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

"Oh, are you happy you voted for me. You are so lucky that I gave you that privilege," President Trump tells farmers in Nashville. pic.twitter.com/Z6Q7yR93VY

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 8, 2018

how many countries' elections has the kremlin successfully hacked so far, farmers of kentucky?

lmao he asked a crowd of farmers if they were happy with their 401ks

god if he makes it to 2020 they're going to hide him in a bunker when it's debate time.

brain genious gorka does it again

In a new op-ed, Sebastian Gorka says he was told to speak to Michael Wolff but chose not to, adding that his gut told him that Wolff was going to be unfair. So did he alert his boss? Did he tell his colleagues that he didn't trust him? https://t.co/BSOGN0G5ge pic.twitter.com/ENVwCZEE82

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 8, 2018

NYT gonna try to break some new ground here

Did you vote for Donald Trump for president? We’d like to hear from you. #NYTLetters https://t.co/0SMcE48jrg

— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) January 8, 2018

One more. Current Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Rep. Ed Royce, will not seek re-election. pic.twitter.com/W4g3G7Bl5E

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 8, 2018

"you are so lucky that i gave you that privilege" is making me boggle in a way that i thought i'd become immune to in the last year

House committee chairs resigned or announced retirement so far:
1️⃣ Chaffetz - Oversight
2️⃣ Smith - Science
3️⃣ Hensarling - Financial Serv.
4️⃣ Goodlatte - Judiciary
5️⃣ Black - Budget
6️⃣ Shuster - T&I
7️⃣ Harper - Administration
8️⃣ Royce - Foreign Affairs

— K Tully-McManus (@ktullymcmanus) January 8, 2018

i think that's good news, but i'm thrown off by the obnoxious use of emoji numbers

I've noticed that whenever there's an article about the Russia investigation they always run one of only a couple pictures of Robert Mueller. Does the guy ever go outside? Why aren't there more current pictures of him? Has he been ensconced in some undisclosed location this entire time?

Also, it's as meaningless as any other proposal he has ever made - including his marriage proposals! - but expanding high-speed internet into rural America seems like a good idea.

I'm sure whichever Trump campaign contributor gets that contract will do an amazing job.

uh...
Tillerson and Mattis are reportedly trying to hold Trump back from striking North Korea

The best nuclear war, the biggest, have you seen our beautiful bombs? You are so lucky I gave you that privilege!

Well, it was nice knowing you all

i will survive

wolff's explanation of how the leak torrent developed seems plausible enough

Analysis or argument or PowerPoint did not work. But who said what to Trump and when often did. If, at Bannon’s prodding, Rebekah Mercer called him, that had an effect. Priebus could count on Paul Ryan’s clout with him. If Kushner set up Murdoch to call, that registered. At the same time, each successive call mostly canceled the others out.

This paralysis led the three advisers to rely on the other particularly effective way to move him, which was to use the media. Hence each man became an inveterate and polished leaker. Bannon and Kushner studiously avoided press exposure; two of the most powerful people in government were, for the most part, entirely silent, eschewing almost all interviews and even the traditional political conversations on Sunday morning television. Curiously, however, both men became the background voices to virtually all media coverage of the White House. Early on, before getting down to attacking each other, Bannon and Kushner were united in their separate offensives against Priebus. Kushner’s preferred outlet was Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s Morning Joe, one of the president’s certain morning shows. Bannon’s first port of call was the alt-right media (“Bannon’s Breitbart shenanigans,” in Walsh’s view). By the end of the first month in the White House, Bannon and Kushner had each built a network of primary outlets, as well as secondary ones to deflect from the
obviousness of the primary ones, creating a White House that simultaneously displayed extreme animosity toward the press and yet great willingness to leak to it. In this, at least, Trump’s administration was achieving a landmark transparency.

The constant leaking was often blamed on lower minions and permanent executive branch staff, culminating in late February with an all-hands meeting of staffers called by Sean Spicer — cell phones surrendered at the door — during which the press secretary issued threats of random phone checks and admonitions about the use of encrypted texting apps. Everybody was a potential leaker; everybody was accusing everybody else of being a leaker.

Everybody was a leaker.

Problems, problems

The White House is struggling to contain the national discussion about President Trump’s mental acuity and fitness for the job, @PhilipRucker and @AshleyRParker report: https://t.co/lGxgBQNrwV

— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) January 9, 2018

Well THAT'S confidence building:

“He is absolutely no different than the day he got elected, and he has used this unconventional but very effective manner of managing for the 30 years that I’ve known him in business, finance, media and now governing,” Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Trump’s longtime friend and inauguration chairman, said in an interview Monday.

