I’ve been off getting my hair done all morning. I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing — I’m more of an “earth muffin” type (unless that means cow shit?!?) — but I had foolishly allowed teenagers to add “highlights” in a “temporary” color, and things went badly awry. $140 later, it’s all better.
Anyhoo, lots of news to catch up on! It seems crackpot General Flynn was freelancing foreign policy with Russia prior to the shitgibbon’s swearing in! None dare call it treason? I do!
Hopefully the fact that they caught the bastard lying will reopen that shamefully neglected tin of worms about Russian interference in the US election. If we can’t get rid of Trump before 2020, ousting Flynn would at least mitigate the danger the sociopath’s regime puts us in each and every day.
In other news, Bible-thumping, for profit-scheming, fat cat Department of Education secretaryship purchaser Betsy DeVos (who is not even the worst person in her parents’ litter!) had a bad first day at public school:
Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos was initially blocked by protesters as she tried to enter middle school in D.C. https://t.co/GPiHoq6IDM pic.twitter.com/26NgajDpnI
— ABC News (@ABC) February 10, 2017
She can buy congress, but she doesn’t own the American people. Viva la résistance!
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
“Shame! Shame!” indeed! I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the reception she gets everywhere. Sooooo many people hate her, even a lot of Republicans, and, according to trumpisaliar on Tumblr, Trump voters.
hovercraft
As I said in the last thread, Dc is the wrong place for her to show her face.
Go play in the traffic, you’ll get a better reception there.
SiubhanDuinne
The look on her face! Bwahahahahahaha!
stinger
I’m surprised not to see that vacant smile pasted on her face the way it was during her confirmation hearing. Kinda pleased with the expression she does have here!
Aleta
This suggests how the Dems should question Gorsuch. (Ask him to tell the truth about Garland.) http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/how-the-democrats-can-stop-neil-gorsuch?mbid=social_twitter
dedc79
I think the Dems need to go after Pence on this. His CYA story is that he was misled by Flynn, but reports today suggest that it was well known Flynn had in fact discussed sanctions.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne: @stinger:
I think they believe their boss when he says that he is the voice of the silent majority, so when they go out into the public and are treated with contempt they are shocked. Keep it up America, let them know what they are a part of.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Gosh… remember how all on fire Republicans were about those pay-for-play allegations around Hillary and the Clinton Foundation?
bemused
Madame DeVos better get used to it.
geg6
@hovercraft:
I agree. And I can’t get enough of that pissy-then-scared look on her face. No one was threatening her, but that she couldn’t just walk by them and have them bow down as she did seemed to be confusing and then frightening to her. Good. I want them all scared of being confronted every second of every day.
bemused
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
And how she sold out to Goldman Sachs?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
What absolutely kills me every time with these people is how clueless they are. These .0001 percenters never leave their bubbles, and think they can just waltz around wherever the “little people” are, without any consequence to them. The only little people in their lives are paid to be there. Reality bites, good and hard.
? Martin
@dedc79: Yeah. There’s some suspicion that they’ll throw Flynn under the bus and try and salvage everyone else on the team.
But this is an important point:
Flynn has no choice but to try and make policy, because Trump has no desire to. Policy doesn’t matter to him. Winning matters, and polling numbers, but not policy. Trump could care less, so with that abdication of responsibility someone else needs to pick it up, and Trump had broadcast during the election that he was eager to delegate and we strongly suspect that Flynn was not the only one delegated to. The reporting is that there are others the FBI is investigating and I don’t think they will let the administration off the hook quite so easily.
Gindy51
She’s out of the bubble now and it shows. May she get this same kind of reception every lace she dares to show up. I guarantee you she won’t be in the trenches very often once she realizes she ain’t all that and a bag of potato chips to most of the American people.
Major Major Major Major
I have a question. People are floating the story of that deported mother as “one of the first people deported under Trump” but that can’t possibly be true. Even after the DACA etc. orders Obama was deporting over a hundred thousand people a year and I doubt that operation is on pause awaiting full staffing.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
You know, you could’ve just bought the kids a couple of video games. It would have been cheaper …
Westyny
The startling thing with DeVos is how few protesters it took to freak her out. I mean, c’mon!
? Martin
@hovercraft: It’s a bit more fundamental than that. These are people drunk with power that failed to learn the lesson from one of our founding documents:
The Declaration of Independence establishes that power ultimately emanates from the people. They can try and work around that, gerrymandering districts and suppressing votes an declaring that the popular vote doesn’t matter, not showing up for their town halls and shutting down phone lines. But the public understands that lesson and will adjust their tactics in order to demonstrate it. If voting doesn’t work, then they will turn to protesting until it’s clear that they’re being heard. So long as the administration is defiant to public opinion, those tactics will adjust further and become more urgent. The French took it as far as the tumbrel. The GOP is absolutely playing with fire here.
Baud
Hi, Betsy. If you’re reading this, I’ll meet with you for $50,000.
$100K if you want a photographer there.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Wait ’til Price shows his pasty mug in public.
sharl
Here’s a short piece I found interesting, on why Ivanka’s line of clothing is a fail parade, based on practical and business considerations alone, attempts by Trumpkins to politicize it notwithstanding:
Nordstrom made a sound business decision.
Jeffro
That DeVos protest is AWE-SOME! Man, after seeing the front page of the WaPo today I didn’t think it could get any better…
…and hey, it’s Friday, aren’t we about due for a big ol’ anti-Trump document dump this afternoon? Or perhaps some BREAKING NEWS?!?
(fingers crossed)
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: IMO, the two most dangerous people in Trump’s circle are Flynn and Bannon. Both are crackpots who are very influential with the empty-headed shitgibbon. Anything that gets rid of them is a good thing in my book.
Adam L Silverman
@dedc79: As I indicated in a comment to my post on this last night, the real issue here is why did LTG Flynn, at the very least, as well as others on the Trump transition with experience in these matters not realize that we capture all SIGINT into and out of the Russian (and most likely all the other) Embassy in DC. As well as their consulates throughout the US and in other places too. This is standard SIGINT practice and the Russians do the same things to us. That LTG Flynn, a career military intel officer who’s final command was of an entire intelligence agency, didn’t let this stop him is a very, very poor demonstration of his trade craft.
Jeffro
@Westyny:
And that she didn’t even try to talk with them, or smile and breeze past them…
Jeffro
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
All of them, really – DeVos, Price, Mnuchin in particular
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Adam L Silverman: Arrogance is a hell of a drug.
dexwood
@Gindy51:
Maybe she’ll resign before too long to spend more time with her money. . . I mean family.
Villago Delenda Est
This is how Flynn needs to be dealt with.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
And, might I add, that he felt it was THAT urgent that he get in touch with the Russians…that. urgent.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
I hope so, thought I think we need to be cognizant of Trump’s almost mystical ability to always find someone worse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Not at all surprising. She probably hasn’t been in the presence of someone (other than The Help) who’s worth under a million dollars in…well, forever.
What’s heartening is that apparently the protesters had advance notice that Cruella would be there and organized appropriately. If we continue to do stuff like this, you can betcher ass she won’t go anywhere.
amk
Wait, is abc implying that she went back later?
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est: Like a broken link?
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: They don’t make traitors like they used to.
Yarrow
@geg6: You guys made me go look at the video. LOL! Her face is priceless. So scared of the people.
Villago Delenda Est
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Every Federal Agency is filled with agents of the resistance. Bannon’s thugs will never be able to find them all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: It’s fixed now. Enjoy!
