Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How stupid are these people?

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

In after Baud. Damn.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

So many bastards, so little time.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Let there be snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

You are here: Home / He sells sanctuary

He sells sanctuary

by | 191 Comments

This post is in: 

I don’t link to TPM much because I figure everyone reads it, but I this is an important point:

Perhaps the White House had planned all along for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make an appearance at today’s press briefing to rail against sanctuary cities. But the timing is consistent with what I’ve long feared will be the impulse for the Trump administration: When the going gets rough (failed Obamacare repeal, low poll numbers, etc), it will fall back on appeals to racism and xenophobia to regain political footing.

I assume that at some point, as Trump’s approval ratings sink lower, there will be some kind of international conflict he and Bannon provoke to get people (especially the media) to rally around Dear Leader.

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  2. 2.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    there will be some kind of international conflict he and Bannon provoke to get people (especially the media) to rally around Dear Leader.

    Worked for Shrub, until it didn’t.

  5. 5.

    Major Major Major Major

    I suspect that it merely appears that their fallback position is xenophobia and hatred when something goes wrong because something is always going wrong and their position is always xenophobia and hatred.

  13. 13.

    aimai

    Well…duh. Did we really think that they weren’t going to juice the stats and fuck the chicken every time things went bad for them? Attacking immigrants is the “threat level elmo” of the Trump regime as terrorism was the shtick of the Bush regime.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    @p.a.: I think that is what they call “new math”

    Unfortunately it’s the same as the “old math”…same as it ever was…

  19. 19.

    NickM

    It scares me too because the Russians and their client states can help whip something up.

  20. 20.

    gene108

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Shrub had the national psychic trauma of 9/11/01 to get people fighting mad and even then it took him over a year to close the sale of getting authorization to put troops on the ground.

    We are not fighting mad right now.

    I am not sure even a Republican Congress would just give him what he wants.

  21. 21.

    schrodingers_cat

    Immigrant bashing is having the results T intends. Travel to the US is down, so are applications by international students. The doctor shortage in rural America is only going to get worse.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    Any chance of convincing them Potsylvania has nukes, and Fearless Leader has them aimed at us? I figure it would take them a good year or two before they find it. And if they can’t find it, they can’t pre-emptively nuke it.

    Of course, given this crew, they’ll probably say “Fuck it!” and nuke someone else, because they can.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    Somewhat OT: Anyone else find it creepy how the media keeps talking in the most matter-of_fact way about how the Trump and the GOP will do horrible things to Americans to get Dems to the negotiating table?

  26. 26.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Baud: I find it easier to think of them as enthusiasts, but for politics. Like (making something up) if there’s a plane crash and a bunch of deaths, sometimes you stumble onto a message board arguing about the pros and cons of the various navigation systems that model of plane can use. They just happen to be our media.

  27. 27.

    Raoul

    @gene108: I think a Republican congress that just watched Trump “work his ass off” (his words, I believe) for some portions here and there across perhaps 17 days, for his signature legislation, and have it fail spectacularly, might — might! — make many in the GOP caucus just a bit shy about giving him what he’d want in terms of war powers.

    I could be wrong, the GOP that has managed to slither into power the House are both craven and stupid.

    And I certainly do worry that Rumpus Minimus will start a war to try for sympathy and power. But I feel as if at least some proportion more of the electorate has Rumpus’s number than they did Bush’s. Though lots of people seem to stand ready to want to be fooled over and over again.

  28. 28.

    Yarrow

    I assume that at some point, as Trump’s approval ratings sink lower, there will be some kind of international conflict he and Bannon provoke to get people (especially the media) to rally around Dear Leader.

    I think because people are and have been talking about it as a tactic Trump might use, that if/when they do want to use it, it may be less effective. Plus there’s the recent example (Shrub) of how well it didn’t work, so I think there could be less support for it than they might expect.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @jacy:

    because WWC are all hopped up on heroin

    Maybe I’m old/clueless, but “hopped up” is not a phrase I would have associated with heroin.

  30. 30.

