Monday, July 31, 2017


July 27th, 2017 - July 30th, 2017. 260-263 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election and 188-191 days since the Jan 20th inauguration


the rich asshole rebuked by Boy Scouts, cops, and military in single week of humiliation

In just one week, some rich asshole received embarrassing public rebukes from three major organizations — and he has no one but himself and his own offensive words and actions to blame for it.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

In the span of a single week, some rich asshole managed to push three major organizations — ones which, idealistically, ought to be in his corner — to issue stinging public rebukes to the president over his numerous offensive statements and actions.
The Boy Scouts of America, the Pentagon, and both individual police departments as well as the International Association of Chiefs of Police all took their turn lambasting the rich asshole in front of the nation.
Monday, at the 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree, the rich asshole gave a bizarre, inappropriate, and oddly political speech to the crowd of young people, in which he whined about “fake news,” boasted about his electoral college win while complaining about the unfairness of the system, and inspired boos against former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Parents threatened to pull their children out of the program in response to the rich asshole’s rant.
And the head of the Boy Scouts eventually had to apologize for the spectacle: “I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree,” Michael Surbaugh, chief executive scout for the Boy Scouts of America, said. “That was never our intent.”
Two days later, the rich asshole announced — on Twitter — that he was reversing an Obama era policy and banning transgender Americans from serving in the military, a move that reportedly blindsided the Pentagon and was met with alarm and swift opposition from the military and from many Republicans in Congress.
the rich asshole tweeted out the policy while his secretary of defense was on vacation, and the Pentagon responded by slow-rolling any possible implementation of a transgender ban.
“There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, wrote to top military officers on Thursday. “In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect.”
Proving that his penchant for harming people truly knows no bounds, the rich asshole later stood in front of hundreds of cops and openly encouraged police brutality.
The reaction to his racially-tinged language — including calling for roughing up “thugs” and encouragement to assault suspects as they are being placed into police custody — has been a mix of shock, outrage, and disgust.
Even though the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed some rich asshole in the 2016 campaign, police departments around the country rebuked the rich asshole’s words, including the very department to which the rich asshole was speaking:

The SCPD has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously.

Beyond individual police departments, the International Association of Chiefs of Police put out a statement noting that the rich asshole’s violent rhetoric has the potential to undermine “procedural justice and police legitimacy.”
Managing use of force is one of the most difficult challenges faced by law enforcement agencies. The ability of law enforcement officers to enforce the law, protect the public, and guard their own safety, the safety of innocent bystanders, and even those suspected or apprehended for criminal activity is very challenging. For these reasons, law enforcement agencies develop policies and procedures, as well as conduct extensive training, to ensure that any use of force is carefully applied and objectively reasonable considering the situation confronted by the officers.
Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect. This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and police legitimacy.
On top of the Senate rejecting the rich asshole’s primary goal of repealing Obamacare and being forced by Congress to cave on sanctions against Russia, the rich asshole skulks away to his month-long vacation in humiliated defeat on a number of fronts.
And as much as he would like to cast blame far and wide, there is only one person to blame: some rich asshole.


By Wendy Gittleson on July 30, 2017 12:54 pm ·

some rich asshole made became a household name in the 80s after pretending to write a book called “The Art of the Deal.” After that, his reputation was sealed as a great negotiator — or so his followers thought.

That illusion was shattered on Friday, though, after the Senate failed to pass its latest attempt at repealing Obamacare. Despite the rich asshole’s last minute appeal to John McCain, McCain became one of three Republicans who are credited with killing the bill.

It turns out that the real deal-maker in this scenario was our former Vice President. Joe Biden called his friend and former colleague before the vote. Former Senator Joe Lieberman did the same.
While we don’t know what the rich asshole said to McCain that apparently had no effect, one of the reasons it fell on deaf ears is the rich asshole’s blatant insincerity. On the campaign trial, the rich asshole disparaged McCain, saying he preferred people who weren’t captured — referring to the fact that McCain was captured by North Vietnamese and held and tortured in a POW camp for 5 1/5 years.
Before the vote, and after McCain had voted to let the vote go forward, the rich asshole tweeted that McCain was a hero.
Biden’s call may or may not have been the deciding factor in McCain’s vote, but you can be sure it was more meaningful than the rich asshole’s. Biden, unlike the rich asshole, can be kind and diplomatic, even when there are political disagreements. Biden is capable of emotional appeals, simply because he experiences empathy, something the rich asshole completely lacks. Biden also has first-hand experience with the kind of brain cancer for which McCain is currently undergoing treatment. He lost his son to it. You can be sure that Biden, in his heartfelt way, helped convince McCain that no one should be denied treatment for such a cruel disease.
The Post reported that Biden had a more emotional discussion with McCain, reflecting on his son Beau Biden’s death to the same brain cancer McCain was diagnosed with earlier this month. Biden’s son died in 2015, two years after his initial diagnosis.
Source: The Hill
Whatever or whoever convinced McCain to do the right thing, it’s clear that the rich asshole’s deal-making abilities don’t translate to D.C. That’s one small consolation for having a narcissistic madman at the helm of our country.







the rich asshole Erupts Into Bizarre Saturday Night Tweet Storm About ‘Fake News!’ Like A Total Wanker


Between the failure of the Senate’s health care bill and the departure of yet another member of his administration, it’s been a tough week for President the rich asshole. He doesn’t even have a trip to the golf course on the agenda to take his mind off of things.
the rich asshole may have originally kept his weekend free in order relax after a difficult week, but, based on his recent social media activity, he appears to be feeling pretty bored.
He took to Twitter on Saturday evening to complain once again about “fake news” and the ongoing investigation into his campaign’s Russia ties. He posted the following tweet arguing for what seems like the millionth time that there were no “geniuses” — i.e., Russians — behind his campaign’s success.

I love reading about all of the "geniuses" who were so instrumental in my election success. Problem is, most don't exist.  News! MAGA



Unfortunately for the rich asshole, at this point, his insistence that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia means very little. His followers were sure to let him know this when they commented on his latest tweet.



Featured Image via Win McNamee/Getty Images.






the rich asshole Gets Crazy & Tweets Deplorable Saturday Afternoon Attack On Obama; He’s Nuts!


