Trump's America, February 2017: Autocratic for the People

well, we're still alive. the discussion continues here.

just hope this thread isn't bugged!

we're capitalists, that's just the way it is

the one thing that rings in my mind above all else is this:

At an event in Newton, Iowa, NBC asked him whether there should be a database to track Muslims. “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems,” he said.

Then, a reporter asked him how such a system would be different from Nazi Germany mandating the registration of Jews. “You tell me, you tell me. Why don’t you tell me,” Trump replied.

instead of foreswearing the comparison to hitler, he dared the journalist to make it. this is our president.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3hyESQVYAYyFsW.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3hyESOUcAIhJ0-.jpg

sorry hueg

Huge if true
True if huge?

was hoping this thread would be called "Excruciating Mnuchinae" tbh

Mnuchausen syndrome

trump has probably at least briefly considered just being his own press secretary. very annoying to have to let someone else get so much camera time.

i wouldn't rule out familiar-sounding new press secretary 'john barron' insisting on delivering his briefings from behind an on-stage curtain within the next couple of months

BREAKING: Senate committee approves Trump Treasury, Health nominees without Dems present after GOP changes panel's rules.

wait what???

Dude, where tf are you getting that? I can't find anything anywhere about that.

From the Associated Press twitter feed: https://twitter.com/AP/status/826803331133734912

good thing dems have been so collegial, eh readers?

Also here: https://twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly/status/826801911420559365

Phil MattinglyVerified account
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Senate Finance Republicans, via UC, suspend Committee rules and will vote on Mnuchin/Price without Democrats

see this is why Dems shouldn't filibuster Gorsuch oh wait

@SusannahLuthi
More sad news from the day: unconfirmed, but sources close to USAID say that Peace Corps likely to get eliminated altogether.

can we plz have open-carry on the Senate floor? i think it will soon be needed

xpost Fuuuuuck, was just thinking like yesterday that the Peace Corps is kinda antithetical to the iceberg the GOP is steering this country towards.

Phil D., I still am seeing this news literally nowhere beyond the links you posted.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-finance-committee-advances-mnuchin-price-nominations-2017-02-01

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-nominees-idUSKBN15G4QJ

This is just like Turnip's EOs. You motherfuckers run the federal government now. You're going to get what you want. All the dems have in their corner is the ability to stall and inconvenience you but you can still follow proper procedure and get all the bullshit you want on the up-and-up. And yet you still opt to circumvent and do shit just however the fuck you want to do it.

We need to do whatever it takes to make these pieces of shit regret ever having entered government in the first place.

David Frum ‏@davidfrum 2m2 minutes ago

Trump just described Frederick Douglass as "someone who has done a terrific job that is being recognized by more and more people"

GTFO

Rules were made to be broken eh Mitch

Xp

hadn't seen this before

Customs agents at Dulles forced lawful permanent U.S. residents to give up their green cards this weekend, according to a complaint filed Monday in federal court in Alexandria. Tareq Aqel Mohammed Aziz and Ammar Aqel Mohammed Aziz were flying from Yemen to the United States. Both had been granted immigrant visas because their father, who lives in Flint, Mich., is a U.S. citizen.

When they arrived at Dulles Saturday morning, the Aziz brothers were handcuffed and their immigration paperwork was seized, according to the complaint.

They were given documents to sign and allegedly told that if they did not, they would be removed from the United States and barred from coming back for five years. They were not allowed to see attorneys.

Under pressure, their attorneys said, they signed documents they did not understand, giving up their American visas, and agents stamped “cancelled” on those visas. Attorneys are asking for their visas to be returned, the forms they signed to be invalidated and for them to be returned to the United States.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/30/trump-says-all-is-going-well-on-immigration-order-amid-questions-and-confusion/?utm_term=.46b3ce501ab8

http://www.reuters.com/article/rpb-adlertrump-idUSKBN15F276

good company to be in:

To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information – and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers.

We don’t know yet how sharp the Trump administration’s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere, namely:

lol this Douglass guy is going places, amirite ?

Full transcript of the speech. The Douglass statement is one of the least dumb things in it.

