Sheriff tells Trump that state senator is doing something he doesn't like
Trump: "Do you want to give his name? We'll destroy his career." pic.twitter.com/75y3t9zc54
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) February 7, 2017
Jesus. Also, the thing the sheriff didn't like? The state senator is trying to end civil asset forfeiture.https://t.co/NQ3tsogvlU
— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) February 7, 2017
… At a listening session with county sheriffs from around the country, Trump invited the sheriffs seated in the White House’s Roosevelt Room to make a statement while reporters were present. Rockwall County, Texas, Sheriff Harold Eavenson spoke up first to discuss asset forfeiture, a practice by which law enforcement can seize the cash and property of individuals suspected of committing a crime without a guilty verdict.
Proponents of the practice argue that allows law enforcement to effectively combat terrorism and the drug trade, while opponents, including some conservatives, argue that it allows police to seize assets without due process. Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, sought to rein in an asset sharing program by which local law enforcement were given a share of whatever assets they seized…
The president’s remark elicited laughter from those gathered in the Roosevelt Room, although the president did not join in. Eavenson did not offer the Texas state senator’s name, and the public information officer for the Rockwall County sheriff’s office declined to name the lawmaker in question…
Question: You know who else relied on “You don’t look like the sort of person should be allowed to have nice things” as a way to simultaneously reward his followers and intimidate his perceived enemies?
Answer: Every two-bit thug who’s ever been able to wrap his kleptomania in the rags of ‘government’… but for the last hundred years or so, we’ve called them ‘fascists‘.
.@jaketapper: "I'm talking about the President of the US saying things that are not true, demonstrably not true" https://t.co/mPtWanPHoU
— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 7, 2017
New post:
Trump is now systematically attacking all the institutions that could limit his power later:https://t.co/38y2hT4mvZ
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) February 7, 2017
…[I]t’s important to step back and appreciate the bigger picture here. Trump — faced with an outpouring of popular opposition to his ban, and a level of institutional pushback to it, that surely caught him and his advisers off guard — is actively experimenting with how far he can go in delegitimizing the institutions that are already signaling they may place serious, meaningful limits on his power…
The travel ban has unleashed a surprisingly robust response from the public and our institutions, making this into a first test case as to whether popular mobilization and those institutions can effectively rein in Trump’s authoritarian and nakedly discriminatory impulses. The question is not just whether this ban can be stopped. It’s also whether Trump can be blocked from extending and expanding this policy and instituting others like it.
But even as that response has arisen, Trump is also testing how far he can go in delegitimizing our institutions — and in telling lies designed to minimize impressions of popular opposition to the scope and nature of his exercise of power — apparently in order to undermine the degree to which those forces will continue to function as a check on that power later. So it’s important to appreciate that this test case flows in two directions.
The thing to watch is how much ideological media goes w him. Fox so far has been all in https://t.co/jFW5sjYSHc
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 7, 2017
efgoldman
Someone is, but Orange Orangutan doesn’t plan well enough. My money’s on Bannonazi and Kelly Anne Riefenstahl.
As far as the lying, that’s his natural, narcissistic state of being. Say A, an hour later say he never said A. I suspect it started as soon as he could talk.
MisterForkbeard
Color me incredibly surprised that Fox would support a right-wing authoritarian dictator!
MattF
Try to imagine the way policy is developed these days…
Thoughts of Trump while watching TV: “I’ll destroy that one,… and that one.”
Also, try to imagine the Oval Office conversation where ’rounding down’ became a strategy for weakening Obamacare. “Hey, I’ve got it… we’ll round down.”
amk
time for do you miss nixon billboards? at least his enemies list was short.
Major Major Major Major
Weigel has a good point.
Mnemosyne
We are, unfortunately, getting to an existential moment for the Republican Party where they will have to decide whether they want to stay in power by helping Trump create a dictatorship, or if they’re willing to live in a democracy with the chance that they might not get their way every time.
Sadly, I’m pretty sure they’re going to pick Door #1.
Oldgold
Tomorrow, on the floor of the Senate, every damn Democratic Senator, one after the other, should read aloud Coretta Scott King’s letter.
Tripod
We don’t have a president, or functioning executive branch.
This isn’t fascism, this is lunacy.
The institutional GOP understands gangrene has set in, but won’t… can’t, bring themselves to hack off that arm.
WAH! It’s all Obama’s fault! He made us elect this incompetent moron!
Well… tough shit. Lose the arm now or die from sepsis later.
