Jeff Flake Takes Down Trump And His Conduct

Transcript of his speech:

Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter that has been much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than it is by our values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours to hold indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.

Now is such a time.

It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our – all of our – complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.

In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order – that phrase being “the new normal.” But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue – with the tone set at the top.

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country - the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.

Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as “telling it like it is,” when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.

And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength – because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? -- what are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.

Here, today, I stand to say that we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the constitution by adhering to our Article 1 “old normal” – Mr. Madison’s doctrine of the separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madison’s status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51 – held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract each other when necessary. “Ambition counteracts ambition,” he wrote.

But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would be wrong if we did.

When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do – because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum – when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.

Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.

If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

A Republican president named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen’s relationship to the office:

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.” President Roosevelt continued. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.

In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I’m afraid that is where we now find ourselves.

When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes looking for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly and debased appetites in us.

Leadership lives by the American creed: E Pluribus Unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have also been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.

These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don’t matter is simply not who we are.

Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the world’s economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping the countries that had been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didn’t do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.

Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.

The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?

The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.

I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit.

I have decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.

To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.

It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party – the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal – but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.

This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because to have a heathy government we must have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.

I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that.

Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women -- none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career doesn’t mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.

I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today, and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Donald Trump's Benghazi

So, I’ve been studying up on the USA’s involvement in Niger. I’ve discovered the following odd set of facts. Boko Haram and ISIS have been active in several central African countries for a while now. Chad has had little activity from these terrorist organizations, but has sent many crack troops to fight the terrorists in the other central African nations. Chad has worked closely AS AN ALLY WITH THOSE NATIONS, AND THE USA. Chad’s fighters have been highly effective. So what does trump do? He BANS CHAD CITIZENS FROM COMING TO THE USA in his Muslim, er, travel ban. No one in the Chad gummit and no central African expert can figure out why trump did this.

Someone in the trump adminny says that Chad was barred because they couldn’t provide a sample of their passport so experts could determine if they were secure. At the time, Chad had stopped issuing passports because they had a secure paper shortage. Chad offered to send an example of a passport that had earlier been printed, but for some reason, in spite of Chad BEING AN ALLY IN THE HORRIFIC WAR ON TERRORISM™, we refused their offer.

Some have said that the real reason our ally Chad is on the Muslim, dangit I forget, travel ban is that Chad fined Exxon millions of $$$$ for misbehavior in that nation, and this ban is payback for that.

At any rate, Chad responded to the insult by saying f*ck you and PULLED OUT ALL ITS SOLDIERS in the fight against ISIS and Boko Haram. The result is that attacks by ISIS and Boko Haram have increased in severity, and now we’ve lost 4 American soldiers there. 

It would appear that this could be quite the scandalous behavior by trump and his Secretary of State, a former Exxon official. It appears to me that trump and the Secretary of State could very well bear some burden of guilt in the fate of the 4 American soldiers. No wonder trump has avoided talking about the attack. Of course, I expect nothing but cries of “FAKE NEWS!” from trump supporters. trump’s prediction that he could shoot someone out on the streets and his peeps would still love him is quite an accurate prediction, it seems, against all reason.

Maybe someone could explain to my chemo addled brain why this is OK…

WHERE'S THE MAGA?

Maybe someone could explain to my chemo addled brain why this is OK… The other day, trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo, told an outright lie when he said that U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election did not alter the outcome of the election.

But, in reality, as Pompeo undoubtedly knew, unless he is totally incompetent, the report reached no conclusions about whether that interference had altered the outcome of the election.

Read the actual report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence here: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

It seems that if it is another day, it is ANOTHER LIE from the trump administration. Again, someone explain to me why this is OK.

'Spectacular' drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost

Renewable energy capacity around the world was boosted by a record amount in 2016 and delivered at a markedly lower cost, according to new global data – although the total financial investment in renewables actually fell.

Analysts warned that the US’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement, announced last week by Donald Trump, risked the US being left behind in the fast-moving transition to a low-carbon economy. But they also warned that the green transition was still not happening fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, especially in the transport and heating sectors.

The new renewable energy capacity installed worldwide in 2016 was 161GW, a 10% rise on 2015 and a new record, according to REN21, a network of public and private sector groups covering 155 nations and 96% of the world’s population.

New solar power provided the biggest boost – half of all new capacity – followed by wind power at a third and hydropower at 15%. It is the first year that the new solar capacity added has been greater than any other electricity-producing technology.

