"The family rules everything, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows nothing." https://t.co/k2jId08LnP Read @juliaioffe on US State Dept.
— Anup Kaphle (@AnupKaphle) March 1, 2017
… This week began with reports that President Donald Trump’s budget proposal will drastically slash the State Department’s funding, and last week ended with White House adviser and former Breitbart head Stephen Bannon telling the attendees of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that what he and the new president were after was a “deconstruction of the administrative state.” At the State Department, which employs nearly 70,000 people around the world, that deconstruction is already well underway.
In the last week, I’ve spoken with a dozen current and recently departed State Department employees, all of whom asked for anonymity either because they were not authorized to speak to the press and feared retribution by an administration on the prowl for leakers, or did not want to burn their former colleagues. None of these sources were political appointees. Rather, they were career foreign service officers or career civil servants, most of whom have served both Republican and Democratic administrations—and many of whom do not know each other. They painted a picture of a State Department adrift and listless.
Sometimes, the deconstruction of the administrative state is quite literal. After about two dozen career staff on the seventh floor—the State Department’s equivalent of a C suite—were told to find other jobs, some with just 12 hours’ notice, construction teams came in over President’s Day weekend and began rebuilding the office space for a new team and a new concept of how State’s nerve center would function. (This concept hasn’t been shared with most of the people who are still there.) The space on Mahogany Row, the line of wood-paneled offices including that of the secretary of state, is now a mysterious construction zone behind blue tarp…
A lot of this, the employee said, is because there is now a “much smaller decision circle.” And many State staffers are surprised to find themselves on the outside. “They really want to blow this place up,” said the mid-level State Department officer. “I don’t think this administration thinks the State Department needs to exist. They think Jared [Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law] can do everything. It’s reminiscent of the developing countries where I’ve served. The family rules everything, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows nothing.”…
But while senior State appointees have yet to be appointed, other staff has been showing up. The Office of Policy Planning, created by George Kennan after World War II, is now filled not just with Ph.D.s, as it once was, but with fresh college graduates and a malpractice attorney from New Jersey whose sole foreign-policy credential seems to be that she was born in Hungary. Tillerson’s chief of staff is not his own, but is, according to the Washington Post, a Trump transition alum named Margaret Peterlin. “Tillerson is surrounded by a bunch of rather mysterious Trumpistas,” said the senior State official who recently left. “How the hell is he supposed to do his job when even his right hand is not his own person?” One State Department employee told me that Peterlin has instructed staff that all communications with Tillerson have to go through her, and even scolded someone for answering a question Tillerson asked directly, in a meeting…
So the fate of the free world is in the hands of a real-estate developer’s Fortunate Son, and an oil-business CEO who stands to make billions if Russian sanctions are relaxed, as filtered through the grip of a Trump apparatchik whose prior political experience involved working for Dick Armey and Denny Hastert. What could possibly go wrong?
Yarrow
No, the fate of the country is in our hands. Call your Senators and Representatives. Tell them Sessions needs to resign. Keep up the pressure on Democrats to demand an independent investigation. Get the kleptocrats out of the White House and return the country to us!
Droppy
What scares me more than just about anything is that average-American-citizens-voters are so low-information about any of this that they won’t be able to react in time to save us from Trumpism. It will take a couple of years before the purging of all expertise from the system and the kleptocratic takeover completely ruins their (and our) lives, and by then it will be too late. Is there any way to get the word out sooner in some more convincing way to enough people to turn this around?
cmorenc
Nixon was corrupt, but at least he was competent (at everything except covering up a needless third-rate burglary).
Bush, Jr was incompetent and steered the country into a mess in the Middle East by ignoring the input of the State Department’s expertise in favor of listening to an alternate bunch of incompetents (e.g. Douglas Feith), but neither did he try to destroy the State Department.
The Trump Administration is both corrupt and deliberately incompetent, and that’s even before considering their traitorous ties with the Russians.
Kay
For the first time in my life I resent filing and paying federal income taxes. I resent it because the President of the United States and the family members he hired refuse to release any information on what they own, owe, or pay in taxes.
I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t accept their claim of specialness. In my world and the world of just about everyone else in the country we produce- documents, records, whatever- we fill out forms and back everything up with a document and we don’t wait until someone sues us to do so. The Trumps don’t. What’s more, the Trump’s rely on other people releasing information voluntarily and use that to their advantage.
What if everyone behaved like this family? The fucking country would grind to a halt and we’d all be suing each other. It’s a belief that people who play by the rules are suckers and smart people play the suckers. It’s gross.
rikyrah
What Bannon and Miller Learned From the Willie Horton Ad
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 2, 2017 8:17 AM
……………………
He went on to introduce four people who had lost loved ones due to violence from undocumented immigrants (read: Hispanics).
