Days 130-136 since the Nov 8 election and 60-66 since No 45 has been in office.
Well, it's been a bad week for number 45. The healthcare fiasco blew up in his face because the GOP could not get enough votes to pass it thru, so the vote was cancelled.
Already, he started blaming everyone but himself like the asshole he is.
And of course he went golfing.
the rich asshole Shocks World, Calls For Paul Ryan To Step Down In Most Cowardly Way Possible
March 26, 2017 News
It’s
become pretty clear that some rich asshole likes to say a lot of things that he
doesn’t really mean, take credit for things that are good, and blame others for
things that are bad. This is also what children do, but I digress…
the
rich asshole also seems shady as hell in the way he goes after people when they
aren’t doing exactly as he pleases.
One
of the most recent examples of this can be seen in what he is doing to Speaker
Paul Ryan (R-WI) after the complete failure of the American Health Care Act and
the inability to get the number of votes needed for it to pass.
the
rich asshole doesn’t like to be seen as a failure, and god forbid he blame
himself, so what is he doing? Seemingly blaming Paul Ryan.
Not
only that, it looks as though the rich asshole wants Ryan gone and out of the
Speaker role, and he let America know this in the most cowardly way possible.
the
rich asshole cryptically, without much rhyme or reason, tells everyone to watch
Judge Jeanine Pirro on Fox News.
·
What
was Judge Jeanine talking about on her show? Getting rid of Paul Ryan.
Pirro
said:
“Paul Ryan needs to step
down as speaker of the house. The reason? He failed to deliver the votes on his
healthcare bill.”
"Paul Ryan needs to step down as speaker of the house.The reason? He
failed to deliver the votes on his healthcare bill." #openingstatement
Nevermind
the fact that the rich asshole endorsed the new health care bill and it was
subsequently called Trumpcare.
What
the rich asshole doesn’t seem to realize is that he actually has to work with
members of Congress as well to get things done. Sure, Ryan’s role is to rally
his party to vote in their favor, but the rich asshole can’t just sit back and
watch it unfold. This isn’t like micromanaging a business. It would seem the
rich asshole is still not quite understanding that politics and legislating are
a lot different than a board room.
In
addition, it’s also a lot easier to blame someone else than take the blame
himself.
However,
the rich asshole is an absolute coward for not even being able to say it
himself, but rather saying he wants Ryan gone in the most backhanded way —
through a cryptic tweet aimed at leading people to the conclusion that Ryan
needs to be gone.
Pathetic!
Fox News Frantically Tries To Cover Up the rich asshole’s 13th Golf Trip And Absolutely NOBODY Is Buying It
By Jameson
Parker on March 26,
2017 7:42 pm ·
It’s
not clear whether the rich asshole called in a favor or Fox News decided
to impress the new boss by taking the initiative, but in any case the most
hamfisted attempt to lie on the rich asshole’s behalf just came out of the Fox
News official Twitter account. It did not go well.
Following
a weekend in which the rich asshole visited his own Virginia golf course twice and took the night off to have a large
dinner at his own DC hotel, Fox News released an urgent “news alert”: Pay No
Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain, Nothing To See Here!
·
Setting
aside for a moment the sheer lunacy of the bar being set so low for some rich
asshole that spending three consecutive days in the official presidential
residence is considered worthy of a “news alert,” the statement was a complete
and total lie. There are photographs that prove the
rich asshole was not in the White House this weekend. They also prove that he
wasn’t working this weekend — at any location. He
appears to have spent much of the past three days golfing.
Here’s
the rich asshole watching the Golf Channel with a few friends at his golf
resort in Virginia on Sunday morning:
Someone just posted this on Instagram from Trump's golf club. POTUS appears
to be watching Golf Channel with 2 other people.
·
And
here’s the rich asshole in golf attire at the same golf course the previous
day, shortly before another photograph emerged of him on the course in a golf
cart:
Trump left his golf club after 4 ½ hours,
about the amount of time it takes to play a round of golf. Pool was told
“meetings,” no more info. https://twitter.com/braddjaffy/status/845654354308812801 …
@BraddJaffy just saw this on IG: pic.twitter.com/96kIwnAFHS
·
And
here’s the rich asshole’s own staff admitting he played all 18 holes on Saturday.
Trump golfed 18 holes yesterday on the "championship" course here
with the club pro and a club member, fellow members tell me today.
·
And
here’s the rich asshole heading to his DC hotel to throw a dinner for himself
and his friends on Saturday night. (Not sure what the occasion was, but it
certainly wasn’t in celebration of the healthcare bill he and Paul Ryan failed
to pass the day before.)
The press pool has arrived at the Trump International Hotel where the
president is going to have dinner.
·
Fox
News has been working hand-in-hand with the rich asshole since the inauguration
but this lie was so monumentally bold that the internet was having none of it.
Thankfully, the comments under the tweet made it clear that absolutely nobody
was buying this cover up.
News Alert: Ferris Bueller sick and snoring loudly in his bedroom. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/846112245797007360 …
·
1.) This is not newsworthy.
2.) This is flatly false.
3.) This is what propaganda looks like. https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/846112245797007360 …
2.) This is flatly false.
3.) This is what propaganda looks like. https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/846112245797007360 …
Why would a supposed news organization propagate such an absurd falsehood
when there's widespread proof to the contrary? pic.twitter.com/v4dZdISHKp
·
He golfed yesterday. @FoxNews https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/845724579335225345 …
He was at his golf course earlier today. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/2KSGl8qddr
·
.@FoxNews fixed it for you
·
@FoxNews @POTUS Do any of you ever feel bad when you
think about your long-ago dreams of being real journalists?
·
As
one user put it: Come on, Fox News, have a little self-respect.
Also, nazi Bannon tried to force members of the GOP to vote for the healthcare bill and they told him to pretty much "suck it" and it glorious.
REPORT: BANNON TRIED TO FORCE GOPERS TO VOTE FOR OBAMACARE REPEAL; GOT HUMILIATED
As we all know by now, some rich asshole and Paul Ryan’s
disastrous healthcare bill went down in flames this past week, at the hands of
the people in their own House Conference who knew what a disaster it was.
However, what is just now being revealed is how the rich asshole’s Chief White
House Strategist and noted white supremacist Stephen K. Bannon quite
literally tried to force House members to vote in favor of the bill.
According to new reports, Bannon went into a meeting with the
ultra conservative Freedom Caucus, and said to them, point blank:
Guys, look. This is not a discussion.
This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill.”
Well, it seems that Bannon, just like the rich asshole, has issues
remembering that Congress is a separate, but co-equal branch of government, and
they do not take orders from the White House. However, a Freedom Caucus member
quickly disabused Bannon of the notion that the rich asshole’s White House team
could just storm Capitol Hill and force them to do their bidding, as if this is
some kind of dictatorship or as if the rich asshole is a king. The member
reportedly snarked back at Bannon:
You know, the last time someone ordered
me to something, I was 18 years old. And it was my daddy. And I didn’t listen
to him, either.”
BOOM! It’s about time someone from the GOP stood up to the rich asshole
and his goons. The day the White House can force Congress to be nothing but a
rubber stamp on their crazy agenda is the day our democracy dies. It looks like
thus far, though, the separation of powers is holding, and the the rich asshole
White House has not yet managed to turn America into an autocracy.
We must keep fighting – and that means from both sides of the
aisle – and be ready every time these people try and pull a stunt like this and
govern unilaterally and with no checks and balances.
Whoever you are Freedom Caucus member, bravo on standing up to
Bannon.
the rich asshole Whines Because ‘Democrats Are Smiling,’ Gets Brutally Schooled in Massive Twitter Backlash
·
·
·
·
1772
The failure of some rich asshole and the Republican Party to pass their anti-ObamaCare bill is still stinging. Maybe a bill that would cancel health insurance for twenty-four million people was never a good idea. It had a pitiful seventeen percent approval rating in recent polls. Consequently, the prospects for its passage were dim from the start. But that didn’t sway the President and his party who are more focused on cutting taxes for their wealthy pals than helping average Americans.
RELATED: ACA Repeal Circus Proves The GOP Is A Failed Party With No Governing Ideas
Having had a couple of days to
think about, the rich asshole is still peeved that his incompetence has been
displayed to the world. So naturally he is blaming everybody else. In another
of his morning tweets the President lashed out at those he feels betrayed him:
The Rich Asshole Tweets:
Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of
Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!
·
First of all, Democrats are
smiling across the country, not just in D.C. And it isn’t just Democrats. All
Americans who appreciate having access to affordable healthcare are glad that
the GOP bill never got off the ground. Secondly, it wasn’t the House Freedom
Caucus or the Heritage Foundation that doomed the bill. It was the
short-sighted thinking of the rich asshole and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who
thought they could muscle through sham legislation that achieved none of what
they promised. Despite their public pronouncements, they never intended to
insure all Americans. They never tried to hold costs down. And they never
sought bipartisan consensus to attract Democratic support.
the rich asshole’s tweet
exhibits the petty vengefulness that is the hallmark of his flawed character.
He’s attacking his closest allies because they weren’t a hundred percent
obedient. Heaven forbid he should accept any responsibility for his own
political fiasco. What’s more, he’s lamenting that Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare
were saved. According to most polls, both are supported by large majorities of the population.
They would certainly regard saving them as admirable, not lamentable.
the rich asshole’s
disconnection with the majority of the American people, and even his own party,
is unusually vast. He appears to have a severe case of ideological
tunnel-blindness that has warped his worldview. And by announcing that on
Twitter he drew a response from the online community that puts him in his
place. If he’s really interested in why “Democrats are smiling” here are a few of the reasons provided
by twitterers:
Twitter Responds:
@realDonaldTrump #DemocratsAreSmiling because Planned Parenthood &
ObamaCare are much better liked than you - Loser (and it's ALL Americans)
·
@realDonaldTrump Democrats are smiling in D.C. that
puppies are cute, and kittens are nice to pet!
·
.@realDonaldTrump we are smiling because we are actually
laughing at you.
·
@realDonaldTrump we are smiling because of all the
winning!
·
@realDonaldTrump Democrats are smiling Because Evil
isn't didn't win
I am #TheResistance
I am #TheResistance
·
@realDonaldTrump Yes. I agree with you. We are smiling.
You lost bigly. Next time try something that helps America. Universal Health
Care.
·
@realDonaldTrump plenty of people EVERYWHERE are
smiling, but don't worry, we're getting ready to fight you again and again.
·
@realDonaldTrump 24 million Americans whose President
is rooting for their healthcare to explode are smiling. They get to live
without fear.
·
@realDonaldTrump Human beings who are not narcissists
are smiling in D.C. It's not just democrats, buddy. We are laughing at you.
·
·
66 likes
@Boothie68 @azalben @realDonaldTrump we are smiling because we are winning
so much. Who knew you would be right about winning so much. We
·
@realDonaldTrump woman are smiling that planned
parenthood was saved, you have daughters and a wife, how do you not understand
that?!
·
·
55 likes
@realDonaldTrump We're smiling at the thought of your
inevitable impeachment too!
·
Worst.President.Ever
the rich asshole’s arrogance
and inability to accept defeat continue to alienate him from most voters. It’s
a big part of the reason he has the most unfavorable ratings of any president
before him. His response to having been rebuked by the his congressional
colleagues, and the voting public, is to hope that ObamaCare “explodes” and causes great harm to innocent people. That’s not
leadership. That’s the response of a vindictive narcissist whose only concern
is the feeding and welfare of his ego.
Here’s What
the rich asshole Was Doing A Day After His Healthcare Bill Failed….
shares
Previously we reported that the
rich asshole would be flying to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach County to
play golf – that reporting wasn’t entirely accurate (we apologize). Be it as it
may only First Lady Melania the rich asshole made the trip there to do a
fundraiser for the Palm Beach County Republican Party. the rich asshole had
other things in mind.
So, what was the rich asshole
doing? He was found on the golf course alright – just not that particular one.
Instead, the rich asshole was found visiting the the rich asshole National Golf
Club in Virginia.
This comes after only a day the
rich asshole failed to pass his healthcare bill insisting he wouldn’t negotiate
over the weekend and after that, he even promised he would work hard to “piece
together a great healthcare plan for the people” – and “not to worry.” What he
meant to say was, when the weekend was over. Attending one of his properties on
a Saturday is much more important.
The press pool has been left
completely in the dark at this point. All they know is that he is visiting one
of his business properties and reportedly taking up meetings and engaging in
phone calls. But – that’s precisely what the rich asshole’s team said last week.
Shortly after the White House tried to spin his trip as a productive one, a
photo leaked of the rich asshole in full golf gear, including the glove.
The nation already knows that
the rich asshole likes to golf every weekend – this isn’t exactly breaking
news. But, what is more telling is that the rich asshole is showing (through
multiple accounts) that his business is more important to him than getting his
campaign promises passed through Congress. the rich asshole has yet to work
over the weekend in the White House.
Eric the rich asshole even gave
an interview with Forbes the day before the rich asshole visited the property
admitting that he still briefed his dad on how well the the rich asshole
Organization was doing. They previously promised that they wouldn’t talk about
it. Oops.