The Guardian

Former Wharton Professor: 'Trump Was the Dumbest G*d damn Student I Ever Had'

Surprise, surprise. The president came to business school thinking he knew it all.

The late professor William T. Kelley taught marketing at Wharton School of Business and Finance, University of Pennsylvania, for 31 years, ending with his retirement in 1982. Kelley, who also had vast experience as a business consultant, was the author of a then-widely used textbook called Marketing Intelligence:The Management of Marketing Information (originally published by P. Staples, London, 1968). Kelley taught marketing management both to undergraduate and graduate students at Wharton. Dr. Bill was one of my closest friends for 47 years when we lost him at 94 about six years ago. He would have been 100 this year. 

Donald J. Trump was an undergraduate student at Wharton for the latter two of his college years, having graduated in 1968. 

Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this: “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.” Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity, but long before he was considered a political figure. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told the story that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything. 

Alternet

Donald Trump may be trying to mount a mental incompetence defense after all

Donald Trump’s words and behavior are becoming more inappropriate, idiotic, deranged, and outright senile by the day. It’s well past the point where he should have been removed from office by now based on that alone. Of course he’s also in danger of being removed from office for his treasonous conspiracy with Russia to rig the election. Now one legal expert is suggesting that when Trump is forced to answer for his crimes, mental incompetence may end up being his defense.

Earlier today it was reported that one of Trump’s former Wharton professors declared “Donald Trump Was the Dumbest Goddam Student I Ever Had.” This prompted respected Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe to point out that this may end up being how Trump tries to get off the hook for his crimes: “Trump’s idiocy may end up being POTUS’s best defense against charges of deliberate abuse of power. He could be too dense to scheme!” (link).

Professor Tribe seems to be hinting, perhaps seriously, and perhaps sarcastically, at the possibility that Donald Trump may be faking his own worsening mental incompetence as a legal defense strategy.

The Palmer Report

Trump recalls meeting with 'president' of US Virgin Islands - which is the POTUS himself

Trump is the stupidest fuggin' idiot to ever infest the WH.

"I met with the president of the Virgin Islands," he said. "These are people that are incredible people. They've suffered gravely and we'll be there. We're gonna be there."

Trump, who is himself the president of the U.S. Virgin Islands, was likely referring to his Oct. 3 meeting with territory Gov. Kenneth Mapp.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins noted that the official White House transcript of Trump's remarks corrected "president" to "governor."

http://news3lv.com/news/offbeat/trump-recalls-meeting-with-president-of-us-virgin-islands-which-is-the-potus-himself

William Cohen: Trump’s ‘fact free’ style, taunting has damaged presidency

President Donald Trump’s first nine months in office have been unconventional in every sense, according to Bangor native William Cohen, a Republican who served more than two decades in Congress before becoming Democratic President Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense.

From the way the president treats members of Congress to his fondness for “tweetstorms,” and his taunting of everyone from the National Football League to North Korea, Cohen said, “President Trump has really rejected the norms in virtually every aspect of his presidency.”

The current “unconventional” administration was the topic of this year’s Cohen Lecture at the University of Maine, presented by the William S. Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service at the Collins Center for the Arts. Cohen was joined Friday by Andrew H. Card Jr., former chief of staff to President George W. Bush, and Ambassador Marc Grossman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/10/13/politics/william-cohen-trumps-fact-free-style-has-damaged-presidency/

DESTROYING HEALTHCARE, ONE PROCLAMATION AT A TIME

It’s Not Just North Korea: Now Iran’s Rev Guards are Threatening War With U.S.

A Revolutionary Guards Commander has threatened the U.S. military, warning that if the U.S. classifies Iran’s Guards as terrorists and introduces fresh sanctions, it would regard the move as a U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, making future engagement between the two countries impossible.

“The Guards will consider the American military all over the world, especially the Middle East, as equal to ISIS [the so-called Islamic State],” said General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards in a speech on Sunday.

Currently, the Guards are actively fighting against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. These words by Gen. Jafari, even if they are interpreted as merely a bluff or bravado, could potentially lead to heightened tensions between the two countries.

A report by Sepah News, the Guards’ official website, emphasized that Jafari was talking to the Guard’s Strategic Council, and confirmed that the general was not expressing his personal view, but representing the view of the Guards.

