This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original link
https://horroroftrumpaspotus.blogspot.com/
------------
Twitter feed https://twitter.com/RealDbagDJTrump
Thursday, October 12, 2017
October 10th, 2017 - October 12th, 2017. 330-332 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 262-264 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Instead of doing everything possible to help the people of Puerto Rico, the GOP is now insisting the devastation is just a made up story.
some rich asshole’s toxic and reckless attacks on the free press — as well as on the 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico trying to survive in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane — is seeping into the rest of his Republican Party.
Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry appeared on CNN Thursday morning to echo the rich asshole’s baseless and offensive talking points, accusing the media of making up the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo cited statistics provided by the government about how so much of the island lacks access to survival basics like food, water, and electricity.
In response, Perry yelled that Cuomo was “simply just making this stuff up!”
PERRY: Does every single person have to have power the next day?
CUOMO: Crisis abated. The people who need food and water having it. Not 100 percent restored back to power. We get that this is a challenge.
PERRY: So if the water gets there five minutes late, is that a crisis?
CUOMO: It’s not a crisis. In places outside San Juan, they’re not even close to that.
PERRY: Quantify your claims, Mr. Cuomo. Quantify any of it. You can’t just make these claims and not put any metrics to it. Who is without, for how long? Who? How many people? Who are they?
CUOMO: You have less than half the country [sic] that has what you need to sustain life, without fresh water, power, food, place to live.
PERRY: Mr. Cuomo, you’re simply just making this stuff up. You’re making it up.
CUOMO: How am I making it up? What am I making up?
PERRY: If half the country [sic] didn’t have food or water, those people would be dying. And they’re not.
CUOMO: What — first of all. Congressman. When you look at the numbers that are being put out by FEMA, you do know that overwhelmingly, they still don’t have people with power restored —
PERRY: Yes.
CUOMO: — and many don’t have access to water. You do have dozens of people who have died—
PERRY: When you say access to water, Mr. Cuomo, do you mean wanting water out of the tap from a pump or do you mean water delivered, drinking water delivered by the U.S. Army or FEMA?
CUOMO: Both.
PERRY: What do you mean?
CUOMO: Both. When we’re there on the ground, still now, certainly getting hard pressure on water through the pipes there, that’s not happening. That’s related to the power. We know that.
PERRY: Because it requires electricity. That’s exactly right. But we’re delivering water to these people. We are delivering water to their homes.
CUOMO: I know, but it’s not enough. I’m not saying that the efforts aren’t in earnest—
PERRY: But what is enough? Tell me. Quantify what is enough that will satisfy your network. What is enough?
CUOMO: It’s not about my network. Come on, Congressman.
PERRY: It is about your network because no one else reports these things.
CUOMO: It’s about the people on the ground.
PERRY: We realize that!
CUOMO: Why are you — how can you get angry about the fact that people in Puerto Rico are suffering? It’s your job to help.
PERRY: I’m sad about the fact that people are suffering.
CUOMO: Then why would you fight over the need? The need is real!
PERRY: I’m not fighting over the need.
CUOMO: You just need to do more and you have to sustain the efforts, and the idea of talking about not being there forever seems insensitive, if not reckless, right now.
PERRY: See, senseless and reckless?
CUOMO: Insensitive.
PERRY: Insensitive and reckless. Those are inflammatory terms used by you, but they don’t depict the real situation. The president is sensitive.
CUOMO: He just said they can’t stay there forever. How is that sensitive?
PERRY: Because it’s true! Forever?
Perry’s absurd and callous claims indicate that dismissing the facts and the very real needs of Puerto Ricans is the official Republican Party line now, because of the rich asshole’s massive failure in leading the response to the natural disaster. While Americans suffer on the island, the rich asshole and his allies like Perry have turned fire on their fellow Americans.
the rich asshole has been ranting that disaster relief needs to end, as Puerto Ricans die.
Now Perry has taken to national TV to assist the rich asshole, asserting that the statistics and reporting are false.
Republicans are failing to help Americans in Puerto Rico, and they are now constructing conspiracy theories to explain away the disaster.
some rich asshole has completely lost his mind and is now making even more outrageous claims than ever before.
Last night, the rich asshole did an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity, in which he deflected all blame regarding the current racism issues the country is facing onto the Democrats. Refusing to acknowledge the fact that he had one of the most racist, divisive presidential campaigns and agendas that modern America has ever seen, the rich asshole pointed his orange little fingers at – wait for it – the Democrats!
Hannity asked the rich asshole, who had recently defended white nationalists in Charlottesville:
[Democrats] will say ‘Oh, [Republican] policies are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.’ Their policies haven’t helped the minority communities in America. Is there a way from the federal government’s perspective that you can bring economic opportunity? And safety?”
the rich asshole did what he always does – refused to accept responsibility for being a bigot and placed the blame elsewhere:
The Democrats have ruled the inner cities for 100 years. This is their rule…The Democrats have truly ruled.”
the rich asshole also added:
We’re doing a good job. [HUD Secretary] Ben Carson is doing a great job at HUD. He’s got great heart…But the Democrats ruled the inner cities. And when I say, ‘What do you have to lose?’ It’s so bad that, really, the Republicans should be starting to do very well. But we’re doing a good job and we’re stopping a lot of the crime.”
Is the rich asshole still trying to win the black vote? That ship sailed far away a long, long time ago! Then again, what does he have to lose? Only 6% of African American voters think that the rich asshole is fit for office, so the rich asshole probably figures it can’t get any worse.
President some rich asshole said Thursday the federal government cannot keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Puerto Rico "forever," even as the U.S. territory continues to reel from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in September.
"We cannot keep FEMA, the Military, the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" the rich asshole tweeted.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz slammed the rich asshole's tweets as "adding insult to injury" and "unbecoming."
"Your tweets and comments just show desperation and underscore the inadequacy of your government's response to this humanitarian crisis. It is not that you do not get it, it is that you are incapable of empathy and frankly simply cannot get the job done," Cruz said in a statement.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello also responded to the rich asshole's tweets Thursday morning by arguing that Puerto Rico is simply asking for the "support that any of our fellow citizens would receive."
The island is still in crisis mode as it struggles to restore power. Residents still do not have access to clean water, and more than 5,700 residents are living in shelters, according to Rossello's office. Reports of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease, are beginning to surface. According to Puerto Rican officials, 64 percent of people have access to water.
The death toll since the hurricane has risen to 44. The Department of Defense said Wednesday that 16 percent of the island's residents have power, although the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority puts the figure closer to 10 percent after an outage at one nuclear plant.
A news release from the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said there are "reports of residents obtaining or trying to obtain drinking water from wells at hazardous waste Superfund sites in Puerto Rico." The EPA also warned that raw sewage is seeping into Puerto Rico's waterways and will continue to do so until power is restored and repairs are made.
The House of Representatives will vote Thursday on legislation that would include $18.7 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund and $16 billion for debt relief for the National Flood Insurance Program.
The bill also includes a provision for the Disaster Nutrition Assistance Program, which allows low-income residents in Puerto Rico to receive the same emergency nutrition aid that hurricane-affected states can receive.
the rich asshole visited Puerto Rico on Oct. 3 to survey the damage and meet with victims of the hurricane. He was criticized for throwing supplies into the crowd and for saying that local officials "can be proud" of the low death toll (which was 16 at the time of his visit), compared with the "thousands" lost in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Evan Vucci/AP
President some rich asshole tosses paper towels into a crowd as he hands out supplies at Calvary Chapel, Oct. 3, 2017, in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.more +
He said during a Hispanic Heritage event at the White House last week, "We will not rest" until Puerto Rico has recovered from Maria.
"We will be there all the time to help Puerto Rico recover, restore, rebuild," the rich asshole said.
Well, here we are. During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday night, President the rich asshole—a man who is currently trying to build support for a massive tax cut aimed at the wealthy—seemed to suggest that rising stock prices had begun to erase the U.S. national debt.
“The country—we took it over and owed over 20 trillion,” the rich asshole said, by way of prelude. “As you know, the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up 5.2 trillion just in the stock market—possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value.”
Picked up the whole thing? Huh? Who is this we of whom you speak? What whole thing?
The president continued: “So you could say in one sense, we’re really increasing values. And maybe in a sense, we’re reducing debt. But we’re very honored by it.”
Oh.
I sometimes wonder if it’s worth cataloging the vapid things the rich asshole says about the economy. On the one hand, he’s the president. It should matter if he thinks the national debt goes down when the stock market goes up, even in a vague, philosophical sort of way (and to be clear, it does not). On the other hand, anybody reading a center-left website like Slate.com knows that America’s guy in the Oval Office is terminally uninterested in fact or data, except insofar as a number paints his presidency in flattering terms. Remember how the unemployment rate was a fiction, until it wasn’t anymore? This is a man who can only view history and current events as fragments of light endlessly refracted through the prism of his ego. He draws logical connections where none apparently exist, living according to an almost premodern perspective that by merely mouthing an idea, however inarticulate, he makes it real. Maybe this is his power—maybe he really is the übermensch, breaking the chains of our middle-class morality, including the idea that what we say should have some grounding in the world around us, hoisting our politics into the realm of pure myth.
Or maybe this was just word salad, a confused and careless man following his own babble to its own nonsense conclusion, “in a sense.” Thus sprach POTUS.
President some rich asshole slammed Puerto Rico on Thursday, saying its power grid and infrastructure were a "disaster" before two hurricanes hit last month and he threatened to pull federal emergency management workers from the storm-ravaged island.
His comments drew furious responses from Democrats who charged he is treating Americans there like "second-class citizens."
the rich asshole tweeted, "'Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.' says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of........accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes."
(It wasn't clear why the rich asshole referred to Attkisson, a conservative journalist who has repeatedly defended him.)
"Congress to decide how much to spend.......We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" the rich asshole wrote in another Tweet.
the rich asshole's latest attacks on Puerto Rico immediately touched off harsh criticism from Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York tweeted a question to the president: "Why do you continue to treat Puerto Ricans differently than other Americans when it comes to natural disasters?"
"FEMA needs to stay until the job is done and right now, it's not even close to done. There is still devastation, Americans are still dying. FEMA needs to stay until the job is done," he added.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California posted, "We don't abandon Americans in their time of need."
"PR & USVI need MORE help, not less, from the federal govt," Pelosi wrote, referring to the U.S. Virgin Islands. At a press conference later in the morning, Pelosi called the rich asshole's tweets "heartbreaking."
Rep. Darren Soto of Florida told NBC News: "the rich asshole continues to treat Americans in Puerto Rico as second-class citizens. He wouldn’t be saying this about federal recovery efforts in Texas or Mississippi."
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said: "It is shameful that President the rich asshole is threatening to abandon these Americans when they most need the federal government’s help. He has a responsibility to our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico and on the U.S. Virgin Islands to ensure that every federal resource is made available to assist in recovery and rebuilding for as long as it takes."
Reaction from Puerto Rico was swift, too.
In a lengthy statement, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, who the rich asshole attacked after she made headlines criticizing his response to the disaster, asked "every American that has love, and not hate in their hearts, to stand with Puerto Rico and let this President know we WILL NOT BE LEFT TO DIE."
In addition, the island's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, tweeted that "U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico are requesting the support that any of our fellow citizens would receive across our Nation."
the rich asshole's tweets come just weeks after Puerto Rico was slammed by Hurricane Maria. FEMA said that as of Tuesday, 21 days since Maria made landfall, 84 percent of people on the island remained without electricity and only 63 percent had potable water. Many others have been without housing and basic necessities.