The rich asshole Administration’s long touted plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, failed earlier this week, and the president is still quite irritated. He takes the Senate not passing any health plan to replace the ACA as a sort of personal affront, which just goes to show yet again how much the whole thing was about scoring political points for the rich asshole and not about actually getting people to have health coverage the whole time.
On Saturday afternoon, the rich asshole whined on Twitter about TrumpCare’s failure yet again, writing:
‘After seven years of “talking” Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!’


Note how he suggests that his administration’s health plan failing is the GOP’s fault and not the fault of his own administration. Yes, the GOP has been talking about repealing and replacing the ACA for some time, but they probably weren’t planning on having the administration of a Republican president who was utterly incompetent as their first opening to actually get it done.
Beyond this, there are at least a few problems with the president’s tweet.
The people of the United States are not “being forced” to live with ObamaCare. The Affordable Care Act is monumentally more popular than anything that the Republicans can ever hope to present to the public, and protests in support of the ACA have even rocked D.C. for weeks on end.
There’s another issue. Quite simply, much of the information that the rich asshole and his allies have cited as evidence for the ACA “imploding” is really the result of their own policies. The the rich asshole Administration has refused to promise to buoy the ACA insurance markets for however long it takes them to come up with a replacement, so insurance companies have been forced to pull out.
the rich asshole eventually added a second message about the ongoing national health policy debate on Saturday afternoon, zeroing in even further on Congressional Republicans.
He wrote:
‘If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!’


the rich asshole’s intimidation dependent “negotiating skills” stand no chance of actually creating a legitimate, acceptable — passable — health plan.
Additionally, again, the rich asshole’s insistence on ending what he calls “bailouts” for insurance companies is sure to force the ACA into even more of a “death spiral,” and it will be all the rich asshole’s doing.
Check out Twitter’s thoughts below.






What the rich asshole’s Crazy 48 Hours Means For The Rest Of 2017

The president saw a wave of troubling news on Thursday, leading up to the announced exit of chief of staff Reince Priebus Friday. Those close to the administration and Republicans in Congress are worried it could just be the start.
Posted on 












Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
President some rich asshole on a gloomy Friday afternoon finally announced that his chief of staff Reince Priebus would be leaving his administration, hours after the president saw Obamacare repeal fail in the Senate, Congress tie his hands on Russian sanctions, and his new communications director tell a reporter that Priebus is a “paranoid schizophrenic” and that his chief strategist is infatuated with himself to the point of attempted autofellation.
As he walked in the rain from Air Force One to his motorcade, the rich asshole elaborated on the shakeup: “Reince is a good man,” he said. The man who will replace him, current Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John Kelly, who has no legislative experience, “will do a fantastic job,” he said. “General Kelly has been a star, done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody. He's a great great American. Reince is a good man."
Priebus got off Air Force One, one last time as chief of staff, and left in a motorcade without answering any questions, joining more than a half a dozen top aides who have left the White House in its first six months.
More than just being dramatic in their own right, the last 48-hours illuminate the the rich asshole administration’s inability to focus and notch a signature legislative accomplishment, giving Republicans an idea of how dangerous the path ahead may be.
Priebus, an ally told BuzzFeed News, “was never fully empowered to do the job in the first place, but did the best he could under the circumstances and was incredibly loyal. If the President was dissatisfied, a lot of that is on him, not Reince.”
For months, the rich asshole loyalists have argued that if Priebus wasn’t pushing the legislative agenda through, what was the point of having him around? And hours before the rich asshole announced he was replacing Priebus, a former campaign staffer close to the administration said, "If the staff is not rallying around you to push the president’s agenda, the writing is on the wall." The source pointed to a Politico story, which reported White House staff “no longer feel like they have to attend” daily meetings in the chief of staff’s office.
the rich asshole allies expressed deep frustration Friday after the failure of the health care vote, saying that the first six months of the rich asshole’s presidency have gone to waste. They joined in on the swirling criticism of Priebus before he was officially removed from his post, saying they resent his decision to begin the White House’s legislative agenda with health care instead of an infrastructure package, and they said his move to export the "real work" on the legislation to Congress had been a mistake.
Thursday was a particularly deep low for the White House. The day was replete with high drama and low blows, beginning with the president's hand-picked new communications director Anthony Scaramucci casually floating that perhaps Priebus might be behind leaks undermining the administration and that the rich asshole will have to decide if he will be fired. Soon after, BuzzFeed News reported that Priebus' days were numbered, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the president's weeklong insult campaign against him was "kind of hurtful,” and the Senate passed new Russian sanctions by a 98-2 margin, which Scaramucci suggested the president could veto.
That all happened before The New Yorker published its interview with Scaramucci, where he said Priebus would soon resign and that he wanted to kill White House leakers. The biggest blow came after midnight: when Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain joined Democrats in sinking Senate Republicans’ whirlwind plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
"I think this presidency is effectively over," Rick Tyler, a former top aide to Ted Cruz and Newt Gingrich, told "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski Friday morning.
Another source close to the administration said it’s hard to judge if Thursday was the worstday in the administration’s short existence — only because there are so many to pick from.
"I feel like they've had a lot of bad days that are self-inflicted wounds and they just seem to be piling. What we're seeing is a pattern of unproductivity coming from the White House and more drama that dominates the headlines."
"Yesterday showed exactly where the White House is, which is focusing on drama and insider gamesmanship instead of putting a whole-hearted, full-throated campaign to help Senate Republicans pass health care," the source said.
Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican who has been at odds with the president, said Friday morning that he wasn't surprised by the collapse of Republicans' health care efforts, in part because the rich asshole "outsourced" the issue to Congress and "it was never really sold."
"The president never really laid out the core principle," he said.
Thursday's events were also an example of the dysfunction among Republicans more widely, and some House members, said Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, took it as evidence that they would have to pick up the slack from the Senate and the White House.
"Probably the most notable comment, I won't mention which person made it [in a House GOP meeting], is that it appears that the House of Representatives is going to have to take a leadership role in how the United States government functions, inasmuch as we seem to be doing the job that the other parts of the federal government have failed to do," he said.
Given the lack of legislative accomplishments, North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker said Republicans have not "delivered" and will have "very little to go home and talk about."
"I'm not gonna pretend it's pie in the sky and that we've done our work or done our job," he said.
But GOP lawmakers and the rich asshole allies alike kept returning to White House chaos and the way it sidetracks efforts to stick to the president's faltering agenda.
A White House adviser who checked in with administration officials in the wake of the health care rubble said the conversation ended up devoid of policy discussion.
"We only talked Scaramucci, but that’s part of the problem. We should be talking tactically about where we go from here," the adviser said. "For the first time since he won, I'm worried if he doesn’t get rid of Mooch, if we go down this road of openly fighting, and in a crass way, that we risk looking like a circus, particularly after a big loss last night in the Senate."
Indiana GOP Rep. Jim Banks said that “while the president's platform is there, often the distractions of the day have prevented him from being the leader we expect him to be.”
"I don't believe that the White House has done enough to bring that thoughtful approach to the table," he said. "I'm critical of the frenzied environment of the White House, the lack of focus on what matters most, which is repealing Obamacare, reforming our tax code, rebuilding our military, supporting our veterans."
Brad Todd, a GOP strategist who helped Republicans win the Senate majority in 2014, said he doesn't think Thursday’s events mark the end of the Republican's health care efforts, but it will take more effort from the president in the future to get Republican priorities through Congress. "Major votes are a lot more successful when the White House has a single-minded focus on it. It's hard to argue that they've had a single-minded focus on it."
It was noteworthy and damning that on the same day a major vote failed in such a public and high stakes way, CNN cast the legislation for tougher sanctions against Russia, which the White House has not yet committed to sign, as "one of the first major bipartisan pieces of legislation passed during the rich asshole's presidency."
Hope is dim, but still there among some true believers. When asked about Thursday's events, a source close the administration first just responded: "Holy cow!"
The source, who had been in contact with White House aides, said the staff is "frustrated and just wants some sort of resolution."
"It just sucks that we're still here when this should have been done two months ago," the source said of Obamacare repeal, before warning that the rich asshole should still not be underestimated. "Look, I'm not banking against the president. People who banked against him in the past aren't around anymore."
The former campaign staffer said the rich asshole needs to do something big and bold "to move this economy into fifth gear and tax reform is that big and bold thing," but the enormity of that complex issue, too, provokes fear among people looking towards the promise and peril the fall could bring.
"This is not the way we’re going to sell tax cuts," the White House adviser said of the latest drama, before offering a particularly dark view of the administration's prospects. "If we don’t cut taxes, we might as well pack it in, we’re done. We'll lose the House and Democrats will impeach the rich asshole."