More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-not-just-north-korea-now-irans-rev-guards-are-threatening-war-with-us?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

NOPE ‘We Don’t Stand by Our Agreements’: Diplos Brace for Donald Trump’s Assault on the Iran Deal

Experienced diplomats are warning that Donald Trump’s anticipated vote of no confidence in the Iran nuclear deal is a “crisis” whose impacts will reverberate to America’s detriment far beyond Iran.

Already, within the hallways of the State Department, anticipation over the imminent end of Secretary Rex Tillerson’s tenure is mixing with fear that a Tillerson replacement will help push the U.S. on a more bellicose path with Iran, whether the deal survives the year or not.

“Given what we’ve seen thus far, who the hell knows? It could certainly get worse,” a State Department official told The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity. “State could go from being underutilized and dormant, as it is now with Tillerson, to actively furthering really scary policies.”

Trump is expected to decline to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline, even though Iran has not violated the deal. He’s likely to give a speech on Friday denouncing Iranian support for terrorism and its development of ballistic missiles, both of which are outside the terms of the accord.

More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-dont-stand-by-our-agreements-diplos-brace-for-donald-trumps-assault-on-the-iran-deal

A Trump For Every Occasion

Robert Reich Sez...

My mind keeps going back to the 25th Amendment, which contemplates precisely what we have today – a president who is mentally unfit to hold the office, and therefore poses a danger to the nation. I remember being struck many months ago when Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump “has not demonstrated he understands the character of this nation” and “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” And then when former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said: “I really question his ability to — his fitness to — be in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it.”

I've also been reading whatever I can by specialists who study personality disorders. For example, Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and Judith L. Herman, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has done pioneering research on trauma, have written that Trump’s “repeated failure to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and his outbursts of rage when his fantasies are contradicted” suggest that when faced with crisis he “will lack the judgment to respond rationally.” Lifton and Herman have expanded on their diagnosis in introductory articles to a collection called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” edited by Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine. Other contributors find Trump to be a sociopath, malignant narcissist, hypomanic suffering from delusional disorder, and cognitively impaired.

All this leads me back to the 25th amendment. It has never been employed, but this seems to be the condition for it. And yet, as long as Republican control Congress, I wonder if it's relevant. Could there be a tipping point? I ask myself what behavior on the part of Trump might cause congressional Republicans to look to the 25th Amendment?

www.facebook.com

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER TRUMP LIE

"...Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama all made official visits before Trump. Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford all made unofficial visits to Puerto Rico.

Trump isn’t even the first Republican president to visit.

The President’s ignorance of US history is both astounding and predictable. Trump claimed that the Puerto Rican people loved having him there when all of the events he attended were heavily choreographed and loaded with supporters that were picked by the White House to attend. ..."

MOAR HERE.

I ain't calling for banning all guns. But I guess laws slow many peeps from speeding (not all, I realize), from stealing (not all I realize), but laws won't work for gunz. At least in the USA. Interesting.

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves "conservatives" have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.

MORE

HOW THE RIGHT LOST ITS MIND AND EMBRACED DONALD TRUMP

During the 2016 election, conservatives turned on the principles that had once animated them. Somehow a movement based on real ideas—such as economic freedom and limited government—had devolved into a tribe that valued neither principle nor truth; luminaries such as Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley Jr. had been replaced by media clowns such as Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos. Icons such as Ronald Reagan—with his optimism and geniality—had been supplanted by the dark, erratic narcissism of Donald Trump. Gradualism, expertise and prudence—the values that once were taken for granted among conservatives—were replaced by polls and ratings spikes, as the right allowed liberal overreach in the Obama era to blind them to the crackpots and bigots in their midst.

Some have argued that the election was a binary choice, that Hillary Clinton had to be defeated by any means. I share many of their concerns about Clinton, but the price was ruinous. The right’s electoral victory has not wiped away its sins. It has magnified them, and the problems that were exposed during the 2016 campaign haven’t disappeared. Success does not necessarily imply virtue or sanity. Kings can be both mad and bad, and the courtiers are usually loath to point out the obvious—just look at Caligula or Kim Jong Un.

Today, with Trump in office, the problems of the right are the problems of all Americans. And the worst part of it is that we—conservatives—did this to ourselves.

Donald Trump is the president we deserve.

More

Russian Agents Used Facebook to Organize Pro-Trump 'Flash Mobs': Report

Events included rallies with names like "Down with Hillary!" and "Miners for Trump."

