some rich asshole Just Tweeted About His Election Win, While People Are Flooded And Dying In Texas
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some rich asshole targeted Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill in a tweet Sunday, predicting a Republican candidate will take her Senate seat in 2018. The tweet also highlighted his election win in the state.
McCaskill is seeking a third Senate term. But Missouri, which the rich asshole won by 19 points in November, is seen as a potential pick up for Republicans in 2018. Democrats lost Missouri’s 2016 Senate race, with incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt (R) holding off a challenge from the Democratic nominee, Jason Kander.
Of course, while the rich asshole is tweeting this gibberish, people are dying in catastrophic flooding in southeastern Texas.
Hurricane Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm overnight but continues to slam the coast of Texas with heavy rains and flash floods on Sunday.
Two deaths have been confirmed, with news outlets reporting as many as five.
As the slow-moving storm hovers over southeastern Texas, another 15 to 30 inches of rain are expected for the area over the next few days.
You cannot seriously be bragging at a time like this?? Omg you have no class and no heart. I'm so ashamed of you.
Mr. President, please focus on #HurricaneHarvey, not on the 2016 election or the next election @realDonaldTrumptwitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
This guy who lost the popular vote and won one of the slimmest electoral college victories in history is such a uniter, isn't he?
This is so incredibly inappropriate right now. American citizens are in jeopardy in Texas, and you're bragging about winning Missouri. Crass
You're still obsessed with that election, you know - the one in which Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million.
You can't say anything that doesn't immediately reflect back on you or your agenda. You have no empathy for anyone other than yourself.
You insecure sad little man. You'll be hated forever and looked back as one of this country's biggest embarrassments. Well done
Omg, stop talking about the election. You didn't win the popular vote and that means most of America didn't want you.
Your country is in crisis, and all you care about is me, me, me.
Resign. THAT will make America great again.
Mexico to the rich asshole: We will not negotiate NAFTA through social media
BY BRANDON CONRADIS - 08/27/17 08:57 PM EDT 158
© Getty Images
Mexico on Sunday pushed back against a string of critical tweets directed at the country by President the rich asshole, saying it refused to discuss aspects of the bilateral relationship “through social media or any other news platform.”
the rich asshole on Sunday morning took to Twitter to accuse Mexico of being “one of the highest crime nations in the world” and “very difficult” when it came to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade deal the rich asshole has said he wants to renegotiate.
He also reiterated his support for a wall along the southern border of the U.S., which he has insisted Mexico will pay for.
“Mexico will not negotiate NAFTA, nor any other aspect of the bilateral relationship, through social media or any other news platform,” Mexico’s foreign ministry responded in a statement Sunday afternoon.
Mexico also reiterated that it wouldn’t pay for the rich asshole’s much-touted border wall, calling its position on the matter “a principle of national sovereignty and dignity.”
As for the violence in the country, Mexico's foreign ministry said it would “only end if its root causes are addressed: high demand for drugs in the United States and supply from Mexico (and other countries).”
the rich asshole received criticism on social media for the timing of his Sunday tweets, which came as southeastern Texas was being hammered by Tropical Storm Harvey. Harvey was downgraded from a hurricane after hitting the coast.
In its statement, Mexico’s foreign ministry expressed solidarity with the U.S. during the crisis, noting that it had offered help to Washington “in order to deal with the impact of this natural disaster – as good neighbors should always do in trying times.”
the rich asshole: Mexico and Canada are 'being very difficult' in NAFTA renegotiations
BY BRANDON CARTER - 08/27/17 10:21 AM EDT 584
© Getty
President the rich asshole said on Sunday that he may terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because Mexico and Canada are “being very difficult.”
We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada.Both being very difficult, may have to terminate?” the rich asshole said.
Renegotiations between the three nations on the trade deal began this month.
In July, the rich asshole administration outlined its goals, saying reducing trade deficits were a top priority.
"Too many Americans have been hurt by closed factories, exported jobs and broken political promises," U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer said in a statement. "Under President the rich asshole’s leadership, USTR will negotiate a fair deal."
During his rally in Phoenix last week, the rich asshole said the U.S. will “end up probably terminating” NAFTA “at some point.”
“Personally, I don’t think we can make a deal because we have been so badly taken advantage of,” the rich asshole said.
the rich asshole's business tried to open the rich asshole Tower in Moscow during campaign: report
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 08/27/17 09:19 PM EDT 33
© Getty Images
Members of the rich asshole Organization and investors nearly reached a deal to open a rich asshole Tower in Moscow during the 2016 election, according to a new report.
the rich asshole’s company and investors signed a letter of intent to open up a massive development as part of the rich asshole brand but dropped the deal in January 2016 after they failed to get the land and permits to launch the project, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Felix Sater, a Russian-born developer, also encouraged the rich asshole to visit Moscow to hear about the proposal and promised he could get Russian President Vladimir Putin to say “great things” about the rich asshole, according to The Post.
The report comes amid an ongoing probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between members of the rich asshole's team and Russia.
