Companies that announced big bonuses after GOP tax cut are now laying off their workers
Nice "trickle-down economics" you've got there.
At least two major companies that publicly announced large bonuses for their employees after the passage of a massive GOP-led tax overhaul — which represented a windfall for wealthy Americans and big corporations — quietly laid off hundreds of workers at the same time.
Comcast laid off more than 500 sales employees right before Christmas, according to documents reviewed by media outlets including the Philadelphia Enquirer, Philly.com, and the Daily News. The documents were confirmed by at least one former Comcast employee who was not identified in the press.
The truth about AT&T’s $1,000 bonus for workers
AT&T is also in the process of laying off thousands of employees, according to the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union, which represents AT&T workers. CWA filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that some of those layoffs are needless, and that the timing of the terminations — just two weeks before Christmas — represents “an extraordinary act of corporate cruelty.”
Both telecommunications giants struck a very different tone in the aftermath of the tax bill that was rushed through Congress last month.
Comcast and AT&T were among the businesses that claimed Republican lawmakers’ effort to restructure the tax code in favor of wealthy corporations would allow them to be more generous to their workers, and publicly announced $1,000 year-end bonuses for their employees. The CEOs of both companies specifically cited the tax bill in separate press releases touting these “special” bonuses.
But Larry Robbins, the vice president of CWA Local 4900, told the IndyStar that AT&T started privately notifying its workforce of impending layoffs at the same time as it publicly celebrated the benefits of the tax bill. “We believe the $1,000 bonus and the promise of 7,000 new jobs are all a publicity stunt,” Robbins said.
Union to Southwest: $1,000 worker bonuses don’t make up for years of stagnant pay
In general, union leaders have been incredibly skeptical of the big companies promising bonuses to their employees in the wake of the tax overhaul. After Southwest Airlines became the latest company to announce its plan to award $1,000 bonuses, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) told ThinkProgress that the gesture isn’t enough to make up for years of workers’ stagnant pay and the company’s unfinished collective bargaining agreement, which is currently under negotiations.
Republican lawmakers touted their tax plan as good news for American workers, arguing that providing corporate tax cuts allows those companies to put money toward worker compensation and job creation. This dubious theory, known as “trickle-down economics,” hasn’t been borne out in U.S. history and is unlikely to work as promised in the rich asshole era, either.
Even though promises of big worker bonuses have successfully captured headlines, large corporations have already signaled that their shareholders are the ones who will reap the greatest benefits of the tax overhaul. Several major companies have announced massive share buybacks, which don’t do anything to benefit their workers but instead further enrich their shareholders.
the rich asshole said he wanted highly skilled immigrants. Now he’s forcing them out.
Amid ongoing crackdowns, rumors of new regulations targeting immigrants waiting for their green cards.
President the rich asshole’s administration is reportedly considering cracking down on visas for highly skilled workers, this time with potential repercussions for hundreds of thousands of recipients with pending green card applications.
According to sources who spoke with McClatchy reporters, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering new regulations ending extensions for H-1Bs — visas for skilled workers in a range of fields like technology, research, and education. Foreign students hoping to stay and work in research, advocacy, and the non-profit sector are also among those who rely on H-1Bs. The visa is typically offered for three years with the option of renewal up to six years.
Currently, some recipients with pending green card applications have the option of extending that time period, allowing them to work in the United States until their paperwork comes through. The vast majority are Indian workers, many employed by large technology companies. If the new regulations go into effect, they will be forced to leave.
“The idea is to create a sort of ‘self-deportation’ of hundreds of thousands of Indian tech workers in the United States to open up those jobs for Americans,” said one source briefed on the matter.
The rich asshole administration has taken a hardline approach to immigration thus far, cracking down on undocumented immigrants and calling for harsh punishments for so-called sanctuary cities. The president has also endorsed the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act introduced by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (AR) and David Perdue (GA) last August, which attempts to cut immigration to the United States in half — from approximately 1 million people to only 500,000 — through a reduction in the number of green cards issued. The RAISE Act also seeks to cap refugee numbers and do away with the diversity visa lottery, which the rich asshole fiercely opposes.
The RAISE Act has since stalled in the Senate, but the White House hasn’t given up on curbing immigration, with the president now seemingly turning his sights back on H-1B visas.
In April, the rich asshole fulfilled a campaign promise and signed the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order cracking down on the visa. At the time, the rich asshole claimed the move was a win for blue-collar Americans out of jobs. But the realities of the visa, which provides one of the only feasible paths to documented immigration for many people in white-collar jobs, are much more complicated.
While undocumented immigrants face a far steeper battle to stay in the United States, immigrants struggling to find documented employer sponsorship like the kind required by the H-1B also face a great deal of paperwork, money, and waiting, often suffering mental health issues as a result.
Many immigrants working on H-1B visas also apply for green cards. For citizens from certain countries, however, per-country restrictions create a backlog. That means nationals from countries like India have to wait much longer for permanent residency — running out their H-1B visas in the meantime. The extension allows them to stay until their residency is established, something the rich asshole administration wants to end.
It’s unclear how many people would be impacted by the reported regulations. Indian media has speculated that between 500,000 and 700,000 immigrants could be forced to leave the United States, but the numbers themselves are hard to ascertain. That’s largely the fault of the government, Sarah Pierce, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told ThinkProgress.
“In order to know how many people are impacted, it would be helpful if the government would just tell us,” she said. According to her own calculations, Pierce estimated any move to end the extensions could impact as many as 200,000 people.
Other estimates are substantially higher: Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and partner with the law firm Holland & Knight, told ThinkProgress around 1 million people could be impacted, a figure that accounts for spouses and children.
Virtually all estimates point to at least 100,000 people being affected by the change.
That reality is weighing heavily on immigrants, many of whom have settled into regular lives and routines here in the United States.
“I’ve gotten hundreds of emails and calls, with people asking, ‘What should I do, what should I do?’ This information has really sparked fear in the community,” Fresco said. “People have bought houses and have children, thinking this is a logical path. Now they’re terrified.”
Whether the regulations go into effect or not, the irony of the White House’s crackdown on H-1B recipients isn’t lost on experts. the rich asshole has said the United States needs more highly skilled immigrants and called for immigration reform that replaces “our low-skilled [immigration] system with a points-based system.” That’s left many analysts confused in light of the administration’s attacks on the very same immigrants the rich asshole purportedly wants to keep.
“This administration definitely recognizes the value of high-skilled immigration. They’re always saying they want to change our system,” Pierce said. “The H-1B visa is just that. With a lot of these policies, they seem to be going after the exact immigrants they value. These immigrants contribute a lot to our economy and country. Some of the companies we value most require these workers. It’s wild to think this administration would go after that.”
