US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

I find myself feeling the Obama years to have been a wasted opportunity to turn against the right. Healthcare coverage was expanded without changing its delivery through employment and private insurance companies, the things that make the healthcare system so hated. This protected those who work in the industry, it was a conservative move. Since keeping what people hate makes people hate you, the country now has an “outsider“ for president. Obama was elected as an outsider (yes, I know that you all know he wasn’t one). Why trust another Dem to change the hated system? Dems are boring, they fix little things while shitty things stay shitty or get shittier. This moron is president because people want excitement, “change” I guess. I know this is all obvious but I’ve been wanting to say something about why I’m so pessimistic about the USA.

I think people were pretty upset about the possibility of GOP repealing Obamacare. Like, doing so would adversely effect their lives in a significant way. It’s good to cover people with pre-existing conditions imo.

trump provides a unique opportunity to smash the republican party ideologically, and i believe that smashing the republican party ideologically is more important than getting trump himself out of office. because at the end of the day trump is symptomatic of a tendency towards uncompromising political cruelty. so for the democrats to attempt to sell people the lie that you can be a republican without being a trumpist, to try and salvage the dregs of the party, is ultimately for them to sign their own death warrant.

^tend to agree and it's why even if Dems retake congress in 2018 (which i honestly don't think they will) i actually hope they don't impeach him. Pence is worse and the GOP's fealty to Trump and his unique brand of dysfunction is a great punching bag

not that i have any illusions about the GOP being "destroyed" or establishment Ds pulling back from their neolib fuckery

The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

I’m amazed people still do the “I’m actually more scared of Pence” thing given the whole openly threatening nuclear war stuff. Also (I don’t think it will happen either) but the circumstance of Pence becoming president due to a Trump impeachment would leave him and the GOP in a very weakened state. That might have something to do with why the GOP is talking about purging the FBI and stuff like that, essentially in lock step to do anything they can to prevent it instead of just...you know...letting the Pence presidency happen.

i'd be satisfied with the Dems taking one house of congress, ideally the senate, and just being able to freeze up the express train of garbage policy and appointments. plus there would then be at least one fully-functioning russia investigation whatever trump does.

The pump is kind of primed for Pence being a 21st Century Gerald Ford.

Also, rmde at a sitting US President expending energy and attention to a bullshit awards thing of their own design on Twitter.

it's not that i'm more scared of Pence, more that a solid majority's revulsion when it comes to Trump is pretty much the only thing the Dem party has going for it

Postponing the FNAs when he could so easily have been done with them in a couple tweets tomorrow night. Now I expect award statues.

The Dems are much more likely to take the House :( The nightmare scenario is another Supreme Court Seat opening, fingers crossed.

Everyone hates the regular GOP party as well, that's why Trump could take it over. The difference between Trump and Pence is that while they're both widely hated, Trump has a hardcore personality cult that Pence lacks. No way Pence wins in 2020, which I honestly can still see Trump doing.

I was watching Dawson City: Frozen time last night. There is a bit where you a see a pic of the saloon/brothel that was opened by Trump's granddad during the gold rush. The language in the advert for it went something like: We are the newest and best in town and here to stay. I might not be doing it justice here, but it struck me as very Trump-like language at the time. But arrogant arseholes beget arrogant arseholes etc..

The pump is kind of primed for Pence being a 21st Century Gerald Ford.

^tend to agree and it's why even if Dems retake congress in 2018 (which i honestly don't think they will) i actually hope they don't impeach him. Pence is worse and the GOP's fealty to Trump and his unique brand of dysfunction is a great punching bag

not that i have any illusions about the GOP being "destroyed" or establishment Ds pulling back from their neolib fuckery

― constitutional crises they fly at u face (will)

see, i can't talk about this stuff without moving into prognostication mode, which after 2016 i'm significantly more loath to do, but some general observations:

1. it's pretty much impossible to say right now how robust neoliberalism is as an ideology. all the institutions which are being wrecked by trumpism are the institutions which were most heavily invested in the maintenance of the neoliberal consensus. these institutions will continue to exist and will continue to advocate for neoliberal policy... but will it matter? neoliberalism continues to be strongly tied to clinton, who is as reviled as she ever was.