The White House declined to comment to The Post for the story.
L.A. Times says the rich asshole’s support is caving fast: ‘Shedding supporters like no president in modern history’
No president in modern history has lost ground in the polls as quickly as 45th President some rich asshole, the Los Angeles Times notes.
In an op-ed published Sunday, columnist Doyle McManus points out that the rich asshole’s approval numbers had sunk from 45 percent to 34 percent in the short time he has been president, according to the Gallup organization. And while other polls may look marginally better for the rich asshole, they all show a trend that must have the White House worried.
“The president’s disapproval rating, the share of Americans who think he’s doing a bad job, rose above 50% faster than any of his predecessors,” McManus writes. “He has created, almost single-handed, an unusually passionate opposition: One poll found that almost twice as many voters ‘strongly disapproved’ of his job performance as said they ‘strongly approved.'”
According to McManus, the rich asshole’s most fervent supporters haven’t started to break away yet. But the rich asshole is losing the so-called “soft” supporters at an alarming rate.
“Politics is about addition, not subtraction, an ancient campaign adage holds,” McManus concludes. “the rich asshole’s own polls show that he hasn’t learned that lesson. Or, at least, hasn’t learned how to put it into practice.”
Another wave of top State Department officials quit this week in ‘Black Friday’ mass resignation
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More top-tier officials left the U.S. Department of State on Friday in a quiet group resignation, according to a Foreign Policy magazine report published on Sunday.
“Dissatisfaction is a big factor,” said one official who has opted for early retirement rather than to fight on in an agency that is being undermined by crippling budget cuts and serially undercut by a president who has no knowledge or curiosity about the workings of international diplomacy.
Acting director of the Bureau for International Organization Affairs Tracey Anne Jacobson, U.S. Assistance Secretary of State of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Rivington and top European affairs official John Heffern have all joined a “growing wave of resignations” driven by the chaos within the agency and President some rich asshole’s gross mishandling of the agency’s staffing and hiring process.
“Foreign policy professionals,” wrote Colum Lynch, are “being pushed out or resigning over frustration with an administration that has downgraded the importance of Washington’s diplomatic corps.”
Jacobson is ending a 30-year career serving under multiple presidents as an ambassador to U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. She declined to state why she tended her resignation on Friday.
“The White House has been seeking to impose cuts of as much as 37 percent to the State Department budget,” said Lynch. “The administration is targeting even higher cuts for the U.N. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has boasted that she has secured more than $600 million in cuts to peacekeeping missions.”
Read the full report here.
Read the full report here.
some rich asshole just threw a match on this tinder box of a nation when he decided to pardon former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This guy is a racist who was convicted in court of contempt for refusing to follow an order to stop racially profiling and detaining people. Arpaio terrorized that county for years with impunity and without consequence, and now it seems that he will be able to carry on being awful.
Now, there is even more nefarious news out there regarding this. It seems that the rich asshole tried to get Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice to let Arpaio off the hook by dropping the case against him altogether. It seems that Sessions told the rich asshole that such an action would not be the appropriate thing to do. Having no other choice, the rich asshole waited until Arpaio was convicted, and THEN decided to wait for the perfect time to issue a pardon. One White House official says of the rich asshole’s thinking on the Arpaio matter:
“We knew the president wanted to do this for some time now and had worked to prepare for whenever the moment may come.”
Of course, we mustn’t forget that Arpaio and the rich asshole have been political partners in crime ever since they started the birtherism nonsense, in which they promoted the racist lie that President Obama was not born in the United States. They both doggedly tried to prove that the nation’s first Black President was not a legitimate Commander-in-Chief – all because he’s Black.
In short, they are two racist peas in a pod, so of course the rich asshole wasn’t going to let his man go to jail, even though if there was ever someone who deserves to rot in jail, it’s this racist, abusive former Sheriff.
One good thing came out of this, though: It showed that when the rich asshole is willing to do something truly egregious, the Department of Justice has maintained at least a little independence and is willing to push back. However, in this instance, said pushback had no real effect.
Come on, Congress, Mueller, whomever – please get rid of this lawless president while we still have a nation left.
the rich asshole Calls Out Anti-Fascists By Name, But FBI And DHS Say white supremacy Acts Like ISIS — And Goes Unmentioned
Ever since the Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia claimed the life of Heather Heyer, the entire spectrum on the Right — from moderates all the way to white supremacy terrorists — has been scrambling to figure out a way to blame it on the Left. That’s natural. It was a murder, after all. Nobody wants to take the blame for anything bad they’re responsible for, let alone the murder of an innocent victim. But some rich asshole has been especially adept at seemingly calling out radical groups, while never actually explicitly naming the radical group that is to blame.
