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

xpost Didn't see that article, I was thinking of during the election, not a decade ago. Stormy, for perhaps obvious reasons, has stayed mum about this. Drake has not.

The other day I was discussing with a Spanish colleague of mine the millstone around the neck of the British nation that is Winston Churchill, because every other week over here some wanker playing the patriotism card and waving a made-in-China Union Jack is described as Churchillian, it seems like we'll never be rid of the cunt. So if the USA wants Churchill they're welcome to the him, he was half American anyway.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a bid by Texas to revive Republican-drawn electoral districts for state legislative and U.S. congressional seats that were thrown out by a lower court for diminishing black and Hispanic voters’ clout.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-texas/supreme-court-takes-up-fight-over-texas-electoral-districts-idUSKBN1F12IR

meanwhile, the president is reportedly healthy.

Compared to whom

our democracy

lol

(sob)

I'm now mental visualizing Trump as living in some A Scanner Darkly experience where Donald doesn't even know that "Donnie" keeps saying these crazy things. Why do people keep lying about him, Donald knows he would not say such things.

As his comments, disclosed by participants in the meeting, ricocheted around the world, Trump made calls to friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction to the tempest, said a person who spoke to Trump but wasn’t authorized to discuss a private conversation.

He wasn’t apologetic, the person said. Instead, Trump blamed the media for distorting his meaning, arguing his description of “shithole” was not racist but rather a straightforward assessment of some nations’ depressed conditions. Trump also said he believed he was expressing what many people think, according to the person.

https://apnews.com/36bb1697fb70421caf7f4526b779f176

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_kGikfKlvzs/V74VHJBTnPI/AAAAAAABe4A/2kI_NLOH6HAcMoHxFwZCoNTqzhugH8qiwCLcB/s1600/Cartoon%2B-%2BNew%2BYorker.jpg

arguing his description of “shithole” was not racist but rather a straightforward assessment of some nations’ depressed conditions.

In his own mind, Trump doesn't think he's prejudiced against black people, only against desperately poor black people.

Pence's Mother: "He's Vile".

Am I being less than ethical for hoping that this results in the collapse of evangelical hypocrisy, forever?

i have never even considered the idea of a collapse of evangelical hypocrisy. i am entertaining the thought right now and it feels like groundbreaking sci-fi

source re: Pence's mother?

is this his mother or "mother"

evangelical hypocrisy and evangelism are fraternal twins, born minutes apart.

reference: MIKE PENCE’S WIFE THINKS DONALD TRUMP IS ‘REPREHENSIBLE’ AND ‘TOTALLY VILE’

xp: I mean more in the sense that Trumpism and evangelicalism are cuffed to each other, at least for all Americans 50 and younger, and they both descend into the abyss, to be of no interest to new generations, permitting this country to have at least a couple hundred years to go.

Otherwise, evangelicals function much as fascists. Same end, just faster, and more destructive to those outside our borders.

Oh, and for those not on simulcast, Mike Pence refers to his wife as 'mother'.

I'm happy that adam johnson is here to point out that previous presidents have been racists, educating all us plebes who believed that Richard Nixon pooped rainbows

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

yeah well fuck Susan Collins

this is the day that the lord has made

adam johnson was educating dick durbin, u galoot

Aw, so sad.

Grassley gets hammered at a town hall in rural Iowa - a county where Trump won 65% of the vote - for “protecting” Trump in Russia probe, among other things, per this report https://t.co/uuZVEyKCnz

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 13, 2018

grassley is very old fashioned in holding a town hall and putting up with his own constituents. this is an old article but if i had to guess the trend will continue: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/lawmakers-holding-fewer-town-halls-during-summer-break-n790986

man this summer's gonna be fun

This article or rather this bit is Soto-bait

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/12/john-kelly-trump-chief-of-staff-337987

But Kelly’s mind-set, reported by POLITICO for the first time, is a testament to how Trump has transformed not only the presidency but the role of presidential chief of staff. Often described as the second most-powerful position in government, the job has previously demanded a deep understanding of politics and policy. Presidential number twos have worked to ration their bosses’ time and to help them prioritize in order to push their agendas forward; Kelly more often tries to keep Trump occupied and at arm’s length from the levers of power and the workings of government.

His attitude is not entirely unprecedented. Ronald Reagan’s adviser, Jack Watson, referred to the chief of staff as the “javelin catcher”—though in his analogy, the javelins were heading toward, rather than coming from, the president. At the same time, some are raising concerns that Kelly, whose military background gives him a discrete Washington tool kit, is trying to do too much.

And BTW, would love to know more about this

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/12/teresa-manning-hhs-title-x-escorted-premises-339514

Teresa Manning, the controversial official in charge of the Title X federal family planning program, was escorted from HHS premises on Friday.

Two sources with knowledge of Manning's departure tell POLITICO that she was fired by HHS. An HHS spokesperson disputed that account, saying that Manning resigned.

