The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Tuesday
Jan082019
The Commentariat -- January 9, 2019
Old Dog, Old Tricks. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump doubled down on one of the biggest gambles of his presidency on Tuesday night with a televised appeal to pressure Congress into paying for his long-promised border wall, even at the cost of leaving the government partly closed until lawmakers give in.... In a nine-minute speech that made no new arguments but included multiple misleading assertions, the president sought to recast the situation at the Mexican border as a 'humanitarian crisis' and opted against declaring a national emergency to bypass Congress, which he had threatened to do, at least for now. But he excoriated Democrats for blocking the wall, accusing them of hypocrisy and exposing the country to criminal immigrants.... In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisers.... 'It's not going to change a damn thing, but I'm still doing it,' Mr. Trump said of the border visit, according to one of the people, who was in the room. The trip was merely a photo opportunity, he said. 'But,' he added, gesturing at his communications aides Bill Shine, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, 'these people behind you say it's worth it.'... In their own televised response on Tuesday night, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York ... accused the president of stoking fear and mocked him for asking taxpayers to foot the bill for a wall he had long said Mexico would pay for." ...
... Steve M.: "... why did Trump decide to go through with the speech and the border visit if he thinks it's all futile? I think it's because he knows he's losing -- and, by definition, that can't be his fault.... There's no way he's losing because of something he did! So he chose to follow recommendations he thinks will fail so he can blame the entire debacle on his press shop." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As Akhilleus wrote in commentary below, "He came across like a hostage squinting into a camera in a dark room, trying to read a prepared text and making it sound believable." As it turns out, according to Peter Baker's reporting, Trump actually felt his press aides were holding him hostage. Trump really hates having to act presidenty. He hates the job. That's why he mostly doesn't do it. There are only two possible reasons he's running for re-election: (1) to make money (for instance, he ran a fundraising scam off the Oval Office address, pretending the contributions were going to "the Official Secure the Border Fund" when they would actually go to his campaign); (2) to stay out of jail (a sitting president probably can't be cuffed & perp-walked).
... Here are transcripts of Trump's speech & Pelosi & Schumer's response, as prepared by the New York Times. ...
... BTW, if you want to watch a puffy-eyed old plump guy practice teleprompter-reading, here's your chance. ...
... New York Times reporters also fact-checked both speech & response. Funny, but they had a whole bunch of "false" & "needs context" checks for Trump & only one "needs context" check for Pelosi/Schumer, a "check" which essentially agrees with Schumer's remark. Mrs. McC: Also, there's a sweet AP photo with the caption, "A Border Patrol agent helped a family after they crossed a section of a border fence in San Diego." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here is a remarkable thing to behold:
... I see two things going on here. (1) Fox "News"'s Shep Smith & Chris Wallace brutally fact-check Trump. (2) Trump appeared on the teevee during Sean Hannity's time slot. But instead of having Hannity do fawning commentary, Fox "News" booked Smith & Wallace, its only two regular hosts willing to rap Trump. I won't go so far as to suggest the Fox has a new coat, but it's certainly looking in the shop window at furs of a hue less orange. This is as "fair & balanced" as Fox has been since Megyn Kelly marched Karl Rove down the hall to the vote analysts' "decision desk" on election night 2012. ...
... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: The "wall-fence-barrier ... [is] the president's personal Alamo. Inside the West Wing, Trump has told aides he's prepared to stake his presidency on making a last stand. 'He has convinced himself he can't win re-election in 2020 unless he gets a lot of the wall built. It;s fundamental to his id,' a former West Wing official said. 'The problem is, the Democrats know that.' Trump's aides fear he has given himself no way out. 'The president put himself in a box,' the former official ... told me. 'The problem is there's no endgame....' Another prominent Republican close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described Trump's handling of the shutdown as 'total fucking chaos.'" ...
... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "The entirety of Trump's speech was a reminder that he's not very good at making the case for something or explaining anything, his only effective rhetorical and political tool is scaring the bejesus out of people. If he's not trying to terrify you, it's probably not working.... It was a speech so unpersuasive and likely self-defeating that it didn't need much of a response, but Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered one up anyway. Standing awkwardly close on a single podium that smacked of a Saturday Night Live skit, neither Democrat was able to emphatically dunk on Trump's nonsense." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hannon does suggest that Trump made an effort to connect with bleeding-heart liberals: "This is a humanitarian crisis. A crisis of the heart, and a crisis of the soul.... [Migrant] children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs. One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims, by far, of our broken system. This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our southern border. This is the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end," Trump said. Hannon, for some reason, is unpersuaded of Trump's sincerity: "The president is concerned about the migrant women and children? The humanitarian pump fake surely isn't fooling anyone that doesn't want to be fooled at this point. It also undermines the emergency powers argument." ...
... Eric Lach of the New Yorker: "In the ten or so minutes that he spent giving an address from the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Trump ran through a litany of talking points, some deceptive, some contradictory, some vacuous, some diversionary. He did not have a single argument for why he decided, last month, to shut down the government over border-wall money.... Trump also made uncharacteristic appeals to empathy, saying that he was determined to end 'the cycle of human suffering' at the border. But he has spent too many years demagoguing about migrants to claim to care for them now." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "In place of cogent policy arguments, Trump substituted his familiar about immigrants rampaging the countryside to commit a series of grisly crimes against law-abiding Americans.... He devoted almost no effort to securing wall funds during the two years when his party enjoyed full control of government (during which he might have leveraged Republican desperation for corporate tax cuts to force them to fund his wall).... Trump shut the government down in an impulsive fit, failing to anticipate either the pain the shutdown would create nor any strategy for escaping it.... It's unlikely even a highly articulate, popular president could escape the mess Trump has created for himself." ...
... Pomp & No Circumstance. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has invited representatives from cable and broadcast news channels to an off-the-record lunch at the White House ahead of his prime time speech Tuesday night, an address in which he is expected to frame his demand for border wall funding as a response to a national security and humanitarian crisis.... The president appears to be preparing for the event as if he is delivering a miniature State of the Union message -- typically, television anchors meet with the president over lunch ahead of his annual address to Congress." (Also linked yesterday.)
John Wagner & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Vice President Pence argued Tuesday that the United States is facing an 'undeniable crisis' at its southern border and urged Democrats to negotiate an end to the impasse over President Trump's demand for border wall funding that has led to a partial government shutdown. Pence appeared on three network morning shows, offering a preview of a prime-time address from the Oval Office planned by Trump on Tuesday night in a bid to gain leverage, with the shutdown now in its third week. Democrats announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would deliver a joint response. During his interviews, Pence did not rule out the possibility that Trump would declare a national emergency that could empower him to construct a border wall without congressional approval. But the vice president said repeatedly that the administration is seeking a negotiated solution with Congress." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "The vice president avoided direct answers to questions from ABC and others about repeated misstatements from Trump and others that overstate the national security threat at the border.... 'How can the American people trust the president when he says this is a crisis, when he says things over and over again that aren't true?' [Jonathan] Karl [of ABC News] asked. 'Well, look, the American people aren't as concerned about the political debate as they are concerned about what's really happening at the border,' Pence responded. The vice president also repeated Trump's misleading insistence that a renegotiated free trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada fulfills to his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for a border wall, arguing that the new deal is structured 'in a way that it will benefit the United States in jobs and tax revenues.' Fact checkers have rated those claims false, even if the deal had been ratified and gone into effect, which it has not." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Kate Smith of CBS News: "Nine congressional representatives serve the districts that line the 2,000-mile southern border. They are men, women, freshman politicians and Washington veterans. The Democrats among them span liberal ideologies, while one of them is a Republican. But they all have one thing in common: each is against ... Donald Trump's border wall." ...
... Chris Kahn of Reuters: "A growing proportion of Americans blame ... Donald Trump for a partial government shutdown that will cut off paychecks to federal workers this week, though Republicans mostly support his refusal to approve a budget without taxpayer dollars for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday." ...
