Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

Breh

https://twitter.com/genflynn/status/753772080471179264

The more shit like this happens the less I can understand giving people a pass for voting for him on the grounds they didn't realize he was a racist

No no deej, you're crying wolf. If you're calling Flynn an islamophobe now, what will you then call a guy called who won't subsequently lie about having said those things, and then share a picture of himself eating a dürüm? Huh? And what will you do then?

can't believe how badly the liberal lamestream media dropped the ball on these guys prior to 11/9.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/17/502476139/were-not-going-away-alt-right-leader-on-voice-in-trump-administration?sc=17&f=2

i was all over the Flynn stuff yesterday while the Shakey-Deej Revue was in center ring. Sad!

john r stanton
‏@dcbigjohn

Key Clinton fundraiser Heather Podesta touts connections to Trump transition in email to corporate clients

https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/lobbyists-have-no-clue-how-theyre-going-to-work-under-a-trum?utm_term=.ivAAgmjD9P#.dqdvnzYZOe

@ggreenwald 2h2 hours ago

Glenn Greenwald Retweeted john r stanton

How can you not love the bipartisan DC lobbyist class?

Sessions for AG (NYT)

Who knew Trump's job plan would mean giving jobs to all these unemployable losers.

Meanwhile, the interview with Mark Warner on the radio this morning about the intelligence community's checks on Trump was chilling. Not that they necessarily couldn't do it, but there was such a dark tone in his voice every time he had to say "let's hope that hypothetic does not come to pass" when asked how to would respond to an order to bring back something illegal, like torture

Nytimes (and other) editorials have been working overtime, but this brings up yet another issue with his inchoate policy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/opinion/donald-trumps-plan-to-purge-the-nation.html

Observations in the piece:

Start with the fact that the target number is made up. There simply aren’t as many criminal immigrants as he imagines. According to rough estimates by the Migration Policy Institute, of the country’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants, about 820,000 have criminal records. About 300,000 of those have felony convictions and are presumably the bad people Mr. Trump is talking about. If he deports those and only those, it will be a remarkable display of law-enforcement discretion, since he said that there were lots of “terrific people” among the unauthorized who might be allowed to stay, “after the border is secured and after everything gets normalized.”

And yet he also said that two million to three million would go, a population about the size of Chicago’s. He would have to haul away a lot of terrific people, and terrorize many more, to hit that mark. This would require a vast conscription of state and local law enforcement against people who pose no threat. It would mean a surge in home and workplace raids, investigations and traffic stops.

It took the Obama administration eight years to deport 2.5 million immigrants. The threat of Mr. Trump chasing that number right off the bat is the reason immigrant communities are so terrified. But the damage won’t be immediate: He can’t just load two million people onto buses and planes and ship them out. He’ll first have to stuff them into the bottleneck of the immigration courts, where there are too few judges and lawyers for a swollen caseload, and fill detention cells to bursting. Mr. Trump may be unaware of due process, or in denial about it, but it exists.

Scalzi/TPM "Trump's Razor" remains in full effect, that when in doubt, stupid prevails. Which obviously does not mean Trump can't continue to fail forward, but short of changing laws just getting anything done legal takes time once he's in office. It is just inconceivable that a man whose selfish life has been about nothing but paying for shortcuts and finding ways to hide and move money to get his way will be able to tolerate true bureaucracy. I can't even see how Trump will smoothly make the transition from private figure to public servant.

Jeff Sessions is AG.

Times bullet-points:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered Jeff Sessions the post of attorney general, according to officials close to the transition.
Mr. Sessions was denied a federal judgeship by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 because of racially charged comments.

He is no doubt a piece of shit.

On CBS News this morning, they said the Secret Service is working on making the glass in the Trump Tower penthouse bulletproof. That's right, folks...the glass in Trump Tower is currently not bulletproof. And this was announced on the news.

jeff sessions is bad news for marijuana legalization. This is a guy that said “Good People Don’t Smoke Marijuana” and that the only problem with the KKK was that they smoked weed.

"racially charged"

he's a firebrand!

controversial too!

The bulletproof glass thing got me thinking. Apart from the problem of having tons of branded properties all over the world that are now suddenly juicy targets for nefarious baddies, isn't Trump probably one of the most blackmailable people on earth? All the stuff that HASN'T come out.. All the financial shenanigans, all the hookers, all the sexual assault victims. People like that don't get security clearances right? Except he will.

In a sense yes, otoh he may be the least blackmailable in an effective sense, in that he ends up getting a pass on everything

yeah a tape is going to come out with him and two underage hookers and I'm sure we'll all just laugh it off

The American public won't even blink when Trump's spirit cooking tapes are released.

Hm. Guys, I'm beginning to think Trump might not make such a good president after all?

I wonder when the post-Brexit buyer's remorse will start to kick in on this one.

The bulletproof glass thing got me thinking. Apart from the problem of having tons of branded properties all over the world that are now suddenly juicy targets for nefarious baddies, isn't Trump probably one of the most blackmailable people on earth? All the stuff that HASN'T come out.. All the financial shenanigans, all the hookers, all the sexual assault victims. People like that don't get security clearances right? Except he will.

actually he's kinda unblackmailable since he's impervious to scandals!

The American public won't even blink when Trump's spirit cooking tapes are released.

just a healthy display of his alpha male dominance

xp err looks like everyone else pointed that out

Jeff Sessions is AG.