A new report from the Daily Beast sheds more light on how Russian intelligence operatives used Facebook to organize support for Donald Trump’s candidacy during the 2016 presidential election.

According to the report, a Russian-sponsored Facebook group called “Being Patriotic” helped organize and promote multiple Trump rallies and events throughout the election campaign, including a pro-Trump “flash mob” in Florida that was promoted by a local Trump campaign chairman, who posted photos from the event on his Facebook page.

The “flash mobs” weren’t the only events that the Being Patriotic group organizer, either. The Daily Beast also found that “events promoted by the page last year included a July “Down With Hillary!” protest outside Clinton’s New York campaign headquarters, a September 11 pro-Trump demonstration in Manhattan, simultaneous “Miners for Trump” demonstrations in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in October, and a pro-Trump rally outside Trump Tower last November, after his election victory.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/russian-agents-used-facebook-organize-pro-trump-flash-mobs-report

Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine Makes No Sense

His rambling, incoherent speech to the U.N. General Assembly was proof that the president only has one audience in mind—and it isn't a global one.

In the lead-up to President Donald Trump’s maiden speech before the United Nations General Assembly, there were whispers that we would see a new Trump. After weeks of being schooled by Chief of Staff John Kelly, the White House’s own Henry Higgins, our nativist president would renew America’s commitment to upholding the world order. With reports that the administration was also considering renewing the U.S.’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, it had the possibility to be a momentous event: A normalization of relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world, after months of upheaval.

It was not to be. Instead, Trump gave a dark and tempestuous speech in which he referred to Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea. He labeled the Iran nuclear deal an “embarrassment” and strongly signaled that he planned to rip it up. In Trump’s spin on the Axis of Evil speech, the Iraq slot was given to Venezuela; while poorly cosplaying Ronald Reagan, he attempted to turn Venezuela into a cautionary tale: “The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”

Trump was belligerent and bombastic, threatening to start or exacerbate a number of conflicts, while ranting about refugees and free trade. It was a speech clearly influenced by adviser Stephen Miller, who many presumed had been cowering in some corner of the White House ever since Steve Bannon’s ouster in August. When it comes to foreign policy, at least, the Bannon wing is still very much alive.

https://newrepublic.com/article/144899/donald-trumps-foreign-policy-doctrine-makes-no-sense

PROOF REPUBLICANS ARE ASSHOLES

https://thinkprogress.org/lynne-disanto-south-dakota-loses-real-estate-job-for-posting-meme-encouraging-running-over-protesters-c81e74aede0a/

Republicans are promising to vote on the miserable excuse for a "healthcare" bill next week. Even though they all complained that Obamacare was passed with nobody reading it (even tho' Republicans did have input on that bill) they are rushing this odious excuse of a bill fast-fast-fast without any hearings, discussions, or without anyone even bothering to read it.

If this monstrosity passes, we'll have the disorganized mess of 50 different healthcare plans put forth by 50 states. Some states will try to keep protections for poor folks, older folks, and the middle class. Other states, like Texas and most southern states, will offer bare bones plans that will make it impossible for folks with pre-existing conditions (millions of Americans, including me, and most likely you), the poor, and middle class folks to afford the healthcare that they need to live. Insurance companies will make out like bandits because they won't have to cover expensive continuing medical care for older Americans. Most states will not be able to afford Medicaid because the $ that will come from Uncle Scrooge, er, Sam, will be limited. So the working poor will be screwed, too.

Hospitals, docs, nurses, governors... all are speaking up against this assault on Americans' health, but thems in control in Washington will not listen to reason, because they do not care about me 'n you.

All this to give rich folks yet another tax cut. The war on regular Americans continues. MAGA?

When you have to listen to your manbaby boss embarrass the country at the UN...

Trump tells UN that job growth is best 'in a long time.' But last year was better

The U.S. has added an average of 176,000 new jobs a month so far this year. Last year the U.S. economy added an average of 194,000 jobs a month in the same period, between January and August. The full-year average for 2016 was also above 2017's pace at 187,000 jobs a month, according to Labor Department data.

And it wasn't just last year that was better. In 2015, job growth averaged 226,000 a month. In 2014 it was 250,000 jobs a month.

Dan Rather: No Acting Presidential From Trump...

The real Donald Trump has stood up... again.

There will be no pivot. There never was going to be.

There will be no becoming presidential. There never was going to be.

There will be no humility. No decorum. No sense of justice or empathy. There never was going to be.

