Trump 38: Donald Trump and the Wall of Lies

[fraurosena]

And here you have it. He told what he wanted for the whole world to hear. Nobody seemed to listen then, and now America's paying the price.

 

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce has a case of whataboutism.

I have a what about too:

What about the allegations that multiple of your campaign officials contacted Stone about the Wikileaks dumps? 

"Sooooooooo many others"? What the hell is he 12? And notice how he doesn't say Stone didn't lie, just that other people have done it as well.  This "what about" is a crock of shit.  Imagine somebody on trial for murder. He pleads guilty but his lawyer says "sure he killed people, puppies, and kittens. But you shouldn't send him to jail because other people have done the same things.

[47of74]

Why the Great Wall of China failed and why it shows the Great Wall of Fuck Face would also fail

Quote

From the moment he launched his campaign for president, Donald Trump compared the barrier he wanted to build along the U.S. southern border to China’s Great Wall. With the U.S. government now shuttered by the standoff over funding Trump’s wall, both he and his Democratic opponents might want to take a closer look at the Chinese fortification—and why exactly it failed.

The Great Wall visited by tourists today is the handiwork of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was primarily constructed in the mid-to-late 16th century. The common perception is that the wall was conceived as a single, massive infrastructure project to protect China’s tumultuous northern border from foreign invaders. It was nothing of the sort. The Great Wall was built to a great degree by default, by a political system too paralyzed by infighting to come up with anything better.

Border security had been a preoccupation of China’s imperial court from its earliest days. “Barbarians” from the northern steppe—whether Xiongnu, Turk, Jurchen, Mongol or other—routinely threatened the Middle Kingdom. Some, such as Genghis Khan’s Mongols in the 13th century, managed to overrun the entire empire.

The Ming Dynasty compounded the usual difficulties of securing the border with a combination of arrogance, division and indecision. The Ming court was an especially raucous place where hostile factions were almost constantly at each other’s throats. The border issue often got dragged into these contests for palace power.

 

And now a Reagan death squad guy has been named to  'restore democracy' in Venezuela by Fuck Face.  

Quote

The Trump administration has announced that Elliott Abrams, who was convicted over the Iran-Contra scandal in which the Ronald Reagan administration secretly funded paramilitary groups in Nicaragua, will lead the US’s efforts to press for democracy in Venezuela.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the 71-year-old would oversee Washington’s outreach, after Donald Trump declared he would recognise Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, and not elected president Nicolas Maduro, as the nation’s legitimate ruler.

“Elliott will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country,” Mr Pompeo said, according to Reuters.

For many Latin America watchers he will be associated with his denial of a 1982 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador of hundreds of civilians by the military. Mr Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote “were not credible”.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"After surrendering in shutdown standoff, Trump again vows to build wall"

Spoiler

A day after President Trump surrendered in his standoff with congressional Democrats and agreed to reopen the federal government, he continued to push back against the notion — including criticism from political allies — that the episode represented a major defeat.

Trump had insisted for more than a month that he would not let the government shutdown end without securing money for his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. But on Friday, he reversed course in the face of mounting public pressure, declining poll numbers, escalating air travel delays and anger from the FBI director he selected. The deal struck with congressional leaders reopens the government through Feb. 15, while creating a committee meant to negotiate a border-security agreement.

On Saturday morning, the president took to Twitter, saying that “21 days goes very quickly” and once again vowing that the promised wall would be constructed.

“Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in,” he wrote. “The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall!”

He also had tweeted Friday night that the deal “was in no way a concession.”

Trump’s efforts to spin the episode as a victory — or at least a momentary pause on the way to a victory — came amid an immediate backlash from conservatives allies, criticisms the image-conscious president had no doubt seen.

While some of his backers rallied around the president, stalwart Trump allies joined in the criticism. Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business Network host, sharply criticized Trump’s move and said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “just whipped the president of the United States.” On Saturday, Dobbs predicted that the president’s approval ratings would drop even more. Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator, suggested Trump was “the biggest wimp” to hold the office. Far-right websites described Trump as caving.

The White House on Saturday tried to counter that image.

Asked during an appearance on Fox News whether the president had caved on the shutdown fight, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “100 percent no. He stood up for the American people. He reopened the government.”

