely on a massive development at the property, including a new golf course and thousands of homes. But those plans have been held up by Scottish authorities, who worry about environmental damage.

Trump had also hoped to attract the Scottish Open to that course, seeking to establish it as a premier destination for golf tourists. But this summer, the Scottish Open's corporate sponsor seemed to quash that idea.

“Trump, I don’t need to tell you, is a great golf course, but there are issues if we went there,” Martin Gilbert, chief executive of sponsor Aberdeen Asset Management, said in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper. “The worst thing would be if he came!”

At Turnberry, a visiting Washington Post reporter earlier this year spotted one sign that Trump's political persona seemed to be turning some customers off. The Post reporter was there to look for a fake Time magazine cover — with fake headlines celebrating Trump's success as a TV star — that had been hung up in a number of Trump golf clubs.

The cover had been hung in a bar at Turnberry. But by the time the reporter visited in June, it had been taken down and replaced by an old photo of the course.

Why had it come down? An employee said the reason wasn't because it was fake.

The actual reason: because it was a photo of Trump.

“We certainly have been hearing more grumbling about all the stuff like that up on the walls since his election,” the employee said. “From Americans, mostly, funny enough. That’s why we all assumed they started taking some of his photos off the walls.”

I'm surprised he hasn't tweeted anything nasty about Scotland.

It's not big news yet so better he not draw attention to it. I notice he doesn't comment on how well his golf courses are doing. He can't actually blame one person for it so it's not worth the bad publicity.

[Botkinetti]

I want to thank everyone who contributes to all the political threads. I am in no way a political junkie but one day about a year and a half ago I had read everything available to a non-member and as a last resort started reading here. I don't know why it has fascinated me ever since. I couldn't have named your previous secretary of education but could now pick Betsy Devos out of a lineup.Trump horrifies me.

I am Canadian so most of the stuff doesn't really affect my life . Obviously trade negotiations may have real effect . I read and appreciate the linked articles. I love the cartoons. I know very few Americans so reading the cross section of opinions on contentious issues ie health care is very interesting.

Sorry for the rambling post . Really just wanted to thank you all.

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo's daily roundup is especially good today. This is the first part: "The Daily 202: Bob Corker tirade encapsulates five reasons why Trump has failed at governing"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s escalating feud with Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, captures in miniature why he’s been ineffective during his first nine months as president.

-- It’s unclear what exactly triggered the thin-skinned commander in chief to post three tweets attacking the Tennessee senator on Sunday morning. The most plausible explanation is that he was reacting to a segment on “Fox News Sunday.” The show aired a sound bite of Corker telling reporters last week that Rex Tillerson is one of three people in the administration who “separate our country from chaos.” That came in response to an NBC report that the secretary of state had called the president a “moron.”

“Senator Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement),” Trump tweeted. “He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said ‘NO THANKS.’ He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal! Hence, I would fully expect Corker to be a negative voice and stand in the way of our great agenda. Didn't have the guts to run!”

-- Corker, who has felt liberated since announcing his retirement last month, gleefully fired back. His office quickly went on the record to insist that Trump had, in fact, promised to endorse him, urged him not to retire and just last week asked him to reconsider his decision. The 65-year-old then tweeted this:

... < the day care tweet >

Fully uncorked, Corker then called a New York Times reporter to say that Trump’s reckless threats toward other countries could set the nation “on the path to World War III.” “He concerns me. He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation,” the chairman said during a 25-minute interview with Jonathan Martin. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”

Trump’s myopic impulse to counterpunch whenever he feels attacked caused him to lose another news cycle and will overshadow an immigration proposal that the White House planned to talk about today. It also underscored several of the factors that have caused the president so much trouble:

1) Trump is unserious about passing legislation.

Make no mistake, going after Corker will make it harder for Trump to get his way on both tax cuts and the Iran deal. The senator was quoted on the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post expressing concern about his party’s hypocrisy on the national debt. He says he will vote against any tax bill if he doesn’t think it will reduce the deficit.

If he sincerely cared about getting big bills done, he wouldn’t go to war with Corker. Especially when his party has a working majority of just two seats in the Senate.

Nine months in, with unified control of the government, Republicans have failed to pass a single significant piece of legislation into law. Trump has repeatedly gone all-in for health-care bills that subsequently failed. He’s threatened to shut down the government to get funding for his border wall — only to blink. Twice. He’s set deadlines and drawn red lines — only to see them ignored or blown past.