“Yeah, on the bottom line,
profitability reports and stuff like that, but you know, that’s about it,” Eric
the rich asshole said. “My father and I are very close… I talk to him a lot.
We’re pretty inseparable.”
Currently, the rich asshole’s
business is planning an ambitious expansion across the U.S. according to
his hotel chief and looking to triple the number of the rich
asshole-branded hotels in the country. This will give the rich asshole plenty
of more places to visit over the weekend instead of working on behalf of the
country.
3 Things The President Said In His ‘TIME’ Interview That Should Concern Every American
President some rich asshole gave a
rare interview to TIME magazine
on Wednesday and, probably unsurprisingly, it quickly devolved into a rant by
the commander in chief.
In the interview, TIME’s Washington
Bureau Chief Michael Scherer asks the president about his tweets, wiretapping,
credibility, and truth. While the entire interview should be required reading
for all Americans, here are three of the president’s statements that should
concern the voting public.
“I predicted a lot of things”
The
president of the United States claims to have predicted his win, Brexit, and
the riots in Sweden. Scherer points out, that in the case of the Sweden
quote, the rich asshole pivoted his statement in an attempt to take
ownership of something that happened the following day. the rich asshole
counters he was right simply by talking about Sweden at all. Already, you’re
likely wondering what universe we’re now finding ourselves in. By focusing on
his predictions, the rich asshole reinforces his blatant unwillingness to consider
the facts.
“I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that can’t get a job, ok.”
Try not to be distracted by the
illiterate nature of this sentence. Essentially, he’s saying it’s fine to
ignore the dwindling unemployment rates our own government provides because there are still people without
jobs. He doesn’t acknowledge the successful efforts of previous presidents, the
factors that aggravate job loss, and the role he himself has played in sending
American jobs overseas. Clearly, he’s more concerned with proving
he’s right and everyone else is wrong, which can’t be very helpful for
anyone—especially those struggling to find work.
“Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper.”
This is in reference to the rich
asshole’s claim that Ted Cruz’s father was with Lee
Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin—which, of course, was
proven to be false. By the rich asshole’s logic, making a false claim isn’t a
problem if you’re merely repeating someone else’s invented statement. This
comes from the guy who upholds Breitbart as a trustworthy source of news. So
much for accountability.
At
the end of the interview, the rich asshole left us with this reassuring
statement: “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”
We’re officially living in a post-truth era.
To read the rich asshole’s full
interview with TIME, head
here.
President some rich asshole gave a
rare interview to TIME magazine
on Wednesday and, probably unsurprisingly, it quickly devolved into a rant by
the commander in chief.
In the interview, TIME’s Washington
Bureau Chief Michael Scherer asks the president about his tweets, wiretapping,
credibility, and truth. While the entire interview should be required reading
for all Americans, here are three of the president’s statements that should
concern the voting public.
“I predicted a lot of things”
The
president of the United States claims to have predicted his win, Brexit, and
the riots in Sweden. Scherer points out, that in the case of the Sweden
quote, the rich asshole pivoted his statement in an attempt to take
ownership of something that happened the following day. the rich asshole
counters he was right simply by talking about Sweden at all. Already, you’re
likely wondering what universe we’re now finding ourselves in. By focusing on
his predictions, the rich asshole reinforces his blatant unwillingness to
consider the facts.
“I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that can’t get a job, ok.”
Try not to be distracted by the
illiterate nature of this sentence. Essentially, he’s saying it’s fine to
ignore the dwindling unemployment rates our own government provides because there are still people without
jobs. He doesn’t acknowledge the successful efforts of previous presidents, the
factors that aggravate job loss, and the role he himself has played in sending
American jobs overseas. Clearly, he’s more concerned with proving
he’s right and everyone else is wrong, which can’t be very helpful for
anyone—especially those struggling to find work.
“Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper.”
This is in reference to the rich
asshole’s claim that Ted Cruz’s father was with Lee
Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin—which, of course, was
proven to be false. By the rich asshole’s logic, making a false claim isn’t a
problem if you’re merely repeating someone else’s invented statement. This
comes from the guy who upholds Breitbart as a trustworthy source of news. So
much for accountability.
At
the end of the interview, the rich asshole left us with this reassuring
statement: “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”
We’re officially living in a post-truth era.
To read the rich asshole’s full
interview with TIME, head
here.
the rich asshole Says He Never Promised to Quickly Repeal Obamacare. Here’s a Bunch of Times He Promised Exactly That.
President the rich asshole stands
during a news conference in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 16.
Mario
Tama/Getty Images
Republican leaders in the House pulled their plan to repeal and replace
Obamacare from the floor on Friday afternoon once it became clear that it did
not have the votes needed to pass. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office,
some rich asshole suggested that this was simply all part of his plan. “You've
all heard my speeches,” he said.
“I never said ‘repeal it and replace it within 64 days.’ I have a long time.
But I want to have a great health care bill and plan—and we will and it will
happen.”
Josh
Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in Iowa
City.
·
·
·
·
Hmm. That doesn’t sound quite right.
ADVERTISING
Here is a small sampling of all the times some rich asshole promised that
repealing and replacing Obamacare would be a quick and relatively painless
lift, one that he would get to right
away.
Jan. 24, 2015, in a speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit:
“Somebody has to repeal and replace Obamacare. And they have
to do it fast and not just talk about it.”
Feb. 9, 2016, on Twitter:
We will immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare - and nobody can do that
like me. We will save $'s and have much better healthcare!
·
Feb. 22, 2016, at a campaign rally:
“Obamacare is going to be repealed and replaced. … You’re
going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that’s
gonna take place immediately after we go in. Okay? Immediately. Fast. Quick.”
“On day one of the the rich asshole Administration, we will
ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.”
Oct. 27, via the Detroit News:
“Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing
Obamacare. What a mess,” the rich asshole told an enthusiastic crowd of
thousands at the SeaGate Convention Center in downtown Toledo, his second of
three Thursday rallies in Ohio.
Nov. 1, via Politico:
“When we win on Nov. 8 and elect a Republican Congress, we
will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare. We have to do it,”
the rich asshole said Tuesday afternoon in an address on the Affordable Care
Act in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
“I will ask Congress to convene a special session so we can
repeal and replace,” he continued. “And it will be such an honor for me, for
you and for everybody in this country because Obamacare has to be replaced. And
we will do it, and we will do it very, very quickly. It is a catastrophe.”
Nov. 7, via Roll Call:
“Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing
the disaster known as Obamacare,” the rich asshole told a crowd in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, during his final campaign rally on Monday evening. “It has
just been announced that the residents of Michigan are going to experience a
massive, double-digit premium hike, like you wouldn’t believe. It’s not going
to matter that much, honestly, because we’re going to terminate it. You’re not going
to have to worry about it, OK? Don’t worry.”
Jan. 10, via the New York Times:
President-elect some rich asshole demanded on Tuesday that
Congress immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass another health law
quickly. His remarks put Republicans in the nearly impossible position of
having only weeks to replace a health law that took nearly two years to pass.
“We have to get to business,” some rich asshole told The New
York Times in a telephone interview. “Obamacare has been a catastrophic event.”
some rich asshole appeared to be unclear both about the timing of already
scheduled votes in Congress and about the difficulty of his demand — a repeal
vote “probably some time next week” and a replacement “very quickly or
simultaneously, very shortly thereafter.”
Jan. 11, via Politico:
The president-elect, addressing reporters at a news
conference in New York, said his administration will submit a plan to repeal
and replace the law, known as Obamacare, “almost simultaneously, shortly
thereafter” his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom
Price, is confirmed.
“It will be repeal and replace,” the rich asshole said. “It
will be essentially simultaneously. It will be various segments, you
understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but
probably the same day. Could be the same hour.”
I guess in the president's defense, he's right: He never said 64 days.
The Internet Goes For Newt Gingrich’s Throat Over Old Tweet About Obama Golfing
By Conover Kennard on March 26, 2017 6:22 pm ·
some
rich asshole repeatedly attacked former President Barack Obama each time he
went golfing but the alleged billionaire has just taken his 13th golfing trip in the two months he’s been on the
job. Each one of the rich asshole’s defenders seems to have an old tweet
blasting Obama for his golf trips, which pale in comparison to the rich
asshole’s lavish vacations. Last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer tried to explain why
golfing trips are OK for the rich asshole but were not OK for Obama. And now we
have Newt Gingrich’s old tweet coming back to haunt him.
The
disgraced former House Speaker tweeted in 2013, “the rich asshole and president
obsma both golf but trump doesn’t charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf
weekend in florida.”
Trump and president obsma both golf but trump doesn't charge the taxpayers
$920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
·
We
can only assume Gingrich meant Obama, not ‘obsma.’
Well,
he did inadvertently get that right. Each time the rich asshole goes to his
Mar-a-Lago resort, it costs taxpayers $3 million, not $920,000. The alleged
president is on track to spend $1 billion in 4 years to house his
wife in New York City and vacationing in Mar-a-Lago virtually every week.
The
Internet pounced on Gingrich’s hypocritical tweet.
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich hey newt, it's so cool how you're not
even embarrassed to shart in public.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich are you drunk?
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich you're right. it costs $3million and a
lot of that goes to his properties. so fuck him and fuck you too.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich you're so lucky being a huge hypocrite
piece of shit doesn't matter anymore.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich I'd blame your fat,
leave-your-dying-wife fingers on the typo here but it's prob some WP way to be
racist.
Also, on the golf pic.twitter.com/QowQNlTz4O
Also, on the golf pic.twitter.com/QowQNlTz4O
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich Kushner/Trump ski trip reportedly
"required" nearly 100 secret service agents. You think THAT wasn't on
the taxpayer's dime?
·
@newtgingrich Let's not forget we were also paying
for his wife & kids skiing trip @ the same time. Could have fed people
instead.
@katiedolan look whose ski trip we just paid for! pic.twitter.com/MxSrRbW7jS
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich You're right. It's closer to $3
million, I think.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich How full of shit are you? The man is
spending millions to golf, security, staff, AirForce1, Your lies are
embarrassing. #HACK
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich u drunk?
·
·
Retweets
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich No He charges $3 million
·
·
11 like
@newtgingrich Mr. Gingrich, Obama is even asking for
a higher retirement from tax payersThat $920,000golf weekend wasn't enough?He's
greedy!
@susana_holzer @newtgingrich each of Trump's weekend trips... to
his own estate... has cost 3 million. Do the math.
·
@newtgingrich @slack2thefuture Why are you so quiet now Newt? Trump
has gone 9x now and he's only been President for 2 months.
@Marbs84 @newtgingrich @slack2thefuture Today was golf outing # 12 in 9 wks in
office. Newt, I think trump golfs more than he presidents.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich no, but the Secret Service does. Maybe
shut the fuck up instead of always opening your giant, privileged white
cakehole.
·
Trump and president obsma both golf but
trump doesn't charge the taxpayers $920,000 for a golf weekend in florida.
@newtgingrich boy you're gonna be real mad when you
find out how much his trips to Mar-A-Lego cost each weekend, huh
·
Gingrich’s
hypocrisy is duly noted. The former House Speaker has been strangely quiet over
some rich asshole’s repeated trips to the golf course, and what’s really
disturbing is that he regularly goes golfing at the rich asshole-owned golf
clubs, meaning that there is another conflict of interest for us to deal with.
the rich asshole is literally profiting from his ‘presidency.’
In
2011, the former reality show star tweeted, “I play golf to relax. My company
is in great shape. @BarackObama plays golf to escape work while America goes
down the drain.”
Meanwhile,
the rich asshole broke another campaign promise, this one to repeal and replace
Obamacare. Instead, he offered tax breaks for the wealthy while throwing the
elderly, veterans and lower-income Americans under the bus. Then he went
golfing after his plan failed miserably.
WATCH: Rachel Maddow Laughs At Republican Effort To Pass Universally Hated Trumpcare Bill
By Stephen
D Foster Jr on March
24, 2017 1:29 pm ·
House
Republicans failed to pass their disastrous healthcare bill on Thursday and
Rachel Maddow hilariously mocked them for it.
Due
to the deep unpopularity of the legislation, Republican leadership decided to
cancel the vote on the bill at the last minute rather than see it get
humiliatingly defeated.
Many
Republicans are leaning against the bill because it fails to lower premiums and
would strip healthcare away from over 20 million Americans, many of whom are
conservatives who rely on the Affordable Care Act, which actually does keep
premiums lower and covers more people.
Under
the Trumpcare bill, senior citizens would have to pay nearly ten times as much
money on healthcare than what they currently pay under the Affordable Care Act.
And since senior citizens are a major voting block for the GOP for some reason,
Republicans are backing away from the bill.
Of
course, Republicans have been rehearsing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act
for years, holding over 60 separate votes in the House over the years just to
make their conservative base happy. But now that more people understand what
the Affordable Care Act actually has done, they are fiercely opposing any
repeal effort.