We are far past the time for excuses, for anyone.

In one of the most surreal and depressing presidential press conferences ever, Mr. Trump said what most people dreaded but already knew. His blatant false equivalence between Nazis and those who oppose them that he said on Saturday, that's how he really feels - times a thousand.

With any other president this would be unbelievable. But with Mr. Trump it is all too believable. It is clear that he doesn't consider himself to be the President of the United States of America - no matter what his official job title says. Down where he lives he is the president of his base, which includes a lot of bigots and even Nazis and members of the Klan. Not everyone who voted for him is in this category, not nearly. But they make up a large majority of his personal base. And thankfully for all of us, this is a distinct (but frightening) minority of our nation. The vast majority of Americans are decent people of conscience. And I believe in the end this vast majority will prevail.

The question is whether those who defend the President, or seeks to normalize him or change the subject, will be seen as worse than enablers. Will they be viewed by history as sympathizers to the worst instincts of American hatred?

Facebook

Thrump is so horrid...

... that I can't keep up, so I'll just post cartoons and memes that capture The Essential Thrump™.

VOTE REPUBLICAN THEY SAID. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? THEY SAID...

Robert Reich Sez...

Trump’s “jobs plan” is nothing more than economic nationalism packaged in publicity stunts. Three of Trump’s job-saving “deals” fell through this week:

1) Boeing will lay off 200 workers at its assembly plant in South Carolina. Trump visited the factory in February to outline his jobs plan. In his remarks, Trump even pledged, “I will never, ever disappoint you.”

2) Carrier will eliminate 600 manufacturing jobs in Indiana. In one of his first major announcement as president-elect, Trump promised to save 1,100 positions at the factory from being outsourced to Mexico. The company will begin shifting more operations to Mexico next month.

3) Ford will a move a major production line to China. Under pressure from Trump, the automaker cancelled plans to build the Focus sedan in Mexico. Instead, Ford will build it in China.

The formula to economic success isn’t cheap publicity stunts. American competitiveness depends on investments in American workers – in their healthcare, education, and job training -- so they’re productive and competitive with workers advanced nations. Trump and his Republican enablers are doing the opposite.

Trump’s job promises are lies that betray many who voted for him.

~ Robert Reich on Facebooks

Election Hacking In Georgia?

Let's look at our "loss" in GA06 this week. Watchdog groups verify machines were NOT secure in the least and they were designed so that there was no way vote counts could be checked. Even worse over a dozen polling places were magically changed in Democratic leaning districts. NINE of them (9!) actually claimed they were all under renovation! Yet again, us Democrats just accept this as normal and concede to another bullshit result...

~  Ed Barcas III on Facebook

What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority.

When the Supreme Court decided, in the 1954 case of Brown vs. Board of Education, that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, Tennessee-born economist James McGill Buchanan was horrified. Over the course of the next few decades, the libertarian thinker found comfortable homes at a series of research universities and spent his time articulating a new grand vision of American society, a country in which government would be close to nonexistent, and would have no obligation to provide education—or health care, or old-age support, or food, or housing—to anyone.

This radical vision has become the playbook for a network of people looking to override democracy in order to shift more money to the wealthiest few, historian and professor at Duke University Nancy MacLean argues in her new book, an intellectual biography of James Buchanan called Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.* Buchanan’s life story, she writes, is “the true origin story of today’s well-heeled radical right.”

We are at a crucial moment in our history, and we will not get another chance, by this cause’s own telling. They say again and again that this is going to be permanent, and they’re very close to victory. So I think we need to be really clear-eyed about understanding this and reaching out to one another without panic.

Slate

Update for Trump voters

1. He said he wouldn’t bomb Syria. You bought it. Then he bombed Syria.

2. He said he'd build a wall along the border with Mexico. You bought it. Now his secretary of homeland security says "It’s unlikely that we will build a wall."

3. He said he’d clean the Washington swamp. You bought it. Then he brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, to make laws that will enrich their businesses.

4. He said he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “wonderful.” You bought it. Then he didn’t.

5. He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. Then he created the most chaotic, dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, in which no one is in charge.

6. He said he’d release his tax returns, eventually. You bought it. He hasn’t, and says he never will.

7. He said he’d divest himself from his financial empire, to avoid any conflicts of interest. You bought it. He remains heavily involved in his businesses, makes money off of foreign dignitaries staying at his Washington hotel, gets China to give the Trump brand trademark and copyright rights, manipulates the stock market on a daily basis, and has more conflicts of interest than can even be counted.