The contrast with the Willie Horton ad is that George Bush, Sr. and Roger Ailes had focused on showing America the face of the criminal they wanted to exploit. What Trump did on Tuesday night was to make the families of crime the focus. As we saw in the chamber last night, how do you NOT stand in support of the victims of such violence? But the underlying message was exactly the same: Americans must fear black/brown men. In this president’s world, black and brown men are criminals, while Muslims are terrorists.
That is the white nationalism being propagated by people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller. Here is how Joshua Green described that in his expose on Miller:
……………….
Given the goal of Miller and Bannon to invert the frame, it is interesting to go back to Trump’s speech last night and notice all the ways this theme played out. One issue Dara Lind wrote about is the president’s desire to focus on “merit-based immigration.” She explains that, for the most part, our immigration policy has tended to attempt a balance between merit-based (high-skilled, employable) and family-based (reuniting relatives) immigrants. But rather than increasing the number of merit-based immigrants, Bannon’s focus is more likely an excuse to reduce (or eliminate) family-based immigrants. As part of her argument, she points out that for him, Asians are also part of the group that threatens white nationalism.
In the end, George Bush exploited racism in order to get elected. But for Bannon and Miller this goes beyond simply using it to win an election. Their goals are to drastically change the face of this country and restore the old order of racial hierarchy. The combination of Donald Trump and the confederate insurgency that formed after the election of our first African American president are their vehicle for doing so.
Ian
If they slash state department funding, eventually some of our ambassadors or consulate workers will be killed by terrorists.
Then we can hold countless investigations into Trump, his personal affairs, and his email and foundation. Maybe we can find his tax returns.
Surely our GOP counterparts in congress will help with this, as the killing of four people in a diplomatic consulate in 2011 was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVERY NEEDING INVESTIGATION.
Yarrow
@Droppy: It’s been what, five weeks since the inauguration? This is moving at light speed in comparison to Watergate. Keep up the pressure. The more our Congressional representatives hear from us on this issue, along with other key issues, the less likely it is to go away.
They’re hoping they can avoid dealing with it. They can’t. The steady drip drip of info is amazing when you look back on it. All the Republican leadership is guilty. THEY KNEW. They were briefed. They are hoping they can walk that knife edge and not pay a price. That isn’t going to happen.
We have to keep up the pressure. Let our Reps know we’re watching and demand action.
qwerty42
At some point this entire absurd circus is going to collapse. So far each crisis has been something the administration has done to itself. That won’t last. Every world leader must regard DT as a clown, hopelessly out of his league (ignorant, incompetent). I just hope the country is not damaged too badly when it comes time to pay the piper (because the country being damaged by this).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: All that shit’s for the little people, aka the rest of us, or even the people before them. These are bad people, and they’ve never faced any consequences, ever. Let’s hope that changes.
cmorenc
Terrible as the alternative seems, President Mike Pence would actually be preferable to permitting Trump to stay in office for much longer. Pence would make many horrible policy choices, especially on the domestic side, but I’ll take merely stupid over malevolently destructive.
rikyrah
Jeff Sessions Should Resign
The Attorney General blatantly lied during his confirmation hearing.
by Martin Longman
March 2, 2017 12:24 AM
Before we discuss whether or not Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III perjured himself during his Attorney General confirmation hearings, let’s look at what he said about President Bill Clinton perjuring himself in front of a grand jury and what he thought that meant for his fitness to serve as the “chief law-enforcement officer of the land.”
……………..
You know, it’s fair to say that the president is the chief law enforcement officer of the land, but it’s also accurate to say that about the Attorney General. The president wears a lot of hats, and he basically relies on his Attorney General and the Department of Justice to enforce the law. The buck ultimately stops with Donald Trump, but it’s more accurate to say that Jeff Sessions is in charge of law enforcement. By his own standard, if he committed perjury in a congressional hearing, “equal justice demands that he forfeit his office.”
So, why don’t we watch a little video of Jeff Sessions lying to Sen. Al Franken during his confirmation hearing.
……………………….
I don’t know if there are big or small coincidences, or just coincidences, but it would be some kind of coincidence if the only guy on the Senate Armed Services Committee who was serving as a surrogate to Trump was the only member to meet with the Russian ambassador and it didn’t have anything to do with the campaign.
I need to go back and look at the September 8th timeframe and see how it checks out with stories that were unfolding at the time, as well as things that were suggested in the British dossier.
There is so much smoke here at this point that we’re either looking at a volcano or the shadow of a smoking gun.