Rachel
Maddow noted the angry crowds of constituents at Republican town halls and pointed out with a laugh that the GOP bill is more unpopular
than despised New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
“For
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the universe,
including our weird politics. A day after the election, nobody would have told
you that Republicans would have any trouble repealing Obamacare. That’s what
they could do on their own, they’d push on an open door. The Affordable Care
Act, they’d been rehearsing repealing it for years. It would definitely be
their first casualty, no problem. Then they’d get on to the hard stuff. But
people all over the country in every congressional district in the country
changed the course of that otherwise inevitable history.
The
Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act has a 17 percent approval
rating. That’s worse than Chris Christie. There is not a single Congressional
district in this country where the number of people who like the Republican
idea out-number the people who strongly hate the Republican idea. Not in a
single Congressional district. That happens for a reason. That political
climate doesn’t exist in nature, it is created by people engaged in political
action.”
Maddow
concluded the 2-minute segment by reminding everyone that Republicans failed to
pass their bill despite having majority control of the House and said it’s all
thanks to people who have added their voices to the chorus of those opposed to
killing a law that actually helps people.
“For
the people who have been trying to save the Affordable Care Act all over the
country, even what just happened tonight is huge,” Maddow said. “Everybody
thought Republicans would be able to move at will on this but people said
nope.”
I guess it must suck when you can't give your rich buddies a tax break and also kick 24 million off healthcare, right?
The Media Have Finally Figured Out How to Cover the rich asshole’s Lies
22.9k629
1.3k
Not just falsehood by falsehood, but as the defining feature of his presidency.
By Will Oremus
U.S. President some rich asshole speaks during a
meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus Executive Committee on Wednesday in
Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
some rich asshole is not on
the cover of Time this week, and that must gall him. The
president is the subject of the magazine’s cover story, the promise of which
apparently persuaded him to grant it an exclusive interview. But instead of the
rich asshole’s visage, the cover features a single three-word question in bold
red type: “Is Truth Dead?”
WILL OREMUS
·
·
·
·
It’s a callback to Time’s
famous 1966 cover—“Is God Dead?”—and as such, it’s an
eye-catcher. Time isn’t what it once was, but it still has a
prominent perch on newsstands across the country. And this week, its top story
highlights a side of the rich asshole that much of the mainstream media have
until recently failed, or neglected, to properly convey: his fundamental dishonesty.The question on the magazine’s cover refers to the rich asshole’s apparent ability to lie, dissemble, and distract from the truth—and to not only get away with it but to ride those lies to the world’s most powerful office. The story within by Time’s Washington bureau chief, Michael Scherer, rightly takes the rich asshole’s dishonesty as its premise, then asks: How exactly does it work, and why, and can it possibly keep working now that he’s president? It’s a good story, thoughtful and—though the rich asshole would never admit it—fair in the sense that it examines its subject’s penchant for prevarication without exaggerating, distorting, or moralizing.
ADVERTISING
More revealing still is the full interview transcript, which finds the
rich asshole inadvertently proving the story’s premise at every
turn. The money quote, which is also the cover story’s kicker, is the rich
asshole in microcosm. Caught in a contradiction over his wiretapping claims,
the president throws up one red herring after another, like a panicked
homeowner hurling kitchen appliances at an intruder, before resorting finally
to this: “Hey look … I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re
not.”Get Slate in your inbox.
This is as clear a distillation of the rich asshole’s epistemology as you could hope for. Simply put: Might makes right.Time is not the only mainstream publication to belatedly shine its light full-blast on the rich asshole’s mendacity. The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board got there this week, too, making the rich asshole’s credibility the subject of a scathing column that likened the president to a drunk clinging to a gin bottle. The implication: He’s addicted to lying.
Even Fox News has begun to set boundaries around the degree of pro-the rich asshole dishonesty it will tolerate: This week it suspended one of its top legal commentators over false claims about wiretapping, which the White House had subsequently latched onto.
On a superficial level, it’s remarkable that middle-of-the-road and even conservative journalistic outlets are now breaking with their own conventions to, essentially, label the president of the United States an inveterate liar. But on a deeper level, what’s remarkable is that it took them this long.
It isn’t that Time, the Wall Street Journal, and others haven’t confronted the rich asshole on specific claims. They have, of course. But they’ve failed until now to recognize that his untruths amount to something much more than a series of claims to be evaluated and debunked just as the claims of any politician must be. the rich asshole’s reliance on dishonesty is not incidental to his character, or his appeal, or his approach to politics. It is his defining feature, shaping everything from how he talks, to the views he holds, to the way he conducts business and politics. If that sounds like an exaggeration, just go read the Time interview again and chase it with the Washington Post’s fact-check.
the rich asshole’s lies are, and have long deserved to be, a top story in their own right. That the mainstream media have largely failed to treat them as such reveals the depth of its entrenched conventions around journalistic balance and respect for the presidency. Too many reporters and editors allow those conventions to constrain what should always be their core mission, which is to tell the public what they know to be true, no matter whom it offends or embarrasses.
The focus on the rich asshole’s credibility may be late in coming, but it’s welcome nonetheless. In a way, Time—and the Wall Street Journal, and even in its way Fox News—has helped to answer that cover story’s three-word question through its own actions this week. So have the members of the public who have recently withdrawn their support of the rich asshole, plunging his approval rating to historic lows. The truth isn’t dead: It’s down, and the rich asshole is kicking it. But this week, at last, it’s kicking back.
the rich asshole: White House moving on from healthcare push
BY BEN KAMISAR - 03/24/17 04:08 PM EDT 449
© Greg Nash
President the rich asshole is moving on after the House GOP
pulled its healthcare bill from a floor vote, he told The Washington Post’s
Robert Costa Friday afternoon.
the rich asshole told Costa by phone that a push to repeal and
replace ObamaCare — the centerpiece of Republican messaging throughout the last
several elections — won't come up again in the near future.
"He's going to let things be on healthcare, the bill is not
going to come again, at least in the near future," Costa recounted on
MSNBC.
"He wants to see what happens, if the Democrats will try to
come to him and work with him on healthcare."
Costa first reported that the bill, the American Health Care
Act, was being pulled from the House floor while speaking to the rich asshole.
The news came hours after Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) came to the
White House to discuss the bill's future.
Momentum had been moving away from the bill Friday afternoon, as
a handful of Republicans announced they would not be supporting the plan.
Republicans Pull Health Care Bill From House Floor
BY LEIGH ANN
CALDWELL AND ANDREW RAFFERTY
·
·
·
Republicans abruptly pulled their health care bill from the
House floor on Friday, just minutes ahead of a planned vote, dealing a
devastating blow to efforts by President some rich asshole and the GOP to
repeal and replace Obamacare.
"This is a disappointing day for us," Speaker Paul
Ryan told reporters shortly after the bill was yanked. "Doing big things
is hard. All of us, myself included, will need time to reflect how we got to
this moment, what we could have done to do it better."
Ryan said he told the rich asshole earlier at the White House
that they didn't have the Republican votes needed to pass the bill. "I
told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed
with that decision," Ryan said.
Speaking later, the rich asshole said Democrats in the House —
all of whom had planned to vote against the bill — shoulder the blame for the
defeat. "Obamacare is exploding," the president said in the Oval
Office. "With no Democrat support, we couldn't quite get there. We were
just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill
passed."
"I'm disappointed," the rich asshole said, adding,
"I'm a little surprised to be honest with you."
The president thanked Republicans in the House, especially Ryan,
saying, "I think Paul really worked hard" to get the bill passed.
"We all learned a lot, we learned a lot about loyalty, we
learned a lot about the vote-getting process, we learned a lot about arcane
rules," the rich asshole said.
the rich asshole predicted that Obamacare would soon
"explode" and that its collapse would bring Democrats to the table to
negotiate a bipartisan health care bill with him.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was proud of
Democrats for standing in unison against the GOP bill, calling the result
"a victory for the American people."
"The unity of our House Democratic members was a very
important message to the country that we are very proud of the Affordable Care
Act," she told reporters.
And Hillary Clinton gave her reaction on Twitter:
Republicans who opposed the bill and helped bring it down said
they remained committed to repealing the current law.
Rep. Jim Jordan R.-Ohio, one of the members of the Freedom
Caucus who was opposed to the bill, said in a statement that "Obamacare is
a disaster, and repealing it remains one of my top priorities."
But he said the GOP bill "did not have the support it
needed, neither in Congress nor among the American people. Now, House
Republicans owe it to our constituents to immediately get back to the drawing
board and bring forward a bolder effort to replace the failing Obamacare with a
plan to reduce costs by increasing choice and competition."
And Rep. Mark Meadows R.-N.C., the chairman of the Freedom
Caucus, said despite his opposition to the bill, "I remain wholeheartedly
committed" to repealing Obamacare.
Republicans left a closed-door conference Friday afternoon where
they were informed the bill would not be brought to a vote feeling defeated
after an exhausting few days. And there was plenty of blame to go around.
When Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican from a swing district in
Colorado, was asked where the process went wrong, he said that members who
didn't support the bill "are going to have to go home and explain
that."
"I think we got a group of people that are traditionally a
'no' on everything, and they vote as a bloc and you gotta penetrate that
block," Coffman said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, a member of the
conservative bloc that Coffman referenced, said that Ryan was "wrong"
to offer a "binary" choice of vote for the bill or support Obamacare.
"A true legislative process is where we act as a
deliberative body and we try to reflect the will of the American people,"
Amash said.
RELATED: the rich asshole Blames Democrats
The move to halt the vote came after a chaotic week of intense
negotiations to convince at least 215 Republicans to support the
leadership-written health care bill, but it was ultimately not enough to
fulfill a seven-year long pledge to undo the Affordable Care Act, one of the
rich asshole's major themes on the campaign trail last year.
The pressure for passage began in earnest earlier in the week
when the president traveled to Capitol Hill for the big sell and warned
Republicans that they would lose their seats — and the House majority — if they
failed to follow through with their campaign pledge.
the rich asshole and Ryan continued to meet with Republicans who
were undecided or against the measure throughout the week and twice changed the
bill in a bid to attract more support.
But those efforts weren't enough to convince moderate
Republicans that it wouldn't harm people in their districts who have enjoyed
expanded Medicaid coverage and financial assistance in purchasing health care.
And they weren't enough for the conservative Republicans who thought that the
government was too involved in in the health care industry and that it doesn't
do enough to reduce the cost of health insurance premiums.
The GOP’s Obamacare Repeal Bill Is Dead Because the rich asshole Doesn’t Understand How Health Policy Works
It's hard to make a deal on a policy deal when you don't care about the policy.
Peter Suderman|Mar.
24, 2017 3:46 pm
·
·
·
·
·
Molly
Reilly/SIPA/NewscomThe House bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare is
officially dead.
The American Health Care Act (AHCA), which was scheduled for a
vote this afternoon, has been pulled from consideration. The move means that GOP's
years-long quest to repeal and replace the health care law has failed. For the
foreseeable future, at least, Obamacare will stay on the books.
President the rich asshole stumped for the bill aggressively over
the last several weeks, and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said today
that the president "left everything on the field when it comes to this
bill." But in the end the rich asshole couldn't make it happen.
The GOP legislation was ill conceived from the start. Partly as a
result of the need to follow a special process that would allow the bill to
pass with a simple majority in the Senate, it left much of Obamacare's
essential structure in place—including insurance regulations, subsidies paid
through the tax system for individuals purchasing coverage on the individual
market, and a mandatory penalty, assessed by insurers, for those who go without
coverage and seek to regain coverage.
The bill would have transformed Medicaid into a per-capita block
grant system, but not until the next decade, and in its initial form would have
created incentives for states to expand the health program. It also would have
resulted in individual insurance premiums rising 15 to 20 percent in the short
term, and some 14 million people losing their insurance as of next year,
according to the Congressional Budget Office. A final amendment to the bill,
released late last night, might have sent the individual market into a complete and immediate meltdown.
The bill failed in part because it could not establish a balance
between the concerns of moderate Republicans, particularly with regard to the
way it treated the Medicaid expansion, and more conservative members of the
House Freedom Caucus, who argued that the bill was too much like Obamacare,
retaining its core scheme of subsidies and regulations.
But it also failed because the rich asshole proved himself an
ineffective negotiator and dealmaker—one whose preference for shallow political
victories over substantive policy wins ultimately proved insufficient in a
complex policy negotiation.
Throughout his life, the rich asshole has portrayed himself as a
master dealmaker. As far back as 1984, for example, he argued that the U.S.
government should let him manage the nuclear arms negotiations with Russia.
"It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn
about missiles," the rich asshole, who on the campaign trail did not know
what the nuclear triad was, toldThe Washington Post at
the time. the rich asshole has never been focused on details. The deal itself
was always more important than what was in it.
Deals are my art form. Other people
paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals.
That's how I get my kicks.
·
As House Republicans moved towards a vote on the health care bill,
GOP lawmakers characterized his role similarly. This week, in advance of
meetings with Republicans who opposed the bill, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-North
Carolina) called the rich asshole "the closer."