    Shana

    Hubby tells me that the Senior PGA Championship Tournament is being held over Memorial Day Weekend at the Trump Golf Course in Virginia that the president* went to last weekend. Anyone know if there’s any demonstrations planned?

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    Anyone else find it creepy how the media keeps talking in the most matter-of_fact way about how the Trump and the GOP will do horrible things to Americans to get Dems to the negotiating table?

    this is who they are.

  36. 36.

    Goku

    @mmeep:

    “I mean whatever the Russians may have been doing, let’s take the most extreme charges, that barely registers in the balance against what the U.S. does constantly,” he said. “Even in Russia. So for example, the U.S. intervened radically to support [Boris] Yeltsin in 1991 when he was engaged in a power play trying to take power from the Parliament, Clinton strongly supported him. In 1996, when Yeltsin was running, the Clinton administration openly and strongly supported them, and not only verbally, but with tactics and loans and so on.”

    Fuck you Chomsky. Being against election interference domestically and abroad are not mutually exclusive positions to hold; its not hypocrisy. Self-righteous prick. If the coup ever comes, I hope he’s the first against the wall

  37. 37.

    jacy

    @SFAW:

    “hopped up” is family shorthand around my house for any kind of altered state. As my kids tell it, I was once so “hopped up” on Nyquil that I spent a day referring to Justin Timberlake as “Jason Timberland.” He has since always been known as Jason Timberland to our entire family……

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @Goku: I never understand these types of arguments. I mean, if their point is that Americans should learn from this and interfere less in other countries’ affairs, then say that. But their writing style always seems so vindictive.

  40. 40.

    danielx

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Worked for Shrub, until it didn’t.

    And if you thought George and Dick’s Excellent Adventure was incompetently conceived and executed, wait until Trump decides to indulge in some military-style dick waving.

  41. 41.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @rikyrah: @Baud:

    Anyone else find it creepy how the media keeps talking in the most matter-of_fact way about how the Trump and the GOP will do horrible things to Americans to get Dems to the negotiating table because they can and because that’s what they want to do?

    Somehow that just feels right…

  42. 42.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    The media did that all through that Obama years, no matter how badly they behaved or how insane they got, the media kept asking democrats what they would concede to stop the republicans from blowing up the country/world. It’s the medias default position. Everyone knows that republicans are crazy, so it’s up to democrats to prevent them from acting on their insanity, if we don’t it’s our fault because as the responsible ones, we have an obligation to save them and us from them. I say bullshit, you don’t get to pretend that they are a legitimate party, and then when they get elected expect democrats to still do the heavy lifting.
    The GOP and the media normalized complete obstruction, so now that it’s our turn, they want us to stop it? Fuck ’em.

    They lied and obstructed their way into power, so it’s time to let show us they’ve got.

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    @gkoutnik:

    Big problem with “Wag the Dog” — turned out that the group who Bill Clinton was accused of overexaggerating the danger of in order to distract the country from his liaison with Monica Lewinsky was al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

    Now every time someone uses the phrase “wag the dog,” it makes me wonder what vital information is being ignored that will eventually come back and bite us in the ass because the Republicans were too feckless to pay attention.

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    Schiff Calls On Nunes To Recuse Himself From Russia Probe Over Trump Ties

    ………”After much consideration, and in light of the Chairman’s admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the Chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team,” the ranking Democrat on the committee said in a statement late Monday……..

  52. 52.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    CBS Evening News leads w/ story about Jarod Kushner meeting the Russian bank VEB…

    Good God… is there NO ONE in the Trump Admin who’s NOT in Putin’s hip pocket?

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    So I see the Trump and Ryan tax “plans” are now being floated, with the same ridiculous amount of benefits going to the rich…the only real difference being that Trump is willing to add some paltry bribes to the middle class and working poor to get them to go along with it.

    Screw that – they oughta both go pound sand. No estate tax? That’s $300B that everyone else has to make up for

    Looks like we’ve got our next big issue…

  54. 54.