2) Trump has alienated several Senate Republicans that he needs more than they need him. Since taking office, Trump has criticized Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Dean Heller, Rand Paul and others by name. That doesn’t include several others he went after as a candidate, including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse.

Corker said that his concerns about Trump’s ability to govern are shared by nearly every Republican in the Senate. “Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he told the Times. “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

Going after Corker is like when Trump described the health bill that passed the House as “mean.” It makes it less likely that other lawmakers will go out on a limb for him. The president has triangulated against congressional Republicans for political purposes (i.e. having a scapegoat to justify his inability to deliver on his campaign promises) at the expense of substantive policy achievements.

3) Trump cares more about showmanship than statesmanship. In between his attacks on Corker, Trump praised Vice President Pence for walking out of an Indianapolis Colts game to protest players kneeling during the national anthem. The episode was a preplanned publicity stunt designed to fan the flames of outrage among Trump’s base and keep alive a divisive culture war that had been drifting out of the news.

Corker called Trump “a reality show” president last night, telling the Times that he acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

4) Trump still does not understand how government works. Much of what has gone haywire since January was a foreseeable consequence of electing someone with no prior government or military experience to lead the government.

Because he’s never been in government, Trump does not grasp how many things — big and small — that committee chairmen like Corker can do to thwart a president under the radar. Even if he doesn’t vote “no” on the tax cut bill, the outgoing senator is not going to be in any mood to do favors for Trump when the White House calls. Whenever Tillerson departs from Foggy Bottom, as an example, Corker will chair the confirmation hearing for his successor. He can easily hold up other nominees or initiatives, as well.

Corker, who is close with Tillerson, believes Trump is in way over his head. He is mad that the president undercut his chief diplomat’s negotiations with North Korea last weekend. “A lot of people think that there is some kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ act underway, but that’s just not true,” Corker told the Times. “I know he has hurt, in several instances, he’s hurt us as it relates to negotiations that were underway by tweeting things out.”

When asked whether Trump is fit to be president, Corker declined to directly answer. Instead, he replied that the president is not fully aware of the power of his office. “I don’t think he appreciates that when the president of the United States speaks and says the things that he does, the impact that it has around the world, especially in the region that he’s addressing,” Corker told the Times. “And so, yeah, it’s concerning to me.”

5) The president’s credibility is shot in Washington.

Trump claims Corker “begged” him for his endorsement. Corker says Trump repeatedly offered his support and called him just last week to ask him to change his mind about retiring. Someone is not telling the truth. Whom do you believe?

“I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true,” Corker told the Times. “You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does.”

Trump’s penchant for twisting the truth on things big and small makes it very hard for people to take him at his word. Remember, he categorically denied James Comey’s accounts of their one-on-one conversations — even though the ousted FBI director had written memos about them immediately after they took place. “This is why people take contemporaneous notes when they speak to the president,” quipped Preet Bharara, a U.S. attorney who was fired by Trump after being told he’d be kept on.

Because Trump always wants the last word, he tweeted about Corker last night for a fourth time after the Tennessean pushed back:

... < tweet from twitler >

In fact, Corker opposed the deal. (Read his August 2015 op-ed for The Washington Post: “Congress should reject the bad Iran deal.”)

-- What Corker does next will count the most in determining his legacy. “If he believes what he says, then as the chairman of the relevant committee in the Senate he has important tools to use,” James Fallows writes in The Atlantic. “He can issue subpoenas and summon executive branch witnesses as soon as he can get his colleagues back in town. He can draft legislation about the procedure, the grounds, and the justifications before the U.S. commits troops to war. …

“As it happens, there’s a convenient precedent for Corker to apply. Just over 50 years ago, his predecessor as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee was another man from the middle south: J. William Fulbright, of Arkansas. … In 1966 Fulbright decided to use his power as committee chairman to convene a high-level, merciless series of hearings on whether his fellow Democrat in the White House, Lyndon Johnson, was making a disastrous error with his deepening commitment to Vietnam.

“J. William Fulbright had his share of failings, notably alignment with the Old South segregationist forces in the Senate. … But Fulbright was on the right side of history in doing everything he could to change a course of disastrous error set by his own party’s president. He is rightly honored for his foresight, toughness, and courage in taking that stand. And he had at his disposal exactly the tools that Bob Corker will have through the 15 months left in his term: chairmanship of one of the Senate’s most important committees. … (Fulbright) didn’t manage to avert that era’s war. Maybe (Corker) can be remembered for doing better to head off this era’s catastrophe.”