Final support for the bill would be won by the rich asshole, who would use his
skills as a dealmaker to push it over the finish line.
the rich asshole repeatedly promised to repeal and replace
Obamacare with "something terrific." But he never described the
policy mechanisms of the replacement he preferred. And the outcomes he
described—coverage for everyone, lower premiums, no changes to Medicaid—had
little or no connection to the bill that House Republicans eventually drew up.
That didn't seem to matter to the president. As has always been
the case with the rich asshole, making a deal—any deal—was all that mattered.
In the end, though, the bill died. the rich asshole couldn't close
the deal. And one of the biggest reasons that the rich asshole couldn't close
the deal is that he didn't understand or care about the details.
There was little evidence that the rich asshole understood the bill, or
that he cared much about what was in it.
GOP aide on Trump's healthcare role:
"energized" by his whip efforts, but on details? "Either doesn't
know, doesn't care or both."
·
"[the rich asshole] is more interested in a win, or avoiding
a loss, than any of the arcane policy specifics of the complicated measure,
according to a dozen aides and allies interviewed over the past week who
described his mood as impatient and jittery," The New York Times reported today.
the rich asshole spent the last two weeks selling the House plan.
He met with specific individuals and with various congressional factions opposed to the bill. He personally called the offices of more than 100
legislators. He has cajoled and threatened, telling those who refused to back the
legislation that they would lose their seats. He threw the entire weight of his
personality and the office of the president behind the vote, saying that he backed the bill "one-thousand
percent."
But he never took the time to explain to either the public or
congressional Republicans what the bill actually did. He did not make a case
for the bill's policy merits, preferring instead to describe it using generic
superlatives. Contrast that with President Obama, who traveled the country
making the case for his health care overhaul, and made a major prime time address outlining its provisions.
the rich asshole, in contrast, was, by virtually all accounts,
indifferent to the policy content of the bill so long as it passed and he could
say that he had fulfilled his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
We will immediately repeal and
replace ObamaCare - and nobody can do that like me. We will save $'s and have
much better healthcare!
·
Even that claim, however, would have glossed over important
details. The bill only repealed parts of Obamacare, and it left many of its
fundamental assumptions about the nature of health policy firmly in place. If
anything, it made those assumptions even more difficult to upend by giving them
bipartisan cover.
The bill the rich asshole backed made no attempt to balance either
the policy or political interests of the legislators, influence groups, or
stakeholders involved. the rich asshole spent the week negotiating changes to
the bill, but because he neither cared nor understood what was in it, and what
lawmakers wanted from the bill, he couldn't act as an effective negotiator. A
handful of last minute updates to the bill intended to pick up holdout votes
backfired: One reduced the bill's projected deficit reduction, while another
was so imprecisely drafted that it ran the risk of killing the individual
insurance market entirely, while leaving the federal government in control of
the regulations it was supposedly devolving to states.
the rich asshole, of course, shares some blame with Speaker of the
House Paul Ryan. Ryan led the drafting of the bill, and the legislative
process. The bill he put together didn't really make sense, in large part
because it was never really a health policy bill. The AHCA was a setup for tax reform designed to make it easier to permanently cut taxes in a
future piece of legislation.
But it was the rich asshole who managed the negotiations. It was
the rich asshole who was expected to seal the deal. And it was the rich asshole
who ultimately couldn't make it work.
Health policy is hard because all of the policy pieces are
interconnected. The various policy pieces, meanwhile, are just as
interconnected with the politics, which is just as complex. You can't separate
any of it, and adjusting any one part of the system inevitably means a cascade
of additional adjustments will be necessary further down the line. It's a
system of trade-offs, and the rich asshole didn't know or care what those
trade-offs were.
This is the danger of a president who is so disinterested in
policy particulars, especially when, like the rich asshole, he expects to
maintain a central role in the process. the rich asshole's character—his
personal style and his habits of mind—prevent him from effectively negotiating
complex legislation. And in this case, it meant that even with control of the
White House and both chambers of Congress, Republicans couldn't put together an
Obamacare repeal bill that could pass, or was worth passing. It's a problem
that is likely to continue to haunt conservative policy goals for as long as
the rich asshole is president.
the rich asshole didn't care about the details. But health policy is all details. And it turns out
it's hard to make a policy deal when you don't understand the policy.
GOP DISASTER: 'TRUMPCARE' VOTE PULLED DESPITE ULTIMATUM
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Drew
Angerer/Getty Images
GOP
leadership pulled its bill to overhaul the US healthcare system from what
looked almost certain to be a failed floor vote in the House on Friday, in a
blow to President some rich asshole's agenda and House Speaker Paul Ryan's
leadership of his caucus.
It
was pulled after it became clear that Republicans did not have enough votes to pass the American Health
Care Act, their bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, the law
formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
In
a last-minute effort on Friday, Republican leaders attempted to wrangle the
needed votes to pass the bill after delaying the vote on Thursday.
But
around 3 p.m., Ryan told the rich asshole that he did not have the votes. The
president asked him to pull the bill from the floor, a House GOP leadership
aide told Business Insider. The vote had been expected at 3:30 p.m.
the
rich asshole told The Washington Post's Robert Costa,
"I don't blame Paul." the rich asshole had said earlier in the day
that Ryan should keep his job if the bill were to fail. the rich asshole also told
Costa that the bill would not be readdressed anytime soon.
The
New York Times' Maggie Haberman also reported that the rich asshole told her
healthcare was now the Democrats' problem and that he thought they would be
ready to negotiate when Obamacare failed.
In
a press conference after the bill was pulled, Ryan said Republicans "came
up short" and called it a "disappointing day."
Democrats
cheered the failure of the bill, saying it was good news for people who were
projected to lose their insurance if the bill were to become law.
"Today
is a great day for our country," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people."
Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ascribed the failure to the president.
"So
much for the Art of the Deal," he said in a statement, referring to the
rich asshole's famous business book.
"Ultimately,
the Trumpcare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the the rich
asshole presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken
promises," Schumer said. "In my life, I have never seen an
administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today."
House
GOP leadership had faced opposition from both hardline conservatives and
moderates, making the bill's passage untenable.
Republican
leaders appeared to concede on Thursday that they did not have the votes
necessary to pass the bill. But the rich asshole pushed for a vote, even issuing an ultimatum to House
Republicans on Thursday night. the rich asshole, via a message delivered by
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, said he would move onto
other priorities if the caucus failed to pass the bill. The gambit did not
appear to persuade many to change their votes.
Conservatives
in the House Freedom Caucus had said that the
AHCA did not go far enough in its repeal of Obamacare because it kept some of
the law's more popular elements. Moderates, on the other hand, had said the
AHCA did not fix the problems of Obamacare and that repealing the law's
so-called essential health benefits — a demand of the Freedom Caucus — would harm insurers.
Republican
leaders were ultimately unable to bridge the gap between the two sides.
The
failure of the bill is a blow to both Ryan and the rich asshole, setting back
their ambitious political agenda despite the GOP's control of the presidency
and both houses of Congress.
For
Ryan, it represented a failure of the GOP to use its largest majority in the
House since the 1920s to its advantage. Ryan told reporters on March 7 that "when
this thing comes to the floor, we'll have 218" votes.
For
the rich asshole, it served as the first major legislative setback in his young
presidency. the rich asshole had promised during his campaign to repeal and
replace Obamacare on "Day One," and he said shortly before his
inauguration that he wanted the job done within weeks.
Ryan
and the rich asshole will likely regroup to work on the rest of their agenda,
including tax reform and the rich asshole's budget.
Obamacare repeal bid dead after Ryan cancels vote
Photo by BloombergHouse Speaker Paul Ryan,
R-Wis., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol today.
(Bloomberg) — House
Republicans abandoned their efforts to repeal and partially replace Obamacare
after President some rich asshole and Speaker Paul Ryan concluded they didn't
have enough support, marking an embarrassing setback for the GOP agenda.
One day after the president
demanded a do-or-die vote on the longtime GOP priority, Ryan scrapped the
scheduled vote Friday afternoon after the rich asshole asked him to in a phone
conversation, according to a senior leadership aide.
“I will not sugarcoat this:
This is a disappointing day for us,” Ryan told reporters. “But it is not the
end of the story.”
Read more:
• Durbin details cost of Ryancare to Illinois
• This Emanuel also opposes the Republican health care bill
• Editorial: No one thinks the GOP health bill is a good idea for Illinois
• Durbin details cost of Ryancare to Illinois
• This Emanuel also opposes the Republican health care bill
• Editorial: No one thinks the GOP health bill is a good idea for Illinois
the rich asshole told
reporters in the Oval Office that the GOP was maybe 10 votes short, but didn't
quite get here. “We'll end up with a truly great health-care bill after the
Obamacare mess explodes,” he said.
Ryan said the party will
need some time to regroup. “Now, we're going to move on with the rest of our
agenda,” he said. “We will proceed with tax reform.”
Hospital stocks surged on
the news of the cancellation, with the BI North America Hospitals Competitive
Peer Group Index up 5.4 percent at the close in New York. Centene Corp., an
insurer that focuses on Medicaid plans, rose 5.2 percent to $68.73. Hospitals
and insurers like Centene would have been hurt by the GOP bill, which would cut
millions of people from health insurance and roll back an expansion of the
Medicaid program for the poor.
Lawmakers sounded ready to
turn their attention to other issues.
“This bill is dead,” said
Republican Greg Walden of Oregon, the former chairman of the Energy and
Commerce Committee.
This outcome is an
embarrassing setback that casts doubt on the rich asshole and Ryan's ability to
deliver on their ambitious agenda, including taxes and infrastructure, both of
which are being closely watched by Wall Street.
'LEARNING LESSON'
“I think that this is a
learning lesson and we've made this shift from an opposition party to a
governing party and I hope that we do learn from this experience and that we
are able to not make the perfect the enemy of the good,” said Andy Barr, a
Kentucky Republican. “Because this is not a game.”
Representative Steve Womack
said Republicans need to get back to basics and have an "introspective
conversation" about what it means to govern.
"We have moderates and
we have ultra conservative people in the conference. We have to reeducate
ourselves in mathematics and basic arithmetic," he said. "We have to
learn that we're not just the party of no. We have to learn how to
govern."
He called it "a loss
for leadership."
It also leaves the health
care issue in limbo in Washington.
“Obamacare is the law of
the land. it's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced,” Ryan
said. “We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”'
Democrats said they were
ready to have a conversation on how to improve Obamacare.
"It is now abundantly
clear to every Member of Congress that the only option for progress going
forward is bipartisan legislation to improve the Affordable Care Act. That's
what the American people want. It's time to govern," said John Yarmuth of
Kentucky, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
the rich asshole himself
had waded into the legislative weeds to fight for the bill, meeting with scores
of lawmakers and traveling to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address the full House
Republican conference. The president "left everything on the field,"
according to spokesman Sean Spicer.
'SOME DIVISIVENESS'
Top the rich asshole aides
told House Republicans Thursday night that the president had run out of
patience: he wanted a vote Friday, win or lose, even if that meant leaving
Obamacare in place.
"There's some
divisiveness within our conference now that's not healthy," said New York
Republican Chris Collins, the first House members to endorse the rich asshole
during the campaign. "I've never seen this before. People are just
refusing to talk to each other. They're storming past each other. This is not
good."
Both conservatives and
moderates voted against the bill. Among those who announced opposition to the
bill was House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey.
During Obama's
administration, the Republican-controlled House voted more than 50 times to
repeal or curtail Obamacare. One repeal measure made it to Obama's desk, and he
vetoed it. Ryan boasted during last year's campaign that the GOP had a clear
consensus on how to finally repeal and replace the health law under a
Republican president.
the rich asshole and Ryan
repeatedly called Obamacare a "disaster" that was collapsing under
its own weight. But in 2015, the proportion of the U.S. population without
insurance fell to a record low -- about 10.5 percent of Americans younger than
65, down from 18.2 percent in 2010.
The Republican proposal
aimed to pull hundreds of billions of dollars out of the health system by
winding down Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid and limiting its subsidies,
thereby threatening revenue for hospitals, doctors and insurance companies.
But conservatives wanted a
more complete repeal, while moderates were taken aback when the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office said the GOP plan would leave 24 million fewer
Americans with health insurance by 2026.
Here are some reactions to
the House move:
Today, the Republicans' frantic attempt to
ram through a half-baked bill repealing health care for millions of Americans
fell flat.
·
What chapter in "The Art Of The
Deal" covers totally botching deals? I can't find my copy...
·
If you just put on a rally cap or pulled
out a 4-leaf clover, please keep doing that, just in case. I'll keep fighting
against #AHCA
·
Republicans surrendered before they were
actually defeated on the floor: http://bit.ly/2oegJ30 #twill #healthcare
Rep. Gutiérrez on Republican Health Care Debacle
Today, Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) issued the following statement after Republicans pulled the Trumpcare health care reform bill from the House floor: “Republicans could not even agree on how cruel...gutierrez.house.gov
·
POLITICS
In Major Defeat for the rich asshole, Push to Repeal Health Law Fails
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders, facing a revolt among
conservatives and moderates in their ranks, pulled legislation to repeal the
Affordable Care Act from consideration on the House floor Friday afternoon in a
significant defeat for President the rich asshole on the first legislative
showdown of his presidency.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan conceded, “We’re going to be living
with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”
The defeat of the Republicans’ three-month blitz to repeal
President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement exposed deep divisions
in the Republican Party that the election of a Republican president could not mask.
