Idiocracy

[Kin]

On the one hand, the WH Chief of Staff thinks the President is an idiot and a danger to the country.

But on the other, a comedian said some mean things about the Lady that lies for the President.

Gosh, what to be upset about?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/kelly-thinks-he-s-saving-u-s-disaster-calls-trump-n868961

 

[herman]

So Mueller's questions for Trump that were 'leaked' to the NY Times were apparently drafted by Trump's lawyer to prepare the 'president' for questioning (and released to the media by them) so he could avoid getting subpoenaed by a grand jury.

Washington Post

Mueller?s team agreed to provide the president?s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. With those details in hand, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked, according to three of the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.

 

[herman]

This is really stupid movie stuff, but somehow real life, and this guy was actually placed in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

---

Trump's former 'physician' is throwing him under the bus, presumably because he felt personally attacked when Trump sent his ex-bodyguard to raid Bornstein's office for Trump's medical records.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/politics/harold-bornstein-trump-letter/index.html

"He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. "I just made it up as I went along."

The 2015 Letter

To Whom My Concern:

I have been the personal physician of Mr Donald J. Trump since 1980. His previous physician was my father, Dr Jacob Bornstein. Over the past 39 years, I am pleased to report that Mr Trump has had no significant medical problems. Mr Trump has had a recent complete medical examination that showed only positive results. Actually, his blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were astonishingly excellent.

Over the past twelve months, he has lost at least fifteen pounds, Mr Trump takes 81 mg of aspirin daily and a low dose of a statin. His PSA test score is 0.15 (very low). His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.

Mr Trump has suffered no form of cancer, has never had a hip, knee or shoulder replacement or any other orthopaedic surgery. His only surgery was an appendectomy at age ten. His cardiovascular status is excellent. He has no history of ever using alcohol or tobacco products.

If elected, Mr Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.

Harold N Bornstein, MD, FACG
Department of Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology
Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY

https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote/status/991465645794562048

 

[CarltonTheBear]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/992016834298867712

How hard is to just say that "he lied"?

 

[herman]

I am loving that this admission comes only after new-to-the-lawyer-squad Rudy Giuliani blabbed it unprompted to Trump's stump-man on Trump's favourite show.

Video form (for the millenials):
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/992244928259309568
Seth Meyers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnY_3V5K8bE

 

[hockeyfan1]

Poor, poor Rudy: Leave it to Stephen...

[tweet]992208272500445184[/tweet]

 

[CarltonTheBear]

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/992412975511277568
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/992414211924987904

 

[cabber24]

I didn't know why a rich dickhead cheating on his third wife was news so I looked it up. According US election laws, the hush money could be considered a campaign expenditure therefore it should have been reported as such and it wasn't.

 

[herman]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-acknowledges-payment-to-porn-star-stormy-daniels-1525347160

Now they're trying to pivot this from being a gaffe to planned approach by Trump and Rudy (without consulting the rest of the team), which makes it even more clear that there is something way worse around the corner that's about to come to light.

 

[Bender]

It's so non-sensical to think that some people defend Trump by saying Obama's administration was marred by indecision and scandal worse than Trump's. I remember seeing a Fox Broadcast scolding the President for eating a hotdog with Dijon Mustard. I mean, really?

I mean, it's so farcical right now that you'd be hard pressed to write anything fictional that's better.

 

[bustaheims]

It's so non-sensical to think that some people defend Trump by saying Obama's administration was marred by indecision and scandal worse than Trump's. I remember seeing a Fox Broadcast scolding the President for eating a hotdog with Dijon Mustard. I mean, really?

I mean, it's so farcical right now that you'd be hard pressed to write anything fictional that's better.

Don't forget the tan suit!

Seriously, Obama's presidency was among the most scandal-free of the modern era.

 

[L K]

Let's be abundantly clear though.  Obama's Presidency was the most controversial in US history.  He was a Democrat and BLACK.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Meanwhile...

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/992486776173408257

 

[mr grieves]

It's so non-sensical to think that some people defend Trump by saying Obama's administration was marred by indecision and scandal worse than Trump's. I remember seeing a Fox Broadcast scolding the President for eating a hotdog with Dijon Mustard. I mean, really?

I mean, it's so farcical right now that you'd be hard pressed to write anything fictional that's better.

Don't forget the tan suit!