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/826822342961745922

Is the idea that he will give us a forehead-slammingly awful soundbite of this sort every day of Black History Month? Xps

Happy All History Month!

wait for his Malcolm X take

''Frederick Doug - Douglass'' leaves me wondering what letter he'll end up dropping in after ''Malcolm.'' Cut him some slack though - it's only since the opening of the National Museum of African American History & Culture's big, beautiful new building that Americans have had any opportunity to learn or speak aloud the names of these obscure historical figures.

all 10 democrats boycotting scott pruitt confirmation hearing

Pelosi goes full Bruce Hornsby

"Well, thank you for your question, but I have to say — we're capitalists. That's just the way it is." — Nancy Pelosi tell us something we already knew.

https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/826784040179077120

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16427213_10154808560097597_888066914234902477_n.jpg?oh=7fd8215a2df0ffaec276d97a1c9f4b79&oe=59469419

JUST IN: Senate Judiciary Committee votes 11-9 to advance nomination for AG nominee Sessions.

I've been seeing that Pelosi quote around, what was the original question?

xp uuuuugh

it's in a CNN video clip above

That's basically the boss giving the employee of the month speech about someone they've never met before.

(Re Black History Month)

Grassley and Cornyn trying to yank Franken around, and Franken's not having it: https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/826824901797371905

don't quail when these nominees are confirmed, we knew this would happen. Dem opposition is not going to achieve these short-term victories, the task at hand is to unify and re-orient the party and getting them to vote as a bloc to oppose all this shit is v key to that, even if the immediate results are losses.

Full transcript of the speech. The Douglass statement is one of the least dumb things in it.

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/826822342961745922

― Lauren Schumer Donor (Phil D.), Wednesday, February 1, 2017 10:14 AM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm wracking my brain here: is there a word that's like 'hate' but that's maybe like 100x more powerful? Because that would be the word that best describes my feelings about this piece of shit. Just a completely worthless human being on every conceivable level.

Franken is the best

xp

11-9 vote, one repub defected?

Quick question: did Reagan often overtly display signs of dementia or was it pretty much kept under wraps? Were there documented instances of it popping up in public or on record?

didnt Ron Jr say he saw signs

Only public instance I can think of off the top of my head was during the first '84 debate with Mondale. He stumbled over an answer, there were a few seconds of silence, and he asked the moderator to repeat the question (Jesse Jackson did a bit on this when he hosted SNL). But at the time, no one in the media made a peep about it possibly being dementia-related.

During the Iran-Contra hearings, he just kept saying, "I don't recall." iirc, it wasn't until a year, or several years, later that anyone in the media went, oh hey, I bet that was Alzheimer's-related.

Nothing to laugh about during this ominous part of the speech.

Do you really believe that?

his clapping is so weird and loud.

Wow, the minute he stopped talking, the Democrats got up and walked out en masse. Good for them.

Is this the democratic response? A former governor in Kentucky sitting in front of a bunch of old white people?

Yep. 'Cause that's the only permissible Democratic response - some goober from a state Trump won, quoting Reagan.

They had 2 months to plan this. Fuck.

you've got to be fucking kidding me

Howard Fineman, Sam Stein, Chris Cillizza, official declared members of the "normalization" brigade.

You don't shed bad habits overnight, or without fear of firing squad, apparently

Even fucking David brooks just nailed it, (paraphrasing): "it strikes me that there is an incredible amount of activism right now in the blue states....and the democrats chose a white governor from Kentucky"

Alfred (reasonably) pointed out earlier today that attention should be focused on 2018. Someone should let the Democratic Party in on that idea.

i haven't even watched any of this but these posts about the democratic response are depressing wow

:(

PBS only interviewed one democrat afterward, and it was Heidi Heitkamp (ND), who thought trump did a great job. Surprised they didn't bring in joe manchin as well, he was clearly enjoying himself during the speech.

This VOICE thing seems horrifying

Party responses are always sad/pointless affairs, quickly forgotten unless totally bungled (Rubio, Jindal)

Yeah, I guess it looks bad but I can't recall anyone ever being inspired by a SOTU response.

David Brooks maybe

you've got to be fucking kidding me

You know it's the Democratic Party, right?

i heard on NPR there was a Spanish-language response by a Dreamer. That was probably good.

Who picks the response person?

(I didn't watch any of this shit tonight, I can't listen to this unflushable turd's voice.)

The Democrats apparently feel they need to appeal to "white" voters, the kinda folk who'd go to the Lexington Diner. That's the lesson they took from this, not that they should craft a unifying message that can energize and inspire people, not that they need to fight back against toxic Republican policy and stand up unashamedly for what they claim to believe in. No. White voters. This is the most reductive form of identity politics.

They should have just had Elizabeth Warren rip into him for twenty minutes. People would have at least remembered that.

^

So I guess expectations were lowered so far down that just reading and sticking to a speech (teleprompter! for shame!) is somehow an ... achievement?

Fuck this guy. Leopard, spots, etc.

