January 16th, 2017 - January 16th, 2017. 428-428 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 358-358 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
the rich asshole WH Shaking In Their Boots As Mueller Brings The Hammer Down On Another Top Adviser
some rich asshole and his allies in conservative media and in the Republican Party are desperate to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the alleged collusion between the rich asshole campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election. However, now that key members of that campaign, the transition team, and even the White House staff been caught in the crosshairs of Mueller’s investigation, it is looking more and more like there really is fire where all this smoke is coming from. Case in point – the fact that Mueller has now subpoenaed the rich asshole’s former White House Chief Strategist turned total enemy Stephen K. Bannon.
Bannon will have to give testimony under oath before Mueller’s grand jury, and this is surely terrible news for the rich asshole White House. After all, Bannon is largely credited with getting the rich asshole elected, and helping him weather his many controversies during the campaign – most notably the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which the rich asshole could be heard making lewd remarks about how he likes to sexually assault women. After that, Bannon was in the White House, right by the rich asshole’s side, for nearly a year, as one of his closest and most trusted advisers. If anyone has the goods on the rich asshole, it’s Stephen K. Bannon.
What’s worse for the rich asshole is the fact that now that Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House, which features many quotes in which Bannon absolutely trashes the rich asshole and his family, has opened up an irreparable rift between Team the rich asshole and Bannon. Further, Bannon’s betrayal of the rich asshole meant that he lost his job at Breitbart News, which was the last real perch of power the man credited with electing the most unlikely president ever had left. In other words, Bannon is a man without a friend in the world, regardless of political affiliation, and he has nothing left to lose. Therefore, he could make himself famous by getting the ultimate revenge and taking down the entire the rich asshole White House.
If some rich asshole and his remaining cronies have any sense whatsoever left, they will be very afraid of what Stephen K. Bannon could tell Robert Mueller. People who feel like they have nothing lose are very dangerous indeed, and that is exactly who Bannon is when it comes to the world of Trumpian alt-right politics.
the rich asshole tweeted his black approval rating has doubled. It hasn't.
President some rich asshole bragged on Twitter that his approval rating with black Americans has doubled. It hasn't.
Only 15% of black Americans said they approved of the rich asshole's job performance in the days following his inauguration last January — and it's only gone downhill from there. In the most recent Gallup weekly numbers, only 6% of black Americans said they approved of the President's job performance.
The most recent CNN polling, from December, shows that only 3% of black Americans said they approved of how the rich asshole is handling his job nearly a year into his White House tenure. A whopping 91% said they disapproved.
But that didn't stop the rich asshole from tweeting on Tuesday morning that his approval among black Americans had doubled. "Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. the rich asshole approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better!" he wrote.
It is true that black unemployment has fallen to 6.8% in the most recent data — the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the number in 1972 but still higher than the 4.1% national unemployment rate among all races.
The President has pushed back against reports that he called African nations "shithole countries" during immigration negotiations last week in the Oval Office, saying "I am not a racist" over the weekend and adding he is "the least racist person you have ever interviewed."
The comments come amid a mounting backdrop of racially tinged remarks from the President. These range from his policy proposals for undocumented immigrants and his reaction to white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the summer to his doubt over President Barack Obama's birthplace and his descriptions of crime in major American cities.
Voters laugh when senator praises the rich asshole’s support of Norway
Iowa voters laughed aloud when Republican Sen. Joni Ernst lauded President the rich asshole — for supporting Norway.
During a town hall meeting in Red Oak, constituents asked her whether she backed the rich asshole’s reported comments that Haiti and some African nations were “shithole countries” during a bipartisan immigration meeting last week, KETV reported.
“He is standing up for a lot of the countries where we have seen some …,” Ernst said before a voter interrupted her.
“Name a few, could you name a few?” the person said.
“You bet. Norway is one of them,” Ernst replied as the crowd cracked up, briefly drowning her out.
“You know, you laugh but folks, who borders Norway? Russia,” Ernst persisted.
While slamming the other countries, the rich asshole wanted to know during the meeting why more people from Norway don’t come to the US.
Every medication we know the rich asshole takes, and what they're for
· Erin Brodwin 01-16-2018
· On Tuesday, White House physician Ronny Jackson released new details about President the rich asshole's health.
· The president takes a handful of medications including statins, daily aspirin, and two drugs for skin and hair conditions.
· Jackson said the rich asshole's heart health was "the one thing that stood out" for being resoundingly healthy, but several indicators suggest that's not entirely true.
For someone who doesn't smoke or drink, President some rich asshole takes a fair amount of drugs.
His list includes Crestor for high cholesterol, aspirin to prevent heart attacks, antibiotics to treat skin rosacea, Propecia for baldness, and Ambien to help him rest on flights.
That's according to White House physician Ronny Jackson, who released information about the rich asshole's yearly physical, which was conducted last week, at a press conference on Tuesday.
The medications aren't unusual. Roughly a quarter of Americans over age 40 take a drug like Crestor, also known as a statin. Millions take Propecia and antibiotics for hair and skin issues, and 40% of US adults over 50 take baby aspirin as a preventive measure.
'The one thing that stands out is his cardiac health'
Jackson said the rich asshole's overall health — especially that of his heart — is very good.
"The one thing that stands out more than anything to me is his cardiac health," Jackson said. "He doesn't have a lot of the traditional risk factors, things like a history of heart attack."
Yet the rich asshole is taking 10 milligrams of Crestor, the brand name for a larger group of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, and aspirin, which is known to help reduce the risk of heart attacks. Jackson said he is looking into increasing the rich asshole's dose of Crestor, but didn't specify by how much.
Statins are typically recommended for older adults with a risk of heart attack, stroke, or heart disease. Such medications are almost universally prescribed to people who already have heart disease, according to the US Preventive Services Task Force.
The more obvious reason for the rich asshole's use of Crestor, however, is his cholesterol. the rich asshole's cholesterol levels are above what's considered healthy by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. the rich asshole's diet — which reportedly includes fast-food, comfort dishes like meatloaf and spaghetti, and sweet treats like See’s Candies and ice cream — probably doesn't help.
The president also take a daily low dose of aspirin, which may help prevent heart attacks and strokes in older adults.
But according to the US Preventive Services Task Force, there’s still not enough evidence to say if people over 70 who have not already had a heart attack or stroke should take aspirin. (the rich asshole turned 71 in June.)
Jackson also said that the rich asshole occasionally takes the sleeping pill Ambien to help him rest on flights.
"The President does take some Ambien on occasion” when he travels overseas, Jackson said. “Only during travel.”
Since sleeping pills come with a range of dangerous side effects that can linger into the following day, experts suggest using them sporadically and only in specific instances to avoid health risks.
the rich asshole's other drugs are fairly routine. Propecia is frequently prescribed to men and women with baldness. And antibiotics are regularly given to people with rosacea, a common but incurable skin condition that causes redness and visible blood vessels. The drugs keep the bacterial component of the illness under control.
OPEN WIDE
Steve Bannon Will Tell All to Robert Mueller, Source Says
the rich asshole’s one-time chief strategist and current frenemy may have been tight lipped with Congress. He won’t be that way with the special counsel.
01.16.18 9:33 PM ET
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon broke some bad news to House investigators on Tuesday, announcing that the White House has invoked executive privilege to keep him from answering many of their questions.
But executive privilege—the president’s right to keep certain information from the public so he can have frank conversations with aides—will not keep Steve Bannon from sharing information with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to a person familiar with the situation.
“Mueller will hear everything Bannon has to say,” said the source, who is familiar with Bannon’s thinking.
During a closed-door hearing before the House intelligence committee today, Bannon reportedly told lawmakers that President Donald Trump has invoked broad executive privilege for the purposes of Congressional inquiries. Because of that, Bannon refused to answer committee members’ questions about what happened during the presidential transition and in the White House.
This sweeping understanding of privilege will not impact what Bannon tells Mueller’s team, according to our source. (To be sure, Bannon isn't known for being predictable, and it's possible his team may still look for ways to dodge Mueller's queries.)
But it means he isn’t answering many of Congress’s questions. A source familiar with Bannon’s interview told The Daily Beast that despite the subpoena—issued by Devin Nunes, the typically the rich asshole-friendly chairman of the committee—Bannon refused to answer questions about events that happened after Election Day.
“He quickly informed through his counsel the committee he was not going to answer questions that pertained to meetings, conversations, events, etc., that took place either during the transition or while he was part of the administration. And what’s more, we would later learn that would be extended to even after he left the White House,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, told MSNBC.
“This was characterized as a result of his being there voluntary; he’s there of his own volition and could refuse to answer questions based on what the White House instructed him to do,” Schiff added. “We then were able to be promptly provide him with a subpoena and they went back to the White House and got the same instruction back again, basically: We don’t care whether it’s under compulsory process or voluntary basis, we’re instructing you to effectively put in place a gag rule.”
This situation has committee members concerned that other top White House officials will also refuse to answer their questions. Hope Hicks, the president’s communications director, is scheduled to testify before the committee this week. Given the White House’s current posture on executive privilege, it’s likely her responses to questions will be just as lacking as Bannon’s
Tom Cotton Insists the rich assholeDidn’t Say ‘Shithole’ But Refuses To Reveal What Word He Did Use
“I stand by every word I said. The difference is, I’m right,” the Republican senator says.
By Igor Bobic
WASHINGTON ― Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says he ― and not Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) ― is to be believed on what was said at last week’s hotly contested meeting regarding immigration with President some rich asshole at the White House. But he’s refusing to clarify what exactly he did hear the rich asshole say.
Durbin on Tuesday said he stood by “every word” of his account of the meeting, which he attended alongside Cotton, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). The president, Durbin attested, referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” in the meeting and said that instead of immigrants from those areas, he would like more from places like Norway.
Addressing the controversy Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Cotton said that his prior remarks ― when he said in a Sunday interview that he “did not hear derogatory comments about individuals or persons” from the president and that the president was mischaracterized ― were accurate.
“I stand by every word I said,” Cotton said, echoing Durbin. “The difference is, I’m right.”
Cotton declined, however, to elaborate on what language the rich asshole specifically used in the meeting. The Arkansas Republican disputed the notion that the president said anything “vile” or “racist.” Cotton dodged questions about whether the president expressed a preference for immigrants of some nations over others.
“The entire point the president made, and others of us made, is that we shouldn’t have any kind of country-of-origin quota,” Cotton said, adding that he and the rich asshole supported a merit-based immigration system.
If the rich asshole did use vulgar or racist language in the meeting, Cotton asked rhetorically, “why didn’t Sen. Durbin speak up in the meeting? Why didn’t he slam his papers down and walk out? Why did he wait to hold some random, impromptu press conference in Chicago?”
But Cotton’s response to the controversy hasn’t exactly been clear-cut, either. He initially released a joint statement with Perdue that said he could not recall whether the president used the word “shithole.” Later, Cotton said he didn’t hear any such language being used.
“My memory hasn’t evolved,” Graham said Monday, in what seemed like a dig at his GOP colleagues. “I know what was said, and I know what I said.”
While Graham has not directly confirmed the rich asshole’s remarks in the meeting, the South Carolina Republican has praised Durbin repeatedly and noted that he told the rich asshole in the meeting that America is “not defined by its people but by its ideals.” On Tuesday, Graham again defended his Democratic colleague, calling him “one of the best people you could ever hope to work with.”
Other GOP senators, however, said they believed Cotton and Perdue over Durbin.
“As far as I’m concerned, I have two very good friends that were there, standing within range, who said the statements were not made,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told HuffPost. “And I believe them.”
Even Sen. Tim Scott, the junior senator from South Carolina, was careful not to get between Graham and the rest of his GOP colleagues on the matter of who said what at the White House.
“My primary objective is to make sure we’re not focusing on bad blood but focusing on the necessary policy decisions that we have to make,” Scott said.
Asked if he thought it was helpful for Cotton and Perdue to be attacking the credibility of a fellow senator, Scott said, “I think it’s always helpful to be accurate.”
Intel Dem decries White House 'gag order' after Bannon testimony
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS - 01/16/18 09:00 PM EST
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday night slammed what he described as a "gag order by the White House" following testimony from President the rich asshole's former chief strategist Steve Bannon before the panel amid its Russia probe.
Bannon refused to answer questions related to his time in the White House and on the transition team during 10 hours of testimony before the panel, according to lawmakers, cabining his responses to his stint on the campaign.
That limitation was at the request of the White House, ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters when the interview broke on Tuesday evening.
Bannon’s counsel conferred with the White House after the committee issued a subpoena, Schiff said, “and was instructed by the White House to refuse again to answer any questions concerning the time during the transition and his time in the administration.”
“The scope of this assertion of privilege—if that’s what it is—is breathtaking,” Schiff said. “It goes well beyond anything we’ve seen in this investigation … This was effectively a gag order by the White House.”
The White House in a statement earlier in the day said it is “fully cooperative” with the ongoing investigation without addressing directly whether it had instructed Bannon not to answer certain questions.
“As with all congressional inquiries touching upon the White House, Congress must consult with the White House prior to obtaining confidential material,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
“This is part of a judicially recognized process that goes back decades. We have been fully cooperative with these ongoing investigations and encourage the committees to work with us to find an appropriate accommodation in order to ensure Congress obtains information necessary to its legitimate interests.”
