the rich asshole takes a page from his Russia playbook to privately dismiss concerns over his mental health
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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In private, Donald Tump approaches questions about his mental fitness in much the same way as he describes the Russia investigation, that is, dismisses them as “a joke” and “an invented fact,” the Washington Post reports.
the rich asshole over the weekend publicly addressed concerns about his intelligence—tweeting, among other things, that he’s “like, very smart”—after questions about his mental state reached a fever pitch during last week’s media maelstrom surrounding the release of the new book Fire and Fury. But to aides, the Post reports the rich asshole “privately resents” the news coverage surrounding his mental health and fitness.
“The White House perspective is outrage and disgust that people who do not know this President or understand the true depth of his intellectual capabilities would be so filled with hate they would resort to something so far outside the realm of reality or decency,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote in a statement.
the rich asshole’s reaction to concerns over his mental state mirror his approach to another crisis marring his administration: special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. the rich asshole has repeatedly dismissed the Russia investigation as “a hoax” and “the single greatest witch hunt in American political history.”
‘the rich asshole dumb, staff worried’: Stephen Colbert offers ‘Cliff’s Notes’ for Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’
"The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert. Image via screengrab.
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Like nearly everyone else, “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert has been reading Michael Wolff’s explosive tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House — and he’s here to summarize it for his viewers.
“The book is just packed with nuggets of ‘oh my god,'” Colbert said. “If you haven’t read it yet, here are the Cliff Notes: the rich asshole dumb, staff worried.”
Naturally, he brought up one of the most talked-about anecdotes: when former campaign aide Sam Nunberg tried to explain the Constitution to then-candidate the rich asshole — whose “eyes [were] rolling back in his head.”
“Boooooring,” the host said in his best the rich asshole impression. “Boring! Get to the part with the rapping and the music, OK? I can’t believe this thing won a Tony, where’s Pumbaa? You know, Thomas Jefferson himself said, ‘Hakuna Matata.'”
Wolff’s book, Colbert continued, has led many to wonder whether the president is “mentally stable enough” for the job.
“Spoiler alert: he’s not,” he said.
Watch below:
Evangelist James Dobson calls for day of fasting and prayer to save the rich asshole from impeachment
James Dobson via Right Wing Watch (YouTube)
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Speaking on a conference call with religious leaders, noted evangelist James Dobson made an impassioned plea for Christians to join together for a day of fasting and prayer that will save President some rich asshole from impeachment.
According to Right Wing Watch, Dobson was speaking with leaders of Intercessors for America, a Christian group that believes fasting can alter world events.
In audio obtained by RWW, Dobson warned, “This country will be in serious trouble if they’re successful in impeaching this man”
“I’m calling for a nationwide movement to pray for him,” Dobson continued. “I’m calling for a day of fasting and prayer. I hope that Christian people from coast to coast will join in that time; the date is your choosing, but we do need to be praying for our president.”
“The Lord played a role in the election of some rich asshole” Dobson reminded his listeners before adding, “He was raised up for such a time as this.”
“It seemed evident on election night that the Lord gave us victory,” Dobson continued, before appealing to heaven, “So Lord, if that is true, we ask you to protect our president from anything that could hurt him.”
Listen to Dobson’s appeal below, via Right Wing Watch
‘Get up’: the rich asshole demands farmers give him a standing ovation at Nashville speech
President some rich asshole (Screenshot)
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President some rich asshole on Monday commanded an audience in Nashville, Tennessee to stand up to applaud him.
While touting the recently enacted tax reform legislation during an address at the American Farm Bureau Federation, the rich asshole said Americans would now be able to “keep your farms in the family” because of changes to the estate tax.
“Get up,” the rich asshole said as the audience started clapping.
“That was a tough one to get,” he added. “That was a tough one. Obviously you love your families, otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing for that one.”
During the speech, the rich asshole also called on Americans to protect the nation’s flag and insisted he would crack down on immigration.
“We are going to end chain migration, we are going to end the lottery system, and we are going to build the wall,” he remarked.
