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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

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Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Cole is on a roll !

Not all heroes wear capes.

This really is a full service blog.

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

He really is that stupid.

Let’s finish the job.

People are complicated. Love is not.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

I was promised a recession.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

In my day, never was longer.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Greg Sargent: Trump Is Flailing

Greg Sargent: Trump Is Flailing

by Cheryl Rofer|  April 8, 201911:31 am| 148 Comments

This post is in: Dolt 45, Immigration, Media, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

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Greg Sargent does something I was thinking of doing – listing all the ways Trump is flailing. Trump has always been protected from his own incompetence and sadism by layers of lackeys – Javanka, Michael Cohen, and even when he first became President, his generals, Javanka (still), and a minimally competent but toadying cabinet. He thought that being President means having unlimited power.

He had done what he wanted – or thought he did – as the head of the Trump organization. He never cared to see the people who were steering away from the rocks he found so alluring or who actually did the work to make things happen.

It turns out that there are many things that a President can’t do. That’s why we have a Constitution. The Founding Parents were quite explicit about that. People like John Kelly and Jim Mattis reminded him of that, so they had to go.

Now we have Trump unbound. Kirstjen Nielsen was one of the last to tell him no, if some of the reports are to be believed.

The handlers also steered Trump away from the places where they would have to tell him no. Without them, he is getting more noes.

Here’s Sargent’s list:

  • “Total exoneration” and Attorney General William Barr’s attempt to keep the Mueller report away from the public
  • Throwing in with the suit against the ACA and promising a new Republican health plan
  • The immigration clusterf**k

Trump is clearly becoming desperate on immigration. His emotions are getting out of control. He seems to believe that there is some physical way – his wall, the brutality of what he would like to be his Gestapo – to stop immigration from the south. That is simply not going to happen for both logistical and humanitarian reasons.

Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

Open thread.

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Reader Interactions

148Comments

  1. 1.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm

    As Trump deteriorates, I’ve increasingly wondered who is actually running the government. He knows nothing, so he’s just throwing an occasional wrench into things. Who’s doing all the stuff other presidents did all day long?

  2. 2.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Nobody

  3. 3.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2019 at 12:07 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: And what would the consequences of that be?

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 8, 2019 at 12:15 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Stephen Miller.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    April 8, 2019 at 12:20 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner, and Stephen Miller.

    (which, oddly enough, is also the answer to the trivia question “what is the worst K-pop boy band of all time?”)

  6. 6.

    Joe Falco

    April 8, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    The other constant in Trump’s inner circle to date is Stephen Miller. Trump may be flailing, but it’s people like Miller that helps to focus some of that flailing into actionable policy. That is one head of this awful hydra that needs to be burned out along with the rest of them when this administration (hopefully) ends.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 12:22 pm

    Lips pursed.

    Barack Obama is stuck in the past. He represents the old Democratic party
    Bhaskar Sunkara
    The former president says he’s worried about ‘purity’ tests in the Democratic party. What he’s really worried about is his surrogates losing control of the party

    Barack Obama is worried about the Democratic party. This weekend, he told a crowd at an Obama Foundation event in Berlin that the party is becoming a “circular firing squad” targeting those “straying from purity” on certain issues.

    Leading figures around the party have indeed moved to the left since he left office two years ago. Thanks in no small part to the Bernie Sanders campaign and the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Medicare for All, free public higher education, a $15 minimum wage, and action on climate change have become mainstream positions.

    The self-described “political mainstream” hasn’t caught up to this new reality, however. Obama’s former vice-president, Joe Biden, hasn’t announced his presidential candidacy yet, and is getting attacked not just for his behavior toward women but for a decades-long record that includes support for military interventions, mass incarceration, immigrant deportations, and more. The subtext of Obama’s remarks is this undermining of Biden.

    Are things getting meaner? Maybe, the internet is a pretty terrible place. But few campaign seasons were more vitriolic than the 2008 Democratic primaries. Hillary Clinton called Obama “elitist and out of touch”, who couldn’t reach “hard-working Americans, white Americans”. For his part, Obama campaign’s negative ads about Clinton were recirculated by Trump in 2016.

    By comparison, Bernie played softball in 2016. But he certainly gave voice to grassroots anger. People are fed up with the status quo, and they’re starting to demand more of their politicians. Incumbents used to moving to an imaginary center are running up against the fact that their “center” is an illusion. When most Americans support Medicare for All and a jobs guarantee, when they want an end to overseas wars, welcome unions, and even are starting to get comfortable with the idea of socialism, is it really “centrist” to stubbornly oppose all these things?

  8. 8.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 12:23 pm

    She repeatedly noted the limitations imposed on her department by federal laws, court settlements and international obligations.

    Those responses only infuriated Mr. Trump further.

    Trump repeatedly demanded that Nielsen break the law, by closing the border to asylum-seeking entirely.

    I hope these explanations came with a lot of crude variations on: “NO, you stupid fuck, we can’t do that,I won’t do that, it is illegal”

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 12:23 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Stephen Miller.

    Yep

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 12:25 pm

    Trump is clearly becoming desperate on immigration. His emotions are getting out of control. He seems to believe that there is some physical way – his wall, the brutality of what he would like to be his Gestapo – to stop immigration from the south. That is simply not going to happen for both logistical and humanitarian reasons.

    Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

    It will be ugly. Cruel. Inhuman.

    IOW, basic Trump

  11. 11.

    dr. bloor

    April 8, 2019 at 12:27 pm

    Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

    The only folks suggesting anything along these lines forever now are his lackeys and the Chuck Todds of the world (but I repeat myself).

    It’s all just yelling at the clouds until the Senate decides to be the Senate again.

  12. 12.

    BC in Illinois

    April 8, 2019 at 12:28 pm

    Trump has always thought that being President would consist of him telling people what to do.

    I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.

    That was said in a Republican debate in regard to

    BRET BAIER of Fox News: Mr. Trump, just yesterday, almost 100 foreign policy experts signed on to an open letter refusing to support you, saying your embracing expansive use of torture is inexcusable. General Michael Hayden, former CIA director, NSA director, and other experts have said that when you asked the U.S. military to carry out some of your campaign promises, specifically targeting terrorists’ families, and also the use of interrogation methods more extreme than waterboarding, the military will refuse because they’ve been trained to turn down and refuse illegal orders.

