The Trump presidency

[J Ed]

Centrist journos are so fucking thick, no wonder they fell (and continue to fall) for Obama's 'hey folks... drones are woke now' schtick. Trump should just hold a press conference where he directs a laser pointer around the room, they would all follow it.

 

[J Ed]

Drown all of these people in slurry

 

[Treacle Toes]

Urghhhhhhhhh!!! He used her and her dead husband's memory. The capital P stands for PIMP/PONCE.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Drown all of these people in slurry

Tur makes a rather different point in the rest of her tweet sequence though.

 

[camouflage]

I noticed Trump does a lot of the old up-jutting chin with broad tightly-closed mouth thing...

I'm almost disappointed he didn't cross his arms across his chest a lot, or wear a military helmet one size too small. Probably for the best really.

Just to add another practitioner of up-jut...

 

[J Ed]

Media Fawn Over Trump’s Success at Saying Words in Semi-Coherent Fashion

CNN liberal Van Jones (2/28/17) couldn’t help gushing over Trump’s ability to utter words on live TV:

That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period. And he did something extraordinary. And for people who have been hoping that he would become unifying, hoping that he might find some way to become presidential, they should be happy with that moment. For people who have been hoping that maybe he would remain a divisive cartoon, which he often finds a way to do, they should begin to become a little bit worried tonight, because that thing you just saw him do, if he finds a way to do that over and over again, he’s going to be there for eight years.

Now, there was a lot that he said in that speech that was counterfactual, that was not right, that I oppose and will oppose. But he did something tonight that you cannot take away from him. He became president of the United States.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Trump’s moral and ethical failings are legion. He is the villain of all his own triumphant and disgraceful sagas. But the plot of this chapter is about a political press corps (not the investigators slowly piecing together the unseemly details of Trump’s foreign entanglements, but the ones who cover day-to-day news and theater) that is outmatched and completely maladapted for the challenge he poses to it.

Many of the same people now tasked with communicating what matters about Trump’s presidency to the public also covered Trump’s campaign, where they returned serially to the storyline of the pivot, the softening, wherein simply reading a scripted and not-entirely-unhinged speech from beginning to end marked a new beginning for him.

There is apparently less capacity for living and learning in political journalism than there is in elementary school; less object permanence than in nursery school.
[/QUOTE

The Worst Performance of Trump’s Presidency Now Belongs to the Press Corps

 

[J Ed]

The Worst Performance of Trump’s Presidency Now Belongs to the Press Corps

This is all the logical conclusion of the media relationship with politicians pre-Trump. These are people who have forgotten to think, they don't know how to talk about policy and have spent decades cultivating an audience for a reality TV show with a cast of politicians as characters.

 

[CRI]

Urghhhhhhhhh!!! He used her and her dead husband's memory. The capital P stands for PIMP/PONCE.

I saw that snippet and it made me queasy.

His widow was there but the man's father is very angry about his son's death, has called for an enquiry and has been rebuffed by Trump. I still can't get out of my head how Trump and his daughter turned up at this man's funeral with all the press in tow, unannounced, and the father is told the President wants to meet him. He refused - I mean would you want to shake the hand of the man responsible for your son's avoidable death, President or not. Of course Trump is blaming the military, where previous presidents at least had the cajones to accept responsibility for things that went wrong, being Commander in Chief and all that.

Wondering if the Trump team's cack-handed exploitation of this guy's death may have caused a rift in the dead man's family.

There’s much more to the story of the fallen Navy SEAL Trump praised in his speech to Congress

 

[CRI]

Some insight here into what's happening (or not) in the State Department. It's like someone pulled the plug on the machine, some parts are carrying on on "impulse power," but if it ever needs to be called into action, it's just not going to function. I think the final sentence probably sums it up:

“This is probably what it felt like to be a British foreign service officer after World War II, when you realize, no, the sun actually does set on your empire,” said the mid-level officer. “America is over. And being part of that, when it’s happening for no reason, is traumatic.”

 

[CRI]

 

[coley]

Apologies for the tweet link but some interesting observations of Trump's speech. From @KillerMartinis



I cant bear to watch the wholecspeech but seeing a few say it was a 'good speech' (so long as he didn't veer off the autocue.) The bar is so low though, and too many clapping like sealions at both his meaningless platitudes and ghastly pronouncements.

Just relief that he didn't use the event to declare war on Sweden

 

[coley]

Media Fawn Over Trump’s Success at Saying Words in Semi-Coherent Fashion

Where's the fucking sick bucket when you need it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

President Donald Trump quietly signed a bill into law Tuesday rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.


The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.


Had the rule fully taken effect, the Obama administration predicted it would have added about 75,000 names to that database.


President Barack Obama recommended the now-nullified regulation in a 2013 memo following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 first graders and six others dead. The measure sought to block some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns.