Baud
@Yarrow: Truth be told, y’all are kind of scary.
stinger
@Westyny: No kidding. The superrich must never in their sheltered, pampered lives encounter open disagreement in any form. Hilarious when they finally do!
Jeffro
Btw can I just suggest that this is an AMAZING way to get into Trumpov’s (and Bannon’s) heads?
Holy cow. Rosie O’Donnell as Steve Bannon.
Trumpov is gonna fire Spicer and Bannon just because he can’t get the SNL images out of his head.
Adam L Silverman
@Westyny: She didn’t say a word. The Secret Service officer who was acting as her personal security took one look and smartly decided to go back to the SUV. The protestors did nothing wrong, but from the point of view of a personal security detail, that was a bad situation that could have gone further south very, very quickly. Only one officer on the personal security detail as escort. An extra large SUV in a confined space that can’t simply accelerate forward or into reverse, but has to make a complicated by confined space 3 point turn to exfil the environment. From a security standpoint, the risk was way out of proportion to any reward for actually getting to whatever was scheduled. My guess is next time she does this, if she ever tries it again, you’ll see an advance tactical team to lock down the site, then a three person escort (minimum) – one in front, one beside, one behind (point, beside, slack/sweep), and the location chosen will have both easy vehicular access and multiple alternate entry points in case the main one is blocked.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: The difference is that this woman was making a voluntary check-in with INS. Under Obama she would not have been deported. They had an agreement – she checks in, they make sure everything is on the up and up, and leave her alone because she has two kids who are US citizens. That previous agreement was abruptly changed, and the reason this is news is to tell all other undocumented – if you had a trust relationship with INS, that’s gone now. Don’t risk a voluntary check-in. She would have been covered by both DACA (she came here at 14) and DAPA if not for the previous arrest, so she was in a kind of informal deferral program based on her relatively benign crime (ID fraud so she could work).
It’s also a message to the public that Trump is fine breaking up families, deporting the mom of US citizen children in the middle of the night with no warning. We can communicate if we’re okay with that or not. But she’s an indication that Trump is okay tearing down both DACA and DAPA. Note that the GOP talks a lot about tearing down DACA but not DAPA. Even the hardline GOP don’t like admitting they want to deport the parents of young US citizens.
Obama was taking steps to end these kinds of deportations. They still happened (the federal government is massive, and change comes slowly), but they were clearly declining, and Obama was overt that he didn’t want them to happen and wanted individuals like her to have a pathway to citizenship.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
She was arrested back a few years ago for working under a fake SS number, but the was not deported because of her two American kids and because that was her only crime. If I remember from the report I saw she’d been here 22 years and came when she was a teenager. Her deportation is supposed to send a message to the people Obama gave amnesty to. This was all Shitgibbon, Obama deported way too many people trying to appease the GOP to gt them on side for a comprehensive immigration compromise.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/02/08/deported-trump-guadalupe-garcia-de-rayo/97678236/
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Time for a surgical meteor?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Adam L Silverman:
I’d also guess she’d limit such visits to places more inclined to not want to affix her head to the end of a pike, like some charter school or right wing think tank.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I am astounded that so rarely it is noted that people like DeVos and Trump aren’t pursuing “public service” because they are dedicated, mindful people. They’re anticipating huge rewards down the road.
Meg Whitman spent it is said $100,000,000 of her own money for a job (CA gov) that pays about $250,000 a year.
Where the hell is Howard Beale?
stinger
@Jeffro: If she had tried to engage with them at all, I might be able to feel a tiny bit of respect for her. Instead, she pretended that they didn’t exist, and turned tail and ran.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: Bannon is building his own National Security team. That’s why Gorka was hired. Not that that will do them any good, that guy doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, his bio has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, and he’s a conspiracist. So par for the course.
bemused
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
DeVos has always lived in one of the most airtight bubbles. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has never had any closeup exposure to 99.9% of the rest of America other than the servants. It’s not only the cocoon of vast wealth, monster mansion(s) and their filthy rich social circle but she and her kids have never gone to a public school and are what I call dominionist theocrats. I was almost embarrassed for her during her hearing. She showed she was totally clueless about basic education issues. Anyone who doesn’t have a second thought that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to say out loud that grizzlies justify guns in schools is a complete idiot.
Hildebrand
I wanted to highlight this US News and World Report article. The story about Emily Reimann, mid-way through the article, is about the daughter of our best friends. My wife, a Lutheran pastor, will be presiding at the wedding as soon as the visa business is (hopefully) sorted out.
stinger
@Adam L Silverman: All that just so the secretary of education can visit a school. SAD!
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m open to collateral damage that extends to the Kushner household and Trump Tower.
hovercraft
@? Martin:
Case in point.
Watch a GOP Congressman and supporters scatter when constituents find him at ‘canceled’ town hall
By Jen Hayden
Friday Feb 10, 2017 · 9:58 AM EST
Congressman Mo Brooks returned to Alabama, where he planned to have a town hall meeting in Huntsville. But a funny thing happened to Brooks. Like all Republican (and most Democratic) members of Congress lately, he suddenly found his “open to the public” meeting was “sold out”—so he promptly canceled it altogether. Brooks and his tea party pals gave a variety of nonsensical excuses, including, they “didn’t want to meet until all the president’s nominees were confirmed.”
So imagine the surprise of Huntsville-area constituents when they showed up at the “canceled” meeting last night and there was Congressman Mo Brooks, meeting with his conservative supporters. Check out this account from Left in Alabama and be sure to watch the video below to you can see Mo Brooks, his staff, and his conservative supporters scatter like cockroaches when the lights get turned on. Note that Brooks hid in the church somewhere until they were sure no other constituents (which he calls protesters) showed up:
But not “on time.” Those suspicious individuals who attended “just in case” were told that Brooks’ appearance had been canceled. Fortunately, they stayed long enough to send out a confirmed sighting of our district’s most famous chicken.
Earlier in the evening, the Tea Party folks made a great show of complaining about how many extra hot dogs they had, and waved off the hired police presence, since “no protests” were expected.
Once the coast was clear (he thought), Rep. Brooks strolled casually into his native habitat: a Tea Party meeting hosted in a Baptist church. Oh, but word quickly went forth. Fortuitously, Madison County Democrats were meeting just a few miles away, and they quickly headed for the Tea Party event.
Amazingly. it ended as soon as they arrived and began trying to ask questions.
Now, watch this!
Constituent Deborah Barros-Smith was filming as she made her way into the meeting, and what was Mo Brooks telling the crowd? All about the “violent left,” referencing the protests at UC Berkeley, and the meanies who were inciting violence by calling people racists. Never mind that millions and millions of U.S. voters have peacefully demonstrated and calmly showed up at their elected representative’s offices day after day, week after week, with no reports of violence. Chickens like Mo Brooks are using this as an excuse to shut down all constituent meetings.
Nevertheless, as soon as Mo Brooks and his staff realized other constituents were coming into the gymnasium, they abruptly stood up and canceled the meeting and scattered like cockroaches (at roughly the 4:00 mark of the video):
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@bemused:
I call them the American Taliban.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@Jeffro: SESSIONS. Hoo boy, that is gonna be epic….
Adam L Silverman
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Most likely. From the look on her face she was 1) very scared and 2) at the point of freeze – not fight or flight. Had the Secret Service officer not directed her out of there she would have likely frozen not sure what to do. This may be the first time anyone, let alone several anyones, have ever loudly indicated their displeasure with her.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So a lawyer I know, a friend of mine, posted a status today that was heartbreaking. She’s black, and reported that she’s been getting referred to as “colored” to her face several times over the last 45 days. Included in that was a potential new client who was “surprised” that she and her staff were all “colored”, as well as a substitute doctor at her usual doc’s office that referred to her as “colored” 6 times in a 10 minute interaction. She’s fucking pissed.