Puerto Rico gets more debt as it struggles to survive1:42
Maria Gonzalez, who has remained stranded in a remote area of western Puerto Rico, broke down in tears this week as she told NBC News that she had cancer and was in grave need of a generator.
She offered a desperate plea to FEMA: "Come on! Do what you're supposed to do."
FEMA says that 19,000 civilian and military service personnel are working in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The agency is hosting job fairs in Ponce to hire 1,200 people for the relief effort.
Later Thursday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, is planning a return visit to the Puerto Rico amid the announcement Wednesday that FEMA is expanding its leadership team there.
Nevertheless, criticism has steadily mounted over the the rich asshole administration’s response to what is being called an unfolding humanitarian crisis, with some likening the situation to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Rosselló raised the death toll from the storm to 43.
But the rich asshole himself has repeatedly lashed out at Puerto Rican officials, including Cruz, who has pleaded for more federal assistance.
On Sept. 30, the rich asshole tweeted that Cruz had "poor leadership ability" and said Puerto Rican officials "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort."
Days later, during an Oct. 3 visit to the island, the rich asshole said U.S. relief efforts in Puerto Rico, bankrupt before the storm, had "thrown our budget a little out of whack" and the president was filmed casually tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd at a disaster relief center. Cruz has criticized the rich asshole for the incident, calling it "terrible and abominable."
Vice President Mike Pence, however, said during his own visit to the island last week that the White House would stick with Puerto Ricans for as long as the recovery would take.
"We are with you today, we will be with you tomorrow, we will be with you every day until Puerto Rico rebuilds and recovers bigger and better than ever before," Pence said last Friday.
Trump throws paper towel rolls into crowd while delivering aid supplies in Puerto Rico
During a visit to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico on Oct. 3, President Trump delivered aid supplies at Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo. (The Washington Post)
President Some rich asshole served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Declaring the U.S. territory's electrical grid and infrastructure to have been a “disaster before hurricanes,” Some rich asshole wrote Thursday that it will be up to Congress how much federal money to appropriate to the island for its recovery efforts and that relief workers will not stay “forever.”
Three weeks after Maria made landfall, much of Puerto Rico, an island of 3.4 million people, remains without power. Residents struggle to find clean water, hospitals are running short on medicine, and commerce is slow, with many businesses closed.
Some rich asshole on Thursday sought to shame the territory for its own plight. He tweeted, “Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes.” And he quoted Sharyl Attkisson, a television journalist, as saying, “Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.”
He also wrote: “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló responded with his own tweet, saying Puerto Ricans were seeking the support “any of our fellow citizens would receive across our Nation.”
Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of the capital city, San Juan, who has been feuding publicly with Trump, strongly condemned the president Thursday in a tweet calling him a "Hater in Chief" and in a lengthy statement sent to reporters and members of Congress. She said the president's actions "are unbecoming of a leader of the free world," and she argued that he "is simply incapable of understanding the contributions, the sacrifices and the commitment to democratic values that Puerto Ricans have shown over decades."
Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of the capital city, San Juan, who has been feuding publicly with Some rich asshole, strongly condemned the president Thursday in a tweet calling him a "Hater in Chief" and in a lengthy statement sent to reporters and members of Congress. She said the president's actions "are unbecoming of a leader of the free world," and she argued that he "is simply incapable of understanding the contributions, the sacrifices and the commitment to democratic values that Puerto Ricans have shown over decades."
Cruz pleaded with "every American that has love, and not hate in their hearts, to stand with Puerto Rico and let this President know we WILL NOT BE LEFT TO DIE."
The White House issued a statement Thursday committing for now "the full force of the U.S. government" to the Puerto Rico recovery, though noting that "successful recoveries do not last forever."
“Our job in any disaster affected location is to help the community respond and recover from that disaster," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. "We continue to do so with the full force of the U.S. government and its resources in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and other affected areas. Successful recoveries do not last forever; they should be as swift as possible to help people resume their normal lives. We are committed to helping Puerto Rico. Our administration is working with Governor Rosselló and Congress to identify the best fiscally responsible path forward.”
Some rich asshole has been roundly criticized for his leadership in coming to Puerto Rico's aid. In response, the president has tried to portray the territory as in full recovery mode and has voiced frustration with what he considers mismanagement by local officials.
ADVERTISEMENT
During a visit last week, the president tossed rolls of paper towels at local residents as if shooting baskets, drawing scorn from local leaders. He also complained that the recovery efforts had “thrown our budget a little out of whack,” and noted that the death toll was lower than the “real catastrophe” of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas in 2005.
Some rich asshole's threats to limit the emergency worker footprint in Puerto Rico come as the House is set to vote Thursday on a $36.5 billion disaster aid package that includes provisions to avert a potential cash crisis in Puerto Rico prompted by Hurricane Maria.
Rosselló warned congressional leaders over the weekend that the U.S. territory is “on the brink of a massive liquidity crisis that will intensify in the immediate future.” The legislation set for a vote allows up to $4.9 billion in direct loans to local governments in a bid to ease Puerto Rico’s financial crunch.
Without congressional action, the territory may not be able to make its payroll or pay vendors by the end of the month.
Rosselló warned congressional leaders over the weekend that the U.S. territory is “on the brink of a massive liquidity crisis that will intensify in the immediate future.” The legislation set for a vote allows up to $4.9 billion in direct loans to local governments in a bid to ease Puerto Rico’s financial crunch.
Without congressional action, the territory may not be able to make its payroll or pay vendors by the end of the month.
ADVERTISEMENT
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said that Puerto Rico must eventually "stand on its own two feet," but that the federal government needs to continue to respond to the humanitarian crisis.
"We're in the midst of a humanitarian crisis," Ryan said. He added, "Yes, we need to make sure that Puerto Rico can begin to stand on its own two feet. … But at the moment there is a humanitarian crisis has to be attended to and this is an area where the federal government has a responsibility, and we're acting on it."
Top Democrats assailed Some rich asshole for his Thursday tweets on Puerto Rico. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Some rich asshole's tweets "heartbreaking," adding that "we are all Americans, and we owe them what they need."
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted: “There is still devastation, Americans are still dying. FEMA needs to stay until the job is done.”
Another New York Democrat, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, who was born in Puerto Rico, said in a statement that the president's “most solemn duty is to protect the safety and the security of the American people. By suggesting he might abdicate this responsibility for our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico, Mr. Trump has called into question his ability to lead. We will not allow the federal government to abandon Puerto Rico in its time of need.”
Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), said that those who live on the island “are American citizens and they deserve the federal assistance they need to recover and rebuild. The Chairman and the Committee fully stand by them in these efforts, and will continue to be at the ready to provide the victims of these devastating hurricanes with the necessary federal resources both now and in the future.”
Frelinghuysen is scheduled to be part of a delegation led by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that will visit Puerto Rico on Friday to see the hurricane’s devastation firsthand.
The president's tweets on Thursday seemed to contradict Vice President Pence, who during a visit to the island last week vowed that the administration would be with Puerto Rico “every step of the way.”
“I say to all of you gathered here today to the people of Puerto Rico: We are with you, we stand with you, and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before,” he said.
Some rich asshole himself made a similar promise, saying in a Sept. 29 speech, “We will not rest, however, until the people of Puerto Rico are safe.” He added: “These are great people. We want them to be safe and sound and secure. And we will be there every day until that happens.”
Arelis R. Hernández in Puerto Rico and Mike DeBonis in Washington contributed to this report.
some rich asshole took his angry little fingers to his Twitter account Thursday morning, threatening to abandon recovery efforts in Puerto Rico where the majority of the hurricane-devastated island’s residents remain without power, water and food.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello immediately responded on Thursday to President the rich asshole’s warning, saying that the U.S. territory’s residents are only asking for the same assistance that other Americans would receive. You know, like in Texas and Florida, two states which helped bring the rich asshole to power. And yet, the rich asshole did not issue threats to those states.
“The U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico are requesting the support that any of our fellow citizens would receive across our Nation,” Rossello tweeted.
Some Puerto Rican officials, like San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, have pleaded for help, but in return, she received a backlash of hate from the amateur president who called her ‘nasty.’
Cruz shamed the rich asshole on Twitter Thursday. “It is not that you do not get it; you are incapable of fulfilling the moral imperative to help the people of PR,” she tweeted. “Shame on you!”
“I say to all of you gathered here today to the people of Puerto Rico: We are with you, we stand with you, and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before,” Mike Pence said just last week.
the rich asshole said basically the same thing in a Sept. 29 speech, “We will not rest, however, until the people of Puerto Rico are safe.” the rich asshole added: “These are great people. We want them to be safe and sound and secure. And we will be there every day until that happens.”
Two weeks later, the rich asshole threatens to pull recovery efforts from the island while shaming the island for its debt – even though he filed for bankruptcy six times.
After a campaign in which he shamelessly pandered to the LGBT community, some rich asshole has betrayed them so completely that his prior rhetoric is all but unrecognizable. He is slated to speak at the “Values Voters Summit” on Friday, hosted by the hate group Family Research Council and their extremist president Tony Perkins, a man who believes that gays should be put to death.
The speech the rich asshole gave at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July 2016 came just one month after the deadly shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando Florida. That hate crime, sometimes referred to as a terrorist attack based on the religion of the perpetrator, claimed the lives of 49 mostly Latino gay club-goers and wounded 58 more. It was the first time Facebook’s Safety Check feature was ever used inside the United States, with users marking themselves as “safe” to let family and friends know they were okay.
Although witnesses at Pulse said they remembered the attacker being a patron of the bar — perhaps a jilted lover, even — the rich asshole took the opportunity in that Cleveland speech to make a vow to his LGBT voters: “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” And what did those voters look like?
They looked like kids who believed him.
The man who became the first Republican to even mention the LGBT crowd at a national convention went on to reverse himself in every way possible.
He had already said earlier that year that transgender people should use “the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.” At a Colorado rally in October, the rich asshole waved a rainbow flag with the phrase “LGBTs For the rich asshole” scrawled across the middle.
But all of his promises, all of his platitudes, were meaningless.
He unilaterally made the decision to expel transgender soldiers from the military, then lied about it, saying that he had consulted with military leaders about the issue. He revoked Obama-era bathroom guidelines that favored the community in public schools. He went so far as to remove the entire section on LGBTQ rights from the official White House website.
Now that the rich asshole’s Justice Department, under the bigoted tutelage of notoriously anti-gay asshole Jeff Sessions, has asserted that it is legal to actually discriminate against transgender employees, you’d think that some rich asshole would make sure the statement on the White House site in which he vowed to uphold protections for them would be taken down out of shame, or at least consistency. He can’t be bothered.
So what does it mean that the rich asshole is the very first president to speak at the Values Voters Summit? It means that his hypocrisy has come full circle. It means that his lies are all finally exposed. It means that he is shameless enough to not only adopt religion in order to solidify his base, but to pander to even the extremist wing of that religion, even if they openly advocate for the persecution of the community some rich asshole once promised to protect.
On Thursday, Pres. some rich asshole took the first steps toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) when he signed an executive order that will give the rich asshole administration the task of policy development that will supposedly increase healthcare completion and lower prices.
Specifically, the President is directing the Labor Department to study how to make it easier for small businesses, and possibly individuals, to join together and buy health insurancethrough nationwide association health plans, a senior administration official said Thursday. The department could give employers in the same industries more flexibility to offer group coverage across state lines, providing them with a broader range of policies at lower rates.
Separately, the order would allow consumers to buy short-term policies, which don’t have to comply with Obamacare’s protections for those with pre-existing conditions. Also, it looks to broaden the ability of employers to give workers money to buy their own coverage through health reimbursement arrangements.
