Twitler just now:
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
Twitler last year:
Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2016
Yeah, not a dime’s worth of difference.
rikyrah
Lips pursed….
but…her emails.
rikyrah
I can’t even begin to express the level of my disgust with his voters.
I shall not understand them.
I will not try.
But, now, and forever.
PHUCK YOU
for what you have done to MY COUNTRY.
PHUCK YOU.
clay
Remember when the argument was that, as a New Yorker, Trump would good on LGBT issues, even though he’s a Republican?
Yeah…..
FlipYrWhig
He’s the most reprehensible, loathsome, despicable person in American public life. And he’s getting away with it, which humiliates every one of us as well.
FlipYrWhig
@clay: IVANKA HAS SO MANY SASSY GAY FRIENDS
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
…this can’t possibly be legal, can it?
Also, what happened to Stephen Miller?
Emma
I feel so much anger towards my fellow liberals who didn’t vote or voted third party that I can barely acknowledge their existence. I always knew the racists and misogynists were going to try to screw up everything Obama accomplished and certainly never vote for Hillary. But Jesus on a Harley, a million or two so-called liberals showing up at the polls and voting Democratic might have prevented this.
MomSense
I fucking hate him and every asshole who voted for him or for a third party.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MomSense:
Co-sign.
JPL
According to CNN, the pentagon did not know that the tweets were coming.
I so wish that Putin had Trump on tape carousing with teenage boys. The evangelicals that Trump is appeasing, are the religion of hate.
tobie
@Emma: I made calls to Wisconsin for HRC’s campaign in October. Can’t tell you the number of 20-somethings who told me they couldn’t pull the lever for HRC. Each and every time I was gobsmacked.
Calouste
It took the shitgibbon 13 minutes to post less than 420 characters. Talking about low energy…
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: I really don’t think what did it was a failure of liberals to show up for Hillary. I think what did it was a failure of “people who like Obama but otherwise don’t care that much about politics” to show up for Hillary. “The left” runs their mouths but in the end there aren’t that many of them except on Twitter, blogs, and social media, where their voices are amplified. IMHO we need to restrain ourselves from giving them disproportionate credit OR blame. But YMMV.
clay
The phrase “and military experts” is carrying a lot of weight in that statement. What experts? Who are they? Can they show the data that supports their claim?
After all, the policy to allow trans-folk in the military has been in place for a while. It doesn’t seem lime our forces have been unduly burdened by it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This an actually policy or more of Trump’s twitter BS? And the “After consultation with my Generals and military experts,” would be? Jared? Trump Jr?
rikyrah
Kay,
did you see this in that article?
ACTUAL professionals don’t want anything to do with this crowd.
Kay
Another nasty move from the petty, small President.
It was never about class or education or wealth- it’s that he’s so obviously an asshole. You either admire assholes or you don’t. The Trump supporters do. They admire this behavior.
FlipYrWhig
@tobie: Did you get the sense it was because “she isn’t liberal like me, she’s a warmongering neoliberal” or “I just don’t like her, she acts like she has something to hide”?
SFAW
@Emma:
On the plus side, “Doctor” Jill Stein continues her “leave [Lying Littledick] alooooonne!!!” bullshit. For example, the Russia thing is fake news (not her exact words, but that was her meaning).
It is difficult not to think of Trump, the Rethugs, his/their supporters as the Husnock, and wishing for a Kevin Uxbridge to appear. And it upsets me that I’m even thinking that way.
clay
@JPL: Yeah, I was just thinking that the “generals” part of his statement was probably bunk (since it seems that they didn’t know about it). Which leaves “and military experts”. Who are they? Can we get a list of names?
FlipYrWhig
@clay: Who’s that crazy woman who was always saying in the Obama years that LGBT people in the military would irreparably harm unit cohesion, like in Congressional testimony, even though she wasn’t from a military background herself? Probably that’s who he talked to.
germy
It’s amazing he “won’t accept or allow” a group of people, because with an all-volunteer service, don’t they need everyone they can get?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
When Peter Thiel gets busted on a Federal sodomy rap, I hope Lindsay Graham shanks him in prison….
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Yep. I understand.
Bill Arnold
Do you all think that D Trump wrote those three tweets? They seem rather more coherent than his usual.
(To be clear, i’m thinking maybe Scar)
SFAW
@clay:
He’s his own “military expert.” Remember how he told us that he knew more than the generals?
JPL
@FlipYrWhig: There are so many crazy people, but DeVos comes to mind as does Michelle Bachman.
I’d like to know who, but that seems unlikely.
rikyrah
‘Obviously crazy’: Trump’s new ethics chief’s ‘loosey-goosey’ standards could score Scaramucci millions https://t.co/8V6sRjutQi
— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 26, 2017
Kay
@rikyrah:
I did. Cry me a river, conservatives. So sad that another low quality Trump hire is damaging the effective marketing of your ideological crusade.
They knew she was unqualified. They confirmed her anyway. Like Trump, she doesn’t seem to work much. Her public calendar is often completely empty. Since 99% of her job is selling her bad ideas she probably has to make some sales calls.
rikyrah
“Our president is cyberbullying, public shaming a sitting member of his own Cabinet. That’s never happened before.” pic.twitter.com/Ll6btGFHnw
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2017
FlipYrWhig
@JPL: I was thinking of a particular person, someone who’d show up on cue to repeat weird statements about the dire effects on military readiness of any kind of inclusive policy. Like Betsy McCaughey was for health care. I think her name may have been Catherine? And IIRC her organization sounded like “Concerned Women for America” but wasn’t that one. I’d Google it but it would upset both my stomach and my search history.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
On another note, Greenwald can smugly enjoy this from his refuge in Brazil.
