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What stupid shit has Trump done today?

Women seeking abortions in Arkansas now need permission from men

A new law passed in Arkansas means women must obtain permission from the man who impregnated them before they can have an abortion.
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Even in the case of rape, women wishing to terminate a pregnancy would have to seek the opinion of their attacker or abusive partner – who would be able to refuse and potentially block the procedure.
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The bill, which was signed into law in March and is set to come into force at the end of July, includes aborted foetuses in a rule stating family members must agree on what to do with the remains of their dead relatives.
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Parents of girls under 18 will also be able to decide whether their daughter can have an abortion.
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In The Atlantic The Scaramucci Takeover
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The incident brought simmering conflicts inside the White House to a boil and pitted top advisers against each other in a last-minute effort on the part of some of them to stymie the appointment of Scaramucci, known as “The Mooch,” who had refashioned himself as an ardent Trump supporter during the campaign and had been left in limbo during the early days of the administration after not getting a promised job.

According to three sources close to the White House, the thought of appointing Scaramucci as communications director began weeks ago. The idea, sources say, was initially Trump’s; Scaramucci has been a close ally, and Trump appreciated Scaramucci’s defense of him on television. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were involved in the decision and supported Scaramucci coming in, sources say, while White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon were firmly against, with Priebus calling Scaramucci on Thursday night and texting people close to him in a last-ditch effort to reach him and stop the hire. Bannon, a source close to the White House said, wanted an experienced communications professional in the job as the White House struggles to form a coherent message strategy to deal with the Russia investigation and the litany of other crises in which the administration is mired.

Another source close to the White House said that while Bannon strongly opposed the move initially, he gave in once the decision had been made. A White House official told me they had seen Scaramucci enter Bannon’s office for a meeting three weeks ago, though a source close to the White House familiar with the meeting insisted that Bannon and Scaramucci had talked about politics and policy over lunch but not specifically the communications director job.

“It’s wake-up time for people,” said a source close to the White House. “Get your job done. Get ahold of the Russia narrative. They probably want to get a little more aggressive in getting control of these things.”
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And if you think about it they have done a truly lousy job with the "Russia narrative". A major problems is however his comms people frame it Trump will carelessly run his big mouth over their work.
 
In FP Trump Assigns White House Team to Target Iran Nuclear Deal, Sidelining State Department
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Trump, however, was clearly upset that Tillerson told him he had no choice but to certify Iran was in compliance, according to the source, and asked White House staffers to take over. Withholding certification “wasn’t a real option available to me,” Trump reportedly told the staffers. “Make sure that’s not the case 90 days from now.”

Trump may still choose to certify Iran’s compliance at the next deadline, a source said, but he does not want to be in the position of where he was this week, when he was told that he had to certify because no other option was made available.

“He may not decertify, though I think he will,” the source said. “But he wants to make sure he never, ever, ever hears again that he can’t do it.”

The three sources told FP that, as of Friday, several NSC staffers are expected to be involved including top Middle East advisor Derek Harvey; Joel Rayburn, the director for Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria; Michael Anton, who handles strategic communications; and Victoria Coates, who works as Anton’s deputy on strategic communications. Bannon and Gorka, who are both regarded as Iran hawks, are also expected to take part.

Anton, who serves as the NSC spokesman, declined to comment.

Career diplomats at the State Department, who were involved in the negotiations and the initial implementation of the deal under former President Barack Obama, have argued that the agreement is vital as it blocks Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. And they say the benefits outweigh the risks and uncertainties of entering into a confrontation with Tehran over the issue while also avoiding a rupture with European allies that are committed to the deal and that will oppose reimposing sanctions lifted under the accord.
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Not just Tillerson being undermined. McMasters, Dunford and Mattis called Trump to heel on keeping the Iran deal going. As if they don't hawks in Teheran will gleefully scrap it and then the US only really has bombing left to retard the Iranian nuke program. That they can do but when the Pentagon has war gamed that it tends to end up with the US in a high calorie land war in a very big bumpy part of Asia.

What an ex-STAB and obvious flyweight hack like Gorka is doing still in the middle of this escapes me.
 
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On AP Syrian barber creates portraits on canvas _ clients’ heads
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Omar was raised in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, but moved to Lebanon in 2011 after a crackdown against demonstrations in Syria grew violent.

Omar said his vocation in hair styling is an extension of his passion for art.

“I started my baccalaureate studies and I studied psychology. When I came here to Lebanon, I mixed psychology, cutting hair and drawing into one profession,” he said.

Hair salons are a staple in every Middle East city, a place for friends to gather and gossip ahead of the weekends. They are usually segregated by sex.

