US Politics, March 2018: Why do people leave the White House for good?

xxp: yep

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/23/politics/digenova-role-trump-legal-team/index.html

“I will never sign another bill like this again,” he said at press availability scheduled at the last minute Friday afternoon.

He could be more right than he even knows.

Trump’s new attorney for Mueller work is no longer convinced he is the right person for the job

DiGenova got his first detailed briefing and found out what the job really was.

That is just amazing.

Oh HERE was a great detail from earlier

RIGHT NOW: WH advance staffer rushes into press office: “Does anyone know how to make (stuff) bigger on the printer?”

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) March 23, 2018

“I will never sign another bill like this again,” he said at press availability scheduled at the last minute Friday afternoon.

i mean this is the most amazing fake tough guy move -- drawing a line in the sand while concurrently backing down just as the other guy steps over it.

lmao he sounds like me trying to parent my 3-year old, "this is THE LAST TIME I *EVER* let you eat an entire ice cream cone, so just don't ask..."

"i will never do this again", i say, just before playing edward 40-hands again

Mr. Trump shocked Washington Friday morning

This is only possible when you have expectations beyond 'will invariably behave like a dipshit'.

WH advance staffer rushes into press office: “Does anyone know how to make (stuff) bigger on the printer?”

tbqh if not for my rigid morals i could work there

RIGHT NOW: WH advance staffer rushes into press office: “Does anyone know how to make (stuff) bigger on the printer?”

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) March 23, 2018

this is funny on its face but is there a subtext i'm missing

someone print the subtext bigger pls

it was a picture of trump's dick

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_qsoYm16IPZk/S_JxHoE-N-I/AAAAAAAABD8/YHavf0585QQ/s1600/100_8348.JPG

EVER so minor details.

"Emails described to WaPo, which are among thousands of documents turned over to investigators... show that Papadopoulos had more extensive contact with key Trump campaign and presidential transition officials than has been publicly acknowledged." https://t.co/pGPMDVz1P2

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 23, 2018

well first you have to harvest the beans, and then you have to roast them, and then the grinding, never mind all the pouring, it's very involved

Doug Henwood takes a fine crap on Pete Peterson's grave

https://thebaffler.com/latest/man-out-of-time-henwood

Stephen Walt:

Let me be clear: Bolton’s appointment is on par with most of Trump’s personnel choices, which is to say that it’s likely to be a disaster. His views on foreign policy are crude and bellicose, and his track record as a policy advocate and pundit do not, to put it politely, inspire confidence. Nor does he seem to have learned a thing from his past mistakes. And where McMaster and Tillerson did what they could to limit the damage that Trump has done to America’s international reputation and critical alliance partnerships, Bolton’s particular skill as a diplomat seems to have been finding creative new ways to offend America’s friends.

But Bolton’s arrival is hardly a return to the Trump that we saw in the 2016 campaign. Trump ran for president by attacking the entire foreign-policy establishment, suggesting that it was out of touch, unaccountable, and prone to get the United States into pointless wars. Since becoming president, however, Trump has increased defense spending, escalated in Afghanistan, given the Pentagon and certain headstrong U.S. allies the green light to use more force in more places (with disappointing results), and generally doubled down on the same overly militarized approach to foreign policy that had repeatedly failed under Bill Clinton, Bush, and, yes, even Barack Obama. Bolton’s appointment (along with Trump’s other personnel shifts) is not a bold move toward “America First” — if that term means a smarter and more restrained foreign policy that would reduce U.S. overseas burdens, improve the country’s strategic position, and actually make Americans safer and richer.

Instead, whether Trump knows it or not, putting Bolton, Pompeo, and Haspel in key positions looks more like a return to “Cheneyism,” by which I mean a foreign policy that inflates threats, dismisses serious diplomacy, thinks allies are mostly a burden, is contemptuous of institutions, believes that the United States is so powerful that it can just issue ultimatums and expect others to cave, and believes that a lot of thorny foreign-policy problems can be solved by just blowing something up.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/23/welcome-to-the-dick-cheney-administration/

wonderful

On trashier notes

whoaaaaaa https://t.co/uCoCLfkEQw pic.twitter.com/DRv8FwZ7nJ

— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) March 23, 2018

sure he'd be committing professional suicide but he'd get to meet Steve Bannon!