Sadly, Obama never did dronekill his ass – I always enjoyed the fantasy of Glenn shrieking and dropping his caiperanha as he tries to run in from his balcony as the hellfire whooshes in…
FlipYrWhig
BTW, why would trans people in the military incur “tremendous medical costs”? Is he thinking of reassignment surgery?
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: There are shades of culpability, but in an election where 80,000 knuckleheads in the upper Midwest got to decide things–fewer people than voted for Stein in those states–you absolutely can point the finger at the liberals who didn’t show up and the purity pony leftists who voted for somebody else. What’s wrong is if you point the finger only at them.
Brachiator
I really don’t want to hear any shit about Republicans just wanting to piss off liberals. I heard on the radio this morning that the Trump Justice Department wants to crack down on sanctuary cities.
And now, this, which humiliates transgender people and degrades all Americans. Every day, this administration looks for new ways to insult and to hurt people, and to separate them from society.
I am so disgusted with this political theater of deliberate cruelty.
Wapiti
I’d guess his military experts include Newt and Gorka, if he’s still around.
Major Major Major Major
I also think it’s hilarious that he thinks that an organization that will spend $80 million on an airplane nobody wants would be burdened by ‘tremendous medical costs’ for, like, testosterone supplements. (ETA: And sad and evil and all, but that almost goes without saying for things he does.)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Why would Peter Thiel get busted on a Federal sodomy rap…?
GregB
So I assume Trump won’t campaign for Caitlyn Jenner?
Interrobang
I’m pretty sure that the “experts” he’s thinking about are Prof. Otto Yerass. Dr. Yerass has been racking up the publications lately; he has to be the world’s foremost cross-disciplinary scholar by now…
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: That’s my guess, but who knows what’s rattling around in his cracked coconut?
kd bart
The unanticipated bonus for the Russians in their ratfvcking campaign was the large supply of useful idiots on the left who were willing to assist them in the endeavor.
tobie
@FlipYrWhig: It was a critique from the left–she’s a neoliberal, she’s too close to the banks and the corporations that fund her campaign, she’s a member of the corrupt Democratic establishment and there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them and the Republicans etc etc etc. They were Bernistas and had come to hate the Democratic Party. It’s this last part that worries me the most.
tobie
@kd bart: Amen. That’s it in a nutshell.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Jeff Sessions is a former Senator and the Attorney General of the United States. If he’s being “cyberbullied” it’s because he’s too craven or stupid to resign.
Donald Trump surrounds himself with low quality people because he’s a bad person. If you work for him you’re one of them. It’s a job requirement- a condition of working there. The massive ego that says “I’ll just run my own game from within the Trump Administration because I’m just that super awesome” got Sessions into this mess. It isn’t gonna get him out of it.
Major Major Major Major
@kd bart: Given their prior cultivation of Stein and people like Greenwald I’m not sure how ‘unexpected’ that was.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major: Fair enough. But when we try to use the 2016 result to model what to do in the future, my hunch is still that a solid number of people who voted for Obama in ’08 and ’12 and didn’t vote for Hillary in ’16 may not have ever had that strong of an idea about what Obama was even trying to do policy-wise or what he accomplished in office — they thought he was cool and/or trustworthy and that was enough. I think collectively pundits and opinionators keep overestimating the gravitational pull of the dissatisfied left.
NotMax
This is not normal.
Ksmiami
As I said every step they take will tear the nation asunder.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay, I have stated my opinion on this from the beginning.
Attorney General White Citizens Council :
a) doesn’t have self -respect
b) is living out his White Supremacist fantasies.
He.will.NEVER.resign.
Dolt45 will have to fire him.
Kay
@Brachiator:
I am, too. The worst part is there are tens of millions of people who admire this, who think it’s “strength”.
Maybe the President will lead the Boy Scouts in jeering at someone today, huh? Again. Petty, small and classless, every fucking day.
tobie
I’m assuming this move to discriminate against transgender members of the military is a ploy to shore up support for Trump amongst evangelicals. This is something that came out of the communications shop. He’s sinking in the polls so he’s got to do something that will energize evangelicals, who are miffed that he’s going after Sessions. This fits in with yesterday’s rally and what will be likely be unbearable victory laps regarding deathcare.
Calouste
@SFAW: Stein is just afraid that the Russia investigation is going to unearth stuff on her as well.
FlipYrWhig
@tobie: Bah. Can I just say how tired I am of hearing about Wawl Shtreet? Of course I’m also tired of hearing about the working class, which counts among its members approximately zero of the people who gas on about the need for it to be the center of leftish politics. What are the acceptable lines of work to be in? Vintage tube-amp repair and what else? :P
Butch
@rikyrah: I’m having trouble figuring out which “that article” you mean but I’d like to read it. Could you please clarify?