BREAKING: some rich asshole Goes Berserk And Publicly Fires Reince Priebus (DETAILS)

Just a short while after giving a speech lauding the performance of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, some rich asshole has named him, via Twitter, to the position of White House Chief of Staff.
the rich asshole wrote:
‘I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration.’

I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American....


...and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration

It’s not immediately clear that the former Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, knew he was out of the job before these tweets. The sudden announcement comes after days of intense infighting in the administration between Priebus and new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, with the new Communications Director accusing Priebus of leaking to the press.
The president added a message in support of Priebus following his initial announcement of his firing, writing:
‘I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!’

I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!

Twitter obviously had a lot to say about this abrupt announcement that a chief White House official will no longer have a job, and you can check that out below.

Like this:


the rich asshole's Dream of Russian Detente Dies as Putin Expels Diplomats

By 
Bill Faries
Ilya Arkhipov
, and 
Margaret Talev
July 28, 2017, 7:00 PM EDT
·        







Putin moved Friday to expel ‘hundreds’ of U.S. personnel
·         ‘More intense and damaging conflict lies ahead,’ analyst says

some rich asshole shakes hands with Vladimir Putin at the opening of the G20 summit in Hamburg on July 7, 2017.
 Source: BPA via Getty Images
some rich asshole’s first meeting with Vladimir Putin this month seemed to give the U.S. president everything he wanted. The two appeared to get along. There was a modest cease-fire deal on Syria. Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. election was raised, but both leaders were eager to move on.
Three weeks later, relations between the U.S. and Russia are at their lowest since the Cold War, with no clear path out.
Putin’s decision Friday to expel “hundreds” of personnel from the U.S. embassy and consulates in Russia signaled Moscow’s frustration at the rich asshole’s inability to deliver on promises to improve ties six months into his administration, a failure underscored by congressional passage Thursday of new and tougher sanctions legislation that’s headed to the president’s desk.
Despite the president’s efforts, a federal probe into the election interference is only accelerating and the Republican-led Congress, wary of both Putin and where that investigation may lead, crafted provisions in the new legislation that would restrict the president’s ability to lift sanctions.
Moscow’s latest move “suggests a period of much more intense and damaging conflict lies ahead,” said Matthew Rojansky, a Russia expert and director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “This is a dangerous moment.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the U.S. had until Sept. 1 to bring the number of diplomatic and technical personnel in Russia to 455, the same number it said Russia has in the U.S.

‘Out-Of-Control Russophobes’

Soon after the expulsion was announced, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cited the influence of “out-of-control Russophobes who are now setting the tone on Capitol Hill.”
“The anti-Russian juggernaut put into motion by the Obama administration not only hasn’t stopped, as the rich asshole promised during his election campaign, but it’s gaining speed,” Leonid Slutsky, head of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on Russian state television.
The U.S. reaction was more muted. The embassy in Moscow denounced the move but didn’t comment further. The State Department declined to comment, though an official who asked not to be identified said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, spoke Friday morning, without divulging details of the conversation.
The Russian move was one of several setbacks for the rich asshole in a week in which the Senate failed to pass legislation repealing former President Barack Obama’s health-care plan, North Korea launched another intercontinental ballistic missile and the Pentagon appeared to push back on the president’s tweeted plan to bar transgender service members.