    Major Major Major Major

    @hovercraft: we got this with the 2016 post mortems too. Republican votes just fall from the sky and it’s the task of the democratic nominee and them alone to beat them back with (apparently) even more than a three million vote margin.

  56. 56.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Baud: Absolutely… enabling and normalizing… there does seem to be some greater attempts at honesty in some quarters, but still not enough…

    Nunes now lying his Cheney off (on CBS Evening News)… followed by Spicer…

  59. 59.

    different-church-lady

    The real problem will be when we have a genuine crisis that requires genuine presidential leadership, and the cupboard will be bare.

  60. 60.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Jeffro:

    Looks like we’ve got our next big issue…

    isn’t tax ‘reform’ intertwined w/ healthcare, which those putzes just booted completely?

    G’damned punters…

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    @hovercraft:
    The Republicans are basically a bunch of domestic abusers, and the media are enabling them. “The Democrats made us crazy by not giving us everything we want” is about as reasonable as “she made me hit her”.

  64. 64.

    Fair Economist

    @Goku:

    cites Chomsky saying

    So for example, the U.S. intervened radically to support [Boris] Yeltsin in 1991 when he was engaged in a power play trying to take power from the Parliament, Clinton strongly supported him.

    Those Clintons are fearsome – guess Bill was running US foreign policy over a year before he was elected.

  65. 65.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Roger Moore:

    “The Democrats made us crazy by not giving us everything we want” is about as reasonable as “she made me hit her”.

    That’s EXACTLY what it is…

  72. 72.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Whoa… over at Politico:

    Cheney: Russian meddling possibly ‘an act of war’

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Russia’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election could be “considered an act of war.”“There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate, but there’s no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic, fundamental democratic processes,” he said. “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”

    Damn… you get to the point where you’ve lost Dick Cheney… already… where do you go from here?

  80. 80.

    hovercraft

    @cokane:
    I think Twitler may test that “floor”, I know 27 is the crazification factor, but Twitler’s crazy may penetrate even to them. I’m betting it may distill down to a purer form of around 22%.

  81. 81.

    rikyrah

    @hovercraft:

    Everyone knows that republicans are crazy, so it’s up to democrats to prevent them from acting on their insanity, if we don’t it’s our fault because as the responsible ones, we have an obligation to save them and us from them. I say bullshit, you don’t get to pretend that they are a legitimate party, and then when they get elected expect democrats to still do the heavy lifting.

    You are correct, and also correct in saying phuck ’em.

    Nobody’s playing nice with these sociopaths.

  84. 84.

    Kathleen

    @Roger Moore: And if only Hillary had asked white Republican WWC’s how their day went they wouldn’t have thrown the voting booth at her.

  85. 85.

    Millard Filmore

    @mmeep:

    despite the messenger, the message is valid.

    Whatever problems Russia had at the time, it is up to them to fix the situation. Exactly the same with us. The job of our politicians is to fix any holes that Russia exploited. Prosecuting traitors is not the same as going to war with Russia.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @debbie: higher ed too – awful lot of middle class parents gonna be unhappy when drastically fewer international students = much bigger tuition increases for American kids

  89. 89.

    TenguPhule

    there will be some kind of international conflict he and Bannon provoke to get people (especially the media) to rally around Dear Leader.

    Domestic incident. Donny has more then enough home grown terrorists as followers who would be more then happy to try and clumsily frame an Illegal Mexican Muslim Liberal as the culprit.

  90. 90.

    magurakurin

    @SFAW: or maybe not old enough

    Word Origin and History for hophead Expand
    n.
    “opium addict,” 1911, from hop (n.2) + head (n.) in the drug sense

    hophead

    noun
    1.
    (slang, mainly US) a heroin or opium addict
    Word Origin
    C20: from obsolete slang hop opium; see hop ²

  93. 93.

    smintheus

    C’mon, who in the world would it be news to that Trump and Co. rally their base by whipping up racism and xenophobia?

    ‘Maybe the sun was always planning to come up this morning, but I’ve long thought that whenever it did it would warm up the grass somewhat.’