Gidley said that Trump had repeatedly asked for the sort of border funding that U.S. security officials said they needed, only to encounter intransigent Democrats in Congress.

“Democrats would not negotiate. They would not come to the table,” Gidley said. He predicted that some Democrats would be willing to cut a border-security deal in coming weeks that includes money for a wall, even as party leaders have said they have no intention of funding Trump’s border wall.

“The lesson I hope that the Democrats learn here is that they can’t just not negotiate. They can't offer nothing and expect something to get done,” Gidley said, adding: “They weren't doing anything on behalf of the American people. They used federal workers as pawns. Regardless of what they try and say and the tears that stream down their cheeks, they did nothing to protect the American people.”

Despite that argument, the shutdown’s end was widely seen in the capital and beyond as the president giving in, which played out in media coverage: The Washington Post described Trump’s “capitulation to Democrats” as “a humiliating low point in a polarizing presidency.” The New York Times depicted Trump as “backing down,” while the Wall Street Journal called Trump’s move “a retreat.”

Trump had fretted about the shutdown’s impact on the economy and his personal popularity. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday found that public disapproval of Trump had increased to 58 percent as most Americans held him and congressional Republicans responsible for the shutdown.

In recent days, Trump had sought to point fingers, blaming fellow Republicans and even his own staff for failing to help him achieve his campaign promise to fund a border wall.

The man who had campaigned as a business savant and master dealmaker emerged from the unprecedented shutdown looking, above all, ineffective. It was that image that he and the White House seemed to be trying to avoid Saturday, insisting instead that the wall would still be built and that the president deserved praise for reopening the same government he had brazenly closed more than a month earlier.

For the 800,000 employees who have not been paid during the 35 day shutdown, that pain will not end immediately. It will likely take until late next week before they receive their payments, delays that will cause continued hardship for all the employees already struggling to pay bills during the longest shutdown in history.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

12 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Build the wall around his properties 

[Howl]

Quote

For many Latin America watchers he will be associated with his denial of a 1982 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador of hundreds of civilians by the military. Mr Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote “were not credible”.

A book titled The Massacre at El Mozote was one of the more horrific things I've ever read about.  The details are haunting to this day. 

Survivors of Massacre Ask: ‘Why Did They Have to Kill Those Children?’  Over 500 children were murdered over the course of the massacre.  The average age was 6. 

The Long-Game: The El Mozote Massacre and Why Washington Swept it Under the Rug

El Mozote massacre: Waiting for justice nearly 40 years later

 

 

[47of74]

5 minutes ago, Howl said:

A book titled The Massacre at El Mozote was one of the more horrific things I've ever read about.  The details are haunting to this day. 

Survivors of Massacre Ask: ‘Why Did They Have to Kill Those Children?’  Over 500 children were murdered over the course of the massacre.  The average age was 6. 

The Long-Game: The El Mozote Massacre and Why Washington Swept it Under the Rug

El Mozote massacre: Waiting for justice nearly 40 years later

 

 

I don't think we should look the other way when human rights abuses occur outside our borders but this horseshit of interfering with other countries all in the name of "democracy" when they do something we don't like has to come to an end.   

[AmazonGrace]

 

What will happen?

[47of74]

 
What will happen?

Fool or people with a political agenda? Does he ever look in the fucking mirror? He goddamn well ought to.

[Vivi_music]

I thought FJ would like this :

[Howl]

 

[AmazonGrace]

I

2 hours ago, Howl said:

 

If true that ought to be impeachable as well... If you're so dumb that you only ever hire crooks but weren't intending to, you shouldn't be in charge of an administration

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Maybe I didn’t return her phone call’: Trump ridicules Ann Coulter, slams Fox News in fallout over wall"

Spoiler

Macbeth suffered from hubris. Hamlet from self-doubt. The fatal flaw that some conservative pundits fear could lead President Trump, otherwise their macho hero, to his downfall is his failure to keep his promise to build the wall. But is this winter’s tale about the southern border a tragedy or a farce? “The course of true love never did run smooth,” observes a thwarted lover in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The love affair binding Trump to right-wing media and the conservative commentariat entered its roughest patch yet over the weekend, following attacks within his own ranks over his capitulation to Democratic demands that he reopen the government without $5.7 billion for his shape-shifting border barrier.