Russia’s Role

The erosion in ties also may make it more difficult for the rich asshole to achieve foreign policy breakthroughs on key issues, including rallying international support against North Korea, pressuring Iran over its ballistic missile program and expanding cease-fire zones in Syria. Russia has a role to play in all three areas, leaving the U.S. with fewer options if the two nations are unable to reach an accord.
“This is a serious problem for U.S. national security interests linked to the wide range of issues on which Russians and Americans have to find ways to work together,” Rojansky said via email.
While Putin had faced pressure to move against the U.S. ever since the Obama administration expelled 35 Russian diplomats and seized two of the country’s compounds in late December in retaliation for the election meddling, the Russian president had held off. the rich asshole’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, allegedly discussed the possibility of easing sanctions before the new administration even took office and was ousted for failing to disclose that to Vice President Mike Pence.
the rich asshole continued to extol the benefits of working with Russia even as the federal probe into Russian interference -- and into whether anyone close to the rich asshole colluded in it -- ground on.
With the inquiry, now led by special counsel Robert Mueller, touching key the rich asshole aides including son-in-law Jared Kushner, the president has railed against the probe as “fake news” and a “phony Russian Witch Hunt.” At the same time, he’s said “President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling.”

Limiting Leeway

Even though the U.S. Constitution and tradition give the president leeway on international affairs, Congress increasingly has sought to limit the rich asshole’s ability to make unilateral decisions over Russia policy.
Late Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted 98-2 for final passage of a House-approved bill that would strengthen existing sanctions on Russia and give Congress the power to block the rich asshole from lifting them. While the White House has given mixed messages about whether the rich asshole will sign the legislation, the overwhelming support for it means lawmakers could override a presidential veto.
The congressional support for the sanctions measure, a rare show of bipartisanship in the fractured politics of Washington, showed how few Republicans are willing to defend the rich asshole’s vision of better ties with Moscow in light of the election-year hacking, Russian aggression in Ukraine and the country’s ties to Iran.
“The message coming from Congress on a bipartisan basis is: These are hostile regimes and sanctions are warranted,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday, referring to the legislation targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea. “We want to make sure they’re tough sanctions, we want to make sure they’re durable sanctions.”
— With assistance by Henry Meyer, and Anna Edgerton



the rich asshole Replaces Priebus as Chief of Staff With DHS Chief Kelly

By 
Toluse Olorunnipa
 and 
Margaret Talev
 
·        







Priebus ouster follows clash with new top aide Scaramucci
·         The two men had traveled with the rich asshole for speech in Long Island

President some rich asshole replaced his chief of staff on Friday, announcing on Twitter that he had appointed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to the job.
The ouster of Reince Priebus, who said he delivered his resignation on Thursday, caps a week of intensified infighting at the White House in which he was embroiled in a public feud with the rich asshole’s new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. It also comes as the administration suffered two stinging defeats in Congress.
“I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F. Kelly as White House Chief of Staff,” the rich asshole said on Twitter while aboard Air Force One. “He is a Great American and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration.”
Priebus and Scaramucci both traveled with the rich asshole on Friday to Long Island, where the president spoke about crime. The former chief of staff declined to talk to reporters traveling with the president after returning. He and two other senior the rich asshole aides, Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino, got into a van in the rich asshole’s motorcade at Joint Base Andrews shortly before the rich asshole’s tweet, and then Miller and Scavino got out and entered a different vehicle.
“Reince is a good man,” the rich asshole told reporters as he left the aircraft after arriving back in the Washington area. “Secretary Kelly is a star, and he’ll do a good job.”
Priebus, 45, leaves the administration after less than seven months as the rich asshole’s top White House aide, and his departure is the latest in an administration beset by turmoil and turnover. the rich asshole’s first national security, Michael Flynn, was forced out for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian officials. The first White House communications director, Mike Dubke, resigned after less than three months on the job. Priebus ally Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary last week after the hiring of Scaramucci.
“It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to serve this President and our country,” Priebus said in a statement. “I will continue to serve as a strong supporter of the President’s agenda and policies. ”
Priebus and Spicer came from the Republican establishment and were always outsiders, to a degree, in a White House the rich asshole won on his credentials as a political maverick. Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, struggled to navigate an administration riven with conflict, where top aides must compete with the president’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner for influence. People close to the rich asshole had largely blamed the chief of staff for the White House’s troubles in Congress, where the president has yet to secure a major legislative victory.

Simmering Feud

His long-simmering feud with Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital who took on the communications job only last week, became an ugly public spectacle this week. Scaramucci suggested on Twitter and during a live CNN interview that Priebus was behind some of the leaks that had infuriated the rich asshole. On Thursday night, the New Yorker magazine published an account of a telephone call Scaramucci placed to writer Ryan Lizza in which the White House communications chief used vulgarities while attacking Priebus as a “paranoid schizophrenic,” and said “he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”
But Priebus said on CNN Friday in an interview from the White House that the changeover to Kelly had been in the works for weeks.
“This isn’t a situation where there’s a bunch of ill-will feelings,” he said. “It was something that I’ve always talked to the president about. Any time either one of us think that we need to make a change or move in a different direction, let’s just talk about it and get it done."
They talked yesterday, Priebus said: “I resigned and he accepted my resignation"
Kelly, 67, a retired Marine Corps general, will take over as chief of staff on Monday, beginning with a cabinet meeting. In past administrations, the job has been one of the most powerful in Washington, serving as the gatekeeper for the president and handling many of the routine decisions that come to the White House. the rich asshole, though, has held a tight grip on decision-making and strategy, including who among his aides gets direct access to him.
Deputy DHS Secretary Elaine Duke will become the acting leader of the department, its press secretary Dave Lapan said in a statement.
“I am honored to be asked to serve as the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States,” Kelly said in a statement issued by DHS. “To the tremendous men and women of DHS, I thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Secretary. When I left the Marines, I never thought I would find as committed, as professional, as patriotic a group of individuals. I was wrong. You accomplish great things every day defending our nation and I know your exceptional work will continue.”