With a group of lawmakers and the president, Vice Pres. Mike Pence introduced the executive order. In the video, Pres. the rich asshole looks dazed and confused while fidgeting and smiling insanely.
Watch:
In July, the rich asshole appeared to get lost on a stage in Poland and looked like “an old man trying to find his way back to the nursing home,” and we have extensively documented his apparent mentalinstability.
Clearly the rich asshole had little (if any) involvement in orchestrating this recent development, a plan that will likely see healthy and/or younger Americans migrating to cheap short-term policies. This will have the disastrous effect of driving up premiums for sicker people.
On Friday, some rich asshole is scheduled to speak at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC. The summit is known to be comprised of religious zealots, white supremacists, and other far-right activists.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who was recently shot during a mass shooting incident in DC, plans to speak at the event. Scalise has drawn extra criticism for planning to attend the event since a lesbian police officer saved his life. Scalise noted that the shooting has not changed his outlook on LGBT rights or gun control.
Also appearing will be Duck Dynasty star, Phil Robertson, who in the past has mentioned that he wishes to “rid the Earth” of “wicked” gays.
President of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, seemed thrilled in a statement regarding the rich asshole’s attendance. It read “Last year, he spoke to the Values Voter Summit as a candidate — this year, it will be as the 45th President of the United States. Today we have confirmation from the White House that President some rich asshole will speak to the VVS crowd this Friday morning.”
Perkins also made a reference to Obama.
“Values voters are coming to our nation’s capital thankful to hear from a president who is fulfilling the promises that he campaigned on. Since the early days of the campaign, President the rich asshole allied himself with values voters, promising to put an end to the 8 years of relentless assault on the First Amendment.”
Ironically, in spite of the anti-LGBT nature of the event, personal ads for anonymous gay sex have a history of increasing around the event area. Reports indicate that the gay male anonymous hookup site, Grindr, becomes full of men looking for “whites only” near the hotel where the event is taking place.
**Note: All of our articles have hyperlinks to verifiable sources unless we’re providing audio/video evidence. We’re committed to fighting fake news. Never trust publications that don’t use hyperlinks or other evidence**
(CNN)The NFL put out a statement on Wednesday denying it had capitulated to President some rich asshole and banned players from kneeling when the National Anthem plays before games.
This remains true, so far as we know, in the abstract. The league has not imposed any formal restrictions. (Yet. There are more meetings planned.) But even as Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones threatened on Sunday to bench any player judged to be "disrespecting the flag," the presidential blitz continues -- and it becomes clearer that the NFL and ESPN's attempts to appease the rich asshole have failed.
ESPN retreated on Monday, suspending SportsCenter host Jemele Hill, who has been critical of the rich asshole on Twitter, following "a second violation of our social media guidelines." The inciting posts came in response to Jones' remarks, when she posited that fans who were dismayed by his statement might be wise to quit lining his pockets. (Hill later added that she was "not advocating a NFL boycott.")
Before his team's game this weekend, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross flatly admitted that the rich asshole forced the NFL's hand, saying the President had upended the debate, which began more than a year ago, and distorted the players' anti-racist, anti-police brutality message.
the rich asshole "changed that whole paradigm of what protest is," Ross said, according to a report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "And I think it's incumbent upon the players today, because of how the public is looking at it, to really stand and really salute the flag."
Dolphins head coach Adam Gase duly made it team policy, beginning on Sunday, for anyone on the field before the game to remain standing for the anthem. Three players who kneeled in the past remained out of sight, in a stadium tunnel. Whether a league-wide edict would halt the wider demonstrations remains an open question.
For both the NFL and ESPN, the primary threat posed by the rich asshole's campaign against the protests, which was kicked off during a September 22 rally in Alabama, has always been to their bottom line. But the terms of the clash were always more complicated. In sidelining Hill and threatening to bench players who crossed the President, the network and league, respectively, handed him the kind of win he thirsts for so desperately -- one that leaves his opponents humiliated.
And exposed.
Giving in to the rich asshole will not earn the NFL and ESPN a reprieve. Quite the opposite. If anything, their apparent weakness will only invite further attacks. As the Republican establishment can attest, the rich asshole and his allies do not, seeing their power grow, let up and move on. (This is a familiar rule to anyone who routinely deals with internet trolls.)
Ask New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Ask Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker. All three offered their support, or a helping hand, to the rich asshole relatively early on in the GOP primary contest. Christie first battered Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, then considered a viable rival, on a debate stage before leaving the race and lining up with the rich asshole. the rich asshole thanked Christie by publicly mocking his weight, then freezing him out of an administration job. Sessions was awarded his desired post, but is now scorned by the Presidentfor recusing himself from the Russia investigation. the rich asshole is currently at war with Corker, calling him, among other things, "Liddle Bob." He claimed over the weekend that his fellow Republican is retiring because he "didn't have the guts to run" again.
Similar patterns are emerging as the protest controversy rolls on. ESPN announced Hill's suspension on Monday afternoon. the rich asshole woke up on Tuesday morning and expressed his gratitude by tweeting, "With Jemele Hill at the mike, it is no wonder ESPN ratings have 'tanked,' in fact, tanked so badly it is the talk of the industry!"
On Monday night, after Jones spoke out against the protests but before the NFL more formally weighed in again, the rich asshole dangled a carrot. "A big salute to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who will BENCH players who disrespect our Flag," he tweeted. "Stand for Anthem or sit for game!"
Less than 24 hours later, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out a mostly inscrutable 424-word memo to team executives, obtained by CNN Money, stating his desire to "move past this controversy."
"Like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important moment in our game. We want to honor our flag and our country, and our fans expect that of us," he wrote. "We also care deeply about our players and respect their opinions and concerns about critical social issues. The controversy over the anthem is a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues."
There follows some talk about implementing "an in-season platform to promote the work of our players on these core issues," with the purpose of promoting "positive change in our country."
To start, this presumes that the current protests are not achieving that aim. That's open for debate. the rich asshole has given his side. The players have offered theirs. All the particulars aside, and no matter how the league chooses to frame it from here on out, Goodell elected to put in his lot with the President.
But it was not quite open surrender.
And so, the the rich asshole clan responded, as an NFL announcer might say, by "jumping on the pile." A few hours after the memo went out, Eric the rich asshole tweeted, "Amazing how quickly one changes their tune when viewership drops by 31%. #Revenue #StandForTheAnthem #U.S.A."
some rich asshole Jr. linked to a conservative website's post on Goodell, adding, "Strange, I thought he basically said the opposite last week??? #whathappened." He then retweeted his father, who early on Tuesday morning asked, "Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!"
the rich asshole himself didn't join in until early Wednesday, when he tweeted, "It is about time that Roger Goodell of the NFL is finally demanding that all players STAND for our great National Anthem - RESPECT OUR COUNTRY."
The league quickly responded, through a spokeperson, to say, "commentary this morning about the commissioner's position on the anthem is not accurate." It went on to rehash the softer focus elements of Goodell's memo.
But it was too late. the rich asshole may be badly hobbled in Washington, DC, but he is no less an astute manipulator of public opinion. The NFL and ESPN, like so many presidential candidates last year, reacted to the rich asshole's attacks with tactics drawn from a bygone era.
Where does it end? That's tough to say. Given that the rich asshole -- nearly a year after election day -- hasn't tired yet of jabbing at Hillary Clinton, there's no reason to think it'll be anytime soon.
President Some rich asshole was livid. Why, he asked his advisers in mid-July, should he go along with what he considered the failed Obama-era policy toward Iran and prop up an international nuclear deal he saw as disastrous?
He was incensed by the arguments of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others that the landmark 2015 deal, while flawed, offered stability and other benefits. He did not want to certify to Congress that the agreement remained in the vital U.S. national security interest and that Iran was meeting its obligations. He did not think either was true.
“He threw a fit,” said one person familiar with the meeting. “... He was furious. Really furious. It’s clear he felt jammed.”
So White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other senior advisers came up with a plan — one aimed at accommodating Some rich asshole’s loathing of the Iran deal as “an embarrassment” without killing it outright.
To get Some rich asshole, in other words, to compromise.
“McMaster realized we just cannot come back here next time with a binary option — certify or decertify,” an exercise Congress requires every 90 days, said a person familiar with the July discussion. “He put his team to work on a range of other options, including a decertification option that would involve Congress” and would not immediately break the deal.
That effort — described by seven people familiar with the debate, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the confidential discussions — led to a revamping of the U.S. approach to Iran and the nuclear pact that Some rich asshole is set to announce this week and which congressional leaders were briefed about on Wednesday. Under the expected announcement, Some rich asshole will declare that the deal is not in the U.S. national interest while stopping short of recommending renewed nuclear sanctions.
The deliberations show the extent to which Some rich asshole’s national security team in recent months has been occupied with navigating the future of the Iran nuclear deal, which Some rich asshole repeatedly vowed to throw out as a “disaster” during the campaign. The sometimes angry internal debate also provides another illustration of the way in which Some rich asshole’s gut impulses and desire for dramatic action have often collided with the subtlety of international diplomacy.
The Iran agreement, brokered by President Barack Obama, was never designed to do many of the things Some rich asshole criticizes it for lacking. Many of his own advisers — and many Republican leaders and key U.S. allies — see it as a valuable tool in stopping an Iranian nuclear bomb.
The solution is a compromise that retains the agreement but also puts Iran and U.S. allies on notice that Some rich asshole is willing to walk away. Meanwhile, Some rich asshole is likely to make the case that as the Islamic State terrorist group is weakened, Iran is reasserting itself as the most destructive influence in the Middle East and using the nuclear deal as cover to do so.
“He doesn’t want to certify the Iran deal for more domestic reasons than international ones,” said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “He doesn’t want to certify that any piece of the Obama strategy is working.”
Some rich asshole is expected to announce new conditions for U.S. participation in the agreement among the U.S., Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China and punt the issue to Congress. He may also announce new sanctions or penalties on Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Some rich asshole said Wednesday that a decision is coming “very soon,” and others familiar with White House planning said they expect a speech Thursday or Friday in which Some rich asshole explains the new U.S. position.
“We are on a tightrope. We don’t know what will happen,” said one Western diplomat worried that Some rich asshole’s action will undermine the international agreement.
As a practical matter, Some rich asshole’s expected move will place the onus on Congress to decide what to do next. Working with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a leading congressional hawk on Iran, the White House would refrain from recommending that Congress reimpose nuclear sanctions that were suspended under the deal.
That would buy time for new legislation codifying Some rich asshole’s conditions for remaining in the deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a Republican congressional aide said. It would also increase U.S. leverage with European allies who don’t want to renegotiate the deal, said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Some rich asshole has not yet announced his plan.
“To get us on the right foot on the Iran strategy, we do need to use this certification decision, this moment, to launch a real effort to plug the holes and the weaknesses in the JCPOA,” the aide said.
“We need to send the message that the president does not feel constrained by the JCPOA and does not feel beholden to it” while seeking an extension of the deal’s restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities and other modifications.
Cotton laid out that approach in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations this month, in which he accused Iran of harming U.S. interests in the Middle East and scheming to preserve its ability to eventually produce a bomb.
The speaker and the setting were clear signals that the Iran hard- liner would block for Some rich asshole in two ways. By holding off on new sanctions that would bust the deal, Cotton helps Some rich asshole rebuff the claim of sabotage from Democrats and other parties to the agreement. And because of his history of advocating tough measures against Iran, he may help protect the White House from criticism by conservatives who want to do away with the deal.
“It would give a few months’ or years’ lead time to give time to get U.S. allies on board with the same restrictions — a unified front that will put lots of pressure on the Iranians” to reopen the deal, the aide said.
