US Politics January 2019: we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger

oh boy, already getting into it with friends who are Gabbard fans on FB

gonna be a long 21 months

gabbard is a kind of unusual figure

i don't really think she has a viable constituency in this primary but in a general i think she would do really well. she's be the "real nationalist" vs trump the pseudo champion of the workers.

she'd be a complete disaster

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html

This all seems super weird. I hope there ends up being an explanation.

Hm what could the explanation be

Chemtrails

i'm sure the real answer will come out someday, just like who killed JFK

Okay all the reports of his near-actual-meltdown calling into Pirro just now...something else. More than one person said it was clear Pirro was trying to save him from himself.

he sounds utterly panicked and mentally non-functional, like what I’d imagine your dog would sound like in the car if he could talk and found out you were driving him to the vet to be neutered

— Kilgore Trout (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 13, 2019

This response is...interesting.

PIRRO: "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?"

TRUMP: "I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked... If you read the article, you’ll find they had nothing... It’s called the failing New York Times for a reason..." (then pivots to Comey)

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) January 13, 2019

"Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?"

That was, in intent, a total softball question. When asked such a thing, a POTUS should just look amused by it and calmly say, "No. Never. Next question."

But it seems like a mistake to read too much into the fact that he chose not to issue one more flat denial about "NO COLLUSION!!!" and instead chose to cite a lack of evidence in the NYT article. Most ilxors have already seen enough of this to make their own guesses about his culpability in a variety of crimes. As a clue, this one is pretty vague.

the absence of a denial doesn't mean much. the guy lies all the time about everything, and he barely speaks english. a close reading that implies a gotcha seems like a stretch for someone like that.

Exactly, it's just the bluster of someone who knows he is above the rules, and when called on a violation simply needs to make enough noise for the sticklers to back down. I genuinely believe this is his core worldview, and to date it hasn't been wrong.

Anyway he is totally "working for Russia." It's very difficult to conclude otherwise on policy alone.

it’s probable he’s never never been prepped for a depo.

(he has)

uh his brain is completely gone

"I haven't actually left the White House in months," Trump says. What?

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) January 13, 2019

I guess that when you average 18 lies a day for a full year, you really need to reach deep some days to deliver your quota.

Truly a rock solid defense.

.@PressSec responds to the @washingtonpost report alleging that @realDonaldTrump has hidden the details of his Putin conversations from senior White House officials pic.twitter.com/wa5FTNpVA5

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) January 13, 2019

you've always been the caretaker, Donald

good morning!

I do think he is deteriorating mentally and am curous how much further it could go before it’s acknowledged. I guess very very far.

The is re the pirro interview. It might just be stress and magalomania, not necessarily dementia.

Also lol my “magalomania” typo

#MAGAlomania

I guess I have a different perspective on the Pirro interview inasmuch as he doesn't actually sound completely unhinged to me BUT...this is basically him performing at his current peak, answering some softball questions from a completely sympathetic/sycophantic interviewer from his favorite network while he phones from the toity, the Trumpian equivalent of being wrapped in a warm blanket and given a fresh ba-ba. And this is how well he functions under the most optimal conditions. This is as good as it gets.

Like if you're incoherently bellowing into the middle distance while you're curled up on the couch while eating ice cream and watching your favorite movie, just imagine how well you're likely to function at work the next day.

He just jumps around a lot and doesn’t make coherent points. If I met someone who talked like that I’d think someone was wrong.

*something was wrong with them

First batch of reputable media polling out this weekend. CNN finds Trump job approval down to 37 percent, near the all-time low of his presidency. https://t.co/Ketb2Gg2Em

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 13, 2019

Trump is losing the battle for public opinion. New WaPo/ABC poll:
-53 percent say Trump/GOP at fault for shutdown, 29 percent say Democrats
-54 percent oppose the wall, 42 percent support
-66 percent oppose declaring national emergency, 31 percent supporthttps://t.co/2xMsz1n5Ml

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) January 13, 2019

that 31 percent there, that is the terrifyingly large floor of truly insane propaganda dupes and racists

Well, W had his core approval rating just a couple of points lower (which, also distressing, but the point is, that core just sits there).

Anyway, dude is trying to float DACA again but who’d believe him, and how quickly will he backtrack after Ann etc whine about it.

Terrible trade even if he does offer it

I don’t know. If it really meant people living here don’t need to live in fear, it’s worth a pointless wall.

that 31 percent there, that is the terrifyingly large floor of truly insane propaganda dupes and racists

...yeah and his behavior is governed by them, and vice versa.

Part of the mythology of the base is that want a fighting fighter who fights, who is strong and resolute and doesn't back down. (At least those are the optics they say they want. In truth, he changes his "mind" constantly.)

Trump has no incentive to budge here, because if he loses any of the froth-beflecked base voters, there is no way he gain gain enough normals to compensate. Hence, the fight is more important than the wall itself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-the-president-of-the-republican-base--not-the-country/2019/01/11/3862aa9c-150f-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html?utm_term=.5da032ed56b3

xp no it's fucking not

I don’t know. If it really meant people living here don’t need to live in fear, it’s worth a pointless wall.

― Trϵϵship, 13. januar 2019 16:45 (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If he offers something that he can't just unilaterally rescind later on, then there might be the contours of a deal. But he won't.

assuming the wall is probably an ecological disaster as well, wildlife etc?

If he offers something that he can't just unilaterally rescind later on, then there might be the contours of a deal. But he won't.

Exactly. You can't make any deal with Trump, because nothing he offers stays on the table. Two hours later, he's had another mini-stroke and taken it away again.

Good point

xp yes, that's one of the biggest problems with any sort of compromise here

Given DACA was a legal blur to get around GOP intransigence on immigration, and that as recently as 2018 was basically legally affirmed as secure from Trump's assholery (right?), I don't see why any empty promise of further DACA security means shit. Clearly the GOP has no problem hammering away at established law, be it DACA, Roe, ACA etc., so why accept their support as anything but an disingenuous ruse? I can think of no reason for the Dems to give in to a wall, which not only gives asshole something to run on, not only gives him something more to boast about, but also results in yet another big, expensive eye-sore with his name on it. Fuck it and fuck him, he gets nothing.

Like, The Wall is basically the last of his more iconic catchphrase campaign "promises" he has yet to fulfill, that and "lock her up." Why give him the win? Funding the fucking wall is like making a campaign donation. In a month after it ends no one will even remember there ever was a shutdown.

before it's a boondoggle, before it's a declaration of trump/MAGA ego, before anything else, the wall is a completely unacceptable symbol of racist hatred, xenophobia and basically fascism. it is not something to be bargained over but something to be rejected utterly as a policy decision motivated by pathetic animus and relentlessly-stoked ill will among the citizenry. horse-trading around it normalizes it and grants legitimacy to the entire nonsensical and evil discourse that called it into existence. fuck anyone prepared to accept the wall in exchange for any damned thing anyone could ever offer.

Yeah, all those things are absolutely true *before* you even get to the stupid politics of the thing.

it's the whole visage of compromise that so many idiot centrists subscribe to. a even trade! just missing that one of the items goes against the spirit of the other, as far as Dems are concerned.

I support the wall if it's put around the White House