Watch video below:
‘They’re liars!’: Michael Wolff explodes at White House ‘fake news’ accusations in Don Lemon interview
Michael Wolff (Screengrab)
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Journalist and author Michael Wolff—whose explosive new book “Fire and Fury” has rocked the White House since last week—appeared on CNN’s Don Lemon Monday to discuss the administration’s assertion that his reports are “fake news,” noting some rich asshole’s less-than-stellar track record of honesty.
the rich asshole and his aides have been on defense since excerpts from Wolff’s books made headlines early last week, sparking a public falling out between the president and his former chief strategist Steve Bannon. But Wolff defended his reporting to Lemon, arguing that lying is the rich asshole’s modus operandi.
“This was not a secret, everybody was told to speak to me,” Wolff told Lemon, later adding Bannon, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks and others all told staffers to cooperate.
Asked by Lemon why the White House is calling his account “fake news,” Wolff shot back, “Because they’re liars! What are you talking about?”
“This is some rich asshole, this is what he does.” Wolff explained. “Day after day after day after day, incident after incident, after incident, he doesn’t tell the truth because he doesn’t know what the truth is.”
CNN’s Rebecca Berg explained that former White House aide Sebastian Gorka even confirmed he was told to cooperate, noting the president’s spin attempt doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
Watch below, via CNN:
‘Let me give you a recommendation’: Angela Rye hands Rick Santorum his ass for ‘talking down’ to her on the rich asshole
Rick Santorum and Angela Rye appear on CNN (screen grab)
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CNN contributor Angela Rye on Monday called out conservative commentator Rick Santorum and accused him of “talking down” to her because she had a different opinion than him about President some rich asshole’s mental health.
During a panel discussion about reports that the rich asshole’s schedule is shrinking in favor of more so-called “executive time”, Santorum said that the transition was normal.
“Every president has downtime or time just for him to be able to… talk to people,” the former Republican presidential candidate opined. “Yeah, clearly the president watches television. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”
“The fact that he does it in the Oval, I don’t think is a big deal,” he added.
Rye, however, had a different take.
“I find it very disconcerting,” she said. “I find it hard to understand that someone who is a working professional would need three hours in the morning to do whatever. If he needs downtime, here’s I suggest he use it. Put down the remote, put down your phone and stay off of Twitter, put down other things besides human beings, put down everything that you’re doing to make this office a disgrace.”
Santorum immediately shot back: “This is the kind of disqualifying commentary that we see from the left.”
“It’s not disqualifying because you don’t like it,” Rye interrupted.
“It is,” Santorum snapped. “Because you’re basically saying, ‘Whatever the president does is wrong.'”
“That’s not what I said,” Rye pointed out.
“I don’t know if you know, but the president is a pretty stressful office,” Santorum remarked.
“Former Sen. Santorum,” Rye chimed in, “let me give you also a recommendation. Speaking of down, what you should not do is not talk down to another fellow commentator on the same network. So, you don’t have to agree with my commentary at all. But it is certainly not disqualifying because I disagree with you.”
“And it certainly is disqualifying if a work professional spends the first three hours of the workday spending time relaxing when they need to get abreast on foreign policy issues, domestic policy issues, making sure that they can manage their team instead of then wreaking havoc all over the country and certainly in the White House,” she added. “I don’t think that it’s right for you to talk down to a fellow commentator because you don’t like what I said.”
For his part, Santorum insisted that the remarks were not personal.
“I wasn’t talking down to you,” he said. “I was talking down to the comments that you made.”
“I disagree with that,” Rye concluded.
Watch the video below from CNN.
DHS contradicts Kobach’s claim he’s part of new voter fraud investigation
Franco Ordonez and Bryan Lowry
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
WASHINGTON — A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Monday that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach would not be advising the agency as it investigates voter fraud despite his claims that he would be involved.
President Donald Trump officially disbanded his voter fraud commission last week in the face of a flood of lawsuits and resistance from states to a massive data request sent out by Kobach, the commission's vice chair, in June.
The administration said the Department of Homeland Security would study the issue instead of the commission.
Kobach, a candidate for governor, told The Kansas City Star last week that he would "be working closely with DHS and the White House as the investigation moves forward." He said that the agency would be looking for noncitizens on the voter rolls, an issue that Kobach has heavily promoted during his seven years as Kansas secretary of state.
