The Trump Presidency

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/21/africa/trump-nambia-un-africa-trnd/index.html

*sigh* it would be so nice if we had a president that either did his research, or kept his damn mouth shut on the world stage about topics he doesn't have information on...

 

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He was actually referring to Narnia

 

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Ah, that makes sense... that White Queen and her dark army, they are the true threat!

 

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http://www.abplive.in/world-news/ku...-white-house-business-clarifies-lawyer-584402

*sighs* The hypocrisy would be hilarious, if it wasn't so bloody pathetic...

 

#hypocrisy | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

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I like the narrative from David A. Graham↱, for The Atlantic:

Late Sunday night, Josh Dawsey of Politico dropped a story that, in any other administration, would have been cause for concern but hardly surprise.

“Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December,” Dawsey wrote. “Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, set up their private family domain late last year before moving to Washington from New York, according to people with knowledge of events as well as publicly available internet registration records.”

On Monday, Newsweek reported that Ivanka Trump had also used the domain to communicate with at least one government official, Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon. By Monday night, The New York Times had reported that at least six officials, including former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, former strategist Steve Bannon, and aides Stephen Miller and Gary Cohn, had used personal accounts for at least some official business.​

What is important here is simply, as the headline puts it, the "brazenness" of the Trump administration's behavior. But that's also part of the problem, because—

Administration officials conducting business on personal accounts raises concerns because it suggests some intention to skirt public-records laws and conceal things from the public. While troubling, this is hardly unusual. Sarah Palin was busted for using one. So were officials in the George W. Bush administration. Lisa Jackson, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under Barack Obama, used an alias for her email.

Of course, the most famous example of someone using a personal email is Hillary Clinton. The case of the Javanka domain is brazen for its mimickry of Clinton’s actions at the State Department, right down to the use of a domain specifically for the family. The only way it could be more slapstick would be if Kushner and Trump also used BleachBit.​

—we just made a big deal out of this sort of thing despite the fact that it really wasn't so unusual as the mandatory panic required people to believe.

There are significant ways the Kushner-Ivanka domain differs from Clinton’s. Neither of them is a Cabinet secretary. (Trump, despite her title as special assistant to the president, says she doesn’t even want to get involved in politics.) Neither of them is running for office (at the moment). The scale of their usage pales in comparison to Clinton’s, and there’s no indication that they deleted any emails. Nor is there any indication that classified information was sent in the emails.

Yet it takes a special sort of hypocrisy, or dark sense of humor, or lack of self-awareness for Trump’s daughter and son-in-law to do this after watching a race in which Donald Trump campaigned for, and arguably won, the presidency because of Clinton’s imprudent decision to use the private email domain. She was cleared by the FBI and the Justice Department of any crimes, though then-FBI Director James Comey called her “extremely careless” with classified information. It was the political sin of looking like she had something to hide, and was trying hard to hide it, that stuck to Clinton. Somehow, Kushner and Trump still decided to set up their own family domain, and no one convinced them it was a bad idea.​

But here's the thing: This is #WhatTheyVotedFor.

See, Republicans never really cared about the email. They just needed to stop the first female president in order to put a boasting sexual assailant in the White House because that is the moral character of Republicans and conservatives. Priorities are as priorities do; they don't care that they elected a bunch of crooks except to pat themselves on the back for doing so, and then raising a glass to putting women in their place.

Okay, let's try it this way: What part of this story is surprising to whom, and why?

Seriously, who is going to say they thought Republicans were above behavior they've shown before? And who would pretend Republicans haven't called out behavior they've shown before? Who is going to say they elected Trump for his sterling ethical reputation? They didn't elect the bumbling fool whose excuse is getting outplayed, repeatedly, by foreign adversaries, for the benefits of his acumen.

They elected crooks because they felt the kinship. And, really, after over a year and a half of expressing just that sympathy, that he says what people feel and that's a good thing, it's kind of hard for them to pretend they didn't know.

Yes, really. What you're seeing in this story is the moral worth of Republicans and conservatives.

It really is kind of disappointing, when we get right down to it. For all the evil they do, for all their dedication to human harm, it really is just flaccid grotesquerie.

But this is what people vote for when they vote for Republicans.

And if I'm wrong, then Republicans can prove it by removing President Donald Trump from office, and holding Vice President Mike Pence to account for his actions aiding and abetting the corruption of the presidency.

