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

maddow loves sinking her teeth into a scandal but she almost always chooses these non-stories, it's bizarre

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand)

it's intentional, actually. her bosses probably instruct her to tread lightly around real scandals. like trump's birtherism, comey's campaign interference, the benghazi thing. none of which she touched, when it might have made some difference if she did. but now that trump has actually won, she's all about these russian pseudo-scandals. maddow makes 7M a year, btw.

he's not smart enough to think it's a good move to leak them, and in any case, it's not a good move.

John Barron thinks he is, and by the way, it's a brilliant move

Increasingly interested as to when Trump dumps the new health proposal. (At this point I think it's a matter of time.) It's worth noting Ryan's suddenly sounding VERY whiny:

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/841994819396370432

“Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, “went to his mailbox” and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!”

ok so now I'm convinced Trump leaked this himself

xp it is interesting that, if this is the health bill everyone ran on last year, nobody knew anything about this bill until last week hm

Josh Marshal:

Health care politics resonate like nothing else. They cut across President Trump's coalition like a scythe. If you're looking for the political battle that will damage President Trump and his party it is Obamacare repeal. Of course, there are few issues before the political nation today that will more affect the lives of people across the country, especially the most vulnerable, the least politically powerful. So there's no trade-off between 'politics' and things that effect people's lives.

The GOP and President Trump are now woefully exposed with a deeply unpopular reform, deep in enemy territory with little hope of an organized retreat. The Senate GOP wants to go left; the House GOP wants to go right. And you're already seeing a growing chorus from the feral Trump right that Paul Ryan has led Trump into a trap and he, Ryan, should be forced to pay the price.

This can break Trump if his opponents can organize effectively, maybe even if they can't.

His larger point: Russia and immigration policies won't break Trump. Health care repeal will.

yup

be serious, these weren't leaked by trump. these were entered into court records in a way other years were not, so it's not necessarily a surprise they came out, he's not smart enough to think it's a good move to leak them, and in any case, it's not a good move.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:18 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

battles can obv be fought simultaneously but we really need to stop looking for some smoking gun that's going to remove trump from office. the possibility of 25 million people losing health insurance because of a shitty policy is much more potent than russia/tax returns/etc

Death by a thousand cuts is my preference though. Why is there such a need to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others? The Clinton campaign did that (with his bad manners, bigotry and buffoonery, to the exclusion of his horrible business record and the inanity of his policy ideas) and here we are.

No one topic is going to break this coalition or this administration up. You don't know which straw will be the last one for different people.

and this shitty policy will implicate not only trump but the whole GOP so yea josh marshall otm there

The focus on Russia and Immigration policies probably took a whole lot of time that Trump and Ryan could have used on their health care reform. Everyone keeps talking about distractions when Trump is the most easily distracted one of all.

attack from all sides. and never let up for a second. that's my motto.

josh marshall is another one who should have thought more about what would have "broken trump" before he got elected. xpost.

I don't care if there's a bombshell in his taxes or not, he should be routinely savaged for not releasing him, as you know for damn sure he would if any of his political opponents did the same.

“Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, “went to his mailbox” and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!”

ok so now I'm convinced Trump leaked this himself

writer who no-one has heard, but has written a book re ... umm .. Trump :

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Donald-Trump-David-Johnston/dp/1612196322

About that 'no-one has heard' part:

http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-cay-johnston

The tax return edition of Maddow was obviously overblown, lots of smoke little fire, but I think it's not the worst strategy to keep focus on Trump's business ties to foreign governments. The conflict of interest stuff often gets buried under the rug, and if concrete proof were to come out that he is receiving money from a foreign government, it would be an impeachable offense. It shouldn't be the most pressing issue on the minds of liberals (fighting the travel ban and raking the GOP over the coals on health care should), but it's a good thing to have on the back burner.

yea IDK where this "Maddow major fail" thing is coming from. if you actually watched the show it focused pretty heavily on his foreign connections in the beginning and the whole time they were floating the idea that Trump himself leaked these to distract from something else. plus the "we've got tax returns!" tweet obviously wasn't gonna refer to anything recent or detailed, otherwise it would've said so.

David Cay Johnston‏ Verified account @DavidCayJ 3h3 hours ago

More
David Cay Johnston Retweeted Donald J. Trump

Gee, Donald, your White House confirmed my story. POTUS fake Tweet. Sad!