“As with all congressional inquiries touching upon the White House, Congress must consult with the White House prior to obtaining confidential material,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
“This is part of a judicially recognized process that goes back decades. We have been fully cooperative with these ongoing investigations and encourage the committees to work with us to find an appropriate accommodation in order to ensure Congress obtains information necessary to its legitimate interests.”
Bannon’s refusal to answer questions drew the ire of lawmakers from both parties —especially, multiple sources told The Hill, after Bannon indicated that he would not place the same restrictions in any testimony he gave to special counsel Robert Mueller.
“He doesn’t have any friends in that room,” one source said shortly prior to the breakup of the interview.
Sources described the meeting as a “total free-for-all” and “brutal.”
The White House also sought to limit Bannon’s testimony on any conversations he had with the president after his departure from the administration in August.
Bannon has since fallen out of favor with the president, at least publicly, after the publication of a controversial book about the rich asshole White House in which he is quoted as calling a key the rich asshole Tower meeting involving the president’s eldest son and a Russian lawyer “treasonous.”
Still, Schiff said, “The witness declined to answer questions based on the instruction of the White House.”
The New York Times revealed earlier on Tuesday that the special counsel has obtained a separate, grand jury subpoena to force testimony from Bannon.
Bannon’s appearance before the committee was voluntary. He did not formally invoke any form of executive privilege, which as a non-administration official, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said, he would not be able to do.
“This witness is not an executive,” Conaway said. “He’s not in a position to be able to do that.”
The move to issue a subpoena during the middle of an interview is an unusual one for the House panel and is a break from how committee lawmakers have handled other witnesses who have declined to answer certain questions. Democrats have complained bitterly that Republicans have let recalcitrant witnesses off of the hook.
“This was the first time that we saw a witness refuse to answer questions on the instruction of the White House or on the claim that the White House might later invoke privilege in which [the majority was] not only unwilling to accept that answer but willing to act with great alacrity to subpoena that witness in real time and insist that he come back,” Schiff said.
Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), who is assisting Conaway in running the committee probe, described the interview as having been complicated by the question of executive privilege.
“I certainly think that when the committee expects an executive privilege, when does that attach is the question that is sort of dominating the day. You know, at what time does it attach? During the transition or during the actual swearing in?” Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) told reporters.
“If you are part of the White House in any way and you’re talking about things that were during the campaign, but it happens to be in the White House, then what? What’s the answer? So that’s the quandary.”
When the interview finally recessed around 8 p.m., according to Conaway, the subpoena remained in effect.
“The subpoena stays in effect and we’re going to get the answers from Mr. Bannon that we did not get today,” Conaway told reporters.
In the recent book "Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House," Bannon told author Michael Wolff that a June 2016 meeting at the rich asshole Tower between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer believed to have political dirt on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was “treasonous.”
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside the rich asshole Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor—with no lawyers," Bannon said, according to Wolff’s account. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic ... you should have called the FBI immediately.”
Further, Bannon added, “the chance that [some rich asshole Jr.] did not walk these jumos up to his father's office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”
Lawmakers were expected to press Bannon on what the president knew about that meeting, long a flashpoint in the controversy surrounding the rich asshole campaign’s ties to Russia, as well as any financial crimes that may have been committed.
“Specifically what's the basis for his assertion that the president met with the participants in the rich asshole Tower meeting,” Schiff told ABC News's Pierre Thomas prior to the interview. “What [Bannon] knows about the president’s knowledge of that meeting, as well as his concerns over money laundering which has been a persistent concern of ours as well.”
One source told The Hill that Bannon told lawmakers that "treasonous" was too strongly-worded but that he believed the meeting to be unpatriotic.
But the committee’s interest in Bannon predates the release of Wolff’s book and he was expected to face questions about his knowledge of any other contacts that the rich asshole transition team members may have had with Russian officials.
Schiff cited any conversations Bannon may have had with former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former chief of staff Reince Priebus.
Bannon was not a participant in a number of key incidents believed to be focal points of the Mueller investigation, including the rich asshole Tower meeting and the rich asshole's dismissal of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
Bannon was, however, reportedly involved in the decision-making behind firing Flynn, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators as part of the Mueller probe.
Flynn was dismissed less than a month into the rich asshole administration after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Pence and others on the nature of a phone call with the Russian ambassador.
Priebus was linked to one notable incident related to Comey's dismissal. According to Comey, the rich asshole shooed Priebus from the room before pressing the then-FBI director to "let go" of the Flynn investigation.
–– Olivia Beavers contributed
the rich asshole Tells CNN’s Jim Acosta to Get ‘Out’
BY:
After the conclusion of a White House event on Tuesday, President some rich asshole responded to continued questions from CNN's chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta by simply pointing to the door and telling him, "out."
The exchange occurred as the rich asshole wrapped up a press conference with the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Acosta continued to pepper President the rich asshole with questions about his immigration policies in the light of controversial statements the president was accused of making during a bipartisan immigration meeting last Thursday.
"Did you say that you wanted more people to come in from Norway?" Acosta asked.
"I want them to come in from everywhere. Everywhere," the president responded.
"Just caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people from other parts of the world? Where there are people of color," Acosta pushed.
"Thank you, Jim," a press aide can be heard saying out of view in an effort to conclude the event, as announced.
"Out," the president added, pointing.
Not long after the altercation in the Oval Office, Acosta took to Twitter to make his dismay at the president and White House staffers known.
"In Oval Office pool spray, I asked why the rich asshole wants more people to come in from Norway. He said he wants people to come in from everywhere. Verbatim coming." he tweeted.
"When I tried to follow up on this in the Oval Office, the rich asshole told me to get ‘out.' We then went to the Roosevelt Room where WH aides obstructed us from asking questions," Acosta wrote.
When I tried to follow up on this in the Oval Office, Trump told me to get "out." We then went to the Roosevelt Room where WH aides obstructed us from asking questions. twitter.com/Acosta/status/…
"As I attempted to ask questions in Roosevelt Room of the rich asshole, WH press aides shouted in my face to drown out my questions. I have never encountered that before," the CNN correspondent said of what followed after being ushered out of the oval office.
"What occurred reminded me of something I would see in a different country. Certainly not at the WH. Certainly not in the U.S, " Acosta added.
What occurred reminded me of something I would see in a different country. Certainly not at the WH. Certainly not in the U.S. twitter.com/Acosta/status/…
Acosta's questions arose because the rich asshole allegedly referred to particular countries as "s–tholes" during an immigration meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders. In the same meeting, the president is alleged to have also expressed support for increasing immigration from countries like Norway. The president maintains Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) has "misrepresented" his comments during the meeting.
Tuesday's press conference was meant to highlight President Nazarbayev's visit to the United States, the first such by the Kazakh leader since 2006. Kazakhstan, which shares a border with Russia, is a strategically important player in central-Asian affairs. The visit is intended to showcase shared interests in the region and provide an opportunity to "discuss ways to strengthen and enhance our strategic partnership on regional security issues and economic cooperation," according to a White House press release.
BY
LUKE DARBY 01-16-2018
It's not really a surprise.
Ever since the Wall Street Journal dropped their story that some rich asshole allegedly paid hush money to an adult film star to keep quiet about their relationship, the president's administration has been reeling from... well, mostly, from the rich asshole's "shithole"comments. Predictably, there's been no fallout or backlash yet over the report, though the actress in question, Stephanie Clifford, denies that she either had a sexual relationship with the rich asshole or was paid to deny having a sexual relationship with him.
While the Jourmal has the honor of officially breaking the story, we've learned that several other outlets—Slate, Good Morning America, and The Daily Beast—had been in contact with Clifford before the election when she suddenly stopped communicating. But on Tuesday, we learned that one news organization in particular got much farther in their reporting before abruptly scrapping the story: Fox News. CNN spoke to four people at Fox, and, according to them, reporter Diana Falzone filed a story in October 2016 that claimed the rich asshole and Clifford had a sexual relationship during the president's marriage to his current wife. Per CNN:
Falzone had an on-the-record statement from Clifford's manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, confirming that her client had engaged in a sexual relationship with the rich asshole, three of these people said, and Falzone had even seen emails about a settlement.
But the story never saw the light of the day, to the frustration of Falzone, two of the people said.
"She had the story and Fox killed it," one of the people familiar with the matter told CNN.
While the president often claims that CNN completely fabricates its stories about him, Noah Kotch, the editor-in-chief at Fox, gave a statement to CNN confirming that they had a story on Clifford and chose not to run it because they couldn't verify it. However, unlike Slate or ABC, Fox News didn't independently acknowledge that when the Journal first published their story; they only did so after CNN got an inside scoop.
If you're conspiratorially-minded, it's not hard to assume that Fox News higher-ups chose to kill the story because they were pulling hard for the rich asshole to win. And some might find the network's excuse—that they hold their stories to a rigorous standard of journalistic excellence—a little hard to swallow. But this is only a story about a presidential candidate cheating on his pregnant wife with a porn star and then paying her over $100,000 to keep it quiet, with nothing backing it up except her manager's on-the-record comments.
House GOP leaders propose funding bill with children's health money
BY PETER SULLIVAN - 01/16/18 08:02 PM EST
House Republican leadership presented to their members on Tuesday night a plan to pass a short-term government funding bill this week that included children's health funding and the delay of ObamaCare taxes.
The plan would fund the government until Feb. 16, along with a six-year extension of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
The measure would also delay ObamaCare's medical device and Cadillac taxes for two years, and the health insurance tax for one year starting in 2019.
Lawmakers leaving the meeting said the reaction was positive, but it is not certain yet that the bill can pass with only Republican votes. The conservative House Freedom Caucus has not yet taken a position.
But Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a member of the caucus, said leaving the meeting that he is leaning toward "yes."
Democrats are still pushing for relief for immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, which is not included.
Inclusion of the children's health funding, a Democratic priority, could make it hard for some vulnerable Senate Democrats to vote "no," however.
Scott Wong and Melanie Zanona contributed.
DHS chief takes heat over the rich asshole furor
BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 01/16/18 08:15 PM EST
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen faced heated questions from Democratic lawmakers Tuesday over her recollections of a White House meeting in which President the rich asshole questioned why the United States would take additional immigrants from “shithole countries.”
The remarks have set off a days-long firestorm, raising the odds of a government shutdown and emboldening Democrats to demand that a fix protecting certain immigrants brought to the United States as children be included as part of a deal.
Nielsen insisted throughout the more than four-hour hearing that she had not heard the rich asshole use the word “shithole,” earning her withering criticism from some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I don’t remember the specific words [the rich asshole used],” Nielsen said in response to questions from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the first senator to publicly accuse the rich asshole of using the phrase to describe Haiti and other countries.
“What I was struck with, frankly, as I’m sure you were as well, was the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone,” she said.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he was “seething with anger” and had “tears of rage” when Durbin told him about the rich asshole’s remarks. The New Jersey Democrat pounded his desk and his voice cracked with emotion as he accused Nielsen of providing cover for what he described as racist remarks coming out of the White House.
“Your silence and your amnesia is complicity,” Booker thundered. “I hurt when Dick Durbin called me. I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting and for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss the questions of my colleagues … that’s unacceptable to me. You can’t remember the words of your commander in chief? I find that unacceptable.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) criticized Nielsen after the secretary said she had previously heard the rich asshole talk of the need to bring in more immigrants from Norway as opposed to people from poorer countries.
“I heard [the rich asshole] repeating what he had learned in a meeting before,” Nielsen said. “[Norway is] industrious and a hard-working country and they don’t have much crime there, they don’t have much debt. I think in general I heard him giving compliments to Norway.”
Harris replied: “That causes me concern about your ability to understand the scope of your responsibilities and the impact of your words — much less the policies that you promulgate in that very important department.”
Nielsen fired back, saying she did not intend to make a comparison between the countries and arguing that her agency has prioritized cracking down on racially charged violence in the U.S.
Facing the Senate panel days after the controversy broke, Nielsen faced a difficult political challenge while testifying under oath.
It was clear she was doing what she could to avoid angering the rich asshole, who is known to watch and grade toughly the high-profile television appearances of Cabinet members and presidential aides. She also appeared to take pains not to do anything that would jeopardize a deal on immigration and spending four days before a possible government shutdown — all while avoiding saying anything untruthful.
Durbin has said the rich asshole used the term “shithole,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has essentially backed up Durbin’s account that the president disparaged Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations. But two other Republicans who attended the meeting, Sens. Tom Cotton(Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.), have offered different stories, initially saying they did not recall the rich asshole using those words before saying the rich asshole definitively did not say “shithole.”
Nielsen on Tuesday described the Oval Office meeting about immigration as heated and said many people in the room had used coarse language.
Graham later bemoaned “the two Trumps” during his own questioning of Nielsen.
The first the rich asshole, he said, had spoken a week ago with “compassion” and “love” about the need to find a comprehensive bipartisan fix for those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which the rich asshole is winding down.
The other the rich asshole showed up at the closed-door meeting a couple days later — after initially signaling he thought a deal outlined by Graham and Durbin sounded positive. In between, Republican senators including Cotton spoke with the president.
“We had a president that I was proud to golf with, to call my friend. … I don’t know where that guy went,” Graham said. “I want him back.”