Kelly’s Allies

Kelly’s allies in the West Wing include White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon. Throughout Kelly’s brief tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, Bannon has privately praised the former general’s effectiveness in an administration that often hasn’t functioned smoothly. 
Kelly’s law-and-order approach and the hard line he’s taken on immigration enforcement -- a presidential priority -- have particularly endeared him to Bannon. Kelly also has won favor with the rich asshole for his promise to carry out the president’s highest-profile campaign promise, the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Illegal crossings of undocumented immigrants on the southern border were down 19 percent in June compared to the same period a year ago, according to data provided in June by DHS. In the first 100 days after the rich asshole signed an executive order early in his presidency that sought to strengthen immigration enforcement, arrests of undocumented immigrants increased 38 percent compared to the same period in 2016, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Priebus’s departure shakes up the balance of power around the rich asshole, whose inner circle includes Bannon; National Economic Director Gary Cohn; Kushner, the rich asshole’s senior adviser and son-in-law, and Ivanka, who is also a White House official; and now Scaramucci.
But Priebus had also been a steady hand inside a West Wing that often found itself off-balance. For example, as a spat between Bannon and Kushner spilled out into the open in April, Priebus worked to arrange a détente at the rich asshole’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a senior White House official familiar with the internal strife.

Ryan’s Support

“Reince Priebus has left it all out on the field, for our party and our country,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement Friday. “He has served the president and the American people capably and passionately.”
Ryan, who shares Wisconsin roots with Priebus, added, “I could not be more proud to call Reince a dear friend.”
The chief of staff fell out of favor as the rich asshole watched policy losses pile up despite Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress. The president’s attempt to prevent immigration or travel from six predominantly Muslim nations was blocked by courts after a botched rollout. The House health-care bill, once expected to pass easily -- perhaps even on Inauguration Day -- took far longer to negotiate and is broadly unpopular with voters.
A compromise spending bill keeping the government open until October was celebrated as a win by Democrats, who secured continued funding for the women’s health provider Planned Parenthood while minimizing extra spending for the rich asshole’s defense buildup and Mexican border wall.
No major legislation has yet landed on the rich asshole’s desk for his signature, and he’s suffered a string of stinging losses.
In just the past week: the House and Senate rebuked the president by overwhelmingly passing legislation to ramp up sanctions on Russia and to prevent the president from easing them unilaterally; the Senate failed to repeal Obamacare, a central piece of the Republican platform for the past seven years; the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military won’t act on the rich asshole’s tweet about banning transgender people in the military; several members of Congress warned him against trying to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions; and the Boy Scouts issued an apology for a nakedly political speech the rich asshole delivered at their National Jamboree.







‘Reince — you should, uh, check your Twitter’: The internet reacts after chief of staff ‘thrown under Priebus’


28 JUL 2017 AT 17:11 ET                   

President some rich asshole announced the hiring of a new White House chief of staff — and social media users were somehow still shocked by the seemingly inevitable ouster of Reince Priebus.
Priebus resigned after six months and one week on the job, but he’s been rumored to be on the outs almost from the moment he was chosen over Steve Bannon.
Incoming communications director Anthony Scaramucci quickly gathered a lot of power in the first week since he was hired, and he began undertaking many of the duties typically overseen by the chief of staff and reported directly to the president.
He singled out Priebus by name and accused him of possibly illegal leaks to the media, and the chief of staff finally followed his White House ally Sean Spicer out the door.
Twitter users reacted in hilarious shock to the nearly foregone conclusion.





Lol Priebus got fired before we could finish our “Priebus just got fired” prewrite.




Upside for Spicer and Preibus is that the earlier the exit, the better the book/TV deal $ and more distance to memory hole what they did.




I hope Trump got rid of Priebus using his classic catchphrase, "I'm sorry but we're going to have to let you go"




amazing to think that some day all of these people will be running the Knicks


do NOT let Trump distract you from the real story, Anthony Scaramucci's wife leaving him




AND NOW THERE'S A DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY VACANCY IN THE MIDST OF ALL THE MUSLIM BAN/BORDER WALL BS




Trump fired Reince Priebus? At least now Sean Spicer has a dance partner on Dancing with the Stars.


A source close to now former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says he resigned privately yesterday











White House Cheif of Staff/Reince Priebus
2 of these things are not like the others
2 of these things don't belong
AND
1 is a beached bully


I will now refer to all of my ex-wives as the Reince Priebus of this administration.


Pretty sure this gives Reince Priebus the shortest tenure as WH Chief of Staff. This White House bucks every trend from the last 50 yrs.


Ryan-Priebus ally to me: next phase of Trump presidency will be warfare against GOP Congress








Can't help thinking that Reince  will be having some Baileys with his Lucky Charms tonight.  

THE INTERNET RUBS FAILURE TO REPEAL OBAMACARE IN THE RICH ASSHOLE’S FACE AS HE RAGE-TWEETS


Posted by Conover Kennard on 28 Jul 2017



At first, it seemed as if only two Republican women had balls in the GOP, but then last night in an amazing and dramatic turn of events, Sen. John McCain got his Maverick back and voted no on the Obamacare repeal plan. As you might have guessed, amateur president some rich asshole had an epic meltdown at his political podium, Twitter. Late last night, the rich asshole was cheering for Republicans to take away health care from tens of thousands of Americans. “Go Republican Senators, Go! Get there after waiting for 7 years. Give America great healthcare!” he tweeted.
But then, Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, and Susan Collins stopped this travesty which was unfolding before our eyes.
Four hours after his first tweet, the rich asshole wrote, “3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!”
the rich asshole doesn’t want to fix Obamacare, he just wants his predecessor’s name erased from history, but even if he succeeded in helping to pass the GOP ‘health care’ measure last night, Barack Obama will still be remembered as America’s 12th greatest President.
Early this morning, the rich asshole’s screamy-ragey tweets began.”If Republicans are going to pass great future legislation in the Senate, they must immediately go to a 51 vote majority, not senseless 60…” he tweeted.

If Republicans are going to pass great future legislation in the Senate, they must immediately go to a 51 vote majority, not senseless 60...

“…Even though parts of healthcare could pass at 51, some really good things need 60. So many great future bills & budgets need 60 votes….” he continued.

...Even though parts of healthcare could pass at 51, some really good things need 60. So many great future bills & budgets need 60 votes....

Mitch McConnell and the rich asshole did not get 51 votes last night so the amateur president’s math-challenged tweet makes no sense.
Twitter users called him out.

We're SO tired of this BS!