In a Wall Street Journal interview published on Sunday, Trump hit back at Ann Coulter, the conservative author whose threats about the defection of the president’s base were credited with pushing him to his once-uncompromising stance. When he backed down on Friday, she called him a “wimp."

“I hear she’s become very hostile,” Trump told the Journal. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.”

Also on Sunday, he attacked two top reporters for Fox News, his news channel of choice, saying they had displayed “even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN & NBC!”

Together, the swipes represent one more piece of evidence that the dawn of divided government has put Trump in a dangerous and defensive political position, compounded by the indictment on Friday of his longtime associate Roger Stone. They show just how much he depends on positive punditry and other forms of approval. And they telegraph his sensitivity to criticism, particularly from people he has identified as friends, loyal to his often-dubious claims.

A lasting fissure could have untold consequences for his presidency, which relies on right-wing media for policy ideas as well as for the rosy picture of his White House that it paints for its audience. Across the political spectrum, though not without some predictable dissenters, he was judged the loser of the high-wire maneuvering over the shutdown, bested by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Meanwhile, his approval rating took a dive, down to 37 percent in a new Post-ABC poll released on Friday.

Still, the president has struck a defiant tone, maintaining that the deal — which reflected Democratic objectives — “was in no way a concession” and vowing repeatedly to build the wall. “21 days goes very quickly," he wrote on Saturday, referring to the three-week period in which the federal government will remain open amid negotiations over the border. He concluded, "We will build the Wall!”

His posture appeared to recoup his standing with certain powerful right-wing platforms. The Daily Caller, which at first had run with the ominous headline, “TRUMP CAVES,” by Sunday was promoting the president’s criticism of Fox. So was Mike Cernovich, a far-right social media personality who had derided the president as the “Commander-in-Soy” and called Pelosi “alpha.” The Drudge Report had replaced its dire warning, “NO WALL FUNDS,” with a piece by Michael Goodwin, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, judging, “President Trump is down, but not out.”

Others had remained by his side through the fallout. “Anyone out there thinking President Trump caved today, you don’t know the Donald Trump I know,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told his viewers on Friday night.

But in refusing to make excuses for the president, Coulter has cast herself as the truest prophet of his agenda. She has used her following with his base — rooted in her early support for his candidacy, as well as her defense of the causes that help power his rise — to try to hold him to his campaign promises.

“There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven," she wrote in her 2016 book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” She added forebodingly: "Except change his immigration policies.”

Coulter has referred to Trump as her “emperor god.” Now she calls herself a “former Trumper.” Her frustration with the president has simmered over the last two years, at one point driving her to ask, “who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?" It boiled over on Friday.

Speaking with HBO host Bill Maher, she claimed to be channeling a rebellion in Trump’s base over his failure to erect a border wall. His inability to get Mexico to pay for the structure is scarcely even mentioned anymore.

“The base is what has rebelled here," she said. “And they can take me as a stand-in for the base, but that’s all I am — a member of the base.”

When pressed about her about-face — asked what her “first clue” was that Trump was “a lying con man,” as Maher put it — Coulter quipped: "Okay, I’m a very stupid girl, fine.”

Trump, who shares Coulter’s penchant for online provocation, responded to her harsh assessment of his record by mocking her as a needy for his attention, incensed that he hadn’t called her back.

The rejoinder speaks to the direct line that certain right-wing media figures enjoy with the president. According to New York Magazine, Hannity talks with Trump on the phone most weeknights.

His comeback against Coulter is also of a piece with his frequent dismissal of female critics as desperate. In December 2017, after Trump accused Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat now vying to challenge him for president, of “begging” him for campaign contributions, saying she “would do anything for them,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a fellow Democrat and presidential contender, blasted the president for “trying to bully, intimidate and slut-shame” her colleague. Earlier the same year, Trump lashed out at the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” writing that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had “insisted” on joining him for New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Fla., and that Brzezinski had been “bleeding badly from a facelift.”

The president didn’t employ such caustic language in his complaint about Fox, lobbed on Twitter on Sunday evening.

He didn’t make clear how exactly John Roberts, the network’s chief White House correspondent, and Gillian Turner, a Washington correspondent, had disappointed him, like errant children in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” But the two had appeared earlier Sunday for a panel on Fox News, in which they bluntly assessed the costs of the shutdown, not just for the president’s political standing but for the national defense.