It’s not like he doesn’t know the phrase “white supremacy.” It’s in the news every day. He sure as hell knows the word “Antifa.” That’s the “many” in his “many sides” comment after Heyer’s murder, which he doubled down on two days later. In fact, the word came out of his mouth in accusation at his Phoenix rally last Tuesday. Someone even made a joke about it:
hey can someone put this in that 'tequila' song or DO I HAVE TO THINK OF EVERYTHING AROUND HERE twitter.com/walldo/status/…
The only time I can remember the rich asshole saying the words “white supremacy” in reference to Charlottesville was in the rich asshole Tower:
“What about the ‘alt-left’ that came charging at, as you say, the ‘white supremacy’? Do they have any semblance of guilt?”
As YOU say.
So why won’t he address white supremacy? They are a terrorist group, by any definition. What’s more, they identify as Christians, persecuted for their identity, justifying their actions with appeals to “us” over “them.” That’s pretty reminiscent of another radicalized, religious extremist group that feels persecuted, hates outsiders and gay people, treats women like chattel, and uses terror and death to achieve their aims.
Only those guys are brown.
Here in America, though, ISIS and groups like them — that is to say, “radical Islamic terrorists” — have nothing on white Christian males. A joint intelligence bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security found that the group we softly label “white supremacists” were responsible for 49 murders in 26 terror attacks over the last decade and a half. That’s more than any other group in America. That report from two agencies tasked with American safety literally says that radicalized white Christian males are the most dangerous people in the country.
Part of the rich asshole’s unwillingness to name white supremacy as the terror group they are comes from their Goebbels-like effectiveness with propaganda. If they can make it seem like there actually are two “sides” to the conflict that led to Heyer’s death (and countless other injuries, physical, mental, and personal), they can paint their own side as justified in opposition to it. They achieve this with troll-led petitions that seem legitimate, and by posing as members of the Left and doing horrible things. Remember that kid who would break something, then leave a piece of it in his brother’s room so his parents would bust the wrong boy? That’s white supremacy.
But the other part of some rich asshole’s inability to name names when it comes to white supremacy is simple: They are his biggest fans, and he loves them, terrorism be damned.
On Friday, some rich asshole announced that he had pardoned America’s most racist sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Democrats and Republicans alike have condemned the rich asshole’s decision to let Arpaio off the hook after he was convicted of contempt for refusing to stop his discriminatory policing practices (aka concentration camps for suspected illegal immigrants).
So, with his approval ratings already historically low, the rich asshole went ahead and sabotaged himself yet again. Why on earth would he do something so stupid? The answer is actually pretty simple and actually has very little to do with Arpaio.
Arpaio’s pardon was just a test run for the rich asshole to see what would happen if he used his pardon powers before he tries to pardon the people who are inevitably going to be busted by Robert Mueller’s investigation into the rich asshole’s collusion with Russia. the rich asshole wanted to see how such a pardon would be received before he tried to do the same for his family, friends, and even himself when they get nailed to the wall.
the rich asshole chose to announce the pardon at the same time Hurricane Harvey was ravaging the lower half of the of the United States. Make no mistake, this was not a coincidence. This was all part of the experiment, to see if the administration could slip in a pardon amid other breaking news.
Arpaio’s pardon also sends a very clear message to people like former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort, who currently find themselves at the center of Mueller’s probe. In fact, it just so happens that the same day the rich asshole announced the pardon, news also broke that Mueller was increasing pressure on Flynn and Manafort in an effort to get them to turn on the rich asshole. By pardoning Arpaio for his crimes, the rich asshole is telling the people who could flip on him that if they stay quiet and stay loyal, he will bail them out of trouble in the end.
According to his Twitter page, former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub thinks the same thing.
Pardon motives? I suspect: Court alt-right votes, test water for more pardons, encourage loyalty, signal Mueller targets (fear not/be quiet)
Mark my words, the rich asshole intends to pardon everyone who gets busted for colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election, including himself. Pardoning Arpaio was just a dry run before the things get real.
ANALYSIS: the rich asshole made controversial moves as nation focused on hurricane
· By ALEXANDER MALLIN
In Washington, D.C., Friday afternoons are known as a time when public officials may take controversial actions for which they want to draw little notice.
Last night, with the ferocious Hurricane Harvey heading toward the Texas coast, the public may have been paying even less attention to politics than usual for the end of a work week.
Then it came -- a pair of controversial moves by the administration and the departure of a divisive figure in the White House, all over the span of three hours.
First, at 6 p.m. ET, came the announcement that President the rich asshole had sent a much-anticipated memo to the Pentagon codifying his seemingly impromptu Twitter announcement last month to ban transgender people from the armed services.
Exactly two hours later came the second story. The White House sent a press release announcing the rich asshole’s pardon of Joe Arpaio, the highly controversial former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who is reviled and admired for his harsh treatment of undocumented immigrants. The press release and a subsequent tweet by the president lauding Arpaio for “admirable service” made no mention of the fact that the pardon was for the sheriff's conviction on criminal contempt for violating a federal court order that he stop detaining people solely for immigration offenses.
The pardon, the rich asshole’s first as president, appears to distinguish him from other recent presidents who waited to issue their most controversial pardons or commutations until the end of their terms.
