Here’s the most Trumpian breaking news summary ever (from CNN):
Washington (CNN)John Kelly is expected to resign as White House chief of staff in the coming days, two sources familiar with the situation unfolding in the West Wing tell CNN.
Seventeen months in, Kelly and President Donald Trump have reached a stalemate in their relationship and it is no longer seen as tenable by either party. Though Trump asked Kelly over the summer to stay on as chief of staff for two more years, the two have stopped speaking in recent days.
Emphasis mine, to highlight the fact that the Oval Office complex contains a pair of 60- and 70-something toddlers who refuse to speak to one another. Good lord.
CNN says Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, is likely to replace Kelly. I’ve seen some speculation that Ayers is the author of the anonymous Trumpster op-ed that (incredibly!) seems to have fallen down the memory hole, so maybe he’ll actually be running the country, who knows?
Ayers is 36 years old, has a BA in political science from Kennesaw State University, and has made a living as a GOP hack for all of his adult life, so he’s at least as qualified as the incumbent to run a nuclear-armed superpower.
On the Road and In Your Backyard
Frankensteinbeck
I doubt it. Instead, no one will be running the country. Expect a whole new level of executive branch paralysis. Kelly at least could get things done, which is why Trump hates him.
Amir Khalid
Is it known if this Ayers kid is a racist, a grifter, an ass-kisser, or an incompetent? If he isn’t, why is he even at the White House?
MomSense
Russian Agent Orange stole an election and is sabotaging the US economy and threatening our national security. Well done GOP. This is the second Republican President in 15 years who has fucked the US economy and foreign policy.
Let’s see how our pathetic “free” press treat the Republican Party after it has been so thoroughly repudiated by real life AGAIN.
A Ghost To Most
@Amir Khalid:
All of the above.
Can someone with better
.Twitter Fu than me dig up Tom Nichol’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” rewrite? They flashed on it on Moaning Ho.
rikyrah
????
HillReporter.com (@HillReporter) Tweeted:
Trump’s Team Considers Removing Mike Pence from 2020 Ticket
https://t.co/M7B4qj6cSd https://twitter.com/HillReporter/status/1070449725747412992?s=17
Fester Addams
@Amir Khalid: (Check all that apply)
Fester Addams
@rikyrah: Even funnier when you figure Pence’s team is considering removing Trump from the 2020 ticket.
rikyrah
John Kelly ain’t shyt.??
Emma
One day. Can I have ONE FREAKING DAY where I don’t wake up to insanity? Isn’t the galloping cruds enough?
Kay
Ugh. Kelly. I read that he ran to Trump to breathlessly announce The Caravan. He’s responsible for the caravan bullshit. If Donald Trump hires you you’re horrible, by definition.
Low quality hires – they never get better on the job, only worse.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
He has no need for Pence. Trump has answered all of the evangelicals’ dreams. He is the president they’ve been waiting for, an extreme sadist and bigot with no regard for reality, democracy, or the rule of law, a ranting idiot, and a corrupt womanizer. Of course, most of this is the exact opposite of their stated values, but if you know any evangelicals you know that saying one thing and doing the opposite is one of their defining traits.
artem1s
Except in some cases at least one of the parties understands that speaking to the other could lead to life imprisonment. Kelly was stupid to take on this post. He’s even stupider for not fleeing the scene of the crime months ago. It’s a mark of his ego and delusion that he could control things that he has stayed this long. He should go to prison just for negligence and dereliction of duty. Leavenworth, not some ClubFed prison.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like this presages some major news that Kelly wants to be gone for. He’s certainly endured this level of abuse before.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Hey! I have every reason to believe he’s a basically competent lying, white supremacist, misogynist asshole. Wait until you see how ineffectual his replacement is. Personally, I will be grateful for even less getting done in the White House.
JPL
@Emma: Not gonna happen .
this was Cicely Strong on SNL more that a year ago
“You’re doing too much. I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me.”
Kay
I wish Pelosi was our only lead negotiator. Schumer is terrible. I had high hopes for him because he ran the ’06 agenda after that wave but he’s bad and I wish he wasn’t in charge. I swear there is something about Donald Trump’s 50 year career in NYC that makes people who are in that orbit somehow horribly compromised regarding him. I would like anyone BUT Schumer.
JPL
@Frankensteinbeck: this
Tonight the trump’s dine with senior staff members. It will be telling if Kelly skips the event.
Lapassionara
@Frankensteinbeck: What do you mean by “getting things done.” We still have not finished our infrastructure week.
Good morning all.
JPL
@Kay: Elizabeth Warren could handle the job.
artem1s
@Frankensteinbeck:
Except that the GOP is holding onto a lot of evangelicals by the thin promise that once they get rid of their vulgar pimp, they will get the ‘good man’ Pence to atone for the sin of ignoring the means to accomplish their ends. Gun humping has lost a lot of suburban moms. taking children away from their parents a lot more. Trump only got elected because the Christian Taliban could hold their nose with Pence on the ticket. And the GOP provided the voter suppression (and probably tampering) in key districts to get the EC over the hump. Oh, and this is probably going to mean another 500-1000 point drop in the market. Christians only care about their money.