Pierce noted that the rich asshole’s reported decision to target immigrants with pending green card applications was particularly surprising.
“These are individuals that companies have found so valuable that companies want to go through this expensive process to keep them,” she said. “When they’re talking about taking the visa away from this group, this is arguably the group that most deserves it. It’s just very surprising. It doesn’t seem like it will add any value and it definitely won’t address the problem.”
H-1Bs have come under fire from Republicans and Democrats alike, largely because of their alleged misuse by large IT corporations like Infosys. Critics say the visa is used to outsource jobs and to hire foreign workers for lower pay than their U.S. counterparts. But proponents underscore its importance, saying it contributes to workforce diversity while also filling severe skill gaps.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who represents Silicon Valley, addressed both the need for H-1B reform and for the visa’s preservation in a series of tweets on Tuesday.
“My parents came here on green cards. So did @sundarpichai, @elonmusk, @satyanadella,” Khanna tweeted, naming several globally prominent business figures. “the rich asshole is saying to immigrants and their kids we don’t have a place in America. It’s not just wrong. It’s dumb. Mr. President, would America really be greater without us?”
Khanna added, “I have called for reforming the H1B process to prevent undercutting wages. But to deny H1B visa holders the chance to get green cards & not deal with the back log is counter to American ideals. This the rich asshole policy is not about fairness to American workers. It’s anti-immigrant.”
My parents came here on green cards. So did @sundarpichai, @elonmusk, @satyanadella. Trump is saying to immigrants and their kids we don’t have a place in America. It’s not just wrong. It’s dumb. Mr. President, would America really be greater without us? mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-…
The impact of targeting H-1Bs means fewer people are able to immigrate to the United States, a priority for the rich asshole administration and one that could have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy.
“We’ve heard a lot of stories from individuals who are not interested in staying or coming into the country on the H-1B just because of the rhetoric that’s coming out of this administration,” said Pierce.
Only Congress has the power to fully do away with the program. In the meantime, the rich asshole administration appears to be doing all it can to make it impossible for immigrants to utilize the visa.
Since last summer, numerous H-1B candidates have noticed increasing challenges to their applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Requests for evidence, or RFEs, are up 44 percent compared to 2016, and a number of applicants found their visas denied for vague and seemingly mundane reasons.
“They want to render the H-1B program unusable,” immigration attorney Fresco said. “They won’t be able to end it, but through delays, denials, and the like they can make it as onerous as possible for people to use.”
the rich asshole goes on an early morning tweetstorm to defend himself as ‘a very stable genius’
The tweets appear to be in direct response to a Fox News segment.
the rich asshole accused his critics of using the “old Ronald Reagan playbook” against him — presumably referring to lingering questions over whether President Reagan may have displayed early signs of dementia while in office, before he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994.
Immediately after the rich asshole sent off his tweets, several media outlets characterized his early morning outburst as in response to Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole’s White House, which paints a picture of a chaotic the rich asshole administration led by an erratic and unstable president.
But there’s another link at play here. It appears the rich asshole was starting his day — as he often does — by watching his favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, and live tweeting from his account in direct response to Fox’s programming.
About ten minutes before the rich asshole published his tweetstorm, a Fox & Friends panel was engaged in a discussion about the recent questions raised about the rich asshole’s mental health.
Alright, looking at the timeline again, I think the correct set is the later one.
So.
Left, Fox & Friends, 6:41 am
Right, Trump, 6:57 am pic.twitter.com/Ky9INbOdMI
And.
Left, Fox & Friends, 7:10 am
Right, Trump, 7:19 am
Leading into the current tweets in which the president declares he is, "like, really smart" and a genius. pic.twitter.com/CwdS5g2nsq
As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz has extensively documented, there’s a feedback loop between the rich asshole and Fox News that’s even more extreme than what typically gets reported in the mainstream media. the rich asshole’s early morning tweetstorms — which often end up shaping that day’s coverage priorities in the national press — typically line up with the topics discussed on Fox & Friends, which airs from 6:00 am to 9:00 am ET.
Even aside from the juicy anecdotes that litter Wolff’s new book — which includes some details that have not been independently confirmed by media outlets — there has been an increased focus on the rich asshole’s mental health recently. Particularly following the president’s tweets taunting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about not having as big of a “nuclear button” as the rich asshole does, some Democratic lawmakers say they’re growing worried about the rich asshole’s potential mental instability.
A Yale psychiatrist briefed a handful of lawmakers about the rich asshole’s mental fitness for office last month, a meeting that was first reported by Politico. Psychologists are typically not supposed to comment on their opinions about the mental health of people who aren’t under their direct care, and some medical professionals have been sharply critical of the public discussion swirling around the rich asshole.
the rich asshole goes on an early morning tweetstorm to defend himself as ‘a very stable genius’
The tweets appear to be in direct response to a Fox News segment.
President some rich asshole took to Twitter early Saturday morning to mount what the New York Times characterized as an “extraordinary defense” of his mental health, describing himself as “being, like, really smart” and “a very stable genius.”
the rich asshole accused his critics of using the “old Ronald Reagan playbook” against him — presumably referring to lingering questions over whether President Reagan may have displayed early signs of dementia while in office, before he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994.
Immediately after the rich asshole sent off his tweets, several media outlets characterized his early morning outburst as in response to Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole’s White House, which paints a picture of a chaotic the rich asshole administration led by an erratic and unstable president.
But there’s another link at play here. It appears the rich asshole was starting his day — as he often does — by watching his favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, and live tweeting from his account in direct response to Fox’s programming.
About ten minutes before the rich asshole published his tweetstorm, a Fox & Friends panel was engaged in a discussion about the recent questions raised about the rich asshole’s mental health.
Alright, looking at the timeline again, I think the correct set is the later one.
So.
Left, Fox & Friends, 6:41 am
Right, Trump, 6:57 am pic.twitter.com/Ky9INbOdMI
And.
Left, Fox & Friends, 7:10 am
Right, Trump, 7:19 am
Leading into the current tweets in which the president declares he is, "like, really smart" and a genius. pic.twitter.com/CwdS5g2nsq
As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz has extensively documented, there’s a feedback loop between the rich asshole and Fox News that’s even more extreme than what typically gets reported in the mainstream media. the rich asshole’s early morning tweetstorms — which often end up shaping that day’s coverage priorities in the national press — typically line up with the topics discussed on Fox & Friends, which airs from 6:00 am to 9:00 am ET.
