Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

In my day, never was longer.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The willow is too close to the house.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I really should read my own blog.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / You Do Understand Why He is Doing This, Don’t You?

You Do Understand Why He is Doing This, Don’t You?

by | 111 Comments

This post is in: 

Cheryl wrote about the administration’s attempts to nuclearize the Middle East, but I just want to make sure something is crystal clear. Obviously, there are probably a ton of people trying to get filthy rich off this, and I am sure someone promised Trump or his family money somehow for this, but I think it is super important we remember why Trump signed off on this and is letting people pursue it.

It’s because one of Obama’s major issues was nuclear proliferation. It’s something he was interested in and pursued as a Senator, it is something he talked about frequently, and something he believe was extremely important. It’s one of the first things he pursued in 2009 in Prague, it’s why he worked so hard to achieve the Iran deal, it’s why he was very focused on the 2016 Nuclear Summit- it was a big deal for him.

Obviously, like everything, his record did not meet his goals, but goals are, you know, aspirational. But it was very, very important to him.

And that’s why Trump is doing everything he can to dismantle it. Sure, there are hawks who wanted to kill the Iran deal for a variety of reasons, but for Trump, it was because Obama’s admin negotiated it. It’s why Trump walked away from the INF. It’s why he is ok with this.

Everything Trump does is about Trump- of course he is surrounded by enablers and opportunists who realize he is a dolt who can be used to achieve their own ends, but Obama humiliated Trump at the WHCD several years ago, so everything that Obama has done must be destroyed.

It’s important we remember that with a narcissist and a sociopath like Trump, the motives are always right there in the open. There’s no reason to wrap yourself around an axle trying to figure out why Trump would be ok with this. It’s that simple- he’s doing it because Obama would oppose it. It’s the same with the fucking ACA and everything else.

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  3. 3.

    Zelma

    It’s hard to accept that this is true, but the more I watch Trump, the more convinced I become that his overriding goal is to destroy Obama’s legacy. What a sicko! It must drive him crazy that Obama remains the most admired American man. Well, drive him crazier.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    It’s important we remember that with a narcissist and a sociopath like Trump, the motives are always right there in the open. There’s no reason to wrap yourself around an axle trying to figure out why Trump would be ok with this. It’s that simple- he’s doing it because Obama would oppose it. It’s the same with the fucking ACA and everything else.

    Golly gee. I hope this doesn’t hurt Trump’s chances for a Nobel Peace Prize.

    I absolutely agree with John Cole’s sentiments here. It’s almost like a bad Twilight Zone episode that we live in a world in which a Child Emperor inches us closer to total destruction as he plays ego games and tries in vain to prove that he is superior to a black man.

    God damn, I would love to see the history books a hundred years from now to see how historians viewed this era (and obviously, I’m an optimist here since I believe that we will survive Trump’s infantile madness).

  5. 5.

    Steve in the ATL

    On a related note, it is NOT OK to wear light brown shoes with a navy blue suit.

    Also, I am straight, for the record. As far as my wife knows.

  6. 6.

    Waldo

    If that’s all it is, why not just pay a couple of Russian hookers to pee on the nonproliferation treaty?

  7. 7.

    Zelma

    @Yutsano:

    Re Thiessen, I never read him because he’s been such a Trump stooge, but I too was drawn in by the headline. I haven’t read the comments but think I’ll go check them out. I’m an inveterate comment reader especially here.

  9. 9.

    Aleta

    (NYT) As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year … … Mr. Trump [asked] Matthew G. Whitaker, whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call.

    Mr. Whitaker, who had privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade” for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused himself from the investigation. The president … soon complained about [Mr. Whitaker’s] inability to pull levers at the Justice Department that could make the president’s many legal problems go away.
    …
    Mr. Whitaker, who this month told a congressional committee that Mr. Trump had never pressured him over the various investigations, is now under scrutiny by House Democrats for possible perjury.

    An examination by The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.