    So what would you do, as commander-in-chief, if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders?

    DONALD TRUMP: They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.

    Further:

    We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. That’s my opinion.

    BAIER: But targeting terrorists’ families?

    (APPLAUSE)

    TRUMP: And — and — and — I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.

    Note the applause.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    April 8, 2019 at 12:28 pm

    @rikyrah: Lips pursed because of how they are presenting Barack Obama? Or lips pursed because you don’t like what Obama is reported to be saying?

  14. 14.

    randy khan

    April 8, 2019 at 12:32 pm

    @rikyrah:

    This seems like a kind of predetermined take from someone who’s not thinking too much about winning in 2020. Obama seemed to me to be pointing out that deciding you’ll only vote for your One True Candidate when the alternative is Trump is not the best plan, particularly when nearly every candidate agrees on the broad outlines of where the country should be going. And 2008, in fact, was an election in which most Democrats were quite happy with their choices – the PUMA thing was basically gaslighting, for instance, not any kind of real group.

  15. 15.

    MattF

    April 8, 2019 at 12:33 pm

    Trump is at an impasse. His behavioral repertoire doesn’t include anything that would help– bullshit, bullying, bluster, being an asshole– are all failing. And then there’s the ‘brain turning into tapioca’ problem.

  16. 16.

    Smiling Mortician

    April 8, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    @dmsilev: Thanks for turning that one into a smile.

  17. 17.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 8, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    @rikyrah: Who the fuck is Bhaskar Sunkara?

  18. 18.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    April 8, 2019 at 12:36 pm

    It is terrifying to think that KKKristjen Nielsen may in fact have been some sort of moderating influence. I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.

    ETA: though it’s possible that this reporting just comes from Nielsen or her surrogates in an attempt to rehabilitate her image. Which isn’t going to work, as she’ll always be the woman who defended kids in cages, but still.

  19. 19.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 12:37 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: What’s happening is that the bad actors others named in response to your question are scheming to make their own priorities happen. Within the agencies, like the State Department and the Department of Defense, people are continuing to do their jobs, which include thinking about what we should do in response to various events. I was in DC a month ago and was impressed that so many people remain loyal to the United States and are doing their jobs that way.

    But there are two disconnects: between the bad actors and Trump, and between the agencies and the Trump court. So there is a lot of palace intrigue, today’s expression of which are the rumors that Stephen Miller is trying to get all sorts of people fired. Trump does what he wants, according to his whims. It came out over the weekend that he decided to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel on the spur of the moment. Neither the court nor the agencies had any advance warning.

    What will happen? Let’s pray that no real external crisis occurs. If there is none, the court will continue eating each other alive, and the agencies will continue to do their jobs as best they can. The problem with the latter is that they need priorities – which procurement to pursue, which exigency to plan for. That guidance should come from the President and his advisors.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    April 8, 2019 at 12:39 pm

    There really wasn’t an immigration crisis at the southern border until Trump created one with his big fat mouth. Now he’ll make the situation worse. It looks like someone finally got it through his thick skull that shutting the US-Mexico border down would tank the economy, so he’s backed off that threat, for now at least. He’ll almost certainly double-down on the cruel policies, having been thwarted in staging that tantrum. He’s threatened in the past to prevent remittances, which would be catastrophically stupid, so he’ll probably try to find a way to do it.

    Did anyone hear Julian Castro on Pod Save America last week? I was impressed with his immigration proposals, including a Marshall Plan-scale effort to help Central American countries get back on their feet so that people aren’t so desperate that they undertake a dangerous journey to the US. He didn’t have much in the way of specifics (it’s early, so that’s okay), but it seems pretty clear it’ll take a program like that to stabilize those countries.

  21. 21.

    Smiling Mortician

    April 8, 2019 at 12:39 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: a founder of Jacobin magazine.

  22. 22.

    MattF

    April 8, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: There’s also McConnell. He seems to be one person who can tell Trump that some miracle won’t happen– e.g., a healthcare law, immigration solution. Of course, ‘relying on Mitch McConnell’ is practically the definition of a bad idea, but that’s where we are.

  23. 23.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    April 8, 2019 at 12:41 pm

    @Betty Cracker: The more I hear from Julián Castro, the more impressed I am. It’s kinda irritating that he isn’t getting more press.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    April 8, 2019 at 12:42 pm

    The vast majority of Americans don’t think they got a tax cut from the 2017 Republican bill.
    Just 17% of people believe their own taxes will go down, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll finds.
    Republicans are the only group in which 30% or more believe they’re getting a tax cut.

    I think we can credit Democrats with doing an excellent job portraying Trump’s tax law. It wasn’t that long ago that a tax cut was a guaranteed political success.

    Good work.

  25. 25.

    sherparick

    April 8, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    @randy khan: Also, the idea that Bernie and his crewed played “softball” with Hillary Clinton is an absurd lie. He got harsher and harsher with her as he lost more and more, and he his crewed never stopped echoing the legitimacy of her nomination, joining gleefully with Trump and Republicans on echoing the and exaggerating the inane emails revealed in the DWS hack.

    By the way Bernie, where are your tax returns are you more like Trump then you admit.

  26. 26.

    burnspbesq

    April 8, 2019 at 12:51 pm

    It’s going to be interesting to see whether Chuck Rettig actually has the integrity that pretty much everyone who has ever dealt with him in a professional setting believes he has.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    April 8, 2019 at 12:53 pm

    @Smiling Mortician:

    Oh.

    That tells us pretty much everything we need to know.

  28. 28.

    H.E.Wolf

    April 8, 2019 at 12:53 pm

    One of the other questions is: what do we, the people, do? There are a lot of answers to that, depending on the person and the local situation.

    What I learned in the past 3 years is that there is always an available task suitable to temperament and skill – and that it’s OK to ask for a suitable task, rather than just be slotted into the first thing someone suggests.

    In my case, “suitable” means database work. I’m dedicating some time on a weekly/daily basis, to get a head start on 2020.