8. He said Clinton was in the pockets of Goldman Sachs, and would do whatever they said. You bought it. Then he put half a dozen Goldman Sachs executives in positions of power in his administration.

9. He said he’d surround himself with all the best and smartest people. You bought it. Then he put Betsy DeVos, opponent of public education, in charge of education; Jeff Sessions, opponent of the Voting Rights Act, in charge of voting rights; Ben Carson, opponent of the Fair Housing Act, in charge of fair housing; Scott Pruitt, climate change denier, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Russian quisling Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

10. He said he’d faithfully execute the law. You bought it. Then he said his predecessor, Barack Obama, spied on him, without any evidence of Obama ever doing so, in order to divert attention from the FBI's investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives to win the election.

11. He said he knew more about strategy and terrorism than the generals did. You bought it. Then he promptly gave the green light to a disastrous raid in Yemen- even though all his generals said it would be a terrible idea. This raid resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL, an 8-year old American girl, and numerous civilians. The actual target of the raid escaped, and no useful intel was gained.

12. He called Barack Obama “the vacationer-in-Chief” and accused him of playing more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. He promised to never be the kind of president who took cushy vacations on the taxpayer’s dime, not when there was so much important work to be done. You bought it. He has by now spent more taxpayer money on vacations than Obama did in the first 3 years of his presidency. Not to mention all the money taxpayers are spending protecting his family, including his two sons who travel all over the world on Trump business.

13. He called CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times “fake news” and said they were his enemy. You bought it. Now he gets his information from Fox News, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and InfoWars.

More to come.

-Robert Reich

Thanks for nothing.

So you think you "made a statement" when you punched for an ignorant, Narcissistic toddler. You treated this election like it was some kind of a game, and now you're chuckling because you "won." What is it you "won", exactly? You just pissed away your future. The futures of your children. Your neighbors. Your friends. Maybe even all of humanity. You hated "that woman" enough to feel like you were justified in this. You literally burnt down the house because you didn't like the shower curtain. That's what you call a "win." Let me explain, in detail, what your "win" means, in real world terms, since it's obvious you either don't have a clue about what you did, or you flat-out don't give a shit.

Every child killed in Syria that could have been saved without your racist vote, for starters. You own that. Every low-income woman in America who dies from breast cancer because your orange Jesus defunded Planned Parenthood. That's yours too. Every dumb punk kid killed in a private prison, or turned into a vicious murderer because the system brutalized him when he was caught selling a few joints? That's your doing. Every innocent person shot to pieces because your orange toddler Lord made it easier for the mentally ill to get the finest firepower is also your responsibility. Every bright child who will wind up working a dead-end job and dying much sooner because he or she couldn't afford the skyrocketing costs of college also have you to thank for their predicament. Every bridge that collapses, every accident due to deteriorating highways, every person killed in a natural disaster because we no longer have the resources to respond properly, all of these deaths belong to you. Every war vet who freezes to death in the streets, or catches some treatable ailment and dies out there because he or she has no home and no healthcare, yep... you're responsible. And now, we are facing the very real possibility that this praise-seeking child will unleash an attack that will lead to the destruction of Seoul, Korea, which is within artillery range of North Korea. There is no way to warn those people that an attack is coming until the shells start landing in the streets. The potential for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the space of an hour is very real. If this happens, you can add their blood to the lakes of blood you're already responsible for.

But, please, don't let me harsh your big "win." Go right on bragging about what you've done. How you were gonna Make America Great Again by voting for a lying, incompetent grifter who has been a "success" only on TV. We'll all want to know who you are later, so don't be shy about what it is you did last November.

~ Erick E

Senate Intel leaders Feinstein and Grassley grim and silent after Trump-Russia briefings with Comey

After closed door meetings with FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday, top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee looked grim and rattled and refused to divulge the contents of the meeting to reporters.

At around 5 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) faced reporters but revealed little about their meetings with Comey.

“This briefing was all on sensitive matters,” Feinstein said, “and highly classified and it’s really not anything we can answer any questions about.”

Comey has been at the center of multiple controversies lately, from his decision to make a later-discredited announcement about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email server in the days before the 2016 election, to whether or not his agency is currently investigating Donald Trump’s campaign for colluding with the Russian government.

Comey was asked by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to state by Wednesday whether his agency is actively investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

Here.