    The president has … diverted attention from a growing body of evidence that he has tried to impede the various investigations.
    …
    Julie O’Sullivan, a criminal law professor at Georgetown University, said she believed there was ample public evidence that Mr. Trump had the “corrupt intent” to try to derail the Mueller investigation, the legal standard for an obstruction of justice case.

    But this is far from a routine criminal investigation, she said, and Mr. Mueller will have to make judgments about the effect on the country of making a criminal case against the president. Democrats in the House have said they will wait for Mr. Mueller to finish his work before making a decision about whether the president’s behavior warrants impeachment.

    In addition to the Mueller investigation, there are at least two other federal inquiries that touch the president and his advisers — the Manhattan investigation focused on the hush money payments made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, and an inquiry examining the flow of foreign money to the Trump inaugural committee.

  10. 10.

    jl

    Well, some guy named Ronald Wilson Reagan decided to make non-proliferation and arms control agreements a big issue too, back in the day. And the same kinds of profiteers and war junkies fought him tooth and nail on the issue, back in the day. Reagan was proclaimed by the always pro-war crowd to be not a true conservative, and betraying what he supposedly stood for, etc.

    Reagan, despite all his other problems, and not being the sharpest blade the drawer, was able to stand up to them. Maybe he finally understood all the arms races that nearly lead to catastrophe and kept the world on the brink during the 1980s, long after any real need, were not worth it.

    Reagan made a couple of big and right decisions, particualrly wrt to USSR/Russia, that rescued his administration, IMHO, from a GW Bush style disaster. Even if he kept up dabbling in sheer evil in, for example, Central America.

    Of course that was the actual historical Ronald Reagan, not the zombie myth Reagan political deity waved around by the current crop of reactionaries. And, waved around in a disgustingly disrespectful and cynical way, even if you are very down on Reagan overall, who did vast harm with domestic policy and cynical use of race and other social divides as political tools, as I believe.

    Probably no hope to get someone in Trump’s ear to explain that. No one to do it, or beyond Trump’s meager comprehension.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    An ambulatory, shambling, incoherent representation of Cleek’s Law carved out of low-grade beef tallow and congealed bile.

  16. 16.

    sdhays

    I’m going to slightly disagree – while he definitely wants to destroy everything Obama built, I don’t believe that the ASSet can spell “proliferation”, let alone comprehends what it means. I doubt he knows that Obama considered it really important since it wasn’t something particularly demagogued on Fox “News” (beyond the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which was about Iran-hatred not anti-non-proliferation). I think his nuclear agenda is more pure corruption and treason rather than Obama-related.

    To the extent he is aware, it’s just icing on the cake.

  17. 17.

    jl

    @Pogonip: ‘ What happened at the groomer? ”
    Cole survived. Everything else is trivia, unless you are into blood and gore porn for shits and giggles.

  18. 18.

    Leto

    @schrodingers_cat: True, but I also think Trumpov believes that if the ni-CLANG can do it, then surely he can do it better! Plus Obama said some mean things about him once, so he needs to shit on everything Obama ever did. If he can dismantle Obama’s signature accomplishments, well it’s all good! If it also helps his bosses goals, well that’s the real cherry on top.

  20. 20.

    jl

    @JaySinWA: Thanks for the reminder. Trump is influenced by Russia and Saudi Arabia.

    But with Trump it is always just more bad news. Old media clips show Trump committed to lots of ignorant irresponsible and fantastical BS on international trade and finance, international security issues, for decades.

    Besides die hard bigot, die hard ignorant and stupid nutcase is deep in the marrow of his bones. Whatever deals he as with whatever countries is just layered on top of that bone deep nuttery.

  22. 22.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Betty Cracker:

    An ambulatory, shambling, incoherent representation of Cleek’s Law carved out of low-grade beef tallow and congealed bile.

    Not to quibble, but I think you are giving him too much credit here.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    Jeez, John, it’s almost as if you think the Traitor-in-Chief might also be racist. Naturally, you’d be worng, because Shitgibbon itself has said it’s “the least racist person ever!”