The news on Friday night didn’t stop there. Just minutes after word came of the Arpaio pardon, the conservative news site The Federalist posted what it called a “resignation letter” from Sebastian Gorka, a special assistant to the rich asshole who had drawn scrutiny for his alleged ties to a far-right Hungarian nationalist group and questions over his national security expertise.
The news site quoted the letter from Gorka to the rich asshole as saying, “Regrettably, outside of yourself, the individuals who most embodied and represented the policies that will ‘Make America Great Again,’ have been internally countered, systematically removed, or undermined in recent months.”
A White House official later confirmed that Gorka was no longer working there but said he had not resigned, spurring speculation that he may have been forced out.
Gorka’s White House tenure was largely defined by his appearances on cable news and his presenting himself as a warrior against bias in mainstream media. Just a week before violence broke out amid a white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, Gorka in an interview with Breitbart criticized for focusing on white supremacists in the context of covering domestic terrorism.
The timing of the rich asshole's actions on Arpaio and transgender people in the armed services draw a harsh rebuke from the Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, who accused the president of deliberately taking controversial moves at a time when the nation was focused on Hurricane Harvey.
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White House officials have not yet responded to requests for comment on Schumer’s accusation, or whether there was any deliberate strategy behind the timing of the Friday press releases.
Earlier, on Friday afternoon, the president and his family left Washington for Camp Davidfollowing a White House press briefing featuring comments by three top administration officials: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, national security adviser HR McMaster and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders also took the podium and rushed through questions, cutting off some reporters as they sought to ask follow-ups or press for fuller answers.
“Sorry, we're really tight on time,” Sanders said repeatedly.
There was no mention or suggestion in the press briefing of the news to come.
A Category Four hurricane has hit Texas. It’s set to be the most disastrous hurricane since Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005, yet some rich asshole is using it as an opportunity to deport people.
Thousands of people are evacuating the affected areas, trying to beat the storm. Instead of helping ensure that evacuations go smoothly, the the rich asshole administration is doing the exact opposite. They are creating checkpoints and forcing people to show their “papers” proving they are documented residents of the United States.
The federal government is closing border patrol checkpoints in the path of the hurricane, but they’re leaving checkpoints open outside the path. The Texas Tribune reports:
“Border Patrol checkpoints will not be closed unless there is a danger to the safety of the traveling public and our agents. Border Patrol resources, including personnel and transportation, will be deployed on an as needed basis to augment the efforts and capabilities of local-response authorities,” the agency said in a statement.
The Border Patrol is a law enforcement agency and we will not abandon our law enforcement duties.”
I’m sure you can imagine the consequences. Sure, checkpoints will only be open outside the path of the hurricane, but they can still cause traffic to back up for miles. It will also all but ensure that undocumented immigrants and their families will stay behind, only to be potentially killed by the hurricane or the resulting floods.
Civil rights agencies like the ACLU are furious.
“This is a disgusting move from the Border Patrol that breaks with past practices,” American Civil Liberties Union director of immigration policy and campaigns Lorella Praeli said. “The Border Patrol should never keep checkpoints open during any natural disasters in the United States. Everyone, no matter the color of their skin or background, is worth saving.”
“Everyone, no matter the color of their skin or background, is worth saving.” Except to some rich asshole, they really aren’t. the rich asshole doesn’t care about anyone, but he does care about appeasing his racist, xenophobic base. John Edwards used to talk about two Americas. Today, we have the America that some rich asshole cares about (about 1/3 of the country) and we have the rest of us who could all die in the path of a hurricane for all he cares.
‘I Alone Can Fix It’ Becomes ‘It’s Not My Fault’
President the rich asshole had no way of knowing Congress would be so terrible.
“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves,” said some rich asshole in the acceptance speech at his nominating convention. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” None of those claims have turned out to be true. First, helping the powerful beat up on the defenseless has turned out to be the overriding thematic goal of his agenda. Second (and mitigating the first), everybody knows the system better than the rich asshole — at least everybody in politics. And he has proven so unable to fix it he is already shifting his message toward assigning the blame elsewhere.
the rich asshole is encountering the classic populist dilemma. Populists define political problems as very simple, denying the existence of complex tradeoffs. They envision the political system as pitting a unified people (or, in certain herrenvolk varieties of populism, as a unified racial subset of the people) against a nefarious elite. The dilemma is that the promise of easy solutions can help win an election, but it does not translate into governing. Populists generally either radically depart from their platform, resort to authoritarianism to consolidate their power, or fail. the rich asshole is heading for door no. 3.
