Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

Most of the substantive reporting has come from leaks. Spicer's pressers mostly just illustrate the insanity of the WH.

Reporters should just outright quit asking policy questions at his gaggles and just ask hurtful troll questions like "Sean, why don't women like you?"

I've been saying for a while that 'what's that thing on your face?' or some variant thereof should make its way into every WH staff interview.

a lot of good sobering shit from Masha Gessen here:

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/03/06/trump-russia-conspiracy-trap/

reading this makes me feel a tiny bit sympathetic to the loons who just hunker down with their fringe media hysteria-mongers on the far right and far left and shut out the rest of the world. not that I take every word of WaPo, the Times, CNN, as gospel, but if this much of their reporting can (apparently) be picked apart, it just leaves you feeling kind of hopeless at ever getting all that close to the truth. I guess the best course of action is just heightened skepticism towards everything, though psychologically I think it's really really hard to resist buying in when a relatively dependable news source is telling you bad shit about someone you despise.

this bit is sort of ancillary to the main point of the piece but it's just goddamn beautiful:

Modern Russian spymasters get their ideas about the West from the West itself—they are generally convinced that the American political system is accurately portrayed by House of Cards. If Russian disruption efforts were more successful during the 2016 American election, it was not because the Russians have become so much better at what they do or have finally developed a sophisticated understanding of American politics—it is because American politics have come to resemble the TV caricatures.

Trump and his entire campaign team are precisely the kinds of fringe characters that Russians have traditionally cultivated, to no measurable effect. Even the insiders on Trump’s team were outsiders: Jeff Sessions was seen by his Senate colleagues as a crank and an extreme outlier on immigration and other issues; General Mike Flynn had been fired by the Obama administration for insubordination that stemmed from his penchant for conspiracy theories. Others, like foreign policy adviser Carter Page, had never been allowed at the grown-up table before. One-time campaign manager Paul Manafort, for all his supposed Republican/Washington credentials, was basically a paid hack for a succession of the world’s crooks. And Steve Bannon, above all, had turned being a fringe character into a profession.

no one posted this yet? Might get buried by the EO stuff idk

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal

The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

I started reading that this morning but didn't finish At the risk of sounding like a dunce I wish it had been a good bit shorter and tighter.

Sobering to whom? John Schindler?

Ben Carson at HUD: “There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less.”

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/838838816517603328

Imagine if the same kind of attention could be trained and sustained on other issues—like it has been on the Muslim travel ban. It would not get rid of Trump, but it might mitigate the damage he is causing. Trump is doing nothing less than destroying American democratic institutions and principles by turning the presidency into a profit-making machine for his family, by poisoning political culture with hateful, mendacious, and subliterate rhetoric, by undermining the public sphere with attacks on the press and protesters, and by beginning the real work of dismantling every part of the federal government that exists for any purpose other than waging war. Russiagate is helping him—both by distracting from real, documentable, and documented issues, and by promoting a xenophobic conspiracy theory in the cause of removing a xenophobic conspiracy theorist from office.

Uh huh. "Russiagate" is not helping Trump. Sorry. It's not. The energy and attention on it is not stealing from energy and attention that can be productively applied to other issues. Unless you're talking about the GOP's policy goals, in which case, it totally is.

I think she's probably right on in those paragraphs evol j quoted above, but "this is a hurtful distraction from the real issues" does not automatically follow from "Russian spymasters are traditionally pretty terrible at their job"

@robcrilly
Tony Blair's secret White House meeting as he pushes to become Jared Kushner's Middle East adviser

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4282190/Tony-Blair-s-secret-White-House-summit-work-Trump.html

@dick_nixon
My God, there must be seven or eight ways to get us all killed contained in that.

From my anecdotal observations, there's a strong and completely understandable instinct from people who are intimately familiar with former Soviet shenanigans to dismiss this - "the Russians are nowhere near this cunning and clever and capable, stop giving them so much credit and just talk about literally anything else; also I'm sick of hearing about it"

Leave it to this off-camera Spicer briefing to clearly be his 'best' yet:

https://twitter.com/mviser/status/838838820779012096

Sean Spicer on basis for Trump’s claims: “If we start down the rabbit hole of discussing this stuff, we end up in a very difficult place."

Serious question: how much longer before Russian intel leaders would be from the post-Soviet era? Ten years?

(fwiw i have no idea what that would or would not mean about their methodology/SOP)

Former PM Tony Blair is pushing to be middle east advisor to Trump middle east advisor Kushner? Blair should get Flynn to advise him on how to advise Kushner on how advise Trump. And then Ivanka could advise Flynn.

“If we start down the rabbit hole of discussing this stuff, we end up in a very difficult place."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6QpwJYUoAAX0xh.jpg:large

Tony Blair has long since settled into his 'British actor can't get work at home, has to butter up colonials with bad renditions of his past work' phase.

Do we know if there will be a White House easter egg hunt this year? Because if so we need to keep an eye on that bunny, no doubt fast tracked for big things to come.

It would be hilarious if Trump got another billionaire buddy to be the easter bunny.

I'd just wait on the kids egging Trump.

xp he's almost surely going to make Ted Cruz do it

Too late
http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/11/06/636140573808419398-163160510_trump%20egg.jpg

A spokeswoman for Blair said she would not comment on private meetings but insisted there had been no discussions about the former prime minister working for Trump, describing the report in the Mail on Sunday as an “invention”.

She added: “Mr Blair has made no such ‘pitch’ to be the president’s Middle East envoy.

“Neither has he had any discussions about taking such a role or any role working for the new president. He has been working on the peace process for 10 years. He continues to do so. He does so in a private capacity. He will continue to do it in that way. Period.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/05/tony-blair-denies-he-wants-to-be-trumps-middle-east-envoy-jared-kushner

"Period" is a nice touch (not that I believe anything anyone says any more).

I also contribute to the peace process in a private capacity btw.

where's the tax returns?

BREAKING: Maggie Smith cast as Tony Blair.

I contribute to peace by smoking weed

https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/838796658800381953

anyone know how many times did hillary's people met with senior russian officials during the election? just curious

3.

Meantime, the ACA repeal effort is about to grind to a halt:

https://twitter.com/cam_joseph/status/838868239992176642

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6RCNMxXQAEX1Fe.jpg:large

anyone know how many times did hillary's people met with senior russian officials during the election? just curious

― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, March 6, 2017 4:40 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not enough, apparently! Russia is the new battleground state

@davidfrum
The deep state, otherwise known as “uniforms that guard you while you sleep.”

@samfbiddle
I can't wait for people to start wearing CIA hats and sweatshirts from canal street like post-9/11 NYPD

clearly some folks itt need to get out of their bubbles and talk with some real salt of the earth working class russian voters, if the dems are to have any hope next time around.

I don't have an answer to qualmsley's Q, but i'll post this and just wait for Tombot to call Taibbi a buncha names.

@mtaibbi
Ambassadors often visit conventions. Meetings with presidential hopefuls aren't unusual. Not speaking to Russia/Sessions, just generally.

But who is the ambassador...of love?

how unusual is lying to the senate about it tho

has anyone asked before?

lol

the thing people keep focusing on is whether the meeting is inherently appropriate or inappropriate and it's like - "congratulations, that's not what we're discussing". It's that these meetings happened around the same time where Russian meddling in the election was said to have happened and your Attorney General didn't see fit to disclose that. Who knows, maybe they talked about beer and pussy?

It's the constant "OMG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, WHY ARE YOU LOOKING" that doesn't help matters, whereas Obama/Schumer et al are all like "lol go ahead investigate the FISA claim, knock yourself out"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMlP_Moo0bE&app=desktop

"White House press release contains full paragraph copied verbatim from Exxon press release."

https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/838874217852567552

i was going to say something about how lazy this was but clearly people don't care about the formality of government officials attempting to mask corruption by corporations anymore so, i guess, nothing really to see here

The House plan to destroy Obamacare has been released.

Back ACHA

Thought I suppose it should be AHCA. Ah well.

Anyway, apparently there's two parts?

https://t.co/HfGQzgFrLG

anti-Muslim Ban demo happening outside the WH now

Health care for everyone! With a side of green beans!

guys there's no question something happened

http://www.sfgate.com/local/politics/article/Two-third-back-special-prosecutor-to-probe-10981219.php