“It’s not mental instability,” Barrack added. “It’s management by controlled and orchestrated chaos.”

"It's not bullshit, but it is fecal matter."

the new york GOP can't scape together statewide candidates, which is bad news for their congressional delegation (same thing happening in CA)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/08/new-york-republicans-trump-midterms-328245

wow, that royce announcements is especially good news given the recent leanings of orange county:

Royce’s decision to retire is a blow to his party’s hopes to hold onto the Democratic-trending Orange County swing seat. Royce won reelection last year by double digits even as Hillary Clinton was carrying the district by 52 percent to 43 percent — a major shift to Democrats after Mitt Romney won it by four percentage points in 2012.

" he has used this unconventional but very effective manner of managing for the 30 years that I’ve known him in business, finance, media " by ripping off everyone he works with left right and centre yes ok got it, at least you admit it.

barrack knows trump via the sewer known as atlantic city so take all of what he says with a grain of salt

xxpost - Yeah Royce's seat is cooked and done. Rohrbacher's gotta be feeling a little less sanguine as well -- worth noting he voted against the tax bill and said so loudly. But if anything Russian-related blows up further he's dead meat.

Oprah 2020 is not going to be a Bernie Sanders-style populist campaign. She's going to be Hillary with fewer scandals and stratospheric communication skills. She'll give us an electrifying presentation of utterly conventional politics.

— Jeremy C. Young (@jeremycyoung) January 9, 2018

This is an odd comparison, but in some ways I think the world leader Oprah most resembles is Emmanuel Macron. Both are charismatic outsiders who electrify voters looking for a change, but then give them neoliberalism on steroids.

— Jeremy C. Young (@jeremycyoung) January 9, 2018

Oh, fuck off America.

^ probably an accurate enough characterization of Oprah (xp)

Not an Oprah fan, although obviously she'd be a big step forward from the current occupant. I imagine he'll just preemptively lock her up before things ever get that far, though.

not really a fan of continuing the "celeb outsider" oval office trend, even if I like Oprah for the most part.

What a step forward, another TV star. Kind of looking forward to China taking over in the future.

https://nypost.com/2018/01/08/fans-boo-as-trump-causes-major-logjam-at-championship-game/

As I'm sure you noticed, the bar for "big step forward" is very low at the moment.

You can say that again, that speech she gave was fucking dire.

I vote DJP for Prez in 2020 (actually I would vote for him if he ran in all seriousness)

like idk, if we don't want to accomplish much we could elect our version of a tv celeb outsider who despite being a much better human being and having much more progressive values, would still spent most of her first two years in office struggling to transition from TV to the biggest job in the damn country.

though if we can't win back either the Senate or House in midterms, we're sheerly voting for an Executive veto and not much else anyway.

really could do without the sexist and racist screeds against her today, too....another 'ignore social media' day.

and fortunately I don't have the kind of relatives on my FB feed (anymore) who would be DO YOU SEE when posting photos of Oprah + Harvey Weinstein.

Oprah was a stan for Jenny Mccarthy and her antivax BS, not to mention Dr Oz. No thanks.

my friend defended the move by mentioning how 5 other US Presidents had no political experience.

Let's see, two of them are on most "worst Presidents" lists, one of them will make that list when his term is over, and a fourth on that list died less than halfway into his first term. Real inspiring company there.

She has a ton of positive qualities, yes, just not sure any of them qualify her for office. Just because she'd be a zillion times better than the walking abortion we have now, and because I actually like her as a person, well....that doesn't mean I want her to be President.

she'd be a good chief of staff

as long as drs. phil and oz are banned from the white house

Dr Oz should be banned from living above-ground

It’s fine if Oprah’s president because nothing matters but the next nominee should be Elizabeth Warren.

There needs to be a broad economic program. A rich celebrity is not the right messenger for that.

That matters more to me than experience. I would chamge my mind if Oprah made free public college, single payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage at the center of her message. But I don’t think she would.

I dont think anyone would :(

sanders m/l already did

Right. If there was a candidate who had a program like that but could also speak to minority constituencies in a way Hillary couldn’t — part of the reason for her suppressed turnout compared to Obama — that’d be the person. Maybe it’s Oprah. I don’t think so though.

Political experience doesn’t matter though if the person otherwise has good judgment. They would have advisors to execute their program. The problem with Trump is not his lack of experience, it’s that he is a malevolent person who can’t think coherently.