Sessions knew what Franken and Leahy were asking and he knew why they were asking it. He lied.
hovercraft
Our Kakocracy is shaping up nicely. Every fucking person who voted for this shit is a fucking moron. Every single day people tell me I’m being alarmist, but every fucking day it is worse than expected. That is a real accomplishment by these fucking people because my expectations were really low to begin with, and yet they outdo themselves with their incompetence and corruption. Even fucking Nixon and Shrub, hell even fucking Reagan managed to hide their corruption long enough to destroy vital elements of society, these morons haven’t even made it to 100 days and they are already imploding. I guess their plan is to be so inept and corrupt that the stories cascade into one another and they scream media bias and vendettas are responsible for all this , and none of it is real and the republicans in congress let them get away with it.
rikyrah
Those of us who opposed Sessions from the beginning saw him for who he was — a throwback and a liar. Sessions needs to resign, immediately.
— Maxine Waters (@MaxineWaters) March 2, 2017
Boatboy_srq
@Kay: Sounds like a Randian Libertarian paradise.
MomSense
@Kay:
I was just discussing this issue with a colleague of mine yesterday. She was saying that she works really hard to make sure her taxes are detailed and accurate. She has a combination of private clients as well as clients who are referred and whose services are paid by state programs. If she were sloppy or didn’t follow the rules to the letter, she would lose her state contracts. It is absolutely infuriating that our president isn’t held to any standard at all while the rest of us are.
One of my first reactions to this fiasco was to say we should all withhold our tax filings and payments until 45 releases his returns. I still feel that way. I’m so goddamned mad about this whole mess.
Major Major Major Major
Question. Did Congressional republicans ever demand resignation in lockstep of an obama or Clinton appointee like the democrats are with Sessions?
*edited for clarity
LAO
The whole idea that Jared Kushner can replace the state department is bananas. Fucking bugnut bananas!
Xboxershorts
There’s an awful lot of ego driven arrogance in this revelation.
Steve Bannon is as full of himself as Trump and his kin.
wenchacha
Heads up: Nancy Smash! on CNN. She says Sessions LIED.
MomSense
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Seriously. I want orange jumpsuits and shackles for the lot of them.
Xboxershorts
@Major Major Major Major:
They impeached a Clinton for a much less damaging coverup lie.
donnah
I’m afraid that “getting the word out” to the voters won’t change anything. Those of us who are horrified by this administration’s actions will only be more horrified, Those who voted for this garbage president are thrilled with what’s going on. They love that the government is being gutted from the inside, that foreign policy is essentially “pay up or fuck off” and that immigration will destroy the lives of millions of people. They want the new leadership to trash Obamacare and level the public school system. And they love the idea of fewer regulations for the EPA, the FDA, and NEA.
They LIKE this. Thay want it. And they’re getting it.
hovercraft
@cmorenc:
I think what is so dangerous is the combination of Twitler and his kin’s lack of ideology apart from enriching themselves and being racist, with the ideological fervor and extremism of Bannon. While Twitler is driven by greed and the need to be loved and respected, so long as Bannon makes him look tough, and doesn’t interfere with his ability to finally get as rich as he’s always pretended to be, he’ll let Bannon do what he wants. The fact that Bannon wants to make America whiter, less regulated jibes with his own worldview, they are a match made in heaven.
Karen S.
I didn’t think I could despise our so-called president, his minions and anyone who voted for this more than I already did, but I think I’ve found new depths of contempt within me.
pk
@rikyrah:
Yeah! That may be what they want to do, but thankfully they’re a bunch of evil morons and haven’t managed to do anything other than create scandal after scandal. The anti Muslim executive order is on hold, healthcare repeal and replace is a mess, the loony secretary of defense is gone and the AG is under fire. Bush with Cheney was far more dangerous. He was an idiot but was capable of behaving like a sane person for more than two days at a time while Cheney systematically destroyed everything. Bannon and Miller are loathsome and hiring incompetents with no knowledge of how things work will prevent then from carrying out their devious plans to a large extent. Not saying that they won’t cause damage. But what they want and what they can achieve are two entirely different things.
gene108
Destroy our ability to respond to things via diplomacy, and the only option left is military.
This would get Trump his shooting war, and stature as a War President, without having to openly be the aggressor, like we were in Iraq.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Democrats believe that you should vet a candidate before you nominate them, so not that I recall. You know that in normal times, with a senate that had actual morals and standards, and a WH that could be shamed, most of this cabinet would have withdrawn or failed to get the votes for confirmation, but these are not normal times, the entire GOP has lost it’s mind.
rikyrah
@Kay:
That’s pretty deep, Kay.