Omar manages his own salon in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in south Beirut, established in 1948 to accommodate Palestinians made refugees by the creation of the state of Israel. The camp’s population has swelled with the influx of Syrian refugees — some of them also Palestinians — who have come to escape the violence of the war next door. The United Nations says Lebanon is home to 1 million Syrian refugees.
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Trump with a real head of hair!
 
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In The WSJ Sean Spicer Faced Myriad Obstacles During Dramatic White House Rise and Fall
WASHINGTON—Less than a month into his new job, White House press secretary Sean Spicer needed to keep his food and drink cold. He wanted a mini-fridge.

He dispatched a top aide to a nearby executive office building where junior research employees are crammed into a room, surviving on Lean Cuisine frozen lunches. Mr. Spicer wants your icebox, the aide said, according to people familiar with the incident. They refused to give it up.

So Mr. Spicer waited until sundown—after his young staffers had left—to take matters into his own hands. He was spotted by a fellow White House official lugging the icebox down the White House driveway after 8 p.m.
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More proof that the Whitehouse is a crimogenic environment.
 
butchersapron said:
What's that go to do with trump?
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There's no point. It's just a nonsense thread now. If it's not sub CT bullshit about rigged elections it's our resident trainee blogger (who could use a proof reader btw) posting up links to actual Daily Mail articles. It's not about anything we understand as politics as such. It's just about the establishment reaction to a president that it finds unpalatable.
 
On Reuters Anthony Scaramucci’s sleazy sales pitch
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What Robinson nails is the way that this is what Scaramucci does — it’s his job. Scaramucci is a fund-of-funds manager, posting returns even he admits are lackluster: he more or less tracks the S&P 500, while making big, risky bets (a third of his assets are in MBS), investing in leveraged hedge funds, and reserving the right not to redeem his clients’ money upon request. Which means that he only has two ways to make money: either find stupid people to give him their money, or else shower himself with so many conspicuous indicia of success that people just want to buy into his perceived success.

OK, make that one way to make money.

It’s far from clear that Scaramucci actually is successful, in financial terms, by Wall Street standards. He certainly spends a lot — millions of dollars — on various forms of conspicuous consumption and self-promotion. But he’s not making a lot: since he’s a fund-of-funds manager, he’s making 1.5-and-zero, rather than 2-and-20. And under the terms of his deal with Citigroup, a substantial chunk of that 1.5 goes straight to them. He has to run Skybridge, of course, with all the employee compensation, compliance costs, and the like that entails. He’s regularly writing seven-figure checks to pay for things like the Davos Tasting of ludicrously expensive wine. And of course he has to pony up charitable donations, too, so as to be able to get up in front of a well-heeled crowd to receive the Hedge Funds Care Award for Caring. (I’m not making this up.)

Scaramucci’s fake-it-till-you-make-it approach might end up working: his fund is still growing, and Robinson says that he “has become the Wall Street player he aspired to be when he first landed at Goldman some 22 years ago.” He’s living proof of what Windward Capital’s Robert Nichols is quoted saying at the end of the article: “Performance isn’t what beats a path to your door. It’s sales and marketing.”

But he’s not a stock-picker, or even, really, a hedge-fund manager: he just plays one on TV.
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Old piece from 2011 on the irresistible rise of Scaramucci. Does seem to be match made in heaven for Trump.
 
Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.

One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
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Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show
 
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Johnny Canuck3 said:
Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show
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The most strikingly phony aspect of the whole 'Russian-Trump Connection' is that those supposedly most concerned about American security/democracy are entirely reliant on carefully timed leaks from within the security agencies to provide momentum for what is designed to be a constitutional coup. After all, if the agencies or rogue elements within said community are leaking against the administration in such a brazen way, the question, (which is never asked), is who else might they be leaking to? Domestically, the Democrats supporting press are their all too willing accomplices. Internationally, it might well be Iran, North Korea, China, or even Russia - who knows?
And if say Trump is unseated in this way, what's to stop them doing exactly the same next time?
 
I'd agree they are utterly unprincipled cunts, but the idea they 'might be leaking to North Korea or Iran' - elevating a random possibility to something close to 'likely' - is a bit of a stretch.
 
Joe Reilly said:
The most strikingly phony aspect of the whole 'Russian-Trump Connection' is that those supposedly most concerned about American security/democracy are entirely reliant on carefully timed leaks from within the security agencies to provide momentum for what is designed to be a constitutional coup. After all, if the agencies or rogue elements within said community are leaking against the administration in such a brazen way, the question, (which is never asked), is who else might they be leaking to? Domestically, the Democrats supporting press are their all too willing accomplices. Internationally, it might well be Iran, North Korea, China, or even Russia - who knows?
And if say Trump is unseated in this way, what's to stop them doing exactly the same next time?
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A lot of the leaks fairly clearly are from the Whitehouse itself. For a bunch of sleazy real estate types they are surprisingly good at compromising themselves. They also do look like the sort of low hanging fruit who'd be easily suckered by the likes of the GRU or FSB. Perhaps they were. At this stage we don't know. I suspect when Mueller gets to the bottom of the barrel it will just be something sordid and venal at most.