Anyway, I mention it in our staff lunchroom today. One staffer for another lawyer is a Lima OH transplant and a total Trumper. Her comment was “If it really happened, I can’t believe that a doctor would do that. I just can’t believe it.”
I jumped her like a honey badger on a beehive. It’s gonna be a long time until she does that casual “I don’t believe the claim of racism” bullshit again.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sharl:
She should try to design better clothes.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
this is, in fact, the $64,000 question, and it confirms my opinion that even the most apparently competent – or least apparently *in*competent – people associated with Trump’s inner circle seem to be incapable of finding their asses in a dark closet even using *both* hands.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: I thought the scariest thing about Flynn is that he does have connections within the system and obviously military / intel skills, but he was either a crackpot all along or converted to crackpotism later in life. Bannon is a crackpot too, but I don’t think he’s as smart as he thinks he is. Weird that Flynn would be the one to step on a landmine first, though, so maybe my theories don’t hold water.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Sounds like things at Oroville are a bit touch-and-go. Apparently the flow into the lake has reduced and it’s rising about a foot every 2-3 hours (compared to a foot an hour before), but it’s only 6 feet below the emergency spillway. Sounds like they’re continuing to use the damaged spillway, but I have to think at a reduced flow rate in order to minimize additional damage.
Once the net inflow stops and they can lower the level through the power plant, they’re going to have to haul ass and get that spillway fixed before the next big storm comes through – but that’s going to be harder and harder to do the more damage it takes.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
Pretty unprecedented for a Secretary of Ed! You know her brother has to be quite unhappy about all this…Adam, what happens if Mr. Prince insists that some of his operatives join the security detail (speaking of unprecedented)?
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: @hovercraft: So when it’s reported that she’s “one of the first people deported under Trump” they mean additionally “who wouldn’t have been deported under the previous prioritization regime etc.”, gotcha.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
It’s very likely this was the first time in her life DeVos has heard an opinion outside the Conservative information bubble she lives in.
Jeffro
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Trump certainly is. It would be hard to make DeVos any richer. She and her family are, however, the kind of folks who’d spend tens of millions of dollars over the years trying to bust up unions (which just says that they expect to reap hundreds of millions from having a de-unionized work force)
Ella in New Mexico
Meanwhile, my Republican brother-in-law with the openly gay/transgendered daughter he adores (and who depends on Obama care for her insurance) who has a state government job with the public schools with a decent pension on the horizon, who is a member of the liberal United Church of Christ and is not a religious fanatic in any way, and who fully supported the DAPA protests up until last week, posted this first thing today on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/presidentdonaldtrump16/photos/a.440788452790767.1073741828.427669654102647/647559865446957/?type=3&theater
I really cannot comprehend what has happened to people in this country. I just don’t understand what universe they are living in, and to be honest, I just don’t care. Their opinions just cannot matter anymore.
SFAW
@Westyny:
Not too many blacks in her section of Grand Rapids (and environs), I’m guessing.
glory b
@Major Major Major Major: My understanding (and I could be wrong) was that the vast majority of Obama’s deportations were people caught at the boarder, and those convicted of crimes. He wasn’t going after the nice lady who lives down the street.
Activists use the border deportations to pump up the numbers. I’d have done the same, but like I said, not rounding up grandma unless she was in a cartel.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Amway is/was unionized?
Baud
@Ella in New Mexico: White dude? I understand what happened.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think Trump, Bannon, OR Flynn ever ‘got over’ 9/11, or put it into any sort of context, or even just ran the odds of the threat to them/their interests compared to other dangers (like the KFC Trump loves so much). Much of Trump’s base appears to have gone into ‘permanent fear’ mode as well…and their choice of “media” outlets hasn’t helped any, I’m sure.
I can’t imagine what a scrambled mess I’d be if I’d left my amygdala on full boil for the past 16 years, stoked by crap like Fox and Breitbart and Alex Jones…but I bet it would look a lot like these three clowns.
? Martin
PPIC poll shows that Trump’s approval in California is 30/58, a net -28. Among Republicans he only has an approval of 72, which is pretty low within a party and quite a bit lower than his approval with Republicans nationally.
Keep your eye on those CA GOP reps. Even in red districts they’re going to have trouble. About ¼ (and growing) of Republicans are going to be asking how these guys are checking Trump’s power.
Ella in New Mexico
@geg6:
Of course it was! She has lived in a literal echo chamber of non-conflict her entire life, from her years being home schooled to her work floating around the various issue PAC’s and Republican legislators loving her for her money. She thinks the world is a beautiful, accepting and incredibly safe place.
All it took was one visit to an average DC middle school to start figuring out it’s not fucking OZ out here. Half of that look on her face was about how she was going to find a place to change her wet panties before her next meeting.
Jeffro
@SFAW:
Amway is not the only piece of their empire…and regardless of where their fortune came from, they’ve been spending crazy amount of money trying to bust unions (teachers’ unions in particular)
She’s essentially a Koch Sister.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin:
It’s funny, I only know four. I’ll have to check and see which one will be asking.
ETA: Oh, thanks for the Oroville update. Good news, after a fashion.
bemused
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Works for me.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Correct. And it’s the voluntary check-in being violated that has angered people. Same with the travel ban.
Had Trump limited the ban to how visas are granted, he’d be in a lot less hot water. But that he revoked previously issued visas strikes people as violating a existing contract. That voluntary check-in with INS was another such contract. This is where the norm-breaking really rattles people. Social Security is nothing other than a similar contract, will Trump break that as well? This is where people feel unsettled – rules we thought we understood are being rewritten on the fly, without warning. That’s simply not how this country has ever operated.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Well, they lost both of my neighbors, so I’ve got at least two here.
stinger
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: GOOD. LORD.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: Why isn’t the travel ban just on the issuance of new visas? It’s either an absurd amount of incompetence or they’re hoping to win this court battle early.
stinger
@hovercraft: Thanks for sharing the info and the link!
Ella in New Mexico
@Baud: Yeah. But his 3 siblings ( and their spouses and kids, btw) are white, too and they’re ALL Democrats. He, his wife, one of his daughters and my parents-in-law are all middle class white people who live in Southern PA and have never, ever left their hometowns, however. They’re very sheltered and lots of negative white, conservative cranks in their community.
The rest of them (us) got out, got higher education, got some perspective.
SiubhanDuinne
SOMEBODY has taken down the DeVos videos, longer version and clip.
Hmmmmm.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Is this how all the jokes about getting the DIA guy off your porch by paying him for the pizza started?
Major Major Major Major
Did y’all see this?
“Sean Spicer’s Breitbart interview is an avant-garde triumph of trash cinema”
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: As I’ve repeatedly indicated, I don’t know LTG Flynn. I know several people in Special Forces that relied on what his team was doing for GEN McChrystal and think very highly of his work in that. But based on the reporting there seems to be a pattern of simply deciding that he knows better and that he can just go ahead and do what he thinks is best. I’m a big believer in the overlapping concepts of unless otherwise directed (UNODIR) and better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, but the reports of him just doing what he thinks best regardless demonstrates a troubling pattern.
hovercraft
George Soros must be losing a heck of a lot of money, his paid activists are blowing the phones up.
