Trump 37: Tweeting instead of Leading

[fraurosena]

Wow. That letter is something indeed. What a polite way to snark on presiduncial policies. It will fly over the presidunce's head completely, of course. Mattis has risen somewhat in my regard now. 

[AmazonGrace]

Wheels of the bus are coming off, there's a Nazi yelling on CNN and the president of the USA is batshit crazy but other than that things are going great. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Trump isn’t playing five-dimensional chess"

Spoiler

The days of Republicans praising President Trump as a Svengali of politics, a master of the media and distraction, are surely over. Around Trump there is simply destructive — and self-destructive — chaos. Instead of celebrating the passage of a criminal-justice reform bill, Trump lurched into a disastrous withdrawal from Syria, which makes sense only if you imagine it’s a Christmas present for Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Trump first claimed the Islamic State was defeated; then he said Russia, Iran and Syria would not like the pullout since they would have to fight the Islamic State. That’s incoherent, and of course Putin publicly applauded Trump’s retreat.)

As that disastrous move was reverberating on Capitol Hill, Trump then threw the country and his party under the bus by declaring he wouldn’t sign a short-term funding bill.

The Post reports:

Trump’s opposition to the deal has dramatically increased the chances of a partial shutdown at the end of Friday, when funding for large parts of the government is set to expire.

House Republicans now will attempt to add an amendment to the Senate measure that adds $5 billion — the amount Trump has demanded — for the construction of a border wall and other security measures, as well as additional funding to deal with recent natural disasters.

The measure could fail in the House because Democrats there oppose it, and it ultimately has almost no chance of passing the Senate.

Hearing right-wing commentators bellyache that they weren’t getting their wall was too much for this thin-skinned president.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was somewhere between bemused and incredulous. He asked, “So what’s the endgame here? What is the endgame of those who are demanding the president not sign the CR, that the House not pass the CR?” He continued, “It seems, unfortunately, the Trump temper tantrum is spreading like a contagion down Pennsylvania Avenue to the allies in the House. Trump’s allies in the House can pound their fists on the table all they want, but it’s not going to get a wall. They can — having caught the Trump temper tantrum fever — jump up and down, yell and scream, but it’s not going to get a wall.”

Moreover, the shutdown will be costly, not simply because it projects incompetence, dysfunction and presidential unfitness. The cost of shutting down the government is not insignificant, nor is the cost of restarting it. Non-"essential" government employees are temporarily sent home but invariably paid for the time missed after the shutdown ends. Moreover, “The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that the 2013 shutdown of a little more than two weeks directly reduced GDP for the fourth quarter of that year by 0.3 percentage points. The bureau attributed that to the lost productivity of federal workers who were furloughed.” (In 2017 a shutdown was averted, but it was estimated it would have cost $6.5 billion a week.)

Public polling shows the shutdown to be highly unpopular. Trump has already said he’d be “proud to shut down the government," so it’s hard to see how he’d now point to Democrats as the troublemakers. Since the wall itself is also unpopular, one can imagine the blowback to any shutdown will be even more pronounced.

From all appearances, this is simply a president who is desperate, out of control and without restraints. He is politically isolated, and with each new outburst he cements the conclusion he is irrational and unfit to govern. Those staffers who, like the New York Times anonymous op-ed author, think they are saving the country from harm by serving him have been deluding themselves for some time. And outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who keeps insisting in his last days in office that he has been a grand success, looks more feeble than any other.

Whether the government shuts down or not, Trump has made an excellent case for getting him out of office as soon as possible — and handing the White House and the Senate over to a party that actually wants to govern.

 

[onekidanddone]

My life right now

• I'm now on furlough with no guarantee I'm not going to be paid for who knows how long
• My husband who has been out of work for a while has been able to get some short time work for the past few weeks so we have a tiny cushion but not by much.
• My daughter needs to have her summer camp paid for soon or she isn't going. She has been going there since 2012 and I need to come thorough for her on this.   I'm  thinking of asking for a scholarship
• I've just had major dental work with a huge extraction from my wallet.
• Oh and yea It is Christmas and I my husband's family always gives Christmas presents to each other. We just don't have the cash for much. 
• I fear I'm going to have to dig into my emergency account. So bills and mortgage will get paid for a while,

What happens my  COBRA runs out?  Husband, daughter and I all have preexisting conditions which most insurance companies wouldn't touch us with a 10 foot poll. 

Okay that is all.  I'm going to get myself a big dish of triple fudge ice cream.