The US press has a well established liberal bias and usually attacks GOP Presidents as if they were Satan himself. Trump mainly because of his brazenness, bad manners and abuse of norms is a unique affront. He was elected to offend liberals and he does.

As the US intelligence agencies are only pointing the finger at the Russians when Iran and North Korea are enemies even higher on their shit list it's just bullshit to try and cloud the issue just as Trump did in Poland. Inventing "Deep State" conspiracies is a bit sad old Ollie Stone. That dog don't hunt.

Trump was an inconsistent unknown with some whacky policy choices vacuously stated when he came in. That could have worried security people but I'm not seeing a major problem now. He's proving to be a Clinton like hawk quite willing to escalate US involvement in multiple conflicts. Actually more so when it comes to Iran and North Korea. He's actually quite good for the security establishment. It's the diplomats in Foggy Bottom he's really fucking over. Trump's foreign policy agenda as of now is pretty much a rightwing establishment one with a few minor twists. He's a Wall St crony surrounded by Koch network people as Ted Cruz would have been. He has a weakness for pandering to uber-wealthy Russians and Saudis. He's a crappy President but then the last two weren't great either. ttempting a reset with Russia is something both Bush and Obama failed at. Obama offended and struggled with the "The Blob". He dealt with leakers ferociously. Trump's pulled the CIA program in Syria but it was a half hearted affair lately and that's balanced by his deep love for Langley's partner the KSA. Withdrawing from the mealy mouthed Paris accord isn't going to upset these people. The Muslim Ban is bad security policy but it's not that big a deal. Despite the fawning Trump's still got NATO forward deployed in Putin's face. The Russians pulling a fast one is by far the simplest explanation of why US agencies are saying they did. European agencies report similar Russian activities in their countries.

The odd thing is people including Trump seem to need to maintain a position that Russia is some sort of stainless boy scout rather than a country rather like sleekit Iran or pitbull Israel willing to push the envelope in these things. It's like a toddler stumbling across carnage and just not believing that Mr Tiddles really is eating Jenny the gerbil.
 
Joe Reilly said:
The most strikingly phony aspect of the whole 'Russian-Trump Connection' is that those supposedly most concerned about American security/democracy are entirely reliant on carefully timed leaks from within the security agencies to provide momentum for what is designed to be a constitutional coup. After all, if the agencies or rogue elements within said community are leaking against the administration in such a brazen way, the question, (which is never asked), is who else might they be leaking to? Domestically, the Democrats supporting press are their all too willing accomplices. Internationally, it might well be Iran, North Korea, China, or even Russia - who knows?
And if say Trump is unseated in this way, what's to stop them doing exactly the same next time?
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This is right wing conspiracy theory complete with the myth of the Democrat/liberal media. The top executives of these huge media corporations are liberal Democrats? :rolleyes:
Time Warner Inc - CNN
Comcast Corp - NBC, MSNBC
Walt Disney Co- ABC
CBS Corp- CBS
 
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TomUS said:
This is right wing conspiracy theory complete with the myth of the Democrat/liberal media. The top executives of these huge media corporations are liberal Democrats? :rolleyes:
Time Warner Inc - CNN
Comcast Corp - NBC, MSNBC
Walt Disney Co- ABC
CBS Corp- CBS
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Yes, I've never understood the bizarre assumption that media corporations in the US have a left wing bias. It seems to be taken as read without evidence. Anyone watching one of the big 3 (I know now there are more than three, but we didn't have cable,) news broadcasts would work out in about 5 minutes that there isn't a leftward lean.

CrabbedOne, I'm a bit puzzled by the idea that the US media "Attacks GOP Presidents as if they were Satan himself." Eventually the media turned on Nixon, true, but ripped the piss out of Carter as often as not. The media absolutely fawned over Reagan, the "Great Communicator."

Bringing it up to date, during the elections last year, they graded Trump on a massive curve, and they're still doing it. They're willing to toe the line with the no-audio-or-video White House press "briefings" to keep access to the lies rather than investigating them. In what way is that left or liberal?
 
