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

"...and that little shit's name...was Reince Preibus. I'm Paul Harvey."

gooooood day!

The great one speaks!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/845645916732358656

ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!

A separate response:

https://twitter.com/KT_So_It_Goes/status/845661683628564481

Sitting back & letting your voters go broke until they love you more is a bold political strategy

On Friday evening, a somewhat shellshocked president retreated to the White House residence to grieve and assign blame. He asked his advisers repeatedly: Whose fault was this?

Increasingly, that blame has fallen on Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who coordinated the initial legislative strategy on the health care repeal with Speaker Paul D. Ryan, his close friend and a fellow Wisconsin native, according to three people briefed on Mr. Trump’s recent discussions.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/politics/trump-health-care-defeat-gop-civil-war.html?_r=0&referer=

trump-health-care-defeat-gop-civil-war

that's a nice URL, wish I could have shown myself this the morning of Nov 9

it seemed to some members of that group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that he did not have the greatest grasp of health care policy or legislative procedure.

lol ya think?

heh

Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who returned on Friday from a family skiing trip to Aspen, Colo., had said for weeks that he thought supporting the bill was a mistake, according to two people who spoke with him. The president, according to two Republicans close to the White House, expressed annoyance that Mr. Kushner, who has described himself as a first-among-equals adviser, was not on site during the consequential week of wrangling. Tom Price, who left Congress to become Mr. Trump’s health and human services secretary, was singled out for blame.

heh

Until the final week, Mr. Trump’s team was deeply divided over whether he should fully commit to a hard sell on a bill they viewed as fundamentally flawed, with Vice President Mike Pence pointedly advising the president to label the effort “Ryancare,” not “Trumpcare,” according to aides.

heh

After it was all over, the president dutifully blamed the Democrats, a party out of power and largely leaderless, after turning his back on their offers to negotiate on a bipartisan package that would have addressed shortcomings in the Affordable Care Act while preserving its core protections for poor and working class patients.

Several aides advised him the argument was nonsensical, according to a person with knowledge of the interaction.

Meantime, excellent music criticism here:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2618436#.WNaQpDNWH5c.twitter

For those who don't remember, Papa Roach is a band that had a hit in 2000 called "Last Resort." The song, which is about cutting or something, had a decent guitar lick, but that's the only praise it deserves.

Several Aides Advised Him the Argument Was Nonsensical: The Inside Story Of The Trump Presidency

https://twitter.com/paparoach/status/845465143542611968

perfect

The other two tweets are great too!

https://twitter.com/paparoach/status/845464996695883776

https://twitter.com/paparoach/status/845481000809332737

haha, those tweets are the only good things Papa Roach has ever produced

Well, Trump has a far better grip on political reality than these aides, anyway. It is a nonsensical argument, but that's good.

hmmmmm...

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/23/1646686/-RussiaGate-blows-WIDE-OPEN-in-Abrahamson-report-High-crimes-and-misdemeanors-by-Trump-Sessions

a compelling story but there's a couple of "this one either isn't true or is unsourceable" annotations that make me think this one'll have no legs

Think whatever's happening with Flynn right now is what to ponder. The guy's been awfully quiet.

The articles with 'blown wide open' and 'this changes everything' need to stop. It's not helpful.

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/845602121923813378

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/845601722110226433

some really amazing contortions here

Per Abrahamson sources, Jeff Sessions "_definitely_" met with the Russian ambassador a third time, which he has continued to conceal from Congress, even after he 'corrected' his testimony about _never_ meeting with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. If the source isn't shit, then that's some nice perjuring there, Mr. Attorney General.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/845719948018302977

(THREAD) BREAKING: Harvard professor and @CNN political analyst Juliette Kayyem says, per sources, Michael Flynn may have flipped on Trump.

"Sources" whose first port of call is the host of the Security Mom podcast.

yeah i dont see this going anywhere

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-trump-nyc-cost/?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Oh god his face follows your mouse.

Oh America...

I gotta get me one of these shirts, though

Their three children, ages 9, 5 and 2, each wore shirts saying “I Am Not Pizza #pizzagate.”

I would argue against wishful thinking re these new Flynn suppositions, obviously...but I would say that whatever smoke sure appears to be getting thicker all of a sudden. Manafort, Page and Stone all being suddenly eager to make their case is of interest.