However, a spokesman for DHS contradicted Kobach's characterization of his role in that agency's work.
"Mr. Kobach is not advising DHS in a formal or informal manner," said Tyler Q. Houlton, a spokesman for DHS. "Of course, if an issue were to arise, we would work with him in his official capacity as the Kansas secretary of state as we do with any secretary of state and other state and local officials."
Kobach maintained in a phone call Monday evening that he had been given assurances by the White House that he would remain involved in the process.
"I can tell you this, I was informed by the White House when the president made his final decision that they wanted me to be working closely with the president and this team. ... And that team is both the White House and DHS," Kobach said.
He blamed the confusion with DHS on the fact that he would no longer be serving in a formal role.
"What hasn't been fleshed out is that capacity," he said. "I will not take on a formal adviser role."
Former state Rep. Mark Hutton, a Wichita Republican competing for the GOP nomination for governor, criticized Kobach for exaggerating his role with the Trump administration.
"In typical Kobach fashion, his latest political stunt fell apart and he has been caught inflating his role in the name of self-promotion," Hutton said in an email Monday. "Kansas needs a governor focused on solving our real problems at home, not on falsely promoting themselves in Washington, D.C., on the Kansas taxpayer dime."
Kobach's selection as vice chair for the now-disbanded commission rankled voting rights advocates based on his history of advocating for tougher restrictions on voting.
Documents unsealed last year as part of a federal lawsuit revealed that Kobach advised Trump shortly after his election on proposed changes to the National Voter Registration Act.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway has cited Kobach as the source behind the president's unsupported claim that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote in 2016.
———
(Ordonez writes for the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Lowry writes for The Kansas City Star.)
Stable genius Seb Gorka is at it again, accidentally confirms White House cooperated with Wolff book
Master of none.
Seb Gorka is at it again. On Monday, the ousted White House staffer with alleged Nazi ties accidentally confirmed that White House staffers were told to speak to Michael Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury, the rich asshole tell-all book D.C. can’t stop talking about.
In a column for The Hill Monday headlined, “Don’t believe Michael Wolff’s book about the rich asshole if you want the truth,” Gorka writes that, while working at the White House, he didn’t trust any journalist with whom he didn’t have a preexisting relationship and “if you came from an outlet that belonged to what President the rich asshole calls #FakeNews, I really wasn’t interested in becoming your friend.”
But he goes on to say, in a hilariously misguided effort to discredit Wolff, that the author was indeed given access to the White House and staffers were asked to speak with him.
“[Y]ou’d never see Jim Acosta coming out of my office or Maggie Haberman buying me an espresso at Peet’s around the corner from the West Wing,” Gorka writes in the column. “So, when I met Michael Wolff in Reince Priebus’ office, where he was waiting to talk to Steve Bannon, and after I had been told to also speak to him for his book, my attitude was polite but firm: ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ Our brief encounter reinforced my gut feeling that this oleaginous scribe had no interest in being fair and unbiased.”
the rich asshole has said he never authorized any access to the White House, called Wolff’s book “a Fake Book” and tweeting last week that he “actually turned [Wolff] down many times.”
And yet Gorka — in an effort to stand by his man — has confirmed that Wolff did indeed have access to the White House and that staffers were asked to speak with him for the book.
After Mediaite ran a piece about Gorka’s accidental admission, Gorka responded on Twitter, saying that the “[r]equest to please @MichaelWolffNYC the hack came from outsite @WhiteHouse,” adding that he was “happy to refuse.”
#FAKENEWS does it again.
Request 2 please @MichaelWolffNYC the hack came from outside @WhiteHouse.
I was happy to refuse.
FAIL @Mediaite. twitter.com/raheemkassam/s…
Gorka left the White House in August, complaining at the time that the rich asshole administration was not Islamophobic enough. Gorka says he resigned from his role, but a White House official told a reporter at the time that Gorka “did not resign” but “no longer works at the White House.”
