Jesus wept. These people are the fucking worst. Just despicable.https://t.co/ZDBe79KPD5 pic.twitter.com/zyf1rk3pcS
— Michael Arnovitz (@MichaelArnovitz) May 1, 2017
He’s so frugal! — with his own money, at least.
^^ Toldja
TODAY – Trumps Commerce Secretary: Syrian missile attack was 'after-dinner entertainment' at Mar-a-Lago.https://t.co/niJGbk6z7f
— J?ST?R ? ?CTU?L³³º¹ (@th3j35t3r) May 2, 2017
… Even if the strikes were the “entertainment,” they certainly did cost the president something.
The cost of a Tomahawk missile, per the Navy budget for fiscal year 2017, is $1.355 million. Given that the strike used 59 missiles, that comes out to roughly $79.9 million for just the missiles alone.
Ross’s remarks to the conference were just the latest in unusual public remarks from the Commerce secretary on the Syria strike.
Ross was in the secured conference room at Mar-a-Lago where Trump and other administration officials huddled during the strike, though he’s not necessarily charged with national security interests as head of the Commerce Department…
Nah, not the “president”‘s money! He doesn’t even pay taxes, cuz he’s SMART!
You put Ross’ mug up on a storyboard for an evil plutocrat on Saturday Night Live, and the producers would say ‘Too broad’…
Ladies and gentlemen: Wilbur Ross. https://t.co/uYw5J14OPS
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 2, 2017
… Ross, a billionaire financier, is new to government service. In the lunchtime conversation with David Rubenstein, co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, Ross reflected on his first impressions of public service.
“I’ve been heartened,” he said. “I thought the quality of people in the government was not as high as it has turned out to be. There are actually quite a lot of very good, very serious, very intelligent people wanting to do their best. It’s just they’ve been trapped in a fundamentally dysfunctional system.”
The president’s tax cut proposal has been a hot topic among the business community at this year’s conference. Rubenstein asked Ross whether it was realistic to expect a tax plan to pass this year.
“I certainly hope so,” he said. “God knows Congress has debated the issue enough times. It’s really a question of, ‘Is there the willpower to do it?’ If the Republican side can get itself unified, then it will work, even if the Democrats remain as determined as they seem to be to block any kind of progress.”
As if we needed more of an impetus to ‘block any kind of progress’ that would make these fekkers happy.
amk
trumpeii world.
trollhattan
Am coming around to the idea these people aren’t interested in government or governing. Maybe it’s just me.
Sab
Phuck. It’s 11:40 eastern time. I planned to go to bed. Now this new interesting post.
Ian G.
@trollhattan:
I’m not sure it’s about interest. I think they simply don’t know how. They believe totally in their idiotic Facebook memes and bumper stickers and are now dealing with the reality than one can’t govern by Facebook meme. It sure doesn’t help that one Facebook meme became sentient, decided to inhabit a bad wax statue covered in Cheeto dust with a birds nest glued to its head, and somehow won the presidency.
Yarrow
And they wonder why people hate banksters.
burnspbesq
Wilbur should shut up and let Mr. Ed do the talking (and thinking). The world would be a much better place.
Mike in NC
I dream about the smoking ruins of Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago.
Frankensteinbeck
By carefully consulting with Putin first.
Smiling Mortician
I’d comment, but I have to barf now. Sorry.
burnspbesq
@Mike in NC:
Do you also dream about the Reichstag fire? Because that’s what you’re describing.
Mnemosyne
And yet these are the people that voters were convinced are less likely to favor the wealthy than Democrats are:
Gosh, I wonder where they could have gotten that idea from …
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Hmmm….can’t imagine. No one was even saying anything like that during the campaign. Complete mystery.
El Caganer
There is a tendency to refer to political posturing as ‘kabuki’ (although in Trump’s case, ‘bukkake’ might be more appropriate), but the Syrian nonsense was so over the top that I’m at a loss how to react. A false-flag massacre staged by jihadis leading to a pointless photo-op attack on a Syrian airbase resulting in MSM huzzahs for Trump’s leaderamilizeraling. I guess we’re just supposed to STFU and enjoy our chocolate cake (the best, very classy).
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
That part I don’t blame on Sanders. Anyone who voted for Trump thinks the Democrats favor the wealthy because they, personally, must be the common man, the Real American, and the Democrats are oppressing them.