The controversy over the rich asshole’s remarks has left Democrats feeling that they are in a stronger negotiating position ahead of the deadline to reach a deal on funding the government — in part because of the bickering among Republicans.
The fight has also renewed charges of racism against the rich asshole.
“In light of the president’s comments, I’m forced to question whether the decision to terminate protected status for Haitian nationals was in fact racially motivated,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the panel. “I hope not.”
Feinstein was referring to a separate decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians who came to the United States after a 2010 earthquake in their country.
Cotton and Republicans, including the rich asshole, believe Democrats pushed for too much in the deal when they sought protections not only for the 700,000 or so immigrants protected by DACA, but for thousands covered by the TPS program and parents of DACA recipients.
The White House accused Democrats of simply trying to prevent the rich asshole from getting a deal.
“I think they’re using [the rich asshole’s remarks] as an excuse not to help this president get something accomplished, which I think is a sad day for our country,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters outside the West Wing.
Nielsen defended the administration’s moves to end TPS for Haiti and El Salvador, saying the countries have adequately recovered from natural disasters that occurred there, even if the countries are not prospering otherwise.
She also defended the spirit of the rich asshole’s remarks at last week’s Oval Office meeting, saying he was merely stating that high-skilled workers should get priority over immigrants seeking asylum from dysfunctional governments or extreme poverty.
“What I understood him to be saying is let’s ... make sure that those we bring here can contribute to our society,” she said.
WH doctor: the rich asshole in 'excellent' health, mentally fit for office
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND BEN KAMISAR - 01/16/18 04:01 PM EST
President the rich asshole’s doctor on Tuesday gave him a clean bill of health, declaring him physically and mentally fit for the challenges of the nation’s highest office.
Navy Rear Adm. Dr. Ronny Jackson, who has served as the presidential physician since 2013, conducted a lengthy and unusual briefing at the White House where he offered a detailed rundown of the rich asshole’s first physical as president.
Jackson said he has interacted with the rich asshole, 71, several times a day over the past year and saw no need to conduct a cognitive evaluation as part of the physical because the president is “very sharp” and “very intact.”
But at the rich asshole’s urging, Jackson selected and administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment during the president’s physical exam last week at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The exam tests for cognitive disorders, like Alzheimer's disease, that can occur in older patients. It asks people to identify animals, draw shapes and recall certain words. It is not a psychological evaluation.
the rich asshole scored a 30 out of 30, Jackson said, a score he said should put to rest questions about the rich asshole’s mental fitness.
“There’s no indication whatsoever that he has any cognitive issues,” Jackson said. “I’ve found no reason whatsoever to think the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought processes.”
He said that the rich asshole’s “overall health is excellent,” adding that the president had mostly normal results on several tests of his cholesterol and heart health.
“His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good, he continues to enjoy the significant, long-term cardiac and overall health benefits that come from a lifetime of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol,” Jackson said.
“All data indicates the president is healthy and will remain so for the duration of his presidency," he added.
But the rich asshole’s bill of health was not perfect. The 239-pound president is one pound away from being considered obese, at least according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's body mass index calculator.
Jackson said the president does not have a set exercise routine and that his cholesterol is too high, even though he uses the drug Crestor to lower it.
The doctor said he is recommending the rich asshole up his dose of Crestor and is working with nutritionists and his medical team to design a better diet and exercise plan for the rich asshole, whom he said could stand to lose 10 to 15 pounds.
One reporter asked how the rich asshole could eat so much fast food and drink so much Diet Coke and still receive a good bill of health.
“It’s called genetics, I don’t know. Some people have good genes,” Jackson said.
The president is taking several other medications, including a low dose of Aspirin for heart health, a cream for rosacea and a multivitamin.
Jackson also said the president takes Propecia, a prescription medicine meant to address hair loss.
The doctor's appearance in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room comes at a tumultuous time at the White House, centered in part on questions about the rich asshole’s mental fitness.
The questions reached a fever pitch after the publication of the book “Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House,” in which author Michael Wolff paints a picture of a chaotic administration led by a president ill-equipped for the job.
But the rich asshole was pleased by his medical report and appeared to see it as an opportunity to push back on the book.
Jackson said the rich asshole ordered White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to let him answer every question the press had about his health. Jackson spoke and took questions for 56 minutes.
The doctor sought to put to rest several questions raised by the media over the president’s recent public appearances.
the rich asshole appeared to slur his words in two recent speeches, during which he took a break to drink water.
Jackson said he had given the over-the-counter drug Sudafed to the president for congestion, which gave him dry mouth. The president does not have dentures or partial dentures, his doctor said.
Reporters asked about everything from the rich asshole’s cholesterol levels to his love for McDonald’s and golfing habits.
That left the media just a short period of time to ask Sanders questions about other pressing issues, like the rich asshole’s vulgar remarks about certain countries and a potential government shutdown.
Jonathan Easley contributed.
McConnell to Dems: Don't hold government 'hostage' over DACA
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 01/16/18 05:29 PM EST
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging Democrats to support a short-term funding bill needed to prevent a government shutdown despite an increasingly heated fight over immigration.
"With no imminent deadline on immigration and with bipartisan talks well under way, there's no reason why Congress should hold government funding hostage over the issue of illegal immigration," McConnell said during his floor remarks on Tuesday.
His plea comes as Congress has to pass a continuing resolution (CR) by the end of Friday in order to prevent a shutdown of the Republican-controlled government.
McConnell argued that Democrats should support the CR because there are "serious bipartisan conversations" under way and Congress has until at least March to pass a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
"Now that a federal judge has issued a nationwide injunction preventing the administration from winding down the Obama administration's DACA program, it is clear that Congress has at least until March at a minimum, and possibly even longer, to reach a compromise," he said.
Lawmakers from both side, as well as the rich asshole administration, have downplayed the impact of a ruling last week that requires the administration to keep DACA on the books while litigation plays out. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling, it announced Tuesday.
Congress is facing its fourth deadline to prevent a shutdown in recent months as negotiators have struggled to reach a deal on DACA or raising the budget caps.
Eighteen Senate Democrats, plus Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), supported the December CR. But Democratic leadership has been coy about if their members will help put up the votes this week.
McConnell will need nine of them to support this week's CR, if he can hold his entire caucus together.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who voted for last month's CR, declined to say on Tuesday how he'll vote this time if there isn't a DACA deal included.
Lawmakers see shutdown’s odds rising
BY SCOTT WONG AND MELANIE ZANONA - 01/16/18 05:23 PM EST
Lawmakers warned Tuesday that the chances for a government shutdown are greater than at any other time since a 16-day closure in October 2013.
Republicans appear poised to offer a plan forward that would fund the government for another month while extending a popular children’s health program for six years.
But Republican leaders will need Democratic votes in the Senate — and possibly the House as well — to pass that measure. And Democrats are refusing to make any commitments until they strike a deal to shield from deportation hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.
“It’s pretty close to 50-50,” Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) said of the possibility of a shutdown. “It’s like playing chicken and seeing who is going to blink first. It’s a dangerous game.”
A conservative House lawmaker said Tuesday that prospects for a deal on a short-term stopgap are “not looking good” at the moment.
“There is currently not a policy path to reach 218 votes in the House on funding the government,” the lawmaker said. “For the first time since 2013, the possibility of a shutdown is real.”
Lawmakers faced serious hurdles to reaching a deal even before President the rich asshole at a White House meeting reportedly said the United States should not take immigrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti. The controversy surrounding those remarks has roiled the talks, amplifying tensions on both sides.
the rich asshole used Twitter on Tuesday to rip into congressional Democrats, arguing they would weaken the Pentagon by refusing to provide votes to fund the government over demands for a legislative fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program shielding certain young immigrants commonly known as “Dreamers” from deportation.
“The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security,” the rich asshole wrote. “The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.”
Democrats lashed out at the president at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where the secretary of Homeland Security sought to defend the rich asshole’s remarks. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who said he confronted the rich asshole over the “shithole” comment, bemoaned the different signals the rich asshole has given during the talks and also blamed White House staff for giving him “bad advice.”
Negotiators are quickly running out of time. The government will shut down on Saturday without a new funding bill, and a short-term measure is the only game in town since lawmakers and their staffs no longer have the time to write a full omnibus spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year.
Many lawmakers are reluctant to back another stopgap — which would be the fourth in a row to pass Congress.
To try to get them on board, Republicans are mulling sweeteners, including the attachment of a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to the stopgap, as well as delays of certain ObamaCare taxes, sources say.
The idea is likely to be pitched during a GOP conference meeting on Tuesday evening.
House Democrats did not help Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) pass the last continuing resolution (CR) before Christmas, though 14 Democrats ended up voting for the extension after Republicans demonstrated they had enough votes to pass it on their own. Eighteen Democrats, meanwhile, voted for the stopgap measure in the Senate.
But that measure only included a temporary extension for CHIP. Long-term funding for the program may be more difficult for Democrats to oppose, especially for vulnerable senators up for reelection in red states this year.
So too could funding to help states deal with last year’s hurricanes and wildfires.
“There are things that can be added to a CR to make it more appealing. CHIP is evidently pretty close. Obviously we got to get emergency aid done,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a powerful Appropriations subcommittee chairman. “But it’s got to be something that doesn’t cost you votes.”
Some Democrats believe they’re in a better position to make demands on the Dreamers now, with the rich asshole weakened and off balance from the controversy over his remarks, rather than in February.
But there are also concerns from Democrats running for reelection in states carried by the rich asshole in the 2016 presidential race that they could be blamed for a shutdown.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he would back the funding extension even without a DACA deal in place. A total of nine Democrats are needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.
“We’re trying to find [a deal], but shutting down the government is not going to help them,” Manchin told reporters on Tuesday.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) insisted Tuesday that Democrats won’t back another spending bill without protections for Dreamers.
“I think it needs to be in the CR,” Hoyer said at a briefing with reporters.
Democrats aren’t the only ones threatening to oppose the stopgap spending bill.
Defense hawks threatened to block the last funding extension because they worry that temporary funding patches hurt the military.
While most of them ended up holding their noses and voting for the last short-term measure, many of them want promises for higher defense spending before they agree to back another funding patch.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that he’s still undecided and that “we’ll see how the week goes.”
But he added that he “would do just about anything to fix this problem, including vote for things that I might not support otherwise.”
House conservatives have also balked at the idea of passing a fourth continuing resolution in five months, especially if it suspends automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.
“Conservatives are concerned there is no end in sight for these short-term CRs. Eventually decisions need to be made,” a senior conservative House aide said.
If Republicans can’t cobble together the votes in the House, some Democrats think that would help shift the blame to the GOP for a government shutdown. After all, Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
But the politics of a shutdown are tricky, and some Republicans aren’t so sure that they would shoulder the blame — especially after Democrats railed against Republicans for shuttering the government for 16 days over ObamaCare repeal.
“They would be taking a big risk, doing what Republicans did on ObamaCare in 2013,” Cole said. Democrats “thought that was pretty stupid then, and they were right.”
Some lawmakers were still expressing confidence on Tuesday that they would be able to keep the government’s lights on past Friday, citing how unpopular a shutdown would be with the public.
“If the Democrats want to shut down the government over this, they can. They have the ability to filibuster any bill in the Senate. I don’t think that will work out very well for them, so I suspect they will not,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”
Ellen Mitchell, Peter Sullivan, Mike Lillis and Jordain Carney contributed.
'Total free-for-all' as Bannon clashes with Intel members
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS AND OLIVIA BEAVERS - 01/16/18 08:19 PM EST
Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon on Tuesday rocketed to the center of the public controversy surrounding the rich asshole campaign and Russia.
The onetime Breitbart mogul now faces multiple subpoenas — from Capitol Hill and special counsel Robert Mueller — stemming from investigations of Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election.
The House Intelligence Committee issued a pair of subpoenas, for both documents and testimony, when Bannon declined to answer some questions during an all-day interview on Tuesday, according to multiple sources.
Earlier in the day, The New York Times reported that Mueller last week served Bannon a separate grand jury subpoena. News of that subpoena broke just hours after Bannon walked into the Intelligence Committee’s secure spaces.
Multiple sources told The Hill that Bannon indicated to lawmakers that he would answer questions about the rich asshole campaign, but not about his work on the transition team or in the White House. Bannon, alongside his lawyer, said he would only answer those questions when he speaks to Mueller.
That stance infuriated lawmakers. Sources described the meeting as a “total free-for-all” and “brutal.”
“He doesn’t have any friends in that room,” one source said.
The subpoenas come following a breakdown in the relationship between Bannon and President the rich asshole, spurred by comments made to author Michael Wolff for a controversial new book about the White House. the rich asshole tweeted that “Sloppy Steve” has “been dumped like a dog by almost everyone.”
The grand jury subpoena is one of the few known instances of Mueller using a subpoena to compel information from a member of the rich asshole’s inner circle.
Mueller previously obtained subpoenas targeting former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has since been charged with a slate of federal crimes.
But while the special counsel interviewed dozens of the rich asshole associates in the closing months of 2017, those individuals were not served with a subpoena, according to the Times.
One source who would not be identified told the Times that Mueller would likely allow Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance and instead be interviewed by investigators in a less formal setting — suggesting that the subpoena could be a negotiating tactic.