  25. 25.

    Patricia Kayden

    It’s because one of Obama’s major issues was nuclear proliferation.

    Shouldn’t nuclear proliferation be everyone’s major issue given how devastating a nuclear war would be? Stopping nuclear weapons from getting into the wrong hands should be a nonpartisan issue. Sigh.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:
    Mitch’s final revenge? Even though the bastard won easily I seldom enjoyed anything more than Lundergan Grimes carving his saggy ass into slivers during that barn thing they do in Kentucky.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    I think these things tend to be overdetermined. There are several different groups each of which has a reason for wanting something to happen, and it happens when they all get together. So there are hawks who want to use Saudi Arabia as a bulwark against Iran, nuclear power plant builders who want business, etc. They’re able to talk Trump into taking their side by selling it as undoing Obama’s signature achievement, but he is the one being convinced to go along, not the one doing the convincing. He wouldn’t know that nuclear nonproliferation was a big issue for Obama if the people who wanted it undone weren’t telling him that.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @Baud:
    Is this another instance of limiting a political position instead of dealing with the person in the position? Because that always turns out great.

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Boner too. Boner been screwing over ant-nuclear proliferation treaties since the Reagan admin. It’s like idiots think the game Fallout is some kind of goal and not a warning.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: +1.

    The Saudis want a nuclear weapon yesterday because nobody’s gone to war with Iran yet – if they can’t buy a few from Pakistan, they want to build their own. The DeVos/Prince clan wants to get their private army mojo going again; Flynn and Manafort and all the rest of the grifters still want their piece of the pie; and Donnie wants his giant hotels in Riyadh and the Emirates and everywhere else the oligarchs have money stashed away.

    It is indeed over-determined. I don’t think Donnie cares about Obama any more, accomplishments or no (‘Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That’s it: you just tell them and they believe. They just do.’).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    Mary G

    I am so petty that when President Obama tweets something like remembering the anniversary of the Parkland massacre, I always want to quote tweet it at the current occupant of the WH, with a message like: his tweet got 479K likes and yours only got 72K. How’s it feel to be so much less popular?

  44. 44.

    Yarrow

    @rikyrah: The comments on that tweet are something. They’re all, “Nope. It’s all lies. More women and POC support Bernie than anyone else.” I’m not making the effort to see if they’re bots but either way they’re swarming.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Yarrow:

    It’s probably technically true because all the polls right now are about name recognition. Biden is the front runner in every poll for that reason.

  48. 48.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    Wilmer’s campaign is crowing about big haul of $$$ today and claiming they surpassed Kamala Harris’ first day donors in only 4 hours or some such nonsense. No word on how much of his haul is laundered Russian money. Anyway, the craziness inspired me to finally get off the dime and make smallish contributions to my top three current faves, namely Warren, Klobuchar and Harris. Gawd I hope we are smarter this time around.

  50. 50.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    Not to derail, but has anybody seen “Justice” Thomas’ call for a “reconsideration” of libel law regarding public figures?

  51. 51.

    Aleta

    Kushner connection

    (Salon from Raw Story and Wapo)
    Of particular interest in the report is the revelation that the Saudi nuke sales could have benefited Kushner, whose family in 2017 was desperate to secure investment capital at a troubled property in Manhattan.

    “The Cummings report notes that one of the power plant manufacturers that could benefit from a nuclear deal, Westinghouse Electric, is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, the company that provided financial relief to the family of Jared Kushner,” the Post writes. “Brookfield Asset Management took a 99-year lease on the family’s deeply indebted New York City property at 666 Fifth Avenue.”

  52. 52.

    geg6

    Yep.

    And just letting you all know that my John is home. It really was a very minor stroke. Few restrictions other than a couple weeks off work and outpatient speech therapy. Will be eating an aspirin every day and taking Plavix for the next month or so. They expect full recovery and don’t see any issues with any blockages. All his numbers are great. Said it was probably a minuscule blood vessel in the verbal part of his brain that got clogged with an even more minuscule clot and it may never cause another problem. Thank the FSM! And thanks to all the Jackals who sent good thoughts.