The ‘dropoff voters’, I blame on Sanders and his (still ongoing) campaign of ‘the Democrats are cheating you.’ I don’t mind he ran against Hillary, but I do mind that he ran against the Democratic Party.
burnspbesq
@Yarrow:
If we’re patient and devote enough resources, we can control or do away with any disease. Except willful blindness.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck:
QFT
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
And is continuing to do it.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: As I told my Mom shortly after the election ended back in November, and as I’ve both said and written to a number of people who have asked: Things are going to get bad. People that do not deserve to be are going to be hurt. But these folks are not very smart, though some of them are clever and/or crafty. They are loud, they telegraph everything, they do not know what they’re doing or how to do it, and that provides us with opportunity.”
Roger Moore
@Ian G.:
If they cared, they would at least try to learn how. That they treat governing as something unimportant that they don’t need to bother learning is sign enough that they don’t care.
Millard Filmore
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, the problem with events like the smoking ruins is that they never end up as you want.
LurkerNoLonger
@Mnemosyne: Nothing in the past 30 + years should make them think that other than a toxic combination of ignorance and wishful thinking.
Mnemosyne
So, on a more cheery note, I’m taking a short train trip on Saturday to try and get some writing time in. With “short” being about 4 and a half hours each direction from LA to San Luis Obispo.
I don’t think I’ll have time for a meetup since I’ll only be on the ground in SLO for about an hour and a half in the middle of the day and want to do some yarn shopping at Yarns at the Adobe, but if you want to recommend a good lunch place in downtown SLO, I’m all ears!
(And for those who find train trips soothing, here’s a video of a little of the scenery.)
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Just a polite FYI:
Bankster, the portmanteau of banker and gangster, was coined by Leon Degrelle. Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian member of the Waffen SS. The term was originally created and applied to Jewish bankers who Degrelle, other NAZIS, and their fellow travelers believed had stabbed Germany and Belgium and other European countries in the back through financial exploitation.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: @Yarrow: Sounds like Snernie Banders and Tina Nurner?
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only goy here who got a little creeped out by the vehemence with which people were denouncing Cantor Fitzgerald as the source of all evil and an organization that Obama should have rejected like he rejects the NRA. And it ain’t the Irish part of the name that we’re getting that “ping” from.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I wonder if “the wealthy” in their minds are all of those Hollywood elites, like Beyonce and Jay-Z.
And he’s still doing it. It’s frustrating as hell.
Adam L Silverman
@El Caganer: The French analysis has concluded that the chemical was indeed sarin and that it was produced by the Syrian government.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/26/syrian-scientists-made-sarin-used-in-chemical-attacks-france-claims/
Yes, there are lots and lots of links out there claiming the French analysis is flawed and that it’s been debunked. Amazingly they all ultimately lead back to Russian state backed news sources, social media sources, or sock puppets. Just like the hatchet job that’s been done on the White Helmets by using footage from over two years ago showing someone described as a doctor desperately trying to put a central line into a child and failing at it. And the people doing the debunking on that one belong to a Swedish medical NGO that the Swedish government and the Swedish equivalent of the AMA have never heard of. But it issues its findings through Russian state backed news platforms and the physician that claimed the whole thing was a hoax/staged turns out to be a Swedish pediatrician who’s (Swedish equivalent of a) license (to practice medicine) was pulled and he was fired for inappropriate behavior with his patients. And he’s a regular medical commentator on RT.
Oatler.
The post-coital cuddle talk of The Corporation after a successful bout of fornication.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
Which is especially ironic since Cantor Fitzgerald lost more employees on 9/11 than any other public or private employer, including NYPD and FDNY.
Yarrow
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes. This.
Mary G
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, Cantor Fitzgerald was on the floors in the World Trade Towers that were directly hit on 9/11 and lost a lot of people. I seem to recall they were very generous with the widows/widowers and children.
ETA: They have reason to give Obama a big payday for getting the guy that masterminded that horrorshow.