“One of the losers I wanted to mention that people are not spending enough time on this week is U.S. cybersecurity defenses," Turner said. One federal source had told her, she said, that the government was more vulnerable to cyber penetration and online terrorism in the week before the shutdown ended "than at any point in history.”

Roberts agreed, recalling, “I think a mutual friend of ours was saying if you were going to attack the United States, if you were a terrorist during the shutdown, now would be the time.”

Turner nodded. “Now’s a great time,” she said.

Neither reporter answered the president’s complaint directly, but Turner did thank a grateful fan in a tweet later Sunday night.

 

 

[SilverBeach]

Jeanine Pirro is a piece of shit.

[Howl]

I'm becoming quite intrigued and also concerned about the impeach/don't impeach argument among Democrats based on wait for final Mueller Report or go ahead now. 

Sarah Kendzior and others are strongly in favor of  starting an investigation that precedes beginning impeachment proceedings.  This brings forth all of the evidence and sets the stage for impeachment proceedings to be formally introduced.  I need to investigate further, but it seems like it would be like a Grand Jury of sorts, although not secret.  Trump has already done so many illegal things that waiting for a Mueller smoking gun doesn't seem worth it. 

My fear is that a staggering amount of damage can be done by Trump in the months ahead.  My greatest fear is that Trump is going to declare a national emergency in the weeks ahead to get his Wall whatever.   He  was apparently talked out of it last week.  Emergency powers would open a Pandora's Box of unlimited power for Trump and his minions; truly, utterly  horrifying. 

If we end up with Trump declaring a National Emergency during another government shut down, this country is f**ked. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Want to see the Lincoln bedroom?’: Trump relishes role as White House tour guide"

Spoiler

When President Trump brings senators, New York friends or other guests to the Oval Office, he occasionally opens a door near his desk summoning guests to follow. Flashing a grin, he wants his friends to see where Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton reportedly began their sexual encounters. 

“We’ve remodeled it since then,” he said on a tour in December, a person with direct knowledge of the event said. In another visit in 2017, Trump told a TV anchor, “I’m told this is where Bill and Monica. . .” — stopping himself from going further, according to a new book by former White House aide Cliff Sims, “Team of Vipers,” which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its publication Tuesday.

Three other people who have embarked on a tour with Trump say he has made similar comments regarding Clinton and Lewinsky, laughing and making facial expressions. The subject often leads to lengthy, sometimes crass conversations, aides say.

Often spending days ensconced in the presidential residence, Trump relishes giving tours to acquaintances and strangers by the hundreds, bragging all the while about improving it while he lives there, according to nearly a dozen visitors and current and former White House aides, most of whom requested anonymity to reveal details of the private events. With dangling new chandeliers and imported art work added during his tenure, sightseeing with guests in the White House is among his favorite activities, they said. 

During the 35 days that the government was partially shut down over his demand for border wall funding, Trump gave a number of visitors looks inside the West Wing, White House aides say. After hosting a fast-food feast for the Clemson Tigers football team on Jan. 14, he surprised some players by bringing them into the Oval Office.

“Most people want to keep parts of the White House private for their families and themselves,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said of previous presidents. “He’s very restless and doesn't like desk work. He'd rather roam around and B.S. with people than hunker down.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said of the tours: “The President is proud of the White House and its rich history.”

The visits are often impromptu and usually involve several of Trump’s favorite spots, those who have been on the visits say.

When the president finishes dinners with members of Congress, he often raises the same question: “You want to see the Lincoln Bedroom?” he asks, before beckoning lawmakers up the stairs. He often remarks how tall President Lincoln was and how short the bed is during these visits, before noting the nearby Lincoln desk and the Bill of Rights, guests said. 

“I don’t know how he slept there,” Trump said on one tour in early 2018, according to a person on the tour. “He was a really tall guy!”

 The president has also claimed to guests, without evidence, that his private dining room off the Oval Office was in “rough shape” with a hole in the wall when he came into the West Wing and that Obama used it to watch sports, according to two White House officials and two other people who have heard him discuss the dining room. “He just sat in here and watched basketball all day,” Trump told a recent group, before saying he upgraded Obama’s smaller TV to a sprawling, flat-screen one, the four people said. 