Even aside from the juicy anecdotes that litter Wolff’s new book — which includes some details that have not been independently confirmed by media outlets — there has been an increased focus on the rich asshole’s mental health recently. Particularly following the president’s tweets taunting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about not having as big of a “nuclear button” as the rich asshole does, some Democratic lawmakers say they’re growing worried about the rich asshole’s potential mental instability.
A Yale psychiatrist briefed a handful of lawmakers about the rich asshole’s mental fitness for office last month, a meeting that was first reported by Politico. Psychologists are typically not supposed to comment on their opinions about the mental health of people who aren’t under their direct care, and some medical professionals have been sharply critical of the public discussion swirling around the rich asshole.
GOP leaders happily stand by the rich asshole as he becomes increasingly unhinged
Debates over the rich asshole's fitness for office are a distraction.
On the heels of a dramatic week that featured widespread concern about the rich asshole’s fitness for the office of the presidency, Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) confirmed the GOP establishment is prepared for another year of standing by the rich asshole.
At a press conference on Saturday, GOP leaders pledged to work together to craft a deal to fund the government, crack down on immigration policy, turn their attention to infrastructure reform, lay the groundwork to make deep cuts to safety net programs, and help more Republicans get elected in the midterms. Appearing alongside the president, Pence, McConnell, and Ryan calmly delivered statements from the podium about Congress’ plans to productively work with the rich asshole White House to accomplish top GOP legislative goals.
“From a right-of-center perspective, 2017 was the most consequential year in the many years I’ve been here in Congress,” McConnell said.
Paul Ryan also praised Republicans’ “historic achievements” in 2017, adding, “I’m particularly pleased we had an extremely productive conversation with the president and his team yesterday about how we go forward in 2018.”
the rich asshole, in turn, pledged to help campaign for the Republican candidates running in the 2018 midterm elections. “They’ve been explaining to me that they want me to be involved,” he said, gesturing to McConnell and Ryan.
Saturday’s press conference puts to rest any questions about whether Republican leaders may be reaching their breaking point with the rich asshole, whose behavior has always been erratic but who has become increasingly unhinged in recent days.
the rich asshole sparked widespread concern earlier this week by taunting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about his big and powerful “nuclear button.” His policy decisionmaking also came under scrutiny following the publication of Michael Wolff’s tell-all book about the the rich asshole White House, chock-full of anecdotes — some of which mirror reports that have appeared in outlets like the New York Times, and some of which haven’t been independently confirmed — that illustrate a figure completely unfit to hold the highest office of government.
The 25th amendment is a fantasy
On Saturday morning, just a few hours before the press conference, the rich asshole took to Twitter — his platform of choice for a constant stream of incendiary and often racist offhand remarks — to unconvincingly defend his stability, declaring himself as “being, like, really smart” and “a very stable genius.”
This has sparked serious discussions about whether the rich asshole’s behavior falls under the purview of the 25th Amendment, which allows for a president to be removed by their vice president and cabinet members if he (or she) becomes “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” In addition to the breathless coverage of the juicy revelations in Wolff’s book, Politico reports that a Yale psychiatrist briefed about a dozen members of Congress last month about questions being raised in the medical community over the rich asshole’s fitness for office.
Interest in the 25th Amendment has heated up at other times over the course of the rich asshole’s presidency; last July, after the rich asshole tweeted a video of himself punching a man’s face superimposed with a CNN logo, the #25thAmendmentNow hashtag trended nationally on Twitter.
After insisting Congress wouldn’t interfere in Russia investigation, Paul Ryan does just that
But this conversation is largely a distraction from the political realities that Pence, McConnell, and Ryan emphasized at Saturday’s presser.
Removing the rich asshole through the 25th Amendment would require surmounting an incredibly high bar. First, Mike Pence and the majority of the people serving in the rich asshole’s cabinet would need to submit a written declaration that the rich asshole is unable to carry out his duties as president; then, a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate would need to endorse removing the rich asshole from office.
The most powerful Republicans in Washington don’t want that. Instead, they’ve made it clear they want to keep working with the rich asshole. They need him, as the leader of the Republican Party and the current occupant of the White House, to help enact their legislative agenda. And they’re willing to prioritize that over everything else.
As Republican leaders have shown time and time again — through every controversy over the latest explosive tweet, through erratic decisions to fire administration appointees and push out White House staff, through accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, through evidence of financial conflicts of interest, through expressions of blatant racism, through multiple allegations of sexual predation and harassment — they care more about what the rich asshole can do for them than about the values he routinely violates.
In the flurry, a neglected Wolff detail, perhaps: 'He'll sign anything we put in front of him,” said Mitch McConnell.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-w…
In the flurry, a neglected Wolff detail, perhaps: 'He'll sign anything we put in front of him,” said Mitch McConnell.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-w…
"You Can’t Make This S--- Up": My Year Inside Trump's Insane White House
The same book that’s sparking the latest round of 25th Amendment conversations, in fact, includes a telling detail that underscores the point that invoking the 25th Amendment represents an impossible dream thanks to Republican leaders’ willingness to tolerate the president.
“He’ll sign anything we put in front of him,” Mitch McConnell said in reference to the rich asshole, according to Wolff.
After all, he’s at least fit enough to hold a pen.
the rich asshole renews attack on ABC reporter
Maria Perez
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to slam an ABC reporter who made a mistake in his reporting over a month ago, calling on the company that they should have fired him.
“Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!” Trump tweeted.
ABC News was forced to correct a report by Brian Ross in the beginning of December after he had said Trump discredited his former national security adviser Michael Flynn in order to make contact with Russian officials during the campaign. Trump issued the direction after he had already been elected, according to the corrected report.
Stocks plummeted after it was released on air before it was corrected. Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay for the error and is no longer allowed to cover stories about Trump.
This has not been the first time Trump has called Ross out. Ross was called a “fraudster” by Trump during a rally in a December rally and said he should have been fired for his mistake. Trump used his mistake and several other errors to call out the media for being biased and for producing “fake news.”
Trump’s attack on the media doesn’t stop there. In early December, Trump called out a reporter from the Washington Post after he posted an inaccurate picture on Twitter about the crowd size at a Florida rally.
“@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!” Trump tweeted
Weigel has apologized for the mistake and said it was “fair” to call him out on it. The reporter also added that this was a story on his personal account page and not a story for the Washington Post.
“Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!” Trump tweeted.
Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!
ABC News was forced to correct a report by Brian Ross in the beginning of December after he had said Trump discredited his former national security adviser Michael Flynn in order to make contact with Russian officials during the campaign. Trump issued the direction after he had already been elected, according to the corrected report.
