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

The latest polls have voters blaming Trump for shutdown by a wide, 25-30 point margin. And his approval rating has taken a beating this week. He's actually -22 on Gallup.

It's independents mostly switching

yeah I think this is going to be the thing that actually erodes his base as low as it can go tbh

He's going to lose a good-sized portion of the federal employees who voted for him, even though he doesn't believe they ever existed. He's constantly chipping away at the edges of his base by pursuing policies such as his trade wars, that directly attack some of his loyal voters, even if they also reward some of the others.

just checked the 538 aggregator and yeah, there is definitely some clear downward movement there. still I remain somewhat skeptical - he's never really had a "good" week, just one disastrous week after another, and his approval held steady through all of 2018, even rising somewhat. I guess putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work could change things.

“We . . . found that (the agency) improperly ignored these Emoluments Clauses, even though the lease itself requires compliance with the laws of the United States, including the Constitution,” the report said.
Even us armchair dummies recognized this at the time. It's like for years all these morons have been operating in a dream-state, willfully oblivious to what is obvious.

the thing i can't stop thinking about is how unfairly trump has been treated

very unfairly

the lack of success the GOP is having in pinning this shutdown more on the Dems is a bit surprising to me, but that's only because the GOP has been pretty damn good at it before. But this is so clearly the result of a Trump temper tantrum, and the Dems seem fairly level-headed and patient right now.

agreed, I won't get my hopes up but it's a little refreshing to see

it makes me mad that more than 0% of the public pin the blame on the democrats. they had a vote to fund the government that was unanimously supported in the senate, then trump took the whole thing hostage for his idiotic wall (literally the day after the unanimous senate vote, if i remember correctly?) and it all fell apart. it can't be more cut and dry than that. and as films and tv have reminded us for years, you don't negotiate with terrorists

He owned up to it before he went ahead and did it. Was broadcast pretty widely on tv and social media.
So people have been surprised that he still feels he's able to disown it.

If Trump literally shot a man on live TV 35% of the country would either say he didn't do it or he was totally justified in doing so

i think Trump is just generally such an exhausting figure that more and more people are constantly becoming tired of everything involving him. i think the base he's maintained is a bit misleading since his base didn't win it for him, the really obnoxious and spineless middle did, and they're swaying the other way.

I swear a Dem candidate should run on an ad showing all Trump admin officials and spokespersons and lackeys with a tagline along the lines, "man aren't you just sick of these people?"

which isn't to say the Dems still don't need a very good and unflappable and likable candidate to beat this dumb fuck.

Gizmoduck

Rudy can fail

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/rudy-giuliani-rumored-to-be-very-worried-about-mueller-report-hates-working-for-trump-now/

really hoping Mueller includes the sentence "Rudy is a very shrewd untalented fuck" in his report

from the article, a good indicator of how exhausting every single day is:

Earlier this year, it was rumored that Giuliani was bracing for a “horrific” Mueller report–with signals that President Trump might make “a deal” and resign.

It's January 16th.

i don't feel no ways tired

expecting mueller indictments to drop sometime in december, exciting year ahead

Mueller's indictment list needs more Don, Jr., Jared & Ivanka content, with a pinch of Pence for piquancy.

in a way it has felt like one long year.

A fourth Republican close to the White House said Trump is thinking of continuing the shutdown through the State of the Union, so he can use the prime-time speech to argue for his wall. But Nancy Pelosi has now asked him to postpone his speech, or deliver it in writing, because of shutdown-related security concerns.

lol, owned by pelosi

our child president didn't have anyone to tell him no during his first two years (which is so unfair to him, wow, he is so treated so unfairly). it's amusing to watch him repeatedly fail now that someone's finally doing it

yr daily lol

I read a lot of this thing with my jaw on the floor.https://t.co/XCXkKgTkoQ

— sarah miller (@sarahlovescali) January 16, 2019

Pelosi is running circles around him

A poll from Pew Research Center released Wednesday shows that opposition to the wall continues to be robust. Forty percent of respondents favor an expansion of the wall, Pew found, with a 58 percent majority opposing it.

But Pew went a step further, revealing particularly bad news for Trump and the Republicans. Pew then asked respondents whether they would be willing to see the shutdown end by compromising their position. That is, if you oppose the wall, would you support ending the shutdown by spending money on its construction or, if you support the wall, would you approve of ending the shutdown by giving up on funding it?

About 7 in 10 of those who support the wall said they would oppose any compromise. But nearly 9 in 10 of those who oppose the wall said they, too, wanted to stick to their guns — meaning that, overall, more than half the country both opposes the wall and opposes compromising on that position.

Opposition to Trump’s position is so robust that the number of people who oppose the wall but think a compromise is acceptable is lower than the portion of Trump’s supporters who would accept a deal that didn’t include wall funding.

Over the course of his presidency, Trump has demonstrated a single-minded focus on his base, a group that, in this case, likely makes up most of that 29 percent of the country that backs Trump and doesn’t want him to compromise.

I wish McConnell reads those numbers and loses control of his bladder from fear.