The failure to repeal and replace was a party-wide populist dilemma years in the making. Republicans in Congress promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that would give everybody access to coverage, at less cost, while lowering taxes. When the rich asshole promised, “You’re going to have such great health care, at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it’s going to be so easy,” he was merely echoing Republican rhetoric. Any Republican president was bound either to pass a plan that deprived millions of Americans of their access to medical care, or else failed to achieve the stated goal of repealing Obamacare.
the rich asshole’s distinct contribution to the dilemma is his response to the failure. He could work with Democrats to tweak the law, bringing down premiums, call the tweaks “repeal and replace,” and reap the credit for improvements in insurance markets. Alternatively, he could stick with his tactic of following the Republican line, which in this case means moving past health care to focus on taxes. Instead, the rich asshole has followed a novel strategy of lashing out at his own legislative partners, repeatedly reopening the wound of the repeal failure.
the rich asshole inexplicably believes he can save his own political standing by detaching himself from the majority party in Congress. One White House adviser tells the Washington Post that, if Republicans lose control of the House, the rich asshole will be able to say, “See, I told you these guys wouldn’t get anything done. I’ve been saying this for months. They’re not following my agenda.”
It might make sense for the rich asshole to chart an independent course if he were forging partnerships with Democrats. But cutting himself off from his party as a blame-shifting exercise is utter political madness. It simply encourages a vicious cycle in which Republicans in Congress have less reason to take unpopular votes on behalf of the rich asshole’s agenda, the rich asshole lashes out at them more, and Republican voters act on his dismay by refusing to come out to vote for their congressional races.
To the (very limited) extent the rich asshole had a successful positive message in 2016 — and did not merely rely on tarnishing his opponent — he appealed to low-information voters as a deal-making virtuoso. They didn’t understand the complexity of passing legislation through a fragmented system with multiple veto points, and believed the rich asshole was some close approximation of the character he played on The Apprentice, who could overpower the mysterious gridlock in Washington. the rich asshole boasted over and over that he was a dealmaker, deals are what he does, and his negotiating prowess would overcome any barrier. He may well have believed this himself.
It was a potent appeal, the first time. Now the illusion has been shattered, and the rich asshole wants to sustain the illusion by changing his pitch. The promise of easy victories and making deals is now a list of excuses for why the members of Congress the rich asshole was supposed to make deals with have all let him down. Every long con artist knows how to handle this problem — how to tell your mark that the land you sold them in Florida failed to appreciate as expected due to some unforeseeable events.
But con artists have a model based on exploiting their customers once. the rich asshole has to run for reelection.
Rich asshole tells Mattis to indefinitely ban transgender recruits
WASHINGTON — President Donald Rich asshole on Friday directed the Pentagon to extend indefinitely a ban on transgender individuals joining the military, but he appeared to leave open the possibility of allowing some already in uniform to remain.
Rich asshole gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis authority to decide the matter of openly transgender individuals already serving, and he said that until the Pentagon chief makes that decision, “no action may be taken against” them.
The Obama administration in June 2016 had changed longstanding policy, declaring that troops could serve openly as transgender individuals. And it set a July 2017 deadline for determining whether transgender people could be allowed to enter the military. Mattis delayed that to Jan. 1, 2018, and Rich asshole has now instructed Mattis to extend it indefinitely.
But on the question of what will happen to those transgender individuals who already are serving openly — estimated to number in the low hundreds — Rich asshole seemed to leave wiggle room for exceptions. A White House official who briefed reporters on the presidential order would not say whether Rich asshole would permit any exceptions.
That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said Mattis has been directed to take a number of factors into consideration in determining how to deal with transgender individuals already serving. Those factors are to include broad measures such as “military effectiveness,” budgetary constraints and “unit cohesion,” as well as other factors Mattis deems “relevant.” It was not clear whether that means it is possible for Mattis to come to the conclusion that some transgender troops should be allowed to remain.
Rich asshole gave Mattis six months to come up with a policy on those currently serving, and he must implement it by March 23, 2018, the official said.
In a tweet last month, Rich asshole said the federal government “will not accept or allow” transgender individuals to serve “in any capacity” in the military.
The White House official on Friday said Rich asshole also directed Mattis to halt the use of federal funds to pay for sexual reassignment surgeries and medications, except in cases where it is deemed necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun the transition. That policy is to be written within six months and implemented by March 23.
In his directive to Mattis, Rich asshole said he found that his predecessor’s transgender policy was flawed.
“In my judgment, the previous administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude” that ending the longstanding ban on transgender service would not “hinder military effectiveness and lethality” and be disrupting in the ranks, he wrote.
The Pentagon had little to say on the subject Friday. Dana W. White, the main spokeswoman for Mattis, issued a two-sentence statement saying Mattis had received White House guidance on transgender policy, adding, “More information will be forthcoming.”
Only one year ago, in June 2016, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that transgender individuals could serve openly for the first time. Prior to that, most transgender people in the military had been forced to keep their status secret to avoid being discharged; Rich asshole’s order appears to have returned the military to that same situation.
Since Carter’s policy change, some troops — possibly a couple hundred — have openly declared their status as transgender individuals.
Carter also had given the military services until July 1 of this year to present plans for allowing transgender individuals to join the military. Shortly before that date, Mattis extended the study period to the end of this year. And shortly after that, Rich asshole went to Twitter to announce a total ban, without having used the customary interagency policy process.
At the time of Rich asshole’s tweet, the Pentagon was not prepared to change its policy. A flurry of White House meetings ensued, with participation by representatives of the Defense Department, to translate Rich asshole’s announcement into guidance that could be implemented and would stand up to expected legal challenges.