O. Felix Culpa
@Emma: I am deeply worried about the purity leftists in 2018. I have already seen vicious attacks from Bernista quarters on solid liberal Dems (including Kamala Harris and local reps) who, in the purists’ view, have sullied themselves by talking to HRC corporatists and such-like. I fear that the useful idiots will cause harmful splits in 2018 and 2020, leading to lost elections and continuing heightening of the contradictions.
TS
I will NEVER understand government via twitter – TWITTER. How about government by legislation, by the administration, by the various appointed department heads
What the phuck has happened to the USA
FlipYrWhig
@tobie: Does that mean Scaramucci is behind it, then?
rikyrah
And allow me to agree with @BernieSanders, who just told @mitchellreports if Republicans pull this off, Medicare & Social Security are next.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) July 25, 2017
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: Well, they’re very loud.
I think the biggest story is the Obama-to-Trump vote switchers. Not necessarily because Dems should try to cultivate that vote, but just because, like, what the hell? I think those people fall into a few buckets too, but a lot of it is, paradoxically, a white supremacy thing. They were willing to vote for Obama the first time (cf. “I’m voting for the n****r”) because things were just that bad and the problem was so obviously Republican in nature; they were willing to vote for him the second time because Romney was uninteresting and Obama was their friend, he was ‘one of the good ones’, so they could still harbor white supremacist feelings and think he was a good guy too.
And then Hillary inspired no such loyalty, and Trump ran an out-and-out white supremacist campaign.
And that’s a big story.
rikyrah
Guy who skipped the draft because he’s heel ached doesn’t think trans people deserve the right to serve.
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) July 26, 2017
themann1086
“Fun” fact: On this day in 1948, President Truman issued the Executive Order that desegregated the military.
h/t Joe Paulson at LGM
NotMax
@TS
Worse, it’s government by nitwitter.
GregB
@Calouste:
Her lawsuits in MI, WI and PA were part of the great ratfucking that was the 2016 election.
FlipYrWhig
@O. Felix Culpa: They’re a small bunch of grandiose frauds. They’re not going to do anything except impress themselves with their own voices.
rikyrah
John McCain mustering the strength to cross the country & strip health care from millions is like some kind of fucked up reverse Make-a-Wish
— Erin ?Gloria? Ryan (@morninggloria) July 25, 2017
rikyrah
Book of Michelle Obama White House photographs set to hit stands in October https://t.co/GBlKdNVOrW pic.twitter.com/9YXwBgrIIQ
— Blavity (@Blavity) July 17, 2017
TS
@NotMax:
100% normal for Trump
O. Felix Culpa
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed on the first part and I sure hope you’re right on the second.
tobie
@FlipYrWhig: Your guess is as good as mine. If the Pentagon was in the dark about this edict, it came from the White House which doesn’t give a shit about policy, only publicity. What’s scary is that this stuff doesn’t appall and outrage the public as it should. Trump didn’t hoodwink his supporters. He’s the incarnation of their darkest, meanest, vilest fantasies.
Kay
@rikyrah:
He’ll succeed on voting rights unless someone stops him but he’ll fail on incarcerating more people. That train has left the station. They may be able to incarcerate more people for federal crimes but the vast, vast majority is state law and states aren’t going back there. It was stupid and cruel and probably most important- incredibly expensive.
They only got movement on criminal justice reform when they started to argue that mass incarceration costs too much. It does. It’s really true what people say – it’s private school tuition level. Putting everyone “on paper” – probation- is also too expensive. Even if they charge the families (which they do) they can’t collect enough- these people don’t have any money.
If you want to know why the Koch’s support criminal justice reform that’s why. Mass incarceration is expensive.
JPL
White House aides says the decision was made so Debbie Stabenow would have to defend trans to her blue collar base.
nice!
Good news for kid rock.
Gen. Mattis is on vacation this week.
TheronWare
His Generals eh? Ha!
rikyrah
The Girl Scouts announced it is adding 23 new badges related to science, tech, engineering, math and the outdoors https://t.co/PS0uFZsCvR pic.twitter.com/215xd2ZTzu
— CNN (@CNN) July 25, 2017
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major: Possibly, and IMHO backlash/buyer’s remorse was a big factor (“we gave Those People a shot by electing one of Them president and they STILL wouldn’t stop complaining and protesting!”). But I’d guess an even bigger factor was, essentially, “politicians suck and they’re out of touch, let’s try something else!” two times in a row. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a decent number of Bush-Obama-Trump voters: “Gore is old news and is boring and preachy and unethical,” “Kerry is old news and is boring and preachy and unethical,” “McCain is old news and is boring,” “Romney is boring and preachy and unethical,” “Hillary is old news and boring and preachy and unethical.”
Felonius Monk
@Kay:
Did you see or read anything of his rally in Youngstown last night? Made the Boy Scout thing pale in comparison.
different-church-lady
I’m so old I can remember when Bill Clinton was history’s greatest monster for allowing gays to serve in secret.
Villago Delenda Est
Draft dodging Donald. Utter shitstain.
Kay
@JPL:
It’s just another nasty, petty day in Trumpworld. I love to imagine the high-level meetings. I bet the “screw Debbie Stabenow” meetings killed a couple of work days. Another incredibly productive work-week at the White House.
rikyrah
@Butch:
In the Morning Thread, Kay linked to this article about Betsy DeVos:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/betsy-devos-secretary-of-education.html
JPL
Here’s the statement from a white house official
https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/890202683721863168
So now they are playing politics with the ten thousand plus trans people who are already serving honorably, unlike the great orange asshole.