Britain, France and Germany, along with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, have argued to Congress and the Some rich asshole administration that the deal cannot be redone. Iran has said the same.
The pivotal moment in the administration’s Iran debate came on July 17, when the president balked when presented with the consensus recommendation of his national security advisers that he should submit the July congressional certification. He argued with aides all that afternoon, forcing a postponement of a planned announcement and a rewriting of White House talking points.
The decision was clumsily announced that evening, hours before a legal deadline, along with a declaration that Some rich asshole planned to toughen expectations and enforcement.
The administration announced new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program the following day. But only sanctions related to the country’s disputed nuclear program are covered by the 2015 deal. Iran claims that it has never sought a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear research and development is intended for medicine and energy.
The first certification of Some rich asshole’s presidency came in April, when Some rich asshole was also reluctant but agreed on the grounds that the administration was just beginning a broad review of its Iran strategy and would wait for major decisions, the people familiar with the debate said.
By July, the president’s frustration was evident. He made it clear that he felt strong-armed and that the July certification would be his last, several people familiar with the discussion said.
Some rich asshole took the internal confrontation public in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in which he said he regretted the decision. The experience also further soured Some rich asshole on Tillerson, who he complained consistently came forward with only “totally conventional” approaches to foreign policy problems, people familiar with Some rich asshole’s thinking have said.
It would fall to Tillerson and the State Department to try to negotiate new terms for the Iran deal, and ally after ally has bent his ear with arguments that the deal should be preserved as it is.
“The nuclear deal was a crucial agreement that neutralized its nuclear threat,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Tuesday, following a telephone call with Tillerson. “The U.K. supports the deal and stresses the importance of all parties continuing to uphold their commitments.”
Tillerson joined all of Some rich asshole’s other top national security advisers in recommending last month that Some rich asshole decertify the deal as part of a strategy some refer to as “decertify, pressure and fix.”
As Some rich asshole officials briefed lawmakers Wednesday, two Obama administration architects of the deal, former secretary of state John F. Kerry and former energy secretary Ernest Moniz, were also on Capitol Hill arguing in defense of the original agreement.
Congress may now do away with the requirement that the president recommit to the deal every 90 days, something that skeptical lawmakers of both parties mandated when Obama negotiated the agreement.
President some rich asshole today suggested that the Federal Communications Commission should challenge an NBC license because of "fake news."
"With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!" the rich asshole tweeted.
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel offered a brief response to the rich asshole, saying that's "not how it works" and linking to a manual that discusses the FCC's regulation of broadcast radio and TV licenses. (We asked Rosenworcel to expand on her thoughts but haven't heard back yet.)
Threats from public officials to stifle protected speech can violate the First Amendment. Adam Steinbaugh, who previously practiced law and is now a writer and free speech advocate, pointed to a federal appeals court decision from 2003 that tackles this subject.
The court decision said:
[A] public-official defendant who threatens to employ coercive state power to stifle protected speech violates a plaintiff's First Amendment rights even if the public-official defendant lacks direct regulatory or decision-making authority over the plaintiff or a third party that facilitates the plaintiff's speech.
the rich asshole's threat came shortly after he claimed an NBC news story about his nuclear ambitions is "pure fiction." NBC reported that the rich asshole "said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the US nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation's highest-ranking national security leaders."
The White House has previously confirmed that the rich asshole's tweets are official statements from the president.
the rich asshole also told reporters today that "it is frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write." (the rich asshole can blame the First Amendment for that.)
FCC licenses stations, not networks
Sadly for the rich asshole, there isn't one NBC license that could be revoked or not renewed in order to take the network off the air. The FCC "does not license networks," Politico explained today. The FCC issues broadcast licenses to stations. NBC, which is owned by Comcast, "holds broadcast licenses for several stations. NBC also airs on affiliate stations owned by other companies."
NBC owns and operates stations in major markets including New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Philadelphia; Washington, DC; Miami; Dallas; and Boston. NBC also owns Telemundo stations. But in many cities, NBC content airs on affiliate stations that are not owned by NBC.
The FCC is an independent agency and is not supposed to take orders from the White House, even though the president is responsible for nominating FCC commissioners and selecting the chairperson. the rich asshole could try to pressure the FCC to take action, but the process is convoluted, and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai hasn't publicly signaled any willingness to help the president fight his various battles against news organizations.
"Don't conflate 'revocation,' which is taking away a license mid-term, with renewal, which is when a challenge could be filed," Georgetown Law lecturer Andrew Schwartzman, an attorney who specializes in media and telecommunications policy, told Ars today. "Revocation is essentially impossible; the FCC doesn't even try."
the rich asshole's tweet "is not a meaningful threat," Schwartzman also said. "The broadcasters have gotten the Communications Act amended to make it impossible to lose a license. Even if a meritorious challenge were filed, it would take five or 10 years to litigate, during which time the broadcaster continues to operate the station."
Licenses expire on a staggered basis depending on the state they are located in, according to the FCC manual. "Before we can renew a station's license, we must first determine whether, during the preceding license term, the licensee has served the public interest; has not committed any serious violations of the Communications Act or the FCC's rules; and has not committed other violations which, taken together, would constitute a pattern of abuse," the document says.
Politico has some further details on the process:
Local residents or competitors can file a challenge to a station's license renewal, but the basis for such a challenge is extremely limited—it must be a case where the station systematically violated the FCC's rules or lacked the requisite "character" to hold the license. That is usually defined as a felony conviction.
During his election campaign, the rich asshole said that Comcast's purchase of NBC "concentrated far too much power in one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think and what to do." the rich asshole said his administration would "look at breaking that deal up" but hasn't followed through on the threat.
the rich asshole threat is Nixon-esque, Democrat says
While it seems unlikely that NBC stations would lose licenses because of presidential interference, Democrats in Congress expressed concern that the rich asshole could succeed in attempts to infringe upon the freedom of the press.
"The president's threat against NBC and other media outlets is far from empty," Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in a statement released today. "In 1974, President Nixon and his top aides discussed using the FCC's license renewal process to punish The Washington Post for its Watergate coverage. Today, some rich asshole has threatened to do the same to NBC. In confirmation hearings for Ajit Pai, we raised this possibility. Now, the FCC must show that it is loyal to the law, not the president, and make clear that it rejects this kind of interference."
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to Pai today, urging the chairman to "maintain the FCC's charter as an independent agency and withstand any urges from President the rich asshole to harm the news media and infringe upon the First Amendment."
"Any insinuation that elected officials could use the levers of government to control or sensor the news media would represent a startling degradation of the freedom of press," Markey also said in his letter to Pai.
Markey asked Pai to "publicly refuse to challenge the license of any broadcaster because the president dislikes its coverage." Markey also asked Pai to provide Congress with "information about any correspondence or communications from the White House or other members of the the rich asshole administration that have encouraged you to take action against a broadcaster."
In a recent speech, Pai mentioned a trend of people asking the FCC to pull licenses from networks they don't like.
"On Twitter, for example, people regularly demand that the FCC yank licenses from cable news channels like Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN because they disagree with the opinions expressed on those networks," Pai said at the time. "Setting aside the fact that the FCC doesn’t license cable channels, these demands are fundamentally at odds with our legal and cultural traditions."
But while Pai referred to unnamed people on Twitter who objected to certain opinions being broadcast, he hasn't responded to the president calling for NBC's license to be challenged as a reprisal for publishing a news story. We contacted Chairman Pai's office and NBC about the rich asshole's tweet today, and we will update this story if we get a response from either of them.
After six months, Republican leaders have released the broad outline of their tax reform plan, a policy area that unites a party stricken with divisions and distractions that have stymied their ability to achieve a major legislative accomplishment so far this year.
Now comes the hard part. The outline was the first step toward a significant restructuring of the nation's tax code, but it comes later in the calendar year than expected and remains light on specifics that could become stumbling blocks to passage.
Most Republicans have rallied around it, hailing it as a great start.
But with just one month until their self-imposed deadline of Nov. 13 to release a legislative text with details, Republicans are once again facing the challenge of passing a major piece of legislation that may end up in constant danger of falling apart.
The stakes are even higher after a summer in which the party failed to pass health care reform, leaving lawmakers eager for an accomplishment they can take home to voters in next year's midterm elections.
How big are the stakes? "Essential," says Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. "If we don’t do tax reform, we might not be in the majority,” he said.
Congressional Republicans are highly aware of the importance of successfully passing tax reform. Roberts' warning about losing their majorities in Congress is something members are also hearing from donors and constituents, who expect the GOP to get something done on taxes.
As tax reform efforts pick up steam in the coming weeks, an army of lobbyists and special interest groups are preparing to deploy inside the halls of Congress, and members will inevitably be looking out for their own constituents, ingredients that make political calculations unpredictable. GOP leaders, including President some rich asshole, tried their hardest to put political pressure on individual members during the health care debates but were unable to put together the 50 votes needed to pass it in the Senate.
Adding to the mounting political and policy challenges as Republicans try to piece together tax legislation is a growing intra-party spat between President some rich asshole, his supporters and GOP members that Republicans on Capitol Hill say could threaten their success.
The Internal Divisions
The very public spat between President the rich asshole and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is the most recent internal feud that has roiled the party, and put tax reform supporters on edge. the rich asshole has downplayed its eventual impact on tax reform, saying it won't factor in on the final votes.
“I don't think so. I think we're well on the way,” the rich asshole said on Tuesday. "The people of this country want tax cuts. They want lower taxes. We're the highest taxed nation in the world."
But Republicans on Capitol Hill say that a distracted president doesn't help the difficult task at hand and that attacking a critical member of the Senate is no way to build a coalition.
And Corker, a key player in the tax debate, has little to lose. He is retiring at the end of this term and has said that he’s not an automatic “yes” on any tax legislation, demanding that a bill be revenue neutral.
“I’m not voting for a bill that produces a penny of deficit,” Corker told NBC News recently.
And the the rich asshole-Corker episode is just the most recent for the president. the rich asshole has publicly criticized other key congressional Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Speaker Paul Ryan, just to name a few.
Republicans on the Hill are routinely frustrated that the rich asshole’s public feuds with members of his own party or his off-topic rants are interfering in the legislative progress. Aides privately sigh about the president's unpredictability and his penchant for steering the conversation away from Republican priorities.
The Cost of Tax Reform
Those fights don't even address the actual policy challenges tax reform faces. Corker’s legislative concern is one shared by fellow fiscal hawks who don’t want the estimated $1.5 trillion worth of tax cuts to blow a hole in the budget. And Republicans in the House are much more concerned with the impact on the budget than their colleagues in the Senate, making it a difficult issue to reconcile.
Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the 150-member conservative Republican Study Committee, said in a recent interview that “he would struggle” with voting for any tax reform that adds to the deficit.
“It would be inconsistent for us not to have a problem,” Walker said of his fellow conservative House members.
While Walker would prefer a tax bill that doesn’t add to the deficit, he didn’t draw a line in the sand, allowing for an opening.
Blue-State Republicans
Another major challenge facing Republicans is pitting red-state Republicans against blue-state Republicans. While it didn’t specifically state it, the GOP framework would eliminate the tax deduction enjoyed by residents of high-tax states who can deduct their state and local taxes from their tax bill. It’s a deduction that benefits higher-income residents in New Jersey, New York, California and other higher taxed states, and Republicans from those states have come out against the plan for that reason.
Republicans are discussing a range of options, including keeping the deduction or a compromise such as phasing it out or capping it so people below a certain income can still benefit from it.
“We have to respect the fact that the people that provide our majority reside in these states, and that’s already very difficult territory for Republicans," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. "You don’t want to weaken your most vulnerable members by asking them to vote for something that’s an anathema to their folks at home."