MisterForkbeard
@Oldgold: That’s exactly what I was thinking. Make the republicans formally vote to silence the entire opposition. Their base might eat it up, but I can’t imagine what the (non Fox) News would do with that. The symbolism there would be very, very bad for anyone with half a brain.
efgoldman
@Oldgold:
After they call a press conference on the Capitol steps, and all stand there mute with duct tape across their mouths.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: Every fucking Dem better vote against this piece of human refuse.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
On a, mostly, non-political subject, I’ve fallen in love with the work of Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. I started with The OA on Netflix and just got done with their 2013 movie The East. Unfortunately, that leaves me with just one movie and a 23 minute short left to watch, plus things in which Marling has acted but neither wrote or directed.
As The East got started, I expected it to manufacture easy answers, but it never did. I expected to come out saying that I like the movie even while disagreeing with some of its politics, but they never fell into that trap. They managed to keep the entirety of their take obscured and let the viewer process it for themselves.
And I remain very impressed with the quality of work that Netflix is turning out.
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
I think if a few might have been inclined to “aye” because senatorial prerogatives or some such bullshit, they’ve probably been persuaded in the other direction.
Tripod
@MattF:
I overheard a couple of Trumpian dingbats discussing the ease of eliminating the debt by rounding up on retail transactions. Oh… you mean a national sales tax? Then there is the idiocy of that draconian import tax.
Bring on the Brawndo!
Major Major Major Major
@Tripod: huh, I’ve never heard that one before. A for Originality!
@efgoldman: agreed.
Mnemosyne
@Tripod:
Ahem.
Fix’d for accuracy. ‘Cos Hillz made them do it, yanno.
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
If she only had balls, Not metaphorical – real ones, hanging down, with a penis attached.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
Chin up, Juicers. The oral argument before the 9th circuit panel tonight went very well for us. I heard about 2/3 of it. Look for a decision by the end of the week upholding the Washington district court’s TRO that stopped enforcement of shitgibbon’s Muslim ban. From there it goes fast track (very fast, before new guy can get confirmed) to the Supremes. If we get a good decision in the circuit, it would take a 5-3 Supreme Court to reverse that. All this mishigosh is only about the TRO, we haven’t even gotten to the unconstitutionality of the executive order yet. But the judicial branch’s message will be loud and clear–NOT ON OUR WATCH.
I still have insomnia, though.
Tripod
@Mnemosyne:
Yea I saw that one today as well.
JordanRules
Watching Warren read Coretta’s letter outside the chamber was powerful. I got some of my non political friends paying attention with that call out tonight.
Overall I’m still just disgusted. SMDH
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@Mnemosyne: Can I place an advance order for a summer weight p***y hat? Name your price!
Mnemosyne
@JordanRules:
I just posted Warren’s video to my Facebook page, emphasizing for my Republican family members that Mrs. King’s letter was one of the things that convinced Ronald fucking Reagan that Sessions was too racist to be a federal judge.
(Though obviously I leave Ronnie’s middle name out on Facebook. ?)
Amir Khalid
If there’s strategic, long-term thinking It’s kind of hard to imagine Trump wants to be President for Life — that’s too much work for him even if he knocks off by 6:30pm. So I tend to go with the Trump-as-sockpuppet theory, which for me means the main suspects are Bannon and Putin. Bannon wants to install a fascist regime in the US, and Putin wants to turn the biggest check on his international power into a puppet. Or they might both be at it, competing behind the scenes for influence over the President in The Bathrobe. It would be fascinating to see such a struggle come out into the open.
opiejeanne
Did Giuliani do something today that pissed off Trump? I saw a comment on twitter but couldn’t find an explanation, and now I can’t find that tweet.
Anybody?
Amir Khalid
Since this is an open thread:
What is a “tactical” vest? How does it work?
Is there such a thing as a “strategic” vest?
SiubhanDuinne
@opiejeanne:
Was it Rudy’s comment about Trump’s having asked him to come up with a “legal way” to enforce the “Muslim ban”?
https://mic.com/articles/167946/rudy-giuliani-s-comments-come-back-to-haunt-trump-admin-in-muslim-ban-hearing#.5vLjlYv3l
MisterForkbeard
@opiejeanne: Giuliani did personally confirm that Trump’s Muslim Ban was in fact a “Muslim Ban” and that Trump had asked him how to do it legally. But that was last week, so maybe there’s something else?
SiubhanDuinne
@MisterForkbeard:
You and I posted simultaneously. Apparently the comments from last week came up in today’s hearings that the three judges held.