  53. 53.

    cmorenc

    @John Cole:

    Everything Trump does is about Trump- of course he is surrounded by enablers and opportunists who realize he is a dolt who can be used to achieve their own ends, but Obama humiliated Trump at the WHCD several years ago, so everything that Obama has done must be destroyed.

    Just as pretty much, the next Democratic Presidential administration is going to have to use an unfortunately huge portion of its political capital and time in office to undo most of what Trump did in his (hopefully) four or fewer years in office. Should we get a Senate majority and keep our house majority, it will also be essential to neuter McConnell’s ability to destructively impair this essential reconstruction and reform the democrats must successfully undertake.

  58. 58.

    ruemara

    @trollhattan: I call Paste “Eat Paste”, because they have content like that.

    I don’t think this is about Obama. I believe it’s two-fold. He loves the idea of holding the power of life & death. It’s in everything he does & says. He also aligns with dictators. Not with America. With him as the autocratic ruler of America. And the GOP are doing nothing to prevent this, because they know they’ve nearly finished fucking over democracy and gotten to be the rulers through court appointments and appointees in government. They’re mostly done with their coup. It’s just a matter of time. Being a huge asshole country willing to destroy the planet with a surplus of nuclear weapons appeals to them all the way to the youngest fuck yeah conservative.

  60. 60.

    plato

    Majority of murkkka had, and still has, Obama Derangement Syndrome and the rabid racist pos is their natural shithead.

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Leto:

    Justice Thomas, in other words, insists on rigid adherence to the original understanding of the First Amendment when the primary beneficiaries of existing doctrine are journalists. But he takes a very different view when the primary beneficiaries are wealthy donors and the sort of politicians who win elections thanks to wealthy donors. Thomas’ originalism is an originalism of convenience. And it aligns perfectly with the interests of America’s most famously illiberal politician.

    The hypocrisy is so blatant. Justice Thomas is a political hack and he doesn’t care that it shows. This is just another reason why the next Democratic President must expand SCOTUS.

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
    I am not necessarily against it. The current standard allows people to say horrible, almost certainly made up shit about people. It is a “knowing” standard for public figures. A better standard would be a “reckless” standard. That standard was part of Sullivan, but got wiped out in later cases.

    Right now, Fox can put (D) after every indicted politician and say, ooopsie. Because of Sullivan

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    @Yutsano: I just came here to link to/excerpt the very same thing…except my take on it was this: it doesn’t sound like Thiessen at all. I think he got most of it handed to him from some RWNJ think tank like Heritage or something.

    See what the rest of y’all think:

    If the goal is to build a border wall, then President Trump has made the wrong decision at every turn. In early 2018, Trump had the opportunity to secure $25 billion in funding for his border wall in exchange for legal status for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients. Instead of taking the deal, he blew up the negotiations with his “s—hole” countries remark and by demanding changes to legal immigration policy.

    Then in June, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $1.6 billion for 65 miles of fencing by an overwhelming bipartisan 26-5 margin. This could easily have passed the House and Senate. Instead, Trump later shut down the government over wall funding and demanded $5.7 billion. Result? After a disastrous 35-day shutdown, he got less — $1.38 billion — than he would have if he had just gone along with the bipartisan deal six months earlier.

    Now, the smart move for Trump would have been to pocket that $1.38 billion and bolster it with another $3.1 billion he could arguably use without a declaration of a national emergency — by reprogramming $600 million from the Treasury Department’s drug forfeiture fund and $2.5 billion from the Defense Department’s drug interdiction program. That would have given him $4.48 billion in wall funding — nearly the full amount he was demanding from Congress. Then, in December, he could demand more money with leverage over Democrats when an automatic sequester kicks in, forcing $55 billion in across-the-board cuts to domestic discretionary spending unless Trump agrees to raise spending caps.