While the impact on the budget and the state and local tax deduction are the two biggest issues facing the party right now, the challenges will grow as more details emerge. A common refrain around the halls of Capitol Hill is that every line in the tax code has a lobbyist fighting to preserve it.
The Special Interests
Lawmakers say that the lobbyists have been pretty quiet so far, but they expect that to change as details emerge.
“You have to deal with people coming here — they’re doing their jobs — but if we spend too much time trying to accommodate this exemption and not look at the broader package, that’s where you start losing votes and that’s when you start eroding impact that you can have on the package,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Some political organizations are already spending millions to help tax reform pass. The super PAC associated with Ryan, the American Action Network, has launched millions of dollars worth of television ads in targeted congressional districts promoting tax reform.
And the Charles and David Koch-backed group, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, has made tax reform its No. 1 issue after the defeat of Obamacare repeal. They unveiled a six-figure ad and a website on Wednesday to name the industry groups that are lobbying to keep specific tax provisions.
"We want to make it clear that we aren't going to sit idly by and let crony politicians, businesses and lobbyists jeopardize it," James Davis, Freedom Partners' executive vice president, said of tax reform. "Americans deserve a tax code that puts their interests ahead of special interests, and shining a light on this process is the best way to ensure they get one."
As the challenges mount, Republicans are hopeful for party cohesion.
"You can have all the most beautiful wonderful goals in the world but if we’re not able to check the box and deliver for the American people ... What does it mean for all of us?" said Walker, the conservative House leader.
The need for a legislative victory could overcome all of the Republicans' concerns, since failure would risk their majority in Congress and their re-election chances.
“This one needs to happen,” Cole said of tax reform. “If we don’t achieve this, then I think the electoral consequences will be dire indeed.”
PRESIDENT THE RICH ASSHOLE HAS OPENED UP A NEW FRONT IN HIS WAR AGAINST THE MEDIA, THIS TIME WITH NBC NEWS IN HIS SIGHTS. BUT IS THE CONFLICT TAMING THE PRESS OR SIMPLY MAKING IT STRONGER?
THE RICH ASSHOLE HAS USED ATTACKS ON THE MEDIA TO FIRE UP HIS BASE SINCE HIS CAMPAIGN BEGAN. THERE ARE FEW MORE RELIABLE APPLAUSE LINES AT HIS RALLIES THAN HIS ATTACKS ON THE “FAKE NEWS MEDIA.”
YET AT THE SAME TIME, NEWS ORGANIZATIONS HAVE REAPED JOURNALISTIC AND COMMERCIAL REWARDS FROM A WHITE HOUSE THAT IS UNPARALLELED IN ITS DRAMA AND VOLATILITY.
MEDIA OUTLETS ACROSS THE BOARD HAVE SEEN THEIR AUDIENCES GROW, OFTEN IN WAYS THAT SEEM CORRELATED WITH THEIR WILLINGNESS TO CONFRONT THE RICH ASSHOLE.
“IT IS A MATTER OF RECORD THAT, FOR A NUMBER OF MEDIA OUTLETS, THERE IS THIS THING CALLED THE ‘THE RICH ASSHOLE BUMP’ THAT HAS HELPED WITH CIRCULATION AND PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS AND TRAFFIC,” SAID RICK EDMONDS, WHO COVERS THE MEDIA BUSINESS FOR THE POYNTER INSTITUTE.
MSNBC, THE MOST LIBERAL OF THE THREE CABLE NEWS NETWORKS, HAS BEEN ENJOYING ITS BEST-EVER RATINGS DURING THE THE RICH ASSHOLE PRESIDENCY. THE NEW YORK TIMES, FAR FROM “FAILING” AS THE RICH ASSHOLE OFTEN INSISTS IN HIS TWEETS, HAS SEEN SUBSCRIPTIONS SURGE.
The pattern is not confined to news journalism.
The latest late-night ratings show Stephen Colbert of CBS and Jimmy Kimmel of ABC winning viewers with their politically-flavored material, while NBC’s Jimmy Fallon, who typically displays less bite in that area, has seen his viewership decline. NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” enjoyed its best ratings in decades during its most recent season, when the rich asshole skits were the main draw.
Individual journalists have also experienced both sides of the the rich asshole coin.
Katy Tur of NBC News was a frequent target of the rich asshole’s campaign trail rhetoric; on at least one occasion, she had to be walked to her car by Secret Service agents who feared for her safety. But Tur’s book about that campaign, “Unbelievable,” received warm reviews and is in its third week on the New York Times bestseller list.
Those kinds of data points have to be balanced against the more abstract question of whether the rich asshole has succeeded in undermining the credibility of the media among his supporters.
“There are some disturbing [polling] numbers in terms of media credibility and he is exploiting that,” said Charlie Sykes, a one-time conservative radio talk-show host who is critical of the rich asshole and of the broader right-wing media ecosystem.
The president, apparently upset with NBC for stories on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his own alleged comments about nuclear weapons, suggested in a tweet Wednesday morning that the network’s broadcasting license could be revoked.
In fact, the NBC network possesses no single license — it is the individual stations that make up the network that are licensed.
But that was only one jab in a broader flurry. During a brief interaction with reporters in the Oval Office late on Wednesday, the rich asshole declared that it was “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever they want to write. And people should look into it.”
The frontal attack on the First Amendment provoked immediate and fierce blowback.
“the rich asshole's latest threat to NBC is reckless and unfounded, and such rhetoric continues to jeopardize the integrity of our democracy,” said Amanda Fayer, a senior advisor to the Free the Press Coalition.
In a statement provided to The Hill, Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists said, “Heavily censored countries such as Azerbaijan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey license news outlets according to whether their leaders agree with their coverage. some rich asshole’s assertion that NBC’s license could be challenged not only puts him in unfavorable company but emboldens other governments to embrace authoritarian tendencies.”
Sykes noted that, four days before the rich asshole’s tweet about broadcasting licenses, the president had also demanded “equal time” in coverage — an apparent allusion to the “Fairness Doctrine,” a regulatory law on broadcasters that was undone during the Reagan presidency.
“A few days ago he is talking about the Fairness Doctrine and today he is talking about whether NBC should lose its license. So here you have the president of the United States suggesting that he could use government power to retaliate against his critics in the media.
“It is one thing for some rich asshole to be a media critic. It is something very different for the president of the United States to muse about using the coercive powers of government to punish his critics,” Sykes added.
the rich asshole’s recent attacks are hardly unexpected. His previous blasts have included sharing a tweet that showed an illustration of a train apparently hitting a CNN reporter. (He deleted the retweet within minutes.) He also tweeted a manipulated image that showed him wrestling a figure to the ground whose head was covered by the CNN logo.
In February, he described the news media generally as “the enemy of the American people.”
Some media critics on the right applaud the general thrust of the rich asshole’s attacks even as they raise an eyebrow at some specifics.
Tim Graham, the director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, said that there was no real chance that the rich asshole would press the Federal Communications Commission to take action against NBC or any other network.
“It’s Twitter bluster,” Graham said. “But it drives them insane — that is part of the fun, I guess.”
Graham insisted, however, that media bias was real. He questioned, for instance, whether reports of dissent between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-President Obama would have got the same coverage as those between Tillerson and the rich asshole.
He also suggested that a degree of pomposity on the part of the media had contributed to a loss of public credibility.
“The news media has just too high an opinion of themselves: ‘We are the guarantors of democracy. We are the only ones who care about truth.’ No, you don’t. You don’t care about truth any more than any other sector of the media or any other sector of the political system,” he asserted.
Voices within the mainstream media, however, lament that unless more efforts are made to win the public over to their side — not in terms of individual outlets, but in terms of the importance of a free press generally — they might be stuck in a permanent war with the president.
“Organizations want to be forceful in responding to threats and attacks, but they also don’t want their voice to become background noise,” said Andrew Seaman, the Ethics Committee Chairperson of the Society of Professional Journalists.
“Personally, I think news and journalism organizations must make a substantial commitment to educating people about the press and the First Amendment. Otherwise, we’ll all be stuck in this endless tug of war.”
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on some rich asshole’s presidency.
SAN JUAN MAYOR CARMEN YULIN CRUZ SAID SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PRESIDENT THE RICH ASSHOLE'S ATTACKS AGAINST HER.
"THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME OR POLITICS. I’M NOT GOING TO BE THE FACE YOU SEE OUT THERE JUST GIVING YOU A BOX OF FOOD FOR THE PHOTO OP," SHE TOLD PRI.ORG, WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE RICH ASSHOLE'S TWEETS CALLING HER "NASTY."
"I’M THE FACE OF THE PERSON WHO IS GOING TO MAKE SURE SOMEBODY GETS THAT TO YOU ... SO LIKE THE LAST SCENE OF GONE WITH THE WIND — 'FRANKLY MY DEAR, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN.'"
THE RICH ASSHOLE WENT AFTER THE SAN JUAN MAYOR AFTER SHE CRITICIZED THE FEDERAL RESPONSE TO THE DEVASTATION IN PUERTO RICO.
THE THE RICH ASSHOLE ADMINISTRATION HAS COME UNDER SCRUTINY IN RECENT WEEKS FOR ITS RESPONSE TO PUERTO RICO IN THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE MARIA.
THIS PAST WEEKEND, CRUZ WENT AFTER THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA), CLAIMING IT HAS NOT RESPONDED TO RECENT REQUESTS FOR HELP AS PUERTO RICO RECOVERS FROM HURRICANE MARIA.
FEMA Administrator Brock Longresponded to Cruz’s criticisms during an appearance on a Sunday show, saying the agency “filtered out the mayor a long time ago" and doesn't have "time for the political noise."
On Sunday, the rich asshole said "nobody could have done what I've done" for Puerto Rico "with so little appreciation."
A report Wednesday said the Puerto Rican city the rich asshole visited earlier this month after Hurricane Maria is still mostly without power.
PRESIDENT THE RICH ASSHOLE SAID IN AN INTERVIEW SCHEDULED TO AIR WEDNESDAY NIGHT THAT THE CURRENT CONTROVERSY OVER PROTESTS IN THE NFL WOULD NOT BE “A PROBLEM” HAD THE NFL ORIGINALLY SUSPENDED COLIN KAEPERNICK FOR KNEELING DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.
“I WATCHED COLIN KAEPERNICK AND I THOUGHT IT WAS TERRIBLE. AND THEN IT GOT BIGGER AND BIGGER AND STARTED MUSHROOMING. AND FRANKLY THE NFL SHOULD HAVE SUSPENDED HIM FOR ONE GAME AND HE WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE IT AGAIN,” THE RICH ASSHOLE TOLD FOX NEWS’ “HANNITY.”
“They could have then suspended him for two games and they could have suspended him again if he did it a third time, for the season, and you would never have had a problem," he said. "But I will tell you - you cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem, you cannot do that.”
THE COMMENTS FROM THE PRESIDENT ARE HIS LATEST RESPONSE TO A CONTROVERSY THAT HAS STRETCHED OVER SEVERAL WEEKS SINCE THE RICH ASSHOLE FIRST SUGGESTED NFL OWNERS FIRE PLAYERS WHO CHOOSE TO KNEEL, RATHER THAN STAND, DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.
THE RICH ASSHOLE HAS ARGUED THAT KNEELING, WHICH KAEPERNICK DID SEVERAL TIMES IN 2016 AS A FORM OF PROTEST AGAINST RACIAL INJUSTICE, IS DISRESPECTFUL TO THE UNITED STATES AND ITS FLAG.
THE NFL SAID WEDNESDAY THAT IT HAS NOT CHANGED ITS POLICY ABOUT THE NATIONAL ANTHEM, BUT WILL DISCUSS THE TOPIC AT NEXT WEEK’S LEAGUE MEETINGS.