But I would add two things to consider:

1) Flynn is as much driven by revenge as Trump is. His whole arc of rising up to DIA, being forced out for being incompetent/horrible, brooding angrily, getting on the Trump train and becoming NSA made that clear. And then just a few weeks in, he's out again. I can't imagine this is a happy man. And I can imagine him going "And this is the thanks I get?" and acting accordingly in a variety of possible ways.

2) Let's say this all reached this particular point now even a few weeks ago (which obviously given the timeline couldn't happen but bear with me). Trump, newly inaugurated, already tripped up with the original travel ban but otherwise everything is a love-fest as such between him and Congress, more or less. Likelihood of him getting more support and cover than he already has would be much higher, and we've already seen the weird lengths Nunes will go to.

Buuuut...Friday just happened. All of a sudden a lot of people both in Congress and, more importantly in this case, the White House come across looking like incompetent, disorganized fools who have deeply damaged their images and reputation. A perceived unity of purpose has just been completely smashed on the highest profile issue they've been kvetching about this whole decade to date. And even now you've got a slew of GOP types already worrying about 2018 and thinking that Trump's perceived benefits, or fears resulting from his actions towards them via mean tweets or whatever, are a lot less essential in their calculations.

Neither of these points mean something big is about to happen. But I think things are suddenly looking a little less absolute when it comes to thinking something big could never happen.

Also I'm seeing something about a meeting between Flynn, Turkish officials and Nunes...in January. But I'd like a little more confirmation on that.

This, though, this is interesting:

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/845730532382199815

Asked spokesman for Flynn if he is cooperating w/the FBI. He said he is not responding. Not denying or confirming, I asked. "Not responding"

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/23/man-testified-trumps-campaign-chair-just-shot-dead

(Apologies if that was already posted. This thread's been like a bullet train the last couple of days.)

Tagline: “a selection of whiskies that are stronger together than apart.”

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/03/22/dc-distiller-names-whiskey-after-hillary-clinton/

No marketing budget for Wisconsin or Michigan tho

Heeeeyyyy

Minor hmm, but still a hmm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/politics/boris-epshteyn-white-house-press-official-is-let-go-from-his-job.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Boris Epshteyn, an official in the White House press office who had a contentious relationship with television producers and was once a frequent presence on TV himself, is leaving his job, according to three people with knowledge of the move.

The departure was treated with some mystery. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, would not comment on the reason Mr. Epshteyn, an old friend of President Trump’s son Eric, was expected to depart the post.

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said only that officials were exploring other opportunities in the administration for Mr. Epshteyn, who at one point was on cable news as many as seven times a day promoting Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign.

Another person briefed on the discussions said that Mr. Epshteyn’s move was still pending, and that both he and the administration sought it. The person maintained that it was not an acrimonious situation.

But two people familiar with Mr. Epshteyn’s tenure said he had become combative with the networks on which he was assigned to book surrogates defending the administration, a junior position for someone who has other news media experience, which he does.

https://twitter.com/wpjohnwagner/status/845830996687798272

think about this "omg did Flynn flip story" is beyond even the whole circumstantial, thin nature of it, but....that even if it is true, the effort required to remove all the guilty parties from office would be massive. I mean a few of em might just do the Nixon and resign but Trump will obviously not do that, and then there's the whole question of will the Republicans still continue to go down with the sinking ship.

still tho....if it prevents him from getting any of his stupid agenda through....

Please enjoy some schadenfreude.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/trump-supporters-gop-health-bill.html

Meanwhile, new story, with some interviews and background details...and this bit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/magazine/trump-vs-congress-now-what.html

Trump himself seemed prone to distraction as he spoke to me from the Oval Office. Though I was asking about his policy aims, his musings swerved off to other vexations. More than once he denounced as “fake news” reports about his administration’s supposed disharmony. He brought up his speech before the joint session of Congress in February, “which I hope you liked, but I certainly have gotten great reviews — even the people who hate me gave me the highest review.” During the call, I could hear Priebus nearby, occasionally murmuring encouragement.

You live and learn:

On the morning of Feb. 2, two Democratic leaders on trade issues, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts — the ranking members of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees — met with Trump, along with a few of his advisers and Republican lawmakers. Trump had already greeted the day by threatening to yank federal funding from the University of California at Berkeley after acts of violence had forced the cancellation of the Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos’s speech on campus, and by taunting Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poor ratings on “The Apprentice” during the National Prayer Breakfast. Disquiet lingered from Trump’s travel ban on refugees and his surly phone conversation with the Australian prime minister the previous week. Amid this chaos — entirely to Bannon’s liking and grating to nearly everyone else in Washington — actual legislative activity was slowly unfolding.