A former Obama White House official, who requested anonymity because Obama does not generally respond to Trump’s remarks, said there was no hole in the wall and that Obama rarely worked in the room and did not watch basketball there.

 Other presidents have been varied in their reception to guests, but most did not give many elaborate tours, presidential historians and aides say. 

Clinton and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had many guests stay in the residence, Brinkley said, including visits by donors that drew controversy for Clinton. The former Obama aide said the 44th president often had friends, family members of staffers and others for White House visits, contrary to what Trump tells people on tours. “No one had ever seen the Oval Office!” Trump claimed during a recent meeting with business executives, before bringing them into the room, according to two people present. 

A George W. Bush aide said he rarely took people into the residence, largely because his family was there. The Obama aide said he only took personal, close friends into the residence — “not D.C. officials,” the aide said. Trump, by contrast, has summoned hundreds, if not thousands, of people upstairs, aides say.

The president’s desire to show off his abode fits a pattern. In Trump Tower in New York, he would show guests celebrity relics, like Shaquille O’Neill’s shoes, or signed magazine covers, or pictures with athletes.

When he plays golf as president at his own clubs, he often brags about the courses and how they were redesigned after he bought them, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and others who have played with him.

“Is this the best turkey you’ve ever had?” he asked guests underneath the gilded ceilings of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last Thanksgiving, according to a person who heard the comments. “Did you see how great those greens look?” he said to a recent golf guest.

Aides say Trump is often in a gregarious and charming mood when showing off the residence, rather than the churlish demeanor he sometimes displays in West Wing meetings. 

Marc Short, the former legislative affairs director, said he had been in the residence with dozens of members of Congress. “It was part of my legislative strategy,” Short said of the tours. “When you see him off camera in his own residence, basically being a host, he’s really good at it. It was a warm, gracious gesture.”

Short said Trump would surprise members of Congress with the question of a tour. “How can you say no to seeing the Lincoln Bedroom?” he said. 

The tours sometimes come intermixed with commentary on the day’s news, from asking guests which Democrats might beat him in 2020 to complaints about the special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “There was no collusion,” he recently told a group of Congress members, as he strolled through the residence, according to a person on the tour. “It’s completely insane!”

He has often groused about flies in the White House and has told groups that his aides have mixed luck in killing them. “Swarming everywhere,” he said at one point early in his presidency, according to a senior White House official, backing up an account in Sims’s book.

He has also complained that the offices and the bathrooms in the West Wing do not meet his standards. Sims describes how Trump went through an extensive renovation and oversaw much of the overhaul.

“Cosmetic updates happen with the transition of each new administration, of course, but I doubt any president has ever been as hands-on as The Donald,” Sims writes.

He brags about the art in the residence, showing Monet paintings and paintings of Lincoln and his top generals. He has at times mentioned Ronald Lauder, his New York friend, as approving of the art, calling Lauder “one of the greatest art buyers in the world,” according to a person on one tour. A person familiar with the comments confirmed Lauder had praised Trump’s paintings; a spokesman for Lauder declined to comment.

Numerous people who have gone on the tours describe a president boasting about the artifacts and art in his temporary home.

He often shows off the Louisiana Land Purchase, the Gettysburg Address and other historical documents, visitors say. He has commented on particular presidents — Andrew Jackson, who he praises, and Ulysses S. Grant, who he called “not so good,” according to a person who visited his residence in 2018.

He has also bragged during some visits about the pictures of him on the walls of the West Wing — including one with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and another of his inauguration — and how photos of him get framed and hung quickly by White House staff when he asks.

He is obsessed with the chandeliers in the White House and called the main staircase “beautiful, just really luxurious,” a person who heard the comments said. He brags about how many televisions there are in the West Wing and his fancy system of toggling between channels made for him — he calls it a “Super TiVo,” according to White House aides and Sims’s book.

“I think it’s one of the greatest inventions,” Trump has said, according to Sims. The author said the comment was made “with a smirk, as if to acknowledge his reputation as a television addict.” 

He rarely takes guests into his private bedrooms — the residence is split into quarters, according to current and former aides. Aides say first lady Melania Trump does not conduct as many tours of the residence.