...

 

[GrumpyGran]

28 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The WaPo's daily roundup is especially good today. This is the first part: "The Daily 202: Bob Corker tirade encapsulates five reasons why Trump has failed at governing"

  Reveal hidden contents

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s escalating feud with Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, captures in miniature why he’s been ineffective during his first nine months as president.

-- It’s unclear what exactly triggered the thin-skinned commander in chief to post three tweets attacking the Tennessee senator on Sunday morning. The most plausible explanation is that he was reacting to a segment on “Fox News Sunday.” The show aired a sound bite of Corker telling reporters last week that Rex Tillerson is one of three people in the administration who “separate our country from chaos.” That came in response to an NBC report that the secretary of state had called the president a “moron.”

“Senator Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement),” Trump tweeted. “He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said ‘NO THANKS.’ He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal! Hence, I would fully expect Corker to be a negative voice and stand in the way of our great agenda. Didn't have the guts to run!”

-- Corker, who has felt liberated since announcing his retirement last month, gleefully fired back. His office quickly went on the record to insist that Trump had, in fact, promised to endorse him, urged him not to retire and just last week asked him to reconsider his decision. The 65-year-old then tweeted this:

... < the day care tweet >

Fully uncorked, Corker then called a New York Times reporter to say that Trump’s reckless threats toward other countries could set the nation “on the path to World War III.” “He concerns me. He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation,” the chairman said during a 25-minute interview with Jonathan Martin. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”

Trump’s myopic impulse to counterpunch whenever he feels attacked caused him to lose another news cycle and will overshadow an immigration proposal that the White House planned to talk about today. It also underscored several of the factors that have caused the president so much trouble:

1) Trump is unserious about passing legislation.

Make no mistake, going after Corker will make it harder for Trump to get his way on both tax cuts and the Iran deal. The senator was quoted on the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post expressing concern about his party’s hypocrisy on the national debt. He says he will vote against any tax bill if he doesn’t think it will reduce the deficit.

If he sincerely cared about getting big bills done, he wouldn’t go to war with Corker. Especially when his party has a working majority of just two seats in the Senate.

Nine months in, with unified control of the government, Republicans have failed to pass a single significant piece of legislation into law. Trump has repeatedly gone all-in for health-care bills that subsequently failed. He’s threatened to shut down the government to get funding for his border wall — only to blink. Twice. He’s set deadlines and drawn red lines — only to see them ignored or blown past.

2) Trump has alienated several Senate Republicans that he needs more than they need him. Since taking office, Trump has criticized Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Dean Heller, Rand Paul and others by name. That doesn’t include several others he went after as a candidate, including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse.

Corker said that his concerns about Trump’s ability to govern are shared by nearly every Republican in the Senate. “Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he told the Times. “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

Going after Corker is like when Trump described the health bill that passed the House as “mean.” It makes it less likely that other lawmakers will go out on a limb for him. The president has triangulated against congressional Republicans for political purposes (i.e. having a scapegoat to justify his inability to deliver on his campaign promises) at the expense of substantive policy achievements.

3) Trump cares more about showmanship than statesmanship. In between his attacks on Corker, Trump praised Vice President Pence for walking out of an Indianapolis Colts game to protest players kneeling during the national anthem. The episode was a preplanned publicity stunt designed to fan the flames of outrage among Trump’s base and keep alive a divisive culture war that had been drifting out of the news.

Corker called Trump “a reality show” president last night, telling the Times that he acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

4) Trump still does not understand how government works. Much of what has gone haywire since January was a foreseeable consequence of electing someone with no prior government or military experience to lead the government.

Because he’s never been in government, Trump does not grasp how many things — big and small — that committee chairmen like Corker can do to thwart a president under the radar. Even if he doesn’t vote “no” on the tax cut bill, the outgoing senator is not going to be in any mood to do favors for Trump when the White House calls. Whenever Tillerson departs from Foggy Bottom, as an example, Corker will chair the confirmation hearing for his successor. He can easily hold up other nominees or initiatives, as well.

Corker, who is close with Tillerson, believes Trump is in way over his head. He is mad that the president undercut his chief diplomat’s negotiations with North Korea last weekend. “A lot of people think that there is some kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ act underway, but that’s just not true,” Corker told the Times. “I know he has hurt, in several instances, he’s hurt us as it relates to negotiations that were underway by tweeting things out.”