Hetkamp is a complete DINO

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16998063_10212391504887910_9135847990181857943_n.jpg?oh=b437768548084a9b8cb0f4e1699e4c44&oe=593796F0

Grover Norquist‏ @GroverNorquist

It is now 9:53 and no mention of the need to end the war on Vaping.
Prohibition was a stupid idea the first time.

6:55 PM · Feb 28, 2017 from Washington, DC

35 RETWEETS
51 LIKES

I lolled

I want to know when the federal government is going to stop trying to take our pogs away from us. They're in the constitution, you know.

Smallest Navy since 1915. Fewer ships than we had in 1917.

The US Navy in 1917 had a total tonnage of about 1,500,000 tonnes, not including non-combat auxiliaries. The current U.S. Navy displaces 3,400,000 tonnes. For comparison

US: 3,415,893 tons
Russia: 845,730 tons
China: 708,086 tons
Japan: 413,800 tons
UK: 367,850 tons
France: 319,195 tons
India: 317,725 tons
South Korea: 178,710 tons
Italy: 173,549 tons
Taiwan: 151,662 tons

Navy came to the same conclusion that most navies did: damn! those missiles can sink ships x100 better than torpedoes ever did. Time to rethink this whole floating boat paradigm

No, the Falklands conflict didn't teach the U.S. Navy that at all. Plus the greatest loss in tonnage, cost, and life was the Belgrano, sunk by a British torpedo. The US Navy has its own bureaucratic interests (air, surface, submarine, Marine/amphib arms), as do the congressmen hoping for construction contracts and homeporting, and mostly is still planning to refight the Pacific War, with a force dominated by the carrier arm. Major potential adversaries will use asymmetric counters, like the DF-21D (or new DF-26) anti-maritime ballistic missile, or extensive mine warfare, which the US has limited organic countermeasures against (4 old mine countermeasures ships per theatre). Don't think of the contact mines of old movies, modern designs are everything up to encapsulated torpedoes moored amidst bottom clutter. If Bannon gets his war against China, and perhaps even against Iran, perhaps the US will see the folly of investing so much in high-signature huge targets. A dead carrier will be more deaths than the US experienced during the entire Iraq fiasco.

Several of the Navy's new designs over the past have been disappointing (naval F-35, Virginia SSN, LCS), coming it far over budget, below expectations, and lowering final unit counts. The LCS was supposed to be the new mine clearer, but can't do that job. Smaller navies seem to be doing most of the thoughtful innovation in naval design, such as the German/Italian 212 class subs (small enough for littoral work, can travel 1500 mi submerged on hydrogen fuel cells, quieter than an SSN) or the Norwegian Skjold-class corvettes (fast, stealthy, lethal).

going to need a new thread pls before this unfolding maw of misery brings down the house.

I'll put this here before a new thread is made, for mercy's sake.

https://i.imgur.com/7CGzQBf.jpg

Seriously, what the fuck is this shit? The first two lines especially.

he means we will all go together when we go, any week now

"Blut- und Schicksalsgemeinschaft", as we used to say in German. xp

There ain't no devil only God when he's been drinkin iirc

We are all people with one destiny
We bleed the same blood
Be sure to drink your holy beverage
When the moon is full
So we can board the spaceship to eternity

AMANDA

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/01/generals-may-launch-new-isis-raids-without-trump-s-ok.html

The national security apparatus of the Trump admin. is considering taking Trump "out of the loop" for raids in Yemen & elsewhere.

What could go wrong with an unchecked military apparatus running roughshod over an entire region

media really on this "New Trump" thing huh

any other president the main takeaway would be "HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR ALL THIS??" but since it's Trump and our expectations have been sufficiently lowered I guess this is a....good thing? fuck him. and Van Jones, you disappoint me.

where's the new thread dammit

Frogbs otm, the "softened tone" thing is ridiculous. He declared an initiative to publicize illegal immigrant crime.

Exactly. He also blamed the spike in antisemitic crimes on Jews, like, a day ago. Not only that, but his speech ... did you read the Tweet I posted above? Put all three together, and you can see why David Duke loved it.

David Duke, Democrats, and the media, best new buds.

This guy has been incessantly screaming in my face and it's scary and he seems like an unhinged lunatic but then he stopped to catch his breath and I thought, y'know...this guy's all right!

Paul Ryan looked medicated

let's just not mention that all he did was lie but it's ok he had a nice tone about it

TRUMP: "According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs America's taxpayers many billions of dollars a year."

THE FACTS: That's not exactly what that report says. It says immigrants "contribute to government finances by paying taxes and add expenditures by consuming public services."

The report found that while first-generation immigrants are more expensive to governments than their native-born counterparts, primarily at the state and local level, immigrants' children "are among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the population."

