Trump 37: Tweeting instead of Leading

[AmazonGrace]

He thinks he can use whatever he saved while federal workers weren't getting paid to build a wall?

Schrödinger's shutdown: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He wrote that the Dems need to come back and make a deal. Um, McTurtle and Lyan are still in charge in congress. They adjourned without a deal. Chuck and Nancy had no say in congress adjourning.

[fraurosena]

Bwhahahaha! He's pretending to read... hahahaha... snort... he's pretending to work... hahahahahahaha!

Summit with Kim... working out what he's going to give him in exchange for... nothing again.

[fraurosena]

Wait a minute... a 115 mile long contract? That's a lot of paper!

 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Bwhahahaha! He's pretending to read... hahahaha... snort... he's pretending to work... hahahahahahaha!

Trump can't see what he's looking at because he's too fucking vain to use reading glasses. 

[PsyD2013]

So now the Democrats are responsible for the shut down.  Just a few days ago the dotard said he was taking all responsibility for it.   

[onekidanddone]

23 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Wait a minute... a 115 mile long contract? That's a lot of paper!

 

Billions of lives?

[GreyhoundFan]

"Very smart" Ivy League business graduate doesn't understand that shutting down the government isn't free. This is an interesting accounting of what it really costs to shut down even part of the government: "Partial shutdown could cost the government $52M a day"

Spoiler

It looks as if the partial government shutdown will last well past Dec. 26, the next day most federal employees and contractors are expected to return to work. The government and industry will spend hundreds of millions to halt any non-national security or unnecessary work across dozens of agencies.

And that is on top of whatever lost productivity already happened last week as agency and industry executives and program managers started to focus on what a partial shutdown would mean for their employees.

Without a doubt, there is a real cost in terms of time and money because employees and contractors are diverted from their regular tasks.

“One day off for federal employees based on our estimate to accompany executive orders to close on Christmas Eve, for instance, was $350 million for those not coming to work  but will get paid and for emergency workers who get extra pay for working on a holiday,” said Robert Shea, a principal with  Grant Thornton and a former Office of Management and Budget official. “Then there is prep for a shutdown and then there is the cost for the actual shutdown. Employees who don’t come to work will have to be paid even though the taxpayer is not getting anything for it.”

OMB said about 15 percent of the federal workforce are impacted by the shutdown meaning it will cost about $52.5 million a day during the shutdown.

Shea said Grant Thornton’s management held a call Saturday morning to address what the partial shutdown means for the company’s employees.

“We have FAQs updated and have encouraged our engagement managers to talk to their contracting officers,” he said. “We have to spend money when we are not working for our clients. And even though the partial shutdown only impacts 25 percent of the federal funding, it impacts about 50 percent of our workload.”

Hidden costs to feds

For federal employees, the “hidden cost” of a shutdown also is great. While both the House and Senate have introduced bills to pay them after the shutdown ends, there still is the hit to morale, the lost productivity because so much goes into shutdown preparations and following the news.

Some estimate that at least 20 percent of federal executives’ time is spent planning for the shutdown, and then there is the cost of ramping back up after a shutdown. Experts say it’s not like a light switch that can be turned on and off without much effort.

OMB estimated in 2014 that the 16-day shutdown in 2013 cost more than $2.5 billion in lost productivity and pay and benefits for employees, most of which didn’t work, and employees lost missed 6.6 million days of work.

OMB estimated five years ago that 10,000 contractors faced stop work orders and temporary layoffs. And those stop work orders could cost the government additional millions of dollars in lost tax and fee revenues.

“The biggest challenge now is communication. It will be important that contractors communicate with their contracting officers to understand status of their contracts and be ready to take steps to mitigate costs,” said Roger Waldron, the president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, an industry association. “I think it’s an especially difficult time because of the holidays. Because it’s the holiday season, some of the costs and challenges are mitigated. People are taking vacation so they are getting paid anyways. But for those who aren’t taking vacation, they have to know if their contract is funded.”

The biggest concern for contractors, according to experts, is that employees will not be paid during the shutdown.

Earlier this year, Trey Hodgkins, senior vice president for public service at the IT Alliance for Public Service, detailed the impact on vendors.