It also cast a shadow over the ambitious agenda that some rich asshole and
Republican leaders had promised to enact once their party assumed power on both
ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The drama of the day underscored the futility of the leaders’
efforts. Mr. Ryan rushed to the White House shortly after noon to tell some
rich asshole he did not have the votes for a repeal bill that had been promised
for seven years — since the day Mr. Obama signed his landmark health care act
into law.
The the rich asshole White House
Stories about President the rich asshole’s administration.
·
Civics Lesson Unfolds at Capitol as Health Care Bill IncineratesMAR 24
·
Fact Check: the rich asshole’s Misleading Claims on the Health Bill FailureMAR 24
·
Amid the rich asshole Inquiry, a Primer on Surveillance Practices and PrivacyMAR 24
·
How the Health Care Vote Fell Apart, Step by StepMAR 24
·
In a Call to The Times, the rich asshole Blames Democrats for the Failure of the Health BillMAR 24
some rich asshole, in a telephone interview moments after the
bill was pulled, blamed Democrats and predicted that they would seek a deal
within a year, he asserted, after “Obamacare explodes” because of high
premiums.
He also expressed weariness with the fight, which was a fraction
of the length of time that Democrats devoted to enacting the Affordable Care
Act.
“The best thing that could happen is exactly what happened —
watch,” he said. “It’s enough already.”
HEALTH
CARE IN AMERICA By ASSOCIATED PRESS 00:37Ryan on Pulling Health
Bill: ‘A Setback, No Two Ways About It’
Video
Ryan on Pulling Health Bill: ‘A Setback, No Two Ways About It’
Paul D. Ryan, the House
speaker, said, “We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable
future,” after Republicans decided to pull the bill repealing Obamacare in a
blow to President the rich asshole.
·
Embed
·
Share
·
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But the effort to win passage had been relentless — and hardly
hidden. Vice President Mike Pence and Tom Price, the health secretary, rushed
to Capitol Hill for a late appeal to House conservatives, but their pleas fell
on deaf ears.
And in private, some rich asshole took a much harder line. The
president was furious that members of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus
had opposed the legislation. He demanded for much of Thursday that Mr. Ryan
push a vote to publicly expose the members who were opposing the
administration.
some rich asshole and his top strategist, Stephen K. Bannon,
wanted to see a confidential list to exact revenge on the bill’s Republican
opponents, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation
The critical moment — when the parties decided to withdraw the
doomed measure — came during a 3 p.m. phone call with Mr. Ryan and the
president, who was in the Oval Office. Mr. Ryan told some rich asshole that
scorched-earth strategy was misguided and self-destructive.
Mr. Ryan, according to staff members, agreed that members of the
Freedom Caucus were not negotiating in good faith, but he said that punishing
them would also harm members who were simply trying to protect themselves from
potential conservative primary challenges next year.
The speaker sealed the deal by telling some rich asshole a
public vote would turn a bad defeat into a spectacular loss that could alienate
conservatives whom he would need for upcoming votes to raise the debt
ceiling, to pass a budget and to enact an ambitious rewrite of the
tax code. Retribution could also jeopardize the $1 trillion infrastructure
package championed by Mr. Bannon.
some rich asshole, aides said, was still annoyed, but agreed.
“You can’t pretend and say this is a win for us,” said
Representative Mark Walker, Republican of North Carolina, who conceded it was a
“good moment” for Democrats.
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“Probably that champagne that wasn’t popped back in November may
be utilized this evening,” he said.
At 3:30 p.m., Mr. Ryan called Republicans into a closed-door
meeting to deliver the news that the bill would be pulled, with no plans to try
again. The meeting lasted five minutes. One of the architects of the House
bill, Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon and the chairman of the
Energy and Commerce Committee, put it bluntly: “This bill’s done.”
“We are going to focus on other issues at this point,” he said.
The Republican bill would have replaced the Affordable Care Act,
known informally as Obamacare, which mandated that almost everyone have health insurance, with a system of age-based
tax credits to purchase health insurance plans.
But it never won over conservatives who wanted a far more
thorough eradication of the Affordable Care Act. Nor did it have the backing of
more moderate Republicans who were anxiously aware of the Congressional Budget
Office’s assessment that the bill would leave 24 million more Americans without
insurance.
With the House’s most hard-line conservatives holding fast
against it, the bill’s support collapsed Friday after more rank-and-file
Republicans came out in opposition, including Representatives Rodney
Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, the soft-spoken chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, and Barbara Comstock of Virginia, whose suburban
Washington district went handily for the Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary
Clinton, in November.
“Seven years after enactment of Obamacare, I wanted to support
legislation that made positive changes to rescue health care in America,” Mr.
Frelinghuysen wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, the legislation before the
House today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs
and barriers to care on my constituents in New Jersey.”
In the end, Republican leaders doomed the bill by agreeing to
eliminate federal standards for the minimum benefits that must be provided by
certain health insurance policies.
Photo
House
Speaker Paul D. Ryan walked in the Capitol on Friday after a vote on the rules
for debating the American Health Care Act, the bill to replace the Affordable
Care Act known as Obamacare.CreditGabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
“This provision is so cartoonishly malicious that I can picture
someone twirling their mustache as they drafted it in their secret capitol lair
last night,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “This
back-room deal will kill the requirement for insurance companies to offer
essential health benefits such as emergency services, maternity care, mental health care, substance addiction
treatment, pediatric services, prescription drugs and many other basic
essential services.”
Defeat of the bill could be a catalyst if it forces Republicans
and Democrats to work together to improve the Affordable Care Act, which
virtually every member of Congress believes needs repair. Democrats have been
saying for weeks that they want to work with Republicans on such changes, but
first, they said, Republicans had to abandon their drive to repeal the law.
President the rich asshole, through his budget director, Mick
Mulvaney, told House Republicans on Thursday night that he was giving them this
one chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If they failed, Mr. Mulvaney told
them, the president would live with his predecessor’s law.
Rejection of the repeal bill may also prompt Republicans to
reconsider the political strategy they were planning to use for the next few
years.
“We have to do some soul-searching internally to determine
whether or not we are even capable of functioning as a governing body,” said
Representative Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota. “If ‘no’ is your goal,
it’s the easiest goal in the world to reach.”
Representative Robert Pittenger, Republican of North Carolina,
offered this advice to hard-line conservatives who helped sink the bill:
“Follow the example of Ronald Reagan. He was a master, he built consensus. He
would say, ‘I’ll take 80 percent and come back for the other 20 percent
later.’”
Failure of the House effort leaves the Affordable Care Act in
place, with all the features Republicans detest.
The Republican bill would have repealed tax penalties for people
who go without health insurance, rolled back federal insurance standards,
reduced subsidies for the purchase of private insurance and set new limits on
spending for Medicaid, the federal-state program for more than 70
million low-income people. The bill would also have repealed taxes imposed by
the Affordable Care Act on health insurance providers, manufacturers of
prescription drugs and medical devices, and many high-income people.
The bill would also have cut off federal funds to Planned Parenthood
for one year.
Mr. Ryan said the bill included “huge conservative wins.” But
those provisions were ultimately not enough.
Trump’s Team Said It Didn’t Ask For Military Vehicles At Inauguration. Emails Show It Did.
“Such support would be out of guidelines,” one Pentagon official wrote.
By Jessica Schulberg
X
13k
·
·
·
·
890
WASHINGTON ― The month
after Donald Trump won the presidential
election, his staff asked the Pentagon to send photographs of military tactical
vehicles that he could include in his inaugural parade, emails obtained by The
Huffington Post show.
The Presidential
Inaugural Committee “is seriously considering adding military vehicles to the
Inaugural Parade,” a Pentagon official wrote in an internal email dated Dec.
13, 2016. “The conversation started as ‘Can you send us some pictures of
military vehicles we could add to the parade,’” the official wrote.
The emails, which were
released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, corroborate
HuffPost’s January report that Trump, who has spoken
favorably of public displays of military prowess, looked into deploying heavy
military equipment in his inaugural parade. Asked in December about plans to
use military equipment during the occasion, a Trump aide refused to address the
matter on the record but offered a vehement off-the-record denial. It’s not
clear whether the aide was aware of the conversations referenced in the Pentagon
emails, and he did not respond to a request for an explanation.
The author of the the
Dec. 13 email, whose name was redacted, appeared uncomfortable with the request
from the Trump team. “I explained that such support would be out of guidelines,
and the costs associated with bringing military vehicles to the [National
Capital Region] would be considered reimbursable.”
JESSICA
SCHULBERG/THE HUFFINGTON POST
The Pentagon typically
works closely with presidential inaugural committees to plan the parades. But
the military usually provides support in the form of musical groups and color
guards rather than heavy military equipment. When Trump’s team floated the idea
of sending tanks and missile launchers down Pennsylvania Avenue, some worried
it might resemble the massive military parades in North Korea, a source
involved in inaugural preparations told HuffPost in January. They were also
concerned that the heavy tanks could damage D.C. roads.
The military wasn’t
sure how to respond to the Trump team’s December inquiry, the emails show. “I’m
extremely reluctant to produce an improvised list of military vehicles that we
might be held to,” the Pentagon official wrote. “Also concerned that we as a
command need an opportunity to staff this request and to make deliberate
decisions about vehicle choice and configuration, paint scheme, uniform for
crew members, etc. before we start providing pictures which might be regarded
as binding.”
Conversations with
Trump’s inaugural staff were still in the preliminary phase and “completely off
the record” the official wrote. “But the establishing guidance has come from
the highest level. I do believe they will be making the request.”
THE
HUFFINGTON POST/GETTY
Requests for the use of
military equipment in inaugural parades have to be approved by the Office of
the Secretary of Defense. Ultimately, the Trump team decided against filing a
formal request for military vehicles. Instead, they asked for multiple flyovers
of fighter aircraft.
“Great news,” one
Pentagon official wrote on Dec. 27, responding to an email confirming that the
Trump team had abandoned its efforts to procure “military tactical vehicles”
for the parade.
Trump’s inaugural
planning committee asked for a flyover from each military service and an
additional flyover from “one of the demonstration teams” ― a possible reference
to the Navy’s Blue Angels, the Air Force’s Thunderbirds, or the Army’s Golden
Knights Parachute Team. The military rejected the demonstration team but
approved four aircraft each for the Air Force, the Navy, the Army, the Marines
and the Coast Guard.
Trump specifically told
his staff he wanted to see an F-35 and an F/A-18 Super Hornet flying overhead
during his parade, a Pentagon official wrote in a Jan. 11 email. That request
may have been part of Trump’s bid to pit defense manufacturing giants Lockheed
Martin and Boeing against one another. Weeks earlier, Trump tweeted:
Based on the tremendous cost and cost
overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a
comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
·
The Pentagon approved
the use of both aircraft, but Trump never got to see his fighter jets in action
on his inauguration day. The military canceled all flyovers on Jan. 20, citing
poor weather conditions.
Do you have information you want to share with
the Huffington Post? Here’s how.Suggest a correction
Jessica Schulberg Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
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Trump’s TIME Interview Is The Most Batsh*t F*cking Insane Thing You’ll Ever See
By John Prager on March 23, 2017 9:48
am ·
Donald Trump at this point is known for spewing crazy
statements, but in an interview with TIME, The Donald somehow managed to outdo
himself in attempting to defend some of his more batsh*t insane lies.
Asked about his claim that President Obama put a “tapp” on his
“wires” at Trump Tower, The Donald explained that he has “articles saying it
happened.” The random, word salady string of words Trump threw together to
support this one is so impressively moronic that Sarah Palin seems like a
genius by comparison:
“No, I have, look. I have
articles saying it happened. But you have to take a look at what they, they
just went out at a news conference. Devin Nunes had a news conference. I mean I
don’t know, I was unable to see it, because I am at meetings, but they just had
a news conference talking about surveillance. Now again, it is in quotes. That
means surveillance and various other things. And the New York Times had
a front-page story, which they actually reduced, they took it, they took it the
word wiretapping out of the title, but its first story in the front page of the
paper was wiretapping. And a lot of information has just been learned, and a
lot of information may be learned over the next coming period of time. We will
see what happens. Look. I predicted a lot of things that took a little of bit
of time. Here, headline, for the front page of the New York Times,
“Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides.” That’s a headline. Now they
then dropped that headline, I never saw this until this morning. They then
dropped that headline, and they used another headline without the word wiretap,
but they did mean wiretap. Wiretapped data used in inquiry. Then changed after
that, they probably didn’t like it. And they changed the title. They took the
wiretap word out.”