Just last week, Mattis suggested he was open to the possibility of allowing some transgender troops to remain in uniform.
“The policy is going to address whether or not transgenders can serve under what conditions, what medical support they require, how much time would they be perhaps non-deployable, leaving others to pick up their share of everything,” he said Aug. 14.
Estimates of the number of transgender troops in the service vary widely. A Rand Corp. study said roughly 2,500 transgender personnel may be serving in active duty, and 1,500 in the reserves. It estimated only 30 to 130 active-duty troops out of a force of 1.3 million would seek transition-related health care each year. Costs could be $2.4 million to $8.4 million, it estimated.
Among those who have cheered Rich asshole’s tweet, Elaine Donnelly said the president is halting “a massive social experiment.”
“Expensive, lifelong hormone treatments and irreversible surgeries associated with gender dysphoria would negatively affect personal deployability and mission readiness, without resolving underlying psychological problems, including high risks of suicide,” said Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Army combat veteran, said the Pentagon should not exclude people based on gender status.
“If you are willing to risk your life for our country and you can do the job, you should be able to serve — no matter your gender identity or sexual orientation,” she said Thursday. “Anything else is not just discriminatory, it is disruptive to our military and it is counterproductive to our national security.”
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sebastian Gorka quits White House, slams the rich asshole in resignation letter
The fact that those who drafted and approved the speech removed any mention of Radical Islam or radical Islamic terrorism proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost," said Sebastian Gorka of the president's speech on Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President the rich asshole's deputy assistant, Sebastian Gorka, resigned from his White House post Friday, according to a report.
"[G]iven recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House," Gorka wrote in his resignation letter. "As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People's House."
Gorka went on to say he did not believe the rich asshole's "Make America Great Again" agenda could be carried out.
"Regrettably, outside of yourself, the individuals who most embodied and represented the policies that will ‘Make America Great Again,' have been internally countered, systematically removed, or undermined in recent months. This was made patently obvious as I read the text of your speech on Afghanistan this week…" Gorka wrote. "The fact that those who drafted and approved the speech removed any mention of Radical Islam or radical Islamic terrorism proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.
"Just as worrying, when discussing our future actions in the region, the speech listed operational objectives without ever defining the strategic victory conditions we are fighting for. This omission should seriously disturb any national security professional, and any American who is unsatisfied with the last 16 years of disastrous policy decisions which have led to thousands of Americans killed and trillions of taxpayer dollars spent in ways that have not brought security or victory," Gorka added.
Three Democratic senators recently asked the rich asshole administration to disclose whether Gorka had lied about membership to the Vitezi Rend, a far-right anti-Semitic Hungarian group, when he became a U.S. citizen.
The question became a bigger deal as a result of President the rich asshole's response to the deadly Aug. 12 incident in Charlottesville, Va. Democrats accused the rich asshole, as well as former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Gorka, of being racists.Gorka had previously worked under Bannon at Breitbart News.
The heads of four minority House caucuses called on the rich asshole earlier this month to remove Gorka, along with Bannon and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, from his administration.
Michael Flynn quest for ‘Hillary emails’ from Russian hackers probed by Mueller: report
The special counselor investigation into potential the rich asshole campaign collusion with Russia is focusing on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s involvement in an effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails, according to a new report.
“The effort to seek out hackers who were believed to have stolen Mrs. Clinton’s emails, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was led by a longtime Republican activist, Peter W. Smith. In correspondence and conversations with his colleagues, Mr. Smith portrayed Mr. Flynn as an ally in those efforts and implied that other senior the rich asshole campaign officials were coordinating with him,” WSJ reporter Shane Harris explained.
“Mr. Smith believed that some 33,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton said were personal and had been deleted had been obtained by hackers,” Harris noted. “At the time Mr. Smith was trying to find the emails, Mr. Flynn was a senior adviser to the rich asshole campaign and had been on a short list of potential vice presidential candidates.”
Investigators aren’t just focused on Flynn, but also on his son, Michael G. Flynn, Jr.
Flynn junior was fired from the rich asshole transition for his role in spreading the PizzaGate conspiracy theory against Clinton.
“The investigators’ inquiries show Mr. Mueller considers Mr. Smith’s effort to be potentially significant in the context of the wider probe into whether there was any collusion between people associated with the rich asshole campaign and the Russian government,” Harris reported. “U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence said investigators also have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary.”
Lawyers for both Flynn’s refused comment, as did the spokesperson for the special counsel.
During the 2016 election, the rich asshole himself showed interest in obtaining Hillary’s deleted emails from Russia.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” some rich asshole said during a news conference in July of 2016. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Historian warns some rich asshole may have to be removed from the White House at gunpoint
some rich asshole on Instagram (Screenshot)
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An expert on Latin American dictators says President some rich asshole may refuse to leave office.