 

[47of74]

What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

 And Megan Mullally - who appeared in that video - had this response....

 

[mamallama]

Did this just happen?  OMG how humiliating.

 

[CTRLZero]

24 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

He should have stayed in this role and not, you know, ruined the whole world.  Yikes!

[fraurosena]

Sweet baby Rufus born in sunny spring.

No wonder Mattis resigned.

 

[Dandruff]

What are those troops going to be assigned to do next - build a wall?

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Dandruff said:

What are those troops going to be assigned to do next - build a wall?

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if that actually s his plan. He's been tweeting that the military will build the wall for the last couple of days now.

[formergothardite]

Isn't there some way to stop him from doing this? It seems like there some be some checks or balances here to prevent him from fucking up the military like this. 

[AmazonGrace]

I guarantee you somebody he knows has invested in steel slats 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 Narrator: Trump is unable to close an umbrella

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump always said he wouldn’t be predictable. The consequences are on display this week."

Spoiler

President Trump pledged in his campaign that he would not be predictable. He’s more than lived up to that promise this week, and along the way, he has made a hash out of the way business is being done in Washington.

Three times this week, Trump abruptly and unexpectedly changed course, lending credence to perceptions of a presidency in chaos. The biggest bombshell came Thursday afternoon when Trump announced that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would leave the administration at the end of February, and Mattis’s resignation letter explicitly stated that he and the president were not in alignment on major policy issues or on America’s role in the world.

The Mattis news rattled nerves in Washington and no doubt in capitals around the world. It came at the end of another roller coaster day in the history of a presidency that has had many of them. The day began with Trump, for the second time in a week, reversing course on funding for a border wall. He demanded that Congress include funds for the wall, just as a compromise bill without the money he wants was making its way through Congress in an effort to avert a government shutdown this weekend.

Trump’s allies were already reeling from the announcement via tweet on Wednesday that he was ordering the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. On this announcement, there was no warning to U.S. allies or to members of Congress, including many in his party who opposed the move — no warning even to some in his administration.

Trump is, by his own words, a dealmaker without peer, but his volatility overwhelms his reliability. He demonstrated anew this week that he can change his mind at any moment. Those around him are left to adapt, to pick up the pieces, to explain as best they can — including those whose advice he has spurned or whose words have been shredded by his actions. In this case, it appeared to have cost him the services of his defense secretary.

Give the president some credit. His goals remain fixed. He wants a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, or at least he wants the issue of demanding one to use against Democrats, who oppose the wall.

He wants the most robust military in the world, but he doesn’t seem to want to use it. He has been consistent in questioning the commitment of U.S. forces in trouble spots such as Syria and Afghanistan. On national security policy, he remains a rhetorically muscular noninterventionist. With the announcement on Syria, the focus quickly shifted to the question of whether he would order a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

However consistent he has been in enunciating goals, though, he has not shown much mastery of navigating the legislative process or of developing support from allies for his foreign policy objectives. He leads by impulse, by upending the status quo, leaving friends and adversaries to scramble.

This is not an entirely unsuccessful approach. His trade policies, for example, have roiled relationships, but he has gotten the attention of China, whose policies have been criticized by past presidents and leaders in other nations for years. For that, other nations are no doubt grateful, even if no one is certain how the ongoing dispute will be resolved or when. This week, he signed a new farm bill, and he will soon be able to sign a criminal justice reform bill that was approved with overwhelming, bipartisan support.

But the turmoil that goes along with those successes has badly strained the system, and these past few days have highlighted that reality once again. The path he has followed in pursuit of $5 billion in funding for a border wall in the latest spending bill is emblematic of his unorthodox — some would call it destructive — governing style.

He staged an Oval Office argument with House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). He was told he didn’t have the votes for the $5 billion he wanted. He said he would take a shutdown rather than a walk back.

Alarmed Republican allies in Congress, who wanted no part of a shutdown if possible, began pressing for a way out, and earlier in the week, it appeared they had gotten the attention of the White House when the announcement came that it would look for other ways to fund the wall. Meanwhile, the president continued the fiction that taxpayers would not be paying for the wall. Not even the fuzziest of math could make that explanation credible.

Trump’s retreat early in the week was enough to get Congress to move toward an agreement on a short-term bill to keep the government open until after the new year, without the $5 billion Trump was demanding.

Few Republican members of Congress wanted to make this fight at this moment, against united Democratic opposition. But the story line of the funding fight included the claim that Trump had once again caved on a central promise of his candidacy, that he had blustered and then backed down.

