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

Rep. Raul Gri­jalva, who co­chairs the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gress­ive Caucus with El­lis­on, agreed, not­ing that the “ex­treme pos­ture” of Trump’s policies has riled up the Demo­crat­ic base to the point that mem­bers who work with him run a risk, even if they bring home in­fra­struc­ture pro­jects.

“That’s got to be a hell of a bridge. I’m talk­ing eight lanes. It bet­ter be worth it,” he said.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/649860?oref=t.co&mref=twitter_post&unlock=UC49MYE85UIOOAHT

at that point they almost need Dem votes to advance any measure

The article cited a 2002 story in the Hill in which Mike Pence said that “he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.”

Have any of the Clash of Civilizations people glommed on to a future where fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims unite against the rest of us infidels?

xpost Yup. FC has to be on board or nothing happens, really.

how well, exactly, did Trump or Ryan do in math?

"if we grow 30 more replicant Reps in a lab and program them to be Republican, then we can pass our legislation!"

Replicant Republican Reps

Meanwhile in the Senate. (Keep in mind Isakson just had major surgery.)

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/847471836363345920

Senate Majority so fragile that Isakson being rushed back and Pence to break tie on regulation rollback after Collins, Murkowski defections

every GOP'er running in 2018 is gonna have to figure out which side of 20 Trump's approval rating is gonna be

Sure, but the calculation won't be as simple as looking at Trump's national approval number then running either against or for him.

They'll need to know the approval rating in their district, and also the approval rating relative to their Democratic opponents as well as relative to that of Democrats generally. They may also have to consider third-party effects and threats to turnout.

The final formula is like

(TrumpApprovalInDistrict - DemChallengerPositives) * PriceOfAvocados) = (AverageDailyTemperature + GDP) - LikelihoodOf3rdPartyRun) / AggregateRGBValuesOfCandidateNeckties

Math is hard!

Meantime:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/freedom-caucus-donald-trump.html

Regarding a meeting yesterday at the WH attended by Heritage Action types et al and Trump's 'conservative outreach director' Paul Teller -- a meeting that wasn't supposed to be leaked but of course:

Thomas Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch — a conservative legal advocacy group that successfully sued the Obama administration for the release of Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails — made a pointed pitch for the release of all documents pertaining to the Russia controversy, according to people who attended the session in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House.

Mr. Fitton, the participants said, told Mr. Teller that Mr. Trump needed to be committed to a policy of extreme transparency about contacts between Russian government officials and Trump associates during the 2016 campaign, including Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.

He also asked Mr. Teller and other administration officials present to more rapidly approve bottled-up Freedom of Information requests about Russia and other topics — likening the foot-dragging on legally mandated disclosure to what he said was the Obama administration’s flouting of immigration laws.

Mr. Teller nodded, took notes and was noncommittal, an activist in attendance said.

Given Fitton and what he's done, I'd call that a bit of a warning shot to the WH.

Also of note, regarding this morning's tweet:

Mr. Trump’s message on Twitter was not impulsive: Mr. Bannon and his staff have been closely monitoring the president’s posts and using them as leverage in negotiations.

Dan Scavino, an aide who controls Mr. Trump’s official White House Twitter account, recently moved into Mr. Bannon’s West Wing office where he closely monitors social activity by and about the president, according to two officials.

One administration official, speaking, as were others, on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the meetings, said it was a long overdue attempt to keep conservatives from criticizing Mr. Trump publicly.

I mean, good luck with that.

Meanwhile in the Senate. (Keep in mind Isakson just had major surgery.)

v reminiscent of a play i saw in London about Labour chaos in '70s UK

i dunno what's worse, that trump's apparently loose-cannon tweeting does indeed come straight off the top of his dome or that he and bannon are agonising over every single word in the belief that they're master strategisers

I believe both these things to be true.

I know Trump's popular in the districts he won, but if I were a Freedom Caucus zombie at this point I could give a flying fuck about one of his tweets.

"You want someone to primary me? Bring it on."

medicare / social security for all, or go home, congress

as an aside, i'm surprised that more articles don't mention that the freedom caucus is entirely composed of men. no big deal, just three dozen people who all happen to be men. cynthia lummis was once part of the freedom caucus but she decided to retire from politics after her term was up, for some crazy reason.

sorry I was in a meeting and missed the window on this but I'm posting it anyway:

@marcorubio suffered from Russian active measures during the election, Clinton Watts tells Senate Intel Committee. Rubio looked startled

No, that's just his face.

I am pretty sure you have to pass a Void Comp test to prove you have no empathy to be able to join the GOP. Its a basic requirement.