  96. 96.

    A Ghost to Most

    You’d think he’d want a small desk, to make his hands look bigger

    Also, I see Nunes as fence jumper is becoming a thing.

  97. 97.

    Peale

    @Jeffro: if I recall, it’s their estate tax in exchange for my mortgage interest deduction plus a consumption tax on imports. So it’s a wash.

  102. 102.

    hovercraft

    IF YOU’RE USING TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN PROMISES TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HE MIGHT DO, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG
    The Atlantic’s David Graham thinks Donald Trump is well positioned to move to the left now, in the wake of the repeal-and-replace disaster:

    … what if … Trump dodged a serious bullet on Friday, setting him up for a recovery? If that’s the case, Friday might even have perversely been the best day of Trump’s presidency so far—or at least the point where he hit rock-bottom, allowing him to turn things around.

    Graham imagines that Trump could salvage his presidency by returning to what he espoused during the campaign:

    … Looking forward, post-health-care tension threatens to drive a wedge between Trump and Paul Ryan’s agenda, which is in many ways anathema to the Trump coalition.

    … Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan … were always an odd pair; they disagreed on a range of fundamental issues, especially entitlements (Ryan wants to cut them; Trump promised to preserve them)….

    … a split with the speaker might be the best thing that could happen to Trump in political terms, freeing him up to pursue the deficit-bloating spending agenda he laid out during the campaign, rather than the far more austere and fiscally conservative one that Ryan desires.
    Graham, to his credit, doesn’t believe Trump actually will move left…….

    Trump’s agenda was never anything more than sucker’s bait. As a businessman or a politician, Trump doesn’t promise what he’d really like to deliver — he promises whatever will reel in the marks. Whatever Trump said during the campaign about Obamacare or Medicare or Medicaid or infrastructure should be taken as seriously as we take Trump University promotional material. As Trump frenemy Mark Cuban said:

    “He’s like that guy who walks into the bar, and will say whatever it’ll take to get laid. Only in this case he’s not trying to fuck some girl. He’s trying to fuck the country.”

  103. 103.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @rikyrah: What we need to start doing is playing hardball with them. Prosecutions for corruption, espionage, and being outright enemies of the Constitution of the United States, for starters.

  105. 105.

    Baud

    @hovercraft:

    Mark Cuban is right.

    Graham imagines that Trump could salvage his presidency by returning to what he espoused during the campaign:

    I love this. Like no one remembers his campaign was all about hate. Oh but he talked about infrastructure…. Nuts.

  113. 113.

    hovercraft

    @Baud: Mark Cuban is right.

    I think every time these villagers tout some new initiative or bullshit claim by Twitler, we should just copy and paste Cuban.

  122. 122.

    JMG

    Do you folks really think this band of blunderers could execute a false flag operation without it harming only themselves? They might want to, but it’d leak out in the planning stage at the latest. I mean, we’re talking Devin “I could have snuck onto the White Grounds if I wanted to” Nunes here.

  125. 125.

    randy khan

    @JMG:

    Do you folks really think this band of blunderers could execute a false flag operation without it harming only themselves?

    Even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut, but it’s hard to see.

  127. 127.

    randy khan

    @Raoul:

    I think a Republican congress that just watched Trump “work his ass off” (his words, I believe) for some portions here and there across perhaps 17 days, for his signature legislation, and have it fail spectacularly, might — might! — make many in the GOP caucus just a bit shy about giving him what he’d want in terms of war powers.

    It’s one thing to start a war. It’s another to lose it because none of the people who are supposed to be in charge are paying attention.

  128. 128.

    Major Major Major Major

    @randy khan: he can’t. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where they execute a white socialism herrenvolk takeover & institute a one-party state, but it turns out a lot of republicans actually believe in their ‘principles’ and never learned that they’re supposed to be code for ‘n****r n****r n****r’.

  129. 129.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @randy khan: The teabaggers in Congress want to eliminate all government spending except for Defense. The fools who voted for them don’t get that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs. Most of them don’t get that Social Security is a government program.