House Oversight Committee Gives Public Special Lines For Trump Complaints
The public phone numbers for both the majority and minority offices of the House Oversight Committee now give callers a separate option to complain about the Trump administration, an option that did not exist for the Obama administration.
“[T]his is not typical,” said Jennifer Werner, the communications director for the committee’s Democrats, in an email to TPM, when asked whether the Oversight Dems had operated a separate option for executive branch inquiries under previous Presidents.
“It reflects the massive number of calls we have been getting since the election urging the committee to conduct basic oversight of the Trump Administration,” she said.
The office for the committee majority also confirmed to TPM that the separate option in their automated message had been added about a month ago.
The automated message for the public number for the committee’s Republicans tells callers in to “Press 1” if they “would like to provide information or make an inquiry relating to President Donald Trump,” while instructing callers to press two for other matters or to speak to a staffer.
Likewise, the Democrat-operated virtual receptionist instructs callers to “Press 1” if they would “like to leave a message about oversight of the Trump administration” and gives a separate option for other matters or for speaking to the staff.
The House Oversight Committee, under Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), spearheaded numerous investigations into the Obama administration. Prior to the November election, Chaffetz said he had “ two years’ worth of material already lined up” relating to the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. He has been more deferential to President Trump, telling the Huffington Post that it had only been a “few days” since the Inauguration, and that, “All the flailing before he was even sworn in was a bit silly, if not purely immature.”
Chaffetz and the committee’s ranking member, Elijah Cummings (D-MD) did send a letter to the Office of Government Ethics Thursday knocking Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway for plugging Ivanka Trump’s clothing line in a TV segment filmed in the White House briefing room.
bemused
@Ella in New Mexico:
I can’t wrap my mind around that trying to imagine being his daughter. He “adores” her but has all those beliefs that differ from her life? I can’t even…
sharl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Just the response I would expect from a lib on Soros’ payroll!
On a more serious note, learning business practices from her sleazy real estate developer dad would never likely have led to success in the area of fashion design. Making grandiose promises to would-be buyers and telling any lie you have to in order to seal the deal just ain’t gonna work for clothing.
Alternatively, it may be that the Trumps cannot fail, but can only be failed.
…Stupid customers…
Mike in NC
Trump is meeting the Japanese PM today. What could possibly go wrong there?
Woodrowfan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: good for you. Lima huh?. Not surprised.
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
I hope they read that!
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: As I just indicated in my response to Miss Bianca, based on the reporting there is a demonstrated pattern of LTG Flynn just deciding the rules don’t apply to him and he can do what he thinks best. I was trained/taught to operate with toes on the line and nose as far over as possible without smashing my own face. My ASO stated it as “if you’re not operating on the edge, you’re not doing your job right”. But this recognizes that 1) there is a line, 2) that it is, indeed, a boundary, and 3) that risk can produce reward, but also failure. The pattern in the reporting does not indicate that this reality has been internalized. It is very, very dangerous for one to assume, no matter rank, experience, and/or education, that they always know better than everyone else, in every situation.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
They’re all candy-asses to a man/woman.
Major Major Major Major
A teacher friend of mine shared a thing, that had DeVos tweeting “Day 1 on the job is done, but we’re only getting started. Now where do I find the pencils? :)” with the caption “Didn’t you know? Teachers have to provide their own supplies.”
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Unless the Department of Education competes a contract for personal security for the Secretary, his guys can’t. Anything they did would open the government, him, and his sister up to significant liability. And since its her brother’s company, the odds of them getting the contract are slim because it would violate the personal services rules.
hovercraft
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
We are used to people not believing that racism exists, but I think the next few years will be educational for people in the same way the videos of black people being shot by cops for simply being scary black people has for those with open minds has been an eye opener. Allies like you are a huge help so thanks, but personally after the second “colored” i would have interrupted and told them that I prefer black. I do politely rude very well if I do say so myself.
@Ella in New Mexico:
He’s an asshole period and beyond redemption.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major:
You ask that with the assumption that they are interested in making sound national security policy. I don’t think they are. I also happen to think that Bannon and Flynn, with a helpful rube in the top seat, believe that a religious war is inevitable and would prefer to wage it now before there are any more muslims and while the US has all of these nukes at the ready.
So I think they have an irrational fear of all Muslims and want them banned entirely from the US. With that goal in mind and a potential religious war as a backdrop, the travel ban as written shows extreme restraint and achieves just a tiny fraction of what they want. From our perspective it’s massive overreach and from theirs its unbearable restraint. Trump, being someone that has never let a fact or independent thought color his decision-making, will do pretty much whatever Bannon and Flynn tell him – and remember that the PDB gets filtered every day through Flynn.
zhena gogolia
@Villago Delenda Est:
I expected Captain Needa, but this is good too. Except Chuck was innocent.
bemused
@Jeffro:
Many years ago we were on a sail trip in the BVI and captain pointed out this very large cruise ship that was owned by Amway. I remember the captain said it was used by Amway ceo’s and trip rewards for highest Amway sellers, those who reached the top of the pyramid.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Have I ever told you how much I admire your way with an understatement?
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: I’ve never heard that joke, so I have no idea.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
If I had seen that acronym with no explanation, I would have thought it was textese for “You know, Dear….”
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: Unless they 1) got someone decent, who understands Japanese customs and how they communicate – including negotiate and 2) he paid attention a lot could go wrong.
hovercraft
It’s a good thing the president never backs down. he’s all about WINNING !!
NBC: Trump Administration Rewriting Immigration Executive Order
By Matt Shuham Published February 10, 2017, 1:15 PM EDT
White House lawyers are working on a new version of President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order, NBC News reported Friday.
According to an unnamed senior administration official, NBC reported, work on a new order began several days before an appeals court maintained a lower court’s temporary suspension of Trump’s order Thursday evening.
Trump’s executive order temporarily halted travel and immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries (and indefinitely from Syria) and indefinitely suspended the United States’ refugee program.
Several unnamed sources close to the President told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, according to the same report, that White House lawyers were working on language for a new order that would pass muster with federal courts.
On Thursday afternoon, a federal appeals court maintained U.S. District Judge James Robart’s temporary restraining order on Trump’s order, shooting down the government’s argument that the President’s authority to limit immigration was “unreviewable.”
Trump on Friday morning called the decision “disgraceful.”
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Don’t hear many jokes, I take it.
Mnemosyne
I need to get my hair re-colored — I have a great colorist who does a very subtle job, but I can see the line (and the grays) right now. Staying a redhead ain’t free!
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
In other words this will end badly.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
Poppy Bush already covered the “barf in his lap” option, so that’s right out.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s why I wrote it out.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Apparently not.
The Moar You Know
@hovercraft: For God’s sake don’t use the “press one” option. Keep calling the actual congressperson’s phone line instead. Bog them down. The “special line” will go to the “special operators and voicemail systems”, which are the exact equivalent of the “special place” my cat pees in.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: The Magic 8 Ball app on my phone replied with “Outlook Not So Good”.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman: @hovercraft:
I’m not sure if it will help or hurt that Abe is also something of a right wing dick.
TriassicSands
It might. Until Trump chose Flynn’s successor. It’s pretty obvious that Trump has an unerring capacity to choose the absolute worst people to fill important positions. That’s not surprising given who is advising him. If we could get rid of Bannon that would be a big plus, but Trump might simply replace him with someone equally as bad, if in a different way.