And, you lived through Reagan and Shrub.
I keep on telling people, this is different. The MSM and others don’t see it as different. But, it is.
I think it goes back to that we find him and his entire family DISGUSTING HUMAN BEINGS.
I have no affection for the Bush Crime Family…but, this is on a whole other level, and I really am not able to put it into words, except, in my gut, that’s how I feel. And, it deepens everyday.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Hey, if anybody knows how to do this, a fun project would be to create a video of unflattering Trump and Trump family photos to CCR’s “Fortunate Son”. Check the lyrics – it’ll fit the era completely.
LAO
@gene108: I think you are overthinking this, Trump’s out sized faith in his son-in-law isn’t a means to secure a war time presidency. Trump is a dolt. He thinks Kushner is a genius. It’s a moron move with very little forethought. Trump isn’t playing 3D chess.
Villago Delenda Est
This entire cabal needs to be rounded up and tossed in the Potomac…with no life jackets.
Thru the Looking Glass...
In the circles I run, I’ve never seen people so mad… I’m personally having a hard time finding words strong enough to express the loathing, revulsion, and anger I feel towards Trump and Republicans right now… almost every conversation I have these days is political and everyone is horrified at what’s happening in DC… this is different than the Viet Nam years, Watergate, 9/11 & Bush’s 2 wars…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Villago Delenda Est: Deeper water… far, far deeper water… and preferably w/ an anchor tied to their necks…
randy khan
The State Department story reminds me of the FCC in the last part of the Bush II Administration. The then-chairman was an incredible micro-manager, and hardly let anyone do anything – even prepare drafts or analyses – without his specific say-so. The description of what staffers are doing (or not doing) matches up really well with that. I had friends tell me that the parking garage was half empty at 10:00 and by 4:00, and that people sat around doing crossword puzzles. It had a terrible impact on morale, needless to say, and the agency lost a lot of good people.
Boatboy_srq
Generally speaking, the GOTea whinges about Big Gummint, then slowly sabotages governmental functions until the populace agrees, at which point they begin teardown. tRump’s maladministration seems to be skipping straight to the demolition.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
At least Shrub believed we should have a government. These guys really, genuinely want a dictatorship.
Iowa Old Lady
As usual, Josh Marshall has interesting things to say about this. He says it has all the signs of big, shattering scandal, with people more distantly involved being picked off as they try to cover up. According to Marshall, they cover up because they know it’s bad.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Mnemosyne:
Yes… this…
I’m waiting for their Reichstag moment… or perhaps a Kent State… and if they get really lucky, they’ll get both at the same time…
hovercraft
@LAO:
But he’s smart, he’s a business man, he’s a billionaire*, he went to the Ivy leagues.
Republicns always think everything should be run like a business, so why not Jared, he’s young, smart, rich, he come’s with the perfect family, what’s not to love, he even adds a patina of tolerance, he’s Jewish, and was a democrat.
* Daddy is a billionaire, so he will be one day, sooner rather than later if they continue leveraging the entire government into a money making enterprise.
Paging the BJ lawyers, can they begin a RICO investigation yet?
ETA: no offense LAO, I know you are an attorney.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: At least the Bush family has some sense of public service. They may be corrupt as hell but they do understand they serve the country. Bush Sr. served in the military. Can the same be said of any member of the Trump family? One person?
cosima
Most days (mind you, I am 4-9 hours ahead of you) I bypass all of the other news sources and come to BJ to get it filtered through the front pagers (it’s scary out there in MSM land).
This has totally harshed my mellow, far more than the Sessions stuff. I had a physical response (increased heart rate) reading this — all the evil portents, at home & throughout the world, in one.
Yarrow
@Iowa Old Lady:
This is what I’ve been saying. The IC is leaking out information. They got Flynn out. They will get Sessions out. They know how deep these Russian connections are. They know what Trump has done, is doing. The know there are Russian agents in the White House. They need those people gone because until they are the IC can’t do their jobs.
So they’ll keep leaking information. They want Congress to do their jobs but if they don’t or won’t, then they’ll start leaking information about Members of Congress. The Republicans are in this up to their eyeballs. Their best move is to demand full investigations now, but they can’t because they will be implicated. They hope to avoid that, but they won’t. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be for them.
Tick tock, motherfuckers.
piratedan
@Karen S.: and while I loathe Trump and everything that he stands for… I have even more contempt for the likes of Ryan and McConnell who KNEW that this was coming and decided to say “fuck it” at least we’ll be in charge when we drive this fucker off the cliff, country be damned, at least it will be our failure for not being CONSERVATIVE enough.