As he has done often in a political career encompassing thousands of documented falsehoods, Trump has exaggerated at times in describing the tours. “They start to cry,” Trump has told others in explaining how people react when seeing the Oval Office, according to current and former White House aides.

Two senior White House officials said they had never seen any visitor cry in the Oval Office.

"Super TiVo" -- good grief.

[AmazonGrace]

This man is such a child 

Maybe he can invent some sort of punitive caffeine tax or something to get back at Schulz

[GreyhoundFan]

"As Trump slides in new poll, he retreats deeper into Fox News fantasyland"

Spoiler

A new Post-ABC News poll finds that most Americans believe President Trump is failing spectacularly by many different metrics. Large majorities say he doesn’t have the temperament to be president; lack confidence that he’ll make the right decisions for the country’s future; and (this one will really sting) say he isn’t good at making deals.

At the same time, new reporting indicates that Trump’s media and political allies are working overtime to erect a protective bubble around Trump, one designed to prevent him from grasping the most basic political realities of the moment.

This effort has two goals: To create an alternative narrative that portrays Trump’s cave in the shutdown fight as a sign that he holds a strengthened hand, which in turn is designed to gird him to refuse real compromise in the next round of talks.

Needless to say, the poll numbers showing Trump cratering amid his handling of the shutdown will not pierce that bubble. And that makes a disastrous outcome in the next round more likely.

First, let’s look at the new Post-ABC polling. Some highlights:

• 57 percent rate Trump’s handling of border security negatively, a remarkable indictment of Trump on his signature issue.
• 61 percent say Trump is not honest or trustworthy.
• 58 percent say Trump lacks the personality and temperament to serve effectively as president.
• 56 percent say Trump has not brought needed change to Washington.
• 65 percent say Trump does not understand the problems of people like them.
• 58 percent say Trump is not good at making political deals.
• 64 percent do not have a lot of confidence that Trump will make the right decisions for the country’s future.

A new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll reports similar findings across the board.

There are a few bright spots in the Post-ABC poll, but even these are tempered. Fifty-one percent rate Trump’s handling of job creation positively (but 56 percent say he’s done a not-good or poor job in helping the middle class). And 50 percent rate his handling of terrorism positively (but 54 percent rate his handling of international crises negatively). The bottom line is that sizable to large majorities appear to be concluding that he just can’t do the job.

Conservatives urge Trump to declare emergency

Now look at what’s happening behind the scenes with Trump, as congressional Democrats and Republicans prepare for the next round: conference negotiations over a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. Trump still wants his $5.7 billion in wall funding, which Democrats are rejecting.

So Trump is preparing a Plan C. The Post reports that Trump privately told advisers over the weekend that declaring a national emergency may still be his best way forward, if Democrats don’t give him that wall money. There’s also this:

One White House official described Trump’s decision to reopen the government as “clearing the deck” for executive action rather than a retreat. And a longtime confidant said Trump has grown increasingly frustrated by news coverage of his concession to Democrats and has been encouraged by conservative allies to escalate the fight.

The Post also reports that Trump privately raged over Democrats’ refusal to bend to his will, leading him to consult the White House counsel’s office about the legal repercussions of declaring a national emergency. White House officials say Trump believes this threat will pressure Democrats to buckle over the wall. Trump even privately sought advice about the negotiations from … Fox Business host Lou Dobbs.

All of this is rather unsettling. Trump had to back down in the last round of the shutdown fight because Democrats now control the House, which means that if Trump wants them to give him more funding for border barriers, he must give them actual concessions, not the fake concessions he offered that turned out to be dramatic restrictions on asylum seeking.

But the narrative that has been created for Trump’s (and his followers’) consumption to explain what’s happening right now is that he is shrewdly and strategically regrouping to do this alone if Democrats refuse once again to unilaterally capitulate to him.

Trump is stuck in Foxlandia

That Trump is consulting Dobbs for private advice about how to proceed — even as he craters in polls — perfectly captures the folly and delusion consuming this presidency at this particular moment. Trump watches Fox obsessively for validation, and he has very likely seen Dobbs tell him that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “whipped” him in the shutdown battle; that his only route forward is to declare a national emergency; and that recent leaks about the Russia probe were really about distracting the public from Democratic opposition to Trump’s wall, as if that’s somehow an unpopular position that Democrats fear holding.