Repeal of Health Law Faces a New Hurdle: Older Americans

WASHINGTON — Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act have encountered a new obstacle: adamant opposition from many older Americans whose health insurance premiums would increase.

AARP and its allies are bombarding congressional offices with objections as two House committees plan to vote on the Republicans’ bill this week.

If the law is repealed, the groups say, people in their 50s and 60s could see premiums rise by $2,000 to $3,000 a year or more: increases of 20 percent to 25 percent or higher.

Here.

Trump Reverses Pledge To Mandate U.S. Steel For Keystone Pipeline. A Direct Beneficiary Is A Russian Oligarch With Close Ties To Vladimir Putin

After green lighting the continuation of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in an executive order January 24th, President Trump declared as recently as last week that the pipeline had to use American made steel “or we’re not building one.”

But on Friday, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that the directive would apply only to new pipelines or those currently undergoing repair.

Here.

NEWS “You’re In Trump Country Now!”, Gay Couple In Florida Got Attacked In Sickening Way

The gay couple, named Kevin Seymour and Kevin Paul Taylor, were finishing dinner where they live in Key West, Florida, when they got attacked by drunken Trump-supporting tourists. Wrote Taylor on his Facebook page, “Feeling disheartened because we were victims of a hate crime last night biking home from dinner and a drunk tourist on a scooter harassed Kevin Seymour and me all the way down Duval, calling us faggots and a slew of other anti gay remarks such as “I bet you faggots voted for that bitch Hillary–well you live in Trump Country now.” He kept stopping in front of us and swerving into us. Finally Kevin got ahead of him and the guy charges him with his scooter and runs into him and knocks him off his bike. Kevin is okay. Luckily it happened right in front of a business with lots of cameras and also there was a witness on the porch that gave a sworn statement to the police. Thankful Kevin is okay and our emotional wounds will heal. The license plates on the scooter MCUT33. I think the cops will be able to track him down.” Are you sick of this virulent Trumper bigotry?

President Donald Trump Accuses Obama of Wire Tapping Him in October

President Donald Trump, in a series of early morning tweets Saturday, accused former President Barack Obama of having tapped phone lines into Trump Tower, an accusation for which the current president provided no evidence.

No law enforcement agency or credible source has publicly asserted that Mr. Trump’s phone lines were tapped. Mr. Trump provided no evidence for his assertions, which marked a return to the caustic tone that has often characterized the president’s remarks.

It wasn’t clear what Mr. Trump was reacting to, but the conservative media outlet Breitbart, whose former chairman Steve Bannon is Mr. Trump’s political strategist, published an article Friday based on the claims of a right-wing radio host that intelligence agencies were conducting a “silent coup” against Mr. Trump.

WSJ

Trump Snaps & Makes Early AM ‘Apprentice’ Announcement – He Lost His Mind

While the world continues to go on about its business around him, the man who is supposed to be leading America’s role in all that business is tweeting about reality television.

Quite simply, ratings don’t fire people, people fire people, and the former California Governor is, in fact, leaving his spot as host of “The Celebrity Apprentice” entirely of his own accord. You can read about that at this link.

What Trump’s tweet does is drive home the point that we’ve really, seriously, elected a reality tv star to the presidency. He’s not a changed man; he’s the very same person as that man who sat at the head of the table in “The Apprentice,” wagged his spindly finger and shouted “You’re Fired!” over and over and over again. Donald Trump still operates according to the same personal principles as if he’s starring in a reality tv show — he’s just the president of the United States now.

Bipartisan Report

Is this Presidential behavior? I say nope.

QUESTIONS MUST BE ANSWERED

Those of you who have read the blather I post here are aware that I was a Hillary supporter. Some of you probably think that when I post political stuff here, it's because I was a Hillary supporter.

Actually, as an American citizen, I have concerns that there might have been some kind of shenanigans happening in the recent Presidential elections. Questions need to be answered before we can automatically assume that this election was fair, square, and on the up and up.