Seriously, Obama's presidency was among the most scandal-free of the modern era.

Personally and stylistically, sure... But the scandal-free nature of Obama's presidency says a lot more about the state of the American media than it does about that administration. The insane right-wing media frothed about mustard, suits, and other wild inventions, half of which were racial dogwhistles, while the mainstream media covered... what? Not much.

The record is what it is though. Obama let the last administration's scandals -- or, if you want to be pedantic about it, war crimes -- go unpunished, foamed the runway for the financial institutions that crashed the world economy (at the expense of those who could've benefited from HAMP), and institutionalized -- or at least failed to roll back -- the expanded security state that his predecessor built and successor has, so far, been too stupid to use to do all the evil that he's more than capable of doing...

The Obama administration was prologue to the hell world that is the Trump administration. So I sorta get why that makes folks recall the former fondly. But it's also an indictment of those years.

 

[Bender]

It's so non-sensical to think that some people defend Trump by saying Obama's administration was marred by indecision and scandal worse than Trump's. I remember seeing a Fox Broadcast scolding the President for eating a hotdog with Dijon Mustard. I mean, really?

I mean, it's so farcical right now that you'd be hard pressed to write anything fictional that's better.

Don't forget the tan suit!

Seriously, Obama's presidency was among the most scandal-free of the modern era.

Personally and stylistically, sure... But the scandal-free nature of Obama's presidency says a lot more about the state of the American media than it does about that administration. The insane right-wing media frothed about mustard, suits, and other wild inventions, half of which were racial dogwhistles, while the mainstream media covered... what? Not much.

The record is what it is though. Obama let the last administration's scandals -- or, if you want to be pedantic about it, war crimes -- go unpunished, foamed the runway for the financial institutions that crashed the world economy (at the expense of those who could've benefited from HAMP), and institutionalized -- or at least failed to roll back -- the expanded security state that his predecessor built and successor has, so far, been too stupid to use to do all the evil that he's more than capable of doing...

The Obama administration was prologue to the hell world that is the Trump administration. So I sorta get why that makes folks recall the former fondly. But it's also an indictment of those years.

The Republicans didn't have to go with Trump, the people didn't have to vote for Trump. I'm not going to provide a long analysis and or defense of Obama here, and absolutely there were flaws with the Obama administration and can be critiqued and could have done a better job in certain areas. The fact remains: Republicans changed tactic once Obama came into office spearheaded by Newt Gingrich. Fillibuster and stall everything rather than work with the other side, not for the good of the country because it was a path to power. The polarization of US politics was  happening years ago but became ultra hardline and polarized things even  further. As a result Republicans took hard line stances on everything and devolved into media demogagues because they knew it could whip the electorate into a bit of a fury. They exploited the worst aspects of America and they selected the candidate that has historically exploited everyone and everything for his own personal gain, and is proving that that is what he's using even the presidency for.

Say what you want about the Obama administration but let's not absolve Republicans of the fact that they've sold their soul for power. This was their choice.

And as a post script: People complain that Obama didn't push enough things through etc. He didn't have the House for the majority of his presidency iirc. And yet here we are, Republicans have majorities in the house and Senate and have barely done anything except attempt to stamp the ever increasing number of fires their own party lit.

 

[Kin]

Personally and stylistically, sure... But the scandal-free nature of Obama's presidency says a lot more about the state of the American media than it does about that administration. The insane right-wing media frothed about mustard, suits, and other wild inventions, half of which were racial dogwhistles, while the mainstream media covered... what? Not much.

I don't buy that what you're talking about is an indictment of the media. I think all of those things you talked about got covered, they just weren't "scandals" because the public broadly supported the road Obama was on in that sense. I don't think the average American wanted Bush and Cheney prosecuted for war crimes or wanted the President to surrender the authority to make targeted drone strikes. Sure, maybe you could make an argument that polling was good post-financial crisis for a harsher rein on Wall Street but the 2010 elections saw a bunch of deregulating dopes get voted in.

But all of that stuff was in "the media". We heard about Abu Ghraib and the waterboarding, we heard about the drone strikes, we saw Democrats struggle to put real teeth into Dodd-Frank(in large part because of resistance from Centrist Democrats). It just wasn't particularly salacious or even contrary to popular opinion. That's why they weren't scandals.