? Martin
It’s not fascism if you don’t believe the people being oppressed are human.
MisterForkbeard
@SiubhanDuinne: Great minds think alike, I guess. High five?
And that’s good to know. I was wondering why that would cause Trump to get pissed now, and that makes sense.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@MisterForkbeard: Giuliani’s comments to the press came up during the oral argument in the 9th circuit. The outside hack lawyer for DOJ made a big show about how alarming it would be for the court to make a decision based on newspaper stories. In response, one of the judges (the Republican one, I believe) pinned him to the wall and dared him to dispute Drumpf’s history of anti-Muslim statements during the campaign. The DOJ hack backed down.
SenyorDave
If every fucking Republican in the US Senate caught ebola and had a long, lingering death, and it was 100% confined to them and didn’t spread, the benefit to this country would be incalculable.
SiubhanDuinne
@MisterForkbeard:
?????????
MisterForkbeard
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes): Seriously. I don’t know you can dispute the following:
1) Trump’s ongoing anti-muslim statements in the campaign.
2) His explicit proposal for a muslim ban.
3) Giuliani (and someone else too, I think), who verified that it was indeed a Muslim Ban and that Trump had tried to ban Muslims as close to legally as he could manage.
That sounds an awful lot like targeting a specific religion.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: I think a strategic vest is a waistcoat. Worn by a diplomat that avoids a shooting war.
Anne Laurie
@opiejeanne:
My guess: When Trump first announced his ‘travel ban’, Ghouliani gave a long interview on Fox News claiming he’d been asked to craft a ‘Muslim ban‘. He’s since been forced to recant, second-hand of course, because that undercuts Trump’s claim that he never intended to ban, y’know, mooslims.
It would not surprise me if some random Trumplodytes were being pissy on twitter about Rudy — at least until they were ordered to ock-knay off the uth-tray illing-spay…
Mike J
Huggy Bear tells me the word on the tweet is the gov of Alabama wants to fill Sessions’ vacant seat with the state AG who is currently investigating the governor.
Anne Laurie
@Mike J:
I {heart} this comment!
(I think the jackboot fanbois call them ‘tactical vests’ because they think it sounds more military than merely ‘bullet-proof’.)
JordanRules
Hillary says women hold a forward and powerful place in the future today and the GOP scolds a fellow female Senator for reading the words of a black woman and civil rights icon aloud in the chamber. Those optics.
Oh and it’s Black History Month.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m trying to work up a protest of McConnell’s church tomorrow (the parsonage of the senior pastor would be even better if it can be located, but I need my desktop and the services it has on it). The courthouse is all well and good, but it just doesn’t smack him in an important place.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major: @Major Major Major Major:
did anyone expect anything less from Fox?
EBT
CNN ended up having Warren on, and Don Lemon read Coretta’s letter.
? Martin
@Amir Khalid: A tactical vest may or may not have a bit of bulletproofing, but it refers to a vest that you wear over your clothes that has pockets and loops for quick access to important gear – flashlights, ammunition, knife, flashbangs, etc.
Think of a police officer or member of the military in an armed situation where they would need quick access to a bunch of little things. The tactical vest keeps them all on your chest or side where you can quickly grab them. There’s a zillion different styles depending on your specific needs. The idea is to train with it so you can just grab things out of muscle memory without thinking, so people tend to get pretty attached to one or two that they own.
A strategic vest is called a motorhome here in the US.
opiejeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t think so because that’s been around for about a week now, hasn’t it? I thought it was something that happened today. I wish I could find the tweet but it’s buried under the landslide of comments about Warren being silenced, or censured. She said she’d been red-carded.
opiejeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Ok, that makes some sense. I think I spotted it around 6pm PST.
Gvg
I didn’t think Trump wanted President for life because he is lazy but he can’t help himself from looting and at some point he may realize that if he leaves office, he’ll be prosecuted.
Sloane Ranger
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes): I hope you’re right. I watched some CNN legal talking heads who were sounding a note of caution. I’m not a lawyer but they seemed to be saying that the State might not have standing based on some precedent and you can’t always judge what a ruling will be based on the oral arguments.
OTOH one of them did say that if a judge wants to give standing, they’ll find a way of doing so.
CaseyL
Did the network news cover this? Did they cover it in as much detail?
Asking because I don’t watch, and because I’m not sure how many people watch cable news vis-avis network news. I thought network still had the biggest audience by far, but I can’t find statistical support for that.
chopper
@Anne Laurie:
that’s a ‘ballistic’ vest.