  133. 133.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Put me down for ‘Xenophobia is the constant drumbeat of the Trump administration, and you’re just noticing it now because you’re actively looking for nonexistent strategy.’

    @Kathleen:
    As I understand it from our Progressive Betters, she should not have wasted time saying racism is bad, because only saying rich people are bad will work.

    Even if they were right, that would just prove to me how deeply racism is the problem.

  134. 134.

    hovercraft

    @randy khan:
    He doesn’t, remember the Hastert Rule? They may not shout about it now that he’s a convicted felon, but the “principle” remains, any legislation must have the majority of the party. The Freedom caucus must oppose any and all spending except tax cuts, any attempt to pair them with infrastructure or anything else will lead to mutiny. He’s boxed in, ZEGS is boxed in. They are fucked.

  137. 137.

    efgoldman

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Travel to the US is down, so are applications by international students.

    Without foreign students to pay the full boat (or have it paid by their governments) lots of schools will have to raise their already stratospheric tuition to mesosphere levels.

  138. 138.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @hovercraft:
    Which, as always, brings us back to what an utter obstructionist fucking asshole Boehner is, since even Hastert didn’t use that rule, and if Boehner hadn’t abused his speaker power in such an unprecedented and horrendous way, the Freedom Caucus would be laughed at as imperfect but crudely acceptable bills got passed with Democratic help.

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @mmeep:

    “I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly,” Chomsky said.

    Ah, good, was wondering when N. Chomsky would get around to mentioning the possibility. Been worrying some of us for months.

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Heh. I try to stay away from my RWNJ brother’s Facebook feed—and he has been unusually quiet since the inauguration—but he posted some trivial piece of anti-Hillary bullshit today that for some reason got under my skin. I blacked out briefly, and when I came to I found that I had responded:

    Good thing we didn’t elect her! Can you imagine the fix we’d be in having a president with:

    – Multiple ties to shady foreign organizations.
    – An executive branch larded up with relatives, Goldman Sachs oligarchs and known sympathizers of an unfriendly foreign government.
    – Multiple new federal investigations looking to be much, much worse than “Benghazi!” or “E-Mails!”

    We really dodged a bullet!

    No response so far.

  146. 146.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Citizen_X:
    This didn’t surprise me, actually. Cheney is a neocon. American military sovereignty over the world is his religion. Russia compromising the president in their attempt to regain superpower status must disgust him.

  147. 147.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Peale: Now, now, let’s not bicker and argue about who robbed whom. The important thing is to make sure the children of the rich never have to pay any taxes at all.

  153. 153.

    Lurking Canadian

    @hovercraft: As I understand it, Hastert’s rule was that legislation couldn’t be allowed to pass unless it commanded a majority of Reublican votes.

    That’s bad enough.

    Boehner’s rule was that legislation couldn’t be allowed to pass unless it could pass with ONLY Republican votes. That goes beyond “bad” to utterly fucked up.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @hovercraft:

    I feel shrill! But it felt so good to unload on my brother. I don’t think he will respond, because he knows from crazy forwarded e-mails and other crap in the past that I will go full debunking Snopes on his ass, with CC/public mode so that all his little comrades can feel the burn too.

  159. 159.

    Bill Arnold

    @JMG:

    Do you folks really think this band of blunderers could execute a false flag operation without it harming only themselves?

    Oh, I expect that they could do a lot of damage if lucky, but overall that they would fail spectacularly. It does not hurt to talk about the possibility though; reduces the likelihood that a plot will be formed if it’s on the radar for a lot of people.
    If it were to happen, I would expect an attempt at something that would shut down most communications within the US for an extended period of time so that opposition would be disrupted. Disguised as “terrorism”. (There are a few obvious possibilities, that I assume emergency planners (FEMA etc) are familiar with.)

  169. 169.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    it was cute the first time O’Donnell had George Will on. Now it’s clear he’s just as boring and pompous partisan as he was back in the Brinkley days, however much he hates trump.
    ETA: though I’d still take GWill over O’D’s previous guest, Eli Lake

  170. 170.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @randy khan:

    “That last studio album cratered. Let’s get a greatest-hits set out right away! And schedule an arena tour!”