Stocks plummeted after it was released on air before it was corrected. Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay for the error and is no longer allowed to cover stories about Trump.
This has not been the first time Trump has called Ross out. Ross was called a “fraudster” by Trump during a rally in a December rally and said he should have been fired for his mistake. Trump used his mistake and several other errors to call out the media for being biased and for producing “fake news.”
Trump’s attack on the media doesn’t stop there. In early December, Trump called out a reporter from the Washington Post after he posted an inaccurate picture on Twitter about the crowd size at a Florida rally.
“@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!” Trump tweeted
.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!
Weigel has apologized for the mistake and said it was “fair” to call him out on it. The reporter also added that this was a story on his personal account page and not a story for the Washington Post.
“It was a bad tweet on my personal account, not a story for Washington Post. I deleted it after like 20 minutes. Very fair to call me out,” tweeted Weigel.
Can the rich asshole take credit for black unemployment rate?
January 6, 2018
Beatrice Dupuy
Posted with permission from Newsweek
The unemployment rate for black Americans has reached an all-time record low under President Donald Trump and experts are debating whether the current president can take credit for the feat.
The black unemployment rate reached 6.8 percent in December—the lowest it has hit since the early 1970s when the U.S. Labor Department first began keeping track of the data. Some economists say it signals that the economy is headed in the right direction but they’re not willing to give the current president any credit.
In fact, economists like Valerie Wilson, director of the program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute told Newsweek that the decline can be attributed to the financial recovery process moving forward since the recession under former President Barack Obama and low federal interest rates—and not Trump.
“Recovery was well underway before he came into office,” she said. “All he had to do was not do anything to reverse the process.”
The unemployment rate for black Americans has never dropped below 7 percent until now. In 2010 during the recession, the rate hit 16.8 percent but it has continued to decrease since. Furthermore, experts also attribute an increase in educational attainment. Brendan O’Flaherty, Columbia University professor of economics, told Newsweek that the labor force is considerably better educated today.
"One of the big things under Obama was that the black high school completion rate went up," he said. "Black kids stayed longer in high school."
6.8 percent unemployment rate for African Americans is lowest on record. Good news, except pretty bad news that this is the best ever
During his campaign, Trump remarked that his economic agenda would lead to 25 million new jobs and boost the economy with a 3.5 percent growth average.
"Trump's best economic policy has been inheriting a solid economy from Barack Obama," Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to former Vice President Joe Biden and a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities senior fellow, told Newsweek.
Bernstein said Trump can't take credit for helping minorities when all he has done is "hurt the working class and minority workers," with his healthcare and tax bills.
"All of these are disadvantageous to working-class workers," he said.
Some conservatives say there's a reason that the unemployment rate for blacks dropped so quickly in 2017 and it's because of the president. Horace Cooper, an adjunct fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, told Newsweek new job opportunities for blacks in the trade industry are expanding because of Trump's regulatory rollbacks.
"Strange idea when black men, in particular, are running so far ahead in job growth than any other group, to want to argue that we have a president that doesn't care about minorities," he said. "This is just the opposite. If you are a black person living in America now, this is a sign of things to come."
While the unemployment rate for black Americans has dropped, the gap between white and black unemployment remains relatively unchanged. Over the years, the gap has maintained with black Americans holding twice the level of unemployment compared to white Americans. The new unemployment rate reveals that the gap is now at about 1.85 times higher for black Americans.
"There is still a large racial disparity and that disparity is still persistent," Wilson said.
Although the unemployment rate fluctuates, Wilson expects that if more jobs continue to be added than economists can expect the unemployment rate to further decline.
"A low employment rate and wage growth together would be the best outcome we would want to see," she said.
the rich asshole strikes back at 'Fire and Fury' allegations from Camp David
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 01/06/18 04:09 PM EST
THURMONT, Md. — President the rich asshole on Saturday launched a defense of his fitness for office, striking back against a new book that portrays him as a man who is ill-equipped to handle the presidency.
the rich asshole spoke out at the presidential retreat at Camp David, where he is meeting with Republican lawmakers and Cabinet officials to draw up a game plan for 2018.
He spoke to reporters after sending out a series of tweets earlier in the day describing himself as "a very stable genius" and "like, really smart," a clear reaction to the book by Michael Wolff that has zoomed to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.
the rich asshole suggested that he had weighed in on the discussion of his fitness, a decision sure to lead to more coverage of the issue, to set the record straight.
“Well, only because I went to the best colleges, or college,” the president said when asked why he tweeted about his mental state, and not the issues being discussed at Camp David.
the rich asshole said he was an "excellent student" and “came out and made millions and billions of dollars, became one of the top business people, went to television and for 10 years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard.”
the rich asshole was flanked by 10 top GOP lawmakers and administration officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reportedly called the president a “moron” after a national security meeting last summer.
A State Department spokeswoman later denied the claim.
The president then turned his fire to Wolff, whom he called a “fraud.”
“[I] ran for president one time and won, and then I hear this guy who does not know me, does not know me at all. By the way, did not interview me for three hours, it didn't exist, OK? It's in his imagination," the rich asshole said.
Wolff claims he did interview the president and conducted more than 200 interviews with White House and campaign officials for the book.
When asked about the book itself, the rich asshole said, “I consider it a work of fiction and I consider it a disgrace.”
The president complained about the country’s “very weak” libel laws, saying “if they were strong, it would be very helpful,” because “you wouldn't have things like that happen.”
The book has engulfed the White House in controversy and stymied its efforts to seize momentum to push forward on its legislative agenda in 2018.
Current and former the rich asshole aides have ripped Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House" as trash that includes numerous falsehoods, but have also been aghast that the journalist would have been given access to administration figures.
Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon gives Wolff some of his juiciest material, and has yet to say publicly he was misquoted. Bannon's participation led the rich asshole to completely break with his former close adviser earlier in the week.
The book has dominated news coverage partly because of the rich asshole reaction, overshadowing other stories that might give the rich asshole a jolt of momentum, including another positive jobs report and further growth in the stock market following Congress's passage of a GOP tax-cut bill.
Wolff said in a new interview that he has heard from sources in the White House that the rich asshole is “bouncing off the walls” with anger over the book.
“I hear that the president is very angry, or, let me be precise: I hear that he is truly bouncing off the walls,” Wolff told The Hollywood Reporter.
He added that he didn’t get the sense that the rich asshole “has thought of anything other than himself at any given time.”
White House chief of staff John Kelly on Saturday disputed that characterization. Asked if the president showed signs of agitation Friday night or Saturday morning, he said, “not at all.”