The House Intelligence Committee’s decision to issue a subpoena during the middle of Bannon’s interview, meanwhile, was unusual, breaking from the panel’s past handling of witnesses.
Rep. Tom Rooney (Fla.), who is one of a handful of GOP members running the investigation, declined to confirm the subpoenas but described the interview as having been complicated by Bannon’s efforts to exert some form of executive privilege to avoid answering certain questions.
“I certainly think that when the committee expects an executive privilege, when does that attach is the question that is sort of dominating the day. You know, at what time does it attach? During the transition or during the actual swearing in?” Rooney said.
“If you are part of the White House in any way and you’re talking about things that were during the campaign, but it happens to be in the White House, then what? What’s the answer? So that’s the quandary.”
According to a report in Politico, also citing a single source, Bannon refused to discuss anything about his time in the White House or during the transition after the election — but did not formally invoke executive privilege.
Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) confirmed to reporters that he authorized the congressional subpoenas, saying, “That’s how the rules work.”
According to multiple sources, Bannon did not immediately comply with the subpoenas, which were for both testimony and documents. The interview was still ongoing as of early Tuesday evening.
The White House in a statement said it is “fully cooperative” with the ongoing investigation without addressing directly whether it had instructed Bannon not to answer certain questions.
“As with all congressional inquiries touching upon the White House, Congress must consult with the White House prior to obtaining confidential material,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
“This is part of a judicially recognized process that goes back decades. We have been fully cooperative with these ongoing investigations and encourage the committees to work with us to find an appropriate accommodation in order to ensure Congress obtains information necessary to its legitimate interests.”
Bannon joined the rich asshole campaign in August of 2016, stayed on through the transition and left the White House in August of 2017.
In the Wolff account, Bannon said that a June 2016 meeting at the rich asshole Tower between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer believed to have political dirt on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was “treasonous.”
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside the rich asshole Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor—with no lawyers,” Bannon said, according to Wolff’s account. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic ... you should have called the FBI immediately.”
Furthermore, Bannon added, “the chance that [some rich asshole Jr.] did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”
Lawmakers were expected to press Bannon Tuesday on what the president knew about that meeting, long a flashpoint in the controversy surrounding the rich asshole campaign’s possible ties to Russia, as well as any financial crimes that may have been committed.
“Specifically, what’s the basis for his assertion that the president met with the participants in the rich asshole Tower meeting?” the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), told ABC News’s Pierre Thomas prior to the interview. “What [Bannon] knows about the president’s knowledge of that meeting, as well as his concerns over money laundering, which has been a persistent concern of ours as well.”
The committee’s interest in Bannon predates the release of Wolff’s book, and he was expected to face questions about his knowledge of any other contacts that the rich asshole transition team members may have had with Russian officials.
Bannon was not a participant in a number of key incidents believed to be focal points of the Mueller investigation, including the rich asshole Tower meeting and the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.
He was, however, reportedly involved in the decision-making behind firing former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators as part of the Mueller probe.
Jordan Fabian contributed.
In epic 9-minute speech, Cory Booker takes on the rich asshole’s racism and white complicity
"Your silence and amnesia are complicity"
At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, the rich asshole’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, claimed that she couldn’t remember what word the rich asshole used to describe Haiti and African countries in an Oval Office meeting last week. According to Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin, the rich asshole derided those nations as “shithole countries.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) was not buying it.
Listening to the hearing unfold, Booker decided at the last moment to pass on his opportunity to question Nielsen and instead delivered an impassioned, 9-minute response to the rich asshole’s racism and Nielsen’s complicity.
“I sit here right now because when good white people in this country heard bigotry or hatred, they stood up,” Booker began. “What went on in the White House, what went on in the Oval Office, is profoundly disturbing to me.”
He then began to criticize Nielsen’s claim that she doesn’t remember what the rich asshole said in the Oval Office or whether the president used the term “shithole.”
“I’ve been in the Oval Office many times and when the commander in chief speaks, I listen. I don’t have amnesia on conversations in the Oval Office going back months and months and months,” Booker said.
“Why am I seething with anger?” Booker asked, “We have this incredible nation where we’ve been taught it doesn’t matter where you’re from, it doesn’t matter your color, your race, your religion, it’s about the content of your character. It’s about your values and your ideas. And yet we have language that from Dick Durbin to Lindsay Graham — they seem to have a much better recollection of what went on. You’re under oath.”
Booker continued, choking back tears. “You and others in that room that suddenly cannot remember. It was Martin Luther King that said, ‘There’s nothing in this world that’s more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.’ And so, here we are in the United States of America. And we have a history that is beautiful and grand, and also ugly — where from this nation to others, we know what happens when people sit by and are bystanders and say nothing,” he said
“Our greatest heroes in this country, spoke out about people who have convenient amnesia or who are bystanders,” Booker told Nielsen, quoting King, Elie Wiesel, Gandhi.
He added, “This idea that the commander in chief of this country could with broad brushes talk about certain nations and thus cast a shadow over the millions of American who are from those communities — and that you could even say in your testimony that Norwegians were [preferred] by him because they were ‘so hard working….'”
At that point, Nielsen tried to interject, but Booker refused.
“Your silence and amnesia are complicity,” he said, looking directly at Nielsen. “When Dick Durbin called me, I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting, and for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues, saying, ‘I’ve already answered that line of questions,’ when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because they’re worried about what happened in the White House… that’s unacceptable to me.”
Watch the whole thing:
Claiming, under oath, not to remember something, when you do in fact remember is considered perjury.
Stop talking about the rich asshole’s weight
The problem with the pile-on.
President some rich asshole is a racist who, just days ago, reportedly called majority-black countries “shitholes.” He is intent on undermining the First Amendment. He is a liar and a right-wing extremist whose only major policy achievement is a tax overhaul that hikes taxes on the middle class in favor of the wealthy and large corporations. More than a dozen women have accused him of sexual misconduct.
the rich asshole’s presidency is built on afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable. He and his policies deserve scrutiny, skepticism, questioning, debunking, protesting, and takedowns — his weight, on the other hand, does not. Focusing on his size is a distraction from all of the other pressing issues with his presidency, and doesn’t hurt the rich asshole nearly as much as it hurts anyone else who is fat, uncomfortable in their own skin, or struggling with their body image in any way.
On Tuesday, White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson briefed the press on the rich asshole’s recent physical, revealing the rich asshole’s height and weight. Members of the press and other White House-watchers seized on the opportunity to share their opinions about whether Jackson was telling the truth about the rich asshole’s health. It quickly became a pile-on.
Brian Beutler, the editor in chief of Crooked Media, a new media company founded by three former Obama staffers, compared the rich asshole’s body to “expertly fluffed mashed potato.”
Maybe if the soft stuff is all expertly fluffed mashed potato? twitter.com/mattyglesias/s…
CNN’s Jake Tapper shared a thread on Twitter describing the rich asshole as the “third heaviest president in history” along with pictures of Presidents Taft and Cleveland, apparently as proof they were heavy men.
Per info on previous presidents from @MensHealthMag, President Trump has unseated President Bill Clinton to become the third heaviest president in American history, behind Taft and Cleveland.
A meme quickly took off comparing images of the rich asshole to professional athletes, an attempt to prove Jackson was lying about the rich asshole’s weight, despite the fact that that isn’t how height and weight and muscle and fat work at all. Sports Illustrated ran a whole story with unflattering photos of the president alongside athletes, saying, “You can’t teach size, the old adage goes.”
If the rich asshole’s physician were lying about his weight, it’s worth addressing and adding to the long list of things about which the rich asshole administration is comfortable lying to the American public. Engaging in speculation may be tempting, but there is no proof that Jackson is lying. Former senior adviser to Obama David Axelrod tweeted Tuesday evening that he knew Jackson while working in the White House and that the doctor was a “very good guy and straight shooter.”
And the reaction Tuesday wasn’t about lying at all. Many people took advantage of the moment to express their disgust with a man’s body and knew they could get away with it simply because that man is widely disliked (and often deservedly).
Others will argue that the rich asshole is quick to make fun of the appearances of people he doesn’t like. He defended himself against accusations of sexual assault saying, “Look at her… I don’t think so.” He tweeted that MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” He hit North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un as “short and fat.” But stooping to his level serves no one.
And, as Vox reporter Zack Beauchamp so rightly put it Tuesday on Twitter, “The president won’t see your dunks, but lots of fat people will, and they’ll learn that you hate and are disgusted by their bodies.”
The point is: Stop talking about the rich asshole’s weight. Stop comparing his body to other bodies. Stop speculating about his health. It’s a distraction, and it’s needlessly hurting many people who have done nothing wrong.
the rich asshole slashes millions in aid to Palestinians as fallout from Jerusalem decision escalates
Thousands of refugees rely on the aid for access to education, health care, and other basic necessities.
President the rich asshole has withheld more than half of U.S.-pledged aid to a U.N. organization for Palestinians, the Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.
The White House informed the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of the dramatic funding cut earlier the same day, an unnamed official told the outlet. The decision means the organization will receive approximately $60 million in U.S. aid, a figure reportedly suggested by top administration officials, including Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The remaining $65 million pledged by the United States is being withheld “for future consideration” — leaving UNRWA vulnerable.
“The United States has been UNRWA’s single largest donor for decades. In years past, we contributed some 30 percent of UNRWA’s total income,” a U.S. official told Haaretz. “It is time for a change. The United States remains committed to addressing the needs of the most vulnerable, as it is demonstrating today by assuring that funds are available to keep schools and health systems operating. If there are additional urgent needs, we call on others to also do their part and respond as needed […].”
In a statement released Tuesday evening, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said the organization now “faces a formidable challenge in upholding its mandate… and preserving key services like education and health care for Palestine Refugees.”
Krähenbühl called on other UN member states and allies of the organization to rally in support and push for full funding. “The U.S. government has consistently commended our high-impact, transparency and accountability,” he said. “This was reiterated, once again, during my latest visit to Washington in November 2017, when every senior U.S. official expressed respect for UNRWA’s role and for the robustness of its management.”
That announcement follows weeks of criticism over the rich asshole’s recent foreign policy decisions. The president once called peace between Israelis and Palestinians the “ultimate deal,” but much of his presidency has been spent toying with the idea of declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, something the White House finally formalized in December. That same day, officials announced the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv would be relocated to Jerusalem as soon as feasibly possible, a move world leaders roundly condemned. The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to reject the rich asshole’s announcement and many Palestinians also protested the move, with some declaring it the end of any potential peace talks.
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley indicated at the time that the U.N. vote would have repercussions, including the potential loss of funding for Palestinians. On Tuesday, that threat became a reality.
The decision has already set off a firestorm among Palestinian advocates. Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told ThinkProgress on Tuesday that the decision could have devastating implications for Palestinian refugees, many of whom rely on U.S. funding.
“In his most recent display of desperation over the failure to advance the so-called ‘ultimate deal’ by giving the Israelis everything they ask for, President the rich asshole is taking it out on Palestinian refugees who rely heavily on humanitarian assistance, particularly in Gaza where the economic and humanitarian situation is dire,” Munayyer said.
And today you and your boss President Trump helped make sure their hopes and dreams would be dashed by cutting funds to UNRWA twitter.com/nikkihaley/sta…
Many Palestinians live without reliable access to water, hospitals, and electricity, a situation that has grown increasingly dire in recent years under Israel’s right-wing government. UNRWA serves as a crucial lifeline for Palestinians in both the occupied territories and neighboring areas like Jordan and Lebanon, which host large Palestinian populations. One 18-year-old Palestinian refugee, Yazan Muhammad Sabri, told Al Jazeera that an end to funding for UNRWA would have unthinkable consequences for the community.
“If the wakala [UNRWA] goes away, there will be no education, no healthcare, no sanitation,” Sabri said. “There won’t be anything — everything will disappear.”
The funding announcement only applies to the first aid installment of the year, but some advocates argue that the decision will have long-term consequences for the organization’s relationship with the United States.
“By slashing funds to UNRWA, the rich asshole is severing a decades old relationship and commitment by the United States to Palestinian refugees, who continue to lack protection and citizenship while Israel denies them the right of return to their homes,” Munayyer said. “This shameful decision should been seen in the broader anti-humanitarian and anti-refugee attitude of this administration, which has found new and unique ways to take the Israeli/Palestinian morass and make it increasingly worse.”
The decision is also likely to have far-reaching effects, well beyond the initial blow to UNRWA. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas blasted the rich asshole on Sunday, accusing him of working with Israel to destroy the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian peace framework established more than two decades ago.
“We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us — a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place,” Abbas said, criticizing the rich asshole’s funding threats. “Damn your money!”
This piece has been updated to include UNRWA’s official statement.
At White House women’s event, Sarah Sanders told women to ask men for jewelry. Then things got weird.
"We’re going to have to send some people your way... my secret skill, matchmaking."
During a White House event on Tuesday entitled “A Conversation with the Women of America,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders advised women to ask their husbands and boyfriends to buy them jewelry. And things got even stranger from there.
Sanders plug for jewelry came after she introduced a woman named Sharon who told panelists — including White House staffer Ivanka the rich asshole and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao — that she’s a business owner.