    Instead, Trump has made the wrong move once again — declaring a national emergency, despite warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans that it could provoke a backlash from within his own party.

    His order will face an immediate court challenge, which means he won’t be able to spend the emergency funds anytime soon, if at all. And if he prevails in court, it will be a disaster for the cause of limited government. If Trump can declare a national emergency to build a border wall Congress refused to fund, then the power of the president to override Congress’s power of the purse will be virtually unlimited. As Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) pointed out, a future liberal president could declare climate change a national emergency and “force the Green New Deal on the American people.” Or, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested, a Democratic president could one day declare the “epidemic of gun violence in America” a national emergency thanks to Trump’s action.

    Just as the Democrats’ decision to eliminate the filibuster on lifetime judicial appointments below the Supreme Court backfired — setting precedent for a Republican rules change to put two justices on the Supreme Court and secure its conservative majority for a generation — Republicans will rue the day if they go along with Trump’s executive power grab. More than a dozen Senate Republicans have spoken out against his emergency declaration — including Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, Ben Sasse, Thom Tillis, John Cornyn, Mike Rounds, Charles E. Grassley and Roy Blunt. If their votes comport with their words, that is more than enough to pass a resolution of disapproval.

    In fact, every Republican in Congress should vote for such a resolution. Stopping executive overreach and restoring Congress’s Article I powers was a key plank in Republicans’ 2016 Better Way agenda. “Our President has been acting more like a monarch than an elected official,” House Republicans declared. “That stops now.”

    Trump would no doubt veto a resolution. But the fact that a bipartisan majority of both houses voted to overturn Trump’s declaration would bolster the legal case against his action. As Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote in a concurring opinion for Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer , presidential powers “are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress.” When a president acts with congressional support, his power is “at its maximum.” When Congress has not spoken, “there is a zone of twilight.” But “when the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb,” Jackson declared. A disapproval resolution would make clear that not only is Trump ignoring the will of Congress, but also Congress has further expressly disapproved of his actions.

    Trump’s defenders will argue that Republicans should not deliver such a rebuke to their president. In fact, the opposite is true: It is Trump who should not be forcing Republicans to choose between fidelity to their president and fidelity to the Constitution. And if forced to choose, they must choose the Constitution.

    I mean, choose the Constitution over trumpov? That is NOT Thiessen. He either got handed some major talking points/a first draft/the entire thing, or he’s quite scared that trumpov really is going to either drag the GOP down into the depths in 2020 or open the door for the liberal GND, gun-grabbing, and more.

    Somethin’ ain’t right here, though

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @JaySinWA: He’s on the record from way back as wanting the US and USSR to have all the nukes, keeping the rest of the world in check for them to rule/loot/lord over. Fits his pathology to a T (so to speak)

  68. 68.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I tend to agree with Roger Moore, but let me go a little further. It’s possible that multiple motives come together in this nuke sales thing.

    1. Trump’s and Kushner’s greed
    2. Wanting to destroy Obama’s legacy
    3. Pressure from groups that want to sell stuff

    And I think there’s a big fourth thing that we can’t fully see yet. A few years back, I did a post on the reactors that Russia was “selling.” They had an, um, interesting business model: they would front all the capital for building, and then the operations of the plant would allow countries to pay them back. At the time, what they had in their order book would have broken the Russian economy. As might have been expected, not all those “sales” panned out.

    So I was very aware of KSA’s desire for 16 reactors and noticed when folks with no experience in such things (including Michael Flynn, but predated by others) tried to broker deals with KSA. First, KSA doesn’t need 16 reactors for power. Second, the brokers were brokering Russian and Chinese reactors. And then the price of oil went down, and KSA could no longer afford those 16 reactors.

    Why does a company that has no experience in a field try to insert themselves that way? It’s not unknown; I dealt with firms like that in environmental cleanups, although I have to say that I avoided contracting with them like the plague. Their only function is to scrape their profit off the top and get in the way of getting something done.