When asked whether Trump is fit to be president, Corker declined to directly answer. Instead, he replied that the president is not fully aware of the power of his office. “I don’t think he appreciates that when the president of the United States speaks and says the things that he does, the impact that it has around the world, especially in the region that he’s addressing,” Corker told the Times. “And so, yeah, it’s concerning to me.”

5) The president’s credibility is shot in Washington.

Trump claims Corker “begged” him for his endorsement. Corker says Trump repeatedly offered his support and called him just last week to ask him to change his mind about retiring. Someone is not telling the truth. Whom do you believe?

“I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true,” Corker told the Times. “You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does.”

Trump’s penchant for twisting the truth on things big and small makes it very hard for people to take him at his word. Remember, he categorically denied James Comey’s accounts of their one-on-one conversations — even though the ousted FBI director had written memos about them immediately after they took place. “This is why people take contemporaneous notes when they speak to the president,” quipped Preet Bharara, a U.S. attorney who was fired by Trump after being told he’d be kept on.

Because Trump always wants the last word, he tweeted about Corker last night for a fourth time after the Tennessean pushed back:

... < tweet from twitler >

In fact, Corker opposed the deal. (Read his August 2015 op-ed for The Washington Post: “Congress should reject the bad Iran deal.”)

-- What Corker does next will count the most in determining his legacy. “If he believes what he says, then as the chairman of the relevant committee in the Senate he has important tools to use,” James Fallows writes in The Atlantic. “He can issue subpoenas and summon executive branch witnesses as soon as he can get his colleagues back in town. He can draft legislation about the procedure, the grounds, and the justifications before the U.S. commits troops to war. …

“As it happens, there’s a convenient precedent for Corker to apply. Just over 50 years ago, his predecessor as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee was another man from the middle south: J. William Fulbright, of Arkansas. … In 1966 Fulbright decided to use his power as committee chairman to convene a high-level, merciless series of hearings on whether his fellow Democrat in the White House, Lyndon Johnson, was making a disastrous error with his deepening commitment to Vietnam.

“J. William Fulbright had his share of failings, notably alignment with the Old South segregationist forces in the Senate. … But Fulbright was on the right side of history in doing everything he could to change a course of disastrous error set by his own party’s president. He is rightly honored for his foresight, toughness, and courage in taking that stand. And he had at his disposal exactly the tools that Bob Corker will have through the 15 months left in his term: chairmanship of one of the Senate’s most important committees. … (Fulbright) didn’t manage to avert that era’s war. Maybe (Corker) can be remembered for doing better to head off this era’s catastrophe.”

...

 

I agree with all of these points except number one. I think he's serious about passing legislation, he just doesn't know how to do it. He believes he just tells people to do something and they do it.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Trump claims Corker “begged” him for his endorsement. Corker says Trump repeatedly offered his support and called him just last week to ask him to change his mind about retiring. Someone is not telling the truth. Whom do you believe?

Trump is always saying that someone begged him to do something or not to do something, and my default position is to assume that he's a lying jackass. If Donald Trump told me it was a beautiful sunny day, I'd grab a raincoat and umbrella before going outside.

Also, I saw on Twitter that Trump was going golfing this morning. Our tax dollars at work again. 

[GrumpyGran]

32 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Trump is always saying that someone begged him to do something or not to do something, and my default position is to assume that he's a lying jackass. If Donald Trump told me it was a beautiful sunny day, I'd grab a raincoat and umbrella before going outside.

Also, I saw on Twitter that Trump was going golfing this morning. Our tax dollars at work again. 

I think he's in a bad place right now. So, golf, need golf, must golf. Russia isn't going away, the kids are picking up some flak. Now he doesn't care what happens to the boys but he doesn't want blow back on him. He probably knows better than to believe them as to what they have or haven't done and nobody else will tell him so he's blind there.

That little shit in North Korea didn't back down. He has this Iran thing and no matter how many times Kelly, Mattis and Tillerson try to explain it, he can't understand it.

Ivana's yammering and there's a book and he's scared of what's in it. His freaking wife who can barely speak English has better ratings than him. He's terrified he may have to go deal with people who have suffered some kind of crisis again because that cuts into golf time. And he's not sure he can trust Pence so he's having to test him. And people keep nagging him about pissing off Republican Senators. I see a vacation coming up.

