The Many Faces of US Politics...

[seafoid]

Eamonn, I don't think the GOP is conservative at the moment. It's run by fruitcakes who don't care about conservative concerns. The Tory party is the same. We are in a really weird political moment. I wouldn't vote conservative but I would respect conservatives. And the people running the US gov are contemptible.

How long have they been contemptible?

I didn't think much of Obama either, Stew, but people like Miller and Bannon are on a different level and dangerous

[omaghjoe]

Zack Whittaker‏@zackwhittaker 25 feb.

Places where BBC reporters are banned: •  Rwanda •  North Korea •  The White House •  Iran •  Zimbabwe

Thats an interesting one, it seems like the BBC are banned there for allowing airing dissenting opinions on the genocide there.
Which similarly is actually a crime in most of the present day host countries that the WWII genocide occured

[stew]

Eamonn, I don't think the GOP is conservative at the moment. It's run by fruitcakes who don't care about conservative concerns. The Tory party is the same. We are in a really weird political moment. I wouldn't vote conservative but I would respect conservatives. And the people running the US gov are contemptible.

How long have they been contemptible?

I didn't think much of Obama either, Stew, but people like Miller and Bannon are on a different level and dangerous


I am just sick of the comparisons with Nazi Germany, they are ridiculous, Trump is not nor will he ever try and become a dictator, he is childish, petulant and can be brilliant at times, but on here some have him pegged as a nazi, some a communist and its all bullshit.

[seafoid]

George W Bush horses into the debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHBkCq5Tmso

[sid waddell]

Eamonn, I don't think the GOP is conservative at the moment. It's run by fruitcakes who don't care about conservative concerns. The Tory party is the same. We are in a really weird political moment. I wouldn't vote conservative but I would respect conservatives. And the people running the US gov are contemptible.

How long have they been contemptible?

I didn't think much of Obama either, Stew, but people like Miller and Bannon are on a different level and dangerous


I am just sick of the comparisons with Nazi Germany, they are ridiculous, Trump is not nor will he ever try and become a dictator, he is childish, petulant and can be brilliant at times, but on here some have him pegged as a nazi, some a communist and its all bullshit.

Stoo - Are you talking about the time Trump compared his own intelligence services and John McCain to Nazi Germany, or the constant branding of feminists as "feminazis" by the right? Or the old "liberal fascists" line?

[Denn Forever]

Hillary's concession speech as a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkS2Sl1kl

[Eamonnca1]

Tweet Beat

• The President lashed out today about the sustained drumbeat of stories about his group's ties to Russia, writing: "Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!"
Of course, the "illegal leaks" are *about* Russia, so I'm not sure how that logic leap works? You get the FBI to investigate so they have something to leak to the press so you can push the story in the media to paper over the leaks?
Dinner for Schmucks (Epilogue)

• The President's entrée last night at his hotel consisted of an aged NY strip, cooked well done. He ate it with catsup "as he always does."
Impeach this f**k NOW.

• Last week, rumors surfaced that the Navy Secretary nominee, Philip Bilden, was going to be withdrawing because it was going to be too hard to divest from his financial holdings to satisfy the conflict of interest vetting. The Press Secretary vehemently denied these reports, tweeting, "Just spoke with him and he is 100% commited to being the next SECNAV pending Senate confirm."
Today Bilden withdrew, making him the second service branch secretary to bail. No replacement for either position has been offered.
Press Secretary

• Spicey's apparently gone full Captain Queeg in his search for the West Wing Leakers. He convened a meeting of his staff to complain about the press leaks – and news of the meeting promptly leaked to the press.
Politico reported that, flanked by White House lawyers, Spicey ordered the comms staff to dump their work and personal mobile phones on the table to be checked for incriminating communications. They were then told that using encrypted messaging systems like Confide or Signal was a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine promptly posted a screenshot of her own Confide address book with Sean Spicer listed in it.
On Feb 16, Buzzfeed published a story about West Wing staff using Confide. In the article, Spicey acknowledged Confide was installed on his phone and he had used it, but that "the idea of what apps I use on my phone is an invasion of my privacy."