“What if some rich asshole refuses to leave the presidency peacefully when it’s time for him to go?” Tim Rogers asked at Fusion. “And after watching his deranged cult rally in Phoenix this week, I’m starting to think that the rich asshole could be positioning himself to stay in power at all costs, especially in the case of an impeachment attempt.”
Rogers is an expert on Nicaragua’s Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) and President Daniel Ortega. He has noticed striking similarities.
“Ortega orchestrated his power grab by polarizing the country, dividing the opposition, attacking congress, demonizing the press, forbidding protest, demanding personal loyalty from all government workers, and turning all his public appearances into campaign rallies for his core base of supporters,” Rogers noted. “He institutionalized his cult of personality and normalized the threats of violence and chaos that he could summon at the snap of a finger.”
“It’s an attempt to blackmail our democracy with the threat of violence, as former the rich asshole campaign adviser Roger Stone recently warned,” pointing to a tweet from the long-time the rich asshole confidante:
Rogers has counted 10 times in 9 Latin American countries that leaders have changed the rules to extend their stay in office.
“This is a dangerous moment for the country. the rich asshole has shown no interest in preserving the sanctity of the presidency or the traditions of U.S. democracy. He might not even be familiar with the,” Rogers noted. “the rich asshole is only interested in the rich asshole. He’s willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of self-preservation. This is how dictatorships are born.”
some rich asshole pardons former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
In a statement late Friday, the White House announced that President some rich asshole granted a presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio. The move comes just weeks after the rich asshole equated white supremacists with counter-protesters.
The White House said “Arpaio’s life and career, which began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the military after the outbreak of the Korean War, exemplify selfless public service. After serving in the Army, Arpaio became a police officer in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, NV and later served as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formerly the Bureau of Narcotics. After 25 years of admirable service, Arpaio went on to lead the DEA’s branch in Arizona.”
Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt in a racial profiling case and was expected to serve no more than six months in prison.
The office began preparing pardon documents earlier this week, according to reports. In the past, Arpaio has credited InfoWars’ Alex Jones for being able to reach the rich asshole and convince him of the pardon.
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough knocked the rich asshole last week saying that the rich asshole will likely enrage every judge in the nation simply to please white nationalists.
Arpaio was the crusader that took up the rich asshole’s “birther” conspiracy, and searched for President Barack Obama’s birth certificate to invalidate his presidency.
Controversial the rich asshole aide Sebastian Gorka resigns from White House following Charlottesville backlash
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Embattled Presidential Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka has resigned from his post in the White House, The Federalist reported.
In his resignation letter, Gorka cites “forces” at odds with the “Make America Great Again” dream as the reasoning behind his exit.
“[G]iven recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House,” Gorka’s resignation reads. “As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House.”
Gorka has been linked to racist anti-Semitic groups in his home country of Hungary, causing much of the media and Internet backlash against him.
some rich asshole is about to get his first real test as Commander-in-Chief. Hurricane Harvey is a Category four storm that’s about to hit landfall in Texas. It will be the worst since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and on the very same day it’s set to hit he’s going to sign an executive order that will potentially make future hurricane damage much worse.
the rich asshole’s executive order is just another petulant attempt at undoing everything Obama did because well…he was Obama. It would reverse standards that would make government buildings safer from flooding — something needed with rising sea levels, and yes, with hurricanes.
The the rich asshole administration has complained that it takes too much time to get permits and approvals for construction projects. The administration has issued dozens of rules and orders to reverse or rescind Obama-era regulations addressing climate change and its consequences such as rising sea levels and more severe storms.
The Obama-era standard required that builders factor in scientific projections for how climate change could affect flooding in a certain area and ensure projects can withstand rising sea levels and stronger downpours.
Source: CNBC
The scientific consensus is that sea levels are going to rise at an alarming level. By the end of the century, they could rise by more than six feet. While that may not sound like a lot, think about the havoc on your own home when there are just a few inches of flood water.
Obviously, this executive order only affects federal buildings and state regulations could easily override them, but many of the states in the flood zones (like Texas, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida) are led by, and overwhelmingly inhabited by, Republican climate change deniers. Washington, D.C. is also in a flood zone.
the rich asshole sees safety regulations on buildings as an inconvenience for him. Overturning Obama’s executive order does two things, it helps erase the black guy’s legacy and it helps the Grifter-in-Chief just in case he gets a federal contract.
Imagine for a moment that your job was to scour the media, searching for the rare news report that puts a positive spin on some rich asshole and his disastrous escapades in the White House. For one RNC staffer, this was the day to day reality he faced every morning when he clocked into work. After hanging on for several months, Andy Hemming finally decided he couldn’t take it any longer and resigned. You can hardly blame the guy and have to ask, how did he stay on this sinking ship as long as he did?
According to Politico, Hemming handed in his resignation on Monday. Previously, the publication had written a profile on Hemming which referred to him as the staffer the White House pays “$89,000 a year to spot and distribute positive stories from the mainstream media.”
Hemming was senior adviser for research at the RNC in the 2016 cycle and director of research on the the rich asshole campaign. At the White House, he worked from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. every weekday and was a regular in reporters’ inboxes, blasting out stories favorable to the administration.