Mike J
@SiubhanDuinne:
There’s a version up with audio from Goodfellas. Looks like something DougJ would love.
https://twitter.com/dorseyshaw/status/830092258284298241
hovercraft
@The Moar You Know:
I agree, I just meant that the volume is getting to them, but definitely call them directly.
lollipopguild
@bemused: Not too different from True Conservatives who HATE HATE HATE “Big Government” when it’s run by Democrats(Obama) and totally LOVE LOVE LOVE “Big Government” when RepThugs are in charge.
JPL
First question to Trump.. NYPost.. court decision..
second question Fox court decision… Can you keep us safe even though the court ruled against you
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico: About half my relatives are Trumpsters, and every time I think about it (which is often), I want to slap the ever-loving shit out of them. They’ve been conservatives — and some of them outright kooks — all my life, but this Trump business takes it to a whole ‘nother unforgivable level. I’ll never stop holding their support for that nasty, racist, misogynist asshole against them. It has forever diminished the respect I had for them. It’s personal in a way it wasn’t before. It just is.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: But he’s within the normal parameters.
Adam L Silverman
@TriassicSands: I think the worry would be that were LTG Flynn to be forced out, regardless of how, whether this would lead LTG Kellogg to be promoted from National Security Council Chief of Staff or whether Bannon would try to simply grab the position for himself or install his own catspaw: Gorka. LTG Kellogg would be okay. The latter two possibilities would be very, very bad.
Jeffro
@bemused: Wow that’s crazy…but then again, I think Amway racks up almost $10B or so in sales per year? That’s just incredible. They can afford it.
hovercraft
@Timurid:
Yes but he’s a right wing nationalist, so on top of all the nuances of what is deemed offensive culturally, he is even more sensitive to criticism of Japan. Remember also too that back in the eighties and nineties the Shitgibbon’s viewed Japan in much the same way he regards China today, there is a history there and Abe know it.
Kelly
@Jeffro: I’ve watched several conservative friends and relatives boil their amygdalae dry over the last 16 years.
JPL
I had to step away, so I missed the next question to Trump and who it was from. Is anyone else following?
I’m only listening to see if he is asked about Flynn.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike J:
Splendid!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Perhaps.
Monkeyfister
For the afternoon crowd…
Now hiring. Come work with me: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/463965300/
Managing trailer-based event assets, and large athletic events. Easy work.
Downside– living in Armpit, TN. Upside:No state or local tax! Full FED Bennies!
They might pay to move you here.
I’ll stick around to answer some Qs.
Better YOU than some wingnut.
hovercraft
Trump slowly realizes he can’t run the government like a business
02/10/17 12:56 PM
By Steve Benen
Just two days after winning the presidential election, Donald Trump had a private meeting with President Obama in the White House, where the Democrat started walking the Republican through some of his duties. Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, “seemed surprised by the scope” of the presidency.
It relates to an important detail that went largely overlooked during the 2016 race: Donald Trump, the only president in American history with literally no background in public service, not only has little understanding of current events and government institutions, but he’s also never really understood the presidency itself. As ridiculous as it may sound, Trump applied for a job – by some measures, one of the most difficult jobs on the planet – he knew precious little about.
If his posturing and rhetoric are any indication, the New York Republican seemed to believe he already had the necessary skill set because of his private-sector background, and he may have assumed he could run the executive branch like he ran his business. Politico reports today that Trump is slowly realizing that doesn’t work, and he’s “growing increasingly frustrated.”
In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks. […]
Trump often asks simple questions about policies, proposals and personnel. And, when discussions get bogged down in details, the president has been known to quickly change the subject – to “seem in control at all times,” one senior government official said – or direct questions about details to his chief strategist Steve Bannon, his son-in-law Jared Kushner or House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump has privately expressed disbelief over the ability of judges, bureaucrats or lawmakers to delay – or even stop – him from filling positions and implementing policies.
Everyone who’s ever held the presidency has grown frustrated with the institutional limits and constraints, but it’s Trump’s “disbelief” that’s notable. It’s as if, in his mind, the power of the presidency is vast enough that he should be able to do as he pleases, simply by making a decision.
One of the most common and underappreciated phrases he used during the campaign was “very quickly” – he used to describe how he’d resolve a wide variety of challenges – because as Trump imagined the presidency, he’d simply bark orders and implement his vision, without excessive thought or study.
Little did he know there are whole other branches of government that play a role – made more complicated by federal agencies with their own ideas.
The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell recently joked, “If this is what ‘running government like a business’ looks like, it’s no wonder President Trump’s companies kept going bankrupt.”
It’s actually an important detail. Trump’s success in the private sector was quite limited, relied heavily on leveraging family connections and his “brand,” and led to repeated failures. No large corporations ever sought out Trump to help run their operations, and the Trump Organization itself has always been quite small.
What we’re left with, in other words, is a president who’s never led a large operation, overseeing the executive branch of a global superpower without any real understanding of what it does or how it functions.
No wonder Trump isn’t enjoying himself.
Jeffro
@JPL:
OMFG, Fox, really?!?!? “President Trump, why does the court insist that Americans bare their throats to the howling hordes of immigrant terrorists pouring over our borders like a…like a bad metaphor?”
I mean, if I’m a mainstream reporter, the temptation to follow the Fox question with, “Mr. President, if Fox hadn’t framed that last question in such a spectacularly overblown and misleading way, wouldn’t even your most ardent supporters start asking questions about your basic mental faculties?”
chopper
@Westyny:
she’s born rich. she’s never in her life had to deal directly with anything adversarial. i give her a year, tops.
sukabi
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: not gonna happen as her design skills consist of making bad “copies” of other people’s work. She’s been sued for infringing others work several times…
hovercraft
@JPL:
It’s almost like the WH and Murdoch are coordinating their messaging. The courts stopped us from keeping America safe or something blame any mishaps on them not the us.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, an actual dilemma: if a good thing happens (Elliott Abrams being nixed as Tillerson’s 2nd at State) for a bad reason (because Emperor ThinSkin can’t let go of Abrams’ criticism of him during the primaries)…is it still a good thing?
I say yes. But then again this just means that someone even worse than Abrams will get the job.
chopper
@Jeffro:
wait, you’re telling me that sitting down every night to a bucket of colonel and a pint of ‘dippin’ gravy’ is more likely to kill you than terrorism? pshaw.
JPL
@Jeffro: The reporter also mentioned that Trump knows some scary shit, and that’s why he was trying to protect us.
Baud
@JPL: “If you can’t keep us safe while following the law, shouldn’t you resign?”
Jeffro
Btw folks @niceDonaldTrump is a pretty funny account to follow…the profile pic cracks me up. See, if he’d just. be. nice!
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: or it could be that he’s “confused” as to who it is he actually works for….
pretty sure as Americans we need to be positive that the people in our government are actually working for US not another foreign government.
Baud
@Jeffro: I’m getting a suspended message.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Here is more on deportations under our new regime.
Trump administration begins massive deportation raids
Many people were taken from their homes.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained scores of immigrants across the Los Angeles area in a massive deportation operation on Thursday, following President Donald Trump’s harsh executive order stepping up the crackdown of immigrants with criminal offenses living in the country illegally.
Advocates and lawyers said that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents detained 134 immigrants at their workplaces and homes in a series of raids. They said that some people were picked up as “collateral arrest” after they opened their doors to agents who were not there to specifically arrest them. ICE agents allegedly requested to see identification from everyone and took in family members who were undocumented.
The immigration sweeps are believed to have taken place across Southern California in Santa Paula, Oxnard, Van Nuys, San Bernardino, and Downey.