Devin Nunes did indeed have a “news conference” in which
he did attempt to push Trump’s lies by pointing out that many
of The Donald’s associates had been caught up in perfectly legal “incidental
collection” while the FBI and other agencies were looking into foreign
suspects. Nunes, a prominent member of Trump’s transition team, also completely
skipped telling his fellow Russia investigators of this development and ran
directly to Mr. 45 with the information.
Though Nunes has previously said there is no evidence that Obama
“tapped” Trump’s “wires,” The Donald took the incidental collection of
information — a term he admits he does not understand — as proof that he was
correct about that dastardly President Obama:
“Well, he just got this information. This was new information.
That was just got. Members, of, let’s see, were under surveillance during the
Obama Administration following November’s election. Wow. This just came out.
So, ah, just came out.”
Trump also told TIME that he will be “proved right” about his
wacky claim that three million undocumented immigrants voted for his opponent,
swinging the popular vote in Hillary Clinton’s favor. Despite the completely
false nature of Trump’s allegations, he says he’s “forming a committee on it”
and it may be “more than” three million — a “serious problem.”
Asked about his completely unfounded claim that thousands of
Muslims celebrated in the streets of New Jersey after 9/11, Trump claimed that
it was in the Washington Post. This claim has beendisputed by literally everyone with any sense.
Trump even defended his blatantly incorrect claim that Ted
Cruz’s father helped kill JFK by saying it was in a “newspaper.” It wasn’t, but
that didn’t stop him from lying again:
“Well that was in a newspaper. No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a
friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I
was referring to a newspaper. A Ted Cruz article referred to a newspaper story
with, had a picture of Ted Cruz, his father, and Lee Harvey Oswald, having
breakfast.”
In fact, according to The Donald, he is not responsible for any
of his lies because someone else made the numerous false claims elsewhere and
he simply repeated them:
“Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the
newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I
quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier
mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing,
you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of
respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him
things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since
then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television
networks.”
This is perhaps the most insane interview conducted with the
President of the United States. You can read the whole thing here.
Reeking Of Desperation, Trump Sends Out ‘Poll’ Asking His Followers To Prove They Love Him
By Jameson Parker on March 23, 2017 1:11
pm ·
Facing corruption scandals, nepotism scandals, Russian
interference in the election scandals, and a healthcare bill that appears to be
so awful even Republicans won’t touch it, Trump did what comes natural to him…
beg his supporters for love.
In a poll that has already become the laughingstock of the
internet, Trump sent email subscribers a single question meant to “prove the
American people stand behind our great movement”: Do you stand with President
Trump?
The answers were hilariously loaded. Poll takers could
pick just one of two options:
1.
I Stand With President Trump
2.
I Believe Democrats and Fake News
Apparently Trump didn’t want people answering the wrong way in a
non-scientific poll meant to boost his ego. Leaving nothing to chance, he made
the “no” answer an insane screed against Democrats and the media.
Actual email sent out by Trump Headquarters
·
Notably, there are already existing polls which are meant to
gauge whether the American people support the president or not. They are
conducted by legitimate polling organizations. The latest ones show that at
this point in his term Trump is perhaps the least popular president of all time.
President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has dropped to 37%,
while 58% of Americans disapprove of his performance so far as president, new
Gallup figures show.
Naturally, the poll ends with a plea for money. Trump, who won
the election five months ago still thinks he’s campaigning.
Trump ends the "poll" by begging
for money (which you should give him to spite the lyin' media)
·
As Trump’s popularity continues to plummet, the president
appears to be slipping further into his own paranoid fantasies. On Twitter,
he’s stopped even trying to find legitimate sources for his claims. Now he
exclusively tweets out links to disreputable right-wing conspiracy sites.
During a TIME magazine interview, Trump ranted about how he is always right and
never wrong.
The whole thing is getting a disturbing “Hitler’s final days in
the bunker” vibe to it. Which may explain why this poll bears a striking
resemblance to an infamous Nazi election ballot. They too left very little to
chance.
Actual email sent
out by Trump Headquarterspic.twitter.com/8c3qwbNoUb
@mollycrabapple A tried and trusted
methodology....https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,_1938 … pic.twitter.com/Q3agCcyQQz
·
But perhaps the most disturbing part of Trump’s latest deepdive
into paranoid delusions is how commonplace it has become. As Twitter user
@nycsouthpaw observed, stunts like this poll have a sickening
authoritarian streak that is being shrugged off.
this authoritarian garbage was sent out on
behalf of the president of the united states and tbh we barely even raise our
eyebrows anymore https://twitter.com/mollycrabapple/status/844909911146479616 …
·
We’ve become accustomed to this lunacy.
Trump Got To Sit In A Big Boy Truck Because Today Was A Special Day!
Vroom vroom vroom!
posted on Mar. 23,
2017, at 4:46 p.m.
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Come outside!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Big surprise!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
It is trucks!
Alex Wong / Getty Images
Up you go!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Big boy truck!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Honk the horn!
Andrew Harnik / AP
Vroom vroom vroom!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
We see you!
Andrew Harnik / AP
AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Fun must end!
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Back to work!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Was it fun?
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
Trump 
!
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
By Jameson Parker on March 23, 2017 4:46
pm ·
In a stunning example of just how out-of-touch and heartless the
Republican Party is towards women’s healthcare, Vice President Mike Pence
convened a meeting to discuss the topic of stripping maternity care
requirements from health insurance – and forgot to invite even a single woman.
Needless to say, an image of the meeting is now blowing up on
social media as Americans sit in stunned amazement that this is how Congress
and the White House think of the women who make up half the country.
Democratic politicians were equally outraged. Massachusetts
Representative Jim McGovern tweeted his anger over the sheer audacity of this
meeting. The picture clearly struck a nerve because the tweet quickly racked up
thousands of retweets.
Jim
McGovern
This is outrageous: Not a single woman in
the room as@Mike_Pence and @HouseGOP propose
removing maternity coverage in #Trumpcare.
·
·
·
(Pictured above: Some dicks, a lot of assholes, but not a single
uterus.)
And the group was taking women’s health so seriously that
it appears one member actually fell asleep during the meeting:
Kevin
Byrne
@RepMcGovern @DaithiFall @mike_pence @HouseGOP and
one dude who's clearly dozed off
·
·
·
Trump and Paul Ryan have been frantically offering “deals” to
the fringe right-wing of the GOP in the hopes that they will agree to pass the
Obamacare-replacement known as the “American Health Care Act.” The bill has
been nothing short of a disaster for Republicans. For starters, it keeps many
of the items that infuriate conservatives intact, while at the same time doing
everything that Obamacare did, but less well. The
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that over 24 million
people would likely lose their health insurance thanks to this bill. For many
people, it would also cause their premiums to skyrocket.
Rather than fix the bill – or better yet, keep the ACA – Trump
and Ryan are making huge concessions to the ultra-right. One such concession is
to remove the “health care” part of the health care bill. Republicans are
considering dropping the so-called “essential health benefits” of the
ACA, allowing insurers to pick and chose what they want to cover.
Naturally, things like maternity care and emergency services would be the first
to go. Which brings us back to the “House Freedom Caucus” and its all-male
members.
In a dimly lit room, the group of conservative white men
sat around a table and weighed the relative merits of providing maternity care
to women. To give one an idea of how dismissive these elderly GOPers were
towards giving health care to women, here’s how Trump’s Press Secretary Sean
Spicer framed it:
Liam
Stack
Sean Spicer on healthcare: "I think if
you're an older man you can generally say that you're not going to need
maternity care."
·
·
·
The mothers, daughters, sisters, wives – and in some cases,
mistresses – might see things a bit differently.
‘Dealmaker’ Trump LOST Votes When He Visited Congress To Beg Them To Pass His Healthcare Bill
By Stephen D Foster Jr on March 22, 2017
3:35 pm ·
Donald Trump is another step closer to suffering a major policy
defeat, and that’s good news for the Affordable Care Act.
Trump and House Republicans have been pushing for passage of a
bill they dubiously refer to as the “American Healthcare Act,” depsite the fact
that’s it not American nor is it healthcare.
Indeed, the legislation is designed to kill the Affordable Care
Act, which slowed the rising costs of health insurance premiums and extended
healthcare coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
If Republicans pass Trumpcare, millions of Americans will lose
their coverage and the price of healthcare will skyrocket, especially among
senior citizens.
The Republican bill is a bad one, but Trump, who thinks it’s
“wonderful,” went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to beg Republicans to pass it and
threatened to punish any Republicans who vote against it.
Several Republicans who attended the meeting told the Washington Post that Trump
literally promised to “come after” them.
“I’m gonna come after you, but I know I won’t have to, because I
know you’ll vote ‘yes,’” Trump said. “Honestly, a loss is not acceptable,
folks.”
But apparently, Trump’s threats spectacularly backfired and his
self-manufactured reputation as a “dealmaker” took a humiliating hit.
Prior to the meeting, NBC had counted 17 Republicans who were
leaning against the bill. After the meeting NBC counted 27, which means ten Republicans turned against Trump and
his pathetic health care bill in a matter of hours.
Republicans are hoping to bring the bill up for a vote on the
House floor on Thursday, but it won’t pass if GOP leadership can’t keep the
number of Republicans leaning against it under 22.
This would be a humiliating defeat for Trump, especially after
he has repeatedly hyped the bill on social media.
On Wednesday morning, Trump bragged about the bill on Twitter
again.
Big day for healthcare. Working hard!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2017
It’s a big day alright. Will these 27 Republicans refuse to let
Trump bully them into voting for a bad bill or will they stand their ground and
kill it on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans who desperately need
their healthcare coverage?
If they stand their ground, Trump will be a loser, but the
American people will win. And last time I checked, congressmen work for the
people, not Trump.
Elizabeth Warren Just Told the rich asshole To Forget All About Running In 2020 (VIDEO)
By Friday Foster -March 21, 2017
some rich asshole is despised by so many that even though he
hasn’t made it through his first 90 days in office, people are already talking
about who will run against him in the 2020 election. For many Americans, claims
of the U.S. being a forward-thinking country, yet regularly displaying such
backwards policies and actions, has some craving radical progressive
leadership; perhaps via the first female president.
The desire to have a woman in the role of commander-in-chief
seems fleeting when Hillary Clinton’s losing efforts are
considered. However, besides Clinton, there are few women who have the
political savvy, experience, or stamina to endure a campaign let alone four to
eight years in office.
There is one woman whose name is increasingly being mentioned
where election 2020 is concerned: Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Despite her many
qualifications, passion, and powerful spirit, for the time-being, Warren is
determined to ensure that some rich asshole stays focused on the current
discord and bleak plight he has created in present day 2017.
Per his usual cocky, arrogant, and conceited style, the rich
asshole said that the chance to run against
Warren in 2020 would be a “dream come true.” Unbothered and refusing to have
her attention taken away by the rich asshole’s childish call-out, Warren had a
powerful message for him during a town hall meeting in Springfield, MA:
‘He
wants to do his tweets, he wants to think about how big his [inauguration]
crowd size was, he wants to think about what happens four years from
now. What I’m thinking about is what some
rich asshole is doing to this country today. That’s what
really, really has me up and working hard.’
And “working,” Warren is genuinely doing. She withheld
nothing during Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing. Warren
has also been highly critical of Republicans for not standing up to the rich
asshole where his Muslim ban is concerned. And even when
given the chance to fire back at the rich asshole’s poorly timed comments about
2020, Warren didn’t do so, yet instead chose to remain focused on the people
she has been elected to serve.
Seems like some rich asshole could learn a lot from Elizabeth
Warren.
WATCH: Sean Spicer Now Claims It’s Unfair To Tie Stock Market To the rich asshole As Stocks Fall
MARCH 21ST, 2017 
CONOVER ELECTIONS, NEWS, POLITICS10 COMMENTS
CONOVER ELECTIONS, NEWS, POLITICS10 COMMENTS
Previously, alleged president some
rich asshole and his aides have taken credit for increases in the stock market,
but now the White House suddenly doesn’t want credit when the market is down.
To team the rich asshole, if the stock market is doing well – even though he
just got into office – it’s due to the amateur president’s economic agenda. But
if stocks aren’t faring as well, it’s not fair to tie that to the rich
asshole’s economic agenda.
The Hill reports:
White House press secretary Sean
Spicer said it wasn’t fair to judge the the rich asshole administration’s
economic policy based on the performance of the stock market.
President the rich asshole,
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and several White House aides previously
claimed credit as the Dow Jones Industrial Index soared to record highs
following the rich asshole’s election and inauguration.
But as the Dow Jones, S&P 500
and Nasdaq each fell roughly 1 percent on Tuesday, Spicer said it wasn’t fair
to judge the administration on the stock market.
Spicer cautioned people against
using stock indexes to evaluate the success of the rich asshole’s
administration, despite the rich asshole having done exactly that previously.
CNBC reports:
As the Dow Jones industrial
average shed about 200 points Tuesday, CNBC asked if the rich asshole believes
the decline in U.S. markets is a result of his performance as president. Spicer
pushed back, saying that the administration has cautioned against looking at
one-day market performance and that the U.S. markets continue “to be up
tremendously.”