TS
@JPL:
Good to see the leaks are still coming from the White House. Scaramucci may be the last man standing in the West Wing.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Butch:
New York piece on DeVos mentioned by Kay a couple of threads down.
SiubhanDuinne
@Butch:
From a couple of threads ago:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/betsy-devos-secretary-of-education.html
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Major Major Major Major: Also too: Obama was cool enough* for them to feel good about themselves for voting for him (look! I don’t even SEE color) but then everything changed when a bunch of Black, queer women took to the streets and chanted “Black Lives Matter” and somebody, somewhere allegedly broke a precious window of a CVS or something.
*I’m not even mad at people who did this. There’s a lot of clueless voters who cast votes for fairly trivial reasons, if ever there was someone who deserved those votes it’s BHO. Let’s be honest, he IS cool. He IS inspiring. He also happened to be a great president and leader.
BretH
I’d like to know exactly what “tremendous medical costs” Littlefingers is referring to…does he think the military is going to be doing sex-change operations?
JPL
Seriously, what happens to trans people already serving?
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Take a wish.
A Ghost to Most
These fucking people. I fear for our children.
MattF
Trump covers his rhetorical check list: blustering, bigotry, bullying, lying. As ever. There is no silver lining.
Kay
@Felonius Monk:
I didn’t. There were people from here who went to protest- I think they did, I didn’t go, but I got 2 emails. Youngstown is too far for me – we have retirees who do long haul, short notice trips :)
The overwhelming relentless nastiness of Trump is dispiriting not because of Trump – I knew it- but because Trump has tens of millions of fans.
I heard Al Gore on the radio reciting the line about how he’s “confident the American people” will reject this but I’m not confident. At all. Trump gets worse every day. Wait until they clear out all the normal people in or around that administration- the people who are leaking or complaining. It can get much, much worse.
Citizen_X
@Kay:
Well, you can’t very well play “Lord of the Flies” without a mob of pre-teen boys, now, can you?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Which is why I don’t want anyone to ask me to ‘ understand’ them.
Phuck them.
I mean this from the bottom of my soul.
Phuck each and every last one of them.
I do think people on the left have to finally catch that clue. Phuck these muthaphuckas and the horse they rode in on.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig:
There was also, and this might have actually been decisive because of WHERE they were, a lot of Trump voters who were Bush 2004 voters that sat out 2008 because they were uninspired and 2012 because they didn’t like Romney.
p.a.
This smacks of Dense getting to the shitgibbon* while the gibbon had access to his phone.
ETA: *I still like Angry Circus Peanut better.
SenyorDave
Gee, I wonder how the Log Cabin Republicans will manage to blame the TG ban on Obama and the liberals. Because according to them, the Trump administration is the most LGBTQ- friendly in history.
I hesitate to use the term self-loathing, but if ever a group deserved it, Log Cabin Republicans do.
MomSense
@MomSense:
Or how about Break a Wish.
rikyrah
@O. Felix Culpa:
I don’t. Coming to the point where they need to be told to go phuck themselves. Either get on board with saving America, or go away.
Major Major Major Major
@SenyorDave: I doubt most log cabin republicans are especially fond of the ‘T’ part of LGBT.
@rikyrah: we’re past the point where they need to be told to go fuck themselves, but that doesn’t mean they can’t cause a lot of damage.
Yarrow
Caught this on a morning news show I my jaw dropped. It takes a lot for that to happen these days with this asshole, but these tweets did it. WTF is he doing?
Felonius Monk
@Kay: Here is a sample from last night:
Also, some shit about him being the greatest president since Lincoln and how he ought to be on Mt. Rushmore.
This idiot should be locked up in a lunatic asylum, stat.
Kay
Boy, what an asshole Capito is. Portman voted yes too but everyone knew he would. That whole song and dance she did was intended to deceive her constituents.
I don’t care what happens to them when they lose their healthcare, just like I don’t care what happens to people in this county, which went 70% for Trump.
They HAD health care and they managed to LOSE IT because they are poor judges of character. They’re bad at voting. If they hadn’t have lost it this cycle they would have lost it next. It was just a matter of time.
Obama got ZERO political gain from extending health care to poor white people them and they were too blind and racist to keep it. If someone wants me to advocate for health care in an AA or Latino majority county I will be happy to canvass but I’m done with poor white people. They’ll die young of treatable disease. Their kids won’t get treatment. Their elderly and infirm won’t get nursing home care. Their paychecks will be garnished. They’ll overdose in the convenience store rest room and no one will be there to revive them. They lined up to do this to themselves.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: That explains it, then. Good thing Ivanka tweeted out all those Pride Month greetings! Otherwise, folks might be feeling like second-class citizens today.
FlipYrWhig
@Felonius Monk: Sick. Was he talking about a real incident or was he just spontaneously composing freestyle torture p0rn?
MattF
Mildly OT. Republicans and conservatives are upset about Trump’s treatment of Sessions. I understand (and share) a strong predisposition to agree that Sessions is indefensible. But, bear in mind– this is how Trump is treating his closest ally in the Republican party. It will not please Republicans. It’s fair to ask a Republican ‘WTF?’ Rick Wilson explains how Sessions is wrong, but Trump’s treatment of Sessions is indefensible.