If you can't govern effectively without changing the rules of the game, then it means YOU'RE LOSING!




no matter how hard you stomp your feet and point fingers...it is YOU that is responsible for this massive failure.









Obama’s legacy remains intact. It’s up to Republicans to join Democrats in order to fix what needs to be fixed and move forward. Or, they could just spend another 7 years trying to take away health care from hard working Americans and let their legacy be ridiculed in the history books in the years to come.

The Slatest
YOUR NEWS COMPANION
JULY 28 2017 11:30 AM

Putin Has Run Out of Patience With the rich asshole




FINALNDRUSSIAPOLITICSDIPLOMACY
Vladimir Putin in Savonlinna, Finland, on Thursday.
AFP/Getty Images
In retaliation for new U.S. sanctions, Russia announced Friday that it is reducing the number of U.S. diplomats in the country and shutting down the U.S. Embassy’s recreational retreat outside Moscow. It will now cap the number of U.S. diplomats allowed in the country at 455, though it’s not immediately clear how many are currently there.
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Joshua KeatingJOSHUA KEATING
Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs. 

This is a direct response to measures taken by the Obama administration in December to punish Russia for its meddling in the 2016 presidential election. That decision expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two recreational compounds—one on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and one on Long Island, New York—that were allegedly used for espionage activities.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to take any retaliatory measures, saying he would pursue better ties with the incoming the rich asshole administration. the rich asshole, naturally, immediately praised that decision, tweeting on Dec. 29, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!” (We now know that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak had discussed the sanctions the day they were announced.)
Six months into the the rich asshole administration, not only has there been no movement toward lifting those sanctions—despite many indications that administration officials would like to—but Congress just made doing so a lot harder. Congress has overwhelmingly passed a bill—419–3 in the House, 98–2 in the Senate—that codifies as law Obama’s executive orders sanctioning Russia and constrains the rich asshole’s ability to lift sanctions without congressional approval. Evidently, about the only thing that has wide bipartisan support on Capitol Hill right now is the notion that the rich asshole can’t be trusted to cut deals with the Russians. The White House has indicated it will support the bill, though as always, it’s hard to predict what the rich asshole will actually do when it lands on his desk.
Russia, however, seems to have run out of patience with the rich asshole. The (mostly accurate) line in Moscow now seems to be that because of the Russia investigation and U.S. domestic politics, the rich asshole is powerless to deal with Russia the way he’d like to. "What we are seeing [in the U.S.] is merely anti-Russia hysteria," Putin told CNN this week in Finland, adding, "It is a great pity that Russian-American relations are being sacrificed to this domestic, internal American issue." Another Russian official told NBC’s Richard Engel that they view the rich asshole as "a prisoner in the White House."
Whatever role the Russian government played in helping the rich asshole’s campaign, this certainly wasn’t what it had in mind.

Cops erupt in cheers as the rich asshole urges officers to use more violence with suspects — by slamming their heads


28 JUL 2017 AT 15:07 ET                   

President some rich asshole delivered a speech Friday in Long Island to law enforcement officials to discuss efforts to combat gang violence.
The president encouraged law enforcement officers to be rougher with criminal suspects — and feel free to slam suspects’ head into their vehicles.
“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don’t be too nice,” the rich asshole remarked at Suffolk County Community College.
“Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”
The crowd of officers erupted in cheers.
During the speech, the rich asshole also boasted about appointing “rich” people to his Cabinet.
“They’ll say that’s not politically correct, you’re not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of work. We have to get — just like they don’t want to have rich people at the head of Treasury.”
“Like, I want a rich guy at the head of Treasury. I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce because we’ve been screwed so badly on trade deals,” he explained. “I want people who made a lot of money for our country.”

Anthony Scaramucci Just Said Some Weird Stuff About Steve Bannon’s ‘C*ck’

On Wednesday, new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci called the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza to complain about a tweet he sent out noting that Melania the rich asshole attended a dinner with Scaramucci, the rich asshole, Sean Hannity, and Fox News executive Bill Shine:

Scoop: Trump is dining tonight w/Sean Hannnity, Bill Shine (former Fox News executive), & Anthony Scaramucci, per to 2 knowledgeable sources
Senior White House official tells me that Melania was also at the dinner tonight with Trump, Hannity, Shine, and Scaramucci.

“Who leaked that to you?” Scaramucci demanded, threatening to “eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over.”
“I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he complained. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”
“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”
Lizza refused to reveal his source repeatedly, but Scaramucci seems to be a teensy bit paranoid.
“Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said, channeling his view of Priebus: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’”
Then things got nuts, if they weren’t before. He started talking about Steve Bannon’s penis:
Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn’t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was “a felony.”
“I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,” he told me.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“The swamp will not defeat him,” he said, breaking into the third person. “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.”
Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of the rich asshole’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
Minutes later, The Mooch tweeted his infamous now-deleted “leak” tweet accusing Priebus of a felony.
the rich asshole hires the “best people,” right? Right?

the rich asshole-Touted Wisconsin Deal Forces Taxpayers To Shell Out $3 Billion

some rich asshole is so desperate to take credit for job creation that he ignored the fact that the deal he bragged about takes money away from every person in Wisconsin.
On Wednesday, the rich asshole made a big deal about a Chinese company known as Foxconn building a factory in Wisconsin that could create up to 3,000 jobs.