    But then Flynn got involved, and Flynn was part of Trump’s machine. One of a presidential candidate’s guys selling Russian reactors? And then Flynn got into his own species of trouble, not having to do with nuclear reactors. Or? In order to sell Russian reactors, sanctions would have needed to be lifted.

    And there’s all the rest – Jared’s and Erik Prince’s involvement, the excessive Trump affinity for Saudi Arabia.

    It never was clear to me how those deals were to be structured, and one possibility was that with the large amounts of money and uncertainties in building nuclear reactors, this could have been a route to money laundering, perhaps even that fee from Rosneft mentioned in the Steele dossier.

    I’ve enlarged that view now. Trump clearly has a special relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, which may simply be that they have lent him money when he badly needed it, or there may be money laundering as well. Or they all want to make war on Iran. Or all of the above. Very much like Trump’s relationship with Russia, and much more than simple spite against Obama.

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow:
    I’m interested in the fact that Wilmer Bros went to Reddit to Freep the GOS straw poll today.

    Someone has messy pants.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    Italian Alex Pareene
    ‏@pareene
    9h9 hours ago
    More
    The number one thing I’d change about American presidential campaign reporting is deemphasizing policy laundry lists and forcing everyone to draw up shadow cabinets.

    This is a good idea. Much more predictive, and in their control.

  74. 74.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @khead:
    Some idiot classmate of mine asked today re: the WV teacher strike, “Couldn’t they wait until summer?” I was like um, no, because the shitty bill the R Senate is trying to ram through is being voted on today.

  77. 77.

    Mike in NC

    Tonight’s ABC News prominently mentioned “Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT)” running in 2020.

  81. 81.

    rk

    For what it’s worth my college age daughter and her friend both said “Ugh” when they heard Bernie was running. I don’t think he’ll get such a enthusiastic following from the college crowd as he did the last time. The girls both like Elizabeth Warren. A lot of women are done with loud mouth patronizing men. My college son also likes Warren. I’m for Kamala Harris. If Beto runs, Bernie’s pretty much bye bye.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    Somebody send this to Elizabeth Warren- this is the perfect scandal for her:

    One senior aide recently worked at the very for-profit chain that just settled with 49 state attorneys general to cough up half a billion dollars for defrauding students. A top deputy worked at the same chain and at a second chain facing multiple government investigations. A third, whom Ms. DeVos hired to run the department’s enforcement unit, disappeared a crop of investigations into his former employer and several other large for-profit colleges. When news reporting brought scrutiny to this corruption, Ms. DeVos simply shifted him to the federal student aid office. The fox is running the henhouse.
    Ms. DeVos fought and is now stalling defrauded students’ right to recourse under the Borrower Defense rule, and she eliminated a rule requiring career colleges to prove their graduates can get a job, even after being officially warned by the department’s Office of Inspector General that the rule was necessary to protect taxpayer funds.

    The Education Department’s Office of Inspector General, following the V.A.’s lead, conducted an investigation of Ms. DeVos after she reinstated the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, or Acics, which had been discredited. Career civil servants on her own staff had determined that Acics had failed to meet 57 of 93 basic federal quality standards — including its inadequate oversight of the now-defunct, veteran-hungry schools ITT Technical Institutes and Corinthian Colleges. Both were for-profits whose bankruptcies left countless veteran students with deep debt and rubbish degrees.
    In a stunning ethical breach, a senior aide to Ms. DeVos fabricated letters of support for Acics from other accreditors, which quickly exposed the lie.

    The Democrats are getting a lot of attention now and we have so many running they can divvy up targets and focus on one or two. Warren should get DeVos. Perfect fit.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @rk:

    I honestly can’t think of any reason to prefer Bernie over Warren. She is better than him in every way.