Pilar Melendez & Julia Arciga of the Daily Beast: "Airport security screeners forced to work without pay during the government shutdown have been calling out sick. But now the mad-as-hell workers are actually quitting their jobs. That's according to union officials representing Transportation Security Administration officers, who will miss their first paycheck since the government ground to a halt Dec. 22 over a budget and border wall impasse.... Hydrick Thomas, head of the American Federation of Government Employees' TSA Council, said in a statement Tuesday[,] 'The loss of officers, while we're already shorthanded, will create a massive security risk for American travelers since we don't have enough trainees in the pipeline or the ability to process new hires.'"
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Sharon LaFraniere & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with an associate tied to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign, prosecutors alleged, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday. The accusations came to light in a document filed by Mr. Manafort's defense lawyers that was supposed to be partly blacked out but contained a formatting error that accidentally revealed the information.... In one portion of the filing that Mr. Manafort's lawyers tried to redact, they instead also revealed that Mr. Manafort 'may have discussed a Ukraine peace plan' with the Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, 'on more than one occasion.' Investigators have been questioning witnesses about whether Russia tried to influence the Trump administration to broker a resolution to hostilities between Russia and Ukraine." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... The Campaign in Spain Paul Plainly Can't Explain. Mrs. McCrabbie: Accoding to Manafort's spokesperson, Manafort flew to Madrid to meet with Kilimnik in January or February 2017, after Trump was elected & months after Trump fired him. The idea that he went to share "polling data" at that time doesn't make sense, so surely he shared the polling data, which one has to assume was internal, while the campaign was ongoing, likely during a meeting between the two in the U.S. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Why was Trump's campaign manager sharing polling data with a Russian intelligence agent?... One question about Russian social-media messages, and a key potential avenue for collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow, is how Russia targeted its messaging so precisely. The Russians may have studied the American electorate closely on their own. But it seems more likely that they tapped their contacts for data to help them figure out what messages to use, and where. The New York Times reports that Manafort asked Kilimnik to pass on the polling data to [magnate Oleg] Deripaska (which means to the Russian government.) It also reports that most of the data was public but some of it 'was developed by a private polling firm working for the campaign.'" ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "... meeting with a Russian agent in Madrid comes pretty close to evidence of a conspiracy that was being managed by Trump's then campaign chairman.... According to his lawyers, Manafort shared polling data about the 2016 presidential race with Kilimnik.... Manafort also conceded that he discussed a Ukraine peace plan with Kilimnick. This would obviously be the one he's referring to: 'A week before Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to his office, outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.... But the proposal contains more than just a peace plan. Andrii V. Artemenko, the Ukrainian lawmaker..., claims to have evidence ... showing corruption by the Ukrainian president, Petro O. Poroshenko, that could help oust him. And Mr. Artemenko said he had received encouragement for his plans from top aides to Mr. Putin.' What we have is a meeting in Madrid between Trump's campaign manager and a Russian agent in which the discussion included ... a plan cooked up by [Trump associate Felix] Sater and Artemenko for the Ukrainian president to be blackmailed into resigning, allowing President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia. Stay tuned...." ...
... digby: "... there are a lot of facts that we know nothing of in this case and it certainly implies that there is a major conspiracy case surrounding Manafort tied directly to the Trump campaign."
Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A Russian lawyer whose role at a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower has come under scrutiny from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was charged Tuesday in a separate case with obstructing justice in a money-laundering investigation. Natalia Veselnitskaya became a central figure in the Mueller probe when it was revealed that in June 2016, she met with Donald Trump Jr., after an intermediary indicated she had dirt on Hillary Clinton. But the charges unsealed Tuesday say she made a 'misleading declaration' to the court in a civil case. Veselnitskaya ... represented Prevezon Holdings in a civil case in which the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan sought millions of dollars in forfeiture from the company and others. The department had alleged in a civil complaint that a Russian criminal organization ran an elaborate tax refund scheme.... Those involved made about $230 million in tax refunds, prosecutors said, and filtered the money through shell companies and eventually into Prevezon, a Cyprus-based real estate corporation. Prevezon, prosecutors said, laundered the funds into real estate, including by investing in high end commercial property and luxury apartments in Manhattan. The parent company of the victim firms hired attorneys to investigate after learning of the sham lawsuits, including Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and they uncovered the fraud scheme, in which Russian government officials were complicit, prosecutors said." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McC: Hmmm, "luxury apartments in Manhattan." Do you suppose any of said "luxury apartments" was sold by "Individual A"? ...
... Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "... a federal indictment returned in Manhattan seemed to confirm that Ms. Veselnitskaya had deep ties to senior Russian government officials.... Ms. Veselnitskaya, 43, is believed to be in Russia.... The new indictment again raises questions about whom Ms. Veselnitskaya was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the campaign." Includes a facsimile of the indictment. (Also linked yesterday.)
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Supreme Court has declined to intervene in a mysterious subpoena fight that apparently involved an unidentified foreign-government-owned company and special counsel Robert Mueller. Last month, the unknown firm asked the high court to block a federal judge's contempt order and $50,000-a-day penalty for refusing to comply with the subpoena, arguing that the company is immune from U.S. grand jury subpoenas. The company also insisted that complying with the subpoena would violate the law in the firm's home country. But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court turned down the company's request to step into the dispute, at least for now.... The high court did indicate that [CJ] Roberts referred the issue to the full court and that the short-term stay he ordered last month was now dissolved. Many details about the case have been shrouded in secrecy." ...
... Amy Howe of ScotusBlog: "Just a few hours after the unnamed corporation appealed to the Supreme Court, the justices denied the company's request to put the lower court's order requiring it to provide the information or pay penalties on hold. The justices also vacated the temporary stay that Chief Justice John Roberts had imposed on December 23. There were no recorded dissents from the order, and no explanation for the ruling. However, one factor in the decision whether to grant such a request is whether there is a 'reasonable probability' that at least four justices will vote to grant review, and another is whether there is a 'fair prospect' that at least five justices will agree that the decision below was wrong. Taken together, these factors suggest that the unidentified corporation could face an uphill battle in getting the Supreme Court to take up its case and reverse the D.C. Circuit's decision."
** Pierre Thomas, et al., of ABC News: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his role in the coming weeks, multiple sources familiar with his plans told ABC News. Rosenstein has communicated to ... Donald Trump and White House officials his plan to depart the administration around the time William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general, would take office following a Senate confirmation. Sources told ABC News Rosenstein wants to ensure a smooth transition to his successor and would accommodate the needs of Barr, should he be confirmed. Rosenstein apparently had long been thinking he would serve about two years, and there was no indication that he was being forced out at this moment by the president.... Like other senior leaders within the Justice Department, Rosenstein became a frequent target of Trump's on Twitter, with the president recently re-posting an image of Rosenstein and others behind bars."
A Racist White House Response to a Charge of Racism. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post marvels at the White House's response after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez answered in the affirmative when Anderson Cooper asked her if President* Trump was a racist. The White House hit back against AOC's "sheer ignorance on the matter," and asserted that Trump has "repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms." Because, um, a woman of color, when contrasted with President* Whitey-White, is comparatively an ignoramus on the issue of racism (or anything). And, as Scott writes, "The president 'repeatedly condemning' racism, as the White House claims, is pointless when one of the main promoters of that bigotry is perceived to be Trump himself."
Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult. Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a 'grave mistake' when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.... Mr. Bolton was in Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Tuesday for meetings with his national security counterpart Ibrahim Kalin but left after he was denied a meeting with Mr. Erdogan, the pro-government English-language newspaper Daily Sabah reported." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Elizabeth McLaughlin & Conor Finnegan of ABC News: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stopped in Iraq during a tour of the Mideast, according to local TV reports. The unannounced visit on Wednesday comes as Pompeo is meeting with allies in the region to discuss conflicting statements from ... Donald Trump and U.S. officials on an announced withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, according to the Associated Press."