Trump campaign peeps Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Carter Page, J.D. Gordon (whom we know of) all had some form of meetings with known Rooshians. Questions include, WHY? IS THIS TYPICAL PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOR? WHY DID TRUMP DENY THESE MEETINGS OCCURED? WHY ARE THE MEETINGS SO FREQUENT? More importantly, DID THESE MEETINGS RELATE TO ROOSHIAN INTERFERENCE IN THE ELECTION? WHY DID CANDIDATE TRUMP INVITE ROOSHIAN SPYING ON HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN, SUCH SPYING BEING CLEARLY ILLEGAL? WHY DID THE ROOSHIANS INTERFERE IN THE ELECTION? WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO GAIN? DO ROOSHIAN OLIGARCHS HAVE A FINANCIAL HOLD ON TRUMP? IS THAT WHY HE WON'T RELEASE HIS TAX RETURNS? IS THIS WHY TRUMP HAS BEEN SO "NICE" TO ROOSHIANS LATELY?

The intel community has concerns about all this. If they have concerns, why in the world wouldn't you and I have concerns, too?

NO MORE!

It was probably a bit too much to ask the 435-member Democratic National Committee to admit to their role (as the party apparatus) in the colossal failure to get the candidate the majority of Americans (by 3 million votes) said they wanted as their President. How hard can it be to get the actual winner of the vote inaugurated? I guess if you're the Democratic Party, just because you win the Super Bowl, it doesn't mean you get to wear the Super Bowl ring. That makes sense, right? 435 honchos of the party and none of them had a pencil or a map or the ability to do electoral college math? No one had a plane ticket to give the candidate to visit Wisconsin for seven long months during the campaign? Too busy polishing their "SUPER DELEGATE" plaques on their desks?

So, I get it -- this was not the group that was going to install a Bernie-loving, Detroit-bred, Muslim-American and hardcore successful grassroots organizer who had helped orchestrate turning a Midwestern red state blue a few years ago. They wanted to play it safe and so they picked a decent guy. The good news is that Tom Perez is not a step backward to the old conservative Democratic DLC days. He is not Al Frum. He is a progressive and shares most of Keith Ellison's agenda, just as Hillary had adopted 80% of Bernie's plans. So, not the end of the world, and maybe a surprise to boot down the road. We will hope and pray for this.

Of course, it was not helpful yesterday, before the election of the new chair, that the 435 leaders of the Democratic Party voted against President Obama's ban on the Party taking corporate PAC money. Corporate lobbyists can now write big checks so they can get their pipelines, their TPP trade deals (that cost them the election in the rust belt), and so they can keep the for-profit health insurance industry intact. Not a good sign. The Party still doesn't get it and they clearly don't see the millions in the streets, the thousands packing the town hall meetings or the Capitol Hill switchboards that are still jammed, 37 days in a row now (202-225-3121).

Ok, fine. We'll work with the hand we're dealt. And here's how -- with a very clear message to the old guard of the Democratic leadership: We're not "uniting" with you - you're uniting with US. We, the people, the majority, the Resistance, will LEAD and we enthusiastically welcome you to follow. We will be the ones stopping Trump and we welcome you to watch and learn how a pissed-off majority - who have twice in 16 years seen the winner we elected not being inaugurated - operates. We are fierce, we are relentless and we are right. We have the moral and patriotic wind at our backs because the majority Americans agree with us. We will not "compromise" or find "common ground" with misogynists, racists and haters. We won't give an inch and we will show you how to do that. Nonviolent mass protest. In-person visits and daily calls to our elected representatives. Running for office and throwing some of you who are appeasers and collaborators out. Writing checks to Planned Parenthood and ACLU. Pushing for true universal health care in Blue States where we can get it passed. And convincing the 100 million members of America's largest political party -- The Non-Voters Party -- to join us at the polls in 2018 for a raucous and legally riotous overthrow of the Republican Congress.

So, DNC, watch, listen, and join. Follow our lead. You essentially work for us (although none of us know how it is in this democracy you get picked to be on the DNC, but we have a feeling it has something to do with each of us running for precinct delegate in our neighborhoods, so we'll do that, too!).

Thank you for making Keith Ellison the deputy chair of the party and thank you Keith for also deciding to stay in Congress. Let's help Tom Perez and the executive committee follow the Resistance and use all the means available to them to stop Trump and do good for the country.

Meanwhile, many in the Resistance will become active in their local Democratic Parties, run for local leadership and field candidates for next year's elections. Eventually, that 435-member committee will more closely resemble what the people want. I'll say it again -- how a party like the Democrats could WIN the popular vote in SIX OF THE LAST SEVEN Presidential elections but end up holding ZERO power in ANY branch of government in 2017 is a humiliation of gargantuan proportions. Who's with me in saying "NO MORE!" Let's take the loser "L" off the "D".
~ MICHAEL MOORE