Trump signs bill revoking Obama-era gun checks for mental illness

 

[starfish]

I saw something tonight that mentioned that some people were starting to realise that the important word was CARE not OBAMA.

Nobody knew there was a difference.

Sad.

 

[snadge]

Appears to have been removed.

Which is why you archive everything.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Which is why you archive everything.

Precisely why you don't "archive everything". It may get reposted as this article did after an hour or so.

 

[ohmyliver]

Sessions met with Russian envoy twice last year, encounters he later did not disclose

Twitter web player (video of Sessions denying any meetings under oath at his confirmation hearing)

Looks like Sessions has been caught out perjuring himself about meetings with Russia.

 

[bluescreen]

Sessions met with Russian envoy twice last year, encounters he later did not disclose

Twitter web player (video of Sessions denying any meetings under oath at his confirmation hearing)

Looks like Sessions has been caught out perjuring himself about meetings with Russia.

I'd take a punt on that not being a big deal. Rash, I know.

 

[ohmyliver]

Not on it's own, but within the context of Russian collusion with the Trump team, and the resignation of Flynn for similarly lying... it gives more weight to the calls for an independent enquiry

 

[bluescreen]

Not on it's own, but within the context of Russian collusion with the Trump team, and the resignation of Flynn for similarly lying... it gives more weight to the calls for an independent enquiry

Yeh, but do you have much confidence that the outcome of such inquiry would lead anywhere but strife and bloodshed?

 

[ohmyliver]

No, America seems fucked tbh. Even if there was overwhelming evidence of collusion between the Russian state and/or Russian organised crime and Trump I doubt that all of the Trump voters would accept it as valid. And I suspect there'd be a significant overlap of supporters who wouldn't accept it, and supporters who are angry and armed.

 

[CRI]

Sessions bald faced lies under oath is what should nail him. Be great if he gets the chance to spend some time in one of those shiny new private prisons he's so fond of.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Not on it's own, but within the context of Russian collusion with the Trump team, and the resignation of Flynn for similarly lying... it gives more weight to the calls for an independent enquiry

It's more smoke but Flynn was fired for lying to Pence. Talking to the Russians or any important foreign power isn't in itself that big a deal. It's normal for a President elect's team to do this even if there's a very old, unused, law against it. Sessions may have less than frank with the Senate but says he wasn't talking to Russia as part of the Trump campaign but as part of Senate committee work.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico McMaster rolls back Flynn’s changes at NSC

...
Cattler and Hansell are generally well-regarded, according to a person familiar with the current NSC.

Cattler was a Flynn pick, the person said. According to his LinkedIn page, Cattler worked under the former NSC boss at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn was forced out of the DIA in 2014.

According to the person familiar with the NSC, some career intelligence professionals regarded Cattler with suspicion because of his connection to Flynn, a vocal critic of the CIA and its tactics.

Hansell, meanwhile, “was as solid as they come and was doing the overwhelming lion’s share of the administrative work behind the scenes to keep that place afloat,” the person said.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, lasted less than a month as national security adviser. He was ousted after The Washington Post reported that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had held with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December, during the presidential transition.

Not clear what's happening with Bannon and McFarland. Political hacks being on the NSC is probably less significant than who is excluded and what access it's head has to the Oval Office.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico McMaster rolls back Flynn’s changes at NSC

...
Cattler and Hansell are generally well-regarded, according to a person familiar with the current NSC.

Cattler was a Flynn pick, the person said. According to his LinkedIn page, Cattler worked under the former NSC boss at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn was forced out of the DIA in 2014.

According to the person familiar with the NSC, some career intelligence professionals regarded Cattler with suspicion because of his connection to Flynn, a vocal critic of the CIA and its tactics.

Hansell, meanwhile, “was as solid as they come and was doing the overwhelming lion’s share of the administrative work behind the scenes to keep that place afloat,” the person said.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, lasted less than a month as national security adviser. He was ousted after The Washington Post reported that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had held with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December, during the presidential transition.

Not clear what's happening with Bannon and McFarland. Political hacks being on the NSC is probably less significant than who is excluded and what access its head has to the Oval Office.

 

[CrabbedOne]

.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico Democrats: Yemen raid still needs investigation

Shades of the Benghazi brouhaha and just as stupid.

 

[ohmyliver]

It's more smoke but Flynn was fired for lying to Pence. Talking to the Russians or any important foreign power isn't in itself that big a deal. It's normal for a President elect's team to do this even if there's a very old, unused, law against it. Sessions may have less than frank with the Senate but says he wasn't talking to Russia as part of the Trump campaign but as part of Senate committee work.

CNN are saying that Kislyak wasn't just an ambassador, he was Russia's "top spy recruiter" in D.C. Which I guess is even more smoke.

 

[8den]

Oh? That Russian Ambassador? Oh Him I met.

Fucking hell they can't even lie convincingly

Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions under fire over Russia meetings - BBC News