At this point, I could give a fuck about how “sane” any GOP politician might be, these guys are the fucking VW of politics, lie about anything/everything, just buy our fucking cars.
LAO
@hovercraft: None taken! Also, don’t see the RICO indictment just yet. However, I expect that the Trump Crime Family will rival the Five Families* before they are done.
*Gambino, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo and Genovese — for those unfamiliar with NYC gangsters.
tobie
@donnah:
I know lots of rural Trump voters. They have no idea what they like in terms of policy. They like what the team wants because the team is for hard-working, white, working class voters.
hovercraft
@LAO:
I can’t remember right now, but doesn’t Twitler have a history with the Gambino’s? Something to do with Atlantic City, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could be a big real estate developer in Jersey and not have any connection to the families, a whole new avenue to investigate. Hmm..
As for the racketeering, they have just gotten in, they need time to fully develop their criminal enterprise, but I have faith, this lot will find a way.
Karen S.
@piratedan:
None of them are worth a damn. They are, every one of them, cowardly and craven opportunists. Where’s a tumbrel when you need one?
LAO
@hovercraft: If my memory serves — the Genovese and Gambino families controlled concrete in NYC but that Nicky Scarfo (Philly mobster) ran Atlantic City.
It was impossible to work in real estate development in the 80s and 90s and not deal with mobsters. It was not a matter of wanting to deal with the Mob — developers simply did not have a choice.
gvg
@cmorenc: I think the question would be who would he appoint and who would he listen too. In fact he did some really dangerously stupid stuff cutting funding of something that led to an disease outbreak, details escape me…I still think he is “better” than Trump, but would he be wise enough to fire all the Trump people fast and pick new people?
One of Trumps problems is filling positions. He is now claiming that is on purpose to shrink the government. this is partially believable but maybe just bullshit. He didn’t say that until it was obvious he wasn’t getting positions filled and some of his appointments failed confirmation, or withdrew or couldn’t get clearance and were escorted out of the building. He doesn’t know many people in government and has reduced the possible pool of workers by discarding anyone who ever said anything negative about him, meaning even most Republicans. Many people recognized he was a disaster and are refusing to work for him. I think he made up the story after he couldn’t fill the jobs.
would Pence be better at filling those spaces? with competent people who would try to do the jobs well? Its a low bar to be better than Trump so probably but that doesn’t mean we will then be safe because sooner or later some event will happen and people will need to react skillfully and thoughtfully. Not sure Pence is that guy. Well he hasn’t asked why don’t we use Nukes so he is better. But the die hardest Trump fans will say we should have kept T after Pence does something poorly and then mythology will make up an alternative history like we could have won Vietnam. In some ways it would be better if we impeached Trump after a Katrina/Iraq not before as long as it doesn’t involve nukes.
The risk is so high, I guess if we come up with hard evidence on Donald, we’ll have to remove him before he proves to even the low info partisans that he is an idiot over his head.
Bruce K
Seems to me like there are a bunch of people on both sides of America’s political divide who don’t quite get that there are some sunk costs here.
Before you guys start lighting the pitchforks and sharpening the torches, I’ll explain:
On the left, I’m hearing people argue that no matter how bad Trump is, Pence as POTUS is going to be worse, because he looks reasonable but is a far-right dominionist Christianist wingnut who’ll undo all this “separation of church and state” stuff that we’ve been enjoying for a couple hundred years. But if the scandals keep going like they are, Pence as POTUS is pretty much a given. The only two ways to avoid Pence as POTUS is for Pence to leave office with Trump still in place, or for Trump to complete at least one term (or, God forbid, two terms) in office. I’ve heard the argument that people should be thinking about protecting Trump to avoid the specter of Pence, and I’ve been responding, “dude, no. Pence is a sunk cost here.”
As for the GOP in Congress, this scandal seems to have caught them between a rock and a hard place – or, perhaps, between the devil and the deep blue sea. At the rate things are going – we’re only, what, five weeks into the cheeto administration? – the Russia thing is going to blow sky-high well before the 2018 midterms, and the GOP’s basically stuck with the choice of investigating the mess, or trying to hold the lid down. If our suspicions are right, and the scandal looks as bad for the GOP as it might, then investigating will probably cost them the House in 2018, maybe the Senate, then the White House in 2020, and they’re going to be out in the wilderness for many years to come if they’re tainted by this scandal. On the other hand, if they try to keep the lid on and it blows before the 2018 midterms, you’re quite possibly looking at a Democratic House bringing out impeachment charges left and right, with cases so airtight that any Republican who opposes them is pretty much doomed.