Before leaving (or losing) his job, The Forward reported that Gorka was a sworn member of the Hungarian Nazi-allied group Vitézi Rend. (Gorka denies that he is a sworn member, but admitted to Tablet Magazine that he has “occasionally worn [his] father’s medal and used the ‘v.’ initial to honor his struggle against totalitarianism.”)
During his time at the White House, Gorka said people should stop criticizing white supremacists so much and argued that a mosque bombing might have been faked my liberals. Since leaving his role with the rich asshole administration and despite his alleged Nazi ties, Gorka has been hired by Fox News as a “national security strategist” and was hired to give a series of speeches at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
‘Fire and Fury’ hoopla ignores the white privilege that enables the rich asshole’s dysfunction
Racism is at the heart of why Republican leaders refuse to hold the rich asshole accountable.
In what’s becoming an everyday news event, the infighting and incompetence that has characterized the first year of the rich asshole White House was again exposed last week, thanks to Michael Wolff’s new tell-all book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House. The hoopla surrounding the book’s release, and the administration’s reaction to it, spurned even more buzz, this time about the president’s mental fitness.
It’s tempting to get sucked into the pop psychology emanating from a juicy, if flawed, political book of the moment. But at the end, the rich asshole is no more or less unfit than he was when elected. It’s clear that even if he truly wanted to, he is incapable of behaving in any way other than as the racist Tweeter-in-Chief.
Fire and Fury makes for a sensational read and fun cocktail party palaver, but attention on White House dysfunction as described by Wolff lacks discussions of how people around the rich asshole deal with the rich asshole’s racism. It’s a glaring omission because this is who the rich asshole is and has always been.
Paul Musgrave, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, captures this perfectly in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, labeling the rich asshole the WYSIWYG president, employing the computer programming acronym for “what you see is what you get.”
After watching the rich asshole’s first year in office, Musgrave dismisses all the popular excuses or searches for “some hidden meaning behind the erratic actions of he man who now sits in the Oval Office,” to conclude the rich asshole is, well, just what we see in his daily diet of ridiculous tweets:
But nearly a year in, it turns out that the truth is hidden in plain sight: the rich asshole’s actions appear angry and impulsive because the rich asshole is angry and impulsive… The real secret of the rich asshole administration is that it is the WYSIWYG presidency. There is no grand plan or veiled purpose. There is no wizard behind the curtain — just an old, irate, obnoxiously ignorant man.
the rich asshole has a history of racism that is decades old, well-documented, and not “fake news.” What’s more, those around him know — or should know — this to be the case. As such, it’s instructive to avert our eyes momentarily from the rich asshole’s irrational outbursts and turn instead to those who enable the president to act “like a child,” in the colorfully descriptive language of Wolff’s overnight best-seller.
Rather than imposing some adult discipline, those who work for the rich asshole serve as enablers, covering up his incompetence or make excuse for his racist behavior because it serves their selfish purposes.
Amid a plethora of salacious details of dysfunction during the administration’s first year, Wolff’s book serves up anecdotes and quotes that, even if they’re not the most accurate, conform to what many of outside observers of the administration believe based on reading or watching daily news accounts. Wolff has repeatedly told interviewers that “100 percent of the people” he interviewed questioned the rich asshole’s fitness for office.
Wolff’s writing (and the administration’s enraged response to it) makes it clear that the rich asshole is cosseted — inside the White House by sycophantic staffers and outside of it by self-serving GOP leaders in Congress. If Wolff’s book is to be credible, then he would have seen or heard something related the racial motivations of the rich asshole and key advisers in behind-the-scenes discussions around decisions like imposing the Muslim ban; attacking Colin Kapernick or Jemele Hill; issuing confusing statements supporting white nationalists in Charlottesville; or insulting the American citizens victimized by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
There will be questions about the reporting but a surprising number of people in WH, referenced in this book, basically say this - he’s not capable of being President. These are not his political enemies. twitter.com/johnjharwood/s…
Those are just a handful of examples of overt racism from the first year of this administration. So there must be some revelations regarding the racism and white privilege that have been the lodestone that led to his election and serves to keep him close to his base of support, primarily a diminishing slice of white, GOP-leaning America — particularly with the access Wolff had to top the rich asshole officials.