2. 2018... one of the paradoxes of democracy is that the easiest way to undermine it is to create the impression that elections aren't fair/free and/or don't matter. it's pretty difficult not to have one of those impressions these days. at that point all discourse is simply deciding on the form of the destroyer. a lot of things remain possible right now, even if some of the possibilities that existed in january 2017 have been closed off, but again, the short-term effects of the wholesale demoralization and disengagement of large swaths of the republican base should not be discounted.

3. impeachment is one of the greatest challenges to the democratic party right now and will, i think, remain a strong point of contention. one of the, in retrospect, stupidest things the democratic mainstream did in 2016 was to respond to trump's show-trial baiting with a strongly worded denunciation of the corrosive effect to democracy of trying your political opponents. the principle doesn't hold when you're running against literal criminals, guys.

there will, i predict, a strong centrist belief that an impeachment trial should not be seen as _political_, in deliberate ignorance of the long-established principle that impeachment is, by design and by its nature, political in nature. i don't give a shit if impeachment happens or not, but _somebody_ needs to be finally held responsible for this horseshit. i am hereby announcing my intent to come down hard on any talk of "healing" or "forgiveness" that doesn't include anybody being held responsible for this goddamn nightmare.

He bumped the Fake News Awards!?! Wow, bummer. I guess that makes room for a couple more weeks of competition! You can do it, CNN!!!

it's not that i'm more scared of Pence, more that a solid majority's revulsion when it comes to Trump is pretty much the only thing the Dem party has going for it

― constitutional crises they fly at u face (will)

Not having a presidential race frontrunner is not the same as not having an agenda. Doug Jones had one. The Virginia legislature candidates had one.

🐦[The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018🕸]🐦

Prez has definitely been relieved of tweet duty. There is no way this new syntactic complexity is forming under that surgically reduced scalp.

also, Hope Hicks or whoever you are, no one was anticipating the president would be giving out awards. No one was anticipating any of this.

"I completely forgot I even posted this thing and now people are talking about it so I better make some shit up quick"

"Bring on The Redundies, or The Reductees, or whatever the fuck we're callin' these things..."

wait, the awards will be presented to the losers? that’s not how awards work iirc

What about The Biggest Loser!?

Or the Razzies! Either way, I'm in. Who is presenting? What will they be wearing? Who is performing? What network will it be on!?

New Axios newsletter gives me some relief, in that the idiot is apparently spending less and less time actually presidenting:

1 big thing: Scoop: Trump's secret, shrinking schedule

President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more “Executive Time,” which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us.

The schedules shown to me are different than the sanitized ones released to the media and public.

The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.

That's far later than George W. Bush, who typically arrived in the Oval by 6:45am. Obama worked out first thing in the morning and usually got into the Oval between 9 and 10am, according to a former senior aide.

Trump's days in the Oval Office are relatively short – from around 11am to 6pm, then he's back to the residence. During that time he usually has a meeting or two, but spends a good deal of time making phone calls and watching cable news in the dining room adjoining the Oval. Then he's back to the residence for more phone calls and more TV. Take these random examples from this week's real schedule:

On Tuesday, Trump has his first meeting of the day with Chief of Staff John Kelly at 11am. He then has "Executive Time" for an hour followed by an hour lunch in the private dining room. Then it's another 1 hour 15 minutes of "Executive Time" followed by a 45 minute meeting with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Then another 15 minutes of "Executive Time" before Trump takes his last meeting of the day — a 3:45pm meeting with the head of Presidential Personnel Johnny DeStefano — before ending his official day at 4:15pm.
Other days are fairly similar, unless the president is traveling, in which case the days run longer. On Wednesday this week, for example, the president meets at 11am for his intelligence briefing, then has "Executive Time" until a 2pm meeting with the Norwegian Prime Minister. His last official duty: a video recording with Hope Hicks at 4pm.
On Thursday, the president has an especially light schedule: "Policy Time" at 11am, then "Executive Time" at 12pm, then lunch for an hour, then more "Executive Time" from 1:30pm.
Trump's schedule wasn't always like this. In the earliest days of the Trump administration it began earlier and ended later. Trump would have breakfast meetings (e.g. hosting business leaders in the Roosevelt Room). He didn't like the longer official schedule and pushed for later starts. The morning intelligence briefing ended up settling around 10:30am.

Aides say Trump is always doing something — he's a whirl of activity and some aides wish he would sleep more — but his time in the residence is unstructured and undisciplined. He's calling people, watching TV, tweeting, and generally taking the same loose, improvisational approach to being president that he took to running the Trump Organization for so many years. Old habits die hard.