Aweb
If the Republicans don’t want president Pelosi, they’re smart to try and get a new vp on the ticket…Pence is pretty clearly going down if trump is. I just don’t think there’s a non-indictable candidate left to replace him…
Jeffro
@Fester Addams:
WIN
Man, Twitler is just melting. down. this morning. Going after all of them – Mueller, Comey, Ohr, etc etc. Twitter Dick Nixon says, “Coming for the son, I guess.” HERE’S HOPING!
Amir Khalid
The media has often given the impression that Kelly is Trump’s supervising adult. Whether Kelly is or not, that kind of coverage is bound to irritate Trump’s very thin skin. As it is, I’m a little suprised that Kelly has lasted this long as Chief of Staff.
A Ghost To Most
Thoughts and prayers, Gerson.
OzarkHillbilly
To be honest Betty, I would refuse to talk to trump as a matter of principle and do everything I could to get trump to stop speaking to me as a matter of survival. Of course, neither of those are Kelly’s motivations.
NotMax
Looks as if “Generals are the bestest peoples” is now non-operative.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: If the Mango Menace had half a brain, I can see him trying to pin the whole Russia conspiracy on Manafort and Pence…”they were in cahoots with Vlad, I had no idea, yadda yadda”. Except that Don Jr was obviously in on it, too. No idea how he would try to spin that…”they even misled my son, who had no idea he was breaking the law, so I am pardoning him”
It’s not even worth thinking about, really. Too much insanity and incompetence to try and game it all out. Just drop the indictments, Bobby Three Sticks!!
NotMax
No love lost between Kelly and Ivanka. This could be her Hanukkah present.
rikyrah
Patrick Healy (@patrickhealynyt) Tweeted:
SCOOP: Mark Harris campaign in N.C. owes $34,310 for disputed absentee ballot work, door-to-door efforts and poll workers in Bladen County in race’s final weeks, write @melbournecoal @alanblinder
https://t.co/PNhJwRJWT4 https://twitter.com/patrickhealynyt/status/1070928244243877890?s=17
hells littlest angel
@Amir Khalid: There’s not a decent human being working for Trump — and yet people claim he doesn’t vet his hires!
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: Seriously! “Entirely homeless”?!? Why not join America’s center-center party, Michael – Democrats are good people, we’ll let you in!
Ella in New Mexico
@Kay:
And babies in cages. Who represent themselves in court.
Related to John “Mike Flynn But Unwilling to Commit International Kidnapping for Millions”Kelley’s human stain on this Administration have you read this story about a fake Facebook page purporting to be a human rights advocate that seems to have been solely created and carefully tended to in order to push other activists to support as well as to fan the flames of the unsophisticated refugees from Central America to get them to join “The Caravan” right before the election? How conveeeeniet…
Of course Facebook refuses to say anything about who owns the account. Being such fine, upstanding stewards of media transparency and protecting the freedom of speech and all.
bemused
@Fester Addams:
Ha, winning comment!
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: Kelly probably will talk to B3STX the day after he leaves. So there’s that
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Isn’t Kelly among the senior aides/cabinet officials alleged to have called Trump “a fucking moron” or some other equally accurate and profane description? I think so, but it’s a rather large group, so I’m not sure.
NotMax
@hells littlest angel
AFAIK the White House chef is okay. And doesn’t serve blinis too often.
;)
MazeDancer
@rikyrah:
Can’t imagine why Trump wouldn’t replace Pence with Nikki Haley. Except Pence might sing to Mueller. Though, likely that big cold cash could buy Pence to leave.
Especially with the threat of exposing a Pence scandal. Maybe of the live boy, dead girl kind.
But Nick Ayers is a Pence guy. So, he may be a Pence plant.
Cermet
Good morning fellow jackals.
Some good news for a change (and of topic.)
The NASA Mars lander Insight has flexed and used its robotic arm. Critical milestone for the mission.
In other news, the German Wendalstein Stellarator 7-X (a fusion test bed) has achieved plasma densities required for a power plant and ran for over 100 seconds (using just hydrogen – the 7-X isn’t for power. ) This device is continuing to be upgraded for improvements in performance and in time, might just prove the concept will really work for controlled fusion. Unlike the joke called ITER, this device was built within its proposed budget – imagine that (damn germans; of course, they’d be the only ones capable of doing that.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: LOL Vetting a new WH gets spread around FBI offices all over the country, and in 2008 my FBI friend’s squad was charged with vetting the chef.
hells littlest angel
@MazeDancer: Pence REALLY wants to be president, and knows all he has to do is sit and wait for Trump to meet his doom. (My pollyannaish hope is that Trump resigns in January, Pence keels over dead from the shock of feeling pleasure for the first time in his life, and America is given the gift of President Nancy Smash.)
dmsilev
Rat abandoning sining ship, I assume.