Arm The Homeless
These fucking nitwits didn’t learn after Nader in 2000, now their functionally retarded children and grandkids are ready to not learn the same lesson.
Luckily,most of these self-important morons love to tell everyone about their pathos, which as a hiring manager makes it much easier to filter out the Trumpists, Bernistas and Steiniacs from my resume folders.
rikyrah
“We’re going to kill all of you, we’re going to kill every one of you fucking Muslims.”
That’s Amber Hensley – a CPA in Fargo, ND. pic.twitter.com/vMnXMhm2wd
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) July 26, 2017
rikyrah
Trump bans transgender Americans from military service
07/26/17 10:14 AM—UPDATED 07/26/17 10:34 AM
By Steve Benen
The Obama era was a period of great social progress in the United States military. The Democratic administration ended the ban on gay and lesbian soldiers serving openly; the Pentagon made women eligible for combat roles; the Secretary of the Army was an openly gay man; and the administration ended the ban on transgender Americans serving in uniform.
On that last point, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced in June 2016 that transgender service members are “talented and trained Americans who are serving their country with honor and distinction.”
Donald Trump apparently doesn’t care.
……………………………
That was before Trump decided to undermine the rights to transgender kids in public schools, which came before Trump decided to ban transgender Americans from serving in the U.S. military.
What’s not at all clear is what Trump and his Republican administration intend to do with the transgender Americans who are already serving in uniform. Remember, Barack Obama’s policy didn’t open the door to transgender troops; transgender troops were already there. Obama simply allowed these soldiers to come out and share their gender identity with their colleagues and commanding officers.
Trump, however, says he will not “accept or allow” transgender Americans “to serve in any capacity.” While we wait for further guidance from the military, it would appear this means a whole lot of dishonorable discharges are on the way, because our confused amateur president says so.
After Trump’s announcement, a Trump administration official told an Axios reporter, “This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to take complete ownership of this issue.”
It’s almost as if the White House is unconcerned with civil rights or military recommendations, and is solely interested in partisan political considerations.
Kay
@Felonius Monk:
The gang thing is back! That’s an oldy but a goody in far Right priorities. They like it because it’s both racist and “tough on crime”.
He can do sanctuary cities because immigration is federal but I don’t think states are going back to the 1980’s on crime. We got smarter. We know more.
Felonius Monk
@FlipYrWhig:
I think that was it.
Kay
Why is Trump keeping such a weak attorney general? What if something happens? Shouldn’t he make a decision immediately?
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: why does Trump do anything? I stopped ascribing strategy to him ages ago.
Kay
@MattF:
It’s fair to ask a Republican what it was about Donald Trump that made them think he would be better than he is.
How did they think he was going to treat people? They thought they would be exempt? So that means they didn’t care how he treated anyone else?
They deserve exactly what they’re getting. They deserve worse. It will get worse, too. Trump is now privy to all kinds of information about them, stuff they don’t want revealed. Wait until he starts using that to blackmail them, if he hasn’t already.
They’ll get the Mika and Joe treatment.
Matt McIrvin
@clay: For candidate Trump, “LGBT rights” was code for “hate Muslims”.
O. Felix Culpa
@Felonius Monk: Gross. And sounds dangerously like Radio Rwanda, calling (I’m sure fictitious) people “animals” to justify horrible treatment. The man must go.
Mike in NC
You know what’s coming next: a return to “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. Then a focus on banning women and non-whites from serving in the military except in very limited circumstances. Trumpism is all about going back to 1950.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mike in NC: Good luck staffing the forces if he does that.
Bill Arnold
@JPL:
OK. So who was advocating for this vile fascist political tactic/trying to expand this front in the culture wars?
And how to best work towards neutralizing or least damping its effectiveness?
Wikipedia says Scar has advocated for gay rights in the past/is(was?) socially liberal, but he does seem uhm flexible ethically, reading between the lines of his bio. (Am not thinking particularly clearly here; these trans tweets are really … irritating.)
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Also, misogyny. At least some of those people were willing to vote for Obama because he was a man, but refused to vote for a woman.
Sadly, no journalist or pollster will even ask that question so we can find out how many of them switched for that reason because the MSM continues to be invested in claiming misogyny doesn’t exist.
rikyrah
@Kay:
He’s a coward and a bully.
He could fire Sessions.
He would be firing him for not being willing to break the law for him. THAT is the reason he gave. Sessions recused himself because it was the statute. So, the top Law Enforcement Officer followed the law, and Dolt45 didn’t like it.
Matt McIrvin
@JPL:
They’ll go on a massive witch hunt, root them out and tear their units apart, of course! Because when we’re defending the country we can’t have distractions.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold:
And as the Twitter news brigade checks with the DoD and others in the White House, it becomes clear that Trump coordinated with precisely nobody in DoD, and probably at most a couple of haters in the White House.
He is frustrated because the Republicans are not easily taking healthcare away from us. He is frustrated because he can’t magically order Sessions to make the Russia investigation stop. His aides have said they cheer him up by arranging rallies like last night’s in Ohio, and the Boy Scout Jamboree. But the adrenaline from the cheering crowds wears off more quickly each time, like any addiction. So he had to have a jolt this morning, and what better way than to hurt someone he thinks can’t hurt back?