I get not wanting to contribute to a hagiography of the Obama years but your real issue there is with voters, not with the President who, as Bender noted, often didn't have willing negotiating partners in the legislative branch to push through any sort of personal agenda.

 

[mr grieves]

The Republicans didn't have to go with Trump,

Of course the Republicans had to go with Trump. You say why below:

They exploited the worst aspects of America and they selected the candidate that has historically exploited everyone and everything for his own personal gain, and is proving that that is what he's using even the presidency for.

Trump is the logical extension of the game the Republican Party, since their actual political platform (transfer wealth to their donors) has no popular support, has been playing for 40 years. Once revanchist cultural resentment became the core of their politics, it just took a clown with a celebrity profile to swap the dogwhistle for an airhorn and really play to those voters. There was no constituency for the only mildly brutal right-wing politics of Rubio or Jeb! or Kasich once Trump gave the GOP primary electorate the uncut version of what Rubio, Jeb!, Kasich, and the like had long been selling them.

the people didn't have to vote for Trump.

And "the people" didn't vote for Trump. He lost the popular vote in a low turnout election. Of the votes he did receive, about half were against his opponent or for something "new." Combine the low turnout in the voting eligible population with for/against vote polling, and votes "for Trump" are about 13% of the US population. There's no popular mandate for Trumpism -- it snuck into power because there's even less popular support for centrist liberalism (except, as we'll see in the fall, when compared to Trumpism in power, and that swing of support will last about as long as it did last time). 

The fact remains: Republicans changed tactic once Obama came into office spearheaded by Newt Gingrich. Fillibuster and stall everything rather than work with the other side, not for the good of the country because it was a path to power.

Two important things here:

First, this tactical maneuver was reported within weeks of Obama's first inauguration. Weeks in! And yet the President, for years, continued to conduct himself as if the opposition party was interested in governing, adopting their ideas for his stimulus, health care plan, and even "entitlement" reform. Obama was so in love with the norms of the friggin West Wing and Hamilton that he couldn't grasp that his opponents didn't observe them. As late as January 2017, he was pretty blas? about the Trump presidency because "the office" has a way of asserting itself on those who occupy it.

Second, most of the things I listed as his record were within the purview of the executive branch. It took no act of Congress to shift resources within the DoJ to prosecute bankers, to direct Treasury to wind down banks or prioritize homeowners over the companies that held their mortgages, to scale back the post-9/11 national security regime. The idea that Obama was actually much more progressive than he gets credit for because, well, the Congress really constrained him is belied by the fact that his executive agencies and appointments were exactly as progressive as the legislative agenda he signed.

Say what you want about the Obama administration but let's not absolve Republicans of the fact that they've sold their soul for power. This was their choice.

It's weird how, in liberal circles, critiques of Obama are so often taken as attempts to "absolve" the Republicans. I think they're at least as rotten as you think they are.

And as a post script: People complain that Obama didn't push enough things through etc. He didn't have the House for the majority of his presidency iirc. And yet here we are, Republicans have majorities in the house and Senate and have barely done anything except attempt to stamp the ever increasing number of fires their own party lit.

Peter Chiarelli trading Seguin wasn't so bad because he wasn't Dave Nonis, the worst GM in the National Hockey League. -- Of course the Republican Congress hasn't done much of anything. The party's been overrun by the yahoos who believed their propaganda, and the Party has no legislative agenda besides wealth transfers to the rich and armed forces. Don't take that as evidence that majorities just can't possibly do anything. 

 

[mr grieves]

I don't buy that what you're talking about is an indictment of the media. I think all of those things you talked about got covered, they just weren't "scandals" because the public broadly supported the road Obama was on in that sense.

Yeah, I'm not certain that 'scandals' was right -- the policy failures weren't the salacious personal stuff or glaring hypocrisies of which 'scandals' are made. And the media didn't conceal from us the stories I listed.

Obama had the "public broadly support[ing] the road [he] was on" -- yes. But there's plenty of polling showing a gap between his personal popularity and specific policies he was pursuing, so I'd hesitate to take the former as an endorsement of the latter.

But one does still find that certain features of the Obama years, which were horrifying during Bush years, suddenly had a lot of, if not defenders, folks who made their peace with all those things. Maybe this was a failure the liberal imagination or an effect of partisanship. Those are the folks who were most happy to let bygones be bygones, with respect to the Bush administration's crimes and the financial crisis, and who were suddenly untroubled by a too powerful national security state, since their guy was now in charge of it. But, unless your mind has been deformed by partisanship, those are objectively bad things. And shrugging them off, I suspect, didn't do much to slow the erosion of the legitimacy of elite institutions among folks who aren't partisan Democrats. 