MomSense
@JPL:
I’m sorry but I think our experience with unilaterally removing ourselves from trade deals and this fixation on tariffs disqualifies Sanders, Warren, Brown, and others from higher office, including minority leader.
Let’s just say Sanders coulda won and did win. He would have executed the same idiotic trade policies that are lurching us toward recession.
Trade did not end manufacturing jobs in this country. It has always been pandering on the part of the politicians who have promoted this BS. The reality is that we have competing values. We don’t want companies to pollute or to run unsafe operations. We want people to get paid fairly for their labor. Tax policy (the kind Hillary Clinton was talking about) would do more for manufacturing than isolationist trade policies.
When Obama said Liz Warren is a friend and he respects her but she is wrong about TPP he was being too fucking kind. She demagogued TPP and raised a ton of money on it.
NotMax
@Cermet
“We’ll get the money back from recycling magnetic bottles.”
:)
montanareddog
@MazeDancer:
. Indeed. He is addicted to his Identity politics world view – so white people plus the crucial Sikh-turned-Methodist demographic could just push him over the line.
Frankensteinbeck
@Lapassionara:
A whole lot of regulations have been stripped and minorities tortured. Meetings with foreign leaders have actually happened. People got fired. Trump only reversed his positions occasionally. Under Kelly, the White House has moved in a mostly consistent direction. It hasn’t been a good direction and a lot of that fizzed because Trump’s directions are all useless idiocy, but the process kinda sorta happened. I’m betting his replacement will lack Kelly’s ability to scare Trump into obedience or ruthlessness in keeping other advisors away, and we’ll see the kind of ineffectual spinning in circles that you see in Trump’s tweets.
Ken
@NotMax:
Mostly OK. Once in a while he can be found drunk in a bar, weeping and lamenting. “We used to have state dinners – gourmet meals – vegetables! Now it’s nothing but microwave Hot Pockets and ice cream.”
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
This.
MomSense
@Kay:
I don’t see why this is a problem. He’s calling for something trump will never agree to and seeming reasonable so that failure falls squarely on the slumped shoulders of Agent Orange. In the swing districts we picked up the democratic candidates were very careful to say they would work with the apricot asshole.
Chief Oshkosh
Kennesaw State University?So, a thinner, younger Newt. Maybe he’ll give Trump the same stellar advice that Newt followed. Shut the government down, lose the House (oh wait..), functionally resign your seat, retire to Wingnut Welfare.
Frankensteinbeck
@artem1s:
Have you been up close to many evangelical communities? They LOVE vulgar pimps. They LOVE the ‘Your Racist Uncle’ stereotype. They believe it’s a man’s right to screw around as widely as he can, especially a successful man. Mean-as-shit and dumb-as-shit rants get their blood thumping. They love corruption if it’s on their side, because they believe the world is supposed to cater to them. And nothing, nothing, is even close to as important to them as bigotry. Every time Trump says cops need to be more violent against blacks and the military should shoot immigrants at the border, little hearts float over their heads and they tell each other what a righteous and virtuous man he is. They’re very slightly embarrassed by how obvious he is in his vulgarity, because they like to claim they’re pure, but everything else about him is absolute perfection to them. His popularity with evangelicals is through the roof. He doesn’t need Pence anymore.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: I’m willing to give Warren (and at that point in time most Dems) a pass for throwing TPP Under the bus. It was DOA, it was not the political environment where a trade deal gets through. Not because I agree with her, but because politicians gonna politick.
Just Chuck
@artem1s:
I think The Hague would be more appropriate.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s not just TPP though. The constant messaging about trade and manufacturing has not been helpful.
Just Chuck
@Jeffro:
At which point Pence would break omerta and spill all the hard evidence he has on Cheetohlini. Manafort maybe not, he doesn’t like the taste of polonium after all.
Ladyraxterinok
@Frankensteinbeck: Evangelicals’ number 1 priority JUDGES. And T (with Mitch) has delivered!
Just Chuck
So we’ll go ahead and treat you fuckers like you usually treat the homeless, mkay?
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Co-sine
Frankensteinbeck
@Just Chuck:
Maybe. I’m not all that sure about this. It’s not that Pence has even a shred of loyalty. He’s just so god damn stupid. There’s nothing going on between those ears except ‘Read statement handed to me.’ I’m starting to think he’s innocent in the Russian collaboration because nobody had to suborn him. The people taking orders just had to tell Pence what to do.
germy
SFAW
@NotMax:
That’s just for the first day. On the seventh day (or so), she gets named CoS.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: I agree, but her actual policy shop is producing some very smart legislation to save capitalism from itself, which is my preferred stance and not one anybody else is taking. If we can get Warren-stan lefties on board with that it would be a big win.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Even communities of assholes aren’t monolithic. There are plenty of conservative evangelicals who think Trump is a genuinely bad person whom God is using to usher in an age of righteousness under a “godly” man such as Pence or someone like him.
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: Sounds like typical fundie “heads I win tails you lose” logic. Trying to debate these people is just pig wrestling.