Remember what brought Nixon down: he wasn’t actually impeached, but he lost the GOP in the Senate – well, enough of it that it was a foregone conclusion that the Senate would have a two-thirds majority in favor of removal. There may be a couple or three GOP types wavering already, and even if it’s unlikely for the Senate to flip, what happens if McConnell tries to pull a Garland on fbeeping articles of impeachment?!
randy khan
@Bruce K:
People on the left who say we’re better off with Trump than Pence don’t really understand that right now we’re getting the bad Trump stuff and nearly all of the bad Pence stuff. Not to mention the Trump blowing everything up risk. Pence would be bad, but his floor is still much higher than Trump’s.
lapassionara
@randy khan: I agree. Pence is terrible, but Trump is completely dangerous to the future of this country. Plus, he is a celebrity that some people find appealing (why I do not know). Pence would be boring and drab, and I would much rather have boring and drab than evil, shameless, dishonest, and mentally ill.
Bruce K
@lapassionara: Plus, didn’t Pence’s term as governor of Indiana end with him about as popular as foot fungus? I’d be perfectly happy to watch President Pence’s concession speech on November 3, 2020.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
Yes, seriously. We all were imagining Trump would race in with some angenda of evil, not sit there, whine like child and block the basic fuctions of goverment in his pathetic need for constant praise. It’s what Trump doesn’t do that’s by far the worst part of it.
Brachiator
Dick Cheney must feel so jealous at the level of control being exerted here.
@lapassionara:
Pence is not just boring and drab, he is a religious zealot, and the rest of the Republican leadership is pretty much just as bad.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
More they more want to play Sun King. Real dictators like Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin were all hard workers and certainly didn’t work 9-5 like Trump does. Heck, Trump is half way to proclaiming himself president by divine right with the whole social Darwinist “Trumps are WINNERS” theme.
Mnemosyne
@donnah:
There’s also another group that I’ve seen on my Facebook: anti-abortion voters who think that ANYTHING is acceptable as long as Trump bans abortion. They literally don’t care about anything else, including healthcare for themselves and their own children. They have been told that that’s the sacrifice they have to make to end legal abortion, and they’re happy to do it.
hovercraft
Well the bat signal has gone out, time to circle the wagons.
Senators are putting out statements dismissing this as a nothing burger, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. James Risch (R-ID) , Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), as well as that evil dweeb, Ted Cruz, I’m sure by days end they’ll all be on board, we need to get on the phones and call for his resignation. It’ll never happen, or at it won’t if we don’t kick up a big stink. Flynn shows that even this gang can be forced to back down.
Bupalos
@hovercraft:
I don’t think you’re being alarmist at all. I think it’s every bit as bad as that and a bag of cowchips. But your incessant focus on screaming about the Trump voters, and wishing they were dead, and insisting not a one of them is anything other than a racist scumbag moron piece of deplorable filth is IMO part of the Bannon-wing’s manipulative plan.
Don’t think that this movement ran Trump despite the fact that he is a mental and moral and ethical and aesthetic cesspool that drives real adults to distraction and makes them embarrassed of their country and want to scream at their idiot neighbors. They ran him because of that.
Lit3Bolt
If Sessions doesn’t resign, time for liberals to buy guns.
Not joking.
ruckus
“What could possibly go wrong?”
Every Fucking Thing!
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Bupalos:
I find it unpossible to not think Republicans didn’t know quite well what a compromised candidate they were backing at the time… traitors to their country, the entire lot of them…
ruckus
@Bruce K:
Foot fungus is fine. It can be cured.
Dense’s gross fucking stupidity and religious bullshit can not.
Oatler.
From the Ricochet site, the Thinking Man’s Fascist Podcast: “A Good Speech, Then a Bad News Cycle”
Adolf and Eva had a bad news cycle in ’45.
Spanky
Just to reiterate:
Aleta
From twitter:
Molly McKew
lots of Qs today. Will just say: Russian intel excels at capturing powerful outliers; esp those who believe they see something others don’t
Cindy Ecksol
@MollyMcKew There’s a whole cabal that fits your description. I think they call themselves “the Republican Party.”
Molly McKew
@CindyEcksol it isn’t just Rs. Plenty of D-aligned operatives etc taking loads of Russian cash, representing Rus interests too.
Molly McKew
That’s the point. Long term capture and cultivation projects. They rob Russians blind to do it. Their cash and promises are always poison
Jazzaloha
@MollyMcKew Q: would it be good to expose who receive cash? If so, can it be done? What r clues that an someone might have received Ru $?