  172. 172.

    Bill Arnold

    @Steeplejack (tablet):
    Oy. Trump tweeted about the “Uranium to Russia” thing again and made me look it up. Kinda a medley of confusion and dishonesty.
    For reference, here’s the NYTimes article on the subject (April 23 2015):
    Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal
    Key point:

    In a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added.

    (bold mine).

  176. 176.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Yeesh. Obama aide Jim Messina tweets out a go fund me link for a former colleague who’s having a medical emergency. 90% of the replies are Wilmerites declaring it serves him right for serving the Slayer of Single Payer.

  178. 178.

    Another Scott

    @Aleta: He’s delusional. And insane.

    The Democrats will make a deal with me …

    Yes, Donnie, it’s all about you and your fee-fees. Keep it up!!

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  183. 183.

    Aleta

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Instead the whole world will be waiting around for the State Dept to answer questions.

    For the first six weeks of the Trump administration, the State Department didn’t hold a single on-camera press briefing — long a fixture of U.S. diplomatic communications — finally beginning them on March 7.

    Less than three weeks later, they’ve stopped again.

    Officials said the on-camera briefings won’t resume for at least two weeks as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moves to get a permanent spokesperson in place.

    Mark Toner, a career foreign service officer who has been the department’s acting spokesman, is slated for another assignment. He might return to the podium on camera later this month, but the Trump administration doesn’t yet have a full-time spokesperson in place.

    That official is expected to be Heather Nauert, until now a Fox News anchor, but she is awaiting approval of her security clearance. She hasn’t been officially named and hasn’t yet started at the State Department.

    In the interim, the State Department will hold background briefings, in which unnamed officials will brief intermittently on specific topics. Monday’s was about Mr. Tillerson’s upcoming trip to Turkey.

    Under the Obama administration and those before it, the State Department took questions on-camera on a nearly daily basis. The briefings are closely watched by foreign officials as well as U.S. diplomats around the world for public guidance on U.S. policy.

    When the State Department resumed briefings earlier this month, they cut the frequency down to twice per week, with alternating on-the-record telephone briefings.
    (–WSJ ) /

    Link may not work any more

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2017/03/27/state-department-press-room-goes-dark-at-least-for-now/

  184. 184.

    efgoldman

    @Aleta:

    That official is expected to be Heather Nauert, until now a Fox News anchor

    Why would she take a pay cut?

  186. 186.

    Aleta

    @efgoldman: Perhaps Trump is offering her husband (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) a position too?
    Anyway, I wonder if it’s a reward for her:

    After Nordstrom dropped Ivanka Trump‘s clothing line, Nauert announced on Twitter that she’ll be buying Ivanka’s clothing and wearing Ivanka shoes on air.
    She then asked Nordstrom if they were “caving 2 liberal pressure” and wrote that the designs are “lovely” and “well made.”

  187. 187.

    Kay

    Donald Trump is Tweeting that the Democrats “will” make a deal with him on health care because Obamacare is “folding”.

    There’s that incredible charm and gift for persuasion again. He’s a real charmer, let me tell you. Honestly, if someone somewhere along the line had told this jerk to get lost the world would be a better place. Horrible, nasty person who actually isn’t good AT ALL at “dealmaking”. If anyone makes a “deal” with this slimy creep based on his threatening to destroy health care for 24 million people they’re a goddamned idiot.

  188. 188.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jacy:

    I found this really interesting — because WWC are all hopped up on heroin, refugees ARE taking their jobs……

    ROFL, drug testing is finally reaching it’s logical conclusion. “What happens if no one can pass you incessant and constant tests because they like Kaiser rolls for breakfast. “

  191. 191.

    Ian

    @Goku:
    I disagree with Chomsky, but he has a point. It is (IMHO) similar to Ward Churchill’s 2002 comments. They may be offensive, and non-topical, but one reaps what one sows.

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