Oh so THAT'S when the week is.

President Trump to visit Northeast Ohio next week to tout infrastructure https://t.co/vchmermluc

— Jeremy Pelzer (@jpelzer) March 23, 2018

is it infrastructure week again already?

Groundhog Infrastructure Week

“But Bolton’s arrival is hardly a return to the Trump that we saw in the 2016 campaign.”

During the campaign, Bolton was the first name Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to for foreign policy advice.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-august-16-2015-n412636

well, he contradicts himself now and then, you may have noticed

As someone who's printed things for far an exponentially more literate President to read in public, I suspect the reference was to type size.

https://www.benefitz.co.nz/media/images/Print/benefitz-5m-uvistar.png

Not Infrastructure Week, just Infrastructure Touting Week.

Step one: Accept infrastructure funds from the federal government.
Step two: Tell President Trump that you've invested heavily in a number of invisible technologies that are now buttressing your community's infrastructure.
Step three: Profit!

'Oh, no, that bridge isn't falling apart. It's heavily reinforced with invisible girders, it's all good.'

"i will never do this again", i say, just before playing edward 40-hands again

― Karl Malone, Friday, March 23, 2018 11:46 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair this is a scene adapted directly from my life

As this Cambridge Analytica stuff gets bigger and bigger, and worse and worse, it's really remarkable how much if affirms all the curiously specific suspicions many (including many of us) have had from the start, conforming to the narrative(s) sussed out pretty early in this (inter)national debacle. And again, because it cannot be repeated enough, every single day something bad seems to come out about Trump, and every single time it only further confirms what many suspect or opens more reasons for suspicions. From the dossier to data mining, It never - never - goes the other way. Only further points to guilt and criminal complicity.

But seriously: her emails.

I'm certain when this is all said and done that there will be a very clear timeline pinpointing specific instances of interference that align perfectly with the shift from whatever moderate resistance Clinton once had to the bloodthirsty fervor of 'lock her up!'

Re that disc photo Avenatti posted:

On CNN, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer says this DVD contains evidence of the affair she has alleged with Trump. “This tweet is a warning shot,” he says. https://t.co/0SkGkgzN4Z

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) March 23, 2018

hope it's widescreen

If what we've heard is true, widescreen won't be necessary.

It's going to be some avant garde slo mo video of a bucket of fried chicken decomposing.

xps My guess is that the shift you cite will almost certainly have been facilitated by FOX News, although perhaps it will have been initially instigated by more nefarious agents, such as the Russian hackers' DNC email dump to WikiLeaks.

yeah FOX is the lynchpin to this whole mess, w/o it all these machinations would sort of be howling into the void

Right. Shit like 'lock her up!' didn't materialize out of nowhere and it doesn't become a sudden firestorm like it did without intentional and sustained effort on multiple fronts. The Trump campaign couldn't have made that happen on their own.

rupert murdoch should have been jailed a long time ago

rupert murdoch should have been jailed eaten a long time ago

Per Axios writer Jonathan Swan: A source close to John Bolton tells me he made no promise to Trump that he "wouldn't start any wars," contrary to reports. "Not true, wasn't discussed," the source says.

Just another day

NEW: When Trump threatened to veto the spending bill this morning, aides warned him that he might catch blame for shutting down the government on a weekend he planned to spend at Mar-a-Lago.

“F— that,” the president replied. https://t.co/AOnFQwRx11

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) March 23, 2018

As a matter of National Security I've signed the Omnibus Spending Bill. I say to Congress: I will NEVER sign another bill like this again. To prevent this omnibus situation from ever happening again, I'm calling on Congress to give me a line-item veto for all govt spending bills! https://t.co/kYwMk5AE5k

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2018

Nobody's willing to tell him - or, more likely, they don't know - that the line item veto has already been ruled unconstitutional.

supposedly he's already been told

may have been in one of those briefings with the details in them

hey guys

Zell Miller died