Yet, in Fire and Fury, we’re treated to the delicious gossipy nuggets such as the fact that the rich asshole enjoys gorging on Big Macs in bed at 6:30 p.m. or that his daughter, Ivanka, entertains friends with a stand-up routine of how her dad achieves that gravity-defying comb over. The failure to see and report on obvious racism in and around the Oval Office calls into question whether Wolff can be viewed as a reliable narrator of what actually transpired in the first year of the rich asshole White House.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times picked up on this in a recent column, noting that Wolff’s book “helps focus our minds on the subject” of the rich asshole’s unfitness to be president, but doesn’t spread the responsibility for the train-wreck administration in all the places where it rightly belongs. Krugman suggest GOP leaders in Congress should be called out as well for the “Faustian bargain” they struck with the rich asshole:
The cynical bargain I’m talking about, of course, was the decision to exploit racism to advance a right-wing economic agenda. Talk about welfare queens driving Cadillacs, then slash income taxes. Do Willie Horton, then undermine antitrust. Tout your law and order credentials, then block health care.For more than a generation, the Republican establishment was able to keep this bait-and-switch under control: racism was deployed to win elections, then was muted afterwards, partly to preserve plausible deniability, partly to focus on the real priority of enriching the one percent. But with the rich asshole they lost control: the base wanted someone who was blatantly racist and wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. And that’s what they got, with corruption, incompetence, and treason on the side.
Let me be perfectly clear, I’m not excusing or minimizing the rich asshole’s behavior. He is, after all, the president of the United States and what he says and does can have life or death consequences for millions of people in the U.S. and around the globe. But in our nation’s democratic tradition, the president is one among many citizens. His power derives from the consent of those he leads. As such, the racial stink swirling about this president doesn’t begin or end at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Rather, it extends far and wide, across Washington and seeps deeply into the soil of the nation that allowed him to become its head of state and, regrettably, continues to support his lying, race-baiting leadership.
While some in Washington’s chattering classes may delight in a feeding frenzy of stories about White House dysfunction contained in a cartoonish book about a reality show president, such an unserious treatment of Fire and Fury tends to normalize the rich asshole’s behavior and largely excuses it because he’s a rich, white, male bully. If Wolff’s accounts seek behind the scenes veracity, its telling depictions demand the full exposure of the rich asshole’s racism — and the insidious work of his empowering minions.
Lindsey Graham’s stunningly nihilistic endorsement of President the rich asshole
Graham argues that while the rich asshole may be a race-baiting bigot, but he's our race-baiting bigot.
Appearing on ABC’s The View on Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was asked about the extremely critical comments he made about some rich asshole during the presidential election, including calling him “a kook,” “crazy,” and “unfit for office.”
Somewhat inexplicably, in recent months, Graham has transformed from a reliable the rich asshole critic to a staunch the rich asshole supporter. After playing a round of golf with the president last month, Graham tweeted an endorsement of the rich asshole’s “spectacular” private golf club in Florida, and he’s recently attacked the media for criticizing the rich asshole in exactly the same terms he used to use.
On The View, Graham made a case that while the rich asshole may be a xenophobic, race-baiting bigot, now that he’s the Republican President of the United States, he’s our xenophobic, race-baiting bigot.
After mentioning that the rich asshole “crushed” the 16 other Republicans who ran for the nomination and “ran against the ‘Clinton machine’ and won,” Graham indicated he came to terms with the reality of President the rich asshole sometime after the election.
“I said a xenophobic, race-baiting religious bigot — I ran out of things to say” during the campaign, Graham said. “He won. Guess what? He’s our president.”
On his highly critical statements of Donald Trump during the campaign, Sen. Lindsey Graham tells @TheView, "No, I don't think he's a xenophobic, race-baiting religious bigot as president." abcn.ws/2CThxX7
Asked if he stands by his criticisms of the rich asshole, Graham at first dodged, and then unconvincingly suggested that President the rich asshole is less bigoted than candidate the rich asshole.
“In my view, he is my president, and he’s doing a really good job on multiple fronts,” Graham said, before a host pressed him to actually answer the question.
“No, I don’t think he’s a xenophobic, race-baiting religious bigot as president,” Graham said.