As of Thursday night, the ICE agency denied that it had detained 100 immigrants, the original figure given by lawyers who said that the number comes from a list of immigrants apprehended at the ICE office in Los Angeles.
“Our operations are targeted and lead driven, prioritizing individuals who pose a risk to our communities,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice wrote in an email to ThinkProgress. She said officers conduct “routine” enforcement actions to arrest “known street gang members, child sex offenders, and deportable foreign nationals with significant drug trafficking convictions.”
Kice added that the agency prioritizes cases based on factors such as the person’s criminal and immigration history, “as well as the viability of the leads we have on the individual’s possible whereabouts.”
But advocates disagree. They say that this particular raid was not “routine” and that the immigrants detained did not pose a risk to their communities.
Routine immigration operations typically detain three to five people — but a sweep across seven counties to round up people appears to be a direct consequence of Trump’s recent executive order that gives broad power for agents to detain immigrants, advocates said.
hovercraft
@JPL:
He may be scared of the voices in his head, but they don’t constitute a threat to the rest of us, unless he listens to them.
trollhattan
@? Martin:
Hourly Oroville inflow/outflow data available here. Refresh with “latest” link to update for most recent hour.
It’s likely most or all of the entire lower spillway paving will erode away, so no quickie repair will be possible. Impossible to know how much work will be needed until they can finally halt releases, which may not be until summer, depending on snowpack runoff. We’ll be fortunate to have a fix in place by next winter, but typical water years don’t actually require spillway releases, so there’s that.
Flood risk still exists but the last storm is moving on today so inflows will slow, just not in time to prevent overtopping the emergency spillway. That’s an unwritten chapter in Oroville’s operating history. Biggest immediate impact is the enormous amount of silt and debris going into the river, which will be hell on the fishery in what had been a banner year.
Miss Bianca
@Monkeyfister: Wait, you mean the government is actually hiring in your neck of the woods?
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney is not going to accept an offer to become Deputy Secretary of State.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: SOMEBODY has to start working there soon!
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Jeffro: Rest easy. There is no one worse than Elliott Abrams. As bad, perhaps, but not worse.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: There are about 4,500 career foreign service officers working there now on the State side. Can’t remember what the USAID side’s personnel numbers are. And that’s not counting all the other folks that work at State.
David Spikes
@West of the Rockies (been a while): They do have a public service agenda, in Whitman’s case making California a free enterprise paradise ala Kansas or Michigan.
Just another source of amazement that rwnjs think that imposing the standards of failed states like Ala.-prisons are our growth industry-or Miss.-we don’t need no civil liberties-on states like Ca,, NY. or Mass. will somehow have any outcome other than reducing them to 3rd world status. Or perhaps that’s what they want.
Related to DeVos, House leadership-Mr. Seriousity Paul Ryan-want to finance more security at repub. town halls because this democracy thing is just getting out of hand. A thousand people got after Chaffetz last night and suddenly right wing sound bites were no longer enough.
Temporarily Mobile Max McGee
@Jeffro:
And most of that they take in is off of motivational sales recordings- or so some of us in GR believe. Barely anyone actually buys the soap.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: But nobody’s telling them what to do!
Joyce H
I haven’t read the thread yet, but had to react to this –
Over Christmas, my sister and I went and got our hair streaked. Both our hair has turned almost completely white, so it’s like a blank canvas. I got pink streaks, and turns out I really like it. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments, mostly from younger people. But the compliment that amused me the most was the time I was leaving the gym after my workout and an older lady said, “Oh, I like your hair! – it looks like your grandkids got ahold of it.”
trollhattan
@David Spikes:
Oh noez, attack of the infamous Utah hippies. LOLITS unite!
? Martin
@trollhattan: Outflow is at 65K? That spillway is eroding upward. They can’t do that for long, and if it erodes high enough, they’ll have to stop or it’ll undercut the dam itself. Seems like they’re going for broke trying to avoid the emergency spillway at all costs.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
chris
@? Martin: Pictures of the Oroville dam. This is a BFD.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: They know what to do.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
I’m envisioning something along the lines of, “Japanese girls, let me ask you, do you find they’re beautiful but need more boobies? I remember meeting two at Studio 54 and….”
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: There’s an assumption here that I think is without merit: that Donald realizes anything at all.
trollhattan
@chris:
Godzilla on the same day the Japanese PM visits–coincidence? I think not!
Jeffro
@Baud: ??
Seems to be working when I tried it a few seconds ago…maybe Trumpov told Twitter he’d SEE THEM IN COURT! if they didn’t block it? lol
Mary G
@? Martin: Darrell Issa has resorted to going to local small breweries and asking people what their favorite San Diego beer is. Also sucking up to the military like a top-of-the-line Hoover. He’s filed a bill to give them extra tax breaks and everything. Like the Republicans would ever do that.
For someone who never even bothered to campaign before 2016 he’s really working hard. But everyone in the photos is white, which is stupid as hell.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: So this is not actually a problem?
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est:
Andrew Sullivan’s on it: The Madness of King Donald
Baud
@Jeffro: Tried again. Got it to work. Thanks.
retiredeng
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: My partner tells a story about when he was a teenager. He had a job doing garden work for some of the wealthy people in the town. His family was, shall I say, from the wrong side of the tracks and not well off in the early 1950s. One woman was having him help her weed and remarked: “Weeds are like the poor. They’ll always be with us.” Even at 14 or so my partner said: “If it weren’t for the poor you would be weeding this garden alone.”
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: @Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
You two sharing brain space this afternoon? Too funny. I knew Abrams was bad, had no idea it’s not possible to do worse (and I like to think I pay attention to such things…ah well…)
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: so, Andrew Sullivan has a friend with a “pink” living room, as well? This wonderful world!
? Martin
@chris: It’s going to be nip and tuck. Looks like the net inflow could stop over the weekend assuming there’s no rain upstream, but they’ve got a ways to go before they can stop using the spillway entirely. Right now, if they overtopped, they’d be pushing an additional 60K CFS through the emergency in addition to the 60K in the spillway, but fortunately the inflow is falling pretty rapidly. If they had overtopped last night they’d have been pushing 115K CFS through the emergency plus the 60K in the spillway. I’d have to think that would be close to catastrophic, not just for the integrity of the dam, but also the ability of the river to absorb that much water (plus trees, dirt, rocks, etc).
zadig
Silly liberals. First everyone complains because DeVos has never set foot inside of a public school, then when she finally tries, protesters block her way. Make up your minds.
sharl
@Jeffro: Like Baud @142, I’m getting this:
Typical of Twitter to let keyboard nazis run free all over the joint, but zap a parody “nice Trump” account. Based on similar incidents, it’s clear that well connected people will get results from Twitter HQ, while everyone else is just SOL.
By the way, recent reports suggest that Twitter had hoped for a business bump due to Trump’s regular usage of their product, but it doesn’t seem to be working out that way.
ETA: saw follow-ups that the account was working again, but I’m still getting the suspended account redirect. Eh, no biggie…
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Yes and no. It is a problem as there is no one from the administration to push the administration’s policy into the departments and agencies and offices and bureaus. There are, based on reporting, temporary teams in place, the members of which may eventually get some of the permanent political appointments. However, in terms of actual day to day operations, the senior executives (SESes) and supervisory senior civil servants (GS 13s through 15s) know what to do and will make sure it is done. What happens is that this means that business as usual is really the business as usual of the previous administration. So from the new administration’s perspective they’re not going to get a lot of the responses they want because they don’t have anyone there to provide it.