SRW1
Has anyone dared tell Trump that he can’t fire Pence?
hueyplong
If Pence gives off the “wannabe President” vibe people suspect, Trump’s long-awaited stroke may come to pass soon. He probably suspects that Pence is “cooperating” with Mueller.
Quinerly
Bill Barr is the pick for next AG.
Jeffro
Just a reminder that a Democratic president tweeting violently against an institution, then a bomb threat being made towards that institution within an hour, would have been treated as if the Democratic president had built a bomb with his own two hands and left it at the institution. No scratch that…built it and then set it off.
This president* is calling for violence against the press and the FBI. And it will get more explicit in the days/hours ahead.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: As one of Warren’s constituents, I sent her a list of problems with the TPP as then negotiated, that would crap all over my line of work (well, me, and the small shops I usually contract to). She listened to us, at least, and I was pleased with her vote.
There are technical problems with most treaties; but there were some ugly IP gotchas in TPP that were not merely technical. They protected multinationals at the expense of startups and local custom shops. Since a huge amount of the US economy is vested in innovation, stifling said innovation is not in our interests.
Warren’s been amazing on “how capitalism ought to work and be sanely regulated. If we want to do something useful, replace Schumer with Warren.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Gelfling 545
@rikyrah: So Pence’s views on impeachment may have altered significantly. He’s been practicing saying “President Pence” all along, I’m sure. Best to get Trump out before Trump gets him out.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Yeah…Schumer sucks.
Gin & Tonic
@Cermet: Ages ago I listened to a friend, an actual physics PhD, and put some money in a company that was doing some cutting-edge fusion stuff – I think micro-encapsulation or something. Needless to say, that money is long gone.
Isn’t the line that commercial fusion has been 20 years away for the last 50 years or something?
germy
@Jeffro:
schrodingers_cat
I will believe this when Kelly actually leaves. He leaks about his impending departure at regular intervals to garner sympathy.
artem1s
@Betty Cracker:
thanks Betty, you said it better. This has been my experience of family who understood perfectly well what a pig Trump is, but they held their nose because they hate Hillary and Pence is a ‘godly’ man who has proven he will pass their religious test over and over. They pretty much tell themselves that they are already running the country and have marginalized the President because Pence has his ear on matters they care about. As soon as Trump start to cost them followers, money and power, the Robertsons, Grahams, and Falwells will dump him as a fallen soul and irredeemable. They believe Pence is going to come out of this squeaky clean.
germy
@Jeffro:
schrodingers_cat
@germy: No. There is no need to dignify that Orange Clown.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: But was his PhD in nuclear physics?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Child snatching at the border is his major contribution to this train wreck.
p.a.
@Gin & Tonic: Kind of like Iran’s nukes, which have been 5 yrs away since the hostage crisis.
On Trump turnover: if he stays in office full term, they’ll be down to recruiting Kentucky snake-handling churchers.
different-church-lady
As long as he’s replaced by someone burly enough to rip the nuclear football out of Trump’s clutches, I’m good with it.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Whitaker!
Cheryl Rofer
@Gin & Tonic: Fusion is the energy source of the future and always will be!
jonas
Stephen Miller and John Kelly are easily the most toxic people in Trump’s orbit — both stone-cold racist assholes who enjoyed playing to Trump’s worst, most bigoted instincts. If both of them were to somehow disappear, Trump would still be a cretinous buffoon, but perhaps a slightly less evil one. One down, one to go.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Astro, if I recall.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
David Jolly tweeted that if Jeffrey Epstein was trump’s next nominee for Supreme Court, the entire Senate Gop would confirm him.
I have no doubt Fundies who think trump is genuinely bad would have no issues with a serial pedophile like Epstein on the Supreme Court either even if they found out he or Trump paid for abortions.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: Free beer tomorrow! How are your beautiful kittehs?
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Then he should know all about nuclear fusion.
different-church-lady
@MomSense:
The problem isn’t that we traded goods: the problem is we traded jobs — we sent the jobs overseas because the people who move the world’s levers thought labor monocultures would be just fine. So deal all those icky jobs where people actually make things over there, and we’ll take their brains, thank you very much.
They didn’t care that they couldn’t move the actual populations around that easily.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: There we go.
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed. Oh, it could happen. But I’ve noticed that lazy people tend to not fire the folks who are doing all the work they’re supposed to be doing, not matter how pissed they get.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: OK, caveat: someone burly enough and with the will to do so.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, but there’s the old saw about theory and practice.
different-church-lady
@jonas:
He’d still be just as evil.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
isn’t the ‘winner’ in that NC House seat a Reverend?
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe :)
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: True but he would be less efficient at executing those evil intentions.
ETA: I see you already said that.
MomSense
@different-church-lady:
We also created tax incentives to move those jobs overseas. They don’t have to pay those workers, make sure their factories are safe, or control the waste and pollution generated from the manufacturing process.