“You can’t look at one indices and
say that’s the benchmark for an entire economy,” Spicer said. “You see
confidence levels both in small business and other surveys that show there’s
continues confidence in the market.”
Watch:
With Dow down 200 points, Spicer
tells @eamonjavers that
one can't use a specific index to evaluate Trump, despite Trump having done so.
·
At one point,
Mnuchin previously told CNBC that the stock market was “absolutely” a
report card for the the rich asshole administration’s economic policy.
“We’re in an environment where
there’s very attractive investment opportunities in the U.S., and I think
that’s reflective of the administration’s goals and what the market thinks of
it,” Mnuchin said.
And then there’s the rich asshole:
Great optimism for future of U.S.
business, AND JOBS, with the DOW having an 11th straight record close. Big tax
& regulation cuts coming!
·
Since November 8th, Election Day,
the Stock Market has posted $3.2 trillion in GAINS and consumer confidence is
at a 15 year high. Jobs!
·
the rich asshole opened a can of
worms and now he wants to close it.
FBI Investigating white supremacy News Sites In Connection To Russia Investigation
March
21, 2017 by Mindy Fischer No Comments
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The FBI is investigating whether far-right news sites like Breitbart and InfoWars assisted Russia in their cyber attack of the 2016 presidential election.
On Monday, McClatchy reported that the FBI investigation into Russia’s interference in our election has expanded to include what role white supremacy news sites played in the Russian attack.
The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.”
The FBI’s Counterintelligence Division is also looking into whether these sites took action to aid and assist Russia’s efforts, although their active participation was not necessary for the bots to spread their lies. An example of the fake news pushed by both the sites and the bots was the bogus story accusing Hillary of running a child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor, which resulted in a deranged man showing up with a gun to “save the children.”
McClatchy says,
“Russia also used “trolls,” hundreds of computer operatives who pretended to be the rich asshole supporters and posted stories or comments on the internet complimentary to the rich asshole or disparaging to Clinton. Sources close to the inquiry said those operatives likely worked from a facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, dedicated to that tactic.
“Russian bots and internet trolls sought to propagate stories underground,” said Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official during the Obama administration whose job focused on Russia. “Those stories got amplified by fringe elements of our media like Breitbart.””
In February 2016, a top Kremlin official made a speech in Moscow bragging about the cyber attack they were about to launch on the U.S.
Andrey Krutskikh told the conference of Russian computer security officials that Putin was about to unleash a cyber nuclear attack reminiscent of Russia’s 1949 development of the atom bomb. He said this attack would force America to respect Russia’s capabilities and see them as equals.
Clearly, Russia’s attack was successful. Now the question is, to what extent did Americans, including the people running sites like Breitbart and InfoWars, collude with or assist them.
the rich asshole Threatens Republicans Who Vote Against New GOP Healthcare Bill
the rich asshole is threatening Republicans who don’t practice blind allegiance.
the rich asshole had a message for House Republicans this
morning as they gear up for a final vote on the American Health Care Act. He
warned that anyone who votes against the bill might lose their seat
in 2018.
According to Politico, when the rich asshole
entered the room, he was met with cheers and then he “gave a full-throated
endorsement to the House repeal bill that will come to the floor for a vote on
Thursday.” the rich asshole then warned, “I’m asking for your vote on
Thursday. Many of you came in on the pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare. I
honestly think many of you will lose your seats in 2018 if you don’t get this
done.”
The Washington Post adds that “the
rich asshole used both charm and admonishment as he made his case,” going so
far as to threaten to “come after” any Republicans who vote against the bill.
“I’m gonna come after you, but I know
I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes,’ ” the rich asshole
said, according to several Republican lawmakers who attended the meeting.
“Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks.”
If the House passes the healthcare bill, it’s sure to die in the
Senate. And as the rich asshole’s approval rating numbers continue to circle the drain, Republicans will be even
less inclined to support anything he touches. After the Congressional
Budget Office released their assessment of the new plan, a growing
number of Republicans have pulled support for the bill. And now that
it’s been announced the White House is under FBI investigation for colluding with Russia during
the 2016 election, the rich asshole will likely lose even more support from
Republicans in Congress.
A number of Freedom Caucus members who attended the meeting said
they still weren’t convinced they should support the new plan. One of the rich
asshole’s earliest campaign supporters, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), said
his mind was not changed because of the president’s remarks nor was GOP Rep.
Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor, changing his mind.
What Investigation? G.O.P. Responds to F.B.I. Inquiry by Changing Subject
By MICHAEL D.
SHEARMARCH 20, 2017
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Representative
Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, insinuated at a House Intelligence
Committee hearing on Monday that several top Obama administration officials
might have been the source of news leaks. CreditEric Thayer for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The headline from Capitol Hill on Monday was
bracing: confirmation of a criminal investigation into
connections between associates of a sitting president and Russian operatives
during a presidential election.
But the response from Republicans was almost as striking: During
hours of testimony in which James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, acknowledged the
inquiry, they shrugged off its implications and instead offered a coordinated
effort to defend President the rich asshole by demanding a focus on leaks to
news organizations.
Throughout the 5½-hour hearing before the House Intelligence
Committee, as Democrats tried to highlight the criminal investigation, Republicans
demanded a renewed focus on how its existence was revealed in news reports
months ago.
When Democrats raised the issue of some rich asshole’s Twitter posts accusing former President
Barack Obama of wiretapping him — and Mr. Comey said the F.B.I. had “no
information that supports those tweets” — Republicans railed against leaks.
The the rich asshole White House
Stories about President the rich asshole’s administration.
·
the rich asshole Visits Kentucky to Reprise His Greatest Hits of 2016MAR 20
·
Iraqi Leader, in Washington, Gets the rich asshole’s Assurance of U.S. SupportMAR 20
·
the rich asshole’s Weary Defenders Face Fresh WorriesMAR 20
·
Syrian Defectors Urge the rich asshole to Fulfill Vow to Create Safe ZonesMAR 20
·
Highlights From the House Hearing on Russian Interference in the U.S. ElectionMAR 20
When Democrats pressed Mr. Comey on evidence of coordination
between some rich asshole’s associates and Russian operatives, Republicans
questioned the F.B.I. director about how the names of those associates became
public in news reports.
The political strategy appears clear: Republicans are betting
that they can deflect attention from the investigation into the president’s campaign advisers by
insisting that more needs to be done to prevent the leaking of classified
material.
Again and again on Monday, the president’s allies urged Mr.
Comey and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency,
to answer for the illegal dissemination of information to reporters.
In one remarkable back and forth, Representative Trey Gowdy,
Republican of South Carolina, insinuated that several top Obama administration
officials — including John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, and Benjamin
J. Rhodes, the former deputy national security adviser — might have been the
source of leaks to news organizations.
TRUMP’S
RUSSIAN CONNECTION By SHANE O’NEILL and SUSAN JOAN ARCHER 1:59Trump and the Russians:
Links? No Links? Depends On Whom You Ask
Video
the rich asshole and the Russians: Links? No Links? Depends On Whom You Ask
James B. Comey, the
director of the F.B.I., said the agency was investigating whether members of
the the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of
the 2016 presidential election. Republicans and Democrats put their own spin on
his statements.
By SHANE O’NEILL and SUSAN JOAN ARCHER. Photo by
Eric Thayer for The New York Times.Watch in Times Video »
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“One thing you and I agree on is the felonious dissemination of
classified material most definitely is a crime,” Mr. Gowdy, whose own Benghazi
investigation was known as a porous source of information to reporters, told
Mr. Comey, who repeatedly refused to say that he was even investigating the
release of classified information.
“I can’t say because I don’t want to confirm that that was
classified information,” Mr. Comey said.
Whether the Republican approach works may depend on the outcome
of the investigation itself, which remains shrouded in secrecy and is unlikely
to be fully resolved within months or even years. That may lead to more leaks,
and to a continuing effort by the president’s defenders to demand that they
stop.
At one point in the hearing, Mr. Comey noted that leaks of
sensitive government information have bedeviled the nation’s leaders since
George Washington’s time, though he conceded that leakers have been “unusually
active” in recent months.
“It does strike me there’s been a lot of people talking or at
least reporters saying people are talking to them,” Mr. Comey said.
Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, nodded toward
the importance of plugging leaks, saying that Republicans “will get no argument
from this side on the importance of investigating, prosecuting leaks.”
But Democrats are determined to try to keep the focus on some
rich asshole, his campaign aides and Russia’s meddling in the election. Representative Adam B. Schiff of
California, the top Democrat on the panel, offered a long, detailed description
of the publicly available reports of Russian activity and contacts with members
of some rich asshole’s campaign.
“Is it possible that all of these events and reports are
completely unrelated and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence?”
Mr. Schiff asked. “Yes, it is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more
than possible, that they are not coincidental.”
Republicans seemed much less interested in the answer.
The effort to change the subject began with some rich asshole,
who said on Twitter early Monday that the
“real story” is the “leaking of Classified information.” Later, he asked: “What about all of the contact with
the Clinton campaign and the Russians?”
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At the White House, Sean Spicer, the press secretary, returned
to the subject of leaks again and again during his daily briefing for
reporters, echoing the Republican lawmakers from the presidential podium.
Mr. Spicer railed against the “illegal leak” of the names of
some of some rich asshole’s associates under investigation. And he insisted
that news organizations are refusing to cover the real story from Monday’s
hearing: the need for the federal government to stop national security leaks.
Mr. Spicer also evaded questions about some rich asshole’s
associates by repeatedly returning to what he said were Hillary Clinton’s ties
to Russia, even though Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign was hurt by Russian
operatives’ hacking.
Mr. Spicer accused journalists of ignoring stories alleging that
the Democratic National Committee had not provided the F.B.I. access to its
hacked servers, a claim Democratic officials deny. Mr. Comey said Monday that
the investigators got the information they needed to investigate the hack.
“Why? What were they hiding? What were they concerned of?” Mr.
Spicer said. In confusing, rapid-fire fashion, Mr. Spicer noted accusations
about “donations that the Clintons received from Russians” and decisions
by Mrs. Clinton to sell “tremendous amounts of uranium” to
Russia.
“Where’s the concern about their efforts on the Hillary Clinton
thing?” Mr. Spicer said.
Demands for leak investigations are nothing new in Washington,
where the targets of critical stories — regardless of party — are often quick
to try to expose the sources of those reports. Mr. Obama’s White House was particularly aggressive in seeking
the source of leaks, prosecuting more whistle-blowers than all his predecessors
combined.
some rich asshole, by contrast, appears to have had a
significant change of heart regarding leaks since he won the presidential
election. During the campaign, some rich asshole frequently praised WikiLeaks,
the website that investigators believe was used by Russian operatives to leak
emails from the D.N.C. and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman. At one rally in
Pennsylvania, some rich asshole declared, “I love WikiLeaks!”
Now, faced with leaks about the Russia investigation and the
dissemination of other information from inside his administration, some rich
asshole appears increasingly frustrated that information is finding its way to
reporters.
“Must find leaker now!” he said in a Twitter message Monday morning.
That, in a nutshell, was the message of the day for Republicans.
But the strategy of deflection required many more words, repeated over and over
for the cameras.
CHANGING NARRATIVE
White House and Republicans Admit Russia Isn’t ‘Fake News’ After FBI Bombshell
the rich asshole’s team quit dismissing
allegations of Kremlin ties after James Comey said they’re being investigated.
Instead, the GOP tried to claim the real story is leaks and Paul Manafort was a
temporary aide and Michael Flynn was just a “volunteer.”
TIM MAK
LACHLAN MARKAY
03.20.17 6:05 PM ET
The White House can no longer afford to ignore as-yet-unproven
allegations that Russia and the president’s campaign staff were in cahoots,
after the FBI director said his agency is actively investigating the matter.
Spurred by this public revelation, the White House stopped
simply dismissing Russian meddling as “fake news”—and started generating some
of their own.
The White House and its allies furiously tried to spin a new
reality, distancing itself from high-level campaign officials by insisting
those individuals were never all that involved in the campaign in the first
place.
The response was itself an admittance of just how “real” the
story had become.
The House Intelligence Committee’s first open hearing on
Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was badly split along partisan lines
as it opened Monday. Republicans vilified reporters for publishing leaks and
made dark insinuations about who leaked to the press; Democrats wildly
speculated about which individuals with ties to the the rich asshole campaign
could have a link to Moscow.
The guise of non-partisanship in this investigation was all but
broken before the hearing began. If you only watched Republicans speak today,
or only watched Democratic questions, you would find wildly differing realities.
It was like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel.
Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, finished the job when he went so far as to ask his witnesses, FBI
Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers, whether the Russian
government typically prefers Republicans or Democrats. Republican Rep. Trey
Gowdy even suggested that reporters who publish secrets should
face prosecution.
Democrats mentioned the name of every conceivable the rich
asshole associate with ties to Russia. Former political strategist Roger Stone,
foreign policy adviser Carter Page, campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Banks,
Russian oligarchs, real estate purchases—every suspicion was put into the
record. None were confirmed, pushed back by a flurry of “no comments” from the
two senior government officials.