? Martin
@Mary G: Yeah, I think he’s toast in 2018, assuming there’s a reasonably solid Democrat running. Not all CA GOPs are in danger, but some are and he’s one of them.
Jeffro
Rob NFLTG Reiner on Twitter just now:
So…we have our own 70-year-old white guys ranting away too…take that, Fox!
(Rob, baby, pace yourself…I mean it’s all true, but impeachment could take a while…)
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Gotcha, thanks.
@Jeffro:
He said menu, not recipe :P
Eljai
@hovercraft: This is exactly what Anthony Romero said would happen. The so-called president said he would deport immigrants with a criminal record. But there’s no way to tell if a person has a criminal record by looking at them. So, they’ll raid and terrorize communities. When undocumented immigrants without criminal records get swept up, how likely is it that they’ll be released. This is just sickening.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Trump supporters are fixed on the idea that Trump is the new sheriff in town, and that his ignorance of law and public policy gives him the power to see things with new eyes. I don’t know if anything will shake them of these convictions.
Meanwhile, I expect to see Pence and the GOP leadership try to back Trump up. He’s been having fun signing executive orders, but they need him to approve their legislative agenda.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: There is, obviously, worse. But worse is unlikely to get the nod. Tillerson seems to be smart enough to recognize that he needs a professional with significant State Department administrative and policy experience, if not foreign service experience. My guess is they’ll try to find a retired career senior foreign service officer that has diplomatic experience (been an ambassador), as well as administrative experience. I’m sure there’s one out there that is conservative enough to consider it. To be clear this would not be Bolton – he really doesn’t have these experiences, just the recess appointment as the US Ambassador to the UN.
Mary G
@? Martin: My new stretch goal is Duncan Hunter. His district is a lot redder, but he’s such an idiot a blue dog Democrats might take him if there’s a wave.
retiredeng
@? Martin: The GOP is irreparably broken. It sold its soul to the racists and bible thumpers. Look at what the Republican primary coughed up. A narcissistic moron seeking revenge for Obama. And this is where we are.
bemused
@Jeffro:
Three people in my family sold Amway products decadess ago. Probably everyone knows the game. To climb up the ladder, you have to recruit people to buy the products from you to sell and multiply from there. My family members didn’t bother going very far in that. They just liked the products at the time. Looking at that cruise ship made me wonder how many people the big winners had to recruit to earn that trip. The other annoying thing I remember is that people looking to recruit others would “invite” people they knew to a get together and not tell them it was an Amway thing. I remember being really annoyed when we were invited to high school friends thing and then learning it was a pitch.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: This is not the way to do things, but it could be worse. They could have pushed the purges much farther and basically made everything completely non-functional.
SiubhanDuinne
@Eljai:
Very unlikely, as they consider the lack of documentation itself the crime.
Quite.
Brachiator
@Eljai:
The woman in Arizona who was deported the other day had been convicted of working in the country illegally, a trivial violation.
Team Trump comes across as undisciplined and incompetent. But they are not going to let go of their obsession with Muslims and Mexicans, and other people they want to kick out or keep out.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
You Pollyanna, you ;-)
? Martin
So Trump was elected President without having any idea that the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform or that it died in the House or why it died in the House.
So will Trump back it? Who the fuck knows. Even when Trump does weigh in on it, he won’t have a goddamn clue what it means.
HRA
@Adam L Silverman:
I knew I had seen the Secret Service agent on someone’s detail. The vehicle was I identified sooner.
Why does DeVos have Secret Service protection? I have not seen this protection for a Cabinet member before today.
Kelly
@? Martin: The last two years due to warm dry spring weather several Willamette drainage reservoirs didn’t fill resulting in losses for summer recreation. The Corp has a very strict, long standing schedule for holding water back. The complaints about the Corp of Engineers conservative operations has been loud. The Oroville situation is an eye opener for the forces they’re dealing with.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: I saw something on FB that seems relevant at this point: something about all those cop shows we see on TV, where the “rogue cop” relies on “instinct” to arrive at a conclusion, then does skeevy/illegal/unethical thing to collect evidence against suspect, because following the law is not going to get the evidence needed to put away the suspect that said cop just “knows” is guilty. The point the poster was making is that by these means, we get socialized to consider our rights as eminently violable.
I think there’s another point there: that “the new (Republican) sheriff” gets to “follow his gut” because we as a society have been programmed by 40 years of relentless “government/expertise/pointy-headed intellectuals/liberals are the problem” propaganda to accept the notion that a white male GOP moron who doesn’t even know how to run a business can come in aping a mouthful of slogans, among them the promise to “run government like a business”, and his “gut” will just magically know how to turn slogans into action.
Adam L Silverman
@Eljai: And they will, undoubtedly, wind up collecting some US citizens in the net as well. This has happened in past sweeps and is almost certain to be the case this time and in future ones.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Have you considered running a potted plant against him? It would have more experience and intelligence.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
Yeah, all the Folsom Lake boat slip renters have been bitching this winter about the Bureau spilling water to keep it at the flood control level, but I bet they’re closing their yaps for now. Oroville had increased releases to maintain their flood mandate when the spillway failed, which shows how bloody fast things can go sideways. For comparison, Oroville has 3.5x the capacity of Folsom, so the latter can fill MUCH faster and it’s in a heavily populated area.
Decades of mostly drought has lulled us about the possibility of stupidly wet years.
bemused
@retiredeng:
Great comeback and impressive from a 14 year old! So then my inquiring mind wants to know how and why the lady was motivated to say this. It seems that a lot of well off and not so well off people spend a lot of time thinking about the poor and not usually in a sympathetic way.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Nope. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t think the glass is half full or half empty. Rather its twice as big as it needs to be and, eventually, I’m going to have to wash it. But despite what some people around seem to think when I write these things – whether post or comment – I do know how the system and the process works. I have some educated estimates of places where system and process will hold and places where it won’t. I’m not suggesting everything is fine. Nor am I suggesting that people shouldn’t be concerned and on guard and vigilant. I am always suggesting that panic, despair, despondence, and giving into them and/or giving up is not the answer.
Mike in DC
@hovercraft:
This is going to blow up rapidly as an issue. Migrants are disproportionately concentrated in the border states, and the ones here for a long time naturally have deep community ties. These raids are a flash fire inside a powder keg.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
Fear not they are working on lots of noxious legislation for him to sign.
NYT Consumer Watchdog Faces Attack by House Republicans
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee will move forward on legislation to neuter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its power to crack down on predatory business practices, according to a leaked memo that emerged on Thursday and infuriated Democratic defenders of the bureau.
The memo, drafted by the chairman, Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas and a longtime foe of the consumer agency, aligns House Republicans with President Trump in the latest attack on President Barack Obama’s legacy. The memo detailed plans to weaken the leadership of the agency, allowing the president to replace the bureau’s director at any time. Legislation in the works would limit the bureau’s enforcement authority, reduce its ability to make rules and repeal its consumer complaint system.
It would also greatly shrink the enforcement tools at the consumer watchdog’s disposal, blocking it from being able to go after businesses engaged in deceptive practices and restricting its oversight of big publicly traded companies that are already regulated by agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“This would substantially change the structure of the C.F.P.B. and greatly limits the scope of its authority,” said Hunter Wiggins, former principal deputy enforcement director at the bureau………….
Mr. Trump has been relatively muted on the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the brainchild of one of his most vocal Democratic critics, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But advisers to Mr. Trump have signaled that the administration is prepared to gut the agency.