“Contractors also feel the sting of the current [appropriations] ‘regular order’ because they are required to maintain their capability, including all their personnel, even if the government shuts down and they cannot deliver goods and services. That’s operational investment that is lost to companies and small businesses that they cannot get back,” wrote in a blog post in December as a funding deadline loomed. “While federal employees have always been paid back for time they were forced to shut down their agencies, contractors cannot bill for the same time. The result is that this annual funding instability drives greater risk into the federal market and costs to the taxpayers go up as a result. Is it any wonder that we see fewer and fewer companies willing to invest in the government as a customer and we find it harder and harder to convince cutting edge technology developers to bring their products and services to bear on government challenges?”

Maybe the one saving grace in all of this is the holiday season. With so many federal employees and contractors on vacation, the biggest impact of the shutdown may be muted until they come back to the office.

OPM gave flexibility in guidance

The Office of Personnel Management said in its shutdown guidance that agencies and employees have some added flexibility considering the time of the year.

“If an employee was scheduled to be on leave on the workdays immediately after the lapse commences, the employee is not required to report to duty to perform orderly shutdown activities on a scheduled leave day, even though the leave has been canceled,” OPM said. “An agency may allow such an employee to perform required orderly shutdown activities (if any, including receipt of a furlough notice) on the first workday on which the employee had been scheduled to return to duty.”

CGP’s Waldron said the biggest challenge over the first few days of the shutdown will be around communication with prime and subcontractors .

He said getting in touch with contracting officers and then they will need to get in touch with their bosses could delay decisions or create additional uncertainty.

“This also will have to trickle down to the subcontractors where they are told to stop work, and then that will mean additional costs,” Waldron said. “A lot of companies who have other work with those agencies impacted by the partial shutdown will have to shift folks to other contracts that have funding or figure out how to pay those employees after the holidays.”

Grant Thornton’s Shea said they know which contracts can continue to bill against during shutdown and which ones can’t.

“We have been nailing that down over last couple of days,” he said.

Shea, Waldron and other experts say while the impact of the partial shutdown is not as wide ranging as those in 2013 and 1996, it’s difficult to see a resolution anytime soon meaning the uncertainty and stress levels will only increase.

 

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Bwhahahaha! He's pretending to read... hahahaha... snort... he's pretending to work... hahahahahahaha!

Summit with Kim... working out what he's going to give him in exchange for... nothing again.

They learned from the last photo op that they need to make sure they don't show that he is holding a blank page. 

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

He thinks he can use whatever he saved while federal workers weren't getting paid to build a wall?

Schrödinger's shutdown: 

 

Why is he all alone?  He has four adult children and a bushel of grandchildren. Why didn't any of them come to the White House to visit Daddy?

[Howl]

22 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Why is he all alone?  He has four adult children and a bushel of grandchildren. Why didn't any of them come to the White House to visit Daddy?

Javanka usually go skiing in Aspen with their 3 spawn, but you're right.  Shouldn't Barron be spending time with some of his cousins?

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘I am all alone’: An isolated Trump unleashes a storm of Yuletide gloom"

Spoiler

The Christmas Eve grievances billowing from the White House on Monday formed a heavy cloud of Yuletide gloom.

In his third straight day holed up inside the White House during the partial federal government shutdown that he initiated over his demand to construct a border wall, President Trump barked out his frustrations on Twitter: Democrats are hypocrites! The media makes up stories! Senators are wrong on foreign policy — and so is Defense Secretary Jim Mattis!

Trump said war-ravaged Syria would be rebuilt not by the United States but by Saudi Arabia. “Thanks to Saudi A!” he tweeted, two weeks after the Senate unanimously rebuked the kingdom’s crown prince for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

As the stock market closed out its worst December since 1931, the president placed sole blame for the staggering sell-off on the Federal Reserve, likening the central bank to a golfer who “can’t putt.”

That was all before noon. And then, at 12:32 p.m., came Trump’s 10th tweet of the day, a plaintive complaint from a president who craves constant interaction and praise:

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he wrote.

Even for a president accustomed to firing at foes on social media, Monday’s cascade of angry tweets on a day when many Americans were celebrating the season with their families was extraordinary. The rapid-fire missives painted the portrait of an isolated leader nursing a deep sense of injury.