But one breathtaking reality was undeniable. In his opening
remarks, Comey dropped a bombshell: the FBI was investigating the campaign of a
sitting president.
“I have been authorized by the DOJ to confirm that the FBI, as
part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian
government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey
told a stunned panel. “And that includes investigating the nature of any links
between individuals associated with the the rich asshole campaign and the
Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign
and Russia’s efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will
also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.”
Absent the furious typing of the press, and the
click-click-click of photographers, the room was silent. Lawmakers looked on
with mouths open. It was a momentous moment rarely seen in staid congressional
hearings—the room they held the hearing in is usually used for discussion of
tax issues.
The testimony of the NSA and FBI director repeatedly challenged
the narratives preferred by the president and his White House. There was no
evidence from the Justice Department or FBI that supports the
rich asshole’s discredited claim—made through tweets—that President Obama
had wiretapped him.
“I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have
looked carefully within the FBI… the Department [of Justice] has no information
that supports those tweets,” Comey said.
And while the White House had suggested that British intelligence
spied on the rich asshole on behalf of the U.S., Rogers dismissed this out of
hand, agreeing with the British government’s protestation that the notion was
“utterly ridiculous.”
The White House tried to pushback in real time, but it did so
with a series of false tweets. The @POTUS account claimed that Comey and Rogers
said Russia “did not influence [the] electoral process.”
The two officials actually said the opposite: they did not
analyze what impact Russia had on the elections, but reaffirmed their conclusion
that Russia was trying to influence the campaign, to the detriment of Hillary
Clinton and in favor of the rich asshole.
“They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her, help him,” Comey
said.
White House pushback later in the day also relied on factually
dubious claims about some of the central figures in the FBI’s investigation.
During an afternoon press briefing, White House press secretary
Sean Spicer attempted to distance the president from a trio of campaign
staffers and advisors who played prominent roles in Democratic speculation
about the the rich asshole team’s contact with Russian officials.
Spicer insisted that Manafort, the one-time chairman of the rich
asshole’s presidential campaign had only a tangential role on that campaign.
Manafort “played a very limited role for a very limited amount
of time,” Spicer claimed. “Paul was brought on some time in June and by the
middle of August he was no longer with the campaign, meaning that for the final
stretch of the general election he was not involved.”
The circumstances of Manafort’s departure were more dramatic
than Spicer let on, and are integral to ongoing questions about his possible
relationship with the Kremlin.
Manafort actually joined the campaign in March 2016, not July as
Spicer claimed. He stepped down from the campaign in August due in part to
scrutiny over his ties to pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine such as Dmitry
Firtash, whom Manafort allegedly helped funnel ill-gotten income into offshore
real estate ventures.
Though Manafort resigned from the campaign, The
Daily Beast reported in late November that he also advised the the
rich asshole transition team on high-level administration staffing decisions.
Among the administration’s most controversial staffing decisions
was its appointment of retired Gen. Mike Flynn as White House National Security
Advisor. Spicer also attempted to distance the president from Flynn, calling
him a “volunteer of the campaign.”
In fact, he was a high-level policy advisor, campaign surrogate,
and reported
contender for the vice presidential nomination. Federal
Election Commission records show the campaign reimbursed Flynn for
thousands of dollars in travel expenses.
Flynn eventually become the most short-lived National Security
Advisor in U.S. history. He stepped down last month after it was revealed that
he had failed to disclose communications during the campaign with the Russian
ambassador to Washington regarding U.S. sanctions against the country.
Spicer dismissed another one-time the rich asshole campaign
advisor entirely: Carter Page. A Kremlin-friendly pundit and former banker who
consulted for state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom, Page was simply a “hanger-on,”
Spicer insisted.
“There is a fine line between people who want to be part of
something that they’ve never had an official role in and people who played a
role in either the campaign or the transition,” Spicer said.
But Page did have a role, according to the president himself.
Asked who was advising him on foreign policy in March 2016, the rich asshole
mentioned just five names, and “Carter Page, PhD” was
one of them.
The FBI investigation on potential collusion between the the
rich asshole campaign and Russia began in the summer of 2016, Comey told the
House.
“This investigation began in late July. For a
counterintelligence investigation, that’s a fairly short period of time,” he
said.
Comey had no timeline on when the investigation will conclude,
leaving the White House in turmoil for an indeterminate period.
The House Intelligence Committee meets for another open hearing
with national security officials in eight days. After five and a half hours of
grilling the witnesses, The Daily Beast asked Nunes, the committee’s Republican
chairman whether he learned anything.
“Not much, no,” he said.
The White House Is Still Standing by the rich asshole’s Wiretap Accusation
Just before the administration’s daily press briefing, the FBI
director told Congress he has “no information” to support the president’s
claims.
Kevin Lamarque
/ Reuters
·
2:55
PM ET
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Updated at 5:34 p.m. ET
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated on Monday that
President the rich asshole is sticking with his allegations that former
President Obama wiretapped the rich asshole Tower, even after FBI Director
James Comey insisted earlier in the day that he himself has “no information” to
support that claim.
RELATED STORY
During a House Intelligence Committee hearing, Ranking Member Adam
Schiff asked Comey if the rich asshole’s accusations were true. He referred to
a March 4 tweet in which the president said, without providing evidence, that he
“just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in the rich asshole tower just
before the victory.” Comey replied that he has “no information that supports
those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.”
A spokesman for Obama has called the claims false, and House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes added during the hearing that there
was “not a physical wiretap of the rich asshole Tower.”
Later in the afternoon, Spicer was asked by a reporter if the rich
asshole was “prepared to withdraw that accusation and apologize” to Obama,
given Comey’s testimony. Spicer said no, and suggested that more information
could still come to light. “We started a hearing. It’s still ongoing,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of areas that
still need to be covered. There’s a lot of information that still needs to be
discussed.”
Yet while Spicer suggested it’s too early to say with certainty
whether the rich asshole’s wiretapping claims lack evidence, he also seemed to
imply that speculation over another matter—potential links between the the rich
asshole campaign and Russia—has gone on for too long.
In his testimony, Comey publicly confirmed for the first time
that the agency is examining Russia’s involvement in last year’s election. “The
FBI,” Comey said, “is investigating the Russian
government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” including
“the nature of any links between individuals associated with the the rich
asshole campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any
coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
During the briefing, though, Spicer dismissed the idea that there
might have been collusion. “There’s a point at which you continue to search for
something that everyone who has been briefed hasn’t seen or found,” Spicer
said. “There is no evidence, according to the people that have been briefed, of
any collusion or activity that leads them to believe that that exists. I think
that is an important point that gets overlooked over and over again,” he said.
“You can continue to look for something, but continuing to look for something
that doesn’t exist doesn’t matter.”
As Spicer noted during his press conference, some former Obama
administration officials, including former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, have also publicly remarked on
the lack of proof that collusion took place. Nunes, too, recently said he’d seen no evidence over the
course of his committee’s investigation into the matter. Both the House and
Senate intelligence committees are examining Russian involvement in the
election, including potential ties to the the rich asshole campaign.
But some
congressional Democrats are pushing a different narrative, arguing it’s too
early to say definitively that there hasn’t been collusion—and suggesting there
very well may have been. Schiff, for one, told Chuck Todd on Meet the PressSunday that
“there is circumstantial evidence of collusion” and “direct evidence, I think,
of deception.”
For now, the investigation continues. Asked during the hearing if it’s still early for the inquiry, Comey said he doesn’t know “how much longer it will take,” but that “this investigation began in late July, so for a counterintelligence investigation that’s a fairly short period of time.”
For now, the investigation continues. Asked during the hearing if it’s still early for the inquiry, Comey said he doesn’t know “how much longer it will take,” but that “this investigation began in late July, so for a counterintelligence investigation that’s a fairly short period of time.”
the rich asshole's False tweet that NSA, FBI said 'Russia did not influence electoral process'
By Lauren Carroll on Monday, March 20th, 2017 at
5:18 p.m.
Comey
confirms FBI probe into Russia hacking in 2016 elections
FBI Director James Comey confirmed on March 20 the agency
was investigating possible Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016
election. (Justin Mitchell/Reuters)
FBI Director James Comey
and NSA Director Mike Rogers stand by the conclusion that Russia sought to
influence the 2016 election in President some rich asshole’s favor, they both
said at a March 20 congressional hearing.
But that’s not what the
rich asshole heard.
"The NSA and FBI tell
Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process," the rich asshole tweeted from the official White
House account, @POTUS.
The NSA and FBI tell
Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process.
·
His tweet included a
51-second video clip of the hearing, which lasted more than five hours. The
video clip shows Comey and Rogers confirming they have no evidence indicating
that Russia altered vote tallies on Election Day in swing states like
Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
But vote tallying is only
one aspect of the electoral process, and it’s not the only aspect of the
campaign that Comey and Rogers talked about.
Comey and Rogers said they
believe Russia meddled in the race leading up to Election Day, chiefly by
cyber-infiltrating the Democratic National Committee and other political
organizations. Contrary to the rich asshole’s tweet, they also said the
intelligence community did not assess whether Russia’s actions actually had a
measurable impact on the election outcome or public opinion.
Because the rich asshole
sent out his tweet before the hearing ended, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., was able
to ask Comey and Rogers about it.
"We’ve offered no
opinion, have no view, have no information on potential impact because it’s
never something that we’ve looked at," Comey said.
But there’s no question
from their testimony that Rogers and Comey believe that Russia wanted to
influence the election:
• Comey officially
confirmed the FBI is still investigating Russia’s involvement in the election,
saying, "I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm
that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the
Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and
that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals
associated with the the rich asshole campaign and the Russian government and
whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's
efforts."
• Comey and Rogers
both said "yes" when Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, asked: "Both
your agencies agree with the assessment that the Russians' goal was to
undermine the public faith in U.S. democratic process. Is that still your
assessments?"
• Comey and Rogers
both said "yes" when Conaway asked them if they still agreed with the
intelligence community’s January conclusion that Russian President Vladimir
Putin wanted to harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and,
by extension, help the rich asshole.
"I don't know for sure
(when we made that judgment), but I think that was a fairly easy judgment for
the community," Comey said. "Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much,
that the flipside of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person
running against the person he hated so much."
• Comey said Russia’s
interference stood out because it was so "noisy," possibly in an
attempt to cause panic among the American public. "They were unusually
loud in their intervention," he said. "It’s almost as if they didn’t
care that we knew what they were doing or that they wanted us to see what they
were doing."
We reached out to the White
House for comment but didn't hear back.
Our ruling
the rich asshole said,
"The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral
process."
Rogers and Comey never said
this — not in the video clip the rich asshole shared, nor at any point in the
five-hour hearing.
Rather, they said they
believe Russia interfered in the presidential election, in an attempt to help
the rich asshole and undermine the democratic process. They said they don’t
know one way or the other if that interference actually did affect public
opinion or the outcome of the election.
We rate the rich asshole’s
claim False.
the rich asshole Stands By Wiretapping Lie Despite EVERY Investigation Confirming It’s Bullsh*t
By April Hamlin on March 20, 2017 7:04
pm ·
According to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, some
rich asshole is standing by his claim that former
President Obama tapped the phones at the rich asshole Tower — even though everyone has
confirmed it’s bullsh*t.
During Monday’s press briefing, which took place while FBI
Director James Comey’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee
was on a break, Spicer was asked about the fact that the rich asshole’s
wiretapping claims had been shot down by the FBI, the Justice Department, and
everybody else except for a few random conspiracy theorists.
“He said that there is no information to support the allegations
that the President made against President Obama,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl said,
referring to Comey, before Spicer abruptly cut him off mid question.
“At this time,” Spicer said.
“So is the President prepared to withdraw that accusation and
apologize to the President?” Karl asked.
“No,” Spicer replied. “We started a hearing. It’s still ongoing.
And then, as Chairman Nunes mentioned, this is one of a series of hearings that
will be happening.”
While testifying on Monday, Comey said that
the Department of Justice has “no information” whatsoever to support the
rich asshole’s ridiculous assertion that Obama, or anybody else for that
matter, “wiretapped” the rich asshole Tower. Comey said he would not
“characterize” the rich asshole’s tweets about the alleged wiretapping, and
said only that he has “no information” to support the accusation.
On Friday, the Justice Department sent documents related to the
rich asshole’ wiretapping claims to the committee. Reps. Devin Nunes
(R-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) have both said publicly that
there was nothing in those documents to back of the rich asshole’s accusation.
“We know there was not a wiretap on the rich asshole Tower,”
Nunes said.
But none of this is enough to get our narcissistic
tweeter-in-chief to admit that he is full of sh*t. Oh no, not the rich asshole.
He’ll never back down. He lives in his own reality and is totally incapable of
admitting that he is wrong. Ever. This is a terrifying trait to have in
the leader of the free world, that’s for sure.
Watch Spicer say the rich asshole still believes Obama tapped
his phones, here:
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