“I’m a jewelry store owner of more than 20 years in the Atlanta area, so I’m ecstatic about the tax reform bill,” Sharon said, at which point Sanders jumped in with some advice.
“Give your husbands, your boyfriends her contact information,” Sanders said, with Ivanka the rich asshole adding, “We’re going to have to send some people your way… my secret skill, matchmaking.”
Later on, President the rich asshole dropped by and gave a speech. But instead of talking about the measures his White House has taken to empower women, he rambled about the black unemployment rate, his November 2016 electoral college victory, tax cuts, and the “very tough measures” other countries are taking to crack down on drug abuse.
In fairness, it would’ve been tough for the rich asshole to put together a speech about his administration’s women’s empowerment efforts. Since taking office, the rich asshole administration has taken steps to stop monitoring the wage gap, worked to dismantle legislation that prevents sex and gender discrimination in education, and made it easier for employers to stop covering contraceptive coverage, among other measures that have made life more difficult for women.
Media coverage of the rich asshole’s claim that he wants immigrants from ‘everywhere’ is laughable
For proof, look at everything he's done as president.
After facing continued blowback from last week’s reporting on his disparaging remarks about immigrants from “shithole countries,” President some rich asshole has suddenly changed course — at least in rhetoric.
On Tuesday, the rich asshole was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta whether he wants more immigrants from Norway. He replied that he actually wants immigrants from “everywhere.”
“I want them to come in from everywhere,” the rich asshole said, as he welcomed Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev to the White House.
The comments follow a Washington Post report last Thursday that in an immigration meeting with bipartisan lawmakers, the rich asshole asked why the United States had to accept people from “shithole countries,” allegedly referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and the entire African continent. “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? They’re shithole countries… We should have more people from Norway,” he said. The racism in his comments was obvious.
But without any actual evidence to support his claim, much of the media decided to take the rich asshole’s new comments on face value.
“the rich asshole says he wants immigrants from ‘everywhere,'” Reuters reported Tuesday, with no context of the president’s previous rhetoric or policies before last week’s report.
CNN published another piece with the exact same headline, and again mentioned none of the president’s previous rhetoric or policies. Even publications that offered some context published nearly identical headlines, which made it seem like a president who ran a virulently anti-immigration campaign and has implemented anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies as president, does indeed want to accept them now.
A Politico piece ran with the headline “the rich asshole on immigrants: ‘I want them to come in from everywhere.'” The AP reported, “the rich asshole says he wants immigrants from ‘everywhere.'” “the rich asshole: I want immigrants from ‘everywhere,'” reported The Hill.
This kind of reporting is dangerous — in many instances, readers stop at the headline — the rich asshole’s comments simply don’t match up with his record on immigration.
Just seven days into his presidency, the rich asshole passed his first Muslim ban, which suspended all refugee resettlement, permanently banned Syrian nationals, and temporarily banned all nationals, legal visa holders, and green card holders of six other Muslim-majority countries. After facing multiple legal challenges, the current version of his ban — issued in September — targets nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as certain Venezuelan officials. The restrictions vary for each country, but they are indefinite, and last month, the Supreme Court allowed the order to go into full effect.
Also in September, the rich asshole administration announced it would phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-era initiative that offered young immigrants who met certain requirements temporary deportation protection and work authorization. The program benefited nearly 800,000 young immigrants, who are now worried about what will happen to them.
Under the new policy, people whose DACA status expires before March 5 will have one last opportunity to extend their status for two years. Everyone whose DACA status expires after that date will be at risk of deportation. About 36,000 DACA recipients already missed the October deadline to renew their DACA status, thousands of whom were in hurricane-affected areas. the rich asshole called on Congress to find a permanent fix to DACA, but in the meantime, people’s lives remain in limbo.
the rich asshole does not want immigrants from everywhere, and he has said as much repeatedly. In August of last year, he endorsed a Republican bill that sought to create a points-based system to determine which immigrants are eligible for green cards and curtail family-based migration, which the president derisively refers to as “chain migration.” The bill would have reduced the number of green cards distributed from more than 1 million to about 500,000.
the rich asshole has repeatedly called for an end to family based migration, in which people can sponsor family members for permanent residency.
He has called for an end other forms of immigration as well, including the diversity visa lottery, which only around 50,000 people per year receive after strict vetting measures, and H1B visas, which allow professionals from other countries to work in the United States for up to six years. In January, McClatchy reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering an end to extensions for H1B visas, nearly nine months after the rich asshole issued the Buy American, hire American” executive order calling for a review of the H1B program. Applicants for H1B visas are facing a longer and more expensive process under this administration, and lawyers have reported that applicants are getting more warranted requests for evidence. As Quartz put it, “the rich asshole is quietly swamping visa applicants in extra paperwork.”
the rich asshole has also announced an end to the temporary protected status (TPS) for 200,000 Salvadorans, 50,000 Haitians, and 2,500 Nicaraguans — all of whom were allowed to legally live and work in the United States after natural disasters in their home countries. In November, the approximately 57,000 Hondurans in the United States were informed that they would be allowed to remain in the country legally for six more months, but the program’s future (and people’s lives) after July remains uncertain.
the rich asshole’s Secretary of Homeland Security isn’t sure if people in Norway are white
"Being from Norway is not a skill."
During testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen claimed to not know whether Norway is a predominately white country.
Nielsen made that hard-to-believe claim while trying to defend the racist language President the rich asshole used during a meeting with lawmakers about immigration last week. The Washington Post, citing “several people briefed on the meeting,” reported that the rich asshole called African nations “shithole countries” and told lawmakers and suggested that the U.S. immigration system should bring in more people from countries like Norway. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — the only Democratic lawmaker who was in the room for the meeting — later publicly confirmed that the rich asshole made those comments, which he characterized as “hate-filled, vile, and racist.”
Though the White House initially responded to the Post’s reporting by releasing a statement that didn’t deny the rich asshole used racist language, as the blowback intensified, the rich asshole and his supporters used word games to try and walk his comments back.
Nielsen contributed to the gaslighting effort during her testimony on Tuesday, during which she repeatedly said that she “did not hear” the rich asshole say “shithole” during the meeting.
“I did not hear that word used, no sir,” Nielsen said at one point. “The conversation was very impassioned, I don’t dispute that the President was using tough language, others in the room were also using tough language.”
Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) used his question-and-answer time to press Nielsen on why the rich asshole singled out Norway as a country from which he’d like to bring more immigrants to the U.S.
“Being from Norway is not a skill, and with the standard of living in Norway better than ours, you’re not going to have too many people from there,” Leahy said. “What does he mean when he says he wants more people from Norway?”
Nielsen didn’t directly answer the question, but said that the rich asshole is impressed with Norway because Norwegians “work very hard.”
“And so what he was referencing is, from a merit-based perspective, we’d like to have those with skills who can assimilate and contribute to the United States — moving away from country quotas and to an individual merit-based system,” Nielsen added.
Leahy followed up by asking her, “Norway is a predominately white country, isn’t it?”
Nielsen feigned ignorance.
“I’m — I — eh, I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that’s the case,” she replied.
Norway, in fact, is nearly 95 percent white.
Following the hearing, Sen. Cory Booker (R-NJ) told reporters that he’s skeptical about Nielsen’s show of ignorance.
“I find it absolutely hard to believe that she does not remember that language used by the President of the United States of America,” Booker said. “And so, this to me is hurtful because that language wasn’t just vulgarity… the President’s words on a consistent basis have been bigoted and discriminatory against others.”
During another part of her testimony on Tuesday, Nielsen revealed that she doesn’t understand basic facts about how the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program works.
the rich asshole’s Secretary of Homeland Security conveniently suffers from short-term memory loss
Nielsen heard some "tough language" at last week's immigration meeting, but doesn't remember what the rich asshole said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday and faced a barrage of questions about last week’s immigration meeting in which President the rich asshole reportedly referred to several African nations as “shithole countries.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who was in the meeting, grilled Nielsen about what she heard in the meeting. Durbin noted that Nielsen had said on Fox News that the rich asshole had used “strong language,” but asked if she could specify what that language was.
“Let’s see, strong language, there was — apologies,” she said. “I don’t remember a specific word. What I was struck with frankly, as I’m sure you were as well, was the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone.”
Nielsen confirmed that she heard Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) use some “tough language,” but when Durbin asked if Graham was simply repeating back what the rich asshole had said, Nielsen demurred. “I remember specific cuss words being used by a variety of members.”
Nielsen did not clarify how it was possible for her to remember “specific cuss words” while simultaneously not remembering “a specific word.”
Earlier in the hearing, under questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Nielsen also said she did “not hear that word [shithole] used.” In a response to a question about whether the rich asshole used “vulgar language,” she confirmed that he had, but again described what he’d used as “tough language.”
Nielsen later said that she was struck more by the fact that others would use “inappropriate language in the Oval Office in front of the President,” dodging whether he’d used the language himself.
DHS Sec. Nielsen: "I actually was struck more by the fact that the conversation...had gotten to a place where many people in the room were using inappropriate language in the Oval Office, in front of the president." abcn.ws/2EKBLOY
Claiming under oath not to remember something that one actually remembers — as Nielsen did during Tuesday’s hearing — is considered a form of perjury.
The White House has denied that the rich asshole made the “shithole” remark, however both Durbin and Graham have effectively confirmed that he did.
Justice Department report blames immigrants for terrorism, but doesn’t have the data to prove it
It's the report about nothing.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security released a scary report claiming that three out of four individuals convicted of international terrorism or terrorism-related offenses were “immigrants.”
“This report reveals an indisputable sobering reality—our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a press statement. “And the information in this report is only the tip of the iceberg: we currently have terrorism-related investigations against thousands of people in the United States, including hundreds of people who came here as refugees.
The report comes in response to the president’s Executive Order 13780 in March of last year, which allowed the federal government to temporarily suspend all refugee resettlement and ban the issuance of new visas for nationals from six-Muslim majority countries on claims of protecting the United States from national security risks. Section 11 of the executive order also required the DOJ and DHS to collect information about the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses in the country; information relating to the number of foreign nationals who have been “radicalized” or have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations; information about the number of “honor killings;” and any information relating to the immigration status of people charged with major offenses.
The government released the report to great fanfare, with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen calling for enhanced “screening and vetting” and the White House releasing a press statement on the necessity of ending many forms of legal immigration. But there’s one big problem with the report’s misleading headline: it lacks the data points to make such a big proclamation.
As other journalists and national security analysts skeptically pointed out, the DOJ broadly defines “immigrants” as both the people extradited to the United States for trial and immigrants arrested in the country.
Key point: The figures don't distinguish between foreigners specifically extradited to the US for trial, and immigrants arrested for conduct committed here. twitter.com/pwnallthething…
This report includes people who committed terrorist acts overseas, were arrested overseas and brought here to face trial - that’s some definition of immigrant. twitter.com/thejusticedept…
The supposed bombshell report is also significant for how much data it lacks. It includes a total of descriptions of eight individuals out of 402 foreign-born people who it says were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2016. Yet in the same paragraph, the report pointed out that the “DHS and DOJ do not yet have complete, final information” about the full list of 549 people convicted of the same charges. Most noteworthy, there’s no general breakdown of the kind of charges levied against the individuals.
The report also does not include data points on “individual radicalization.”
“DHS and DOJ lack unclassified, aggregated statistical information pertaining to the timing of individual radicalization,” the report admitted. “DHS and DOJ will endeavor to provide greater clarity on the percentage of individuals who appear to have radicalized to violence after their entry into the United States. Additionally, for purposes of advancing terrorism prevention activities, DHS and DOJ will continue to explore the timing and trends related to the radicalization of such individuals.”
The report additionally fails to include data points for the number of people killed because of honor killings, another category for which data was required by Section 11 of the executive order.
“According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 2006 and 2015, there were approximately 1.3 million non-fatal domestic violence victimizations each year,” the report said. “It is unclear how many were perpetrated by foreign nationals because the federal government has not recorded and tracked in an aggregated statistical manner information pertaining to gender-based violence against women committed at the federal and state level.”
There is ultimately little meaningful data gathered from the report, which fails to take into account the acts of genuine terror that gripped the United States in President some rich asshole’s first year in office. The DOJ data does not include horrific events like when a white supremacist rammed his car into a group of peaceful protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one woman; a white man who took to the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel to gun down 58 people and injured 489 others before killing himself; and a white man who killed 26 churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas; among other mass shooting incidents last year.
However, the report is intentionally timely. In a few days time, lawmakers must pass a government spending bill to prevent a government shutdown. Republican lawmakers are tying the bill with immigration legislation that would eliminate the diversity visa lottery, end family-based migration, and provide funding for the border wall. Democrats have been hesitant to agree to a spending bill with such stringent immigration measures, though only a few Democratic senators have held steadfast to their desire to include permanent protections for so-called DREAMers who came to the country as children.
White House: Journalists who get tax cuts will have ‘change of heart’, give the rich asshole positive coverage
That's not how journalism works.
During an interview with Fox & Friends on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lamented the “negative” coverage President the rich asshole received in 2017 and suggested journalists would start giving the administration positive coverage once they received money as a result of the Republican tax bill passed in December.
“Look, I have said it before, I will say it again: I think it is disgraceful the way this president is treated. If he was anybody else the media would be going on and on trumpeting his successes,” Sanders said, referring to a study by the right-wing Media Research Center, which showed coverage of the president among the big three media networks (NBC, ABC, CBS) in 2017 was negative 90 percent of the time. “…Things are going well for America. We have a president that is putting our country first and I think that is something that should be celebrated, not mocked, not laughed at. Certainly not attacked every second of every day.”
She added, “Hopefully, over the course of this year, we’ll have a change of heart of some of the media as they get more money in their pockets due to massive tax cuts…. Maybe they will have a change in their heart too.”
Sanders’ suggestion that journalists could be bought with partisan tax handouts is troubling for a number of reasons.
First is the idea that journalists — who the White House and the rich asshole regularly refer to as “fake news” — might have a “change in their heart” and begin producing mostly positive stories in 2018 because they supposedly benefit from certain Republican legislation. A journalist’s job, of course, is to report the facts in order to hold powerful figures and entities accountable. To suggest that their coverage is conditional on favors or handouts from those same powerful people is damaging to the industry as a whole and another method of maligning the free press — something which the rich asshole administration does on a regular basis.
Second, the passage of the tax bill itself was hardly a boon for journalists, who on average make between $25,000 and $70,000 a year, according to PayScale. Most tax analysts agree that the GOP legislation, though billed as a tax “cut” for all Americans, is instead a gift for the ultra-wealthy and massive corporations, given that it lowers the top tax rate for high-income earners from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, as well as the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Middle- and low-income earners — including the majority of journalists — by contrast, will see their taxes decrease temporarily, but will see a tax hike after 2025, when those cuts expire.
The president has long maintained a tense relationship with the press, claiming that any news outlets whose coverage he dislikes are “fake news.” The White House, using its official platforms, has echoed that sentiment several times over.
In December, Sanders claimed during a briefing that mistakes and errors in reporting were proof that the media was deliberately lying to paint the rich asshole administration in a bad light. “There’s a very big difference between making honest mistakes, and purposefully misleading the American people — something that happens regularly,” she said during a tense exchange
Sanders produced no evidence to back her claim.
On Tuesday, the rich asshole himself responded to Sanders’ Fox & Friends comments, taking things a step further by suggesting the press was making up stories to discredit him.
“‘90% of the rich asshole 2017 news coverage was negative’ -and much of it contrived!@foxandfriends,” he tweeted.
The president has also previously promised to hold a “Fake News Awards” ceremony, something experts say could violate several ethics rules.
Senator’s defense of the rich asshole’s ‘shithole’ comments was so ridiculous the crowd couldn’t stop laughing
"You laugh, but folks -- who borders Norway? Russia!"
During an event with constituents over the weekend, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) elicited laughter after she claimed, without a tinge of irony, that President the rich asshole is simply “standing up” for Norway — the predominately white country from which he told lawmakers last week he wants to welcome more immigrants, as opposed to people from “shithole” African nations.
According to a local TV report, Ernst was confronted by a constituent named Barb Melson about “the damage that the rich asshole is doing to our neighbors around the world with his white supremacy talk.” Ernst responded by defending the rich asshole, saying, “He is standing up for a lot of countries.” A constituent then asked Ernst to “name a few.”
“You bet, Norway is one of them,” Ernst replied, as the crowd broke out in laughter.
In a Sarah Palin-esque twist, Ernst then suggested that the rich asshole’s purported desire to forge closer ties with Norway could help America deal with Vladimir Putin.
“You laugh, but folks — who borders Norway? Russia!” Ernst said.
During another constituent event in Iowa over the weekend, Ernst said she doesn’t think the rich asshole’s comment about African nations being “shithole countries” reflects any sort of racism.
“Deep inside, no, I don’t think he’s a racist,” Ernst replied, her response “drawing groans from the crowd,” according to the Des Moines Register. “I think he’s brash and he says things that are on his mind, but I don’t truly believe that he’s a racist.”
Ernst might be in denial about it, but the rich asshole has a history of espousing racist views that spans decades. In fact, the rich asshole’s rise to national political prominence during the Obama years was due in large part to his promotion of a racist conspiracy theory that then-President Obama was a secret Muslim who was actually born in Africa.
While Ernst dismisses the rich asshole’s racist comments, other Republican senators are playing word games in an attempt to deny that the rich asshole called African countries “shitholes” in the first place. Though the White House initially acknowledged that the rich asshole did in fact use profane language to bash African nations and Haiti, Sens. David Perdue (R-GA) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) later told the White House they heard the rich asshole say “shithouse” rather than “shithole.” They then used this insignificant discrepancy over the weekend to publicly argue that media accounts of what the rich asshole said in the meeting were inaccurate.
White House says the rich asshole isn’t racist because he had a TV show
The rich asshole team also falls back on the claim that people secretly begged him for stuff, therefore their criticism is moot.
Facing continued criticism of President some rich asshole’s latest racist remarks, his press secretary offered a new defense of her boss on Tuesday — using a technique straight out of the rich asshole’s playbook.
A reporter asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) suggestion on Monday that if the rich asshole is really the “least racist person,” he should show it by making a deal to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. She responded by suggesting that the rich asshole could not be racist because his critics and others have embraced him in the past.
“I think that is an outrageous claim. And frankly I think if the critics of the president were who he said he was [sic], why did NBC give him a show for a decade on TV? Why did Chuck Schumer and all of his colleagues come and beg some rich asshole for money? If [he] is who they want to try to portray him as, why did they want to, you know, be with him for years and years in various activities, whether it was events and fund-raisers and other things?”
Watch:
The idea that someone cannot be a racist because they once had a TV show is laughable on a number of fronts. Indeed, several prominent television personalities have been fired from their positions after their racist views and comments have come to light, including former Fox News co-host Bob Beckel, former Food Network star Paula Deen, and former MSNBC shock-jock Don Imus. Many of the rich asshole’s most obviously racist views — including that Mexicans are “rapists” and criminals, that an American judge could not impartially hear a case against his the rich asshole University because he is Mexican-American, his calls for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States, his deriding of a U.S. Senator with the nickname “Pocahontas,” and his recent comments about Africans and Haitians — were revealed after the rich asshole left his Celebrity Apprentice job and became a politician.
Sanders’ claim that Chuck Schumer and “all of his colleagues” begged the rich asshole for money is quite an exaggeration. Though the rich asshole donated campaign funds to Schumer and other Democrats as recently as 2010, only a handful of current Democratic senators were recipients.
Is a typical the rich asshole technique to accuse any critic of having secretly begged him for stuff. He has made the accusation previously about Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, Fox News Channel’s Dana Perino, his now-Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Iowa anti-LGBTQ activist Bob Vander Plaats, National Review writer Brent Bozell, 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, and 2008 GOP nominee John McCain, among others.
Fox News reportedly had the story about the rich asshole’s lawyer paying off an adult film star and killed it
All in the final weeks of the 2016 election.
Fox News is at it again. Or, rather, a CNN report Tuesday reveals once again that Fox News has been at it for a long time.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the network reportedly had its hands on a story about then-candidate the rich asshole’s relationship with a pornographic actress named Stephanie Clifford — whose stage name is Stormy Daniels — and they chose not to publish the story. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report detailing the fact that the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen had arranged to pay Clifford $130,000 not to discuss her alleged relationship with the rich asshole. But according to CNN, it was Fox News that actually had it first.
In October 2016, the same month Cohen arranged the payment, Fox News reporter Diana Falzone reportedly filed a story about the rich asshole’s relationship with Clifford. She had an on-the-record statement from Clifford’s manager at the time, who confirmed that Clifford had had a sexual relationship with the rich asshole, and she had seen emails about a settlement. Fox News killed the story.
In May of 2017, Falzone filed a lawsuit against Fox News alleging gender discrimination. The case is ongoing, and Fox News has denied the accusations.
The network also denied that they killed the story. In a statement, Fox News editor in chief Noah Kotch told CNN that the outlet was pursuing the story, but, “In doing our due diligence, we were unable to verify all of the facts and publish a story.”
Fox News anchors have spent the first year of the rich asshole administration defending the president, repeating, and refining his talking points, and the late Roger Ailes, the network’s former chairman and CEO, advised the rich asshole before presidential debates. the rich asshole also has a cozy relationship with Rupert Murdoch, the network’s current CEO.
Additionally, one of the rich asshole’s favorite hobbies is live tweeting the daily propagandist broadcasting the network puts on, especially its morning show, Fox & Friends.
Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better! @FoxNews
...big unnecessary regulation cuts made it all possible” (among many other things). “President Trump reversed the policies of President Obama, and reversed our economic decline.” Thank you Stuart Varney. @foxandfriends
Neither Clifford nor Falzone responded to CNN’s requests for comment, but Clifford did release a statement — distributed by Cohen — following the publication of the Wall Street Journal story last week.
“My involvement with some rich asshole was limited to a few public appearances and nothing more,” Clifford said in the release. “When I met some rich asshole, he was gracious, professional and a complete gentleman to me and EVERYONE in my presence. Rumors that I have received hush money from some rich asshole are completely false. If indeed I did have a relationship with some rich asshole, trust me, you wouldn’t be reading about in the news, you would be reading about it in my book. But the fact of the matter is, these stories are not true.”
Other media outlets have, however, confirmed that they were in touch with Clifford ahead of the Wall Street Journal report about the rich asshole’s relationship with Clifford and Cohen’s reported payment. Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg published a story Tuesday about his discussions with Clifford, and The Daily Beast published an article Friday about their own reporting on Clifford’s relationship with the rich asshole.
THE RICH ASSHOLE'S WEIGHT SPAWNS ANOTHER 'GIRTHER' MOVEMENT ON TWITTER
Americans were talking about the president’s weight on Tuesday afternoon—after a briefing regarding the annual presidential physical ignited a twitterstorm about the "girther" movement.
When the White House's physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, announced that the president was healthy, but needed to lose 10 to 15 of his 239 pounds, some skeptics theorized that the president weighed more than that. When the MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted, "Has anyone coined 'girther' for those who [believe] the president weighs more than his doctor reports?" tweeters responded with insults, theories about how the president has lied about his weight and a few bad puns.
L: Vikings running back Latavius Murray. R: Donald Trump. Both listed officially at 6'3"/235 lbs. #Girther
For the record, @realDonaldTrump said he was 74 inches in 2012. Now his doctor says he's 75 inches. And that one inch makes is BMI "overweight" not "obese." I'm a #girther because old men don't GROW an inch!
The word "girther" is a play on the “birther” movement President some rich asshole revived in 2011. For years, he demanded to see President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, alleging that he was Kenyan-born and not eligible to be president. He also alleged that the birth certificate he presented in 2008 was a fake.
After pushing the theory forward, the rich asshole held a bizarre press conference last year in which he did not apologize for the remarks, as expected, but instead simply claimed, “President Obama was born in the United States—period.’’
It’s not even the first “girther” movement involving the rich asshole. In 2016, the president alluded to the size of his penis on the debate stage, saying, "I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee." In response, Twitter, of course, demanded to see the "girth certificate," or, as some called it, "the schlong form girth certificate."
Americans have scrutinized the appearances and weight of many a former president––William Howard Taft, who weighed in at over 350 pounds, was the butt of many jokes. One popular rumor, which doesn’t appear to have documentation to back it up, is that he once got stuck in a White House bathtub. He did, however, commission a company in Manhattan to make the “largest solid porcelain tub ever made for an individual,” according to the History Channel.
the rich asshole has commented on the appearance of other world leaders. In November 2017, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called the president "old," the rich asshole responded, "Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me "old," when I would NEVER call him "short and fat?" Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen!"
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS JAN. 16, 2018
Continue reading the main story Share This Page
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was intended to be a long-scheduled discussion of border walls, but suddenly Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, was being quizzed repeatedly about the vulgar word, or words, said to have been uttered by the president describing the countries of origin of African immigrants.
Ms. Nielsen was asked about the Oval Office episode in which President the rich asshole has been quoted by participants as calling African nations “shithole countries,” and she responded, “I did not hear that word used.”
She conceded that it might have been said without her hearing it and said she could not recall the president’s characterization of African countries.
“The conversation was very impassioned,” Ms. Nielsen told members of the committee, pressed on the matter repeatedly. “I don’t dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language.”
Asked directly by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois — who attended the Oval Office meeting, and reiterated in an interview on Tuesday that he had heard some rich asshole use the offending phrase — Ms. Nielsen said the president had become “impassioned” and was “using some strong language.”
“I don’t remember a specific word,” she said.
Other senators suggested the word used might have been “shithouse,” and that those denying the story might be basing their rebuttals on a technicality. (Ms. Nielsen said she did not hear that particular verbiage either.) And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was also present at the Oval Office meeting last week, said the entire episode had devolved into an “s-show.”
It was a remarkable round of exchanges in a town more accustomed to policy jargon than expletives, at least in public. And it demonstrated how far the discourse has fallen in a high-stakes negotiation over an immigration plan meant to protect about 800,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children who could face deportation as soon as March.
The bickering over obscenities and the underlying immigration debate could have far-reaching consequences; Democrats have said they will not back any government spending plan that fails to address the immigrants’ fate, and with current funding set to be exhausted by Friday, an impasse could lead to a government shutdown.
“We certainly don’t want the government to shut down,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday, just after giving a carefully worded denial to reporters at the White House about the president’s choice of words. She said that while she had not attended the meeting in question, others who had “said that term wasn’t used, but that tough language was.”
“No one here is going to pretend like the president is always politically correct — he isn’t,” Ms. Sanders said, adding that it was “one of the reasons the American people love him” and he won the presidency.
“We’ve wasted five days fighting over one word, when we should be fighting over the people that are involved in the DACA program,” she said, using the acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by President Barack Obama that some rich asshole rescinded in September, setting a six-month clock — until March 5 — before recipients would begin to lose their special status.
Several people familiar with the immigration meeting said last week that the president had used the vulgar phrase and questioned why Haitians should receive protection in the plan, as Mr. Durbin and Mr. Graham pushed back on his language and his characterization of immigrant populations.
The White House initially did not dispute the account, and Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, two Republicans who were also present, first said they could not recall what was said. But the senators changed their stories over the weekend, attacking Mr. Durbin’s account of the meeting. Mr. Perdue said flatly that the word was never used; Mr. Cotton said he did not hear it used.
On Tuesday, Mr. Durbin told CNN, “I stand by every word I said.”
“Senator Cotton and Senator Perdue should remember a word as gross as that in the course of a conversation with the president of the United States,” he added.
Asked about whether Mr. Cotton and Mr. Perdue could be technically correct if some rich asshole had instead said “shithouse,” Mr. Durbin was incredulous.
“Let me say they’re wrong,” he said. “I can tell you explicitly they are wrong. And let me also say, is that their defense? That s-house is acceptable, s-hole he would never say? Come on. To think that the president of the United States would refer to any country on earth as an s-house country, for goodness’ sakes, what does that say?”
Fox News held story before election on the rich asshole relationship with adult film star: report
Fox News did not publish a story the network had on an alleged sexual relationship between President the rich asshole and adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford during the 2016 presidential election, according to a new report.
CNN reports that Fox News reporter Diana Falzone wrote a story a month before voters went to the polls in 2016 on the alleged relationship between the rich asshole and Clifford, whose stage name is "Stormy Daniels."
People familiar with the story told CNN that Falzone had seen emails about a settlement between the rich asshole and Clifford and had a statement from Clifford's manager affirming that Clifford did engage in a sexual relationship with the rich asshole.
But CNN reports that Fox News ultimately did not publish the story, with one person familiar with the story telling the network that Falzone "had the story and Fox killed it."
Noah Kotch, Fox News' digital editor-in-chief and vice president, told CNN in a statement that the network was "unable to verify all of the facts and publish a story."
"Like many other outlets, we were working to report the story of Stephanie Clifford's account in October 2016 about then-Some rich asshole and a possible payment by the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen," Kotch told CNN. "In doing our due diligence, we were unable to verify all of the facts and publish a story."
CNN's report follows a Wall Street Journal report that Michael Cohen, an attorney for the rich asshole Organization in 2006 and now the rich asshole's personal lawyer, arranged for Clifford to receive $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement one month before the 2016 presidential election.
Clifford had previously told sources interviewed by the newspaper that she had a consensual sexual encounter with the rich asshole in 2006, a year after he and Melania the rich asshole were married.
Cohen told the Journal in a statement that the rich asshole "once again vehemently denies" the encounter, but did not comment on the alleged $130,000 payment.
"This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client," Cohen told the newspaper. "You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011."
Cohen also sent the paper a statement signed by "Stormy Daniels" denying the sexual encounter with the rich asshole and saying that the rumors are "completely false."
Clifford sent the same statement denying a sexual relationship with the rich asshole to CNN this week.
The White House declined to comment to the Journal about the alleged payment, but said that the allegations of the interaction between the rich asshole and Clifford were "old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election."
READ: the rich asshole's physical exam report
BY THE HILL STAFF - 01/16/18 06:44 PM EST
The White House on Tuesday released a summary of President the rich asshole’s first physical exam during his time in office.
the rich asshole’s White House doctor, Navy Rear Adm. Dr. Ronny Jackson, declared the president is in “excellent” health. Jackson fielded questions at Tuesday’s White House press briefing for roughly an hour.
In addition to a physical exam, the president requested Jackson conduct a cognitive evaluation during last week’s appointment. Jackson said the rich asshole scored 30 out of 30 on the mental assessment, and declared the president is “very sharp.”
Read Jackson’s full summary of the rich asshole’s physical below.
Adult film star said she had a nearly year-long affair with the rich asshole — not just a single encounter
President some rich asshole and adult actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name was Stormy Daniels, in a 2006 Myspace photo.
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An adult film actress who reportedly took a large payout in exchange for her silence about an affair she had with some rich asshole in 2006 admitted in 2016 that her relationship with the then-candidate lasted a year.
In an interview with Slate, actress Stormy Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, said she met the rich asshole at a golf tournament in 2006, where they “begun a sexual relationship” that “lasted for nearly a year.” The tournament took place not long after the real estate mogul married Melania the rich asshole, and just a few months after their son Barron was born.
The admission that happened “in a series of phone conversations and text exchanges that took place between August and October of 2016” runs counter to a statement provided to the Wall Street Journal and written by the rich asshole’s lawyer that Daniels allegedly signed.
In the statement, which was included in the Journal‘s initial reports that attorney Michael Cohen shelled out $130,000 in October 2016 to keep Daniels quiet about her affair with the candidate, the actress signed a document claiming she and the rich asshole did not have a “sexual and/or romantic affair.”
the rich asshole shields his hair, not wife and son, with umbrella
Jessica Kwong
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump covered himself with a large umbrella but left his wife, Melania, and youngest son, Barron, to fend for themselves against the elements as they boarded Air Force One at Florida's Palm Beach International Airport last Friday.
Related: Give Melania Trump a break: Criticism of first lady is sexist, says expert on presidents’ spouses
Several photos of the first family's departure from Florida to Washington, D.C., showed that the president walked up the ramp first, with his family following, and the wind blowing around the first lady’s hair. It was unclear whether it was raining or if he offered the umbrella to them.
Social media users called the president out as ungentlemanly.
Twitter user Sonny Grewal tweeted, “Just seen @realDonaldTrump getting on his plane holding an umbrella for himself while his son and wife get soaked in the rain. says it all about him! #selfishTrump.”
This is not the first time the president has been accused of being unchivalrous. At his inauguration, some pointed out that Trump walked up the White House steps alone and shook hands with President Barack Obama and Michelle, who waited for Melania to step out of the car and catch up.
Related: Give Melania Trump a break: Criticism of first lady is sexist, says expert on presidents’ spouses
Several photos of the first family's departure from Florida to Washington, D.C., showed that the president walked up the ramp first, with his family following, and the wind blowing around the first lady’s hair. It was unclear whether it was raining or if he offered the umbrella to them.
Social media users called the president out as ungentlemanly.
Twitter user Sonny Grewal tweeted, “Just seen @realDonaldTrump getting on his plane holding an umbrella for himself while his son and wife get soaked in the rain. says it all about him! #selfishTrump.”
just seen @realDonaldTrump getting on his plane holding an umbrella for himself while his son and wife get soaked in the rain. says it all about him ! #selfishTrump
No umbrella for Barron as he boards Air Force One with @realDonaldTrump. #TrumpInPalmBeach
This is not the first time the president has been accused of being unchivalrous. At his inauguration, some pointed out that Trump walked up the White House steps alone and shook hands with President Barack Obama and Michelle, who waited for Melania to step out of the car and catch up.
Panama votes to boot the rich asshole Hotels out of country
January 16, 2018
Chantal Da Silva
Posted with permission from Newsweek
An attempt to try to strip President Donald Trump's name from a hotel building in Panama has turned bitter, with the U.S. leader's hotel company refusing to leave the Central American country without a fight.
Owners of the Trump International Hotel in Panama City, the country's capital, are reportedly fighting to have the name of the building changed and oust the president's hotel management company, Trump Hotels.
However, two people familiar with the matter have told the Associated Press that Trump's staff "ran off" a team of Marriott executives invited last month to visit the property as a prospective new hotel operator.
The head of Trump Hotels, Eric Danziger, also called Marriott's CEO to complain about the visit, the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told AP.
Newsweek also found that the group formerly known as The Trump Ocean Club Panama Owners Association has already stripped the president's name from it's title.
In September, records show the group's website had branded itself under the president's name, with "Trump" appearing 13 times on the front page.
But by January 5, the owners association had completely erased the U.S. leader's namefrom its title and website.
Now known as simply the Ocean Club Panama Owners Association, the group also posted on its website that it has attained attorneys to "take the necessary legal action to invalidate and cancel" power-of-attorneys "embedded by The Trump Organization in many of the TOC Owner deeds at closing of the purchase of their units."
The owners association says a firm called Global Legal Advisors has already filed documents to remove "embedded" power-of-attorneys from deeds "and they are working on hundreds more." The company offered to do at least some of the legal work pro bono, the group adds.
Global Legal Advisors and the Ocean Club Panama Owners Association could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Trump International Hotel in Panama City, which was completed in 2011, was Trump's first international hotel venture.
Ithaca Capital Partners, a firm based in Miami, bought the hotel amenities and the majority of the units in the hotel last August.
In October, Ithaca floated the proposal of removing Trump Organization’s directors from the hotel board and sending a notice of default to Trump in a bid to cut off Trump's link to the property.
The company cited complaints over alleged mismanagement—a claim the organization refuted.
“Not only do we have a valid, binding and enforceable long-term management agreement, but any suggestion that the hotel is not performing up to expectations is belied by the actual facts,” The Trump Organization said in a statement in November.
In November of last year, it also emerged that the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who had been tasked with overseeing the international hotel project, had enlisted an accused Brazilian fraudster with connections to drug money launderers and Russian criminals as the hotel's top broker.
The Trump Organization distanced itself from the businessman, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, however, saying it was never aware of his involvement.
The 70-floor waterfront building, which includes apartments and a casino, has, however, earned the president between $30 million and $50 million, according to AP.
The reported row between Trump Hotels and Marriott casts a spotlight on the issue of how American companies interact with the president's family-owned businesses.
Marriott is one of many companies with business and public policy interests before the Trump administration.
Doctor takes the blame for the rich asshole’s slurred speech: I accidentally ‘dried up his secretions’
Dr. Ronny Jackson (Screenshot)
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A doctor who examined President some rich asshole said during a White House briefing on Tuesday that he was in excellent health.
Dr. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician, also took the blame for an incident in December in which the rich asshole appeared to slur his words.
Jackson suggested that the rich asshole had slurred his words because he had a dry mouth. “I had given the president some medication, specifically some sudafed over the days previous and dried up his secretions more than I intended to.”
Watch video below:
WATCH: Lindsey Graham rips ‘staffer’ John Kelly and ‘irrational White House’ in blistering impromptu interview
Sen. Lindsey Graham -- CNN screenshot
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A fired up Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took a shot at White House staff during an impromptu talk with the press after the South Carolina senator interrogated DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a televised hearing.
At issue for Graham is what happened in a two hour-span last Thursday when he and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (IL) thought President some rich asshole had agreed with their bipartisan plan to resolve the immigration issue after it was presented to him last Tuesday.
Graham laid the blame on the rich asshole’s staff for blowing up the deal and, when asked if he was talking about Kelly, Graham bluntly stated, “He is a very fine man, but he is on staff.”
“When you say something happened between Tuesday and Thursday, do you mean that the president got bad advice from someone on his staff?” Graham was asked.
‘Yeah, I think someone on his staff gave him really bad advice between 10:00 and 12:00 on Thursday” Graham replied, saying he wasn’t going to blame the turnaround on the president.
Saying Americans deserve better and the immigration stalemate needs to be fixed, Graham added, “What we need in order to do better is a reliable partner at the White House. Somebody like the president who showed up on Tuesday. We cannot do this with people in charge at the White House who have an irrational view of how to fix immigration.”
You can watch the video below via CNN:
Bannon tried to stonewall House panel on the rich asshole transition — until lawmakers subpoenaed him on the spot
Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Steve Bannon was subpoenaed for the second time in a week during testimony before a House panel on his time working for President some rich asshole.
The former White House chief strategist was subpoenaed last week by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation of the rich asshole campaign ties to Russia, and Bannon will be required to testify before a grand jury.
Bannon testified Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee, where Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reported he was issued another subpoena.
Sources told the Fox News reporter that Bannon was told by the White House not to answer lawmakers’ questions about the administration or the rich asshole transition, although he did not claim executive privilege.
However, lawmakers compelled Bannon’s testimony on those topics by issuing him a subpoena during the closed-door session.
It’s not yet clear what Bannon was asked to discuss at the hearing at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, where matters related to classified or sensitive information can be discussed in a secure setting.
Instead of engaging in appropriate law enforcement and defending Americans, the Department of Justice is being used to justify some rich asshole's prejudices and appeal to his wounded ego.
The Department of Justice is supposed to be on the front lines of America’s fight against crime, both domestic and international. But a press release issued at the behest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions shows that it is little more than a propaganda outlet for some rich asshole akin to Fox News and Breitbart.
The DOJ sent out a press release — accompanied by a tweet in all caps, echoing the sort of style seen in right-wing media — claiming a strong linkage between terrorism and immigration. It is no coincidence that this is the same bigoted, xenophobic message pushed by the rich asshole over the course of his short political career.
Sessions argued that “our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety.”
“We currently have terrorism-related investigations against thousands of people in the United States, including hundreds of people who came here as refugees,” he added.
His language immediately sets off warning bells, revealing that the report is cherry-picked fearmongering, designed to back up the rich asshole’s rhetoric. The release even notes that the entire report was kicked into action by Executive Order 13780, signed by the rich asshole in March.
the rich asshole was forced to release that order because the first version, which banned entry to the United States from predominantly Muslim countries, was rejected by the federal courts.
And the report is immediately useless because it limits the parameters to international terrorism. Domestic terrorism is simply not included, despite the threat it poses to American lives, particularly from right-wing groups.
The U.S. criminal justice system is weighted in favor of classifying international terrorism as terror, while domestic terror committed by mostly white males is often charged and classified with non-terrorism language.
Incidents like the terroristic killing of peace protester Heather Heyer in Charlotesville, Virginia, who was mowed down by neo-Nazis, are not included in Sessions’ report. the rich asshole infamously described the right-wing groups involved in the murder as “very fine” people and expressed sympathy for their cause of maintaining monuments to the pro-slavery confederacy.
A report that insists that immigration is connected to terrorism while wholly ignoring domestic terror is not serious or credible.
Over and over, studies have shown the biggest threat to American life comes from white Americans. From Sept. 11, 2001, through 2015, nearly twice as many people in America died from right-wing attacks as those who died in attacks by Muslim extremists. Most of those deadly attacks came from figures like the Charleston church shooter, a young white male who targeted black Americans.
Since 9/11, nine people have been killed every year, on average, by Muslim extremists in the United States. By comparison, 12,843 people are killed every year by guns in the United States. But because the rich asshole administration caters to figures like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre — including invitations to the White House Christmas parties — the report from the DOJ won’t include any of that data.
Sessions is on the outs with the rich asshole, who was upset with his attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. That recusal left the rich asshole without one of his most ardent supporters available to quash the probe like his allies in Congress are trying to do.
This report is in line with Sessions’ efforts to get back in the rich asshole’s good graces, along with using the department to get into conspiracy theories involving Hillary Clinton.
Like much of what the rich asshole does, the report is bigoted and dishonest, interested only in feeding his fragile ego instead of sticking to the mission of fighting crime and keeping Americans safe.
And another American institution has now seen itself tainted through its affiliation with the rich asshole and his underlings.
the rich asshole clearly didn't appreciate being asked why he only wants immigrants from white countries.
some rich asshole demanded that a reporter be removed from the Oval Office after he directly grilled him on his racist remarks on immigration.
CNN reporter Jim Acosta quizzed the rich asshole on his characterization of countries like Haiti as “shitholes,” a term he used to refer to countries with large black populations. the rich asshole reportedly said he wanted immigrants from countries like Norway, which is almost all white.
“Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway, did you say that you wanted more people to come in from Norway?” Acosta asked.
“I want them to come in from everywhere,” the rich asshole said.
Acosta pressed the issue again. “Just Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world where there are people of color?”
And that’s when the rich asshole growled “Out!” and pointed to the door.
the rich asshole’s racism is undeniable, and it showed up again in his comments about immigration while meeting with members of Congress. He and his team have tried hard to get past the episode, but his angry reaction to being confronted with his own words and ideas show the stain on his presidency isn’t going away at all.
The senator nailed the DHS secretary for trying to cover for the rich asshole's egregious racism
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tried to be cagey about some rich asshole’s racism at a Senate hearing, but New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker was not about to let that stand.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Department of Homeland Security, Nielsen took several shots at avoiding the specifics of the rich asshole’s racist Oval Office rant, but Booker tore her spurious claims of amnesia asunder in a withering condemnation of the rich asshole’s racism.
Booker told Nielsen that he was “seething with anger” about the rich asshole’s comments, and blasted Nielsen for swearing under oath that she could not remember them. He reminded her of a DHS report underlining the extreme threat represented by far-right groups, and of the threats that he and other senators of color have received.
“The commander in chief, in an Oval Office meeting, referring to people from African countries and Haitians with the most vile and vulgar language,” Booker said. “That language festers when ignorance and bigotry is alive with power. It is a dangerous force in our country.”
“Your silence and your amnesia is complicity,” Booker told Nielsen. “Right now in our nation, we have a problem. I don’t know if 73 percent of your time is spent on white supremacist hate groups. I don’t know if 73 percent of your time is spent concerned about the people in fear in communities in this country — Sikh Americans, Muslim Americans, black Americans. The fact pattern is clear of the threats in this country.”
Booker added that when he learned of the rich asshole’s comments, “I had tears of rage,” and “for you not to feel that pain hurt.”
“And that pain,” Booker continued, “and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues, saying ‘I’ve already answered that line of questions,’ when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now, because of what they’re worried about, what happened in the White House — that’s unacceptable to me.”
“There are threats in this country, people plotting,” Booker said. “I receive enough death threats to know the reality. Kamala receives enough death threats to know the reality. Mazie receives enough death threats to know the reality.”
“And I’ve got a president of the United States, whose office I respect, who talks about the countries of origin of my fellow citizens in the most despicable of manner,” Booker said, angrily adding, “You don’t remember, you can’t remember the words of your commander in chief? I find that unacceptable.”
Booker’s impassioned speech should demonstrate, to every American, the stakes for covering up the sort of racism that some rich asshole has elevated to the highest office in the land. As Booker notes, even if Nielsen wasn’t listening closely, those who would do violence in the name of racism are, and the rich asshole is emboldening them.
Bureau staffers fear that the GOP's witch hunt against the agency will compromise sources and "undermine the integrity of the FBI."
Having completely abandoned any semblance of an investigation focused on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, as well as possible collusion with the rich asshole campaign, House Republicans are now trying to discredit the FBI and federal prosecutors.
In the latest unprecedented development, the FBI has been forced to hand over sensitive documents to congressional investigators regarding bureau cases, presumably in the hopes that Republicans can dig through the files and find information they can use to try to embarrass the agency.
This comes as a hardcore group of Republicans spin wild conspiracy theories about how the FBI somehow plotted to keep some rich asshole out of the White House.
The bureau will now likely hand over more than one million documents, as Republicans do their best to destroy the FBI’s reputation, all in the name of defending the rich asshole, who remains exposed to legal jeopardy.
Consequently, FBI agents fear that the widening GOP witch hunt could expose the identity of informants, as well as make it less likely that potential sources will cooperate with them.
“The Justice Department’s decision to give congressional Republicans access to documents about FBI investigations risks exposing sensitive sources or material and poses a critical early test for bureau Director Christopher Wray,” Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
“Some officials view the department as capitulating to a small group of Republicans who are intent on helping President some rich asshole undermine the integrity of the FBI and, by extension, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the rich asshole or any of his associates helped Russia interfere in the 2016 election.”
One FBI agent told Bloomberg that anybody working on Russian counterintelligence probes of any kind might now be hesitant to report their findings to superiors, given how desperate Republicans are to politicize all information.
“Other officials said they’re worried about an effort by the rich asshole and his allies to oust anyone seen as being disloyal to the president,” Bloomberg reports.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, the rich asshole actually accused an FBI agent of committing “a treasonous act” because he had texted some anti-the rich asshole messages back in 2016 during the presidential campaign.
The whole smear effort represents an extraordinary attempt by a White House to destroy the reputation of the FBI in order to protect a sitting president.
But Tuesday also brought news that the rich asshole’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has been subpoenaed by Mueller’s office, as the Russia probe churns on.
Thus there’s no indication the GOP’s far-flung defensive efforts will actually work to protect the rich asshole or to hide the truth.
the rich asshole's chaotic White House can't retain top aides. And it's only going to get worse in 2018.
This week, some rich asshole’s former chief strategist, former campaign manager, and his current communications director are all set to testify before Congress regarding the ongoing Russia probe, which continues to zero in on possible criminal wrongdoing.
The widening scandal, which has ensnared scores of the rich asshole aides and associates, is likely just one reason why the current White House set a new high-water mark for staffers, including senior staffers, bailing on an administration during its first year.
In 2017, a stunning 36 percent of the rich asshole’s top team left him, just months after landing prestigious jobs inside the White House. That’s “more than double the turnover in President Ronald Reagan’s first year and four times that in President Barack Obama’s,” writes Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, in Tuesday’s Washington Post. She’s a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and oversees the think tank’s White House Transition Project.
Especially troubling is that so many of the departures come from what Dunn Tenpas describes as the White House’s “Tier 1” team of senior strategists. the rich asshole has lost 6 of his 12 Tier 1 staffers, including press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus, deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, and national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Compare that to President Barack Obama, who lost just one Tier 1 staffer during his first year.
History shows that last year’s constant stampede for the doorway will likely increase in 2018. According to Dunn Tenpas’s research, Reagan’s turnover rate jumped from 17 percent in 1981 to 40 percent in 1982. And President George W. Bush, who lost just 6 percent of senior aides in his first year, saw 27 percent exit the following year.
So many are queuing up to leave the current White House that chief of staff John Kelly is reportedly trying to get a head count on who’s leaving this year so he can stagger the exits in hopes of making the exodus not look so bad.
It’s also been well documented that the rich asshole’s White House team has had trouble filling positions and finding top-caliber Republicans who are willing to work at the chaotic and often incompetent administration.
Apparently, even Republicans are embarrassed by this White House.
the rich asshole used racist, vulgar language to slur other countries, and his homeland security secretary admitted it.
some rich asshole’s racist rant about “shithole countries” can no longer be doubted by even the few the rich asshole supporters who cling to false non-denials.
the rich asshole Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was at the Oval Office meeting during which the rich asshole made his racist remarks, and has tried to pass off the “I don’t recall” defense to avoid confirming the language that the rich asshole used.
But at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Nielsen was grilled, under oath, by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, and was forced to admit that the rich asshole used “substantially similar” language to that reported by others in the room. the rich asshole defenders had based their stonewalling on the fact that they reportedly heard the rich asshole say “shithouse” rather than “shithole.”
Leahy reminded Nielsen that she was under oath, and asked her if the rich asshole had used the language reported.
“Did President the rich asshole use this word or a substantially similar word to describe certain countries?” Leahy asked.
At first, Nielsen tried to cover for the rich asshole, saying he did not use “that word.” Leahy pressed again.
“Did he use anything similar to that, describing certain countries?” he asked.
Nielsen conceded that the rich asshole used “tough language,” then tried to change the subject to the policy of a “merit-based” immigration system.
Undeterred, Leahy pressed Nielsen again, asking, “Did he use what would be considered vulgar language referring to certain countries?”
Nielsen tried to soften the blow. “The president used tough language in general,” she admitted, “as did other congressmen in the room, yes.”
“The others aren’t president,” Leahy pointed out.
Leahy then noted that the rich asshole’s comments were not, in fact, related to a “merit-based” system.
“When he denigrated Haiti, El Salvador, Africa — countries where we are trying to have some ability to match China and others in influence — he didn’t say it was because we needed more PhD students and skilled workers,” Leahy said. “He said he wanted people from Norway. Being from Norway is not a skill.”
Then Leahy very pointedly asked, “Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?”
“I — I — I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case,” Nielsen said.
There really was no doubt as to what the rich asshole said, but this testimony is more than just a reminder of the rich asshole’s racist mind and racist policies. It is also a stark demonstration of the difference between political hacks who are willing to lie for the rich asshole in public, and what happens when they are under oath. the rich asshole should be very afraid.
"He says things that are on his mind." Yes, racist things.
some rich asshole’s overt racism continues to present a problem for Republicans, especially the ones who dare to face their constituents.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst drew laughs at her first constituent event of the year when she tried to defend the rich asshole’s standing among world leaders, and things didn’t improve much for her at the next town hall.
Ernst took questions Monday from a mostly friendly crowd in Boone, Iowa, but things took a turn when she was asked about the rich asshole’s racism.
At the end of a multi-part question, one constituent said he had “a very straightforward question” for the senator: “Is the president racist, do you believe?”
The crowd applauded the man’s question, but when Ernst got around to answering it, not everyone was pleased.
“Deep inside, no, I don’t think he’s a racist,” Ernst said of the rich asshole, to groans from the crowd.
““I think he’s brash,” Ernst continued, “and I think that … that he says things that are on his mind. But, you know, I don’t truly believe that he’s a racist.”
the rich asshole’s rant in the Oval Office last week has been widely condemned as racist. He complained about accepting immigrants from predominantly black “shithole countries,” rather than from countries like Norway. The only remaining question is whether the rich asshole said “shithole countries,” or the arguably more racist “shithouse countries.”
But that rant is just the latest in the rich asshole’s long history of overt racism.
Ernst is not up for re-election in 2018, but if the rich asshole manages to remain in office long enough to seek a second term, Ernst will be riding the rich asshole’s toxic coattails in 2020.
But hundreds of other Republicans are trying to avoid a blue wave wipeout in 2018, and weak responses like Ernst’s are not going to cut it with voters who are fed up with the rich asshole.
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