I don't think the average American wanted Bush and Cheney prosecuted for war crimes or wanted the President to surrender the authority to make targeted drone strikes. Sure, maybe you could make an argument that polling was good post-financial crisis for a harsher rein on Wall Street but the 2010 elections saw a bunch of deregulating dopes get voted in.

... in a low turnout midterm during which the Obama coalition was scattered to the wind, perhaps because it only ever was capable of coalescing around a charismatic personality or because the personal brand didn't translate into a party platform that had much popular appeal (I don't recall 2010 Democrats putting financial regulation on the ballot in that cycle, so we'll never know). In either case, it's hard to see the 2010 elections as a popular endorsement of Wall Street -- the current President managed to poach a not insignificant number of votes in the midwest by posing as an enemy of financial elites.

And as for the war crimes and national security apparatus... I don't know that people were all that opposed to seeing those responsible for getting the country into an insane war held accountable. Would Obama have lost support if his DoJ had tried some CIA torturers? You're right, of course, that it wasn't something that the public was clamoring for in 2009. Looking back from 2018, however, I think it's really hard not to see the choice to do virtually nothing -- to deem the purifying process of inquiries, trials, truth commissions, whatever as unnecessary -- as a truly awful: within a month of Trump's inauguration, people were treated like animals at airports by customers officers who were 'just following orders' (like those CIA torturers who got off) and some of the same ghouls who were behind the brutal madness of 2003-4 are now back, trying to get us into Iran and North Korea (helllooooo "Mad Dog" Mattis, Gina Hapsel, and John Bolton!).

But, y'know, no scandals other than the tan suit and he dropped a mike at the WHCD that one time. Cool.

 

[Kin]

But one does still find that certain features of the Obama years, which were horrifying during Bush years, suddenly had a lot of, if not defenders, folks who made their peace with all those things. Maybe this was a failure the liberal imagination or an effect of partisanship. Those are the folks who were most happy to let bygones be bygones, with respect to the Bush administration's crimes and the financial crisis, and who were suddenly untroubled by a too powerful national security state, since their guy was now in charge of it. But, unless your mind has been deformed by partisanship, those are objectively bad things. And shrugging them off, I suspect, didn't do much to slow the erosion of the legitimacy of elite institutions among folks who aren't partisan Democrats. 

Generally speaking, I agree that in many cases Obama pursued a path that tried to go for a balanced middle road with his political opponents at the expense of some ideological purity that often lead to mushy inaction or, as you say, a seeming endorsement of policies I disagree with. I'm sure his defenders would say that the people who stand firm on ideological grounds at the expense of appealing to the masses don't have to worry about compromising their principles because they never get elected(see, for instance, Corbyn's Labour Party in the UK) but I agree that isn't particularly satisfying.

... in a low turnout midterm during which the Obama coalition was scattered to the wind, perhaps because it only ever was capable of coalescing around a charismatic personality or because the personal brand didn't translate into a party platform that had much popular appeal (I don't recall 2010 Democrats putting financial regulation on the ballot in that cycle, so we'll never know). In either case, it's hard to see the 2010 elections as a popular endorsement of Wall Street -- the current President managed to poach a not insignificant number of votes in the midwest by posing as an enemy of financial elites.

I think that's buying into a largely discredited notion of why Trump performed as well as he did(Trump won because of racial resentment) as well as applying an ideological coherence to some votes that just didn't exist.

Regardless of what the Democrats put on the ballot in 2010(which I agree was largely healthcare focused instead of anything else) I don't think you can look at the results, which saw sweeping victories by a party who blamed the 2008 financial crisis on too much regulation and say there was a popular hunger for additional financial regulation. People are still responsible for their own votes, no matter what a political party wants them to focus on.