[GreyhoundFan]

Meow! The claws are out: "Ivana Trump says she’s the ‘first lady.’ Melania Trump’s office claps back."

Spoiler

Things are getting a little “Real Housewives” around the White House.

In one of the stranger sideshows to his presidency, President Trump’s first and third wives, Ivana and Melania, respectively, on Monday had a very public war of words — and his second wife, Marla Maples, is getting some shade out of the spat, to boot.

Here’s a breakdown: To promote her new book, “Raising Trump,” about parenting Trump’s three eldest children, Ivana Trump gave a Monday interview to “Good Morning America” in which she made some comments sure to privately raise the hackles of the woman occupying the role of Wife of Donald.

“I’m basically first Trump wife. Okay?” Ivana Trump said. “I’m first lady.”

She offered faux sympathy for Melania Trump, saying  “I think for her to be in Washington must be terrible.” (She had less subtle insults for her ex’s second wife, Marla Maples. “A showgirl” was her epithet of choice.)

But instead of letting those slights ride, Melania Trump took a page out of her husband’s playbook, the one that famously decrees he hit back harder at anyone who takes a swing. Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, dispatched a crisp response dismissing Ivana’s remarks as “attention seeking” from someone who just wants to sell books and making clear that Melania Trump does not, in fact, hate her Washington life.

“Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, DC and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books,” Grisham’s response said.

And the coda is the real clap-back: “There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex, this is unfortunately only attention-seeking and self-serving noise.”

The high-profile drama managed to get a double-take out of even those of us numbed from the daily barrage of eye-popping headlines. We might have gotten used to a pugnacious president willing to take on nasty and personal public fights with NFL players and senators alike, but it’s more unusual for the first lady step into the ring.

It seemed to surprise even Andy Cohen, the Bravo producer known for engineering table-overturning fights on the “Real Housewife” franchise. “This is actually happening,” he tweeted. “ All the wives are fighting. Even I AM SPEECHLESS”

...

This all started innocently enough. Ivana Trump has a book to promote.  Her new memoir drops in less than 24 hours, and she’s doing a publicity blitz. In the midst of that storm Trump, revealed that she has a direct line to the White House and her ex-husband, but she doesn’t use it lest the current Mrs. Trump get the wrong idea.

“I [don’t] really want to call him there, because Melania is there. And I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that, because I’m basically first Trump wife. Okay? I’m first lady,” she said.

Okay!

But she feels for Melania Trump, she really does.

“I think for her to be in Washington must be terrible,” said Trump of the actual first lady. “It’s better her than me. I would hate Washington.”

Hating Washington, however, does not preclude her ability to rule it with an iron fist, if she had the inclination, the former Mrs. Trump made sure to note.

“Would I straighten up the White House in 14 days? Absolutely. Can I give the speech for 45 minutes without [a] teleprompter? Absolutely. Can I read a contract? Can I negotiate? Can I entertain? Absolutely. But I would not really like to be there. I like my freedom,” Ivana Trump said, in what could also be perceived as a dig against Melania Trump.

If all of this feels a little bizarre… well, that’s because it is. At the very least, it’s unprecedented to have a president with a living ex willing to weigh in publicly on the first couple.

Widowers with second wives have occupied the White House, but other than Trump, there’s been only one divorced president: Ronald Reagan, though his first wife, the actress Jane Wyman, was famously silent on her former husband throughout his political career.

Divorced in 1948, Wyman revealed in a 1968 interview her reason for keeping quiet about Reagan, who by then was remarried to future first lady Nancy Regan. It wasn’t because she was bitter or disagreed with him politically, she said. “It’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that’s all.”

I guess this is the spinoff of the reality show presidency.

[onekidanddone]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I guess this is the spinoff of the reality show presidency.

Distraction time. Trump must be up to something.  An executive order, starting a war or having a cabinet member fired resign

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump never had a good relationship with Latino voters. It’s only getting worse."

Spoiler

When President Trump said a few weeks ago that he wanted to find a way to continue protecting young “dreamers” from deportation, some Republicans touted the possibility of a “Nixon goes to China” moment that could reset the president’s deeply frayed relationship with Latino voters.

But ever since, Trump has returned to antagonizing this growing segment of the electorate — including proposing new hard-line immigration measures Sunday — deepening a rift that many in his party fear will do lasting damage to the GOP’s ability to win future elections.