Dissing Our Friends. Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "The Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union's delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said on Tuesday. After protest from Brussels and discussion between the European Union and the Trump administration, the reclassification of the delegation and the consequent demotion of the ambassador, David O'Sullivan, is understood to have been reversed, at least temporarily, the official said. Mr. Trump has been critical of multilateral institutions, and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, delivered a provocative speech in Brussels on Dec. 4 in which he questioned the value of multinational organizations and institutions like the United Nations and the European Union." (Also linked yesterday.)
Russ Choma & Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones: "When Mother Jones first reported in December 2017 that the Environmental Protection Agency had hired a hyperpartisan GOP opposition research firm [Definers Public Affairs] known for its aggressive tactics to handle the agency's news-clipping work, the politically appointed flacks in the agency's press office insisted the decision was about saving money and that the hiring had been handled through normal procurement channels.... Now, thanks to another batch of internal emails, we have even more evidence that the motivation for hiring Definers came from the top agency political appointees who were ticked off at the old service because it was collecting too many news clips that portrayed then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt negatively." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Darren Samuelsohn & Rachel Bade of Politico: "The Justice Department is trying to delay acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker from delivering testimony to the new Democratic-led House until next month, potentially pushing his high-profile appearance until after a permanent replacement has already been confirmed, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Whitaker had initially committed to Democratic leaders that he'd give testimony in January to the House Judiciary Committee. But those plans have since stalled, with Justice Department officials citing the ongoing government shutdown and Whitaker's busy travel schedule as reasons for pushing back the hearing, the sources said." (Also linked yesterday.)
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Emboldened House Democrats, seeking a politically charged debate on gun control, unveiled legislation on Tuesday to expand background checks to nearly all firearms purchases, a move timed to mark the eighth anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona that nearly killed former Representative Gabrielle Giffords. By introducing the measure less than one week after taking control of the House, Democrats are signaling that it is a top priority. A vote could come within the first 100 days of the new Congress. The measure, and a companion bill introduced Tuesday in the Senate, also reflects the changing politics around gun laws, an issue many Democrats once shied away from.... Polls have shown that a vast majority of Americans -- by some estimates, 90 percent -- support universal background checks for all gun purchases.... The National Rifle Association opposed the measure."
Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "America's carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years, according to a preliminary estimate published Tuesday. Strikingly, the sharp uptick in emissions occurred even as a near-record number of coal plants around the United States retired last year, illustrating how difficult it could be for the country to make further progress on climate change in the years to come, particularly as the Trump administration pushes to roll back federal regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions."
Beyond the Beltway
David Goodman of the New York Times: "New York City will spend at least $100 million to ensure that undocumented immigrants and others who cannot qualify for insurance can receive medical treatment, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday morning, seeking to insert a city policy into two contentious national debates.... NYC Care would be a mix of insurance and direct spending, and Mr. de Blasio said it would take about two years to get up and running. The city already has a kind of public option for health insurance for low-income New Yorkers, through an insurance plan ... [called] MetroPlus."
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Reader Comments (23)
Damn, in a moment of weakness I just watched Fatty. The thought in my mind was what kind of drugs is he on or what health issues is he dealing with? He's got these big puffy white bags under his eyes, his right eye was a barely open slit with a small pupil while his left eye was a slightly larger slit with a fully dialated pupil. Every time he inhaled it sounded like he was inhaling a kilo of the coke, heroin, meth, and fentenyl that he was railing against. I've never before seen or heard anything like it.
Sad to say but he came across as a caricature of a cartoon piggy.
There are few things more unsettling than a sociopath trying to mimic empathy. He came across like a hostage squinting into a camera in a dark room, trying to read a prepared text and making it sound believable.
And Unwashed might have a point with that observation of what looked like cocaine use. The sniffling that accompanied so many campaign harangues and the “debates” seems like it’s back.