Jay C
BTW, since I brought the subject up downthread, here’s some more info on the arrest of Meng Wanzhou (Apparently AKA “Sabrina Meng” and/or “Cathy Meng”. And, unsurprisingly, she’s the daughter of Huawei’s founder (corporate nepotism: in China, even! Imagine that!).
This from CNN
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Its the old Milton Friedman argument of maximizing shareholder wealth at any cost taken to its logical extreme. Payroll is seen as an expense to be cut to the bone.
Kathleen
@MomSense: Cue Maggie The Hack: “Insiders marvel at Trump’s ability to march to the beat of his own drummer”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: the head of the state GOP said on the Hayes show last night that he knows Harris wouldn’t take part in a scam because he ‘brings people to Christ’.
Madison wept.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
We humans are a resource to be exploited.
@Kathleen:
Can’t wait to find it what the Russians found on the NYT servers. Bet it’s juicy stuff.
Kathleen
@artem1s: I have thought Evangelicals’ embrace of Trump was because of Pence and their ardor may wane should Pence be dropped
PaulWartenberg
NEW AVENGERS TRAILER OUT AND
it’s kinda underwhelming.
Mostly the surviving characters talking to themselves or each other. Very little action.
Someone else I chat with on Facebook noticed that NONE of the POC – especially the surviving Black Panther characters – show up in this trailer.
The only good thing is we see Hawkeye is back… but he’s broken (meaning his family was snapped out!).
My final complaint: DAMMIT WHERE IS DRUMMER ANT! HE HAS TO BE THERE TO FIGHT THANOS TO AVENGE ALL ANTS!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kathleen: the first time trump tried to get rid of Sessions, he backed down because he was warned about losing the bible thumpers, by the time he actually did it, crickets. I guess Kavanaugh was a splashy enough show of loyalty, and a lot of lower court appointments that most people don’t pay attention to
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Always have been. Feudalism says hello!
Kathleen
@MomSense: I agree with you and Brown is my Dem Senator. I would not support him for President because of his agreeing with Trump on tariff policy. I think he’s an excellent senator though for my taste he criticized Obama too much and also piled on Hillary. But President, no.
Ben Cisco
@rikyrah: You had him pegged from the get go.
Cermet
@Gin & Tonic: Yes and most approaches fail and for very easy to understand reasons that most average “physicist” would point out (and did but where ignored. Iter will fail because of cost alone.)
Except for recently, the problems facing successful fusion was rather unknown so most people thought it was doable – and, of course, failed. Times have changed – fusion test reactors have broken even and the issues are far better understood; hence, the stellarator design. Previously, the issue was the magnets. Until very recently, they were beyond our technological abilities – no more.
So, while the W-7X is working better than design and offers a viable road to fusion in principle. Numerous reasons it might fail but so far, it is working exactly as designed and thanks to twenty years of tokamac work, plasma dynamics is no longer the black art it once was. Comparing past failures to today ins’t exactly right – even ITER will most likely work if its cost over runs don’t sink the project (it keeps doubling like Moore’s law.)
Unlike any fusion project to date, The W-7X has been on budget, has steadily been improving and has followed predicted performance as given by theory very well- this is an accomplishment rare in fusion research but not surprising. All those billion dollars of research has advanced the field by orders of magnitude compared to years ago. The stellarator design is a difficult approach due to design issues but it overcomes plasma instabilities due to its complex configuration.
Only with today’s advancements in plasma physics, super computers and computer design mfg. has this concept become feasible – not unlike comparing a 1930’s plane to a 1950’s jet; in twenty years, advances in science. engineering, and materials allowed a quantum jump in performance.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: @Kathleen: I have no idea why Warren and Brown are competing to be Smoot-Hawley of the 21st century.
NonyNony
@Kathleen: I honestly don’t think so. I think that when Trump ran the first time he needed to have someone on the ticket to bring the evangelicals along, but the evangelicals I know have fallen into one of two camps with Trump/Pence – there’s the couple that I know who are truly religious who were utterly appalled at the how he’s been treating immigrants into the country and it’s like the scales have fallen from their eyes and suddenly there’s a whole lot of ugly things going on in the Republican party that they never noticed before. (I’m happy that they’re finally noticing this but come on – you’re 50 years old! It’s not like you’re a babe fresh from the woods – you didn’t notice because you didn’t bother to look. But oh well – I’m just happy that they’re figuring it out).
But that’s just one couple. Everyone else is all in on Trump. They have embraced him and they feel that God is working through him no matter what his flaws might be. Pence holds no attraction for them – they’re sure that Trump is God’s instrument and he’s going to make this country great again! They’re also sure that Jesus is coming back any time now and that Trump is paving the way for it. (Of course, it’s the anti-Christ who is supposed to be paving the way for Jesus’s return, so maybe they have a point?)
NonyNony
@Kathleen:
I also would not support him as President because losing that seat means giving it up to a Republican permanently.
I want him to be like Howard Metzenbaum – retire from that seat and keep the Republicans away from it.
Gin & Tonic
@Cermet: Quantum jump. Heh.