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
    Somebody doesn’t understand how strikes work. Even assuming you don’t have an imminent issue (as was the case in WV) you try to schedule your strike when you have the most leverage, which means holding the strike when it will hurt the employer the most. Asking teachers to strike in the summer is like asking athletes to strike during the off season. They can do it, but they won’t achieve anything that way.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    No, not a real appointment. A group of people they think would be good. So, yeah, Obama could have said “I think Senator Clinton would be super” or whatever. It would be informative!

    They could also slyly diss one another- “well, I like Amy Klobuchar for Secretary of Transportation, Jake”.

    This might just also descend into nasty infighting and hysteria, so there’s a downside :)

  90. 90.

    pat

    @trollhattan:

    Bernie fucking Sanders is 77 years old. Now. In 2020 he will be pushing 80.

    Oh well, it just means that I will not have to knock on a single door for the cranky old fart. If that’s the best the dems can do, so be it. WASF.

  95. 95.

    rk

    @Yarrow:

    Beto O’Rourke weighing presidential and Senate runs, plans to decide by end of February

    The more the merrier. I’m happy we have some seriously good people running. Hopefully Bernie will get lost in the crowd and not think of running as an independent.

  96. 96.

    Yarrow

    @rk: John Cornyn (the TX Senator up for reelection in 2020) needs an opponent. I just can’t decide if Beto should run again for Senate.

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:
    Having a shadow cabinet would make sense after the primary is over. I suppose primary candidates could have provisional shadow cabinets, or at least have some positions in their hypothetical cabinets in mind already.

  100. 100.

    Citizen Alan

    @Leto:

    I have always said that Thomas was far worse than Scalia. You just never spent his time publicly ranting his more insane beliefs the way Fat Tony did.

  101. 101.

    sdhays

    Bernie who?

    In 2016, Bernie Sanders proved that he’s an incompetent boob, and he doesn’t stand a chance against the current field. In 2016, it was Hillary or Bernie, so he got the non-establishment energy. But he actually ran a pretty shitty campaign, full of grift and not particularly organized. He didn’t think deeply about policy or about campaigning; he was very Trump-like in this regard. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren aren’t lazy or disorganized. They have plans, and they’re executing them aggressively. Most of the others aren’t lazy or disorganized either, although they might not be as well funded.

    In 2016, Sanders was on the same stage as Hillary because there was no one else. In 2019/2020, the stage is going to be too crowded for a guy as underprepared as he is.

  102. 102.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gwangung:
    Someone needs to ask Faiz Shakir the ACLU stalwart and longtime Democrat why he supports a guy running for the nomination of a party he refuses to join.

  104. 104.

    CaseyL

    News of the Saudi deal – with reports and comments unclear whether it was stopped or it’s ongoing; and further reports that Trump as well as a lot of other RWNJs stand to make a lot of money on the deal – is the last straw on the camel’s back for me.

    I. Just. Can’t. Anymore.

    Democrats control the House, but all they can do is some damage control. No legislation from the House will make it though the Senate – but stacking the federal court system with corrupt, savage, cruel neo-confederates will continue, because the Senate confirms judges.

    I don’t think Mueller is going to do anything big enough, fast enough. The Mueller investigation results, when and if we ever get any, are going to be after the fact and beside the point. The damage will have already been done.

    The MSM learned nothing from 2016 – rather, it learned how to make a lot of money. That’s the only lesson it learned, and it’s already putting out the same insipid, insultingly dumb, trivial shit it did in 2016.

    I just can’t anymore. It’s too much unadulterated cruelty, greed, and gleeful malice. Everyone in the Trump Administration, and everyone in the entire GOP, are members of a species 100% lethal to all life, hope, and joy.

    I need to go do some serious drinking.

  107. 107.

    Bill Arnold

    @sdhays:

    I’m going to slightly disagree – while he definitely wants to destroy everything Obama built, I don’t believe that the ASSet can spell “proliferation”, let alone comprehends what it means.

    He has manipulative advisors who would play (and probably have played) the “Obama did it” card. (Bolton, Miller come to mind but there are others.)

  110. 110.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @geg6: I’m so glad to see this! May everything go as smoothly as it can from here on out.

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