ETA 2: burnsie got there first! I have that Wilbuuuur voice in my head now. I loved Mr. Ed.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: It is what it is. People get high on their own stash. Even those who really do mean to do some good and improve things for others. It is the thing that is too often forgotten: at some point everyone has feet of clay or makes a decision based on pride rather than for better reasons.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
You might want to check that. Wiktionary has several citations earlier than Degrelle.
burnspbesq
@Mary G:
At the time, I preferred My Favorite Martian, but i think Mr. Ed has held up pretty well.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
Several people had mentioned that they lost a lot of people on 9/11, but for some reason I had never made that connection. But I could see it as a bit of a thanks for finally getting that asshole gesture.
Adam L Silverman
Speaking of anti-Semitic fuckwads (Stone, not Kendzior):
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Or maybe I don’t.
http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=banksters
efgoldman
@burnspbesq:
I thought that was Mr Ed
No, the other end.
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
I won’t try to discourage you from thinking that.
El Caganer
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t know Pat Lang worked for the Russians. I guess that’s one of the great things about the Information Age – one learns new things every day.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: The banker + gangster combination is what I understood it to be, but I will keep your explanation in mind.
I worked with people at the financial firms, including Cantor, and my experience left me with the strong impression that banker + gangster is perhaps not a strong enough description of the people at the top. Greed for greed’s sake because it means winning. What is the word for that?
Adam L Silverman
@El Caganer: He doesn’t. But if you track the reporting and information back far enough you can see where the first reports claiming that the recent attack was a hoax or it was really the rebels or ISIL come from. I am in complete agreement with Pat that we cannot be sure who was responsible for the 2013 attack. On this one the confirmation seems to be much, much more substantial. Are we ever going to know 100% or, if we do, be able to release that so no one has any doubts? No. Do I think the response of firing 59 Tomahawk missiles at the air base was a good idea or effective or anything other than a waste of money and material that accomplished nothing? No I do not. And that is regardless of who was responsible. I thought a US response in 2013 wasn’t a good idea and I don’t think that what we did a few weeks ago was a good idea either. So, regardless of who used the weapons, my position on how to respond is consistent.
Shalimar
That is expensive entertainment. Couldn’t we just show them a Let’s Play of Counterstrike and tell them it’s a real raid just for them?
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I think they just mean “latte-sipping liberals.” Not the same way “the left” talks about wealth, Wawl Shtreet, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I know that’s not how you were using it or what you meant to apply. The term, regardless of who first coined it, has a long association of being used as a snide anti-Semitic referent. That was my only point.
John Weiss
I am outraged. I’m considering the utility of outrage and I don’t find much, past reinforcing steely resolve. I’m an old fuck. Shot my protest wad forty years ago. I’m no good for protests and the like any longer. BUT I raised a kid who’s quite good at that sort of stuff and I suppose that might count for something.
I’m going to have some rum and go to sleep.
moops
@Omnes Omnibus:
You would think a party united in opposition could impose some consequences on a member that so regularly cuts them off at their knees.
Either help build up this house under siege, or there’s the door. You will never be President, and you brand is as big as it will ever get. Time to pay it forward. Get some new seats for the party that believe what you believe. Cash in some of your Bro chips.
Yarrow
From the top article:
I am completely outraged by this statement. It’s also a massive tell for how they think about what they do. It’s not their money. It costs them “nothing” to spend the government’s money. Just like it costs them nothing to do whatever they want to do with our money. They care about nothing except how something affects their own wealth. It’s avarice. They would do anything–anything at all–if it made them richer.
These people disgust me. They should rot in hell. Instead they’re looting our Treasury and making decisions about how our country is run. It’s wrong in every way.
Yarrow
@moops: He’s not a member of the Democratic party. What can they do to him?
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: While I don’t disagree with your outrage, I think this was part of Ross’s attempt at humor. By didn’t cost the President anything he meant there was no charge to the Mar a Lago resort for entertaining his guests in this way.
I have a gallows sense of humor. You have to in my line of work. But this is just whacked.
Mike J
@Frankensteinbeck:
And Melenchon’s supporters are threatening to sit out. I wonder if they’ve taken into account that Macron is going to owe Fillion’s supporters more than he’s going to owe anybody to the left of him.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I agree with you that it’s what he meant. But it’s still a tell. Someone who didn’t think spending millions of dollars of government money was “nothing” wouldn’t say that. The Wall St. Banks got bailed out with government money and virtually no one went to jail. Cost them “nothing.” That’s how these people see government money and that’s why he was able to say it.