Molly McKew
@Jazzaloha1 deep & wide effort. It begins by acknowledging essentially all Russian money, certain anything Kremlin aligned, comes w/a string
Molly McKew
But not all about $$. Some choose this alignment for personal/ambition/ideological reasons. Russia good at creating comfortable narratives.
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
So, dear sweet resident Pollyannas (I kid – I know you’re just doing your best to stay optimistic in the face of this slow-moving apocalypse):
Can you tell our little cadre of doomsayers here (proud mostly-lurking member, me) again how we’re not well and truly fucked?
Heinous, heinous shit in every fucking direction, with this coming State Dept evisceration just one of many evil things these fascist motherfuckers who now rule us are doing and will do for the foreseeable.
Dems have no power outside minor delaying tactics (see: cabinet confirmations) and whatever McConnell lets them do with the filibuster.
Congressional Republicans are in lockstep/party-before-country protect mode regarding any scandal investigations, and are deeply desirous of almost all the heinous shit anyway (they’ll gladly allow the Trump kleptocracy as part of the price for power). Fascist fucks that they are, every one.
Their white fundagelical exurban/suburban base is all in, too, as seen by the overwhelming support of that cohort for the most out-and-proud “ungodly” (according to their own precious Family Values) pig of a man to ever run for president. Trump’s popularity with the Republican masses is in the stratosphere, and it will remain there as long as Trump (and his congressional partners) continue to kick the Hated Other, which they will most emphatically and gleefully continue to do. Know who the most-hated of the Hated Others is (more than the darker-complected, or Muslims, or even darker-complected Muslims)? Liberals, that’s who. Of whatever complexion or creed. Liberal policies and institutions are where most of the fascist kicks are aimed, and the fascist base laps that shit up.
Most media that most people pay attention to in this country has long been wired for Republican frames, and now falls all over itself to normalize the charlatan buffoon when given the slightest chance. Look at the overall media reaction to Tuesday’s quasi-SOTU – Trump reads a toned-down campaign speech someone else wrote without whipping out his dick on-stage or flinging actual poo at the assembled Dems, and the long-awaited “presidential” pivot is declared. The media relief was palpable.
So we’re counting on deep state spooks and “heightening the contradictions” to aid our opposition to this fascist juggernaut (and it is a fucking juggernaut). I don’t trust spooks to help us, and I’m skeptical any of this Russian-connection business – nefarious as it is – will end up helping our cause anyway. I see it being dismissed and brushed away like all the other shit that was supposed to sink Trump during the campaign.
And “heightening the contradictions” sufficient for promoting effective opposition and change in direction IS THE SAME THING as being well and truly fucked. It’s the size of the smoking crater we’ll be crawling from to re-build that’s the question.
Nonetheless, vive la resistance and fuck all fascists forever.
hovercraft
@Bupalos:
I have no doubt that the Bannon wing of the party wants to turn this into an us vs them fight with no compromise. Having us be opposed to everything they do allows them to say to the media that we are to blame for refusing to give them a chance. I get that, but, I just as these people refused to listen, refused to look at the evidence right in front of them, I refuse to give his voters the benefit of the doubt. As a black woman with a 10 year old son, who is on the autism spectrum, what Sessions is saying about law and order and his refusal to look at policing, could result in the death of my son, he’s not a little kid, he’s black, and sometimes zones out, and sometimes when he gets really frustrated lashes out. This is real life and death for me, this is not just talking politics on a blog, I live in a town with a lot of illegal immigrants, our mayor and our city council know we have a ton of mixed families so they have held outreach meetings to tell people they will not be doing ICE’s work for them, people are scared. Am I bitter, yes, when I say I wish them harm, I am saying I wish that everything they wish on other people comes back on them. I’m not wishing they are attacked or anything like that. I am saying that these people knowingly and willfully voted for a person saying he wanted to take things away from people, and now they are bemoaning shit being taken from them, that is what I’m wishing upon them. They want government out of healthcare, fine, they are going to stop being a backstop and subsidizing them. I get that all the shiny objects the media and many of us on blogs focus on, distracts us from some of the harm they are doing behind the scenes, but I can walk and chew gum. I’m responsible for raising two black kids and what they are doing to this country is making that harder and more dangerous every day.
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
@Yarrow:
It would be pretty to think so; man, it really would. Highly, highly skeptical, I am, but goddamn I hope I’m completely wrong about that.
sukabi
@rikyrah: love Ms. Maxine. She’s into negative fucks territory…?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Spinoza is my Co-pilot:
More like slow moving Monarchist Clown Car with Trump as the American Louis the XVI. And what we are counting on has always been the death of dictators – them looking inept and ridicious.