    The local Dems’ office was a little startled to hear from me, but (I hope) pleased to have an extra pair of hands this early….

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
    Actually Castro has visited as many places at Buttigieg has. IA, HH, NV, SC to name a few.

    He pledged to visit all 50 states while announcing his candidacy. He visited 40 states while HUD Secretary.

    Your sentiment about him not criss crossing proves my point about erasure. https://t.co/P7MLsB33p6 https://twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1115281287105994752?s=17

  30. 30.

    scav

    April 8, 2019 at 12:57 pm

    @Smiling Mortician: so, esentially some Pepsi Executive Assistant announcing to world what is or isn’t the Real Coke.

  31. 31.

    West of the Rockies

    April 8, 2019 at 12:59 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Remember the ludicrous “Young Guns” posse of Republicans with Cantor and Ryan (et al)? When your young guns have receding hairlines tinged with gray, you might want to rethink the band name.

  32. 32.

    waspuppet

    April 8, 2019 at 12:59 pm

    Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

    I really don’t know what it’s going to take to get the people who are paid six and seven figures a year to talk about national politics to even start to consider the simplest explanation: He’s a senile racist with no knowledge of or affection for democracy.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 1:01 pm

    This is a good idea.

    Mr. Weeks ?? (@MrDane1982) Tweeted:
    Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, get yourself a small production team, create a YouTube station. Every Sunday do your own interview. Pick the journalist of your choice who you want to interview you on your own platform. https://twitter.com/MrDane1982/status/1115118940328550400?s=17

  34. 34.

    Hoodie

    April 8, 2019 at 1:03 pm

    Trump is stuck playing the oldies about immigration because that’s about all he has left to arouse the rubes. The tax cut was a dud. With the Supreme Court and much of the judiciary in conservative hands, McConnell feels comfortable telling him that killing Obamacare is a non-starter. Infrastructure Week has been indefinitely postponed.

    The dangerous time may come when he starts to lose traction with his base on immigration. That may be coming soon as people realize that there is no “crisis” on the southern border.
    This is in large part because Trump has been crying wolf on that for so long, people will stop paying any attention as they realize this supposed crisis has no effect whatsoever on their daily lives. His recent pronouncements on Israel are more troubling, because they have a whiff of him trying to get Israel into a fight with the Palestinians and their neighbors, which could happen because his sociopathic soul mate Netanyahu is getting equally desperate as he is being dogged for corruption.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 1:03 pm

    These Democratic women are NOT having it??

    Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) Tweeted:
    Kirstjen Nielsen championed Trump Admin policies that traumatized children + ripped families apart. She was in the room when Trump labeled African nations + Haiti as “shitholes.” Had she opposed any of it, she would’ve resigned long ago. Good riddance. https://t.co/WfMDt9SX0T https://twitter.com/SenDuckworth/status/1115081262501453826?s=17

  36. 36.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 1:05 pm

    @H.E.Wolf: YES!

    I’m working with the local Democratic Party on some things that may not see the light of day for a while, although we in New Mexico are ahead of the country in having a Democratic legislature and governor.

    I know we’d like to end this shitshow today, but that’s not going to happen, so let’s do what we can to prepare for the election next year and fixing things.

  37. 37.

    Mike in NC

    April 8, 2019 at 1:05 pm

    Waiting for Fat Bastard to announce yet another meeting with the brutal North Korean despot. That Nobel Peace Prize is practically in the bag! He just knows it is.

    Or maybe another trip to Saudi Arabia would soothe his fragile ego. They’d drape another piece of golden bling around his fat neck and Trump would go week in the knees.

  38. 38.

    artem1s

    April 8, 2019 at 1:07 pm

    It turns out that there are many things that a President can’t do.

    Turns out a President can do almost anything, if they know how to build a coalition and have experienced what the opposition is likely to do to block your policies.
    This is why so many Dems who actually remember how an experienced candidate was treated in 2008 and 2016 are refusing to take any kind of loyalty oath on who they will vote for. How come the conversations isn’t ‘will you promise to vote for female candidate of color XXX if she is the Dem nominee?’ – Instead of pressuring everyone to accept that the bar has been so lowered any white guy who can hop over it should be acceptable? I find this whole media fluffing of the parade of hairdos and strong manly men to be the BS it has always been. It takes experience to get anything done once they get to the WH. Obama should understand that better than anyone.

  39. 39.

    Leto

    April 8, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    @Kay: Speaking of tax plans, hopefully part of Sen Warren’s tax plans will be a massive influx of resources ($$$) invested into the IRS so we can properly tackle tax cheats (ProPublica): The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn’t Go Well.

    Ten years ago, the tax agency formed a special team to unravel the complex tax-lowering strategies of the nation’s wealthiest people. But with big money — and Congress — arrayed against the team, it never had a chance.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    April 8, 2019 at 1:10 pm

    Trump is clearly becoming desperate on immigration.

    This is not entirely true. Trump is becoming more openly cruel. His immigration policy has always been openly racist and exclusionary. The people he listens to and the people he chooses to exercise his policies are as extreme and racist as he is. He is also counting on his court appointments to rubber stamp his decisions. He previously had a GOP led Congress sit back and let him act as he wished. He has some pushback now, but there is nothing to suggest that he is wavering from his noxious believes or his desire to execute his will on these matters.

    His emotions are getting out of control.

    I’m not sure that they have ever been in control. The crazy thing is, he seems to feel emboldened by Barr’s “exoneration” of him in the summary of the Mueller Report. An Unchained Trump is dangerous to the country.

    Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

    Sadly, his base enjoys Trump’s instability and cruelty.

  41. 41.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    April 8, 2019 at 1:12 pm

    think I would add “Reality TV show mindset” to Trump’s thinking. I would be surprised to find out Trump thinks Deep State is the government equivalent to the show’s writers. and he views his poll numbers like TV show ratings.

  42. 42.

    Leto

    April 8, 2019 at 1:13 pm

    @Mike in NC: Trumpov will have another light bulb touching ceremony, as well as dance with swords. So much fun! They love him bigly! /vomit

  43. 43.

    bemused

    April 8, 2019 at 1:15 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    Kevin McCarthy was the 3rd amigo. That was a really embarrassing and ridiculous display of self-promotion even publishing a book “The Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders” but republicans aren’t born with shame genes. Also Paul Randian Ryan was touted as this fantastic intellectual economic leader. Gag.