All of us have to stand up for any group he attacks.
JPL
@Bill Arnold: Guess is Steve Bannon. The pentagon was unaware of the decision, and I can’t imagine how those who are serving are feeling today.
Amaranthine RBG
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You are a deeply damaged person.
Matt McIrvin
@O. Felix Culpa: A bit of pedantry: the really bad station in Rwanda was Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, not Radio Rwanda. They’re often confused, partly because they sometimes broadcast on the same frequencies.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
And can the armed forces afford to lose 10,000+ trained people right now? Adam will probably have a few things to say later on today.
rikyrah
So… he’s banning an entire class of people from military service as a pure campaign maneuver? That’s not how commander in chiefing works. https://t.co/LHkbCNVFBR
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) July 26, 2017
Immanentize
This just pegged my outrage-0-meter at “hate.”
Just a reminder that none of this is a “new” thing —
“Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” by the Travelling Wilburys….
Matt McIrvin
@Yarrow: He’s trying to do something, anything to get people riled up about something other than his own crimes and their health insurance being taken away. Trump is going to be tweeting out open calls for freelance mass murder–kill your neighbors, kill your family members–before this is all over, and we get to see whether Twitter and the Republicans give a damn and how many people take him up on it.
JPL
From CNN
A US official tells @barbarastarrcnn that Defense Sec. Mattis was consulted on Trump’s plan to announce a transgender military ban
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I think I’ve mentioned before that my husband is currently going to library school for his MLIS. As part of that, he’s a member of ALA (the American Library Association).
The opiod problem is so bad in Philadelphia (PA) that some places are giving librarians syringes full of that stuff that reverses an overdose so they can prevent people from dying inside the library. THE LIBRARIANS HAVE TO INJECT PEOPLE WHO ARE OVERDOSING.
And who did Pennsylvania vote for? Yeah.
ETA link
Immanentize
@JPL:
WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF WASF
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Why aren’t my comments going through for my local paper?
In reponse to:
Major Major Major Major
@JPL: ah, yes, Mattis, the noble eightfold warrior-monk who will bring a needed voice of sanity to the administration.
Immanentize
Maybe this was the price McCain demanded for his health care vote?
Librarian
This cannot possibly be constitutional. If gay marriage bans are unconstitutional, how can this not be?
LAO
@Immanentize: Hey there — how are things going?
And, yeah — your comment makes a sick sort of sense to me. Has there every been a politician that deserved less acclaim than McCain?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
And then this bomb shell:
Immanentize
@Librarian: One quick constitutional answer — it’s the military. Only vaguely subject to constitutional norms.
JPL
V.P. Pence has always been against gays in the military, so one has to wonder if they are next.
LAO
Immanentize
@LAO: Not so good, my friend. But I am putting off that discussion/report for a while….
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Major Major Major Major:
He’d get busted because we’re now under a corrupt Dominionist government, with legislators and judges who would be eager to override local preferences to NOT institute criminal penalties for consensual same sex conduct.
Federalism would go out the window as they made up some shit.
randy khan
@TS:
That’s really stupid. It’s not like Debbie Stabenow is going to make this the centerpiece of her campaign.
LAO
@Immanentize: understood, sending you all my good thoughts and hopes.
clay
@Mike in NC:
No. It’s hard to remember, but DADT was progressive for its time. It allowed gays to serve, because the brass weren’t allowed to inquire into soldiers’ personal lives.
The Trump administration is more likely to return to the time BEFORE DADT, when gays were banned from service entirely, and we’ll see witch hunts to root them out.
Major Major Major Major
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: There are no ‘local preferences’ for legal sodomy any more than there are ‘local preferences’ for legal interracial marriage. Lawrence is kind of established at this point, I doubt that would survive a challenge, especially while Kennedy is still alive.
@Immanentize: just what I was gonna say.
Patricia Kayden
@clay: Ivanka is supposed to be buddy buddy with the LGBT community and to have influence over her Dad’s decision making on LGBT issues but here we are.
Matt McIrvin
@clay: I think they’re betting that anti-gay is a loser with the majority right now, but anti-trans is still a winner. Slice and dice.
This kind of thing is why the whole econo-left admonition for liberals to dial back on divisive cultural issues is such a mistake. Sure, there are a lot of these things that are still electoral losers for liberalism–but if we turn down the heat, the right will strike hard at vulnerable people to turn it up, and if we give in they’ll just do it again, over and over and over.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Major Major Major Major:
There is a sizable cohort that would love a return to Bowers v Hardwick on a nationwide basis, as well as a nonzero number who’d like to go back to the days prior to Loving.
Starfish
@Mnemosyne: I am not sure what is going on in the Denver Library system, but I think someone died of an overdose in the library bathroom so they started giving the librarians narcan. They were given 12 doses of the stuff and had gone through 6 in a matter of months. I am not sure if that library doubles as a homeless shelter or what is going on there, but it sounded scary.
rikyrah
George Takei did not mince words over Trump’s ban on transgender military members. pic.twitter.com/yiPu8X0EVq
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) July 26, 2017
Ithink
@rikyrah:
Amen & co-sign all these sentiments! Including the funky spelling of “f*@$”?…
I’m sick of hearing and talking about all this faux-economic anxiety of the Trump voter, specifically the working class variety. Trump, unlike any Republican candidate in the history of the party or the Republic since EVER, won WHITE voters overall (*period*) by a huge margin, regardless of their socioeconomic status or (follow-up shockers!), geographic location, or gender (53℅ of WHITE WOMEN because the reality of 1 of their own becoming President was more repulsive than that Hollywood Access tape from Planet Perv that should’ve been a guaranteed landslide for Hillary if we had any class as an electorate!)