• After the Politico story broke, the press office promptly planted a story "according to one informed official" in the Washington Examiner about Alex Isenstadt of Politico "laughing" at the death of the SEAL killed in Yemen.
In the article, there is an anecdote about Spicey berating deputy communications director Jessica Ditto until she cried. Spicey denied this, saying, "The only time Jessica recalls almost getting emotional is when we had to relay the information on the death of Chief Ryan Owens." An unnamed member of the White House that professes to hate anonymous quotes says this caused the reporter to laugh.
Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring said that Isenstadt "chuckled" at Spicer's heated reaction to the questions, not the death of the SEAL.
Budget

• The AP reports that the budget drawn up by OMB head Mick Mulvaney plans to inflate defense spending by making severe cuts to the EPA and to the State Department — tens of billions of dollars, to be precise. The cuts need to be drastic enough so that the President's promise to not touch Medicare or Social Security. The New York Times noted that, "social safety net programs... would also be hit hard," but did not list any specifics.

Town Hall Roundup

• 275 people attended a "constituent town hall" in Speaker Paul Ryan's district in Kenosha, WI. The Speaker was invited but refused to attend.

• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) invoked the specter of Rep. Gabby Gifford's shooting as the reason he would not be participating in any public town halls.
Giffords responded thusly: "I was shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning my offices were open to the public."

• Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) told local Miami news that he won't go to a town hall because people will "heckle and scream at me." He maintains that 80-90% of the crowd is "liberal activists" but when he was running against Charlie Crist in 2009 he said of politicians who don't believe people at town halls are actual constituents: "They're so insulated. Never has our political class been more insulated from the real lives of real people."

• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie put craven GOP legislators on blast, saying, 'Welcome to the real world of responsibility."

This has been Day 38 in Trumpistan. Good night!

[seafoid]

Stew, Richard Spencer, who is a top man in the alt right movement,  is a neo Nazi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o6-bi3jlxk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rh1dhur4aI

Asked if he feels he now has an ally in the White House, Spencer said: "In terms of Donald Trump, I would say that it's not so much that he's alt-right, it's that he's a nationalist and a populist and so he's connected to us on that basic level. He doesn't articulate our ideas – he's not an identarian – but his arrow points in our direction."

[Eamonnca1]

POTUS

• Met with state governors today and said, "Now, I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated."
JFC. I've got nothing here. There can't be anything to top the self-parody of this man. LIT-ER-A-LY EVERYONE knows health care is complicated.

• Also slagged off the last 40 years of servicemen and women, saying that they were "courageous" but that "we never win and we don't fight to win" wars anymore.
The five-time draft dodger who compared not getting an STD in the '80s to Vietnam continued, "when I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war. We never lost a war. You remember, some of you were right there with me, you remember, America never lost."

• As the press pool was being led out of the Oval Office this morning, the President was asked if he supported the appointment of a special prosecutor to oversee the DOJ's Russia investigations. The President replied, "I haven't called Russia in 10 years."
His continued denials of specific charges that no one is making is so, so interesting. In his indistinct mind what that statement means can be up for debate, but even so, his statement is demonstrably false. He held the Miss Universe pageant there in 2013 and traveled there to attend. He was interviewed by American media in Moscow. This was the same interview in which he boasted of having a relationship with Vladimir Putin.

• Gave his approval for the staff phone checks, press gaggle exclusion, and engaging Intelligence Committee heads on Russia investigation pushback, according to CNN sources. Spicey denies all.

• Told Breitbart News that the "intent" of the New York Times in its negative coverage of him is "so evil and so bad" and that "they write lies."
Cabinet

• Wilbur Ross was confirmed as Commerce Secretary by a 72-27 vote.

• CBS's Major Garrett – who broke the story that the Navy Secretary nominee was going to withdraw a week before it happened – is now reporting that Deputy Commerce Secretary nominee Todd Ricketts is also on the verge of withdrawing rather than disentangle himself from his businesses and holdings. The Ricketts family owns the Chicago Cubs and the family patriarch, Joe, founded the brokerage Ameritrade. A waiver could be obtained from the White House that would allow Ricketts to serve while recusing himself from matters that have a "direct and predictable effect on the employee's own financial interests," but his interests are so widespread as to potentially make fulfilling his duties effectively impossible.