Thank you Foxconn, for investing $10 BILLION DOLLARS with the potential for up to 13K new jobs in Wisconsin! MadeInTheUSA🇺🇸

In addition, the rich asshole claimed that the deal would not have happened had he not been elected, and went on to suck up to Foxconn chairman Terry Gou.
“His great company has seen our — you know, you see exactly what I’m saying — our administration’s work to remove job-killing regulations — he’s been watching — to institute Buy American and Hire American, and all of those policies, and to pursue the steps necessary to revitalize American industry, including repealing and replacing Obamacare — we better get that done, fellas, please.”
It should be pointed out that Foxconn was already planning to build a factory in the United States long before the rich asshole ever considered running for president.
But if the rich asshole really wants to take credit, that means he is also taking credit for Republicans screwing over the people of Wisconsin to get the factory to come to their state.
You see, in exchange for Foxconn choosing Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers and Governor Scott Walker approved a $3 billion subsidy for the company. According to Bloomberg, that amounts to taking $519 from every man, woman, and child in Wisconsin to fund what the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel points out “would total more than the combined yearly state funding used to operate the University of Wisconsin System and the state’s prison system.”
And let’s remember that we are talking about a private company that is already worth billions. Foxconn does not need billions of dollars of government subsidies to expand. They have the money to do it themselves. This amounts to nothing more than Foxconn holding the people of Wisconsin hostage and Republicans letting them and complying with their demands.
And that is especially disastrous for Wisconsin since Foxconn is known for promising investments and not delivering.
As Bloomberg reported,
Three years ago, Gou signed a deal with the government of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital and its biggest city, to invest $1 billion and employ local workers to make electronics. That never happened. Neither did a $30 million high-tech factory in Pennyslvania that was announced a year earlier. Just this past year, Foxconn is reported to have pledged investments of $5 billion in India; $3.65 billion in Kunshan, China; and $8.8 billion in Guangzhou. It’s too early to know if those sums will ever be spent, but including Wisconsin, the tally now stands at $27.5 billion of commitments. That’s more than Hon Hai [Foxconn’s flagship company] has spent in the last 23 years.
So while the rich asshole is busy touting the deal to make himself look good, he is doing so at the expense of Wisconsin taxpayers, many of whom now have to worry about how they will get by after paying Foxconn’s ransom.

the rich asshole wants Sessions to quit. Sessions says he won't.

“If he wants to make a change, he can certainly do so.”

Updated by 
Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III got his feelings hurt.
In his first public interview since President some rich asshole decided to make his less-than-charitable feelings toward Sessions a matter of public record, Sessions told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Thursday night that the way the rich asshole has treated him lately has been “kind of hurtful.”
the rich asshole has been furious at Sessions for months because Sessions recused himself from any involvement in the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russia. And in recent days, that criticism has spilled into public view as the president has mocked and criticized Sessions in an apparent effort to force him to quit.
Yet Sessions says he still believes he made the right choice by recusing himself from the Russia probe.
“I’m confident I made the right decision,” Sessions told Carlson. “The decision is consistent with the rule of law. And an Attorney General who doesn’t follow the law is not very effective in leading the Department of Justice.”
“I serve at the pleasure of the president. If he wants to make a change, he can certainly do so,” Sessions added. Perhaps to avoid that outcome, he made sure to remind the rich asshole — who was almost certainly watching the interview on one of the TVs he had installed in the White House to feed his cable-news addiction — of their shared beliefs on cracking down on immigration, transnational gangs, and prosecuting leakers.

“He wants all of us to do our jobs and that’s what I intend to do”

He also made sure to flatter the president. "The president of the United States is a strong leader," Sessions told Carlson. "He has had a lot of criticisms and he’s steadfastly determined to get his job done, and he wants all of us to do our jobs and that’s what I intend to do."
In sum, the five-minute-long interview revealed a man clearly struggling with how the president is treating him in public, but still committed to serving the administration’s agenda until he’s relieved from duty.
Rumors are swirling that the rich asshole might fire Sessions if he doesn’t quit. But a number of Republicans in Congress have spoken out in defense of their former colleague — with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) going so far as warning the rich asshole that “if Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”
It’s unclear what Sessions can do at this point to get back in the president’s good graces. Meeting with the president face to face might be a good start, but Sessions says there are no plans to make that happen anytime soon.
“I don’t think it’s on the calendar yet,” he told Carlson.







NY Post Trolls The Hell Out Of the rich asshole With This Brilliant Friday Cover Photo (IMAGE)


The the rich asshole administration is out of control. some rich asshole is a loose canon with no regard for protocol and decorum, and his staff is a team of mindless imbeciles more concerned with making names for themselves than displaying any degree of integrity and/or ethics, as evidenced by their willingness to scramble to cover for the rich asshole, as opposed to simply holding him accountable.
Because of the way they’ve conducted themselves, various depictions of the the rich asshole administration have been the source of great fodder, but just a little over six months into their time in office, their antics are no longer a laughing matter. People are scared and the future of America and its status as a somewhat respected world leader, is uncertain.
Unfortunately, the rich asshole and his staff don’t understand/won’t accept that they’re a laughingstock, so instead they choose to play the roles of victims. They’re far from victims, though, and the manner in which they’re conducting themselves has reached such a disgraceful level that their portrayal in satirical shows aside, they’re now being likened to reality television show cast members.
In a beyond bittersweet trolling of the rich asshole, the New York Post tweeted what they plan to run as their cover on Friday. It’s the the rich asshole administration’s key members as characters on Survivorthe rich asshole in the center, Anthony Scaramucci doing a goofy puckered-lip expression, Jeff Sessions looking like a destitute tribe member, Jared Kushner lurking behind a plant — it’s just too much!
It’s too much, but it’s real. After a week of the rich asshole administration infighting and two-faced behavior, some people think they’re more than deserving of the cover. However, the fact that they would behave in such a way that they be depicted like this, shows that they simply don’t care.
The cover is below. What do you think, has the New York Post nailed it with this one?
Featured Image screengrab via YouTube.







Scaramucci Goes On Twitter Tantrum About Media – He’s Cracking Under Pressure


Under normal circumstances, after Anthony Scaramucci’s tirade interview with a New Yorkerreporter, one would expect apologies to the American people, to his “brother” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, the rich asshole’s self-c*ck sucking senior adviser Steve Bannon, and Scaramucci would have just lost the job he was promised, but has not even started yet.
The the rich asshole administration is far from normal circumstances, and the last thing Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucchi is going to do is apologize. Apologies are weak, right?
Rather, he’s playing the blame game and shifting the blame straight to the media. He’s taking a play out of the rich asshole’s books and blaming the reporter he called and tried to back into a corner for information.
In a tweet posted to Twitter shortly after news broke regarding the interview, Scaramucchi tweeted:
‘I made a mistake in trust in a reporter. It won’t happen again.’