Kathleen
@MomSense: To quote @rikyrah: Bwaaa Haaaaaa Haaaaa.
Betty Cracker
Senators Brown and Warren don’t “agree with Trump on tariffs” in any meaningful sense. Trump is a moron who literally believes that the Chinese government is transferring currency to the US Treasury to pay for access to our market. By contrast, Brown and Warren know what tariffs are and are capable of conducting negotiations, so I suspect their approaches to the tariff issue would be markedly different from Trump’s, and even if you disagreed with their strategy, it would be clear that they had one.
Jay C
@Jay C:
There was also an article at gizmodo about the Meng Wanzhou flap: but I lost the ability to type on the comment box after I posted the CNN link: I could only “Post Comment”, and had to reload the site again (I think I complained about this yesterday).
Anyone else having this problem?
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good point and I think you’ve made a good case. I’m basing my assessment on anecdotal data based on random comments I’ve heard from random Evangelicals I know on Facebook.
rikyrah
@Ben Cisco:
not me…
schrodingers_cat
had him pegged from the beginning. ….was the first to point out that Kelly was in favor of family separation…
tobie
Curious that Ayers comes from Kennesaw State U. KSU managed Georgia’s hackable voting system. Maybe Ayers specializes in vote rigging.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kathleen: also, too, I should say: I’ll believe he’s dropping Pence when he drops Pence
trollhattan
@NonyNony:
They embrace Trump as reliably anti-baby killing (let’s not take time to consider how he has conducted himself the last, oh, 60 years) and more importantly, appointing anti-baby killing judges. Pence plays no meaningful role in whether they’ll vote Trump, they’ll vote Trump.
catclub
@Ella in New Mexico:
Mr Murderbritches could!
catclub
@tobie: I noticed that Ayers is MUCH younger than the average Trump hire.
He prefers too old.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@PaulWartenberg: Oh good, a chance to talk about something consequential.
We watched Infinity War in the theater but were evacuated before the ending. My wife later saw the whole thing on a plane and told me what happened at the end, and so I lost any interest in actually seeing it. I’m glad to hear there’s a part 2 and so I guess eventually Thanos gets it, but I’m feeling kind of meh.
catclub
@NonyNony:
“I was born at night, but not last night.”
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: It could be because Ohio has lost so many manufacturing jobs. Perception among many is that trade agreements are the culprits. My sense is that Brown genuinely buys into this and is not pandering. It may have helped his reelection bid since he was only Dem to win statewide. I need to research demographic breakdown of his voters.
Kathleen
@NonyNony: I did not consider the reasoning that Trump as anti Christ is ushering in end times. I always thought they considered Obama the anti Christ which made him evil and unacceptable. I guess for some strange reason Obama was a less acceptable Anti Christ.
Kathleen
@NonyNony: Yes I totally agree.
schrodingers_cat
@Kathleen: Restrictionist trade policies like tariffs and quotas usually backfire. Tariffs reduce the volume traded, which in turn shrinks the economy.
Smoot-Hawley (tariffs) and Johnson-Reed (immigration restriction) have returned. Must we keep making the same fucking mistakes again and again.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Sherrod Brown has applauded T for his tariffs both in the press and on his official senate website. He does agree with T’s tariffs, he has said so himself.
Platonailedit
Merkel’s choice elected ruling party leader.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Thanks r! and you have had my back on this one right from the get go, when I was getting a lot of grief for impugning the noble general’s honor. It was frustrating to wait for people to catch on to the evil Kelly represented.
A Ghost To Most
@NonyNony:
Christian fascism is a helluva drug.
Amir Khalid
@Kathleen:
Is that to say he is as ignorant of economics as his constituents?
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@A Ghost To Most: Gott Mitt Uns
dogwood
@schrodingers_cat:
Warren and Brown use protectionism as a political tool to attract white working class voters. And it speaks to racial anxiety as much as it does to economic anxiety. Competing with POC at any endeavor, be it home or abroad, is the ultimate threat to a significant share of these voters.
Kathleen
@Amir Khalid: Good question. While I don’t understand Econpmics, I intuitively understand that countries heavily depend on each other and radical abrupt changes to that ecosystem can result in corporate upheaval and chaos
7111929″>schrodingers_cat:I was surprised by his open support of Trump. I thought he was more knowledgeable than that.
schrodingers_cat
@Kathleen: Smoot-Hawley was one of the big drivers of the Great Depression.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
The only not bad thing I ever thought about Flynn was that he and Mattis supposedly would stop Trump from launching nukes. He announced his racism at his DHS confirmation hearing.
He’s the prototypical Boston racist.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Again, Brown understands what tariffs are, and Trump does not. I realize it’s a nuanced point, but it’s an important one, IMO. Saying that there’s no daylight between Trump and Brown (or Warren) on tariffs is just plain wrong.
Kathleen
@dogwood: I will say Brown values the African American base as well. The first time I heard him speak was at the African American Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati. Then on a tele townhall a caller went into what about we white guys who lost our jobs mode and Brown tactfully interjected that African Americans and Hispanics had also lost their jobs so I don’t consider him a Slanders wannabe though I did read that he and Slanders were “good friends”.