On Thursday morning, the dam broke at the White House, and congressional leaders were put in a near-impossible position to find a solution. Congress has until Friday night to find a new way to avoid a government shutdown. The president said he would shoulder the blame if the shutdown occurs. What lawmakers would probably appreciate more than that is for the president to become part of the solution, rather than adding to the problems they already have.

The president’s explanation for the decision to withdraw troops from Syria went through a series of rewritings. Trump’s initial tweet stated that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, had been defeated in Syria and that that was why the troops could come home. “We have won against ISIS,” he said in a White House video. “We’ve beaten them, and we’ve beaten them badly. We’ve taken back the land, and now it’s time for our troops to come back home.”

In doing so, he ignored statements over months from others in his administration that offered contrary analysis and commitments. While the Islamic State has suffered significant losses of territory in Syria, other administration officials say, it has not been defeated. Beyond that, administration officials had vowed to keep U.S. forces there as long as necessary, to counter Iranian influence and activity.

By Thursday, Trump had moved to a different explanation, one that no doubt comes closer to his true feelings. He asked, “Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East. . . Do we want to be there forever? Time for others to finally fight.”

He said — despite contrary evidence — that Russia, Iran and Syria were unhappy because they now would have to fight the Islamic State alone, which only a day earlier he had claimed had been defeated. Then, in one more burst, he added, “I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!”

Mattis made clear in his resignation letter that he and the president do not see eye to eye on rising threats from Russia and China or on the importance of maintaining “the solidarity of our alliances.” His departure will leave a sizable void in the administration’s national security apparatus and, more significantly, point to the potential for more chaos in the months ahead.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

It was always totally foreseeable that he would fuck things up. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[47of74]

14 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

I get the feeling that my niece's facial expressions would be about the same in either case.  They can always tell.  And my niece is a happy and friendly baby too.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump threatens government shutdown ‘will last for a very long time’ if Democrats oppose House bill that includes border wall money"

Spoiler

President Trump on Friday threatened that a partial government shutdown would last “for a very long time” if Congress does not meet his demand Friday for billions in funding for his long-promised border wall in a stopgap spending measure.

In a spate of morning tweets, Trump sought to pin blame on Democrats for a potential shutdown even though he said last week that he would proudly own one if lawmakers did not provide at least $5 billion toward his marquee campaign promise.

And he suggested that Senate rules should be changed if necessary so that Republicans could pass the bill without any Democratic support.

“The Democrats, whose votes we need in the Senate, will probably vote against Border Security and the Wall even though they know it is DESPERATELY NEEDED,” Trump wrote. “If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time. People don’t want Open Borders and Crime!”

Trump’s warning came ahead of a midnight deadline for the president and Congress to come to terms on a spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown that would affect funding for roughly 25 percent of the federal agencies whose budgets rely on Congress.

After Trump threatened Thursday to veto a Senate measure that did not contain the border funding he sought, the House hurried to appease the president, pulling together a bill that would keep the government funded through Feb. 8 while also allocating $5.7 billion for the border wall. The House bill also included nearly $8 billion for disaster relief for hurricanes and wildfires.

Democrats, however, have enough votes in the Senate to keep that bill from advancing and have showed no signs of relenting.

“The bottom line is simple: the Trump temper tantrum will shut down the government, but it will not get him his wall,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday night.

In a contentious Oval Office meeting last week with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.), Trump said he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security.”

“So I will take the mantle,” he said. “I will be the one to shut it down. I won’t blame you for it.”

In other tweets Friday, Trump urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to fight hard to pass a bill with he border-wall funding he is seeking.

“Senator Mitch McConnell should fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything,” Trump wrote. “He will need Democrat votes, but as shown in the House, good things happen. If enough Dems don’t vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown! House Republicans were great yesterday!”

Trump also urged McConnell to “use the Nuclear Option and get it done!”

That is a reference a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Trump was advocating that McConnell change the rule so that only 50 votes are required. By doing that, Republicans would be able to pass a bill without Democratic cooperation in a chamber in which Republicans hold 51 seats.

For more than a year, Trump has tried to pressure McConnell to change Senate rules in a way that would allow the chamber to pass legislation with a simple majority.

During the Obama administration, when the Senate was controlled by Democrats, Democrats changed the rules to allow most presidential nominees to advance with a simple majority of votes. During the beginning of the Trump administration, McConnell extended this practice to the nomination of Supreme Court justices, which proved crucial because both of Trump’s nominees to the nation’s highest court won approval by a narrow margin.