He’s basically sorry he got caught and was dumb enough to not say the words “off the record.” The man who was going to fix all the leaks in the White House and whip the communications team back into shape basically created a larger chaotic scandal than Spicer could have ever pulled off. He leaked his own hatred for his colleagues in the the rich asshole administration, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon. If anything, he showed off just how naïve he really is in the world of political media if he really believed a reporter wouldn’t report what he said if he didn’t ask for it to be off the record.
Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer may have had his issues keeping the communications team from flooding from all the leaks, but at least he never trusted a reporter to keep a conversation to himself. He actually knew better. This was the perfect example to prove that Scaramucci is far more inept at the press game than Spicer ever was.
Several Twitter users noted the fact that the interview portrayed Scaramucchi as naïve in replies to his tweet.
‘Ah yes, you trusted a reporter to keep your opinions on what Bannon does with his c*ck more low key, but then you got burned. That old tune.’

Ah yes, you trusted a reporter to keep your opinions on what Bannon does with his cock more low key, but then you got burned. That old tune.

‘If you don’t want to be interviewed don’t call the @NewYorker.’


‘now now, he’s new at this. How was he to know calling a reporter would turn out this way?’


‘If he doesn’t know the consequences of talking to a reporter, then Scaramucci has no business being WH Comms Director. Sheesh!’

If he doesn't know the consequences of talking to a reporter, then Scaramucci has no business being WH Comms Director. Sheesh! ðŸ™„

‘You’re literally the worst person the rich asshole has hired yet. Super dopey. Wow you suck bigly.’


‘How many times can this guy claim that something he said on the record was “leaked?”‘


‘It’s cool how the communications director of the White House doesn’t understand how talking to a reporter works.’

It's cool how the communications director of the White House doesn't understand how talking to a reporter works.

‘Truly, it is a glorious, splendid thing. A man who has lit himself on fire within hours of taking his shiny new job. Marvelous.’

Truly, it is a glorious, splendid thing. A man who has lit himself on fire within hours of taking his shiny new job. Marvelous.

‘: why didn’t the rich asshole just give the job to @ScottBaio in the first place?’


‘After this sh*t show,I don’t ever want to be told I don’t have the qualifications for a job from HR again.’

After this shit show,I don't ever want to be told I don't have the qualifications for a job from HR again.

Featured image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.








EXPANDING THE LGBTQ CONVERSATION
JULY 27 2017 11:34 AM

the rich asshole’s Transgender Troops Ban Is Backfiring Among Congressional Republicans






Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham head for the Senate Floor for a vote at the U.S. Capitol.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
As members of Congress met on Wednesday to engage in delicate negotiations over health care and sanctions against Russia, the rich asshole dropped another political hot potato into their laps by abruptly tweeting his decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military.

the rich asshole’s sudden pronouncement thrusts to the forefront a largely overlooked debate among House Republicans over the funding of gender confirmation surgeries and hormone therapy for military personnel. Since June, Missouri Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler has been pushing to reverse an Obama-era policy mandating that the Pentagon pay for these medically prescribed procedures. In early July, she introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would forbid such funding, though a coalition of Democrats and 24 GOP lawmakers narrowly defeated her proposal in the House.
Hartzler’s justification was largely economic; she argued that surgeries are costly and leave troops unable to fulfill their duties for extended periods of recovery time. In reality, the cost of transgender troops’ medical care is negligible. Yet many GOP lawmakers bought into Hartzler’s logic. While stopping short of endorsing a total ban on transgender service members, they nevertheless agreed that taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used for gender-related operations. After the amendment failed, a group of House members approached the president with a plea to take action.
By imposing a full ban on transgender soldiers, however, the rich asshole went far beyond the cessation of medical funding that many in the House GOP members backed. His tweets left many Republican legislators to oppose the policy or clarify their stance. (Democrats uniformly opposed both the funding ban and the full ban.) For example, Kansas Republican representatives Kevin Yoder and Lynn Jenkins, both of whom voted for Hartzler’s amendment, released statements in support of allowing any able person to serve. Ken Buck, a GOP congressman from Colorado who also voted “aye” on the amendment, wrote in reaction to the rich asshole’s ban, “America needs a military comprised of patriots willing to sacrifice for this country. Any American who is physically and emotionally qualified should be allowed to serve.” Francis Rooney, Kevin Cramer, Mike Gallagher, and other House members who supported the amendment have all issued similar statements in support of allowing transgender troops to serve, or at least questioning the ban.
A number of GOP senators have also questioned or disapproved of the ban. A spokeswoman for Iowa Senator Joni Ernst was quick to make the defunding-vs.-ban distinction. She stated, “Americans who are qualified and can meet the standards to serve in the military should be afforded that opportunity,” but then added that taxpayers should not be footing the bill for operations. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said, “I don’t think we should be discriminating against anyone. Transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them.” Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey’s office released a statement reading, in part, “Senator Toomey believes that every person should be judged based on his or her merits. That is why, during his entire public career, he has supported measures to protect individuals from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
It’s rare for so many GOP lawmakers to speak out against the president. For some Republicans, the rich asshole’s announcement may provide an opportunity to portray themselves as moderates on the debate. With the rich asshole flanking them to the right with a total ban, their proposal to defund transgender surgeries may seem less discriminatory to voters. On the flipside, a member of congress who fails to back the ban may appear to be soft on social issues in the eyes of the rich asshole’s evangelical supporters.






When the Obama administration first allowed transgender troops to serve openly in the military in June 2016, there was little backlash from Republicans. Scuttling surgery funding was a pet issue for Hartzler and a handful of others in the House; maneuvers to get the provision included in the annual defense policy bill largely played out behind the scenes with little media coverage. For many GOP lawmakers, the rich asshole’s decree puts a startling and unwelcome spotlight on an obscure debate, adding another headache to an already contentious congressional session. Indeed, reports suggest that the rich asshole neglected to consult or even inform many in Congress of his decision. Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain seemed irked by the rich asshole’s cavalier move to abruptly announce the ban over Twitter. Graham told The Post and Courier, “we need to have a hearing, not a tweet,” while McCain said in a statement, “The President’s tweet this morning regarding transgender Americans in the military is yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter.”
While the administration may hope to use the ban as red meat for the rich asshole’s blue collar base during the midterms, the president’s shoot-from-the-hip approach to policy doesn’t appear to be doing much to win over allies in Congress.