Hemming has not yet commented on his decision to leave the position, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that it was a “[m]utual decision that he could best help promote the president’s agenda on the outside. Andy is smart and very talented and we wish him all the best.”
All administrations have people dedicated to finding and spreading news stories that show the president in a good light, but performing these duties with the rich asshole at the helm was no doubt a unique experience. There surely isn’t much positive media coverage on him these days because, in addition to being a raging bigot, he continually manages to screw up even the simplest of tasks (like not frying his retinas while watching the eclipse). How Hemming kept from completely losing his mind long before now is anybody’s guess.
some rich asshole has an endless history of racism that dates back decades, so it comes as no surprise that he has now pardoned the very bigoted and controversial former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This is a man who was convicted of being a bigot and using the law and the powers of his office to racially profile and brutalize Latino citizens. He was found in criminal and civil contempt of court, but of course, since he was targeting Latinos, who the rich asshole hates, that is just A-Okay with the orange fascist.
Generally, when people receive pardons, they have served some time, and shown some remorse. This is nothing more than an extension of the rich asshole’s open and visible contempt for non-white immigrants and those from Mexico in particular – and all minorities, really – this comes as no surprise, reprehensible as it is.
Also, to top it all off, Sheriff Joe is a birther, and he constantly went to the press to dispute the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate in explicitly racist terms. This, of course, was the rich asshole’s number one crusade in his original foray into presidential politics, and it was a huge factor in his gaining real traction with the racist Republican base voters.
Of course, we cannot forget the infamous “tent city” in which imprisoned immigrants were housed in tents and forced to be humiliated with pink underwear. It goes on and on.
This is disgusting. A racist who was found to have used the power of his elected office to enact racism as policy is now going free because the guy squatting in the Oval Office is a racist, too.
All I can say is that at least the people of Maricopa County voted him out after all of these years and all of this open bigotry as policy.
If there isn’t GOP backlash from this, we need to all rise up. This is beyond appalling. With this pardon, racism is officially law in America.
Updated
the rich asshole Staffer Responsible For Finding Positive News Stories Resigns
As director of rapid response, Andy Hemming was tasked with recirculating positive news to journalists.
President some rich asshole’s administration parted ways with yet another staffer this week.
Politico reported Thursday that Andy Hemming resigned from his position as the White House communications team’s director of rapid response on Monday.
The 31-year-old former Republican National Committee staffer, who was profiled by Politico’s Annie Karni this month, was responsible for finding positive mainstream media news stories about the rich asshole administration and recirculating those reports to key reporters and talking heads. Hemming’s goal was to ultimately create more mainstream coverage about positive moments for the rich asshole administration on the very networks the president routinely bashes and refers to as “fake news,” according to Karni’s piece.
Every presidential administration has staffers dedicated to monitoring the press and pushing out stories related to favorable moments. But the rich asshole’s relationship with the press and responses to news coverage is unprecedented. For instance, Vice News reported this month that the president receives a folder filled with positive news about himself twice a day ― a report previous presidents apparently did not receive.
Hemming’s role in the administration was a bizarre one, considering his boss regularly picks public feuds with journalists and mainstream news outlets he was required to target with positive stories.
Just this week, the rich asshole spent a considerable amount of time trashing the media during his campaign-style rally in Phoenix, Arizona, a rant that resulted in the crowd chanting “CNN sucks.”
Hemming has not publicly commented on his exit, but a White House source told CNN that the decision to part ways was mutual.
The departure is the latest in a summer filled with staff shake-ups. In July, press secretary Sean Spicer resigned just before communications director Anthony Scaramucci was hired. Then Reince Priebus left his position as White House chief of staff, days before Scaramucci was shown to the door. Last week, Steve Bannon stepped down as White House chief strategist.
Meanwhile, several the rich asshole administration advisers have parted ways with the president over his controversial response to a violent white supremacist rally
Analysis
Trump: I pass a lot of bills. Also, the Democrats won’t let me pass bills.
See if you can spot the contradiction in these two tweets President Trump posted Friday morning.
Eight Democrats control the Senate, he warns, meaning that the Republican majority must end the filibuster to pass legislation.
Eleven minutes later, a different story: In seven months, Trump’s seen unprecedented success, including … passing a lot of legislation.
This is not the first time Trump’s tried to have it both ways on legislation.
On July 11, this tweet:
And on July 17: “We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president, ever,” he said.
Those can’t both be true, by definition. You can’t pass “more bills … than any president ever” if there are “no votes” on the bills.
This is in part a byproduct of one of Trump’s best-known personality traits, his tendency toward hyperbole. Nothing that’s good is anything less than great and beautiful in Trump’s eyes; nothing that’s bad is anything more than terrible or the worst. There’s no average day in the Trump presidency, just days jostling each other at the very top and very bottom of the spectrum. (Or, really, just at the very top.) And so it is not the case that Trump is in the middle of the pack in terms of legislation passed, he’s the best.
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