• After meeting with leaders of Historically Black Colleges & Universities, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a statement hailing HBCU as "pioneers when it comes to school choice" because "there were students... who did not have equal access to education" and "they saw that the system wasn't working... so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution."

That "system" was in fact Jim Crow which institutionalized racism in much of the country for generations. Most HBCUs were founded by Southern states to satisfy the requirements of the Morrill Act of 1890. It ordered states with segregated education systems to create new land grant universities if blacks were excluded from existing ones, or lose their federal funding. So far from Secretary DeVos' framing of HBCUs as entrepreneurial institutions filling a market niche, they were in fact a result of direct government efforts to ensure all citizens could receive a quality education.

• EPA Head Scott Pruitt lied to Congress during his confirmation hearing. In response to a direct question from Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) he told the committee that he never used private e-mail for state business. The Oklahoma Attorney General's Office confirmed on Friday that he did in fact use his personal e-mail account to conduct state business.

Hate Watch

• Another week, another round of bomb threats to 23 Jewish community centers in 15 states. It's the fifth such time this year that babies in cribs had to be wheeled out into parking lots for safety.

• Hundreds of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery outside of Philadelphia were toppled this weekend.

• The President has yet to address the shooting of two Indians in Olathe, KS except through careful statements about "not wanting to get ahead of law enforcement" by the Press Secretary.

If he can manipulate his stubby digits enough to blast out "A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris" because someone heard the guy yell "Allahu akhbar," you'd think harassing two guys about their visa status and yelling "get out of my country" would also rate some sort of personal response.

The Hill

• Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, brought the matter of obtaining the President's tax returns to a floor vote after being stymied in committee by the chairman, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX). Under a 1924 law, the Ways and Means Committee is empowered to examine tax returns. The committee could then decide to release them to the full Congress, effectively making them public. The measure was defeated 229-185.

Russia

• Chairs of the House & Senate Intelligence Committees Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Sen. Richard Burr have committed themselves to the position that there was no contact between the campaign and Russia, which has been contradicted by U.S. phone intercepts, the Steele Dossier, and statements by Russian officials. Clearly they can not be counted on to provide unbiased investigation (Nunes was part of the President's transition team, Burr co-chaired the President's $50,000 per plate "Victory Fund" dinner).

• Nunes also said he is not going to subpoena the President's tax returns.

Spicey Meatball

• Asked for a response to Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) call for a special prosecutor on Russia, Spicey shot back, "A Special Prosecutor for what? ... Russia's involvement has been investigated up and down... How many people have to say there's nothing there before you realize there's nothing there?"

Ask. Hillary.

Budget

• Details about the President's budget are trickling out. They are proposing to up Pentagon budget by $54 billion, which is about the amount of the entire State Dept budget plus foreign aid spending and EPA budget. He will also seek $30 billion in supplemental defense appropriations for the FY 2017 year.
Don't forget that we already spend as much on defense as the next seven nations combined - and that includes Russia.

• And with those details come the cracks in the GOP. Congressional members are reportedly not pleased that domestic programs are being cut to pay for the military buildup and aren't sure where you'd even find $54 billion. Others are upset Medicare & Social Security are not being reformed. At the other end of the spectrum, people like John McCain are angry that the defense spending isn't *higher.*

SCOTUS

• Sen. Mark Udall (D-UT) proposed that Judge Merrick Garland & Judge Neil Gorsuch be placed on the Supreme Court at the same time, if one of the liberal judges would resign at the end of the term. This was literally the plot of an episode of The West Wing.

Hey, It's That Guy

• Former President George W. Bush gave an interview to the "Today" show where, despite professing that he does not want to "assume a more active leadership role" in the wake of the current President's shambolic first month, he levied some rather harsh (though hypocritical) criticisms:

• "I think we all need answers" on the relationship between Russia and the Trump campaign.

• A free press is "indispensable to democracy," and, "it's kind of hard to tell others to have an independent, free press when we're not willing to have one ourselves."

(The U.S. has bombed Al Jazeera offices in Afghanistan & Iraq and Bush allegedly asked in 2004 about attacking their HQ in Qatar but was talked down by British PM Tony Blair)

• Bonus: "We need an independent media to hold people like me to account."