Kelly told reporters at Camp David he had not seen the president’s Saturday morning tweets. But when shown the messages on a reporter’s phone, he described them as just another attempt by the rich asshole to circumvent the media.
Speaking to the press, the rich asshole answered questions on topics ranging from the Russia investigation, North Korea and the party’s legislative agenda.
The president again insisted he was not under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and reiterated his belief his campaign did not collude with Russia’s election-meddling efforts in 2016.
“Everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper,” the rich asshole said when asked about reports he urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia probe. “That is what I do, is I do things proper.”
the rich asshole said a New York Times report that he asked White House counsel Don McGahn to talk Sessions out of recusal was “off,” but did not explain further.
The president also expressed hope that good can come out of upcoming talks between South Korea and North Korea, an apparent shift from his stated skepticism that diplomacy can solve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
the rich asshole also said he is open to talking with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he taunted this week over the size of his “nuclear button.”
“Sure, I always believe in talking,” the rich asshole said.
But the president said he would not engage in talks without preconditions.
“We have a very firm stance,” he said, adding that Kim “knows I’m not messing around, I’m not messing around, not even a little bit, not even 1 percent.”
the rich asshole began to sketch out his legislative agenda for 2018. He suggested he might back off his push to get started quickly on welfare reform, unless Democrats get on board.
“We’ll try and do something in a bipartisan way, otherwise we’ll be holding it for a little bit later,” the rich asshole said.
The president said he had “great meetings” with his counterparts in Congress that touched on the budget, security, infrastructure, military and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
But the rich asshole said he would not agree to relief for young immigrants covered by the DACA program unless Democrats accept his demand for a border wall with Mexico.
“We want the wall,” he said. "The wall is going to happen, or we’re not going to have DACA.”
It wasn’t all business for the officials at Camp David.
the rich asshole and the lawmakers on Friday night watched the film “The Greatest Showman,” about the life of the famous showman and circus promoter, P.T. Barnum.
The movie “celebrates the birth of show business, and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation,” according to the online film database IMDb.
the rich asshole on questions about mental stability: I'm ‘a very stable genius’
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 01/06/18 07:38 AM EST
President the rich asshole on Saturday launched a remarkable defense of his mental fitness for office, calling himself a “very stable genius” and “like, really smart.”
the rich asshole made the defense in a series of tweets that appeared to push back on questions raised by a new book that painted a chaotic and dysfunctional picture of his campaign and the early months of his presidency.
“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” the rich asshole tweeted.
The president said that while doubts about his mental capacity have been frequently raised by his critics, he proved them wrong with his stunning victory in the 2016 election and his career in television and business.
“I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!” he said.
Questions surrounding the rich asshole's fitness for office have intensified after the release of "Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House," by author Michael Wolff. The book contains explosive claims, including doubts among the rich asshole’s senior aides about his mental fitness for office.
A psychiatrist said she recently met with a group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill to review the rich asshole's mental health.
the rich asshole’s response all but guarantees those questions will continue to be raised.
Reporters asked press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about the rich asshole's fitness to serve two days in a row this week, an unprecedented level of questioning surrounding a sitting president's mental health.
Sanders hit back at questions surrounding the rich asshole's mental health Friday, saying that what "is really mentally unstable is people that don't see the positive impact that this president is having on the country.”
“It's absolutely outrageous to make these types of accusations and it's simply untrue, and it’s sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the president,” she said on "Fox & Friends."
the rich asshole tweeted from Camp David, where he is meeting with Republican congressional leaders, Cabinet officials and senior staff to plot their legislative agenda and chart a course for the 2018 midterm elections.
....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....
....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!
— Updated 8:40 a.m.
the rich asshole attacks book author as 'loser' and ‘Sloppy Steve Bannon’ as crier
BY ALICIA COHN - 01/06/18 06:24 AM EST
President the rich asshole on Friday night taunted the author of a new book about his White House and his former chief strategist who is quoted in it, despite the successful release of the book earlier in the day.
His comments further escalated his rhetoric against Stephen Bannon, previously a close aide, who has fallen out of favor with the White House after reported comments in the book.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!” the president tweeted.
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! twitter.com/gop/status/949…
Wolff is the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House,” which the White House says is full of lies about the rich asshole presidency.
Wolff wrote the book based on months of access. In it, he quotes Bannon, then a close rich asshole aide, making disparaging remarks about the rich asshole and his family and casting doubt on the legality of a controversial the rich asshole Tower meeting in June 2016 between members of the rich asshole’s family acting as campaign aides and Russian officials.
The White House started calling Bannon a “fired employee” following the release of the book and began chipping away at his credibility. When Bannon left the White House in August, the rich asshole called him a “good man” and the two have spoken several times since while Bannon remained active in politics. In September, Bannon called himself the rich asshole’s “wing man outside” the White House.
Following the release of the book excerpts this week, Bannon’s biggest financial backer, billionaire heiress Rebekah Mercer, distanced herself from him and the reported comments.
Members of the Mercer family are part-owners of Breitbart News, where Bannon is executive chairman. His future at that conservative news organization is reportedly in doubt as well.
the rich asshole had also taunted Bannon for losing the Mercers’s support earlier that day.
"Fire and Fury" was released Friday, earlier than originally planned, after the rich asshole sent a cease-and-desist letter to its publisher attempting to block publication. It is the No. 1 seller on Amazon and sold out in minutes at several Washington, D.C., bookstores.
the rich asshole reiterates 'Mexico will pay for the wall' after $18B request to Congress
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 01/06/18 12:52 PM EST
President the rich asshole said Saturday that Mexico will pay for his proposed wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, one day after it was reported that he will ask Congress for $18 billion to fund the wall.
“I believe Mexico will pay for the wall. I have a very good relationship with Mexico,” the rich asshole said at a press conference at Camp David on Saturday.
“But yes, in some form, Mexico will pay for the wall.”
The rich asshole’s administration’s plan, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Friday, would nearly double the amount of fencing on the border, as well as hire thousands more border patrol agents and other officials to secure the border.
the rich asshole has insisted that he will not sign legislation to extend protections for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program unless funding for his long-promised wall is included in the bill.
He met with Senate Republicans on Thursday to discuss a DACA fix.
Mueller looking at Ivanka the rich asshole's interaction with Russian lawyer at the rich asshole Tower: report
BY JOSH DELK - 01/06/18 10:20 AM EST
Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly looking into an interaction between a Russian lawyer and Ivanka the rich asshole surrounding a controversial the rich asshole Tower meeting during the campaign.