Gravenstone
@Jeffro: Donnie doesn’t need to come to that plan himself. I’m sure his buddy Vlad will be happy to suggest it to him. It’s not like Donnie came up with the ‘adoptions’ lie on his own, after all.
Betty Cracker
@dogwood: Or maybe they really believe China’s subsidizing the steel sector puts US workers at a disadvantage. I mean, that’s a possibility, isn’t it?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I am not saying that. I am saying that his support of the tariff policy is wrong, based on economic arguments.
Burnspbesq
@Quinerly:
My initial read is to be mildly amazed that Trump didn’t pick someone much worse.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: My dad who majored in history mentioned Smoot Hawley frequently. I need to read more about it. Thanks to so many well read and informed jackals (plus onset of old age) I realize more and more how much I don’t know.
dogwood
@Kathleen:
I’m sure Brown values the POC who compromise a significant share of the base.. My comment was about what motivates the WWC voter.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Reasonable people can and do disagree on tariffs. But there are folks in this thread saying Brown shouldn’t ever be president because he agrees with Trump on tariffs and that Brown is pandering to white folks with his tariff support. I think that’s bollocks. YMMV.
Kathleen
@dogwood: Thanks for further explanation. I’ve been jumping a few guns recently!
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: It doesn’t matter why he is doing it, he is supporting T’s tariffs based on spurious economic logic. That tariffs and protectionist policies don’t work and trade makes everyone better off is the entire basis of economics, right from Adam Smith. These policies have a name, mercantilism and have been proven time and again to be a failure. No reasonable people do not disagree about this. That tariffs work is a fringe opinion in economics.
Our current problem is that capital has become much more powerful than labor. T’s tariffs do nothing to address that imbalance. This is like arguing the benefits of a bleeding cure. All it is going to do is make the patient weak.
Shana
@hells littlest angel: MY pollyannish hope is that both Trump and Pence (as head of the transition team) get caught up and impeached at the same time so we end up with President Pelosi. If they aren’t taken out together one of them gets to name a new VP, right?
Doug R
@MomSense:
Maybe it’s spending my working life in the transport industry, but trade is LIFE. It helps everyone if done right and helps prevent wars.
Our unions shouldn’t have been pushing for higher tariffs, they should have been pushing for legislation overseas that guarantees workers the right to organize and bargain collectively for a living wage.
Instead these “socialists” practiced a version of the trumpian “I got mine, screw the rest of the world”.
Cathie from Canada
Oh Gawd, not another opportunity for the Washington press to do stories on “Washington’s new youngest power broker” and how his “learning curve is just so steep but he can do it because his heart is in the right place!” and “hey he’s single ladies!” and on and on and on — and just in time for Christmas, too!
Lordy I hope Kelly will write a book.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
I suspect we will discover a couple of currently unknown methods of useful fusion just after the substances needed to execute those methods are no longer routinely available – like helium, used up on party balloons, for example. This is part of the “God is an Iron” philosophy…
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Yes, yes he is. I keep saying this and people wouldn’t believe me.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not an economist, but if you’re saying that tariffs are always bad and have no place in modern economics under any circumstances, ever, I think you’re the one who holds the fringe view.
Doug R
@Betty Cracker:
We’re not saying that some tariffs to counteract dumping and help retraining shouldn’t be there, it’s that healthy trade markets tend to eliminate tariffs.
One of the best trade agreements ever was the Auto Pact which treated all cars and car parts assembled in the USA and Canada as the same country until the car was sold. Of course trump had to f*ck with that.
Betty Cracker
@Doug R: Maybe you’re not saying that, but schrodingers cat sure seems to be at #151. I’ll admit my understanding of economics is rudimentary, but I think most mainstream economists agree tariffs can be useful in certain circumstances, such as to curtail bad behavior. You seem to be saying that yourself, and I agree.
Mnemosyne
Back to the post topic:
I’m going to lay down a marker now: if Kelly resigns, then Nielsen either resigns or is fired within two weeks of his last day. Anyone want to take the other side of the bet?
TenguPhule
@MomSense: The flaw in your theory is that Schumer does not live in a swing district.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll bet that Nielson goes before Kelly.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer: Well played.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Why? Because you say so? Can you give an example when tariffs on imported goods have produced job growth?
Is Paul Krugman fringe too?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/opinion/paul-krugman-aluminum-steel-trade-tariffs.html
The stuff about tariffs and quotas is not under debate, its Econ 101 stuff. You can refer to almost any intro econ book including Krugman’s for this stuff.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: We are not discussing tariffs in the abstract. T is using them as a major tool for his trade policy. Its indiscriminate and stupid and it is going to backfire. And for whatever reasons Sherrod Brown is supporting this idiocy and he is wrong. His noble intentions don’t matter.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Targeted tariffs aren’t about jobs growth. They’re about economic punishment for national bad behavior.