In this mythology, the political threat to Trump does not come from the mounting legal travails he faces (all of that is a hoax and a witch hunt) or from Trump’s malicious and deeply destructive shutdown for the sake of his deeply unpopular wall. Rather, the real political danger to Trump always comes from his failure to fight hard enough, whether it’s failing to close down special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, or failing to do whatever it takes — declare a national emergency, shut down the government until the end of time — to ensure that he gets the wall without giving up anything that might perturb his base in the slightest.

But if Trump did accept that Democrats now control the House, and thus must be offered genuine concessions in exchange for giving him what he wants, Trump probably could get more money for something that fits his latest description of the wall, which he has now downgraded to “steel barriers in high-priority locations.”

Alas, in Foxlandia, there is as much space for an acknowledgment of these new power realities in Washington as there is for an acknowledgment of the polls showing him cratering. In Foxlandia, Trump always has all the hidden leverage, and if only he’d just exercise it, a glorious victory would follow — entirely on Trump’s own terms.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

42 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

This man is such a child 

Maybe he can invent some sort of punitive caffeine tax or something to get back at Schulz

[...] not the smartest person. Besides, America already has that! [...]

Indeed.

[onekidanddone]

If he is such a great builder and an millionaire billionaire eleventylire he should just build it himself. 

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

If he is such a great builder and an millionaire billionaire eleventylire he should just build it himself. 

"Eleventy lira" probably sums up his financial position quite well.

[onekidanddone]

19 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

"Eleventy lira" probably sums up his financial position quite well.

HA! For real I didn't mean to type "lira"  I was trying for eleventyaire 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Trump is down and not getting back up"

Spoiler

Just about every public poll taken since the shutdown shows President Trump’s approval rate dropping. These surveys tell us a strong majority primarily blames him. The latest Post-ABC News poll drills down to ask what voters don’t like about him. The answer is: practically everything.

Nearly 6 in 10 say they have an unfavorable view of the president as a person. Similar majorities say they doubt his empathy, honesty and ability to make political deals, although on several of those attitudes, his ratings have not changed significantly during his time in office. ... Almost half of all Americans (48 percent) say they have no confidence in Trump’s future decision-making.

The Post-ABC poll indicates a huge difference between expectations when he first took office for Trump’s performance on the economy, health care and the debt and how voters now evaluate him on these issues.

More interesting perhaps for a president whose party proclaimed itself uninterested in character are the putrid ratings he gets on personal qualities. Sixty percent of registered voters view him negatively as a person, as do 63 percent of independents and 66 percent of women. A bare majority of registered voters (51 percent) think he isn’t a strong leader; again, he does worse with independents (55 percent) and women (59 percent). On honesty and trustworthiness, 60 percent of registered voters think he isn’t, including 73 percent (!) of independents and 71 percent of women. After two years of his presidency, 58 percent of registered voters (including 67 percent of independents and women) don’t think he has the temperament to be president. Sixty-five percent of registered voters don’t think he cares about people like them, including 68 percent of independents and 72 percent of women.

Perhaps it is the shutdown, not the anticipated report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, that will be Trump’s downfall. Trump’s man-made disaster — the culmination of two years of chaos, meanness, bigotry and lies — leaves voters thinking he is incompetent, uncaring and clueless, much like Hurricane Katrina did for President George W. Bush. That view in all likelihood won’t change, because Trump won’t change.

In the 2016 election, Trump wasn’t viewed favorably either. But he had Hillary Clinton as a foil. It’s why he still references her. Voters — in his mind, I suppose — should appreciate him because they could have had her instead. (Hmm ... no!) In any event, that suggests both a primary challenger in the GOP race and a general election candidate who can manage to best Trump in a slew of personal qualifications might have a real shot at winning.

The bad news is that Trump, or his campaign advisers at least, knows that the only way he wins (other than if former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz runs as an independent) is by making his opponent(s) less likable than himself. That’s going to be hard, but make no mistake: If he is around in 2020, he’ll run the nastiest, most dishonest campaign we’ve ever seen. And if he runs and loses, don’t expect that he’d necessarily accept the results.