While the first daughter and now-White House adviser did not take part in the June 2016 meeting, she exchanged greetings with the Russian attorney and a lobbyist who attended the meeting as they stepped off an elevator, a person familiar with the exchange told the Los Angeles Times.
Mueller's team is looking into any interactions the attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and lobbyist, Rinat Akhmetshin, had with President the rich asshole's family members and inner circle, the Times reported.
The June 2016 meeting — when the president's eldest son, some rich asshole Jr., met with the attorney, who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton — has become a flashpoint in the Russia probe.
the rich asshole Jr., the president's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort all attended the meeting with the Russian lawyer and lobbyist.
the rich asshole Jr. has maintained that the meeting was primarily to discuss American adoptions of Russian children.
In an excerpt from a new book detailing the early months of the rich asshole presidency, former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon is quoted as saying that there was "zero" chance that President the rich asshole did not know about the meeting.
Michael Wolff: the rich asshole is 'bouncing off the walls' with anger over book
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 01/06/18 02:33 PM EST
Michael Wolff, the author of a newly released book about President the rich asshole’s White House, said he has heard that the rich asshole is “bouncing off the walls” with anger over the book.
Wolff told The Hollywood Reporter that he still has sources in the White House who have filled him in on the rich asshole’s reaction to “Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House.”
“I hear that the president is very angry, or, let me be precise: I hear that he is truly bouncing off the walls,” Wolff said.
He added that he didn’t get the sense that the rich asshole “has thought of anything other than himself at any given time.”
“Certainly he was very open with me, accessible with me, and then he started to talk. Did he ever listen to me for one second? I never got that feeling. He just talks at you,” Wolff said.
Wolff’s book, along with news that a group of mostly Democratic lawmakers met with a psychiatrist for a briefing on the rich asshole’s mental health, has prompted questions about the rich asshole’s mental state.
the rich asshole hit back at those questions in a series of tweets early Saturday, saying he was a “stable genius” and “like, really smart.”
The president's chief of staff John Kelly also reportedly told a White House pool reporter on Saturday that he had not seen the rich asshole’s tweets from that morning.
‘Fire and Fury’ author predicts his book will help end the rich asshole’s presidency
BY ALICIA COHN - 01/06/18 06:42 AM EST
Michael Wolff, the author of a controversial new book about President the rich asshole’s White House, said Saturday that his book is creating “the perception and the understanding that will finally end ... this presidency.”
“The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job,” Wolff told BBC radio, according to Reuters.
Wolff is the author of the new book “Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House,” which the White House says is full of lies about the the rich asshole presidency.
The release of excerpts from the book this week launched harsh denials by the White House of the claims made in the book. The White House also attempted to stop the book's publication.
Wolff wrote the book based on months of access, which the rich asshole denies he authorized. In it, he describes the actions of people running the White House as everything from incompetent to illegal. Wolff claims the rich asshole and his team never intended to win the presidency and were unprepared to govern.
the rich asshole on Friday night said Wolff is a "loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book.”
Wolff thanked the president for helping sell copies of his book and said it is opening readers' eyes.
“I think one of the interesting effects of the book so far is a very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect,” Wolff said. “Suddenly everywhere people are going ‘oh my God, it’s true, he has no clothes.’ ”
Army Twitter account 'likes' actress's tweet mocking the rich asshole comments
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 01/06/18 10:50 PM EST
The U.S. Army's official Twitter account "liked" a tweet on Saturday from actress Mindy Kaling apparently mocking President the rich asshole's claim that he's "like, really smart."
"An operator of the Army’s official Twitter account inadvertently ‘liked’ a tweet whose content would not be endorsed by the Department of the Army," an Army spokesperson told The Hill. "As soon as it was brought to our attention, it was immediately corrected."
The tweet from Kaling featured a screenshot of her character from NBC's "The Office," Kelly Kapoor, with overlaid text reading: "You guys, I'm like really smart now, you don't even know."
Kaling's tweet was an apparent dig at the rich asshole, who launched an extraordinary defense of his mental fitness for office on Twitter Saturday morning, claiming to be "like, really smart" and "a very stable genius."
Controversial tweets from companies, lawmakers and even branches of the government have gained viral attention over the last year. McDonald's last March said its corporate Twitter account had been hacked after a tweet went out mocking the rich asshole.
The National Park Service also went viral for retweeting two unflattering posts about the crowd size at the rich asshole's inauguration in early 2017. Those retweets were investigated to determine whether the account had been hacked.
— Updated Jan. 7 at 11:20 a.m.
POLITICS
the rich asshole Says U.S. ‘Not Going To Look Foolish As Long As I’m Here’
The president stepped away from a Camp David strategy session to bash the Russia investigation and address his mental health.
President some rich asshole took a break from a Camp David strategy session with top Republicans on Saturday to make some unscheduled comments to reporters.
Asked if he would comply if special counsel Robert Mueller requested to speak with him as part of the investigation into whether Russia interfered with the 2016 election, the rich asshole repeated his assertion that “there’s been no collusion” and said that “there’s been no crime.”
“It’s making our country look foolish,” the president said about the investigation, “and it’s not going to look foolish as long as I’m here.”
the rich asshole touched on a wide range of topics as he took questions at Camp David. Catch the highlights below.
On a report that the rich asshole asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself in the Russia investigation: “Everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper.”
the rich asshole said a New York Times report detailing his attempts to exert influence over the early stages of the Russia probe was “way off.” According to the report, the president enlisted White House counsel Don McGahn to help prevent Sessions from recusing himself from the investigation. The attorney general eventually did so anyway, prompting the appointment of Mueller.
“Everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper,” the rich asshole said Saturday. “That’s what I do, is I do things proper.”
On Fire and Fury, a new White House tell-all by Michael Wolff: “[Wolff] said he interviewed me for three hours in the White House. It didn’t exist, OK? It is in his imagination.”
Earlier on Saturday, the rich asshole had hit back at critics casting doubt on whether he has the mental fitness to be president. The topic has come up this week in response to claims made Wolff’s book.
The president tweeted that his “two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” before boasting about his TV career and election victory. “I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius...and a very stable genius at that!” he wrote.
When reporters asked why he decided to tweet about his mental state, the rich asshole replied, “Only because I went to the best colleges, or college.” He then rehashed the accomplishments he had outlined on social media earlier in the day.
“I had a situation where I was a very excellent student, came out, made billions and billions of dollars, became one of the top businesspeople, went to television and for 10 years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard, ran for president one time and won, and then I hear this guy that doesn’t know me at all — by the way, he said he interviewed me for three hours in the White House,” the rich asshole said, referring to Wolff. “It didn’t exist, OK? It’s in his imagination.”
