Amy Siskind

This week (#70) in Fuckedupistan - aka: 45*'s White House.

March 17, 2018

In another frenzied week in America, Trump fired his secretary of state through a tweet, and continued to stoke fears of imminent additional departures, in what was described as a White House verging on mania. Trump is reportedly joyful, feeling liberated to act on his impulses and authoritarian instincts. Even as the Mueller probe and allegations of paying to silence Stephanie Clifford close in, Trump is cocky and irreverent — as if signaling he has matters in hand.

Russia seems increasingly aggressive and emboldened, in sharp contrast to, and perhaps with the silent complicity of Trump. Alarming reports surfaced not only of Russia’s use of chemical weapons and possibly murdering another Russian exiles in the UK, but also attacking US and European nuclear and energy infrastructure. In response, our Treasury Department took the first baby steps in imposing sanctions, while Nikki Haley and the White House issued a stark warning on Russia’s use of nerve gas. Amid an almost completely decimated leadership structure at our State Department, Trump, Kushner and Ivanka — although under clouds for self-dealing and security clearance issues — consolidated worldwide diplomacy in their hands.

12. The Boston Globe reported a rider added to the Homeland Security reauthorization bill would allow Trump to dispatch Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide during federal elections, a vast expansion of executive authority.

30. On Thursday, Politico reported on emails which reveal conservatives, including Newt Gingrich, targeted Obama holdovers “burrowed into the government,” including State Department Iran expert Sahar Nowrouzzadeh.

31. Nowrouzzadeh, born in Connecticut, was attacked by conservative media. Brian Hook, chief of State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, sent an email to himself in April which included a list of names, questioning their loyalties.

34. Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, told Bloomberg, “My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.”

43. AP reported that despite promises by Trump to drain the swamp, he hasfilled federal agencies with ex-lobbyists and corporate lawyers who now regulate the industries they previously worked in.

147. Also of note is Cambridge Analytica’s use of non-US employees in US elections, which would be illegal. Mueller has demanded emails of Cambridge Analytica employees who worked for the Trump team.

Today's Relationship Tip

It's all about the communication skills.

2020 Campaign

You had to see this one coming.

John Wagner, WaPo:

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) received a standing ovation from a crowd of business leaders and political junkies here on Friday after decrying the “degradation of the United States and her values” by the current occupant of the White House.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who ran for the GOP nomination in 2016, will return to the nation’s first primary state early next month for a “fireside chat” at a college in Henniker.

And on Monday, President Trump — whose New Hampshire primary win two years ago set him on a course for the presidency — is slated to make an appearance in the state for the first time since 2016.

The next presidential primaries here are nearly two years away, but the unusual flurry of activity is stoking speculation about whether a sitting president could face a serious challenge from within his own party for the first time in a quarter-century.

In 1992 — the last time that happened — Pat Buchanan’s strong GOP primary showing here helped weaken incumbent George H.W. Bush, who went on to lose reelection against Democrat Bill Clinton.

“I’m certain that Trump will draw a serious primary challenger,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee. “A lot of voters are getting tired of this act.”

And the kicker - even though he has some cover, making it look like he's there as a surrogate:

Vice President Pence also plans to plant the flag in New Hampshire later in the week, speaking at a fundraiser for Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and at a gathering of the pro-Trump group America First Policies.

The knives are out in plain sight now.

And ironically or otherwise, 45* keeps insisting that's how he wants it.

I wonder if 2020 is finally the year George W gets invited to the GOP convention.

Today's Pix

(If you like it put a click on it)

Lazy Sunday

My favorite tune for one of those chill Sunday afternoons balanced on the edge of spring.

  

Today's Tweet

I need to write this one down.

Don Jr. sits like his buttcheeks are getting a divorce and neither wants custody of his asshole.

— LiberalBookwormJim (@goodoldcatchy) March 17, 2018

 

Overheard

...on the intertoobz:

11% of Republicans think there's merit to Stormy Daniels's contention of having had an adulterous affair with 45*.

Which means 89% of them think she was first paid $130,000 - and is now being sued for $20 million - to make sure she doesn't say anything about something that didn't happen.

These people drive cars. They get to buy guns.

And they vote.

ProLeft Podcast

The Professional Left Podcast

(on YouTube too)

"...why we have to be extraordinarily vigilant right now - because all over the media, all the usual guardians of establishment sensibilities - David Brookes and Michael Gerson et al - are all building lifeboats now. They're all gathering around the sensibility of "Donald Trump is this freak event; it's not the Republicans..." and you can hear the Tea Party Bush-off alibi machine warming up in the background." 

And BTW, Democratic Self-Loathers, do you really think the message is the problem? Really?

OK - here's one: 

GOP policies are bad for families.

Run on it. Conor Lamb did, and he won in a gerrymandered-as-fuck district where the Repubs figured they could run a tree stump and keep the seat.

And the bullshit about how Dems don't really stand for anything?

• Equal rights
• Marriage equality
• Science and The Arts
• Public education
• The rule of law
• People are more important than profit
• Tax policy should be fair and progressive
• Healthcare coverage - Medicare and Medicaid
• A woman's right to self-determination
• Air Water and Soil shouldn't be poisonous
• Everybody votes
• and and and

Dems don't stand for anything?

Today's Tweet

The greatest threat to these Daddy State gas-lighters is anyone with a functioning memory.