The report found that the "long-run fiscal impact" of immigrants and their children would probably be seen as more positive "if their role in sustaining labor force growth and contributing to innovation and entrepreneurial activity were taken into account."

———

TRUMP: "We've saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing down the price" of the F-35 jet fighter.

THE FACTS: The cost savings he persists in bragging about were secured in full or large part before he became president.

The head of the Air Force program announced significant price reductions in the contract for the Lockheed F-35 fighter jet Dec. 19 — after Trump had tweeted about the cost but weeks before he met the company's CEO about it.

Pentagon managers took action even before the election to save money on the contract. Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group, said there is no evidence of any additional cost savings as a result of Trump's actions.

———

TRUMP: "We will provide massive tax relief for the middle class."

THE FACTS: Trump has provided little detail on how this would happen. Independent analyses of his campaign's tax proposals found that most of the benefits would flow to the wealthiest families. The richest 1 percent would see an average tax cut of nearly $215,000 a year, while the middle one-fifth of the population would get a cut of just $1,010, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project by the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.

———

TRUMP: "Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force."

THE FACTS: That's true, but for the vast majority of them, it's because they choose to be.

That 94 million figure includes everyone aged 16 and older who doesn't have a job and isn't looking for one. So it includes retirees, parents who are staying home to raise children, and high school and college students who are studying rather than working.

They are unlikely to work regardless of the state of the economy. With the huge baby-boomer generation reaching retirement age and many of them retiring, the population of those out of the labor force is increasing and will continue to do so, most economists forecast.

It's true that some of those out of the workforce are of working age and have given up looking for work. But that number is probably a small fraction of the 94 million Trump cited.

———

TRUMP: "Obamacare is collapsing ... imploding Obamacare disaster."

THE FACTS: There are problems with the 2010 health care law, but whether it's collapsing is hotly disputed.

One of the two major components of the Affordable Care Act has seen a spike in premiums and a drop in participation from insurers. But the other component, equally important, seems to be working fairly well, even if its costs are a concern.

Trump and congressional Republicans want to repeal the whole thing, which risks leaving millions of people uninsured if the replacement plan has shortcomings. Some critics say GOP rhetoric itself is making things worse by creating uncertainty about the future.

The health law offers subsidized private health insurance along with a state option to expand Medicaid for low-income people. Together, the two arms of the program cover more than 20 million people.

Republican governors whose states have expanded Medicaid are trying to find a way to persuade Congress and the administration to keep the expansion, and maybe even build on it, while imposing limits on the long-term costs of Medicaid.

While the Medicaid expansion seems to be working, the markets for subsidized private health insurance are stressed in many states. Also affected are millions of people who buy individual policies outside the government markets, and face the same high premiums with no financial help from the health law.

Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation says "implosion" is too strong a term. An AP count found that 12.2 million people signed up for this year, despite the Trump administration's threats to repeal the law.

But a health care blogger and industry consultant, Robert Laszewski, agrees with Trump, saying too few young, healthy people have signed up to guarantee the stability of the insurance markets.

———

TRUMP: His budget plan will offer "one of the largest increases in national defence spending in American history".

THE FACTS: Three times in recent years, Congress raised defence budgets by larger percentages than the 54 billion dollars, or 10%, increase Mr Trump proposes. The base defense budget grew by 41 billion dollars, or 14.3%, in 2002; by 37 billion dollars, or 11.3%, in 2003, and by 47 billion dollars, or 10.9%, in 2008, according to Defence Department figures.

———

TRUMP: "According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offences since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. We have seen the attacks at home - from Boston to San Bernardino to the Pentagon and yes, even the World Trade Centre."

THE FACTS: It is unclear what Justice Department data he's citing, but the most recent government information does not back up his claim. Just over half the people Mr Trump talks about were born in the US, according to Homeland Security Department research revealed last week. That report said of 82 people the government determined were inspired by a foreign terrorist group to attempt or carry out an attack in the US, just over half were native-born.

Even the attacks Mr Trump singled out were not entirely the work of foreigners. Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his Pakistani wife killed 14 people in the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, California, was born in Chicago.

It is true that in the immediate aftermath of September 11, the FBI's primary concern was with terrorists from overseas feared to be plotting attacks in the US, but that is no longer the case.

The FBI and the Justice Department have been preoccupied with violent extremists from inside the US who are inspired by the calls to violence and mayhem of the Islamic State group. The Justice Department has prosecuted scores of IS-related cases since 2014, and many of the defendants are US citizens.

Phil gots a new one up for us, let's fill it by 11 pm: Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE