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

hahahah

Oh riiiiiight, that guy. In the Politico piece cake just linked he keeps it together most of the way through but the wheels come off at the end with the same fantasy I was rolling my eyes at on here yesterday, that the GOP Congress has any chance of offering a revised AHCA that'll "get the coverage numbers up and make it a sturdier vessel for the turbulence ahead." The entire thrust of their relationship to Obamacare is to get the coverage numbers down because paying for health care is anathema to them. The only kind of improved coverage they could stomach would I guess be getting everybody on really shitty, worthless plans, which certainly isn't sustainable and which won't play any better for those reps who are getting cold feet based on their constituents back home.

Yeah I'm not saying he's got the solution to the GOP/trump problem. But I think he identifies the problem.

Lowry looks like a man forever in search of his first successful gay blowjob.

I think he identifies aspects of the problem but he misidentifies it insofar as he is unwilling to admit who the GOP's congressional delegation actually are and what kind of legislation they are going to actually support. He's right that there are hopeless contradictions but they're more hopeless and more contradictory than his coda admits, IMHO. Not to say they'll never pass anything at all, but the structural problems go deeper than the particular language of this particular bill.

a President Trump who would, presumably, be happier to work with Speaker Dave Brat

this guy is a stone cold moron

Re: taxes, it's so stupid (well, yeah) that Trump has/is wasting his political capital (as such) on travel bans and ACA repeal, among other boondoggles, rather than on tax reform. Employment is solid, and the market is doing insanely well, not due to Trump (obv.) but due to Obama. If Trump was smart (again ...) he would have made tax reform a priority, both to assuage corporations and high income people but also to link the ongoing recovery to policies *he* put in place to keep things moving. Then, with America's economic stability secured, and taxes cut, he should have moved on to the ACA, which would have given the GOP more time to get its shit together and perhaps even time to devise a plan to make it better. But no, they are all such shortsighted idiots. Build a wall, ban the Muslims, cut cut cut!! Just all asshole, all the time, when economic security via jobs or even the illusion of jobs would have earned him enough capital to float him a couple of years. As it is, he's the stupid nouveau riche of politics, wasting his resources on fancy cars, McMansions and the political equivalent of gold plated toilets. Instead of linking the ongoing recovery to policies *he* put in place to keep things moving, Trump will be linked and dragged down by stupid policies he pushed through or put in place that will make America *less* economically secure, so by the time he moves on to taxes - assuming he lasts that long - he'll (maybe) be unable to convince his supporters on the most basic of GOP red meat staples.

the market is doing insanely well, not due to Trump (obv.) but due to Obama.

you sure about that? i assumed the market was doing well since his election because everyone knows that deregulation is coming

"insanely well" is due to coming deregulation

The market is doing well thanks to Obama's general good sense. But to sustain its gains they are salivating for tax cuts and maybe deregulation. But mostly those high end tax cuts on 1% people and corporations currently getting hit with 35% or whatever.

(This from a couple of fancy pants portfolio managers I know.)

xpost

and after a few years of financial ecstasy, it will all come crashing down again. that's why i'm not so eager to jump on the optimism train re: trump's incompetence. wild animals can be very dangerous and act erratically when they're wounded. a financial crash seems inevitable regardless of what trump does (although i'm sure deregulation will hasten its arrival), but he still has the power to do incredible damage in other ways before he gets voted out, regardless of his approval rating or internal power struggles with the GOP

DOW doing insanely well hasn't always translated to jobs in recent years either

No, it's hasn't! I'm not saying it's a good gauge or that lowering taxes would be good for anyone. Just saying as far as Trump and GOP maintaining Trumpmentum, it would have been a smarter first move. All their policies will end in ruin and destruction and disappointment, but why start with the stuff most likely to do that immediately. Build a wall! Ban immigrants! Repeal and replace! All those things are instantly bad, but it would take a couple of years before people paid the price for lowering taxes, and for those couple of years ... taxes would be lowered. So people would have the illusion of greater financial security. Again, it is not sound policy, just would have been a purely strategic move. Don't start with the stuff that will immediately take things away - freedom, health care, immigrants - you've got to work your way up to that. But again, Trump is an asshole, not at all cooperative or conciliatory or compromising, so he missed whatever chance he ever had to build up good will and get his bad ideas passed further down the line. All he's done is generate things people don't or won't like, and will/can run against. You never see tens of thousands in the street protesting lower taxes.

plus with tax cuts you can basically send out 'vote for trump' checks like gwb did early on.