That is to say, if I'm wrong, Republicans can prove it by doing the right thing.

Because what will it take? It won't be for the sake of doing the right thing; the easy prognostication is that Republicans will roll on President Trump, as they did the infamous President Nixon, when the fact of his presidency endangers their re-elections↗.
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Notes:

Graham, David A. "The Brazenness of Trump's White House Staff Using Private Email". The Atlantic. 25 September 2017. TheAtlantic.com. 26 September 2017. http://theatln.tc/2yFssO3

See Also:

Rich, Frank. "Just Wait". New York. 25 June 2017. NYMag.com. http://nym.ag/2usbSP2

 

28/09/2017
In the news today is that Jared Kushner apparently enrolled to vote as a woman.

As JS would have said "Not that there is anything wrong with that".

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I must admit I have always wondered about his gender Identity but was more concerned about the deep sadness he seems to display on his face...perhaps we shall find out that one issue in hand goes with the other..

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Social media of course is abuzz with humor and criticism about Jared's incredible bad form at filling out forms.

The possibility that Trump now has another daughter in law is mind boggling given the Trump administrations position on transgender and other LGBT issues.

Numerous outlets are reporting..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rst-paperwork-mistake/?utm_term=.bf1a5f1bc905

 

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article175566641.html

 

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An aspect or perspective from the blogs, collectively:

So apparently the bankruptcy of the luxury Puerto Rican golf course that Trump got involved in, back in 2008, was not really his fault - he was just a profiteer off of aspects of the predatory situation set up under US governance, so his little corner added some 30 or 40 million to the debts that were sinking that island without his direct causal responsibility. But it did fail.

He did extract a few hundred thousand in "fees" without apparently risking a nickel of his own money, but that's not enough to make up for the overall failure of the thing and its reflection on the Trump narrative - he doesn't mention the deal, when bragging.

Meanwhile a pattern has developed: by whiffing on the hurricane relief efforts and leaving Puerto Rico to founder for days, he has added another to the growing list of people and things that he has done badly by as President that are associated with public failures and humiliations in his past. From his treatment of Clinton and Obama (Clinton cut him out of Chelsea's wedding, Obama humiliated him at an event in 2011) to his treatment of New Jersey politicians and the NFL (after his failure with the New Jersey Generals, which was his fault), by whatever chain of coincidences or vindictive designs are involved, a fair proportion of his more blatantly petty and inexplicable meannesses can be read as simple revenge for past cutdowns.

Maybe it's all chance - no doubt there are many past failures and humiliations for events to have been tapped into by accident - but so far - - - -

 

#corruption | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

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"The OSC probe is the sixth known investigation into travel by the administration's cabinet members."

―CNN↱​

I don't quite have a word for it; "irony" just doesn't work:

• In 1993, Republicans complained of a scandal in the White House Travel Office, that the Clinton administration replaced career bureaucrats for personal and partisan favors. Five years later, the administration's actions were cleared through investigation; two years after that the investigation cleared Hillary Clinton. The whole issue was driven entirely by Republican scandalmongering.

Funny thing about hiring scandals. The one in the administration that succeeded the Clinton's really did involve trading out careerists for political favors. And then the Bush White House lost twenty-two million emails being kept on a private server. You know, just happened to lose them, right when we needed them in order to understand what was happening.

So now we've had another email scandal. It was pretty stupid, and cost us a hell of a lot as a nation. Perhaps Republicans could put up some manner of effort toward pretending to give a damn, you know, because avoiding a travel scandal should have been easy.​

This is an example of why Americans who identify as conservatives or Republicans are inherently untrustworthy.

The problem was never about corruption, whether it did or didn't exist. The problem was that the office was held by a Democrat, thus depriving Republicans of opportunities to corrupt the government.

This is what Republicans are.

This is who conservatives are.

Is it really so much to ask that if Republicans insist on dragging the country through shit, they ought to be sincere? Or does that somehow violate their fucking rights?

It is dangerous to take these people's word for anything.
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Notes:

Green, Miranda. "Investigations opened into Zinke's meeting with Golden Knights hockey team". CNN. 4 October 2017. CNN.com. 4 October 2017. http://cnn.it/2y1zxuC

 

^^^

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#corruption | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

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Let us try it this way:

HHS Secretary Tom Price was under investigation, and the scandal led to his resignation. Zinke is facing more than one investigation. VA Secretary David Shulkin is under investigation. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is under investigation. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was investigated for violating the Hatch Act. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been caught up in so many controversies, it's been genuinely difficult to keep up with all of them. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has faced accusations of lying under oath about his interactions with Russian officials during the campaign.