In theory, properly applied tariffs work to either reduce imports of the targeted product or make it less economically viable and allowing domestic competitors to compete. Like the anti-dumping that President Obama imposed against China on certain classes of steel.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: I know that but that’s Peter Navarro’s and T’s argument. T has argued that his tariffs are going to bring back jobs.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Your initial post that kicked all of this off was not entirely clear on that.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Tariffs under the current administration, and his frequent blathering about the trade deficit leads me to think that T is operating under the mercantilist fallacy, of imports bad, exports good. Tariffs are good because they make imports more expensive.
ETA: It also tickles the xenophobia of the MAGA base because they get to stick it to those damn foreigners.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Perhaps, it was a comment on blog not a peer reviewed paper, or a phd thesis. Hard to discuss these things clearly without math and graphs.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: No argument here. I believe Adam may have already done a post or two of that last year, IIRC.
Trump is incapable of any other world view then “For me to win, others must lose.”
low-tech cyclist
So who fires Kelly, anyway? We know Trump doesn’t have the stones for it.
Chris Johnson
Krugman says,
Absolutely. But that’s not the argument I’m seeing in this thread over and over. I’m seeing a lot of ‘free trade at all costs, everybody is totally global now guys’.
This only makes money for capital holders and is exactly why the working class is deeply fucked. It’s not morally or politically wrong to acknowledge that, regardless of whether you like Trump’s childish and probably traitorous tariff behavior. I personally think it’s just a front for screwing the economy, BUT in many ways the economy deserves to be screwed and made to work differently.
Trump won’t be doing that. He’ll be breaking things and leaving largely unchallenged the underlying concepts that the working class gets screwed, and capital holders like (supposedly) him end up with all the money.
Too many people in this thread agree that people like Trump should end up with all the money and the working class should be screwed if they can’t sew as fast as Bangladesh. I don’t buy it. And if you call it economic unquestioned orthodoxy… maybe that’s kind of the whole problem.
Patricia Kayden
It’s so sad that a racist liar has to leave his job which consisted solely of kissing another racist liar’s butt. What a way to end one’s lengthy career. Rep Frederica Wilson should stop by Kelly’s office just as he’s leaving to laugh in his face.
Chris Johnson
More Krugman:
This is also why running deficits is sensible as a geopolitical act: to blindly consume the totally hypocritical Republican line that deficits are evil and bad is a horrible mistake. Don’t people around here know they’re fucking liars by now? The idea is to have your GDP grow faster than the proportion of debt, ideally by investing heavily in the country’s infrastructure and ability to spend/consume. You become indispensable to the world that way. Krugman understands this part (also see Mark Blyth).
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@A Ghost To Most:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1070742514506846208
MomSense
@TenguPhule:
No one else wants the job. He’s not speaking for just his district.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: That’s a Megan McArdle response. ? The entire fucking point is that people have different motives for advocating tariffs. No one is disputing that Trump is an idiot who doesn’t understand what tariffs do — that’s a baseline assumption I am confident we all share.
But advocating for the use of tariffs does not necessarily mean buying into Trump’s idiocy, even if Trump is the one imposing the tariffs. President Obama slapped tariffs on Chinese rubber, IIRC. Is he an idiot? No. Might he have been wrong to use tariffs to change China’s behavior? Very possible! Sherrod Brown might be wrong on steel tariffs. The point is, reasonable people can disagree on that, despite your insistence to the contrary.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You can call me names if that makes you feel clever but it does not change the fact, that Sherrod Brown supports this President’s tariffs. This is from the senate.gov site
ETA: This is not going to protect steel jobs in Ohio.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Did the tariffs Obama imposed achieve their intended goal?
schrodingers_cat
Econ 101 treatment of tariffs. Their economic efficacy to produce jobs is dubious at best. It is more a punitive policy tool than one intended to produced job growth.
You can play economics as a zero sum game, or a win-win game. Sometimes the zero-sum game can also turn into a lose-lose game.
Sticking it to China and those furriners may also hurt us in the end.
-McCardle without the high paying gig signing out.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I didn’t call you a name — I said your response was McArdle-like. I stand by that assessment — gastritis broke my calculator, etc. And since you keep missing the entire fucking point — which is not that tariffs are good but rather that reasonable people can disagree on whether they’ll work in a specific situation, a possibility that you condescendingly foreclosed above — I’ll sign out of this thread too as further conversation is obviously pointless.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You called my response a Megan McCardle response and now you are saying it is like gastritis broke my calculator. And while my initial comment may have been unclear. I tried to explain my position in subsequent comments. I find your characterization grossly unfair when I have explained my position based on economics and not resorted to name calling like you have.
1. Sherrod Brown is on board with T’s current tariffs, it says so on his senate website
2. A link to an Econ 101 explanation why tariffs are bad economic policy
3. And a game theory rationale for why that is so.
4. You invoked Obama’s tariffs, but it is not at all clear to me that they achieved the economic objectives they set out to achieve. They were tariffs on Chinese made tires, not broad tariffs like the one imposed by the current administration.