Trump began the meeting by condemning the trade deals negotiated by his predecessors. The press pool was then ushered out before the Democrats could say anything in front of the cameras. When Neal was given a chance to speak, he informed Trump, Pence, Bannon, Kushner and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that America had in fact prospered as a result of past trade deals. Neal emphasized the crucial role that the Panama Canal played in the economic vitality of the Eastern Seaboard. Other than Ross, no one on Trump’s team seemed aware of this. “They were a bit surprised,” Neal later told me. He was also struck by the White House’s abhorrence of multilateral pacts, which seemed to him to be naïve. “The idea that you’re going to negotiate 148 bilateral agreements with W.T.O. members does not seem realistic,” Neal said. “The idea that we’re all of a sudden going to have a free-trade agreement with Great Britain, that’s going to take years to do.” Later, Neal said, Ross privately assured him that the Trump administration “would not give up on multilateral deals.”

Found this kind of amazing:

http://www.thefader.com/2017/03/25/trump-jeanine-pirro-paul-ryan

Not that he'd try to plant the story, but that he'd tweet a promo in advance.

on tuesday wisconsin votes to go forward for with a constitutional convention. six more states to go, and it's bye bye abortion, gay marriage, social security, voting rights, medicare, college tuition assistance, legalized marijuana, separation between church and state, and religious plurality, and hello full on neo-feudalism

http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/raw/cid/1377335

A lot of folks still can't admit something to themselves, it seems

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-trump-supporters-idUSKBN16X005

Separately, good luck there:

BREAKING NEWS:House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady plans to move tax reform bill through committee in Spring

that seth abramson guy whose tweet thread was listed above is the same guy who wrote that weird article about the sanders campaign being a postmodern narrative experiment

Huntington Beach, home of Black Flag... (xp)

Oh hai Angela plz to pay $300 billion kthxbye

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-angela-merkel-nato-bill-defence-ignore-usa-germany-spending-a7650636.html?amp

is this old news? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/magazine/trump-vs-congress-now-what.html

At some point during the five-hour dinner, Bannon recalls blurting out to Sessions, “We have to run you for president.” Just two years earlier, in 2011, he made a similar pitch to Sarah Palin, after completing a documentary about her called “The Undefeated.” Palin demurred. She was enjoying her life of celebrity and wealth, she had done little to immerse herself in policy minutiae and she was no doubt unsettled by Bannon’s warning that she stood little chance of defeating Obama.

Now he delivered a similar message to Sessions. “Look, you’re not going to win,” he recalls saying. “But you can get the Republican nomination. And once you control the apparatus, you can make fundamental changes. Trade is No.100 on the party’s list. You can make it No.1. Immigration is No.10. We can make it No.2.” Acknowledging that the drawling Alabama senator lacked Palin’s charisma, Bannon said, “You’ll be the anti-candidate.” But Sessions told Bannon he did not see himself running for president. “It was pretty obvious by the end of the night,” Bannon recalled, “that another candidate would have to do it.”

Two months later, on March 15, 2013, Bannon happened to be attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington when Trump took the stage. Trump had been a marginal figure at most in politics up to that point, entertaining a Reform Party run in the 2000 election — when he speculated that he would probably take more votes from the Democratic candidate than the Republican one — and leading a conspiratorial crusade in 2011 to force Obama to release his birth certificate. The possibility that he might be a suitable host body for Bannon’s worldview had not occurred to Bannon before Trump spoke.

Not entirely old but I'd never seen it laid out in that detail before.

kinda surprised that the moment of realization occurred as late as 2013. the birther thing seemed to be tightly aligned with breitbart's, er, worldview

mark meadows has a really unique perspective:

He brushed off President Donald Trump's tweet from earlier Sunday morning claiming that "Democrats are smiling in D.C." over the bill's implosion.

"If they're applauding, they shouldn't, because I can tell you that conversations over the last 48 hours are really about how we come together in the Republican conference and try to get this over the finish line," Meadows said.

He said the bill, which was pulled half an hour before it was set to go to the floor on Friday for a vote, was "not a final passage."

"This was one bill that was going to go to the Senate, get revised and come back," Meadows said. "If it was the final bill, that would be accurate, but here we are in the negotiation process."

Here we are back to step one