Steven Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s nominee to head the Treasury Department, said during his confirmation hearing that the consumer protection bureau, created by Dodd-Frank, should cease to be funded by the Federal Reserve and should instead be funded through Congress, a move that could curb its independence. Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Carolina, who is waiting to be confirmed as the White House’s budget director, has referred to the bureau as a “sad, sick joke.”
And Sean Spicer, White House spokesman, said Mr. Trump had not yet decided if he would try to oust the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, before Mr. Cordray’s term ends in 2018……………….
For Mr. Trump, hobbling the bureau would have the added sweetness of outraging Ms. Warren, a political nemesis whom he derided regularly on Twitter during his campaign as Pocahontas, referring to a controversy about her Native American heritage……………..
Changes to the bureau generally need to come from Congress, and Republican lawmakers have been hoping to tear it down since its inception. Mr. Hensarling argued in a Wall Street Journal editorial this week that it should be abolished.
“The C.F.P.B. has eroded freedom, trampled due process and killed jobs,” Mr. Hensarling wrote. “It must go.”
Closing it completely would almost certainly require some bipartisan support, but some Democrats have demonstrated a willingness to reconceive the bureau. Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, where a number of major credit card companies have their headquarters, said this week that he would like to have hearings to address its future and that he would be open to new leadership, the website Morning Consult reported.
“I’ve been interested in exploring the idea of a commission-like approach,” Mr. Carper said…………….
Looks like Senator Carper may need some calls.
Tom
@hovercraft: Of course, none of the rest of us are enjoying it, either.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, I was actually just poking a tiny bit of fun at you, hence my “wink.” But I appreciate and agree with your philosophy.
Adam L Silverman
@HRA: Who knows. It may be between the peaceful protests and demonstrations around her nomination she was scared enough out of her comfort zone to request it. Or some idiot actually made a real threat or something perceived as a real threat.
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman:
and I greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
hovercraft
@? Martin:
No he will not back it.
Getting rid of the browns and putting the black in their place is a big reason he got the job in the first place. Build the wall is a cornerstone of his agenda, such as it is. I know border security was a big part of the bill, but so is letting millions stay, that will be a non starter for his fans. The raids are beginning, I’m sure we will see huge protests y the summer, which will piss the nativists off even more making them dig their heels in. It will just be an excuse to justify what they plan to do anyway.
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major: I meant the “incompetent lying narcissistic sick fuck” part…Rob’s not giving himself a whole lot of room to ramp up later. Which is ok. =)
I guess when he starts stringing it all into single, long words…incompetentlyingnarcissticsickfuck….or going ALL CAPS…those are additional ways to escalate.
Adam L Silverman
@Kelly: The American taxpayer spent a lot of money for that knowledge. So sharing what I can seems appropriate.
Steve in the ATL
@Monkeyfister: Are you in Millington or Memphis? Because if you’re referring to Memphis as Armpit, TN, then you and me and a few others here might have words.
Shell
It seems every Trump spokesman or surrogate has that same rictus-like grin on their face, at least when they’re trying to explain or spin their boss’s latest idiocy.
patrick II
In 1968 Nixon undercut Johnson’s Vietnam talks which were coming near a conclusion by promising the Vietnamese a better deal — and the better deal turned out be more bombs and over 20,000 more American deaths. Then in 1980 Reagan made a deal with the Iranians while Carter was still president which extended American’s stay in Iran so he could have a showy return on inauguration day and which also turned into Iran-gate and the deaths of thousands in South America and the CIA collaborating with drug dealers, and now working for Donald Trump we have Flynn, ex-adviser Carter Page (he got caught) meeting with the Russians over the summer, and Jeffrey Lord openly admitting to communicating with Assange during his release of Russian intercepts of emails. Traitorous actions, or sedition, or whatever it might be termed legally, happens when Republicans run for president and have a chance to cause harm by undercutting their opponent by colluding with a foreign power. Some democrat someday should throw someone in jail for this or it will just continue. If we ever have another fair vote and get another democrat in office.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Well said. I think you’ve nailed a part of the sea change in attitudes, especially among the resentful conservatives that make up Trump’s base. They are convinced that there are simple answers to complex problems, and that liberals just practice obfuscation in order to keep “real Americans” from getting what they want. They see Trump as their savior, clearing out all of the obstacles and making things right.
Ruviana
@Shell: It’s a fear-grin. Chimpanzees do it all the time.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@sharl:
I just went to another Twitter account, then used the search function to look for “nice Donald Trump.” I was able to get to it that way.
Humdog
@patrick II: you are not wrong. Spelling out the truth can get one mistaken for a conspiracy theorist. You are not crazy since it is true!
retiredeng
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Plus the political adrenaline rush when Trump won. They went crazy. And most of them are still high on the power. Stark raving mad.
sharl
@Steeplejack (tablet): Thanks; that worked for me.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
This kind of thing highlights a key difference between the Republicans and Democrats. The GOP has this (idiotic) vision of free market America, and fairly comprehensive legislation to roll back regulations, reform taxes, etc. The Democratic Congress under Obama never seemed to have any comprehensive or overarching idea about what they wanted to accomplish.
This Republican plan reminds me of some of the Bush era legislation: eliminate the regulations on financial markets and prevent regulatory agencies or the Justice Department from ever prosecuting anyone for outrageous actions.
What a weasel.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Tillerson is the Secretary of Exxon. He doesn’t give a phuck about anything else.
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
How do you manage that? I can manage to be somewhat politely correct or to just shut the fuck up, but politely rude I’ve never learned.
sharl
@Steeplejack (tablet): I remained curious about this, so checked out a hunch…yep, the new, not-(yet)-suspended account uses a capitalized “i” instead of small case “L” for the ninth letter in @niceDonaIdTrump. Simple but clever workaround!
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Morons in power have a way of doing that. Because they actually try to make it personal.
It’s not racist, they know black people, they even employ a few as servants. It’s just those outlaw ones. You know the one’s with Skittles and hoodies.
It’s not that all women are sluts and whores, just the ones that won’t sleep with them. Even to keep their shit jobs that they are underpaid for.
They just can’t understand that people might have the taste, class, and understanding to hate fucking bigoted assholes.
Ruckus
@JPL:
First he really doesn’t. He thinks there is scary shit everywhere but that’s only because he’s pissed off and fucked over so many people. Second, he knows nothing, now on the other hand, he believes a lot of shit. And that scares him.
Librarian
@Mike in NC: He’ll tell WW2 jokes?
Just One More Canuck
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: A former co-worker of mine had a great line about our boss – “Is there anyone more arrogant with less reason to be?”
Steeplejack (tablet)
@sharl:
Ambiguous fonts for the win!
Ruckus
@Just One More Canuck:
I think I used to work for him.
Boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: It just dawned on me: the tRumpenproletariat voted for a CEO – but what they got was a sole proprietor.
Joejosh999
I have to say I’m divided over DeVos.
Much as I hate the Dems for constantly bringing a flaccid cardboard knife to a gunfight, this episode still made me cringe a bit.
Do we need to physically intimidate to get our msg across?
(Yes I realize this is less intimidating than “lock her up” chants might be. )
And I fully agree/understand that DeVos’ institutionally racist policies are awful, and will engender a backlash.
Just let’s don’t go all right wing azzhole ok?
– conflicted in Pittsburgh
dm
@Adam L Silverman: Could just be that, having the brother she has, she takes a personal security detail for granted?
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
@Major Major Major Major:
Charlie Spiering ? Presumably that’s pronounced “spy-ring”. The perfect interviewer.