I don't really understand why people take these cabinet positions. is being AG a better gig than being a senator? it's not more prestigious, it doesn't make it easier to run for another office and it's a job with a fixed end date. being a senator in a safe state seems like a pretty good job.

Depends on what you want to achieve, I guess. AG has the power to get things done alone that a Senator can't do.

Kanye has unsurprisingly Kanye-esque thoughts about the election

It's a safe bet Kanye will win the presidency in 2020.

I wonder when the post-Brexit buyer's remorse will start to kick in on this one.

kinda getting irritated by all the people praising him for doing some not-horrible things - meeting with Romney, for example. just saw a surrogate say something like "he doesn't care about personal grudges, he just wants the best person for the job" like...oh really?

now this lobbyist ban actually looks like something useful, though I'm sure Trump himself won't abide by it, and I think that goodwill is undone by his position on campaign finance laws, which would essentially let one filthy rich person bankroll a campaign by themselves

I mean, seriously

“It goes back to Trump’s goal to make sure people aren’t using government to enrich themselves,” transition spokesman Sean Spicer said on a call with reporters.

are we not talking about the guy who funneled a ton of donor money through his own businesses? the guy who jacked up his own campaign office's rent fivefold?

They guy who charged the Secret Service $1.6 million to fly on his private 747.

I think we should look to Brazil as instructive -- when corruption is endemic, it's very easy for a corrupt party in power to use it against a corrupt party not in power. I don't think democrats are exactly free of corruption, and it will make them vulnerable.

btw if you follow him on Twitter he's been talking about "saving" a Ford plant which uh...wasn't going anywhere

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/donald-trump-takes-credit-for-helping-to-save-a-ford-plant-that-wasnt-closing.html?_r=0

This is one of his strangest and most disgusting qualities - how many times during the debates did he say "nobody talked about this before I brought it up"? Same mentality which sees the birther crusade as a favor to Barack Obama. Dude is nuts.

he's just shameless. his supporters are certifiable though.

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times. But they definitely want to rile us up to the point of paralysis and unclear thinking, and I'm trying to avoid that.

kanye is so fucking dumb

Like when Trump just said RBG should resign, my first reaction was fear, but once I got a grip I felt the right response is more "eat a dick."

the ford plant lie is infuriating. he's been the "PEOTUS" for a week and a half. we're going to have to learn to marshal our stores of disgust.

Jeff Sessions is AG.

I don't really understand why people take these cabinet positions. is being AG a better gig than being a senator? it's not more prestigious, it doesn't make it easier to run for another office and it's a job with a fixed end date. being a senator in a safe state seems like a pretty good job.

― iatee, Friday, November 18, 2016 8:36 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

congresspeople, even senators, i'm given to understand, spend the majority of their time fundraising. the rest of the time is listening to people beg you for a line item in a bill somewhere. a cabinet post is like, you get to actually command something, have a budget, hire and fire.

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times. But they definitely want to rile us up to the point of paralysis and unclear thinking, and I'm trying to avoid that.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, November 18, 2016 9:19 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, they want to provoke a particular response (fear, despair, resignation, capitulation) and it's incumbent upon us to not respond according to their wishes. But beyond even that, I'm trying to remind myself and others to more generally not allow a handful of elected officials and appointees dictate the tone of an entire country.

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times.

yeah something I'm hearing a lot from Trump supporters in response to all the "he's not doing what he said he was gonna do" stories - "lol we knew he didn't mean any of that". feels a lot like Scott Adams-style "everything that happens fits my narrative because I'm on a different level than you" garbage.

"PEOTUS" - some people call him Maurice

remnick piece on obama was incredible

https://thecorrespondent.com/5696/were-heading-into-dark-times-this-is-how-to-be-your-own-light-in-the-age-of-trump/1611114266432-e23ea1a6

sarah kendzior is scaring me

I really would like everyone saying "this is not normal" would go back and actually read through the history of the United States and what this country has done to practically every marginalized group it has ever encountered.

It's helpful to say that the path we are currently on is dangerous; saying it's not "normal" is to glibly ignore all of the horrendous things that have happened in this country's history and to falsely conflate "normal" with "good" and "desireable". The problem is much deeper and much more insidious than that. This is, after all, the same country that lynched members of my family less than 100 years ago; in the global scale of history, that was yesterday.

A good 2002 piece on Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.

DJP otm history is always instructive

altho tbf having a totally unqualified/unprepared moron as chief executive is def not normal

re: that Kendizor link "The days of Free Speech may soon end." I'm getting kinda sick of proclamations like this. We're basically building such a bogeyman that if Trump doesn't end up actually having journalists gunned down in the street he'll look moderate against expectations.

Trump’s appointees need to get confirmed. Attorney General-designee Jeff Sessions, whose nomination to a federal judgeship was blocked in the 1980s by a bipartisan group of senators because of alleged racist comments he had made as U.S. attorney, will not be able to coast through the Judiciary Committee, despite the fact he is a member. (In fact, that actually hurts his prospects – because he cannot vote for himself.)

lol totally forgot about this. confirmation hearings will be fun (I bet he gets in tho)

I'm getting kinda sick of proclamations like this.

agreed that hysteria is not a good look. basically the flipside of "they're comin for our guns!"/FEMA camps/we're at WAR WITH ISLAM stuff

xpost Senators voting down another Senator is not going to happen