  44. 44.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 1:17 pm

    Matt Levine’s Financial bloomberg column:

    Did Donald Trump’s likely Fed nominee Herman Cain use an email mailing list to promote worthless penny stocks?

    There is only one conceivable answer.

  45. 45.

    West of the Rockies

    April 8, 2019 at 1:19 pm

    @bemused:

    Meet the New Conservative Leaders… Same as the old conservative leaders.

    (But with Xtreme Cheesy Goodness!)

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2019 at 1:20 pm

    @Kay:

    I think we can credit Democrats with doing an excellent job portraying Trump’s tax law. It wasn’t that long ago that a tax cut was a guaranteed political success.

    It helps that their portrayal is basically accurate. Tax cuts used to be popular because most people had a reasonable expectation that they’d get a reasonable share. But the Trump tax “cut” was designed specifically to give almost all the money to the ultra-rich and give at most a pittance to most ordinary taxpayers. The Republicans let their greed get the better of their political good sense.

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    It’s going to be interesting to see whether Chuck Rettig actually has the integrity that pretty much everyone who has ever dealt with him in a professional setting believes he has.

    I’m gonna go with “no”. Anyone who was hand-picked by Trump is not to be trusted, no matter how glittering their previous record.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    April 8, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    @Leto:

    Agreed. I love Elizabeth Warren. It’s like she reads my mind! :)

    I don’t look at photos of the politicians that much, I tend to key into peoples voices more than appearance, generally- so a couple of years ago I saw a story about Warren and she was at a house party surrounded by other people and I was surprised- she’s so small.

    I guess I thought of her as huge and towering :) She’s like 100 pounds.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    April 8, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    @West of the Rockies

    Now with extra banana oil.

    ;)

  50. 50.

    meander

    April 8, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    One immigration lever that I don’t hear much about from Trump is a vigorous enforcement policy aimed at those who employ undocumented immigrants. And also new policies to prevent employment fraud, like a national ID. Has Trump been asked about this? Has he ever tweeted about it? My guess is no. (And if he has been asked, he surely dodged the question.)

    My guess is that he thinks that the two rule-breakers here are on entirely different planes of existence: the corporations hiring undocumented immigrants are ‘good people’ (incl. the Trump Organization!) and never do anything wrong, while the immigrants are 100% to blame.

  51. 51.

    bemused

    April 8, 2019 at 1:25 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    Yup. Speaking of cheesy, I’ll never forget Ryan’s glamour shots posing with chin on fist, backward baseball cap.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 1:26 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    @rikyrah: Lips pursed because of how they are presenting Barack Obama?

    This

  53. 53.

    PJ

    April 8, 2019 at 1:27 pm

    @meander: If everyone who employed illegal immigrants went to jail, there would be almost no illegal immigration. But the point of Trump’s (and the GOP’s) immigration policies is not to actually stop illegal and legal immigration in any comprehensive way, but to demonize brown people.

  54. 54.

    ruemara

    April 8, 2019 at 1:28 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Nobody. Nobody who wins elections, nobody who shapes policy, nobody who actually manages to analyze properly what’s being said.

    @artem1s: A-fucking-men

  55. 55.

    VeniceRiley

    April 8, 2019 at 1:28 pm

    @artem1s:

    This is why so many Dems who actually remember how an experienced candidate was treated in 2008 and 2016 are refusing to take any kind of loyalty oath on who they will vote for. How come the conversations isn’t ‘will you promise to vote for female candidate of color XXX if she is the Dem nominee?’ – Instead of pressuring everyone to accept that the bar has been so lowered any white guy who can hop over it should be acceptable?

    Come sit by me! Maybe you can keep me from going into a complete rage about it.

  56. 56.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 1:29 pm

    Cain and worthless stocks link

    I will also remind the reader that I have posted that Cain is STILL more qualified for his job than Rick Perry is for managing the nation’s Nuclear weapons systems at DOE.

  57. 57.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 1:30 pm

    @Kay:

    I think we can credit Democrats with doing an excellent job portraying Trump’s tax law. It wasn’t that long ago that a tax cut was a guaranteed political success.

    People understand their tax return, if they don’t understand much else.

  58. 58.

    Aleta

    April 8, 2019 at 1:30 pm

    “bullying and brute force”

    I despise and fear how much he enjoys it.

  59. 59.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 8, 2019 at 1:32 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Leading figures around the party have indeed moved to the left since he left office two years ago. Thanks in no small part to the Bernie Sanders campaign… action on climate change have become mainstream positions.

    Action on climate change was one of Barack Obama’s signature positions, and a major source of the explosion in renewable energy over the last ten years has been the research he funded with the stimulus.

    By comparison, Bernie played softball in 2016.

    My ENTIRE ass.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    April 8, 2019 at 1:33 pm

    @meander:

    He hates the people claiming asylum. Probably because they’re visible and he doesn’t understand anything about immigration, not the big concepts, not the small rules based on the big concepts. A tangible target for his hatefulness and resentment and lack of generosity.

    Asylum is a pretty big idea. You can’t expect him to read anything or talk to anyone. He’s an over-protected, coddled 6 year old. SMALL. He stays small and petty.

  61. 61.

    vhh

    April 8, 2019 at 1:37 pm

    Trump’s only strategy, all the time, is to blame everything on the Others–the blacks, browns, foreigners, uppity women, gays, transexuals et al. Like the Nazis, he views these Others as infectious vermin. His Fox addled base laps it up. So it is his re-election strategy, too. And if it turns violent, so much the better, it ups the fear factor. I don’t see how this ends without bloodshed.

  62. 62.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    @PJ:

    is not to actually stop illegal and legal immigration in any comprehensive way, but to demonize brown people.

    actually the demonization is meant to keep their salaries low and their leverage against rapacious employers negligible.

    and yes, if we wanted to stop it, that is how it would be done – arresting and jailing employers. But all the people who have Juan the yard guy, and feel entitled to cheap yard service, would be upset, and they vote.

  63. 63.

    cckids

    April 8, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    @BC in Illinois:

    Trump has always thought that being President would consist of him telling people what to do.

    I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.

    Ugh. When my kids were in Venturing, a joke t-shirt was always given to whoever was elected crew president; it said: “Leading: Lots of people doing what I say”.

    Even the teenagers thought that idea was ridiculous, and knew the ACTUAL meaning of leadership. What a tool DT is.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2019 at 1:41 pm

    @PJ:

    But the point of Trump’s (and the GOP’s) immigration policies is not to actually stop illegal and legal immigration in any comprehensive way, but to demonize brown people.

    Also to make immigrants too afraid of the immigration authorities to stand up for themselves. They want compliant workers, and the threat of deportation is too valuable a tool in keeping them in line to give up.

  65. 65.

    Plato

    April 8, 2019 at 1:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Fucking bs is not even a dem party member. Who is this idiot?

  66. 66.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 1:44 pm

    @Plato: rikyrah was a little too subtle. the prelude to the quote was “lips pursed”,
    which I think means ( correct me if I am wrong) ‘I ain’t swallowing your bullshit.’

  67. 67.

    Kathleen

    April 8, 2019 at 1:45 pm

    @rikyrah: Rodent fornicators at the Guardian strike again.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    April 8, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I just listened to that podcast/interview last night. I was impressed, also.

  69. 69.

    sukabi

    April 8, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    @WaterGirl: after reading that snippet my lips are pursed because the author has a decided BS bias.

  70. 70.

    oatler.

    April 8, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    Just read he fired his Secret Service head.

  71. 71.

    Barbara

    April 8, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    @Kathleen: Right, because the UK’s Labour Party has been such a recent resounding success in the UK. I remember reading once that someone did a survey of opinions in the 60s and among Labour Party members, there was strong admiration of the “working classes,” but among surveys of the working class, there was strong admiration of the kinds of things that make people what would have been called bourgeois values. This play pretend game of revolution (“Jacobin”!!!!) is so tedious.

  72. 72.

    Martin

    April 8, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    Important bit of context on Trumps immigration talk the last few days.

    Before the Safe Release policy ended, “ICE would transport the traveling asylum seekers directly to the departure points for their prearranged mode of transportation, such bus stations, train stations, and airports, facilitating an orderly release process. ICE would also provide a minimal amount of food to asylum seekers for their journeys to their final destinations,” the lawsuit states.
    Other supervisors did not return requests for comment.
    The county has spent more than $1.3 million operating the downtown shelter, Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dianne Jacob wrote on Twitter.
    “The federal government’s negligent approach to those seeking asylum is taking a huge toll on San Diego County taxpayers,” she said.

    Dianne Jacob is a Republican. The BOS is 1 D, 4 R, and it passed 4-1. The suit was filed last Wed and Trump spoke in the county on Fri. saying the county is begging for a wall. They aren’t. Gov Newsom has proposed covering SDs costs from state funds, which will add another lawsuit here.

    Elected Republicans should be the last individuals the party should be worried about losing, and he’s losing them.

  73. 73.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    I see Trump fired the head of the Secret Service. Another one bites the dust.

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    They caught a feral Republican in Florida.

    A national park in Florida has captured a record 17ft (5.2m) python using an innovative approach to tackling the invasive species.

    The female snake, the largest ever to be removed from Big Cypress National Preserve, weighed 140lb (63.5kg) and was carrying 73 developing eggs. Pythons pose a major threat to native wildlife in the state. Researchers in the park track down breeding females by fitting male pythons with radio transmitters.

    “The team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter and found this massive female nearby,” the park said on Facebook.

    As well as removing invasive snakes, Big Cypress says it uses each discovery to collect data for research, develop new removal tools and learn how pythons are using the area.

    Stopped before she could make 73 more Republicans.

    Secure in my ongoing policy of not moving there. Or the rest of the Confederacy for that matter. Commie today, Commie tomorrow, Commie forever!

  75. 75.

    RedDirtGirl

    April 8, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    @catclub: I read that a Boomerang Column!

  76. 76.

    West of the Rockies

    April 8, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    @vhh:

    I believe you forgot cucks and white beta males.

  77. 77.

    sherparick

    April 8, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    @randy khan: Also, the idea that Bernie and his crewed played “softball” with Hillary Clinton is an absurd lie. He got harsher and harsher with her as he lost more and more, and he his crewed never stopped echoing the legitimacy of her nomination, joining gleefully with Trump and Republicans on echoing the and exaggerating the inane emails revealed in the DWS hack.

    By the way Bernie, where are your tax returns are you more like Trump then you admit. @BC in Illinois:

  78. 78.

    Martin

    April 8, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    @oatler.: Any bets on whether Nielsen is out not because of immigration but instead of the SS (who report to her) and some disagreement over security at Mar A Lago?

  79. 79.

    JR

    April 8, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    Worth keeping in mind that the Nazis committed their worst atrocities after it became clear that they were losing the war.

  80. 80.

    lumpkin

    April 8, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    @oatler.:
    The secret service must be too much of an impediment to monetizing US national security. Someone more like Sgt Schultz is needed.

  81. 81.

    tobie

    April 8, 2019 at 2:01 pm

    @oatler.: Huh? Do you have a link for this? Sounds like flailing indeed.

  82. 82.

    dmsilev

    April 8, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    @sukabi:

    after reading that snippet my lips are pursed because the author has a decided BS bias.

    Do you mean Bernie Sanders or bullshit? It works either way, and some might argue that it’s a distinction without a difference.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    @Martin:
    This will be the hardest goddamn administration ever to document in a historical account. If I were the author I’d title it “Nondisclosure Agreement–the Trump White House says, ‘Fuck You!'”

  84. 84.

    dmsilev

    April 8, 2019 at 2:03 pm

    @trollhattan:

    The team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter

    Someone got close enough to Scott to implant a transmitter?

  85. 85.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    @lumpkin: Trump Troopers ™ ! Hire only the best.

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    @tobie:

    (CNN)United States Secret Service director Randolph “Tex” Alles is being removed from his position, multiple administration officials tell CNN.

    President Donald Trump instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to fire Alles. Alles remains in his position as of now but has been asked to leave.
    The USSS director was told two weeks ago there would be a transition in leadership and he was asked to stay on until there was a replacement, according to a source close to the director.

    Secret Service officials have been caught by surprise with the news and are only finding out through CNN, according to the source.

    A source familiar with the the director said his ouster was not related to the recent scrutiny the Secret Service got after a Chinese woman illegally entered the President’s Mar-a-Lago club carrying Chinese passports and a flash drive containing malware.

  87. 87.

    Martin

    April 8, 2019 at 2:05 pm

    @trollhattan: Making it worse is our inability as a nation to actually come to terms with our own failings. 3 years in and this is still all excused away as economic anxiety of the working class.

  88. 88.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2019 at 2:05 pm

    @dmsilev:
    Right? Guessing it’s implanted in his hingeless jaw.

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:07 pm

    @(((CassandraLeo))):
    How about a Warren/Castro ticket?
    Interesting?

  90. 90.

    MisterForkbeard

    April 8, 2019 at 2:08 pm

    @sherparick: That was my reaction as well. The Bernie folks really want to pretend that Bernie was a saint in 2016, but he did a LOT of harm to democratic prospects in that election. He never said Hillary herself was rigging the election, but he heavily implied he wasn’t getting a fair shake (Narrator: He was getting a fair shake) and that the whole “establishment” was rigging the system for her. And he absolutely didn’t tamp down on that at all amongst his surrogates or campaign staff, to the point where people like Nina Turner were claiming in August on campaign volunteer calls that Hillary was still going to be indicted or have to drop out once they revealed how she’d stolen the election.

    Likewise, he did a horrible job supporting her candidacy once he lost. But contrary to their own opinions, Hillary was very nice to him and tried not to alienate his supporters, much good it did her.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:11 pm

    @West of the Rockies:
    I thought that Receding Hairlines was the name of their crappy band.

  92. 92.

    zhena gogolia

    April 8, 2019 at 2:12 pm

    @VeniceRiley:

    It’s not a loyalty oath to say that we have to beat Trump. Full stop. We have to support the Democrat who gets the nomination. Note I said “Democrat.”

  93. 93.

    VeniceRiley

    April 8, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    Meanwhile, Governor Newsom is in El Salvador, trying to help … and reassure them we aren’t all racist assholes.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-gov-gavin-newsom-makes-his-debut-on-the-world-stage-in-el-salvador/ar-BBVIhdw?ocid=spartanntp

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    April 8, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Action on climate change was one of Barack Obama’s signature positions

    Oh come on! We all know Bernie wrote and negotiated the Paris Climate Accord as well as designed the New Energy policies. It is all Bernie. No one even breathed air before Bernie told us it existed.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 2:16 pm

    ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
    So let’s see..

    My response to Saletan’s tweet about his erasure of ‘red state” Democrat Castro and calling it out is divisive.

    yet your response that Castro has not “criss-crossed” the country like Pete has (which is a lie) is not divisive?

    Just stop it. https://t.co/hmtk6Yf8Ov https://twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1115289159047045126?s=17

  96. 96.

    Searcher

    April 8, 2019 at 2:16 pm

    @cckids: To be fair, I doubt Trump has ever been a leader, or lead anyone anywhere.

    He has, at best, been a boss, and bossed people around.

  97. 97.

    MisterForkbeard

    April 8, 2019 at 2:16 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Yep. We should look for and vote for our preferred candidates. Mine are (in order) Harris, Warren, Buttigieg, but I’m open to changing my mind.

    I’ll support any Democrat who gets the nomination, as should the rest of the damned country. I would support Bernie Sanders too – he would be a huge missed opportunity and he wouldn’t be a ‘successful’ president in most senses, but he’d be worlds better than Trump and would be able to make a lot of really important course corrections.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 2:18 pm

    Denise Kersten Wills (@denisewills) Tweeted:
    “She’s a black female prosecutor; we have a racist, misogynist, possibly criminal president. All of that caretaking of her political future—what was it for if not this?” Super smart (and fun to read) profile of Kamala Harris by @lizweil https://t.co/ezWFeyAUZT https://twitter.com/denisewills/status/1115059743251472387?s=17

  99. 99.

    Joe Falco

    April 8, 2019 at 2:18 pm

    @tobie:
    Secret Service director gets the boot.

  100. 100.

    Immanentize

    April 8, 2019 at 2:20 pm

    @oatler.:

    Just read he fired his Secret Service head.

    What? Do you have a linky? Thanks

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:20 pm

    @Leto:
    Especially as they normally collect quite a bit more than is spent collecting it.

  102. 102.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 2:21 pm

    !!! DHS leadership vacuum: no confirmed secretary, no dep. secretary, no Secret Service chief, no head of FEMA, no head of ICE, no head of science & technology branch, no head of policy branch, no Inspector General & no CPB commissioner once McAleenan moves over- h/t @DafnaLinzer

    — Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) April 8, 2019

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 2:21 pm

    Meagan Hatcher-Mays (@importantmeagan) Tweeted:
    this is so gross. kirstjen nielsen was not forced to serve as DHS secretary under Trump against her will. she is not secretly a good person. good people don’t work for Trump. don’t whitewash who she is and what she did: she willingly and happily carried Trump’s trash for years https://t.co/6lXJHEHFlb https://twitter.com/importantmeagan/status/1115219403409428482?s=17

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    April 8, 2019 at 2:23 pm

    Secret Service busted trumpov’s Chinese friend, so now the SS head’s gotta go…

    Kid-cage lady wouldn’t agree to trumpov’s lawbreaking schemes for even crueler policies, so she had to go…

    Kavanaugh, Barr, tax guy Desmond all put into place…Cain and Moore on the way…

    Hey GOP: you see where this is heading, right? Right? Or do you really think you’re going to come out of this okay if you just keep your head in the sand a liiiiiittle bit longer?

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    April 8, 2019 at 2:25 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: It’s almost like someone wanted to leave our country wide open and unable to act in response to threats here and abroad. Don’t we have an acting Defense Secretary too?

  106. 106.

    Redshift

    April 8, 2019 at 2:26 pm

    @trollhattan:

    A source familiar with the the director said his ouster was not related to the recent scrutiny the Secret Service got after a Chinese woman illegally entered the President’s Mar-a-Lago club carrying Chinese passports and a flash drive containing malware.

    Of course not. It’s related to the Secret Service saying there’s nothing they can do to secure Mar-a-Lago if the dumpster fire is more interested in grifting off anyone with cash than keeping out spies.

  107. 107.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 2:27 pm

    @Jeffro: We have an acting Defense Secretary. As I said upthread, the working levels of the agencies, and certainly the military, are still working. And I’m thinking that if Trump wants to destroy an agency in his anger and frustration, there are worse choices than DHS.

  108. 108.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    April 8, 2019 at 2:27 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: We need to make Miller’s presence more prominent in the media. Give him the President Bannon treatment.

  109. 109.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @RedDirtGirl: Matt makes finance stuff interesting – and funny.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @catclub:
    I’m more qualified than Rick Perry.
    And basically my qualification score would hover between 1 and zero. On a scale of 100. Rickey is in double negative numbers.

  111. 111.

    Joe Falco

    April 8, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @rikyrah:
    Note the response, accusing Monie of tearing down candidates when she was trying to set the record straight in the first place. Person does not have the sense to just stop when it’s obvious they just want to sell a false narrative even when called out on it.

  112. 112.

    cain

    April 8, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @rikyrah: Who the fuck is Bhaskar Sunkara?

    He’s the guy fucked up an order, and brought chicken manchurian instead of gobi manchurian and had the gall to insist that is what this guy ordered.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    April 8, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    DHS leadership vacuum: no confirmed secretary, no dep. secretary, no Secret Service chief, no head of FEMA, no head of ICE, no head of science & technology branch, no head of policy branch, no Inspector General & no CPB commissioner once McAleenan moves over

    Trump does not know how to operate as chief executive of the government. How many people have been let go or ignored at the State Department?

    Trump flattens out the organizational structure of departments and agencies and operates by seat-of-pants directives because he has no comprehensive idea about the scope of what these agencies do or how they need to operate.

    Right Wing dopes see this as streamlining how the federal government operates.

  114. 114.

    Plato

    April 8, 2019 at 2:31 pm

    @Jeffro:

    The rethugs party establishment are active enablers, abettors and colluders of the totus thug’s regime. This thug is a torchbearer of their party’s long held views and policies.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    April 8, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    @Martin: Now that’s an interesting thought.

  116. 116.

    Tenar Arha

    April 8, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    @Martin: QFT with an addendum (because I’m so tired).

    3 years in and this is still all excused away as economic anxiety of the working class.

    Even though it wasn’t “economic anxiety” that convinced people into voting for the guy. Nor were the actual demographics of the people who voted for him majority “working class.”

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    @Kay:

    He stays small and petty.

    He’s at least proved to be consistent over his 70+ yrs. Never growing, never learning, always hating. Doesn’t make a good resume for a human being.

  118. 118.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 2:34 pm

    @Brachiator: Yes. One of my great satisfactions in becoming a manager was finding that people doing their jobs together, for a common cause, was a great source of power for all of us. Trump has no concept of that kind of power.

    Which is probably a good thing for the rest of us.

  119. 119.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    And I’m thinking that if Trump wants to destroy an agency in his anger and frustration, there are worse choices than DHS.

    Unfortunately, DHS has a lot of awful people in the civil service positions, so removing the political appointees at the top isn’t going to result in a bunch of decent bureaucrats acting as caretakers. It’s going to result in a bunch of people who think Trump hasn’t been harsh enough yet being left in charge.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 2:39 pm

    Justin Sink (@justinsink) Tweeted:
    CNN reporting a full purge may be coming at DHS: “United States Citizenship and Immigration Services director Francis Cissna and Office of the General Counsel’s John Mitnick are expected to be gone soon, and the White House is eyeing others to be removed.” https://t.co/nzJ0alAk5k https://twitter.com/justinsink/status/1115306386756337664?s=17

  121. 121.

    zhena gogolia

    April 8, 2019 at 2:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I’m hoping this person is right:

    My heart tells me that she will calmly and brilliantly lead this field.

  122. 122.

    Redshift

    April 8, 2019 at 2:41 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Ah, so we’ve moved on from Bernie deserving credit for every progressive element of the Democratic 2016 platform (almost all of which were there before they started throwing him bones), and now Bernie must be given credit for everything the Obama administration did that he agrees with. Got it.

    I am currently gritting my teeth and not lashing out on Facebook at a Berner friend who is OUTRAGED at Obama’s “let’s not have a circular firing squad” comment. Because, you see, he’s saying we aren’t allowed to criticize anyone, and we’ll “again” end up with a candidate who is “mushy” and “doesn’t stand for anything.” Not naming the supposed candidate, of course, but it couldn’t be more obvious. Apparently that’s the delusional story they’re telling each other in Bernie-stan these days. Amazing what you can believe about the other side if you pay no attention to what they’re saying and take what your people say they’re saying as received wisdom.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2019 at 2:42 pm

    Donald Trump currently has:

    – No Homeland Security Director

    – No Secret Service Director

    – No ICE Director

    – No Secretary of Defense

    – No Air Force Secretary

    – No FEMA Director

    – No Secretary of the Interior

    – No UN Ambassador

    – No White House Chief of Staff

    – No clue

    — Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) April 8, 2019

  124. 124.

    Cheryl Rofer

    April 8, 2019 at 2:42 pm

    @Roger Moore: Yes, I worry about ICE, for example, being freed to do what they want. It’s not the same quality of people as the State Department people I was talking to.

  125. 125.

    Captain C

    April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    @sherparick:

    By the way Bernie, where are your tax returns are you more like Trump then you admit.

    I think the dog ate them. And by that, I mean the dog snuck into the IRS headquarters and managed to find and eat the exact length of magnetic storage tape on which the Sanders tax returns were saved. This is totally plausible. After all, otherwise he would have just contacted the IRS and asked them to release his and Jane’s last 7 years worth of taxes, right?

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Well the republicans have wanted to kill the federal government for decades and could never figure out exactly how. All they had to do was rebuild the party to be comprised of total incompetents/bigots/assholes, elect the prime example of that as president and voila, what they haven’t been able to do for 40 yrs, took 2.