Presidential number twos

The Biggest, Best Number Twos, Believe Me

ronny jackson md? ronnie jackson md? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This article or rather this bit is Soto-bait

All it lacked was a quote from Grand Moff Baker.

The Democrats are all talk and no action. They are doing nothing to fix DACA. Great opportunity missed. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2018

AMERICA FIRST!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2018

I don’t believe the Democrats really want to see a deal on DACA. They are all talk and no action. This is the time but, day by day, they are blowing the one great opportunity they have. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2018

wow he’s really putting the pressure on

he is very energetic, exceptionally healthy, the best athlete

times like this i completely understand the desire many have to force him into a real interview, with someone asking real followups, and pointing out holes in the narrative. not because i believe he would crack and his presidency would end, just that it's soooo fucking frustrating that he can just nakedly lie, all the time, about every single thing, spin a totally different history of things that happened in public view mere days or weeks ago. the DACA crisis is trump's doing! and there was a bipartisan deal on the table the day before yesterday, and he killed it! i mean this is on the level of saying hillary started the birther movement and trump ended it. things that are actually outright the opposite of what happened, and everyone knows this. i know i know, not news. just some days it flattens me more than others.

Possibly some sort of interview could be arranged, perhaps Hannity would do it, or maybe someone on the 700 club is free

They've been wanting to trap the Dems on DACA for a while now, and in all honesty it could work. Those few conservatives I follow on twitter have really torn into it as well. All Trump had to do was explain that Dems weren't willing to include 'sensible' border control in a BiPartisan deal. Instead he yelled 'shithole' like the toddler he is. No disrespect to toddlers.

it has less credibility when the stuff in the deal (which is still xenophobic security-state nonsense obv) was apparently good enough for the congressional republicans in the room. not to say the propaganda won't work but it would be a more coherent effort if they could all get on the same page.

Yup

"was apparently good enough for the congressional republicans in the room" I thought the issue was Cotton though, who just fucking showed up at this meeting out of the blue and probably tanked it before Flake and Durbin came in the door

i would happily take the jail time for the opportunity to physically assault Tom "Cotton"

I thought the scuttlebutt was that Stephen Miller kept adding aggressive language to proposals that screwed everything up.

graham, sorry, not flake.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/politics/immigration-meeting-donald-trump/index.html

"When Cotton arrived at the West Wing reception area Thursday, he found Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, waiting to brief Trump on their bipartisan immigration negotiations. He also found fellow immigration hardliner GOP Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who was also called by Trump's aides to brief the President.

Durbin and Graham arrived at the White House believing they would be meeting privately with Trump, a source familiar with the situation said, and were surprised to see the others.

Once the meeting got underway, it was clear Trump wasn't in the mood to entertain the plan being offered by Durbin and Graham, which would have increased border security funding, allowed for a 10- to 12-year path to citizenship for some young undocumented immigrants and provided protections for individuals with Temporary Protected Status from countries such as El Salvador and Haiti."

dunno, miller or someone got to trump after he said he'd be willing to sign whatever they put in front of him the day before.

yeah seems clear that one of the eight or nine rival shadow presidents saw an opening to torpedo the entire business, on the "whoever he's spoken to most recently" principle. get the hard-liners in the room and he'll forget all about his desire to be a big beautiful deal-maker.

beat the press:
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/

Walmart Closes 63 Stores In Response to Republican Tax Cut

Actually, we don't know the extent to which the tax cut was a factor in Walmart's decision to close 63 stores, as it announced it was doing yesterday. Nor do we know the extent to which the tax cut was responsible for the increases in wages and benefits that the company also announced yesterday, although the company did claim a direct relationship in this case. Walmart's competitors, like Target, had been raising wages months before the tax bill was even public, so it is entirely possible that Walmart would have been forced to raise pay due to a tighter labor market, even if there had not been a tax cut.

It is worth noting that by Walmart's own estimate the pay increases will only cost it $300 million a year. This is roughly 15 percent of the $2 billion a year that it should save from the tax cut. This is in line with most economists estimates of the share of the tax cuts that would go to wages. By contrast, the administration had claimed that the wages would rise by more than the full amount of the tax cuts, although this impact would only be seen after a number of years as increased investment led to higher productivity.

Pareene: https://splinternews.com/democrats-condemned-trumps-language-and-signed-on-to-hi-1822040155

...Democratic leadership has completely conceded, rhetorically and politically, that this is now the “middle ground.” The fact that hardliners would prefer an even more extreme policy is all the justification they need. Seriously, this is their rationale (from The Politico):

Key Democrats are sympathetic to the furor from their left flank but aware something needs to pass Congress that can win Trump’s signature. Senate negotiators believe their emerging agreement — which they say they’re getting close to finalizing — will lose votes from the right and left, representing true concessions from both parties.

“Both Tom Cotton and the Congressional Black Caucus will oppose our deal, so it is, by definition, bipartisan.” This is how a far-right policy becomes centrist, in less than a year. And this is how Democrats are negotiating with a historically unpopular president, in a midterm election year, on an issue on which they held an immense amount of leverage just a month ago.