In response to this article, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote:

"The time in the morning is a mix of residence time and Oval Office time but he always has calls with staff, Hill members, cabinet members and foreign leaders during this time. The President is one of the hardest workers I've ever seen and puts in long hours and long days nearly every day of the week all year long. It has been noted by reporters many times that they wish he would slow down because they sometimes have trouble keeping up with him."

clinton, who is as reviled as she ever was

A reminder that Hillary Clinton was the most popular politician in the US in 2013, and by a considerable margin.

In response to this article, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote:

"The time in the morning is a mix of residence time and Oval Office time but he always has calls with staff, Hill members, cabinet members and foreign leaders during this time. The President is one of the hardest workers I've ever seen and puts in long hours and long days nearly every day of the week all year long. It has been noted by reporters many times that they wish he would slow down because they sometimes have trouble keeping up with him."

ma'am, you're basically insulting him to his face at this point. i understand he doesn't know that. i understand it's impossible to defend this cretin. but would it kill you to, and god i hate myself for saying this, would it kill you to be a little more ron ziegler-esque?

TOP Torrents (Last 48 hours) Seeders Leechers
The Shape of Water 2017 DVDScr XVID AC3 HQ Hive-CM8 206 24
Renegades 2017 HDRip XviD AC3-EVO 77 8
Madtown 2017 HDRip XviD AC3-EVO 66 6
FIRE AND FURY Inside the Trump White House Michael Wolff (epub mobi)

i found this top torrents list amusing for about 10 seconds!

Ooh - Shape of Water is up?!

bah, wake me when top knot detective leaks

Executive time
Residence time
Circle time
Story time
Nap time
Snack time
Play time

Hammer time!

and yet no quiet time. funny that

Reagan's White House schedule was pretty gross too: "personal time" was basically "nap time."

White House adviser Stephen Miller was escorted off the set of CNN’s "State of the Union" on Sunday after a contentious interview with host Jake Tapper.

Two sources close to the situation told Business Insider that after the taping was done, Miller was politely asked to leave several times.

He ignored those requests and ultimately security was called and he was escorted out, the sources said.

CNN declined to comment on this story.

Miller's appearance on the cable network quickly went off the rails when Tapper pressed him on explosive claims about President Donald Trump that appeared in the book "Fire & Fury: Inside The Trump White House" by Michael Wolff.

http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-miller-escorted-off-cnn-2018-1

Well worth a read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-on-trumps-voter-fraud-commission-its-demise-was-inevitable/2018/01/07/b5c1bec8-f261-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html

thx, ned. distribution of commentary on that ruling, even by a party, is so needed.

Meantime

Friend of mine in the White House was laughing on the phone today about the Gorilla Channel. Says he wishes it was true so they could pipe in a fake Fox News feed and a fake twitter feed so POTUS thinks he's online when he's not.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 8, 2018

now showing on the gorilla channel

http://deadline.com/2018/01/trump-tower-on-fire-small-blaze-put-out-by-new-york-firefighters-1202238261/

Oprah.#ImWithHer

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 8, 2018

lol

hoooooooo boy

the pics of OW schmoozing comfortably with weinstein should hopefully be enough to shutter this whole idea

what about the idea of Oprah schmoozing with Bill Kristol

i can't even tell who kristol is trying to troll

Oprah: Pro-regime change in Iraq (see her Oct. 9, 2002 show).#ImWithHer

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 8, 2018

John Podhoretz, who was praising her last night.

phew good thing bill kristol’s conscience is clear when it comes to supporting war in iraq otherwise that would be a massively hypocritical statement

love too live in north korea - shs licking the boot

“The time in the morning is a mix of residence time and Oval Office time but he always has calls with staff, Hill members, cabinet members and foreign leaders during this time,” Sanders said in a statement to Axios. “The President is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen and puts in long hours and long days nearly every day of the week all year long. It has been noted by reporters many times that they wish he would slow down because they sometimes have trouble keeping up with him.”

It is true that we all have trouble keeping up with him.

FWIW, Oprah's Cecil B. DeMille award acceptance had the cadence of a political speech at times so I can see why facile minds may have been confused.

people on twitter who claim to know things are saying that people close to her are saying she intends to run. take that as seriously as you will.