SgrAstar
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, I hope you’re right. I’m just afraid that over the next few years they’re gonna learn enough to do some serious damage. UGH.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: Don’t give him a megaphone.
Mike J
@Yarrow: Wall Street banks got bailed out with government money and every penny of it got paid back with interest. The government made more money off that they could from selling bonds.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: No argument here.
Yarrow
@Mike J:
Doubt it because that would require recognizing political realities. Doesn’t seem to be a strength of leftier than thou types.
efgoldman
@moops:
The party can’t impose consequences on someone who refuses to join.
Oh, wait. Kick his old wrinkly ass off the victory tour with Perez.
Also take away his committee assignment and whatever leadership position they gave him.
I was willing to cut him some slack, but no more. Fuck Wilmer. If he insists on being independent, grant his wish.
Yarrow
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Definitely. I keep wondering if the Bros tour is Perez’s way of letting BS show his true colors and turn off even more Dems. Anecdotally people have reported that happening, but not sure how it’s playing in a larger sense.
I think we’ll see at least some tangential ties to Russia, maybe more, when all the indictments come out. That may be the thing that shuts him up.
Villago Delenda Est
This guy is a your traditional late capitalism parasite. No mercy for his like.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: But the thieves did not go to jail. Hell, a black kid gets gunned down for looking the wrong way at a cop, and these guys lift billions with no consequences.
Yarrow
@Villago Delenda Est: This is the general problem. There are no consequences. The banks take the money and get bailed out. No one goes to jail. Which is why someone as high up in the government as Wilbur Ross can joke that spending millions of dollars of government money for some bomb dropping entertainment costs “nothing.” Because there are never costs to them for that kind of thing. No consequences that matter. It’s “nothing.”
Adam L Silverman
@SgrAstar: It is a concern. But remember: almost 75% of the members of the GOP House Caucus were elected after 2010. Not a single one of them has ever moved a single noteworthy, let alone major, piece of legislation. Not a single one of them has ever done anything but crisis budget or crisis legislate – usually as a result of a crisis they created (or was created by their Senate GOP colleagues). Speaker Ryan, though being in Congress since JAN 1999, has never moved any noteworthy and/or major piece of legislation. The former members of Congress that are now part of the Cabinet – Mulvaney, Price, Zinke – have never moved a single noteworthy and/or major legislation in their time in Congress. None of them have ever managed anything of note. Zinke was a small team operator in the SeALS who retired under a cloud of financial scandal and impropriety. Price is an orthopod. Mulvaney is just creepy. The only people around the President who have ever run/managed anything of any size are Secretary Mattis, Secretary Kelly, and LTG McMaster the National Security Advisor. Of those three, two appear to be decent picks. But none of them, just as none of the other members of the Cabinet, have any actual staff. They’re either way, way behind on picking appointees, both those that require Senatorial confirmation and those that don’t, because of the way they’re doing the vetting (paranoia related to loyalty to the President) or because they’ve made it clear, as the President did when asked, that they are simply not going to fill most of these positions because they don’t believe they should. Without that layer of appointees it is very, very, very hard for a President to put his stamp on the US government, US policy, and US strategy.
This is why worrying about the President getting us into a war (actual war, not just popping off some missiles or sending in a couple of small teams of SF) are slim. Secretary Mattis has no one to help him run a war. And on top of that we don’t have anyone left to fight one. We have three corps (I, III, and XVIII Airborne). I Corps is aligned to PACOM/USARPAC. III and XVIII ABN are currently in ever other year rotation to CJTF OIR. Of our active duty divisions, they’re all accounted for on the duty chart. 1 ID is currently the Combined Joint Land Force Component Command (C/JFLCC) under CJTF OIR. 1 AD, as far as I know is their backfill. 4 ID appears to be doing duty as the ready division to help out in Europe as they’re rotating 4 ID BCTs through on training rotations. 25th ID is at Shafner in Hawaii and is aligned with USARPAC. 7th ID is under I Corps and is designed, right now, to never go forward from Lewis-McChord. 2 ID is in the ROK. 3 ID is doing what ever the Rock of the Marne is up to this week. We know parts of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions are deployed forward. None of this is classified – all of this info is from outward facing websites listing what echelon is where. And while these sound like a lot of resources they’re not. And this is before we get into the discussion that the US Air Force and the US Navy’s and USMC’s air components have been in almost constant use over Iraq since 1991, Afghanistan since 2001, the Philippines since 2001, the Horn of Africa, etc, etc.