The White House said this week it would support a rule requiring players to stand during “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
President the rich asshole is expected to announce on Thursday an executive order that could undermine part of the Affordable Care Act.CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President the rich asshole, after failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Congress, will act on his own to relax health care standards on small businesses that band together to buy health insurance and may take steps to allow the sale of other health plans that skirt the health law’s requirements.
An executive order is expected Thursday, when the president is to host small-business owners at the White House.
Although some rich asshole has been telegraphing his intentions for more than a week, Democrats and some state regulators are now greeting the move with increasing alarm, calling it another attempt to undermine President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. They warn that by relaxing standards for so-called association health plans, some rich asshole would create low-cost insurance options for the healthy, driving up costs for the sick and destabilizing insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.
“It would have a very negative impact on the markets,” said Mike Kreidler, the state insurance commissioner in Washington. “Our state is a poster child of what can go wrong. Association health plans often shun the bad risks and stay with the good risks.”
They also worry that the rich asshole administration intends to loosen restrictions on short-term health insurance plans that do not satisfy requirements of the Affordable Care Act.
“By siphoning off healthy individuals, these junk plans could cannibalize the insurance exchanges,” said Topher Spiro, a vice president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group. “For older, sicker people left behind in plans regulated under the Affordable Care Act, premiums could increase.”
But to business groups, the executive order offers an opportunity to bind their members together and sell large-group insurance policies that are cheap and attractive. Dirk Van Dongen, the president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, said that he was delighted with some rich asshole’s initiative and that his group would seriously consider establishing an association health plan.
“Small to midsize businesses have very little leverage in the insurance market,” Mr. Van Dongen said. “Anything that allows them to amalgamate their purchasing power will be helpful.”
Large employer-sponsored health plans are generally subject to fewer federal insurance requirements than small group plans and coverage purchased by individuals and families on their own. They are generally not required to provide “essential health benefits,” such as emergency services, maternity and newborn care, mental health coverage and substance abuse treatment, although many do.
A decision by Obama appointees in 2011 discouraged the use of association health plans as a substitute for Affordable Care Act policies because officials feared they would be used to circumvent the law’s coverage mandates. The Obama administration said that coverage offered to dozens or hundreds of small businesses through a trade or professional association would not be treated as a single large employer health plan for the purpose of insurance regulation.
Instead, the Obama administration said, the government would look at the size of each business participating in the association, so that many small employers would still be subject to stringent federal rules.
The the rich asshole administration, by contrast, wants to make it easier for small businesses to buy less expensive plans that do not comply with some requirements of the 2010 law.
Several states considered bills to treat health plans offered to small employers through a trade association as large-group coverage, exempt from federal rules that apply to small businesses. But the Obama administration blocked those efforts, saying they were pre-empted by the Affordable Care Act. the rich asshole administration officials are reconsidering that interpretation, in view of the president’s vow to increase access to less expensive insurance.
Large-group plans are still subject to some requirements of the Affordable Care Act. They generally must cover children up to age 26 on their parents’ plans, cannot impose lifetime limits on covered benefits and cannot charge co-payments for preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies.
But they are generally exempt from the requirements to provide a specified package of benefits and to cover a certain percentage of the cost of covered services.
the rich asshole administration is also looking for ways to loosen restrictions on short-term health insurance plans that do not satisfy requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Under a rule issued last October by the Obama administration, the duration of such short-term plans, purchased by hundreds of thousands of people seeking inexpensive insurance, must be less than three months. The rules previously said “less than 12 months.”
The Obama administration said some insurers were abusing short-term plans and keeping healthier consumers out of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. People are buying these short-term plans as their “primary form of health coverage,” and some insurers are pitching the products to healthier people, the Obama administration said.
But the rich asshole administration officials say that with insurance premiums soaring in many states, consumers should be able to buy less comprehensive, less expensive coverage as an alternative to conventional plans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said short-term policies “serve an important purpose for consumers” who are between jobs.
That has some insurance experts worried. The influx of a set of plans exempt from the Affordable Care Act rules will essentially divide the market and make it increasingly unstable, said Rebecca Owen, a health research actuary with the Society of Actuaries.
People who want or need broad coverage could find it increasingly difficult to obtain an affordable policy, experts say. While the administration’s goal may be to give people a broader choice of plans, it could have the opposite effect on people who need or want the robust coverage available under the Affordable Care Act.
“The easier you make it not to buy comprehensive coverage, the harder you make it to buy comprehensive coverage,” said Katherine Hempstead, a health policy expert at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
As they waited for details of the executive order, health insurers still offering coverage in the online marketplaces created by the health care law were apprehensive.
Those insurers are most jittery about the possibility of a surge in short-term plans. Many of the large national insurers, like UnitedHealth Group, already offer these plans, and there would be little difficulty in their introducing more because of the executive order, analysts said.
“They can cobble these things together pretty easily,” said John Graves, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University.
Individuals may already be attracted to short-term plans because of their low costs. These plans tend to limit benefits or offer policies only to people who do not have expensive medical conditions.
Short-term policies do not satisfy the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act, so consumers who buy them may be subject to tax penalties. But with the price of conventional insurance policies rising at double-digit rates, some people say they are willing to pay a penalty so they can buy a cheaper plan.
The introduction of new association plans could take much longer, according to insurers and other experts. The administration would need to work out the regulatory details, and groups would need to construct those plans.
But these plans pose some of the same risks, and industry experts warn that they have a history of leaving consumers with unpaid medical bills if they are not adequately regulated.
While association health plans can be well run, they “have had a spotty track record,” said Ms. Owen, the actuary. In the past, some plans failed because they did not have enough money to pay their customers’ medical bills, while some insurance companies were accused of misleading people about exactly what the plans would cover.
It’s pretty clear that some rich asshole has no idea how the country works, or what is actually in the US Constitution.
Earlier today, the rich asshole attacked NBC News for reporting unflattering – but true – content about him. The network had first infuriated the rich asshole several days ago when it reported that his Secretary of State had called him a “moron”, and most recently the network enraged the rich asshole again by reporting on the reason Rex Tillerson called the rich asshole a moron – which was because the rich asshole wanted to increase the US nuclear arsenal tenfold. For no other reason than because his fragile ego can’t handle it, the rich asshole reacted to that story by threatening to take away the press’ broadcasting license.
the rich asshole made things even worse as the day went on when he actually said, “It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it.”
Understandably, there was a huge uprising in opposition to all of this, with one of the most brilliant responses coming from CNN’s Jake Tapper. During the opening of his show The Lead, Tapper responded to the rich asshole by telling him to go read the Constitution. With a pocket Constitution in hand, Tapper told the rich asshole, “You might want to start looking into it too, Mr. President.”
You can watch Tapper shred the rich asshole below:
the rich asshole needs to be reminded that he isn’t a dictator and that he cannot take away the media’s freedom of speech just because he doesn’t like what’s being written about him. If he actually cared that much, perhaps the rich asshole might have better luck if he actually did his job and stopped acting like a baby.
some rich asshole is a clear and present threat to the United States of America. That fact is indisputable at this point; after all, a Senator in his own party just said so in strikingly blunt terms. However, the GOP-controlled House has been silent on the rich asshole’s dangerous antics, because they fear his lighting them up on Twitter, and they also fear retaliation by his crazy base at the ballot box. But it seems that Rep. Al Green (D- TX) has had enough.
On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Green took the floor of the House of Representatives and formally introduced Articles of Impeachment against the rich asshole. Green began:
“I rise today on behalf of the many who have concluded that enough is enough.”
Green went on to say that the rich asshole’s being in the White House is “is fueling an white supremacy hate machine,” which is currently “causing immediate injury to American society.” On top of that, Green introduced his Articles as “privileged,” meaning that the House needs to take them up within the next two days.
Now, obviously this will go nowhere. Those craven Republicans don’t care that the rich asshole is destroying the country, just as long as they get every bigoted right-wing fever dream they’ve had for the last eight years codified into law, with a few tax cuts for rich people thrown in, oh, just for fun.
In short, these Republicans KNOW that the rich asshole is unfit, and could even land us in a nuclear holocaust if he can’t be kept away from the nuclear codes. In fact, at this point, any responsible person will do what was done to President Nixon in his final days, when he reportedly was drinking heavily and wandering the halls of the White House conversing with portraits of dead presidents. At that time, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and soon-to-be President Gerald Ford insisted that those responsible for launching nuclear weapons went through them rather than Nixon, because they knew Nixon to be dangerous.
General John Kelly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and other adults in the room had better be doing the same with the rich asshole, who is MUCH more dangerous than Nixon ever dreamed of being.
Please, someone show some courage in the Republican House and go along with Rep. Green. It’s time to impeach the rich asshole.
It’s time to drag some rich asshole out of office. Because if we don’t act soon, the Constitution will be put through a shredder.
NBC News has multiple reliable sources. And when those sources tell them something, they pass the information on to the public, whether the rich asshole approves or not.
That’s because the free press in this country do not answer to a petty tyrant who thinks he should have a say in what the media reports.
In response to reports concerning General John Kelly and growing tension between him and the rich asshole, the rich asshole lashed out on Twitter.
It should be pointed out that the unemployment rate was already under 5 percent and declining, while the stock market had already reached record highs and climbing before the 2016 Election. the rich asshole has not even passed a budget of his own yet and has not signed a single piece of economic legislation. However, the economic regulations he has killed has resulted in the first monthly job losses after over 70 straight months of growth.
the rich asshole then exploded in rage against NBC for reporting on the rich asshole’s desire to dramatically expand America’s nuclear arsenal, and threatened to strip them of their broadcasting license.
Basically, the rich asshole just threatened to punish a news organization for doing their job.
Just imagine if President Obama had threatened to pull Fox News’ broadcasting license. Conservatives would be losing their minds and accusing him of violating the right to free speech and freedom of the press.
If some rich asshole follows through on this threat, however, the next Democrat to hold the White House should retaliate by immediately yanking Fox News’ broadcasting license. Then we can watch as hypocrites whine and cry.
White house Nazi Stephen Miller is a scumbag. At this point, there’s no question about it. He’s a Nazi and therefore is a scumbag.
But there are other reasons Miller is a piece of trash outside of his struggle, or kampf, with people remembering his long history of riding the white rage train to the White House, spouting Nazi dog-whistle terms like “cosmopolitan” (it means Jew, in case you’re unaware) when insulting opponents.
Miller, whose family mostly seems to hate him based on their social media remarks, is now beset by the FAKE NEWS fake newsing up some more fake news about…oh, the White House confirmed this one?
The New York Times reports that in high school Miller showed his contempt for women by leaping into the final stretch of a race they had been running for quite some time:
Mr. Miller set off on a patriotic semi-striptease before the editor of the student newspaper, according to the editor, Ari Rosmarin, theatrically removing a button-down to reveal an American flag T-shirt in protest of an article he found inconsistent with the national interest. (The White House denied any symbolic unbuttoning, though officials confirmed Mr. Miller’s fondness for the T-shirt.)
He jumped, uninvited, into the final stretch of a girls’ track meet, apparently intent on proving his athletic supremacy over the opposite sex. (The White House, reaching for exculpatory context, noted that this was a girls’ team from another school, not his own.)
Miller apparently hoped to take advantage of this “head start” to show that he is genetically superior to women by crossing the finish line first (this, of course, perfectly matches his current professed views on women).
If you’re sitting at your computer, take a deep breath. If you’re reading this on your phone, have a seat. Everything you think you know about how bad the the rich asshole administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico has been is about to get a whole lot worse.
On Rachel Maddow’s show Monday night, she discussed a small town in the mountains of Puerto Rico called Aibonito, roughly one and a half hours from the capital city of San Juan. If it seems like you’re getting a geography lesson lately, that’s good — even if it is because of listening to the rich asshole trash talk mayors and citizens or watching him pelt churchgoers with rolls of paper towels.
Showing video taken from a moving vehicle, Rachel describes the roads from the capital to Aibonito: Clear. Unblocked. As the cameras travel with the MSNBC team, you hear the point of Rachel’s report, which is that after almost three weeks since the storm, FEMA still has not brought relief to the mountain town. And to hear them tell it, there’s a reason.
It’s not their job.
FEMA still has not delivered food or water to the completely accessible town. And make no mistake, FEMA knows that Aibonito is accessible at this point, because they’ve been there three times. All three times, FEMA was on the scene to “help residents fill out paperwork” to apply for aid. Let’s drag that acronym out into what it stands for: The Federal EmergencyManagementAgency. Heading to a remote mountain town that’s been waiting three weeks for food and water to assist the pueblo in asking for help doesn’t sound like anyone is managing any emergencies to me.
Rachel first ran a profile on Aibonito on Friday, which is how she knew that FEMA had been there three times. After she ran that report, FEMA contacted her show, desperate to let the public know that they had once again made the literally unimpeded journey to Aibonito on Saturday, this time to speak to the mayor and file a report on the needs of the community. Still no food or water in their undoubtedly spacious trucks.
The death toll in Puerto Rico has more than doubled since some rich asshole told the residents there that they should be grateful so few had died.
But the part that will piss you off is the comparison between how the the rich asshole administration has handled this “emergency management” as opposed to the emergencies in Texas and Florida. Shipping restrictions are back in place in Puerto Rico, making what little aid is coming hard to receive. The administration initially refused to lift a restriction on using food stamps to purchase ready-to-eat food, despite the grocery stores on the island being mostly closed until within the last week, and despite those stores that have reopened jacking up their prices. That’s not how it went in the mainland US, where the “white people’s hurricanes” saw victims able to use their food stamps to purchase McDonald’s on day one, and where the federal government stepped in to help municipalities fight price gouging.
There can be little doubt that the “emergency management” in Puerto Rico has suffered from a lack of compassion, and that erasing everything that puertorriqueños have in common with Texans and Floridians — American citizenship, basic humanity, dire need — what’s left is that they are a Spanish-speaking people. They are brown and seem foreign. They are underdogs, with a flag that isn’t the same shape as the flags of the individual United States that fly at the same height: Just below the American flag.
some rich asshole speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole on Wednesday attacked the very concept of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment during an angry rant directed at reporters in the Oval Office.
“It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write,” the rich asshole fumed, per reporter Abby Phillip.
the rich asshole on Wednesday morning ratcheted up his attacks on the American media when he threatened to revoke NBC’s broadcasting license after it reported that he wanted a ten-fold increase in the size of America’s nuclear arsenal.
The freedom of the press to write whatever it wants is enshrined in the Constitution’s First Amendment.
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” the amendment states.
“This presidential tactic is not new in the the rich asshole era,” Smith said in response to the rich asshole’s reported comments. “It dates to the Nixon administration. It’s called, affectionately, ‘working the refs.'”
Prior to President Richard Nixon’s resignation amid the Watergate scandal, he and his aides took a similarly hard-lined stance against media they saw as “against” them. Nixon “invited top broadcast executives to the White House and told them ‘your reporters just can’t stand the fact that I’m in this office.'”
“The press secretary at the time declared that all of the TV networks were anti-Nixon and that they would pay for that ‘sooner or later one way or another,'” he continued, noting that that was a direct quote from Nixon’s press secretary Ronald Ziegler.
“[Nixon] targeted The Washington Post, its television stations and more. His prosecutors drafted legislation to impede journalism,” Smith said. “In the end, journalism ended his political career. The First Amendment stood firm and almost 50 years later, it does today.”
Watch the Fox News host detail the ways Nixon’s attacks on the media came back to bite him below.
President some rich asshole (image via Nicholas Kamm/AFP).
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole’s constant rage is becoming more and more explosive, and a new report from Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman claims that even his trusted advisers feel the president is coming apart at the seams.
“Several people close to the president have recently told me… that the rich asshole is ‘unstable,’ ‘losing a step,’ and ‘unraveling,'” Sherman writes in his explosive story.
Sherman claims that he has spoken with a half dozen prominent Republicans and the rich asshole advisers over the past several days, and he says all of them describe a White House that is struggling to stop the president from careening into disaster.
the rich asshole seems to have been set off by the loss of Luther Strange, the candidate whom he had endorsed for the Republican nomination for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” one the rich asshole confidant tells Sherman. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”
One of Sherman’s sources also says that Steve Bannon — the Breitbart News boss who once ran the rich asshole’s campaign and who for months served as his top political strategist before being ousted this past summer — believes that the rich asshole only has a 30% chance of making it through a full term.
Bannon reportedly warned the rich asshole earlier this year about the possibility that his cabinet could invoke the 25th amendment to have him removed from office. Specifically, the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives the vice president and “and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” the power to remove the president if they deem he is no longer capable of faithfully discharging his duties.
According to his associates and allies, the rich asshole is “a nut job,” a “carnival barker,” “kooky,” and “very, very not smart.” the rich asshole has turned the White House into “adult day care.” Most infamously, some rich asshole, the 45th president of the United States of America, is a “f***ing moron.”
But he is also in control of the most powerful institution in world history, the U.S. government. To get there, he endured a grueling 17-month campaign in which he blew up the establishment of both major parties, trounced 16 Republican candidates, made the media, pollsters, and experts look foolish, and edged past Hillary Clinton who was backed by Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and two of the most popular presidents of the modern era, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
the rich asshole has a glaring lack of erudition. But he is an evil genius who keeps suckering the public and very smart people alike. the rich asshole’s latest chumps are his newest besties, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
A month ago Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Pelosi, leader of the House Democrats, were all smiles. They believed they had struck a deal with the rich asshole to protect 800,000 immigrant youth, whose protected status the rich asshole had just revoked, while refusing to fund a border wall with Mexico.
Schumer was caught on a hot mic all aflutter at the rich asshole’s attention, “He likes me,” and proud of himself for explaining to the rich asshole how to triangulate Congress — “sometimes step right and sometimes step left.”
It didn’t occur to Chuck that the rich asshole had already mastered “step right, step left” in his rise to power. the rich asshole appealed to antiwar and anti-interventionist sentiment by calling the Iraq War “a big, fat mistake” and blaming Bush for 9/11. the rich asshole promised to lower prescription drug prices and provide health insurance for everyone. He said he would bring back manufacturing jobs and make Mexico pay for the wall. the rich asshole met with Al Gore to talk climate change, and vowed to “win” against the opioid crisis, whatever that means.
In every instance, and many more, the rich asshole has done nothing or the exact opposite when it comes to fulfilling his promises for the forgotten men and women of America.
And he did the same to Chuck and Nancy, backtracking the day after he seduced them over a dinner of honey sesame crispy beef. the rich asshole disputed their claim there was an agreement, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted, “excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” and Stephen Miller, the rich asshole’s minister of ethnic cleansing, reportedly said prior to the dinner that “the administration would never allow a version of the replacement legislation, known as the Dream Act, to pass.”
It was classic the rich asshole telling people what they want to hear. Despite the blatant bait and switch, Chuck and Nancy believed they had “little to lose” in negotiating with the rich asshole. Schumer told the Washington Post, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained … We’re very hopeful that they will keep their word.”
That hope was a delusion. When the rich asshole showed his cards on immigration, it was a white nationalist Christmas. He is demanding “the construction of a wall across the southern border, the hiring of 10,000 immigration agents, tougher laws for those seeking asylum and denial of federal grants to ‘sanctuary cities,’” along with turning state and local police into a deportation force, cutting legal immigration, lowering the cap on refugees, and new punitive measures against children fleeing violence in Central America and families trying to reunite.
Chuck and Nancy got suckered, just like everyone else who has crossed paths with the rich asshole, whether it’s hundreds of workers and contractors he stiffed, casino creditors he bamboozled for hundreds of millions of dollars, telling them “it’s going to be great,” more than 6,000 the rich asshole University students he fleeced, the public he ripped off with a $916 million tax write-off, or the 63 million people who fell for his “Make America Great Again” schtick.
At least those who voted for the rich asshole have the excuse of being desperate or dumb or racist or greedy or just sadistic. Democratic leaders have no excuse. Chuck and Nancy are supposed to be savvy operators with 65 years of combined experience on Capitol Hill.
But they got played by the Washington neophyte. Far from “nothing to lose,” they fell into the rich asshole’s trap. By agreeing to a vague deal on immigration, they legitimized whatever proposal he put forward. They burnished the rich asshole’s image as a dealmaker. And they set themselves up to be villains in the rich asshole’s reality TV White House. He will harangue the Democrats for not wanting to save the Dreamers, reneging on their deal, and letting drug dealers and criminals flood over the border to take Americans’ jobs, steal their taxes, and poison their youth.
By enabling the rich asshole, Chuck and Nancy have handed him a win either way. If any immigration bill is passed, no matter how watered down, it’s proof the rich asshole is fulfilling his promises. If nothing is passed, he’ll rant and tweet about how the swamp needs to be drained.
Hillary Clinton lost to the raging man-child because she didn’t stand for anything other than being anti-the rich asshole. Nearly a year later, a majority of voters still think the Democrats don’t stand for anything. They have not figured out how to counter the rich asshole and he controls the agenda.
Chuck and Nancy are stuck in the pre-the rich asshole era, where power involves horse-trading behind the scenes, instead of the bloodsport spectacle the rich asshole excels at. Dominated by Wall Street, the Democrats have no bold ideas. The Onionaptly skewered their politics as, “Americans Are Tired Of The Same Old Pandering And Stale Ideas We’re Going To Keep Offering Them.”
Liberals seem to believe the rich asshole’s con game will wear thin as he fails to deliver and alienates more and more groups that he insults. That would be a grave mistake. Despite his dumpster fire presidency, the rich asshole’s approval rating is in the high 30s, close to what it was on election day. He juices his base with bombastic decisions like withdrawing from the Paris climate accords or decertifying the Iran deal because they look dramatic even if they lack substance. Same with twitter fights he uses to divide, polarize, and distract.
In 2020, the rich asshole will have the power of the presidency behind his campaign, using every dirty trick in the book, particularly voter suppression and electoral fraud, and possibly inventing new ones like violence on election day or encouraging terrorist attacks, to keep his grip on power.
the rich asshole may be a f***ing moron. But Democrats like Chuck and Nancy are proving to be the bigger fools.
Arun Gupta contributes to The Washington Post, YES! Magazine, In These Times, The Progressive, Telesur English, and The Nation. He is author of the forthcoming, Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Junk-Food Loving Chef’s Inquiry into Taste, from The New Press.
President some rich asshole resumed his attacks on media outlets on Wednesday, suggesting NBC News should lose its broadcast license.
"It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write," the rich asshole told reporters in the Oval Office.
The president's comments came after NBC News reported on Wednesday that the president said in July that the US should its nuclear arsenal tenfold, reversing decades of US policy, which has favored disarmament.
After the meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the rich asshole a "moron," according to several people who attended the meeting.
the rich asshole repeatedly insisted on Wednesday that he did not call for an increase, claiming instead that he wanted the current arsenal in "tip top shape." Defense Secretary James Mattis also denied the report.
The president appeared to misunderstand the nature of television licenses, which are granted to individual stations affiliated with national networks, and are rarely removed, much less on on political grounds.
Though the rich asshole has spent much of his candidacy and presidency blasting various media outlets over their coverage of him, in the last week, he's singled out NBC, saying the network was "worse than CNN" for reporting that Tillerson called the rich asshole a moron, a story confirmed by other outlets.
He has also called for the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate news outlets that he accuses of publishing "fake news," though outlets like NBC News and others have stood by the veracity of their reporting.
In recent days, I’ve spoken with a half dozen prominent Republicans and the rich asshole advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president that seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.
At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Timesinterview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned the rich asshole could start World War III—was an inflection point in the rich asshole presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that the rich asshole is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”
The conversation among some of the president’s longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There’s a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that the rich asshole shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One the rich asshole adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the rich asshole a “moron.”
In recent days, I spoke with a half dozen prominent Republicans and the rich asshole advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods. the rich asshole’s ire is being fueled by his stalled legislative agenda and, to a surprising degree, by his decision last month to back the losing candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. “Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” a person close to the rich asshole said. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”
According to two sources familiar with the conversation, the rich asshole vented to his longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!” (A White House official denies this.) Two senior Republican officials said Chief of Staff John Kelly is miserable in his job and is remaining out of a sense of duty to keep the rich asshole from making some sort of disastrous decision. Today, speculation about Kelly’s future increased after Politico reported that Kelly’s deputy Kirstjen Nielsen is likely to be named Homeland Security Secretary—the theory among some Republicans is that Kelly wanted to give her a soft landing before his departure.
One former official even speculated that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event the rich asshole ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said. Even the rich asshole’s most loyal backers are sowing public doubts. This morning, The Washington Postquoted longtime the rich asshole friend Tom Barrack saying he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by the rich asshole’s behavior.
While Kelly can’t control the rich asshole’s tweets, he is doing his best to physically sequester the president—much to the rich asshole’s frustration. One major G.O.P. donor told me access to the rich asshole has been cut off, and his outside calls to the White House switchboard aren’t put through to the Oval Office. Earlier this week, I reported on Kelly’s plans to prevent the rich asshole from mingling with guests at Mar-a-Lago later this month. And, according to two sources, Keith Schiller quit last month after Kelly told Schiller he needed permission to speak to the president and wanted written reports of their conversations.
The White House denies these accounts. “The President’s mood is good and his outlook on the agenda is very positive,” an official said.
West Wing aides have also worried about the rich asshole’s public appearances, one the rich asshole adviser told me. The adviser said aides were relieved when the rich asshole canceled his appearance on the season premiere of 60 Minutes last month. “He’s lost a step. They don’t want him doing adversarial TV interviews,” the adviser explained. Instead, the rich asshole has sat down for friendly conversations with Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee, whose daughter is the rich asshole’s press secretary. (The White House official says the 60 Minutes interview is being rescheduled.)
Even before Corker’s remarks, some West Wing advisers were worried that the rich asshole’s behavior could cause the Cabinet to take extraordinary Constitutional measures to remove him from office. Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told the rich asshole that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president. When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, the rich asshole said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks the rich asshole has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term.
The President of the United States has just threatened to completely close and end one of the biggest news networks in the country, NBC News, because they are “bad” for the United States. the rich asshole has threatened to go after the network’s broadcasting license, an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment by the nation’s highest office.
“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?” the rich asshole posted this morning, “Bad for country!”
the rich asshole also said that NBC “made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal,” which he described as “pure fiction, made up to demean.”
The NBC report he’s complaining about revealed that the rich asshole said he wanted “what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation’s highest ranking national security leaders.” the rich asshole was reportedly angered by a chart that showed that the U.S. has been reducing its nuclear arsenal since the late 1960s.
NBC’s sources also revealed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the rich asshole a “moron” because of this exact meeting. Tillerson in a press conference refused to deny calling the rich asshole a moron, sending the rich asshole into a rage about fake news. the rich asshole himself basically confirmed that the report was true yesterday, when he challenged Tillerson to an IQ test over it.
the rich asshole is getting desperate because of the negative media coverage he receives, despite the fact that he causes it all himself with his behavior. His stress levels are obviously high, perhaps because after his feud with Bob Corker, his chances of impeachment skyrocketed. What is clear though, is that this is a dangerous attack from the highest office in the land on the free press. It is hard to describe how bad of a situation this is for this country, but what is easy to describe is the imminent need to remove the rich asshole from office.
By now it’s clear that President some rich asshole has little respect for the checks and balances that ensure people like him don’t become despots. And he certainly has little respect for the free press.
The President was more than happy to display his dictatorial streak for the world to this morning with some rather shocking Tweets.
The story the rich asshole is referring to was yesterday’s revelation that he asked top military officials for a tenfold increase the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal, a request that shocked those present.
The meeting at which the rich asshole made the request was the same meeting that reportedly caused Rex Tillerson to call the President a “f*cking moron.”
While his attacks on the “Fake News Media” are now standard fare, calling for the closure of news organisations critical of his presidency is a new low for the bombastic Commander in Chief.
Shutting down independent media organisations is textbook fascism, but it’s doubtful the President knows or cares. In fact, forcing the nation to like him is probably what some rich asshole desires most.
And despite what the rich asshole says, having an independent media that isn’t afraid to hold leaders to account is conducive to a healthy democracy.
A free and independent press is one of the cornerstones of democracy and freedom. But the rich asshole wouldn’t know anything about that.
President The Rich Asshole Began His Tuesday By Slamming Jemele Hill Along With The NFL, Bob Corker And Democrats. He Had Nothing To Say About The California Wildfire, However.
Another day, another irrelevant tweetstorm from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As the nation awoke to horrifying images from yet another natural disaster, some rich asshole picked petty fights on Twitter with Democrats, the National Football League, an outgoing Republican Senator and ESPN host Jemele Hill. Notably missing from the 31-minute barrage of insults that began at 5:13 AM Eastern Time was any reference to the spreading wildfires that have claimed the lives of at least 11 people in Northern California since Sunday evening.
Yet the President had time to chastise:
The NFL, once again conflating the players’ calls for social justice with a muddled and misguided definition of patriotism…
In A Month Defined By Natural Disasters, The Rich Asshole Again Sets His Target On People Of Color
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria decimated the Gulf Coast states and Puerto Rico, costing an estimated $300 Billioncombined. the rich asshole’s response, particularly in Puerto Rico, has been widely criticized for being inadequate. But the president has been able to shift the national dialogue away from the destruction at times by publicly berating powerful and influential African-Americans. Jemele Hill is only the most recent.
He brought a fading NFL Protest back into the spotlight by calling the players — all but one whohad protested to that point where black — “Sons of Bitches” at an Alabama campaign rally. The next morning he rescinded a White House invitation to the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors.
None of this is coincidental. some rich asshole took office with the lowest approval ratings of any president in history, and has spent his first nine months clinging to that tepid support by playing the same dog whistle politics that won him the nomination in the first place. Picking petty fights with influential members of minority communities — be they athletes or Gold Star Parents — is part of this 21st Century Lee Atwater power play.
Don’t expect him to gain popularity with the rest of the country as long as he pushes this agenda.
But don’t expect it to change anytime soon either.
Controversy and criticism follow the president wherever he goes and for good reason. In a press conference alongside former secretary of state to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, the rich asshole dug himself in even deeper with ridiculous comments on Sen. Bob Corker and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
During the press conference on Tuesday, the rich asshole responded to questions about his recent feud with Sen. Bob Corker and his comments that the rich asshole’s administration is “chaos” that could ignite World War III.
‘We were on the wrong path before. What you have to do is take a look. If you look over the last 25 years — [under] the previous administration, we were on a path to a very big problem, a problem like this world has never seen. We’re on the right path right now, believe me.’
The “right path” does not consist of a series of provocations against a power that has the apparent capabilities to strike back with nuclear weaponry with those provocations being returned by ever increasing levels of threats. The just described situation is, however, exactly what is unfolding before our very eyes — even though the rich asshole seems to be under the impression that everything is getting along just fine.
the rich asshole also fails to recognize that many in the GOP are struggling to contain their dismay over the rich asshole’s idiocy and lies. Even his backers note that Corker has it rather easy considering that “it’s easy to be bold when you’re not coming back.”
Additionally, note how the rich asshole yet again finds another way to blame Obama for something. Rather than take any responsibility for what he can see with his very own eyes is going on, he would prefer to simply cast off any negative situations onto the back of President Obama.
In a later comment during the press conference, the rich asshole quipped that he “doesn’t believe in undercutting people” in the context of his ongoing reported feud with his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.
The battle with Corker seemingly came out of nowhere last week. the rich asshole took to Twitter to attack outgoing Tennessee GOP Senator Bob Corker, as the rich asshole so often does when criticized, and the feud was on. Corker has been gently critical of the president in the past, but gave an interview in which he insisted that the the rich asshole administration was “chaos” without Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Chief of Staff John Kelly. Immediately following being called out on the rich asshole’s Twitter feed, Corker seemed to no longer care much for holding back even that much, quipping that the White House has turned into an “adult day care.”
the rich asshole’s response followed, also on Twitter.
Also in response to the president’s criticism, Corker suggested that the U.S. is on the path to World War III. Sitting in the Oval Office this Tuesday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the rich asshole responded to the Senator’s criticism and, unsurprisingly, dismissed it.
Even though he claims to be of this persuasion, he’s careless enough to repeatedly fire off barbs at leaders who are supposed to be allied with him. Senator Bob Corker, who announced recently that he would not be seeking re-election, isn’t the only leading member of the GOP who the rich asshole has gone after.
He’s attacked everyone from Senator Lisa Murkowski to Senator John McCain to Senator Mitch McConnell. the rich asshole is determined to go it alone — no matter whether that means that he can’t get anything done and drags the nation into a ditch or not. It’s not like this is a monarchy, even though the rich asshole seems to be under the impression that it is.
the rich asshole, who keeps promising to either scrap our trade deals, or at least aggressively renegotiate them, is mulling over all the people he could add to his NAFTA renegotiating team. He’s apparently not looking for anyone who has diplomatic negotiating experience though, since he thinks negotiating is negotiating. Noooo…he actually wants Ron Burkle, co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, on this team because he believes Burkle is great at negotiating.
“Ron, how about negotiating some of our horrible trade deals that they’ve made? Here’s what I want, I want to get him. Oh, I would love to have Ron Burkle. And it’s great to have you Ron. But I really mean that, if you want to get involved in negotiating NAFTA, I like it. Because we’re renegotiating NAFTA, Ron.”
The U.S. is entering its fourth round of NAFTA talks, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to the U.S. tomorrow overlapping that. the rich asshole hates NAFTA in part because he wants trade deals that are heavily—even unfairly—weighted in our direction. He has threatened to walk away from these talks because he’s not getting what he wants.
Worse, like the Paris Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he thinks terminating our involvement in international agreements is the best way to get his idea of a good deal:
“I happen to think that Nafta will have to be terminated if we’re going to make it good. Otherwise, I believe you can’t negotiate a good deal.”
Said the desert to the grain of sand. This is a man who has bankrupted so many businesses and hurt so many people that way that it’s astonishing anyone thinks he’s a great businessman. But hey, he made out nicely, so who cares what happened to everyone else?
This is how he sees our international agreements, including NAFTA. He doesn’t understand international diplomacy at all and doesn’t care to – so honestly, is it any wonder he wants the co-owner of a hockey team to work on this? He’s going to destroy our economy if he doesn’t get other countries to destroy us with nukes first.
the rich asshole also said that NBC “made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal,” which he described as “pure fiction, made up to demean.”
No comments:
Post a Comment