I suppose the real fascit we should be worried about is the general who lead the coup against Trump if really gets to crazy.
Gretchen
Bannon wants to return to the majority-white country of his youth, but those changes are because of changes in immigration law in the 1960’s. That’s 50 years ago. Those Asians and others who started coming here then have American-born grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You could ban all immigration today, and the nation is still going be be diverse.
AxelFoley
@cmorenc:
Nope, Pence is complicit in all this shit. He needs to do jail time like the rest of them.
Aleta
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I don’t know – I think we should be plenty worried about the actual fascists in power (Trump, McConnell, Ryan, and all their teeming minions) right now. It’s already really crazy and going to get worse long before any military coup would happen in response.
It gets that far (say, military coup d’etat) well, that’s the high level of “heightening the contradictions” I’m speaking of that’ll need to be reached before the vast mushy middle in this country recognizes the reality of American fascism that we in the left/liberal fever swamps already see.
Then what?
Mnemosyne
@Bupalos:
I’ve said before that non-racist white Americans don’t realize that racist whites were humiliated by having a Black man in the White House. So now they’re doing to us what they felt we did to them.
evodevo
@Mnemosyne: Yes. This includes several of my co-workers, acquaintances, relatives, collateral relatives and Facebook “friends”. The level of ideological fanaticism and cognitive dissonance concerning this issue is absolutely astounding.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Aleta:
I will take this seriously when I see some proof…
Given that only Dem emails were hacked and released, how much Trump talks up Putin, and just how many of the individuals Trump has associated w/ is bringing w/ him into the WH have MAJOR ties to Russia…
I’ll believe the Dems are as dirty when I see some proof…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@evodevo:
Ideological fanatism? Sounds like a good description of many Germans, about 1936…
This is so odd… on one hand, they seem so inept… on the other hand, so dangerous…
Boatboy_srq
@cmorenc: The tRump/Pence dichotomy is not malevolent/stupid. It’s wanton-malevolence/directed-malevolence. Pence is just as dangerous, but his targets are fixed (Blahs, Browns, Wimminvolk, Hoam’seckshuls, and the unSaved nuWashed masses). tRump lashes out indiscriminately. I’ll take tRump over Pence, on merely the higher probability that he will harm his base at the same time he fvcks the rest of us: Pence is a lot more careful about keeping his base fat and happy.
clay
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Notice that the original tweet didn’t say “Democrats”, but rather “D-aligned operatives”. I’m not sure entirely what that means, but I would certainly cast a sideward glance to the Stein/Sanders purity brigades. I mean, we KNOW Stein was over there. And, to be clear, I’m not accusing Sanders himself of anything, but I think a lot of his ardent supporters were pushing too many Russian talking points to be a coincidence.
Boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: If you replace “abortion” with “wanton whoring without public shaming”, you’re a lot closer to the truth. They’re perfectly happy with abortion when it’s their little angel who gets in the family way (unless they get their perverse uberXtian jollies making her feel miserable for being a slut); they just don’t want that privilege for anyone else.
Boatboy_srq
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Ditto. Makes you miss the comparatively competent and responsible Shrubbery.
ruckus
@hovercraft:
The GOP hasn’t lost their minds. They are the same assholes they’ve always been. The only difference is what they control. They haven’t been this much in control for a very long time.
Mnemosyne
@evodevo:
One of the people I know is a social worker who works directly with homeless pregnant women at a shelter specifically for them. She is not a bad person, so I know that she’s going to be sad the day she has to tell all of her clients that they can’t get food stamps or medical care anymore, but that’s what she voted for.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
She *is* a bad person because she voted for Republicans who are going to kill those programs, and she knows the impact that will have.
ETA: I have some limited amount of sympathy for people who voted for the Republicans (and Mr. T in particular) who don’t have direct experience with those who will be hurt by him and who aren’t smart enough to know better. I have very little sympathy for anybody else who voted for him.
PIGL
@Kay: the term for this is “Legitimation Crisis”.
PIGL
@Spinoza is my Co-pilot: I think you’re absolutely right which is why I seriously believe the only solution is for the solid blue states coastal states, the ones that make almost all the money, to start backing away from the pack of rabid pitbull’s in the HeartAttack Land. Things didn’t have to end this way but they did and there’s no way out now.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Question:
Did any democratic appointee at the cabinet level ever conspire with a foreign government to throw an American election?
Just to point out a difference elided in your question. No offense.
J R in WV
@Lit3Bolt:
Absolutely, and sign up for self-defense training on weekends. Learn to shoot, get a carry permit and be armed and deadly at all times.
I’ve recommended this before – if you feel the least bit threatened, be armed. Because they are.