“I did a quick interview with him a long time ago, having to do with an article,” the rich asshole clarified, “but I don’t know this man.”
Wolff states in an author’s note that he conducted interviews with the president, his senior staff members and their associates over a period of 18 months. However, he faces some questions over the book’s accuracy ― which the president said he was “heartened” to hear.
On whether he would speak directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: “Absolutely, I would do that. No problem with that at all.”
“I always believe in talking,” the rich asshole said when asked whether he would take a call with the North Korean leader. He credited his “tough stance” on the isolated nation ― which has included trading public insults with Kim Jong Un ― with North and South Korea’s agreement to open a line of communication ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
“Look, right now they’re talking Olympics,” the rich asshole said. “It’s a start. It’s a big start. If I weren’t involved, they wouldn’t be talking about Olympics right now. They’d be doing no talking, or it’d be much more serious. He knows I’m not messing around. I’m not messing around. Not even a little bit, not even 1 percent. He understands that. At the same time, if we can come up with a very peaceful and very good solution ― we’re working it with [Secretary of State] Rex [Tillerson], we’re working on it with a lot of people. If something can come out of those talks, that would be a great thing for all of humanity.”
President Trump on if he would be open to talking on the phone with Kim Jong Un: "I always believe in talking. Our stance, you know what it is. We're very firm. But I would be -- absolutely, I would do that. No problem with that, at all." cbsn.ws/2AAIWXC
On Dreamers: “The wall’s going to happen or we’re not going to have DACA.”
Late Friday, the rich asshole sent senators a long list of demands on immigration that could prevent Democrats from negotiating a deal to help so-called Dreamers, or young undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children. Dreamers were protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program until the rich asshole rescinded it.
“We all want DACA to happen, but we also want great security for our country. So important. We want to stop the drugs from flowing in. Very important,” the president said Saturday.
A border wall is chief among his demands, which also include restrictions on visa sponsorship, additional border security and policies that would make it easier to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.
“We want to get rid of chain migration ― very important ― and we want to get rid of the lottery system,” the rich asshole said, blaming the lottery system for a November terrorist attack in New York City that killed eight. The suspect in the attack, an Uzbek immigrant, had come to the U.S. through a State Department program known as the Diversity Visa Lottery.
“They give you people, in fact, as you know, the person on the West Side Highway that killed eight people, and so badly injured ― legs and arms ― so badly injured many more, they came in through the lottery system,” the rich asshole said.
‘Megalomaniacal rant’: The internet burns the rich asshole to the ground for ‘off-kilter’ tweets about his ‘genius’ smarts
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President some rich asshole woke up early Saturday morning to boast about his intelligence and mental stability — which naturally set off another round of social media mockery.
The president of the United States was apparently reacting to a scathing new book by Michael Wolff chronicling White House chaos.
“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” the rich asshole tweeted. “Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star”
“I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!” he added.
Other Twitter users were astonished and horrified.
nothing says "I am very sane" like an elliptically punctuated megalomaniacal rant twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
I was worried about him but now I’m like so convinced that he’s a stable genius!
The best way to convince people you are a stable genius is to frantically insist on it in hysterical tones. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Tweets from Cape Fear. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
When you wake up and lick the mirror twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
One hint that a public figure may be mentally unstable: He feels obliged in an emotional tweet to defend his mental stability and even describe himself as a "very stable genius." No, that's not normal. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
In case you were wondering, this was Fox at 7:10 am this morning.
The president's tweet at 7:20 am. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Even some rich asshole’s kids give him ‘side-eye’ behind his back, says biographer
Ivanka, Eric and some rich asshole Jr. -- the rich asshole campaign
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Author and journalist Michael D’Antonio told CNN on Saturday that even President some rich asshole’s kids know that their father is grandiose and over-the-top and give “side-eye” at their father’s exaggerations and “distant relationship” with the truth.
Anchor Ana Cabrera asked D’Antonio — author of The Truth About the rich asshole — what he makes of the rich asshole’s angry tweets and press conference on Saturday in which the president defended his intellect and insisted that his mental capacities are undiminished.
“This is a new element of his defensiveness,” D’Antonio said, “that has to be put into the context of a lifetime of defensiveness. This is a person who hits back almost before anyone has criticized him.”
“The truth and the president have a very distant relationship,” he continued. “Let’s put it that way.”
“He’s had his children involved in his businesses for as long as they’ve been adults,” said D’Antonio, then pointed to Michael Wolff’s assertion that 100 percent of the people closest to the rich asshole believe he’s incapable of the job of being president.
“Even when I visited the rich asshole Tower just about everyone at least gave me the side-eye,” he said of his time working on The Truth About the rich asshole.
“What are you talking about, that ‘side-eye?'” Cabrera asked. “What was your takeaway that they were implying?”
“Well, even his children said to me directly that once they get the chance to run the company, they will do it differently,” D’Antonio said. “It would be more conventional, less extreme in what they say and do.”
“I think everyone realizes that he’s an outsized personality,” the author explained, “and that he goes too far sometimes.”
Watch the video, embedded below:
‘I went to the best colleges’: Watch some rich asshole defend his ‘really, really smart’ tweet in rambling presser at Camp David
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Speaking to the press at Camp David, President some rich asshole defended his early morning tweet claiming he is “really, really smart,” and a “very stable genius,” by pointing out he went “the best colleges.”
Speaking with GOP Congressional leaders standing behind him, the president was asked about the tweets, and ticked off his resume before attacking author Micheal Wolff — whose book lists off the rich asshole aides calling the president an “Idiot” among other epithets — and once again attacking the “fake news media.”
“I went to the best colleges, or college,” he began. “I went to — I had a situation where I was a very excellent student, came out and made billions and billions of dollars, became one of the top business people. Went to television and for ten years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard. Ran for president one time and won.”
You can watch the clip below:
Here’s a list of people close to the rich asshole who may think he’s seriously nuts
President some rich asshole (Screen capture)
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As revelations about President some rich asshole’s child-like behavior and microscopic attention span call his mental fitness into question, the question lingers: Who are the sources speaking to the Michael Wolff and other media outlets about the rich asshole’s mental condition?
The Washington Post put together a list of possible leakers, speculators and concerned parties who might be speaking out about the rich asshole’s possible psychiatric issues.
“(T)here is a shortlist of people in or near the rich asshole’s inner circle who have voiced doubts about his competence, or who have been reported to have done so, even if some denied it later,” the Post‘s Avi Selk said.
1. Bob Corker
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is a former the rich asshole disciple gone apostate. He has publicly excoriated the president and called the current White House an “adult day care center.”
