Trump, July 2017: Tweet more

I think that I will never care
To repeal or replace Obamacare

no coverage of healthcare bill failure on Fox News - lead story is "REPUBLICANS STRIKE BACK: GOP lawmakers press for special counsel on Clinton, Comey, Lynch"

not sure if the "strikes back" reference means what they want it to mean

Do I dare/
Disturb the stability of the healthcare insurance market?

On the "destructive bigot" front, let the triple assault on queer rights Wednesday sink in.

Administration officials insisted that the timing of the three actions was coincidental. Wednesday just happened to be the deadline for the Justice Department to submit briefs in the employment discrimination case, they said, and Mr. Trump’s tweets about transgender troops unexpectedly skipped past lawmakers and the military brass who were considering the issue.

But whether by accident or intent, the result was a striking reversal from Mr. Trump’s predecessor, who repeatedly used administrative actions and legal arguments to press for protections for gays and lesbians.

And taken together, the administration’s actions are a prize for religious conservatives who backed Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign but were far more enamored of his vice-presidential pick, Mike Pence.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a group that advocates socially conservative and Christian causes, applauded Mr. Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from the military. The president, he said in a statement, should be praised for “rescuing our troops from the grip of the Obama years and restoring a sense of true pride to a military devastated by two terms of social engineering.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/white-house-lgbt-rights-military-civil-rights-act.html

American Christianity is so weird

just... totally divorced from Jesus' primary concerns

I posted that story on Wednesday here, a reminder that Sessions can do his job well.

American fundamentalist Xtianity, Shakey. There are other kinds.

just... totally divorced from Jesus' primary concerns

― Οὖτις, Friday, July 28, 2017 12:29 PM

Be assured that Catholics don't believe in Jesus or the Bible.

Catholicism isn't American

I'm talking our homegrown nutjob strains (yes I know their are exceptions, big ups to the Quakers)

there are

ah those Roman papists

It's my understanding that Christianity has been misused almost since its inception (since at least, what, Constantine?) by a number of people who practice basically zero of its tenets.

It's what Jesus would've wanted.

yeah that's true. this is a big topic, sorry for thread derail

Catholics don't believe in Jesus or the Bible.

C'mon. There's got to be a few of them who do.

The Trump administration is a complete, barbarous fuck up. In short, a success.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) July 27, 2017

C'mon. There's got to be a few of them who do.

― A is for (Aimless), Friday, July 28, 2017 12:40 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we believe in what our teachers and parents say the Pope says about them.

It's my understanding that Christianity has been misused almost since its inception (since at least, what, Constantine?) by a number of people who practice basically zero of its tenets.

― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), 28. juli 2017 18:38 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd say Paul, basically.

Tony Perkins, what a psycho

Some Popes are better than others. Anyway, the last thing this thread needs to a religious debate. Save it for the North Korea thread.

Bannon: "I unequivocally deny Anthony Scaramucci's scandalous accusation. In fact, I can't even see my own genitalia." https://t.co/m56ubm7w0y

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) July 28, 2017

Reminder: It's only "social engineering" when it's lefties who want their moral principles reflected in how the nation is governed.

xp ha

Look closer, Bannon. Keep going, you're almost there...

More o' that locker room talk, eh.

I'd say Paul, basically.

agreed

although George was the most spiritual of the Beatles

meanwhile, in successful Trumpist murder news:

Estimates of civilian deaths from airstrikes range from the hundreds to the tens of thousands. Although the US government says that it has killed 603 civilians in airstrikes since the start of military operations in 2014, the monitoring group Airwars estimates that airstrikes have killed at least 4,500 civilians, including nearly 1,000 children.

Some of the strikes have been horrific. One attack in Mosul last March killed at least 100 civilians and injured countless more. “Dozens of Iraqi civilians, some of them still alive and calling out for help, were buried for days under the rubble of their homes in western Mosul after American-led airstrikes flattened almost an entire city block,” The New York Times reported.

Officials in Washington deny any wrongdoing. They insist that they are taking every precaution to protect civilians. They also argue that they are not intentionally killing civilians, despite the fact that President Trump promised during his presidential campaign to go after civilians. When it comes to terrorists, “you have to take out their families,” Trump said.

https://thewire.in/161612/rising-collateral-civilian-deaths-iraq-syria/

More o' that locker room talk.
Pray tell, what hangs beneath?
Thine eyes do search the unseen tail that wags the dog.
-Yeats

Some popes are better than others
some popes are better than others
some popes' mothers
are better than other popes' mothers
- Morrissey

They insist that they are taking every precaution to protect civilians.

It is in the nature of bombs dropped from airplanes to kill indiscriminately wherever they land, so that it quite possible that all the precautions against killing civilians that are compatible with dropping high explosives on cities really are being taken, as claimed. It's just that once you've committed to dropping them, those tacked-on precautions are going to have very little practical value when the bomb detonates.

Everybody should watch Eye In The Sky imho

Everybody should watch Eye In The Sky imho

― El Tomboto, Friday, July 28, 2017 1:32 PM (four seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dammit *looks up Alan Parsons Project*

looking at foooooollls

Pool: Scaramucci passed press on his way off AF1. Again asked for comment He said: "Come on, that was not fair. You know that was not fair."

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 28, 2017

Of the various stories re last night, this might have the best details, or perhaps the most bibulous.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/wait-for-the-show-high-drama-and-low-voices-in-a-long-weird-night-at-the-capitol/2017/07/28/21895652-7364-11e7-8839-ec48ec4cae25_story.html?utm_term=.0e3905138ac5

Before the theatrics began early Friday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sneaked off to his hideaway office off the floor of the Senate. With its vaulted ceilings, plush furniture and an unbeatable view of the Washington Monument, this was a place of respite for the longest-serving senator, a quiet escape he liked to share with his colleagues on late nights like these.

“This late, I don’t think we’ll be serving cocktails,” the Vermont Democrat said as he sat in a cream-colored armchair. “Well, they can have them if they’d like.”

--

Leahy might have been ambivalent about late-night cocktails, but a bottle of Jim Beam had mysteriously appeared atop the microwave in the press gallery.

“Break in case of an emergency,” a harried scribe said as he scurried by.

“This is nuclear-grade bonkers,” Murphy shouted into a Senate chamber. Nearby, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) used his pinky to pick emergency Chinese food from his teeth. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) scowled as he read a pile of papers, and Enzi poked a stubby finger at his smartphone. For all of Murphy’s sense of drama, nobody was really listening in the chamber, but nobody ever does.

front page of fox news is wild right now

Retaining loyalty!

Here's one Republican Senate aide's thoughts from last night after the skinny repeal vote failed: https://t.co/og3OgkiPyn pic.twitter.com/fvefxfVACv

— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) July 28, 2017

Oh man, some of the details in that story

But it remains hard to gauge exactly where that effort might stand, because typically chatty senators weren't up for twilight talks with reporters. Some were even on the verge of tears, such as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who walked silently back to his office after the bill went down.

Cry harder ya dipshit.

mmm Republican tears

I didnt know soulless robots could cry

just leaking oil

nothing sadder than being denied the opportunity to kill millions of your own citizens

Cornyn's been such a dull clod on Twitter these past few months on this, either smarmy or fake-outraged. Good to see him realize it was all for nothing.

McConnell sounded like a jilted prom queen last night. It was amazing. So glad I was awake and had my tape recorder going. Fuck it was so good

How much of this sadness is tied to failing to achieve their aims and how much of it is tied to contemplating the ramifications of their failure on their positions in the Senate?