…and despite what the elites of the talk radio, T.V. or internet variety tell you, WE already know damn well WHY they voted for Trump: tax cuts and the full throttle implementation of an oligarchic aristocracy for the upper class and the fulfillment of deeply-imbedded cultural resentments (racial, gender, religious, political affiliation, etc) for the rest. I will always fight for equality in every arena for them all but seriously, F*** every last one of them that voted this unmitigated disaster in. They deserve everything short of premature death for putting us through this living hell?!
LAO
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: That is insane.
@Amaranthine RBG: And Greenwald isn’t? the group being hurt here isn’t bomb throwing, libertarian, glenn
Omnes Omnibus
So is this set of tweets supposed to constitute an executive order?
rikyrah
SOMEBODY PLEASE FRONTPAGE THIS:
Cantor comes clean, admits he didn’t believe his own ACA rhetoric
07/26/17 11:26 AM—UPDATED 07/26/17 11:37 AM
By Steve Benen
For several years, in his capacity as House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor helped lead the charge on repealing “Obamacare.” Put Republicans in charge, the Virginian told voters, and they’d dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
It was Cantor who helped bring ACA repeal bills to the House floor dozens of times. It was Cantor who helped spearhead “defund Obamacare” campaigns. And it was Cantor, we now know, who didn’t genuinely believe his own nonsense.
The former GOP leader in the House talked to the Washingtonian’s Elaina Plott and conceded that his Republican Party is in a tough spot – parts of the conservative base expect the party to repeal the ACA, because that’s what they were promised – in part because of promises he and his colleagues made that they never intended to keep.
O. Felix Culpa
@Matt McIrvin: Pedantry always appreciated. :)
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
As learned from this specific comment, Pro-Trump conservatives don’t do the arguments in any form or fashion. How the hell do you think their guy got elected, by having actual experience, competence or knowledge of anything? Ppffftttt….
Starfish
@Mnemosyne: Here is an article that I just stumbled upon on the topic.
O. Felix Culpa
@Starfish:
Libraries operate as unofficial homeless shelters virtually everywhere in this country, at least during opening hours. Managing the situation is one of a library director’s hardest tasks. Not sure if they include it in the job descriptions, though.
Bill Arnold
@JPL:
Not clear to me what Mattis recommended from the CNN pieces. (maybe a delay in implementing a policy?)
There’s this:
White House, Mattis Urged Congress Not To Block DOD Funds For Gender Transitions (2017/07/16)
and CNN links a 2016 RAND report: Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly (full pdf)
Mike in NC
Loved the nonsense about “decisive and overwhelming victory” in the tweet. Fat Bastard really does think he’s Napoleon reincarnated.
Monala
@SFAW: Yup, and he uses himself as his “source” all the time.
jonas
Notice Trump didn’t say he talked to the Joint Chiefs or SecDef or currently-serving military leaders. My bet is he talked to some old, retired cranks like that nut Gen. Boykin, along with Franklin Graham or somebody who convinced him that God would remove the Russia investigation if he punched some fags.
Immanentize
Who will go first? Mattis or Tillerson?
gorram
@JPL: It’s kind of frustrating how quickly any anti-LGBT animus out of this administration (among other institutions) gets people to either furiously insist these people are self-hating LGBT people or desperately wish that they were.
It’s still a tragedy that this is happening to everyone out regardless of what individual factors are at play in Trump’s or Putin’s or whoever’s decision to push these policies, and if (it’s a big if!) the person who pushes the button is themselves some type of LGBT that’s just another addition to that.
In any case, it just seems like it’s about obscuring the reality that most of what LGBT people face comes from cisgender and straight people.
Sister Golden Bear
Don’t tell me, “but President Pence would be worse…” because the Talibaptists are already implementing their agenda to use the force of the government to harass us trans people out of public existence.
Might I point out that trans people serve as twice the rate of the general population.
Sister Golden Bear
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m assuming he’s referring to gender reassignment surgery — and you’ll be unsurprised that the claim is false. California mandates that it be covered and it didn’t make a blip on insurance rates. At $20,000 to $25,000 it’s relatively inexpensive compared to other surgeries that are covered, such as heart surgery.
Sister Golden Bear
@BretH: FYI, the preferred terminology by us trans people these days is “gender assignment surgery.” Many trans folks consider “sex change surgery” to be outdated and a bit offensive (because social conservatives use it derogatorily). I realize you weren’t using that way, so my comment is a “the more know” one.
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
This. G has a choice of things he can do for his final project, an ePortfolio of his classwork or a thesis, and he’s still kicking around the idea of doing a thesis about homelessness and public libraries. It’s a very thorny problem.
@Starfish:
As O. Felix said, public libraries have been unofficial daytime homeless shelters for a while now. For the most part, you won’t even notice, because the majority of the homeless people just want to sit quietly and read or use the computer just like everyone else.