“This is a picture of a lost and damaged soul,” said Peter Wehner, who served in the prior three Republican administrations and is a Trump critic. “There’s something sad and poignant about a president isolated and alone. He’s like King Lear, raging against the winds.”

White House officials did not respond Monday to requests for comment about Trump’s tweets and activities.

Trump is acting like a commander under siege as he heads into what promises to be a treacherous 2019. Nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation — including his private business, his family’s charitable foundation, his 2016 presidential campaign and his inaugural committee. And after Democrats take over the House majority on Jan. 3, they plan to probe alleged corruption throughout the administration, as well as his personal finances.

The president, meanwhile, is increasingly standing alone. Even some fellow Republicans criticized his abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, expressed dismay at the abrupt departure of the defense secretary and opposed the criminal justice reform bill that the administration championed.

On Monday, Trump appeared to be literally isolated, left largely by himself in the city he has whirled from one crisis to another. The Capitol had emptied out, with most lawmakers headed home for the holiday. Vice President Pence was a couple of miles up the road at the Naval Observatory, celebrating Christmas Eve with his family in his residence.

First lady Melania Trump, who had flown as scheduled to Florida last week for the family’s annual Christmas trip to Mar-a-Lago, returned to Washington on Monday to celebrate the holiday with her husband.

President Trump, who had not been seen in public since before the government closed Friday, appeared Monday evening with the first lady for an annual photo opportunity tracking Santa Claus on military radar. The couple sat in armchairs in the State Dining Room, where a fire was crackling and presents sat around two Christmas trees, and talked into separate phones to participate in NORAD Santa Tracker calls with children.

When a reporter asked about the government shutdown, the president replied, “Nothing new on the shutdown. We need border security.”

Just before sundown, Trump tweeted a photo of himself sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, wearing a suit and red tie and accompanied by two aides for what he called a “Christmas Eve briefing with my team working on North Korea.”

“Progress being made,” Trump wrote. “Looking forward to my next summit with Chairman Kim!”

There appeared to be little else on his schedule, besides what aides said was a 2 p.m. closed-door meeting on border security with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Trump declared at 5:24 p.m., “I am in the Oval Office,” and said he had just awarded “a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.” Administration officials did not immediately provide details about the project. Trump has repeatedly boasted falsely that large portions of his border wall already have been built.

Since the partial government shutdown began overnight Friday, Trump has tapped out roughly three dozen tweets — including 10 in a span of just three hours Monday that appeared to be his running list of grievances.

“It’s a sad and pathetic moment when on Christmas Eve the president of the United States is firing downer tweets in a petulant, loner mood,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “This is like Charles Dickens’s Scrooge on steroids.”

Trump’s outburst came after he had ground through some of his guardrails, firing White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and forcing Mattis to vacate his post two months before his planned exit date in retaliation for negative news coverage of the defense secretary’s resignation.

Now he faces the lack of a graceful exit path from the government shutdown, having dug in on his demand for $5 billion in funding for the border wall and fearful of making any concessions with Democrats that might set off conservative activists.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) mockingly wrote Monday on Twitter, “Hey republicans your guy is having a moment let us know if you come up w a plan to fix.”

Meanwhile, the financial markets are shuddering and Trump’s staff is churning, with numerous Cabinet positions now held by acting secretaries. And the president and his lawyers are anxiously awaiting the possible culmination of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and any legal or political challenges that could follow.

Some U.S. allies, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have voiced concern about Trump’s recent actions, including the Syria withdrawal and the resignation of Mattis, a former Marine general who is widely respected by Western leaders.

But amid his litany of complaints Monday, Trump decided it was the moment to declare victory. He tweeted an all-caps twist on his campaign slogan: “AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!”

 

[Cartmann99]

14 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

President Trump, who had not been seen in public since before the government closed Friday, appeared Monday evening with the first lady for an annual photo opportunity tracking Santa Claus on military radar. The couple sat in armchairs in the State Dining Room, where a fire was crackling and presents sat around two Christmas trees, and talked into separate phones to participate in NORAD Santa Tracker calls with children.

I really hope he didn't complain about the shutdown to the children who called to talk about Santa Claus. 