  127. 127.

    oatler.

    April 8, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    @tobie: It’s from the Joe My God site (I’ve tried to link to it twice but found my posts were not published).

  128. 128.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    @Searcher:

    He has, at best, been a boss, and bossed people around.

    one of the definitions of a boss is a useless knob on a bannister.

  129. 129.

    Redshift

    April 8, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    @oatler.: It’s all over the news now.

  130. 130.

    Mike in NC

    April 8, 2019 at 2:57 pm

    Will Trump next fire the entire Border Patrol for not shooting up terrorist caravans approaching our sacred border? “Unhinged” has got to be the understatement of the year.

  131. 131.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 2:59 pm

    @rikyrah: want ads reading “wanted: lawyer willing to ignore law for general counsel position”
    have started appearing in DC area?

  132. 132.

    Kathleen

    April 8, 2019 at 3:02 pm

    @Redshift: The Powers That Be are dead set in favor of electing old, racist, misogynistic, criminally incompetent and morally bankrupt white men for presidency. And I’m not just referring to Trump.

  133. 133.

    H.E.Wolf

    April 8, 2019 at 3:03 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Honored and delighted by your “YES!”
    And your comment further along in the thread:

    people doing their jobs together, for a common cause, [is] a great source of power for all of us

    is one of my articles of most deeply-held faith. Thank you for the reminder.

    Before I dash off (busy day here), a quick appreciation to so many of my favorite commenters who are on this thread. I <3 you all. You inspire me to Do The Work.

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2019 at 3:05 pm

    Greg Sargent – Trump is Flailing

    Greg, you are just catching on now?
    After decades of Trump flailing at everything he’s ever attempted, he manages to steal an election by the thinest of margin, with massive help from Russia, BS, Jill Stein, the MSM, conservative secretaries of states, and a cast of millions, and now that he’s shown/showing his absolute mastery of being the definition of fuckup extraordinaire and incompetence all rolled into one massive quivering orange shit suit and he’s only flailing?

  135. 135.

    randy khan

    April 8, 2019 at 3:11 pm

    @catclub:

    want ads reading “wanted: lawyer willing to ignore law for general counsel position”
    have started appearing in DC area?

    I may have had advance word of the firing! I received a DC jobs email* this morning that had a DHS lawyer position as the top listing.

    *I’ve been getting these emails for months for no apparent reason and have been too lazy to tell them to leave me alone.

  136. 136.

    Jay

    April 8, 2019 at 3:25 pm

    @JR:

    The Nazi’s actually put their vile policies in place early in the war. The death rate from their atrocities actually went down when they started losing, because they needed the labour. It takes time to build the machinery of death.

    The Wehrmacht, which was a willing volenteer to the acts of genocide and war crimes when the Nazis were winning, put out directives not to participate, when the Nazis were losing.

  137. 137.

    Jay

    April 8, 2019 at 3:28 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    On the bright side, look at all the vacancies President Harris gets to fill.

  138. 138.

    Citizen Alan

    April 8, 2019 at 4:07 pm

    @rikyrah:

    People understand their tax return, if they don’t understand much else.

    Not necessarily. I know people who were convinced beyond all rational argument that Obama raised their taxes.

  139. 139.

    JR

    April 8, 2019 at 4:08 pm

    @Jay: I put their turning point at 1942, but I could see arguments for other dates.

  140. 140.

    jl

    April 8, 2019 at 4:11 pm

    ” But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base. ”
    There are reports in the news (supposedly from WH sources) that Trump *thinks* tripling down on failed, and failing, immigration strategy is an n-dimensional strategy for his base, for the next election. So, I am keeping that possibility open. Could be true if it’s OK to set n = 0.

  141. 141.

    Citizen Alan

    April 8, 2019 at 4:14 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    By comparison, Bernie played softball in 2016.

    My ENTIRE ass.

    To be fair, I believe the author is with Jacobin, so compared to people who want to guillotine their political enemies, I suppose Bernie did play softball in 2016.

  142. 142.

    catclub

    April 8, 2019 at 4:31 pm

    @jl:

    that Trump *thinks* tripling down on failed, and failing, immigration strategy is an n-dimensional strategy for his base, for the next election.

    The main point is that Trump only caters to his base, and senses they always want more -which could be right. Coulter demanding never surrender on the government shutdown may be indicative.

  143. 143.

    brantl

    April 8, 2019 at 4:49 pm

    When all you have for a brain is a sack of hammers, everything looks like a nail.

  144. 144.

    Jay

    April 8, 2019 at 5:04 pm

    @JR:

    1942 is when they stopped winning, and started to get ties. 1943 was a draw on all front’s except for North Africa, the Atlantic and The Med.

    1944 is when they started losing everywhere.

    Stalingrad, February, 1943,
    Kursk, July, August, 1943,
    North Africa, ended May, 1943,
    Sicily, July, August, 1943,

  145. 145.

    trnc

    April 8, 2019 at 5:17 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: IMHO, Jefferson, Adams, the Roosevelt’s, etc. In other words, the institution is generally running by staffers per how it was set up by past presidents minus Republican monkey wrenches.

    Republicans call it the deep state.

  146. 146.

    trnc

    April 8, 2019 at 5:32 pm

    @cckids: DT was born on Home and thinks he hit a home run.

  147. 147.

    Uncle Cosmo

    April 8, 2019 at 6:18 pm

    @Mike in NC: Naw. He’s going to hire DeVos’s brother to slip agents provocateurs into the crowds on the south side of the Mexican border to get them throwing rocks at the Border Patrol & then duck out just before the BP turns its AR-15s on them.

    I wish I were kidding.

    @Jay: Show your utter ignorance why doncha. Stalingrad was a tie??? Kursk was a tie?????? A couple of guys named Paulus & von Manstein are on the Feldgrau courtesy phone for you…..

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    April 8, 2019 at 6:21 pm

    @brantl:

    When all you have for a brain is a sack of hammers, everything looks like a nail.

    OK, I don’t know if this goes into “winning the Internets” territory, but it sure made *me* laugh!

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