Turtle Turds

Trump on the other hand must be happy as a pig in shit. doing nothing is hi default mode. this is probably how he imagined spending his retirement, being alone in a big house eating fast food.

with a stab wound from a family member on his hand

being alone in a big house eating fast food

And stiffing thousands of contractors!

Uh.

Rudy Giuliani to @ChrisCuomo: “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign. I have not. I said the president of the United States,” adding that Trump “didn’t commit a crime.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 17, 2019

Barron at work:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DesertedDamagedBustard.webp

Enlightening.

Rudy Giuliani, on CNN: "I never said there was no collusion between people in the campaign" and Russians.

And on Trump, "He said *he* didn't (collude with Russians.) He didn't say nobody."

— Todd Zwillich (@toddzwillich) January 17, 2019

It’s amazing these people were too dumb to realize they were colluding in espionage

a wizard with words!

Not even amazing. Stupefying. I’m sure don jr et al thought oppo research was oppo research, and of course you’d leverage the presidency for foreign investments

Rudy: I took an oath to the Constitution - which apparently Mueller’s people forgot

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 17, 2019

I caught the last several minutes of "The Daily" tonight (the Times podcast), which was focused on at least the first day of the Barr hearings. It featured, imo, some pretty intriguing, perhaps even compelling tea leaf reading. The podcast briefly observed the same vibe I got from the hearing, which they likened to an attempt at a reset. New judiciary committee, new, serious, qualified AG nominee. And yet, it noted, one constant remained: Trump and Mueller, which is really the crux hanging over of the whole thing.

Yesterday someone (maybe even Graham?) asked Barr about his previous interactions with the president, including a report that Trump had asked him to join his defense team. Barr recounts the single encounter, which was back in 2017. The current ambassador to Israel, of all people (who Barr had never met), contacted him and asked him if he wanted to join Trump's team, but Barr demurred, saying thanks but no thanks, he's busy with other stuff right now and didn't feel up to jumping into that particular meat grinder (or something to that extent). Still, he agreed to meet with Trump the next day, which he did. Apparently Trump mostly asked about Mueller, and Barr allegedly responded that Mueller was an esteemed prosecutor and straight shooter, and should be treated as such. And again Barr turned down the defense team, and didn't hear anything from Trump again until asked about the AG role.

Which of course raised the question yesterday: why would someone turn down the defense team role, likening it to jumping into a meat grinder, yet agree to the AG role a year later? The podcast emphasized Barr's peerless reputation and career when it asked, rhetorically, why someone would throw that all away in (in so many words) defense of a scumbag president who has done nothing but undermine the rule of law and the reputation of Barr's friends and peers. And the podcast came to the tentative conclusion that he *wouldn't*, positing in the process nearly the opposite, that as a lawyer with a sterling reputation at the late stage of his career, helping to maintain the rule of law in the face of Trump's recklessness/lawlessness is one of the few career tacks that could burnish his reputation even more. It suggested that even if Trump inevitably turned on Barr - and it underscored how so many purportedly serious public servants have wilted and died in Trump's bad vibe aura - Barr would leave the situation better than he walked into it, either as the AG who helped push back against Trump and support the special counsel and his investigation, or the AG who righteously resigned in the face of interference (which would in some ways probably also support the special counsel and his investigation). Barr might pursue a traditional conservative agenda, but the podcast could see no upside to him aiding Trump's crusade against truth and justice.

The podcast ended by emphasizing that at least as Barr portrayed himself, he was absolutely not the type of AG Trump has repeatedly insisted on in the past, and in fact wondered what Trump made of his testimony, which portended the opposite of a Sessions-like toady.

I think this is it: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/podcasts/the-daily/william-barr-confirmation-hearing.html

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

A top Department of Housing and Urban Development official is leaving the agency Thursday following disagreements with other members of the Trump administration over housing policy and the White House’s attempt to block disaster-recovery money for Puerto Rico, according to five people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Deputy Secretary Pam Patenaude, second-in-command at the agency helmed by Ben Carson and widely regarded as HUD’s most capable political leader, is said to have grown frustrated by what a former HUD employee described as a “Sisyphean undertaking.”

However, instead of paying the $50,000 that company owner John Gauger was expecting, Cohen handed him “a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial-arts fighter,” the Journal reports.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cohen-hired-it-firm-to-rig-online-polls-for-trump-says-report?ref=home

So many choice pullquotes in that article. Unfettered bumblefuckery all the way down.

Michael Cohen hired an IT firm to rig online polls in favor of Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 election and instructed the company to create the @WomenForCohen Twitter account to laud how sexually attractive he is

incredible

lol that account is still up and tweeting

Such a redundant effort for anyone with eyes and a fetish for slowly-melting faces.

Did someone take stupid's phone away or something ?

Good morning!

xpost I hear he's becoming more isolated and withdrawn.

between "House of Carbs" and "Women for Cohen" this is really shaping up to be the funniest Infrastructure Week yet

Trump is too busy governing and opening the government to tweet.

Did someone take stupid's phone away or something ?

Nope.

The Left has become totally unhinged. They no longer care what is Right for our Countrty!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2019