WHAT IS HE HIDING? WHY WON'T HE RELEASE HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE?

BREAKING: http://thehill.com/media/323635-trump-stops-following-scarborough-brzezinski-on-twitter

Saw on Twitter last night, forget from whom, that in 2005 Trump paid over one-fifth as much in AMT as all of the Top 400 filers that year (of which he was NOT one) combined. that to me is more interesting than anything Maddow discussed in her entire hour, especially considering Trump wants to get rid of AMT.

the foreign dealings are worth digging into, of course, but there was absolutely nothing tying that stuff to these two pages of returns, so it just made her look like she was trying force connections that hadn't been proven, which is basically what she does every other night of the week.

Was going to say, it is just a matter of time before the Trump White House starts bringing up Russia to distract from ACA repeal, and then lo and behold, this morning they arrest several Russian spies for the Yahoo hack.

ain't Comey supposed to announce something today?

Supposedly.

Texans Receive First Notices of Land Condemnation for Trump’s Border Wall

I still can't see how THAT won't blow up in Trump's face.

eminent domain is as american as apple pie

Didn't Trump say he loves eminent domain?

he thought they were referring to the Who song

A kinda big thing among a lot of movement conservative types has been how eminent domain is awful. At the same time another kind big thing has been complaining about illegal immigration. I'll be amused to see how this breaks down.

Separately -- good job there:

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/842033863287271424

House Intel Committee chairman @DevinNunes says if one takes POTUS tweets on wiretapping literally then clearly he was mistaken

he's right!

Amazing how that works.

And per other notes:

https://twitter.com/kristina_wong/status/842032059371642880

Nunes says NSA's Adm. Rogers, Comey will testify in a public hearing on Monday.

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/842006263013769218

I'd love for someone to give us all some formal guidelines on which presidential statements we should take literally/seriously and which ones we shouldn't. And I just generally love that we're in a situation where that's even a distinction that anyone should have to fucking make.

If something sounds "bad" (or sick), don't take him literally. We're also not supposed to take him literally when he says something that sounds "too good" like "all Americans will have healthcare at a low cost."

you're so supposed to him seriously when he's right about something and think he's joking when he's not

it's the same thing bar buffoons do - loudly share stupid opinions until someone calls them out on it, then claim they were just joking brah, relax

We should internally treat his every statement with the distinct lack of seriousness that he's consistently demonstrated throughout decades as a public figure and externally treat his every potentially self-incriminating with grave seriousness and a demand for answers from the top down and an insistence upon any evidence that supports said statements, etc.

@pixelatedboat
Weird that Trump's only deduction was for "the pens I use to draw larger breasts on Broom-Hilda every day"

-9 % approval on Rasmussen today. That's about a ten point swing in a week.

Is there any place doing a worthwhile/contextualized Trump approval ratings tracker? 538 have one buried beneath the sport stuff, and they say it's doing the usual thing of adjusting for 'house effects' and poll quality and stuff - but I'd love to see something that overlays past presidents' complete arcs over the same period just so you have some kind of point of comparison.

this GOP pollster did that during the campaign. haven't seen him do it since except this link

https://twitter.com/adrian_gray/status/832379313165066240

which has this

http://i.imgur.com/rlKp3jY.png

Unfortunately it seems like 30% of the US population is the hard core ride or die republicans

anyone know the last time comrade combover was interviewed by a real journalist?

Unfortunately it seems like 30% of the US population is the hard core ride or die republicans

Never forget lunch discussion 145

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html

Yeah but instead of the Alan Keyes barrier its now the Todd Akin threshold (ps I regurgitate everything I hear on podcasts. this is Harry Enten's take)

this is an interesting insight regarding the trump returns and whether they were leaked by the WH or not.. I didnt think about how it might tie in to his CURRENT returns, which should be filed soonish?

And to know that, we need something else even more than Trump’s returns from 2005, or 1995 or 2015. We need to see the tax returns he files while he’s president. Every president for the last 40 years has released theirs — you can read them here. We need to know what he’s making, who’s paying him, and how it relates to the policy decisions he’s making. The past returns are important, but the future ones are even more vital. The White House will claim that nobody cares and it’s none of our business. But we do care, and it’s absolutely our business.