Mike J
Wouldn’t be enough for me.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
I thought Cheryl Rofer said that the president can just decide to drop nuclear weapons without having to ask anyone. I asked her that specifically in a guest post thread. Probably around the NK missile test time. She said that someone she knew had looked into it and scarily it seems that yes, the president can just up and decide to use the nuclear weapons. Should Trump decide to do that, then I think he will have gotten us into a war.
I know you’ve indicated that you think there could be some informal safeguards in place to keep Trump from being able to do that. I was alarmed by Cheryl’s response because it sounded like the president can pretty much do what he wants with the nuclear weapons. We don’t know if those informal safeguards are actually in place. Even if they are, might not work.
efgoldman
@Mike J:
If they gave it all to me, I might listen
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Technically Cheryl is correct. The President has that authority. However, as we now know, during the Nixon Administration, as President Nixon was mentally unravelling over the Watergate investigations and impeachment, his Secretary of Defense issued orders that all orders from the President, specifically to include nuclear launch orders, required confirmation from the Secretary of Defense. I have no knowledge one way or the other, but it would not surprise me if we one day find out that Secretary Mattis has done the same thing.
Launching a nuclear missile is not the same as waging a war. It is an act of war, but it is not waging a war. And while this is a technical point (of hair splitting), there is no argument from me that the President preemptively conducting a nuclear strike would be very, very, very, very, very bad.
(I may be short a very or dozen)
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: I would listen. I’d also offer to vote no instead for ten(?) million.
Chris T.
@Adam L Silverman: That’s why I predict that the draft will be back … to staff up the armed services for the wars (plural) that Trump will start.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris T.: Unless the US is attacked by a coalition force of overwhelming numbers it is not going to happen. No politician is going to support a draft for a war of choice. The leadership of our All Volunteer Force will resist it because, as far as they are concerned, a draft doesn’t get you the cream, it gets you the spoiled curds, which leads to things like Vietnam and the hollow, ineffective force of the 1970s. I would be very, very, very, very, very surprised if it happened. Also, getting a draft going and then getting conscripts trained up enough to even be remotely useful given the type of war we are equipped to fight in 2017, isn’t going to be a couple of months of training.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I know that using nuclear weapons wouldn’t be waging a war. I think that after the use of said weapons we would be in a position where we’d have to do something along the lines of waging a war. That’s why I think Trump could get us into a war if he did that.
He got rave reviews for his other two bombings, so I can see him thinking, “bigger is better.”
rikyrah
@Mike J:
Topher Spiro says that they are underfunded to the time of $200 billion.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/859642355544096773
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, if you are still up, what the hell are they doing with all the money we spend on the military ? We spend more than the next three countries combined. Is it overpriced weapons/toys? Salaries for Pentagon PowerPoint cowboys? It’s not the regular grunts raking it in. Marines from Camp Pendleton shop in the thrift store here, or Walmart.
seaboogie
“Government service” (GOP interpretation) v. “Public service” (Dems) aka Billionaires dipping their toes directly into the revenue/influence stream to benefit themselves.
TenguPhule
@burnspbesq: I think he means ideally that Trump and Pence’s smoking bones would be in those ruins along with the entire Republican line of succession, leaving a Democratic designated survivor.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
“There are some things that can beat smartness and foresight? Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.”
-Mark Twain
Still relevant even today.
Vhh
@Yarrow: Trumpism.
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman: Cue the studio orchestra:
Seth Owen
Adam. I agree that Trump is unlikely to get us into a successful war for all the reasons noted. But given that considering the chances of success seems to be a minor consideration in the Trump decision chain so far, I don’t find your reasons very comforting.
-ly Ballou
@burnspbesq: @FlipYrWhig: “When people say they hate the elite, I wish they meant rich people. But they don’t. They hate smart people. The country adores rich people.” —Fran Lebowitz
Pete Mack
I disagree with Jester Actual this time.
Runways are pretty easy to maintain–probably not a useful target with ammo running $1.3M a pop. The high value targets are things like actual aircraft, ammo dumps, and machine shops, where replacement cost is over $1 million.