But McConnell has resisted such a change for legislation, as have a number of other Republicans, worried about the precedent it would set.

Last year, more than 60 senators from both parties signed a letter to McConnell and Schumer, saying they were opposed to changing the rules in the way Trump has demanded. The letter was signed, among others by Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Roy Blunt of Missouri, and John Thune of South Dakota.

In his tweets, Trump also sought to counter Democratic arguments that a border wall is an antiquated strategy for curbing illegal border crossings.

“The Democrats are trying to belittle the concept of a Wall, calling it old fashioned,” Trump wrote. “The fact is there is nothing else’s that will work, and that has been true for thousands of years. It’s like the wheel, there is nothing better.“

“Properly designed and built Walls work, and the Democrats are lying when they say they don’t,” the president added.

Trump’s attacks on Twitter came as a number of federal agencies were in the final stages of implementing their shutdown plans.

A number of federal parks and monuments are slated to close, some as soon as Saturday morning. The Securities and Exchange Commission posted a list of the services it will soon suspend, including the processing of certain business records. The Justice Department, Commerce Department and Internal Revenue Service are preparing to send thousands of people home without pay.

And Trump’s prediction that a shutdown would last for a very long time means that more than 100,000 federal employees risk missing at least one paycheck, and possibly more. Even the Border Patrol agents and Transportation Security Agency officials who are directed to continue working during the shutdown will not be paid until Congress funds their agencies.

About 480,000 federal workers would be furloughed, according to a Washington Post projection.

 

[AmazonGrace]

When you've lost Brian Kilmeade

[Howl]

I came to the conclusion this morning that Trump is a traitor to our country, and not in some kind of metaphorical sense, or simply because of his betrayal of American values, or based on some crazy conspiracy theory.  No, I mean an actual traitor, in thrall to Putin, for whatever reason, greed, kompromat, whatever.  He's not on our side. 

The pull out in Syria is only the latest thing in the process of ticking off every box in Putin's checklist. 

• Putin wanted the US out of Syria. Check.  Troop draw down from Afghanistan to follow. Check
• Abandonment of Al-Tanf airbase in Syria, near the border with Jordan.  Check. 
• Sanctions lifted on Oleg V. Deripaska's aluminum company, Rusal and other Putin-affiliated mobligarchs.  Check
• Non-response to overt Russian aggression; for example, zip response to Russian provocations against Ukraine, such as the Kerch Strait incident.  Russian still has the Ukrainian ships and soldiers.  Check 
• Non-stop denials of collusion and accusations of "Witch hunt!" and epic efforts to torpedo the Mueller investigation into, wait for it, Russian collusion. Check
• tête-à-tête with Putin in Helsinki. Check! 
• relentlessly twitter shitting on the intelligence community and FBI - this may be the most important aspect of the whole thing. 
• zero interest in responding to confirmed Russian interference in US elections. Check! 
• attempting to torpedo NATO. Check
• appointing a handbag designer as UN ambassador
• supporting Flynn and Turkey, Turkey, Turkey, which has something to with the sudden approval of the sale of Patriot missiles to Turkey, who is also buying a missile system from Russia (!). 
• torching Wall Street and the US economy through tariffs
• Acting AG Whitaker, AG nominee Barr 
• relentlessly shitting on the press
• admiration for dictators, just like Putin! Check! 

It's important to remember that the CIA (IIRC) first warned the campaign about potential Russian interference, only to find that (shockingly) the campaign seemed to be involved! 

We can parse this relentlessly by discussing Trump's "style" of "governance" right now, and how he's this or that, a narcissist, yada yada, his endless shitter twitter torching, cable news head shaking and endless tsk tsk-ing, but really it's all there.  Trump is a traitor and a true authoritarian working against the US in favor of Russian interests (primarily) and maybe others, like WTAF with Turks and Saudis. 

The shit going down with the legal exposure of the Fredos and Javanka, the dissolution of the Trump foundation, it's all a side show (a compelling side show to be sure), but not the main thing, which are Trump's blatantly and relentlessly treasonous actions that are not in any way shape or form helpful to the US, our defense, our economy, the well-being of our citizens. 

The Mattis resignation may be a last straw that ultimately trips the scales in favor of impeachment. 

OK, done!  

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

#TrumpResign is trending on Twitter 

 

[formergothardite]

25 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

When you've lost Brian Kilmeade

None of them were even pretending to buy what she said. I hope Fox continues to not support him on this.