2. James Comey
Former FBI Director James Comey expressed doubts about Pres. the rich asshole’s mental stability early on, after a series of meetings in which tried to extract a pledge of loyalty to his administration.
The New York Times said that Comey told associates at the time of the meeting that the president seemed “outside the realm of normal” and downright “crazy.”
3. Rex Tillerson
Well, the Secretary of State did call the president a “f*cking moron.” (Tillerson denies it.)
4. Susan Collins and Jack Reed
A live microphone caught Sens. Collins (R-ME) and Reed (R-RI) discussing their concern about the rich asshole last year.
“I think — I think he’s crazy,” said Reed. “I mean, I don’t say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy.”
“I’m worried,” Collins said.
the rich asshole lashed out at rumors about his mental soundness Saturday — first on Twitter and then in a rambling Camp David press conference
‘You don’t need a book to know the rich asshole behaves like a child’: MSNBC guest has the last word on the rich asshole-bashing ‘Fire and Fury’
MSNBC analyst James Peterson -- screenshot
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During an MSNBC panel discussion on author Michael Wolff’s blockbuster ‘Fire and Fury,’ MSNBC contributor and host of WHYY’s ‘The Remix,’ James Peterson, said he saw nothing new in the book that has the country in an uproar, adding he already knew President some rich asshole “acts like a child.”
Speaking with host Alex Witt, commentator Peterson was quite matter-of-fact about what the book confirmed to anyone who has followed the blustery businessman from the rich asshole Tower to the White House. But not until after former Obama speechwriter David Litt got in his shots.
“President the rich asshole’s response to a book that suggests he is a petulant, self obsessed child-like person and he behaves like a petulant, self-obsessed child-like person,” Litt said.
“This is not what a very stable genius would do in this situation,” he quipped, adding, “But I don’t think any of us are surprised by that.”
Peterson then jumped in to deliver what, for many, was their takeaway from the revelations in the book.
“I think the book is a bombshell without question, Alex,” he began. “But it’s more of a bombshell in terms of confirmation as opposed to any revelation. You don’t need ‘Fire and Fury‘ to understand that this president behaves like a child at times — all you have to do is follow his Twitter feed.”
‘”You don’t need to understand that this White House has been chaotic from a book, you can see the chaotic nature of this White House by the way it’s prosecuted its agenda over the course of the last year,” Peterson continued. “So the evidentiary piece of the book is to me less important. The American people can look at what’s going on, can look at the president’s Twitter feed, can look at the ways in which policy has been enacted by this administration, by the ways in which people have been fired and the sort of revolving door of the administrative staff itself. There’s evidence in the public sphere that this book might confirm that I think makes it believable.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
Jared and Ivanka relish Bannon’s fall into disgrace amid fallout from ‘Fire and Fury’
Jared Kushner and Ivanka the rich asshole (Twitter)
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Even as the White House reels from revelations from Michael Wolff’s explosive bestseller Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House, President some rich asshole’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are reportedly “ecstatic” that Steve Bannon is falling into disgrace.
Vanity Fair‘s Emily Jane Fox wrote that the rich asshole-Kushners are relishing Bannon’s rapid slide into pariah status as his funders desert him and the board at Breitbart.com struggles to decide whether he should be allowed to remain as the company’s CEO.
Wolff’s book, Fox wrote, could have kicked off the mother of all firestorms in the West Wing, but the president’s daughter and son-in-law are reportedly sanguine after months on end of doing battle with Bannon and his Breitbart News audience.
“(A)ccording to people familiar with their thinking, the revelations about Bannon validated Kushner and Ivanka, who had, for months, seen the rich asshole’s former adviser as enemy No.1 — someone who constantly undermined them and leaked negative information about them to the press. Now, the duo seemed to feel that Bannon had exposed his duplicitous nature to their president and their former colleagues,” Vanity Fair said.
Breitbart News has publicly marched to war against Kushner, coining him the figurehead of the “globalist” wing of the White House. White supremacists use the term “globalist” as a euphemism for “Jewish” a group targeted by Bannon includes former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Cohn who, like Kushner, is Jewish.
Fox said that Ms. the rich asshole and Mr. Kushner’s “seemingly preternatural ability to compartmentalize” has thickened their skins against the barbs aimed at them in Wolff’s book. They are reportedly happy that Bannon is being recognized as a duplicitous loose cannon.
“Only they could be able to think about it that way,” a source close to the couple told Fox.
Observers have described the rich asshole and Kushner families as “clannish” and observed that they close ranks and lean more heavily on each other during times of crisis. Astute foreign leaders spent the early part of Pres. the rich asshole’s term pursuing contacts with Kushner over Secretary of State Rex Tillerson because they knew that Kushner was closer to the president.
The coming months could be difficult for the rich asshole-Kushners. Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly looking closely at Kushner’s and his family‘s finances and some have suggested that he will likely face criminal charges
‘A very stable genius at that!’ the rich asshole wakes up early to brag about ‘being, like, really smart’
President some rich asshole talks to reporters on the White House lawn (Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole was up early Saturday morning, indulging in a Twitter frenzy and insisting that he is “really really smart,” and a “very stable genius.”
In a series of three tweets, among others he made Saturday morning, the rich asshole wrote: “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star”
He went on to add, “I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”
You can see the tweets below:
‘If he was a CEO, he’d be removed by noon’: Former Bush ethics czar goes ballistic over the rich asshole’s ‘genius’ tweet
Richard Painter on CNN - screenshot
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During a panel discussion on CNN Saturday morning, former Bush-era ethics czar Richard Painter launched a furious rant after the CNN hosts read a “trilogy of tweets” that President some rich asshole made Saturday morning where he claimed he was a “stable genius.”
Speaking with hosts Christi Paul and Victor Blackwell, Painter said the time has come for the rich asshole to be removed from office.
‘This tweet is indicative of the president’s mentality,” Painter stated. “That stated, in a public corporation, if the chief executive officer were sending out tweets like this at this time of the morning, the board of directors would have him removed from office by noon.”
“Yet, we tolerate this type of erratic behavior from the president of the United States, while he’s in control of nuclear weapons and the lapdogs of the Republican Party are going to defend him<‘ he exclaimed. “I’ve been a Republican for 30 years and this is exactly why we as a Republican Party are in trouble if we’re going to tolerate this kind of immature conduct from the president.”
“I’d have to say Ronald Reagan would be disgusted at the idea of people meeting with the Russians to collaborate and get dirt on their political opponent –he would be absolutely disgusted,” he continued. “It’s really shameful where we are now in our country.”
Watch the video below via CNN:
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