CRI said:
Yes, I've never understood the bizarre assumption that media corporations in the US have a left wing bias. It seems to be taken as read without evidence. Anyone watching one of the big 3 (I know now there are more than three, but we didn't have cable,) news broadcasts would work out in about 5 minutes that there isn't a leftward lean.

CrabbedOne, I'm a bit puzzled by the idea that the US media "Attacks GOP Presidents as if they were Satan himself." Eventually the media turned on Nixon, true, but ripped the piss out of Carter as often as not. The media absolutely fawned over Reagan, the "Great Communicator."

Bringing it up to date, during the elections last year, they graded Trump on a massive curve, and they're still doing it. They're willing to toe the line with the no-audio-or-video White House press "briefings" to keep access to the lies rather than investigating them. In what way is that left or liberal?
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A lot of Americans these days are hyper-partisan believing instinctively there is almost traitorous intent in the other party. US journalists are a product of this culture and mostly liberals. There's some level of professional fact checking but there is a distinct slant. Conservatives complain of this bitterly, used to take it with a pinch of salt and now tend to ignore all but their own media just as liberal rarely consult Fox except to be outraged. That's not to say these things are equal. That way extreme gullibility lies. A MO in play here is to discredit all sources with a creeping barrage of BS leaving the great leader as a sole font of truth. InfoWars and Breitbart are simply propaganda outlets like PressTV or SputnikNews.
 
Joe Reilly said:
Iran-Contra before your time?
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Funny you should mention that.

Started with a mischievous leak by the IRGC figure publicly confirmed by Teheran. With the liberal press in hot pursuit lots of smoke started billowing out of what was obviously a pretty chaotic administration with some clownish actors in it. It ended with a stack of indictments and finally Presidential pardons. Nothing really stuck to Teflon Ron. A President who ran a very loose ship and thus had a fair bit of deniability. He was badly damaged by it but somewhat freed up from GOP hawks to follow a Russian embracing agenda they resisted.

The Iranians had done the Reagan administration up like a kipper. I don't recall anyone ever suggesting at the time it was really a Russian plot or a 300lb fat guy was a alternative key player. There are however some obvious parallels. That Trump might end up looking more like a putz than a player is not unlikely.
 
Watching the world's most self-regarding democracy turn into an absolute fucking clown show would be more joyous if I didn't know people that will probably be fucked over by it.

I keep thinking it'll settle down and not get any worse, but no.
 
On Vox A new interview reveals Trump’s ignorance to be surprisingly wide-ranging
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But reading the transcript of Donald Trump’s recent interview with three New York Times reporters, two things stand out. One is the sheer range of subjects that Trump does not understand correctly — from French urban planning to health insurance to Russian military history to where Baltimore is to domestic policy in the 1990s to his own regulatory initiatives. The other is that Trump is determined, across the board, to simply bluff and bluster through rather than admitting to any uncertainty or gaps in his knowledge.

It’s an approach that’s certainly commonplace among Trump’s cohort of rich Manhattanites. People who’ve spent years surrounded by flatterers and lackeys eager to get their hands on their money tend to come away with an inflated sense of their own domains of competence. But precisely because the demands of the presidency are so unimaginably vast, it’s a frightening attribute in a chief executive.
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This little flaw is written all over the vague policies Trump campaigned on. He doesn't really know much about stuff but has instinctive whims that often mesh nicely with those of his voters. He creates a laundry list of dislikes and likes based watching cable TV not particularly attentively as he often garbles stories he's seen the night before. It's not as if he really had much idea of how to achieve these things if elected. Boldness backed by wealth can get you a long way in some areas of the private sector. Unlike in business the worst fault in a politician is promising things they probably can't deliver. The wall, cheap universal healthcare, reciprocal trade deals, 4% growth PA, a 300 ship navy etc. None of these things are entirely in the gift of a President especially one running against his own party in Congress. Trump wasn't a politician and didn't know enough even to assess if these things could be done. Even his voter often expressed some doubt about his ability to deliver as President. He just rolls in with the same low information wealthy guy confidence that mostly served him well when flipping real estate. He probably didn't expect to get elected just to make a good showing and then profitably bitch about being cheated until retirement. He made the big pitch, got buy in and closed. Now he's stuck with an enterprise far more complex than the Casino business that nearly busted him.
 
Dogsauce said:
Watching the world's most self-regarding democracy turn into an absolute fucking clown show would be more joyous if I didn't know people that will probably be fucked over by it.

I keep thinking it'll settle down and not get any worse, but no.
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True - and even for those who have no friends, family or interest in America are still being fucked over because stuff like climate change denial, deregulation, trade wars, slashing international aid budgets, diplomatic fuck ups, etc. will impact on everyone everywhere, but most especially, those who are already the most marginalised in the world. :(
 
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