[onekidanddone]

21 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

I really hope he didn't complain about the shutdown to the children who called to talk about Santa Claus. 

Who would let their kids talk to that man? 

[Cartmann99]

FFS

@Howl, I read your post count too fast and thought it said you had authority over tomatoes instead of tornadoes. ? 

[onekidanddone]

21 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

FFS

@Howl, I read your post count too fast and thought it said you had authority over tomatoes instead of tornadoes. ? 

I just saw the Trumpy Bear commercial. The world is coming to an end.

[Cartmann99]

6 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I just saw the Trumpy Bear commercial. The world is coming to an end.

Did they finally do a holiday version of that commercial, or was it the one where the biker guy tells us how proud he is to ride with Demon Bear?

[onekidanddone]

16 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Did they finally do a holiday version of that commercial, or was it the one where the biker guy tells us how proud he is to ride with Demon Bear?

It was a semi holiday version because they said it was perfect for any holiday. It had the biker guy, some law enforcement dude saying TB always had his back, and three yahoos at a pizza joint saying how much business has improved since the Trump coup election.  Right the economy has sooooooooo great that Harley Davidson and GM decided to shutter factories.

I love where this one woman pulls a flag out of TB's neck. Why the only thing I want more than a Trumpy Bear is a root canal with no Novocaine.  

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

Javanka usually go skiing in Aspen with their 3 spawn, but you're right.  Shouldn't Barron be spending time with some of his cousins?

Poor kid. His cousins are all adults, like his brothers and sisters (although — shhh! — no one ever mentions Tiffany). His nieces and nephews are all much younger than him. So he’s stuck with the company of his maternal grandparents and his mom. And he’ll probably have to visit his decrepit old sire for a photo op or something and put up the fake smile his mom has taught him. The old geezer will have forgotten to get him a present of course, and start ranting about politics and Putin. Then the fool will pick up his phone and start tweeting and forget all about him and his mom. Poor kid.

[onekidanddone]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Poor kid. His cousins are all adults, like his brothers and sisters (although — shhh! — no one ever mentions Tiffany). His nieces and nephews are all much younger than him. So he’s stuck with the company of his maternal grandparents and his mom. And he’ll probably have to visit his decrepit old sire for a photo op of domething and put up the fake smile his mom had taught him. The old geezer will have forgotten to get him a present of course, and start ranting about politics and Putin. Then the fool will pick up his phone and start tweeting and forget all about him and his mom. Poor kid.

I wonder if that boy has any friends. Can  you imagine some kid coming  home and saying "Mom, can I go over to Baron's house?" I've always wondered how many parents yanked their kids out of the school when Baron started going. And shit can you see being one of his teachers? Let's say the boy is doing poorly in a subject. Any proper parent might call the teacher and figure out how to help their kid do better. Trump would bully said teacher in to passing the kid. 

[Cartmann99]

18 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

It was a semi holiday version because they said it was perfect for any holiday. It had the biker guy, some law enforcement dude saying TB always had his back, and three yahoos at a pizza joint saying how much business has improved since the Trump coup election.  Right the economy has sooooooooo great that Harley Davidson and GM decided to shutter factories.

I love where this one woman pulls a flag out of TB's neck. Why the only thing I want more than a Trumpy Bear is a root canal with no Novocaine.  

As whacked out as his supporters are, I'm honestly surprised that we are not hearing stories like how they have wonderful dreams since they started keeping Trumpy Bear in their bedroom.  

[AmazonGrace]

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

6 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

FFS

@Howl, I read your post count too fast and thought it said you had authority over tomatoes instead of tornadoes. ? 

The replies are of the finest snark qualities, as usual lol

 

[AmazonGrace]

So many people pointing out how crazy it is that the liar in chief manages to ruin the number one PR opportunity in which shameless lying and making facts up would actually be okay for once. 

Dude has five kids and I don't know how many grandkids and cannot talk with a child.

[Flossie]

54 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

So many people pointing out how crazy it is that the liar in chief manages to ruin the number one PR opportunity in which shameless lying and making facts up would actually be okay for once. 

Dude has five kids and I don't know how many grandkids and cannot talk with a child.

That's because he's one of those kids that doesn't like other kids.  They might do something better than him, the adults might like them better, and above all, they might take the attention off of him.