And as for the war crimes and national security apparatus... I don't know that people were all that opposed to seeing those responsible for getting the country into an insane war held accountable. Would Obama have lost support if his DoJ had tried some CIA torturers? You're right, of course, that it wasn't something that the public was clamoring for in 2009. Looking back from 2018, however, I think it's really hard not to see the choice to do virtually nothing -- to deem the purifying process of inquiries, trials, truth commissions, whatever as unnecessary -- as a truly awful: within a month of Trump's inauguration, people were treated like animals at airports by customers officers who were 'just following orders' (like those CIA torturers who got off) and some of the same ghouls who were behind the brutal madness of 2003-4 are now back, trying to get us into Iran and North Korea (helllooooo "Mad Dog" Mattis, Gina Hapsel, and John Bolton!).

But, y'know, no scandals other than the tan suit and he dropped a mike at the WHCD that one time. Cool.

Again, I think there's some truth to what you're saying I just think your anger is misdirected. Your issue is with the American electorate, not a President who erred on the side of attempting to bring that group together(regardless of if you want to say that was a genuine desire or a cynical ploy for election).

If Obama pursues some of the roads you wanted him to and the end result is a Mitt Romney presidency in 2012 is the net result a positive one? Does that end with more financial regulation? Members of the Bush administration facing justice? Less covert military actions?

No, clearly not. And while I sympathize with the frustration in seeing rose coloured glasses applied to an administration that really only shines when compared to the trainwrecks that came before and after it, I think what we're seeing now in terms of just how dangerous giving the keys to the modern Republican party, and some of the genuinely good policies/decisions to come out of the Obama administration, does go a fairly long way to explaining why some people are inclined to look favourably on it.

Again, feel how you like about the Obama administration, just don't give the actual voters a blank check for the results of their votes and what it says about what they want/care about.

 

[mr grieves]

I'm sure his defenders would say that the people who stand firm on ideological grounds at the expense of appealing to the masses don't have to worry about compromising their principles because they never get elected(see, for instance, Corbyn's Labour Party in the UK) but I agree that isn't particularly satisfying.

I'm sure they would! And, despite the best efforts of some of Obama?s former campaign team, May lost her majority and Corbyn's Labour made the biggest gains the party had seen since Clement Attlee in 1945. So we'll see how Labour does if they seize the majority in the next general.

I think that's buying into a largely discredited notion of why Trump performed as well as he did(Trump won because of racial resentment) as well as applying an ideological coherence to some votes that just didn't exist.

Sure. But note that his voters were motivated by cultural resentments, not a desire to transfer wealth to the rich or deregulate the financial sector.

Regardless of what the Democrats put on the ballot in 2010(which I agree was largely healthcare focused instead of anything else) I don't think you can look at the results, which saw sweeping victories by a party who blamed the 2008 financial crisis on too much regulation and say there was a popular hunger for additional financial regulation. People are still responsible for their own votes, no matter what a political party wants them to focus on.

Yes, that's the party that won. And the electorate in 2010 was whiter, older, and righter than in 2008. Some observers of American politics see this as a law of nature --Democrats don't do midterms -- others, however, wonder what would happen if Democrats put a positive vision of things they'd like to do when in power on the ballot, instead of a list of things the other party will do if you don't show up and they get in. People--at least not Democrat leaning voters--don't stand in line for that, which is why we all should've known "Dangerous Donald" was a losing strategy.

In 2010, was there a popular hunger for more pain for the financial sector? Well, if there were, which party was putting additional regulations on the ballot? Cos my recollection is 'none of the above.'

If Obama pursues some of the roads you wanted him to and the end result is a Mitt Romney presidency in 2012 is the net result a positive one? Does that end with more financial regulation? Members of the Bush administration facing justice? Less covert military actions?

I just really can't see how Obama pushing through a bigger and/or more visible stimulus, giving at least a speech in favor the Employee Free Choice Act, prosecuting CIA torturers and bankers, directing HAMP to bail out homeowners on the verge of foreclosure and make their creditors take a haircut, and taking over and winding down massive banks would've resulted in a loss in 2012. Would Mitt have looked any less like a plutocrat? Would there be fewer votes for the Democrats?

Again, feel how you like about the Obama administration, just don't give the actual voters a blank check for the results of their votes and what it says about what they want/care about.

When the voters swing back and go with the Dems again (8 months or so from now) and then give them a couple branches of government (2020, probably), Democrats will have gone through a few cycles over which they might've learned what voters want/care about and how their political opponents operate. So, if we get another 'restore dignity to the office' centrist prone to mushy inaction and the voters -- once again -- lose interest, will we keep blaming the voters? Or will we finally begin to wonder why the professionals haven't learned anything?