And that's just Trump's cabinet.

(Benen↱)​

It is rather quite easy to brutalize Republicans and conservatives when they keep doing this. For all we hear them bawl about this, that, and the other, over and over again we see that the problem isn't actually what they're complaining about. To wit, if their decades of bawling about corruption and government waste and fraud actually meant anything, why do conservatives elect corruption, and government waste and fraud?

When Republicans and conservatives say government doesn't work, it's a promise. We ought to regard it as something of a threat instead of pretending antisocial behavior is some manner of virtue.
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Notes:

Benen, Steve. "Widespread corruption allegations add to Trump World's troubles". msnbc. 5 October 2017. msnbc.com. 5 October 2017. http://on.msnbc.com/2xVJTMV

 

Playing the victim won't win in 2020.

 

Didn't think it would in '16, either, but a bunch of embittered white supremacists and misogynists elected Donald Trump, so there you go.

 

And it's that attitude that will screw you in the the next election, Tiassa.

 

Maybe.

But, you know, for a lot of us it just feels like it did before. Back to the future. The one thing we're not going to do is simply give over; some of us actually give a fuck about other people, you know.

 

Nothing wrong with caring for other people, Tiassa. What's your plan for saving the world?

 

And you, of course. Everybody but the very rich and white got screwed in the last one, and in 2000, and in 2004, and in 1980, and in 1984

But the actual attitudes made no difference, then or now or ever. Whose "attitude" was to blame for the derelict and reactionary complicity with corruption and fascism exhibited by the Republican voter in their local elections over all those decades?

Some of the screwed noticed and learned, some did not. Some kept track of why and how, some - the Republican base - did not. One can, obviously, fool a lot of the people all of the time - and the genius of the financiers and strategists involved was to gather these people into one Party, and rig the elections so that they would be enough.

Thing is, the Republican voters have taught everyone except, apparently, the corporate media news readers and the Democratic Party establishment, an important lesson: these voters have no principles, no coherent ideologies, no base in factual reality for any of their political opinions.

Therefore, they cannot keep their bargains. The social contract does not hold, in politics, with them. In a sense they're Bandar-log - unreachable via reason. But Kipling's sunny view and inherent racism had already overlooked an important feature of real life Bandar-log - they're angry and mean. They feel picked on - all the time. That's because nothing they do actually works for them, hardships result, and they lack (have been deprived of, often) the memory or reasoning ability to blame themselves. They're orcs.

So when one of these fooled claims that being disrespected by the "liberals" caused the Trump voter to discard their adult political responsibilities and vote for incompetent, corrupt, racist, misogynist, fascism,

the claim is meaningless (as well as comically inadequate). Such explanations belong with all their other political "opinions" and explanations - delusions and fantasies they get from their trusted media.

These delusions cannot be prevented or bargained with.

It's not as if treating these neo-Confederate orcs with respect is going to suddenly enlighten them, drive out the dream shadows of decades of AM radio and corporate TV and social webworld hypnotic inculcation, right? It never has before, it never will.

So there is no bargain of mutual "respect" on the table, and the Trump voter cannot make one. The reality, the actual "attitude" (many different "attitudes" are involved) of the rest of us, will continue to make no difference to them, any more than does any other aspect of reality of which they are kept ignorant and confused. They'll never find out about it. How do we know that? The last thirty years of US national politics.

And so neither will any pretended attitude, any attempt to manipulate them by setting aside decency and reason and granting their foul illusions and behaviors the formal respect due actual opinions and adult character. It never worked before. It won't work now.

 

A work in progress.

What's yours?

Oh, right—

—never mind, then. It is interesting, though—

—how you do have the time to drop in for the sake of showing disrespect. As I've said before↗, we're just reminded that responding to you is kind of futile. Of course, that's part of what Iceaura↑ is after. It's not so much whatever that excuse is supposed to suggest; rather, disrespect is the heart of your ethos. It is the purpose of the threads you start, it is the purpose of your joining other threads. That is to say, it's the purpose of the majority of your posts. Not everything can be a cigar box guitar, but just by the odds, you should at least by accident have something not useless to say a little more of the time.

Trust me on that last; I sympathize. I score one of eight on five Zener cards, so ... right.