Maybe he just couldn’t find his way clear to acting like a real human for more than a couple of minutes without a few lines to get him through the ordeal. I’m sure getting back to reminding everyone of what dirty crooks and evil bastards brown people are must have been a great relief for his royal fatness.
And not for nothin’, but remember how wingers always made fun of of Obama whenever he used a Teleprompter? Jesus, you think Fatty could have practiced a couple of times before looking like a drugged out Ron Burgundy on national television?
More stomach than I, you two.
I did see clips, though, and concluded the Pretender was squinting in order to read the teleprompter's large print, and I learned the Dems are now insisting on a steel something to aid America's flagging industry.
Yawn.
Over and out.
I know it's been said but it's worth repeating: The best deal maker south of Dodge just tripped face first into a steel flat and fell into a straightjacket at the first attempt at real negotiations in Washington. The GOP didn't even try to toughen him up for future Democratic control; they let the pudge soften vulnerable to a shrewd Nancy Pelosi liver blow. Wham!
And now Fats, a wretched boor of a man, visibly hurting from Nancy's beatdown, is dragged in front of the nation to read "An Ode to Humanity" written by our nation's most despicable Neo-Nazi sympathizer whose idea of humanity is psychologically torturing kids by tearing them from their families and sticking them in cages.
Any word from Melanie, Javanka on the issue? Oh yeah, forgot. They don't care. #Justbe
Could not watch (Hello, Mrs. Maisel--) but my daughter says he has been huffing Adderol (sp?) for years-- it was said by the people he worked with on the Apprentice, and acts as a sort of speed... Hence the sniffing... But I only report her comment-- I don't really know it for sure. Heaven forbid he rise to the occasion and look/sound human...
@Jeanne: According to Noel Casler, a former staffer on "The Apprentice," "[Trump i]s a speed freak. He crushes up his Adderall and he sniffs it because he can’t read and he gets really nervous when he has to read cue cards. I’m not kidding. This is true."
Here are common & rare side effects Adderall can have. Some fit Trump to a tee.
My favorite comment so far refers to the way the Confederates’ psychopath president* would be speaking if he wasn’t trying to appear like a normal person, and let his true nature shine forth:
“It rubs the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again.”
I'm reading about Thomas Cromwell, that remarkable man, that self-educated man who rose from poverty, became the King's royal servant and ended up as Earl of Essex and lord great chamberlain, three months before his execution. Within Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography we come across a description of Henry's court and by George, tis sounding exactly like what's we gots in the White House:
Henry's court was a fearfully dangerous place where courtiers jostled for the favor of the this capricious monarch. MacCulloch portrays the King as "terrifyingly unpredictable," given to "destructive whims" and "habitually erratic" decision-making, "a thorough coward when it came to personal confrontations," and "almost impossible to serve successfully."
How about them apples?
Here in this century we have the man who would be King, if he could, go on TV and in a soporific tone that would induce sleepiness if it wasn't coming out of that monster's mouth, he tried to save his sorry ass. And wow!–-when the two foxes, Shep and Wally, speak some truth to power then it's time to break out the bubbly.
Message to Akilleus: Yesterday you gave us a link to a George Carlin bit–-loved it but then what came after was a young, yummy Jon Stewart interviewing Carlin––also great and from there we had Johnny Carson's show with Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters–-superb!!! Laughed for a good half hour until a voice from yonder kitchen beckoned:
"Woman! Are ye still up there on the computer? Our vittles are being cooked to death down here!"
So–-once again you are to blame and I thank you kindly!
Have to admit that I have some of those Adderall side effects, like
the throwing up one, every time I see that orange face.
The emergency isn't at the southern border, it's in the White House.
Nothing new in the Pretender playbook, but this last week has taught me something.
Congress should be doing some serious thinking about the emergency powers it has already granted to the executive. In the realm of small favors, maybe we're fortunate we had the Loony-in-Chief flailing around to point it out.
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/8/18173682/trump-shutdown-wall-speech-border-national-emergency
PD,
Gonna have to send you guys a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Don't worry. It won't be Chick-Fil-A.