But you do also have problems with drug use or people having mental health meltdowns or doing things like using the bathrooms to do a full sponge bath.
Mnemosyne
@gorram:
Some of them probably are closeted (like that anti-gay preacher who got caught with a male prostitute and a bag of meth) but I agree as a straight person that the vast majority are straight. Fred Clark has had some good essays about why — short version, deciding that something that you yourself are not tempted to do is a “sin” makes for the easiest morality ever.
Mike Pence’s wife has decreed that he’s never allowed to be alone with another woman. That’s not the kind of requirement a wife makes if she’s worried that her husband might be gay.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker: Make that third-class citizens — not even humans deserving of respect at all — given all the other legislative assaults on us trans people, including the horrific “bathroom bill” that just passed in the Texas Senate (which called a special session just to do so).
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
Okay, completely off-topic to everything you’re saying, but I now have an earworm of “Sister Golden Hair” because of your nym. Thanks a lot. ?
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: And yet, it *didn’t* work for this schmuck. He got voted out in favor of someone even crazier and angrier. Jesus, these people.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: For all the people in my family who either didn’t vote, voted 3rd party, or actually voted for Donald Trump, every single one of them bought the line that Hillary was worse. For them I don’t think it’s white supremacy. It was that they were willing to have a racist, sexist, lying sociopathic narcissist as president rather than Hillary Clinton, who lies and maybe even murders people.
My evangelical sister said last summer “but Hillary doesn’t go to church!” Well, never mind that she apparently does, apparently all the actions Hillary has taken all her life to help people have better lives, just like Christ taught everyone to do don’t matter at all when you have the media spouting lies about Hillary for 30 fucking years.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@LAO: I will have to remember that line with my conservative friends
“Now, now President Trump tweeted and Trump won by the biggest vote margin ever so it’s case closed. One man, one tweet, that’s how democracy works and so as good Americans I am sure you are in 100% agreement with Trump…”
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: This includes: my evangelical sister; my “other I always vote but I don’t pay attention to anything that’s happening in the world sister who thought my “pussies against trump” magnet on my fridge was cute and thought it meant women against trump, having no idea about the grab ’em by the pussy thing; my 21-year old great nephew; my religious niece who is otherwise seriously one of the nicest people you could ever meet; my brother-in-law who voted for Obama and voted for Trump because he wasn’t gonna vote for the lying bitch; the person who helps me with the mowing, who is very religious and takes multiple people to the doctor every week and would do anything to help you out, but who also believes that there are moochers who take advantage of the government; the treasurer I report t at the good non-profit I work for. I could go on and on. What the fuck is wrong with these people? These people who I otherwise loved and respected.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:If it was me, I would ignore the troll reply and I would start answering the question for him and just list the stupidest things Trump’s done in the last six months (“invented a new word “Coveffe”) and praise them as mighty accomplishments.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Hmm Trump accomplishments; “Trump set the moral tone and made a fine example to Americans every were when Trump persuaded his wife to live in the same city as he does. Truly a first couple”
Duane
The man has lost his fucking mind.
Starfish
@O. Felix Culpa: It sounded from that other article that I linked that Denver Library has a social worker on staff.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
So they’re misogynists, then. A lot of evangelicals bought the line that it’s somehow unGodly to have women leaders, so it was better to vote for Trump than to provoke God’s wrath by voting for a woman.
Probe down into your evangelical relative’s spoutings and I bet “women cannot be leaders over men, the Bible says so” will pop up very quickly.
LAC
@clay: yes. And I remember the other argument that polluted this board about what a Republican Obama was and both sides are the same. Fuck those that wasted their votes in 2016 on that myth. Those folks and the Trump supporters can go to hell and stay there.
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
They’ve been trying to hire a part-time social worker for G’s library system, but they’re also dealing with budget cuts so I think it’s on hold.
mr_gravity
“…. the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. ”
Why does it seem like he fails to consider the other “tremendous medical costs” associated with military service?
My Truth Hurts
“My” generals.
Jesus what a gigantic asshole.
PIGL
@rikyrah: in Canada’s National Post a few days ago, there was an interview with some rural Trumpkins at some health care related event. One was quoted as blaming Democrats for the lack of dental and optometrist care in the ACA, and Felt that Trump was sure to get that for them because he “has a good heart”.
This level of wrong can only be fuelled by malice. I do not care if these people suffer and die. They lack the qualifications to be part of an advanced planetary civilization of 7 billion people.
J R in WV
It’s pretty obvious that he lied in his first dozen of so words were a lie — he didn’t consult with anyone at the Pentagon about this, he just bought every word right-wing-nut bigots passed to him.
The military leadership was shocked by this arbitrary and unjustified decision, contrary to the facts as determined by the Rand Corporation and every other objective resource involved with such issues.
This guy just lies when he opens his mouth. Despicable all the time, whether the audience is a big crowd of BSA cult members (or captives) or out-of-work machinists or steelworkers.
J R in WV
@O. Felix Culpa:
Ya think he’ll hesitate to reinstate the draft in a heartbeat, after he starts WW III ?? Cause I don’t think he will hesitate a second, he’s the main man in charge, everyone will fall in with the plan!!
That may be his biggest mistake, the one that ends his political career, depending upon the war he gets us into.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mnemosyne: You’re welcome. Bwahahaha!