Have fun with that:

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/842440961833766913

Several WH players increasingly turning to Meadows and Cruz as they work through health care, how to revise the plan

fuck the market, ain't done shit for me

fuck the world, don't ask me for shit

Don't start with the stuff that will immediately take things away - freedom, health care, immigrants - you've got to work your way up to that.

on the other hand, an administration's ability to push through controversial legislation is generally at its peak at the beginning, just after the election. so typically what is considered most important is tackled first. it's possible that the most important thing to trump is taking away the rights of people who aren't straight white christian men

reading that WaPo article on the budget... it's just so cruel. It's hard to take in the kind of cruelty that budget reflects.

idk occasionally it's good to see pure evil in all its nakedly unabashed shamefulness

Today's press briefing is FUCKING INSANITY.

dunno why they even bother w those tbg, just an exercise in mutual embarrassment for all involved

tbh

THEY'RE KILLING BIG BIRD!!

Today's press briefing is FUCKING INSANITY.

I was catching up on some of the details just now. Two to one sez tomorrow there's an announcement he's taking the day off for St. Patrick's, as a pre-excuse for the binge.

teetotal-ly

can someone summarize it

Imagine an angry red-faced man.

it's easy if you try

lol

definitely seems like he's turned into the Melissa McCarthy character as of late

Every reply starts with either "Again..." or "I think the President has been perfectly clear on this..."

he tried to joke about making his podum move on a reporter last week. xp

Today's press briefing is FUCKING INSANITY.

so I watched the top of it through the first speaker guy (who was pretty horrifying, but not in an aggro-at-people way) -- what happened?

Sesame Street moved to pay cable ages ago, but killing Big Bird remains both a) a high GOP priority and b) Democrats' cuddliest example of what Republicans want to kill.

it moved to hbo just last year, not ages ago; and it still runs on pbs, just on a delay

would trump's tax cuts even translate into GWB-style checks for the average person? i was picturing more ryan gosling's bonus at the end of the big short.

twitter is really going off on the press conf, apparently spicer quoted hannity as a source to the room and claims obama spied via GCHQ / british intel (??) not sure if there is more or what but sounds like he's having a bad time

meanwhile The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz wrote a hilarious-chilling story about press conference and Lucian Wintrich, whose name is perfect for an Evelyn Waugh character. The following exchange is out of Bret Easton Ellis:

Over dinner at a nearby steakhouse, Hoft and Wintrich brainstormed about what they might ask the next day. “Just make sure it has ‘fake news’ in it, Lucian,” Hoft said, passing him a notepad. “Every question you ask with the words ‘fake news,’ you get a ten-dollar bonus. We’ll add that to your contract.”

Wintrich, sipping a Martini, jotted a few notes. “Sean! Over here, Sean!” he said, pretending to raise his hand. “In the past month alone, there have been at least twenty fake-news stories in the failing New York Times. Does fake news like this get in the way of the President’s ability to proceed on policy?”

Hoft cackled loudly enough to startle a woman at a nearby table. “That’s fucking hilarious,” he said. “Should we do something about ‘S.N.L.,’ maybe?”

“A follow-up, Sean, if I may?” Wintrich said. “Do you think that the failing show ‘Saturday Night Live’ will be cancelled, or can it be made great again?”

“That’s hard-core,” Jeremy Segal, one of the filmmakers, said.

“Genius,” Hoft said. He finished his steak, ordered a slice of banana cream pie, and asked Wintrich whether he wanted another Martini. “Lucian, when we’re out together, I pay for everything. You know that, right?”

“That’s very kind of you,” Wintrich said.

Andrew Marcus, the other filmmaker, said, “The big decision you have to make is how much of a troll you’re willing to be.”

“He’s there to troll,” Hoft said.

For a moment, Wintrich seemed to get cold feet. “Should we have a couple of backup questions that are specifically about policy?” he asked, tentatively.

“Policy schmolicy,” Hoft said.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/is-trump-trolling-the-white-house-press-corps

Recent Skype questions were allotted to a Trump supporter and newspaper owner in Kentucky, who asked about reducing coal-mining regulations, and to a talk-radio host named Lars Larson, who addressed the press secretary, an officer in the Navy Reserve, as “Commander Spicer,” before asking whether the Administration would privatize federally protected parkland.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/763415158836301824/yvJXZiZo.jpg

i got yr wintrich right here.. what a fancy boy

Commander Spicer!!!

every one of these people are motherfuckers

Like in the Reagan years we're starting to see this nexus between the grislier elements of far right macho posturing + homosexuality.

i will lead the nexus between far left macho posturing + homosexuality.

reading that the WH budget director is proposing the meals on wheels and afterschool meals because the "don't deliver results" is just infuriating me

I read this thread regularly, almost never comment because what do I have to say really, but man, this shit's really getting to me today

claims obama spied via GCHQ / british intel (??)

lol I quoted the Fox interview that dropped this tidbit upthread

which I'm sure is the source of Spicer's claim