US Politics, September 2018: having a nervous breakdown

...abnormal, even for this administration

nope. with him it's a tradition he started in the first couple of weeks after the inauguration.

Third sub-40% approval rating just came out. First real evidence of a 'slide' in a while, will hold my breath as to whether it self-corrects

refolding his hair resolutely and getting the AG to say ""Snoissesffej!" will make everything maga-better

Lol

Giuliani really doesn't get the concept of a poker face huh

My favorite quote from that New Yorker profile of Giuliani:

The President took a more indulgent stance. “He’s learning the subject matter,” Trump said of Giuliani. “He started yesterday. He’ll get his facts straight.” (Giuliani had started about a month earlier.)

i hate to suggest that the Grifter has a point about Comey, but y'know...

sort of like the Dems got back to fellating the Maverick cuz he died in mid-feud w/ President Circus Peanut

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, man

You don't have to like a guy to think the reason he was fired was horseshit

Or probably illegal

This morning I saw that Bannon was going to be interviewed by Remnick at the New Yorker festival. And poof, now I see that he has already been disinvited after several of the other invited famous people announced they would drop out. I'd probably do the same, if I were invited. What Remnick (who is smart) didn't realize about Bannon (who is probably also smart) is that Bannon won just by being asked to be there, and wins doubly by being dropped. The way you win against Bannon is to stop acting like he has anything important to say at all. See also, probably, Trump and his twitter diarrhea. Except that Trump, unlike Bannon, can make horrible shit happen overnight, so unfortunately someone should at least check in with him once in a while.

in the course of my time here i'm aware of having been called a cunt twice -- once by the lex and once by imago <3 -- but 'tankie' is a level i can't even fathom

captain's log, sept 3 2018

the stars are so beautiful tonight. i love space so much. tonight i had to google 'tankie'. here is the popularity scan readings from urbandictionary:

https://i.imgur.com/u7wbITP.png

Asparagus for dinner again. I hate asparagus. Does this mean I'll never grow up?

inviting bannon in the first place was absurd, but i'm not sure that disinviting him is a 'win'. he's a spent force; i'm skeptical that trump/fox will go to bat for him for being silenced by the fake media

If reports that came out several months ago are to be credited, our president, Donald Trump, probably phones Steve Bannon during the wee hours several times a month, still seeking his opinions and advice.

it's true that they gave him a 'win' just by inviting him (steve bannon is now 4 games below .500). then they gave him another win by disinviting him because it shows the liberal tankies can't handle the truth. it was a shitshow from the very beginning. great job all around, new yorker.

It's a win for Bannon because it underscores his boogeyman bona fides, and every time he gets dissed by the Jew York Media helps earn him him back credit with his cronies.

(steve bannon is now 4 games below .500)

stop confusing steve bannon with the pirates

(to be crystal clear, once they invited him to speak, they were doomed to lose no matter what happened. letting him speak would be bad. disinviting him would be bad. it's kind of like what happens after you decide to heat up a bunch of canola oil in a frying pan and toss it up in the air over a wedding party)

And now for something completely different:

http://remezcla.com/features/music/beto-orourke-punk-band-foss-cedric-bixler-zavala/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/opinion/midterms-healthcare-bankrupt.html

The Republican opposition to Obamacare is so evil.

I wonder what these republicans will do when they get trounced out of office?
Hmmm
"Boehner joined the board of tobacco company Reynolds American on September 15, 2016.[99]
In 2018, John Boehner announced his joining the board of Acreage Holdings, a cannabis corporation, to "promote the use of medical marijuana" and to advocate for federal decriminalization of it, a shift in his previously adamant opposition to cannabis legalization.["

wikipedia

weedboehner420

The worst kind..

I wonder if this is how Trump's meeting go

"At a cabinet meeting in Baghdad, Minister of Health Riyadh Ibrahim Hussein suggested that Saddam could step down temporarily as a way of easing Iran towards a ceasefire, and then afterwards would come back to power.[46]:147 Saddam, annoyed, asked if anyone else in the Cabinet agreed with the Health Minister's idea. When no one raised their hand in support, he escorted Riyadh Hussein to the next room, closed the door, and shot him with his pistol.[46]:147 Saddam returned to the room and continued with his meeting."

look i'm not saying that it'd be a good thing for trump to murder rick perry or wilbur ross or kirstjen nielsen if and when they displease him but i'm not not saying it either if you get me

Not sure where you got that from, ie:

At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr. Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr. Ibrahim was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the wrong concentration of potassium supplement.

Dr. Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a sacked minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that arrest that he was "glad that he got away alive." Pieces of Ibrahim's dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.[72]

xp

where I get everything from, wikipedia

Bulloch, John; Morris, Harvey (1989). The Gulf War: Its Origins, History and Consequences (1st published ed.). London: Methuen.

Same :-/ (from Saddam's wiki)

Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, "Saddam's Delusions: The View From the Inside", Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006.

The Trumpian version of this is calling the people he's had other functionaries fire on his behalf and expressing his disappointment that they've decided to leave his employ.

WHat! Wikipedia has conflicting data!

maybe its one of those "many worlds" or "alternative facts" things

either way it seems dr ibrahim died of distinctly unnatural causes

good mourning!

Dismemberment influenza is endemic to totalitarian states iirc.

Democrats chance of taking the House ticked up to 80% on 538. They don't seem to track the Senate, as far as I can tell. Not sure why.

*coughnovember82016cough*

Nate Silver, the renowned pollster who has seriously talked up the chances of Donald Trump winning today's election, has released his final forecast.

And it is good news for Hillary Clinton, with Silver's model now giving her a 71.4 per cent chance of victory compared to Mr Trump's 28.6 per cent.

Silver's FiveThirtyEight project had come in for some criticism in the last week after it gave Mr Trump a chunky 35 per cent chance of becoming president.

Ah, found a note in an article about the TX Senate race that a Senate forecast is coming soon.

I mean you can’t say he was wrong, in the real world we only flip the coin the one time is all

xxp

Not sure what the point is? 538 was much more accurate on the 2016 election than other sources.

Republicans currently have a 20% chance to hold the House. That's a real chance and they might be successful! But the fact that their chances are that low and dropping is still a good sign for Democrats.

They are currently working on a senate model.

What we need are senate supermodels.

Then they could broadcast hearings like the PPV Victoria Secret's Angel Show or whatever.

http://www.simpsonspark.com/framegrabs/5f09/frame037.jpg

custoooooooos!

fp'd u for giving me the mental image of trump in a skimpy silk thong and bustier xp

BREAKING NEWS w/ @PhilipRucker: Bob Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency https://t.co/dUBY1SlrwX

— Robert Costa (@costareports) September 4, 2018

*jerkoff motion*

I’d rather read a Costa/Rucker/Philip book

A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.

Woodward describes “an administrative coup d’etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.

thread titles in here

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

we're in crazytown!