(Too bad we never got that because the GOP was running around yelling that any criticism of the President during wartime was unpatriotic and the aw-shucks demeanor put everyone off their guard.)

This has been Day 39 in Trumpistan. Good night!

[J70]

Trump and his minions are apparently trying to pin the blame for the surge in attacks on Jewish businesses and graveyards as being orchestrated by the Democrats. No evidence whatsoever of course, and apparently he can't see any connection between his rhetoric and his campaign and his courting of the alt-right, along with using their cheerleader in chief as his right hand man, and these attacks.

And of course he's had little to nothing to say on the yahoo who murdered the Indian immigrant and wounded his friend and a good samaritan In Kansas City while yelling at them to get out of his country.

Can you imagine if it had been a muslim who committed the murder, or an undocumentation Latino? Wouldn't be long getting on the auld Twitter then.

[seafoid]

Trump and his minions are apparently trying to pin the blame for the surge in attacks on Jewish businesses and graveyards as being orchestrated by the Democrats. No evidence whatsoever of course, and apparently he can't see any connection between his rhetoric and his campaign and his courting of the alt-right, along with using their cheerleader in chief as his right hand man, and these attacks.

And of course he's had little to nothing to say on the yahoo who murdered the Indian immigrant and wounded his friend and a good samaritan In Kansas City while yelling at them to get out of his country.

Can you imagine if it had been a muslim who committed the murder, or an undocumentation Latino? Wouldn't be long getting on the auld Twitter then.

Ann Coulter stoked up the Base with a comment about "f**king Jews " . Bannon takes about the globalist corporatist enemy. Loads of code words for supporters to act on.

[omaghjoe]

This Jewish thing is bizarre, I mean how do they even dream it up? Jews in America are straight up and down mainstream, the only place I can see as the source of this hatred is alignment to the Nazis (which in turn seems to stem from black prejudice) and this David Ike type conspiracy theories.

Obviously Trump is not anti Jew but after watching Trump this past month, doing a bit of research on Bannon and watching his talk last week I'm starting to lean towards that he is pulling all the strings on Trump and that he is at heart a Fascist. He reckons hes gonna break up the institutions in DC but I can't figure out what Bannon's long term goal is...isolate America from the world for the good of America, get rid of all the emigrants who dont want to adhere to Navajo, Sioux, Cherokee culture...what comes after that Im intrigued?

IN preperation I found a facebook from where I can learn  Tongvan. https://www.facebook.com/TongvaLanguage?ref=br_tf
Hopefully I will be able to learn enough of it to communicate with and get my weans a bit of a head start before federal enforcement of it as the medium language for public schools comes into place in Socal.

[sid waddell]

Obviously Trump is not anti Jew

If you make anti-semitic tweets, say thinly veiled anti-semitic things, dismiss anti-semitism, and then suggest Jews themselves may actually be responsible for anti-semitic attacks, that makes you an anti-semite, I would have thought.

[seafoid]

Bannon is a white nationalist. The Muslim ban is his idea. White nationalists want no more immigration and are at war with diversity and liberalism . Jews are identified with liberalism. Bannon wrote Trump's last campaign ad which was heavy on the antisemitism . It is quite scary.

[easytiger95]

I have just started reading Andrew Lees' "The Holocaust" - it's a detailed history of the philosophy behind, lead up to, and events of, the Holocaust.

I'm only 50 pages in and still on Hitler's rise, and on at least 10 occasions so far, I've been stunned by the parallels between Hitler's methodology and Trump's. It is petrifying.

BUT... and it's a big but...Hitler was clearly a true believer, an ideologue who quite clearly wanted to fashion the world to his vision. Trump quite clearly is not. I don't doubt that he is racist (his court records prove it) or anti-Semitic (his speech to that Jewish organization last year before the election was incredible) but he is also dumb and selfish. He has no philosophy and why get rid of Jews and blacks when you can make money off them? Immigrants and Muslims - just keep them out.

Hitler was a different kettle of fish. The question for us all now is, just what kind of men his aides are, because the only logical reason they are there is to wield power whilst he golfs.