Question: After parroting the Dear Leader's lies for two years now, aiding and abetting rampant stupidity, absent and ignorant on so many occasions, and getting burned on live TV interviews by fact-checking journalists, has enough of the Liar's shit stuck to Pence's shine that he's been made permanently toxic once Fats enters the steel slats and takes a left?
If Pence doesn't somehow get sucked into the clown car as it careens off the cliff to political oblivion, and you know Donny will try to snag his ankle leaning out the window with the opened umbrella he can't manage to close, I don't see how anyone can see him as a viable option for future White House ambitions. He can go back to Indiana and take up the mantle of gay conversion therapy and woo Confederates back home, maybe even win a seat in Congress on the coattails of Drumpf's #MAGA Qanon base, but otherwise I think his goose is cooked, praise Jeezus! Prediction: He'll persist. And fail.
Can you believe that Fatty was yapping about a "humanitarian crisis" (which he created), and a "crisis of the heart, crisis of the soul"?
Who the hell wrote that? For Trump? Are you kidding? Don't you have to have a heart and a soul for any crises to affect? Not to mention the fact that such high falutin' sentiments coming from this guy is like listening to a six year old read passages from "Paradise Lost". The words come out but mean little to the reader.
I haven't heard of any tweety things coming out today in which Fatty declared the entire enterprise a successful even of world historical importance (doesn't he believe that of his own farts?), but I expect some any minute. At the very least will be the habitual "Democrats love terrorists" charges.
Predictable as losing bets at the track.
More Pretender flailing as the real walls close in:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/09/donald-trump-fema-california-wildfires/2523581002/
Silly of me, I know, but why, all of a sudden, is the border situation a national emergency requiring everyone to change their panties every half hour? Hasn't Fatty been spinning these lies for years? Did he just now realize that since he hasn't done shit about it so far he prob'ly should make some noises just so's people don't think he's been, ya know, spinning these lies for years?
Is it Mueller, or the Syria back-tracking, or the falling stock market, or that trade war with China he started and which is kicking his fat ass, or could it be the yuuuuuge fail of his famous tax bill, the porn stars, the morons he picked to run things, or the beating he took in the midterms when he and his entire agenda were banged harder and more often than a screen door at the Fourth of July backyard barbecue?
Or is it just the Trump Jitters? The paranoia, the doltishness, the supreme idiocy?
Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the border.
Somewhere ol' Fred Trump is looking down on all of this thinking, "Jesus, that fuckin' kid. Can he do a single thing without screwing it up six ways from Sunday?"
I see Jeff Bezos and his wife's impending divorce has grabbed today's headlines.
If I were "Melanie," I'd hire a lawyer, stat.
PD,
It seems that Mick Mulvaney (can't remember offhand how many jobs he has now...) has also been reading about Cromwell (Thomas, not Oliver, but then again...). And he's not going to wait around for all that off-with-his-head business, or for Fatty to diss him in public.
It seems that he's already looking for an LZ once he bails out of the SS Trumpanic. I see he's ogling the presidency of the University of South Carolina. Not just ogling, he's actively courting the university. He has no background in higher education, but that's never stopped him before. His major accomplishment is being a teabagger. He's a perfect emblem of the Confederate Peter Principle, which is slightly different from the original concept which states that employees can rise to the level of their own incompetence. In Trump World, you can go waaaaay beyond that. Shit, you can be monkey-pushing-buttons-in-a-nuclear-silo incompetent and still go higher.
He reached out to the university so it's clear that he doesn't see himself getting the gold watch from the Trump Corporation (aka the United States of 'merica).
But good luck to South Carolina if they decide to go with this chump. They already know that if things get rough there, he'll be looking for another parachute. It's the classic "what's best for me" R mentality.
No surprise that Mulvaney is feathering his nest-- so far, he hasn't been able to do any of his jobs, so he figures he can just rest on his "laurels" and head up a university...hell, lotsa people can do it-- Ken Starr, etc... Don't forget: none of Blurp's cabinet picks and the entire R congressional delegation can do their jobs either, so win-win! It IS! Peter Princ. on steroids! It's a good time to be a figurehead!