Trump’s hostile rhetoric and actions toward Latinos, Republican strategists say, could not only undercut candidates in competitive 2018 races and make the White House harder to retain in 2020 but also further tarnish a GOP brand that party leaders have struggled for years to sell to skeptical Latino voters.

“A whole generation of minority voters is essentially hearing the GOP tell them, ‘We don’t like you,’ ” said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “That might not have sunk the GOP against a flawed candidate like Hillary Clinton, but the demographics are moving into a direction where this will be political suicide.”

Trump’s actions have already hurt Republicans’ ability to recruit Latino candidates to run for local and state offices. And they’ve become fodder in this year’s Virginia governor’s race, as well as contests in states such as New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida, where an energized Latino turnout could tip what are expected to be competitive elections next year.

The latest source of tension is the president’s announcement last month that he plans to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a popular Obama-era initiative that provides work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived here as children; Trump calls it “unconstitutional.”

Trump said he would work with Congress to find a way to protect the 690,000 “dreamers” enrolled in the program. But on Sunday, the White House said what he wants in return includes the funding of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a crackdown on the influx of Central American minors and curbs on federal grants to “sanctuary cities,” all policies seen as hostile by Latinos.

Trump continues to face criticism over his administration’s response to the severe damage Hurricane Maria did in Puerto Rico.

In just the past few days, Trump has offered a cringe-worthy pronunciation of “Puerto Rico” while speaking at a Hispanic Heritage Month event, appeared insensitive by tossing rolls of paper towels at victims of Hurricane Maria and persisted in a feud with the mayor of San Juan, who has begged for more assistance in the wake of the storm.

In Virginia, which will elect a new governor next month, Trump waded into the campaign by endorsing GOP candidate Ed Gillespie in a tweet — which also charged that Democratic candidate Ralph Northam supports the MS-13 street gang — all while Gillespie is airing TV ads that seek to tie Northam, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, to the violent gang whose membership is mostly Latino.

Claims in the ad have been labeled misleading by nonpartisan fact-checkers and racist by immigration advocates. At issue is a tiebreaking vote Northam cast in the state Senate against a bill that would have banned sanctuary cities. But Virginia does not have any of these municipalities, a fact that Gillespie has acknowledged.

The president — whose job-approval rating has dipped to 16 percent among Hispanics, according to Gallup — also became a central issue in a special Florida state Senate race last month in a heavily Latino Miami-area district that flipped from red to blue. The losing candidate had appeared on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

The unsuccessful GOP contender, state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, had also joined a White House advisory board of Latino leaders and touted his close ties to Trump, even posting a selfie of the two. But when Democrats made an issue of it, Diaz deleted the photo.

An ad paid for by a Florida Democratic campaign committee began with candidate Annette Taddeo turning off a television on her kitchen counter that was showing images of Trump.

“Families are too busy to worry about this drama,” she said before accusing Diaz of supporting “Trump’s every move,” including plans to cut Medicare funding and revamp the Affordable Care Act.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a presidential battleground state where the Latino population is exploding, there’s been an uptick in registration by voters identifying themselves as Hispanic in the months since Trump took office — an encouraging sign, Democratic consultants there say.

Trump boosters say concerns about his standing with Latino voters are overstated, arguing that if the president continues to preside over a strong economy and create jobs, Republicans will be rewarded by voters across the board, including Latinos.

Trump, who kicked off his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists,” has provided plenty of reasons for Latino voters to be suspicious, including his pardon in August of Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was held in contempt of court for racial profiling.

Gallup polling suggests that there has yet to be a permanent realignment of party loyalties under Trump. As of last month, half of Hispanic adults identified themselves as Democrats or leaning Democratic, about twice as many as identify with Republicans. That is virtually unchanged since 2008.

But many GOP party leaders have long argued that the status quo isn’t good enough. Following Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2012 presidential race, the RNC commissioned an “autopsy” report that explored the party’s lackluster support among Latinos and emphasized a need to reach out to these voters.

“I think one can safely say that Donald Trump has not taken the 2012 autopsy report to heart,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster. “To this point, there hasn’t been much by the way of initiatives or language or tone that would attract anyone who’s not already in his corner.”

An American National Election Studies poll showed Trump winning 23 percent of the Latino electorate last year. Some Democratic-leaning pollsters argue that overstates his support.