Jon Schwarz: Russia investigation heading toward a train wreck because Republicans don’t care what happened

Unfortunately... we’re on a trajectory to the worst possible outcome. It’s now easy to imagine a future in which Trump and Russia become the millennials’ equivalent of the John F. Kennedy assassination: A subject where no one can honestly be sure whether there was no conspiracy or a huge conspiracy, the underlying reality concealed by the thick murk of government secrecy, and progressives exhausting themselves for decades afterwards trying to prove what really happened....

So if the intelligence committees conclude there was no coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, it will understandably be impossible to persuade many Democrats that the investigations were legitimate. (On the other hand, Republicans would have good reason to be skeptical if they do not reveal surveillance of Donald Trump and his associates – both intelligence committees are notoriously loath to attack the agencies they’re supposedly overseeing, and members have made truly shocking statements about their general impotence.)

The solution now remains the same as it’s always been: A commitment by top Republicans to investigations that will not just be credible to them but to everyone else in the country.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/russia-investigation-heading-toward-a-train-wreck-because-republicans-dont-care-what-happened/

I honestly don't really care what actually happened as long as this issue continues to hurt/hamper Trump's ability to govern

agreed!

who cares what happened, it's probably boring tbh

but my rep is on the house floor with murder diagrams and I'm for it

i dunno what's worse, that trump's apparently loose-cannon tweeting does indeed come straight off the top of his dome or that he and bannon are agonising over every single word in the belief that they're master strategisers

his two-part tweets usually have like a 10 minute gap between them. so either he really does agonize over every word or he really struggles at typing on his phone.

“He had told me that — like, a whistleblower-type person had given him some information that was new that spoke to the last administration and part of this investigation,” Ryan said. “He briefs me about it, didn’t know the content of it, only knew the nature of it and that he was going to brief others.”

say what?

Meantime, a perfect crossover for ILM

https://twitter.com/brandonstosuy/status/847250470477324289

James Murphy's excited about all those upcoming LCD Soundsystem shows.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8IJyPVVYAAJTF_.jpg

why is a polar bear wearing human clothes

i don't care what happened but it would be hilarious if the pee tape showed up

This Senate hearing is fun:

https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/847477859018973184

Stunning exchange at Senate Intel:

Q: GOP Sen - ‘Why do #Russia active measures work?

A: [Clinton Watts]- “Because #Trump embraces them."

what's the over/under on the senate russian investigation committee pinning putin's motives to collude with obama/#crookedhillary on making 'real americans' doubt the legitimacy of our duly-elected president, mr. trump? only the POTUS stands between us and the soviets, kenyans, and feminazis!

His name is CLINTON Watts

It's so obvious!

I feel like whatever happened wrt Russia is less important than patching the holes (in terms of intelligence gathering, vetting of presidential candidates, education of the electorate, etc.) that allowed attempts of foreign interference to even have an impact in the first place. But on a more personal level, I just want Trump and everyone who supports him to suffer the consequences of being just the worst on every conceivable level. I'll take whatever little bit of justice we can get in that regard, in whatever form it chooses to manifest itself.

The article cited a 2002 story in the Hill in which Mike Pence said that “he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.”
Have any of the Clash of Civilizations people glommed on to a future where fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims unite against the rest of us infidels?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, 30 March 2017 15:35 (fifty-eight minutes ago) Permalink

the epilogue of The Handmaid's Tale

wait, shit, i misread what you were saying, ignore my post.

I just want Trump and everyone who supports him to suffer the consequences of being just the worst on every conceivable level.

indeed. I don't see this leading to impeachment necessarily, but between this, getting smacked down by the courts, the hilariously botched attempt to deliver on an ACA replacement, the Republican infighting, his administration blowing all their credibility on day one, and his historically awful approval ratings, this is definitely on track to be the most incompetent and toothless administration in modern history

and dangerous.

and that's sayin somethin'

I thought Judicial Watch was a Bannon front, but it turns out it just a good old fashioned Scaife front. The Bannon front I was thinking about is the 'Government Accountability Institute'

deputy chief of staff/reince ally/ex-RNC kate walsh out

leak the tax returns, walsh!

she's leaving it for a pro-Trump political group, so I doubt that will happen

kate walsh out

if trump stays true to form (and he does so 98% of the time) there's going to be a lot of churning of WH staff. he loves to fire people, pit people against one another, and create a storm of chaos with himself at the unruffled center. it's one of his primary tools for managing people who are much smarter than he is.

she's leaving it for a pro-Trump political group, so I doubt that will happen

Not the first to do this -- I admit I love the logic of "We totally support him! But we don't want to be near him."

Was this clip linked here?

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/03/30/trump-russian-measures-clinton-watts-sot.cnn

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/devin-nunes-intelligence-reports.html?_r=0&referer=

Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.