And on Rosenstein's departure on Barr's confirmation, this thought:
Could it be a signal that the one thing on which history will judge Rosenstein, the Mueller investigation, is nearing an end, so Rosenstein is confident Barr, despite purported promises delivered by Lackey Lindsay that he will not, will not be able turn turtle and interfere with its legitimate completion?
And this:
“If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday in an interview on Fox News.
Is that another way of saying that the entire Republican Party--as some of them with no knowledge of history still like to say, the party of Lincoln-- has been reduced to one thing--a wall?
Seems so.
Ken,
I don't know what Rosenstein is thinking, but I've been impressed by the guy up 'til now. Maybe, as you suggest, he is confident that Mueller's guys have Fatty by the balls so he's okay with going out. It could also be that he believes that the incoming Confederate, Barr, should be able to choose his own staff of Nazis, and he (Rosenstein) doesn't see himself as fitting in with a guy who has already said that the president* should be able to do what he wants with no legal impediments.
Barr could turn out to be someone who values law and ethics more than party loyalty, but that will have to be clearly proven before I see him as something other than a Party Boy who is ready and willing to sandbag the law in order that his party should win out.
But here's the thing. I don't believe or trust a single one of these grifting gullions.
And if we're going to entertain the possibility that Trump has been doing this for over $500 ways. He is a born carny hawk. IE, a disgusting liar.
I assume that Rosenstein knows that he will not be DOJ Dep after a new AG comes in, and is just giving everybody notice to understand that. The deputy turnover is normal when a new AG comes in (and in every cabinet agency), timing subject to overlap needs. He has no incentive to bargain to remain. He has to trust in the professionalism of the cadre and not consider himself uniquely responsible for seeing Mueller through.
And in the back of his head he probably hopes to get out with his head up.
Thought experiments can be useful when trying to consider the validity or soundness of a position, or locating huge leaks in a philosophical stand.
So, Fatty sez he's perfectly fine with keeping large portions of the government shut down until he gets his way (wahhh-wahhhh).
In his mind, keeping the government agencies presently closed or partially operational without funding or functional capability, is perfectly fine.
This includes a multitude of departments, either in whole or in part, including agriculture, commerce, education, energy, justice, labor, state, homeland security, transportation (including the TSA), IRS, NLRB, regulatory commission, and various and sundry other operations.
He doesn't care because he doesn't (1) care, (2) know, and/or (3) give a shit. He is....a moron.
He and his knee-jerk sycophants (lookin' at you Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell) don't give a rat's ass about most of the operations of the government because, as Republicans, they hate government (except the parts that benefit them). Trump, until the other day, had no idea that certain parts of the hated guv'mint did anything at all.
But what if the shutdown included the military? What if the armed forces were furloughed? Certainly that would be cause for concern, but with the exception of actions in war zones (created by Republicans, natch), much of what the military does is prophylactic or preventative. The army and navy aren't taking direct action against someone or some thing every day, even though such actions can be threatened.
But plenty of agencies the Trump/McConnell shutdown has shuttered do, metaphorically speaking. And it's not like once the government reopens, it'll be like some tattooed carny worker flipping a switch on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Wheeee....
The idea, cozied up to by Fatty and his enablers, that shutting down the guv'mint is no big deal, as long as Big Baby gets what he wants, is a startlingly egregious canard and a dangerous and expensive strategy.
In other eras, one might expect that the vast majority of the president*'s own party, who understand the importance of governing agencies to the health and welfare of the country, would pull aside a president* bereft of a similar understanding, and read him the riot act. But not anymore. Even those who know better are perfectly happy to aid and abet the worst, most ignorant, most treasonous president* in history. A guy who makes Benedict Arnold look like a Medal of Honor winner.
It's not just the parts of the government that blow shit up that matter, it's the parts that build that matter as well.
Fatty and his consort simply don't get that. Or if they do, they really, really don't care.
Party.of.Traitors.
Period.