 

Everything wrong with Fox News in one video pic.twitter.com/MhnApiQ3pG

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 16, 2018

 

Reread your Orwell (I'd give my right nut to get in on those royalties right about now).

And be sure to check in with driftglass on a regular basis.

Bob Cesca

From our nation's capital, it's The Bob Cesca Show - today with Jody Hamilton.

Leading off with 45* giving us an amazing demo of the ultimate in The DumFux News Effect - insisting that he's right even while admitting he's wrong.

This is Gas-Lighting at a level beyond the imaginings of Poe and Hitchcock.

On Secrecy And Security

...and good government.

JFK, American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961:

"We decided long ago that the dangers of unwarranted and excessive concealment of pertinent facts far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it."

"Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions."

"Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it."

"And there is grave danger in an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment."

This was mostly about trying to have a conversation about where to draw the line.

And drawing lines is what the whole thing is about to begin with - because compromise; you don't get everything you want; checks and balances, ya big dope.

An awful lot of our little experiment in self-government depends on the honor of the people we put in office.

We fuck it up sometimes, and we elect Huey Long; Dick Nixon; Warren G Harding; Joe McCarthy; Rob Blagojevich; Tom Price; Billy Tauzin - the list goes on forever - but we turn it around and we get it back on track, and the way we do that is by taking our responsibilities seriously enough to insist on making the system of Checks and Balances work, and to hold ourselves accountable for it.

In a democratic republic, the quality of our government is only as good as the work we're willing to put into it.

A Town Hall - VA05

Tom Garrett is a Daddy State clown of the highest order.

Follow him on Twitter. Listen to his speeches. Watch the YouTube videos. And then troll the fuck out of him.  Nobody deserves a good old-fashioned slagging more than this guy.

My comment at YouTube:

(and you might have to hurry - no telling how long his media people will allow criticism to stay in place)

Your "logic" is that banning bump stocks wouldn't save all that many lives, so why bother? Because - long guns? Well, what's the number, Mr Garrett? How many Americans do you need to see murdered before you get up off your ass and do something? 50? 500? How many? 

Then you turn around and say we have to spend enormous amounts of time and energy and money to solve the problem of immigrants involved in 3% of traffic deaths. 

You're an ideologue. You insist on taking every circumstance and smashing-fitting it into your narrow preconceptions. And the kicker is that you insist on using the most obviously ham-handed debate tactics, most often heard in a middle school cafeteria:

eg: "As someone who respects the Bill of Rights..." - what grade are you in now? 

Everybody respects the Bill of Rights, dopey - nobody is saying anything about tearing it up except you, when you're using it as a false premise. 

There is no honor in your outlook, or in your intellectually lazy presentation, or in your blatant attempts to impose your Daddy State agenda on us. 

You need to go.

Today's Tweet

And the message is clear.

There are no words for how much i rate this 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/Pyw5cNCdHh #IWD2018 #WomensDay #8march #8marzo

— Cinzia Pellegrino (@cnzpll) March 11, 2018

The clitterati. How great is that?

Milbank Gets One Right

Dana Milbank, WaPo:

It was the eve of the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Many on Wall Street worried that a recession loomed and that the housing bubble was bursting.

And then there was Larry Kudlow, the man President Trump just tapped to be his top economic adviser.

“Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic pessimistas, the resilient U.S. economy continues moving ahead,” Kudlow wrote on Dec. 7, 2007, in National Review, predicting that gloomy forecasters would “wind up with egg on their faces.” Kudlow, who previously derided as “bubbleheads” those who warned about a housing bubble, now wrote that “very positive” news in housing should “cushion” falling home sales and prices.
Some of Mr Kudlow's Greatest Hits:

1993: Kudlow proclaims in a speech: “There is no question that President Clinton’s across-the-board tax increases on labor, capital and energy will throw a wet blanket over the recovery and depress the economy’s long-run potential.” The economy goes into an eight-year expansion and adds 21 million jobs.

2001: Kudlow writes in National Review about the George W. Bush tax cuts: “Faster economic growth and more profitable productivity returns will generate higher tax revenues at the new lower tax-rate levels. Future budget surpluses will rise, not fall.” Tax revenue falls, and the budget goes from surplus into deep deficits.

2002: Kudlow, arguing for war in Iraq, writes in National Review: “The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points.” The market falls and the Dow Jones doesn’t get that couple-thousand-point elevation for years.

2009: Kudlow says in an interview: “President Obama is waging war on investors. He’s waging war against businesses.” In a piece in the Washington Times he warns that inflation could “ratchet higher.” The stock market and corporate profits climb to records, while inflation remains historically low.

2009: Kudlow says in an interview: “President Obama is waging war on investors. He’s waging war against businesses.” In a piece in the Washington Times he warns that inflation could “ratchet higher.” The stock market and corporate profits climb to records, while inflation remains historically low.
I'll admit I don't know everything Kudlow's ever predicted, so I could be stuck in the Argument From Ignorance logical fallacy. But I'll do a little prase-poaching and say this:

Those who can, do. Those who can't, go on TV and jaw-jack about it.

And then, if 45* thinks they look good enough on camera, they go to work in the White House, whether they know what the fuck they're doing or not.

Samantha Bee

Full Frontal - TBS, Wednesday nights at 10:30 Eastern - Samantha Bee