Across the country, Republican consultants said they know of many cases of Latinos taking a pass on running for office because they did not want to be tied to Trump.

Juan Hernandez, who has advised Texas GOP candidates for decades, recalled trying to persuade a well-known Latino in Texas to run for Congress, but the potential contender took a pass, telling him, “I’m a Christian, I’m a Latino, and I’m a Republican, but I can’t be associated with Trump.”

“I get calls all the time from Latinos like that all the time,” Hernandez said, confessing that he doesn’t have a good answer. “It’s very, very, very difficult.”

Leslie Sanchez, a Houston-based Latino GOP operative, agreed that candidate recruitment and cultivating younger Hispanics should be top-of-mind concerns.

“You have Gen Y, Gen Z, kind of young students in their high school or formative years in college who already believe that the president doesn’t like them,” she said. “And it’s taken an entire generation to reverse some of the falsehoods that the Republican brand had in some minority communities, and this devastates that.”

Mike Madrid, a Latino GOP consultant based in California, said part of the problem is that “DACA is a hugely important issue, especially with the emotion and energy, unlike some of the others where you can roll your eyes and say it’s Trump being Trump.”

“Will Trump ever get majority support of Latinos? No, it’s too late,” Madrid said. “But can he shore it up a little bit? Yes, absolutely.”

Sanchez said that based on polling and focus groups, she believes Latino support for Republicans has to be gauged state by state.

While the GOP is slipping in the western states of Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, the party is still performing well in states such as Florida, which is larger and more urban, with Latinos who hail from Cuba, Venezuela and Puerto Rico — where illegal immigration is not as relevant or as immediate.

Meanwhile, among Spanish-speaking Latinos, there is a “visceral” response to the GOP brand, Sanchez said.

“Republicans are going to have an extraordinarily difficult time separating the Republican brand from Donald Trump among young Latinos,” she warned.

In states with sizable Hispanic populations, Democratic gubernatorial candidates have already tried to highlight the uncertainty surrounding DACA.

In Florida, one of 36 states with governor’s races next year, Democratic candidate Gwen Graham seized on Trump’s initial announcement, calling it “utterly devoid of humanity.” In a statement, she also targeted her potential GOP opponents on the issue, accusing one of “leaving 50,000 Floridians in limbo.”

Jennifer Duffy, a senior editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said she expects Democrats to continue to make links between GOP opponents and Trump.

“It’s not just on immigration,” she said. “There’s a whole list of things. Hurricane Maria didn’t help.”

An Associated Press poll found that Trump received particularly low marks from Hispanics for his handling of the response. Roughly 1 in 3 Americans overall approved of the response, while roughly 1 in 5 Hispanics did.

Rick Wilson, a Florida-based GOP strategist, said one problem with Trump’s response is that it gives Latino voters something vivid to remember, much as George W. Bush’s detached response to Hurricane Katrina was damaging. Among other things, Trump said in a tweet that Puerto Ricans wanted “everything to be done for them.”

“There’s an anecdotal power with Katrina or Maria,” Wilson said. “People find something to latch onto. ‘Bush left us to die.’ ‘Trump said we’re lazy.’ ”

 

[Cartmann99]

29 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, DC and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books,” Grisham’s response said.

Bless your heart, Stephanie! Is February too far back for you to remember?

Quote

First lady Melania Trump is -- in and of herself -- a "brand," one that could elicit lucrative endorsement opportunities, according to a lawsuit refiled by her attorneys on Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court, argues a now-retracted Daily Mail Online article published last August that falsely alleged the first lady once worked for an escort service has damaged her reputation to the tune of many millions of dollars. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages of at least $150 million, according to the filing.

"(Melania Trump), as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman" had the opportunity to potentially earn millions based on the fact that she is "one of the most photographed women in the world," according to the suit.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politics/melania-trump-lawsuit-earning-potential/index.html

Look, all of the adult Trumps are greedy grifters, so tell Melania to climb down off her moral stilettos, because she's just as interested in peddling her wares as the rest of them.

[onekidanddone]

54 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, DC and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books,” Grisham’s response said.

Oh my let me clutch my pearls!  Won't anybody help the children'?

Such empty vapid and vague words. Who are these children and how is she going to help them? If she cared about the children she would speak out against her husband and his polices.

Just say'n

ETA: Mrs Trump III may not be use her title to sell books, but her step daughter sure is.