The help Graham is providing to his onetime nemesis these days goes beyond praising the rich asshole on TV. Last Friday, Graham and a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who serves as chairman — sent a letter to the Justice Department asking it to investigate a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who put together a partially unverified intelligence dossier detailing the rich asshole campaign’s alleged contacts with Russian agents and compromising information Russia has allegedly gathered about the rich asshole.scq
By completely ignoring the underlying issue of the rich asshole campaign’s Russia ties and instead trying to muddy the waters by suggesting there was something untoward about the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the rich asshole campaign — an investigation that reportedly originated independently of the so-called “Steele dossier” — Graham and Grassley were widely seen as doing the rich asshole’s bidding. In recent weeks, the rich asshole and his supporters in Congress and on Fox News have been aggressively pushing to discredit the FBI in general and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the rich asshole campaign in particular.
Alabama running back yells ‘Fuck the rich asshole’ before national title game
Not everyone was happy to have the President in attendance.
President some rich asshole attended the NCAA football national championship game in Atlanta on Monday night between Alabama and Georgia, but not everybody was happy to see him there.
Before the game, junior Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough sent a very clear message to the president, audibly yelling “Fuck the rich asshole” in the tunnel on the way to the field.
Scarbrough wasn’t the only person to express his displeasure at the rich asshole’s appearance. The NAACP did not hold an official protest at the stadium, but said they did not agree with his decision to attend the game.
“the rich asshole has made a terrible decision and is disrupting (the game) with his presence,” the NAACP’s local chapter said in a Facebook post on Sunday. “We respect those who choose to do so, and we fully expect some groups who will be protesting outside the game.”
The NAACP did, however, encourage fans attending the game to wear white shirts and wave white towels any time the rich asshole was mentioned — a nod to the “snowflake” term that conservatives often use as an insult to liberals. They also asked people on social media to post about the rich asshole using the hashtags #AllTrumpsLies or #AllTrumpsLiesATL .
The Washington Post reported that the group Refuse Fascism ATL staged a #TakeAKnee protest outside of CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta in support of the athletes that the rich asshole has attacked on social media for taking a knee as a way to protest systemic racism and police brutality.
the rich asshole spoke out against those athletes earlier on Monday afternoon in a speech at an annual Farm Bureau meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We want our flag respected,” the rich asshole told the farmers and ranchers, who applauded his remarks. “We want our national anthem respected also.”
When the rich asshole walked onto the field for the national anthem, he was greeted with a chorus of boos amidst scattered cheers, and struggled to remember the words to the Star-Spangled Banner he respects so much.
Watch the rich asshole struggle with the words to the national anthem before the college football championship
Does the rich asshole even know the words? Decide for yourself.
For more than five months now, some rich asshole has spent an inordinate amount of time fretting about professional football players taking a knee during the pregame singing of national anthem as a form of protest against racial inequality and police brutality.
“Disgraceful,” “disrespectful,” and a “son of a bitch” are just a few choice descriptions the rich asshole has used to talk about these players. And on Monday night, given an opportunity to proudly stand and sing along confidently and proudly to the Star Spangled Banner in front of 70,000 people in attendance and millions more at home watching the college football national championship game between Alabama and Georgia, the leader of the free world struggled mightily.
At certain points, the rich asshole appeared to have difficulty remembering the words. At other times, the rich asshole gave up singing entirely. Does the rich asshole know the lyrics to our national anthem? This video tells the story.
Pres. Trump takes the field for the National Anthem ahead of tonight's college football championship game. abcn.ws/2AHKGhU
In fairness, some rich asshole would be just the latest in a long lineage of celebrities to bungle the words to the national anthem on national television. And a 2004 survey by polling firm Harris Interactive found that nearly two thirds of Americans don’t know the words to the Star-Spangled Banner. A more recent albeit informal survey by The Daily Beast was even more grim: of 73 adults asked to recite the words to the anthem, just 8 managed it.
Still, few people have been so adamant about the importance of respecting the national anthem as some rich asshole. Knowing full well that he would be filmed during the anthem — Fox News even broke into their primetime coverage with a breaking news banner announcing to their audience that some rich asshole was standing on a football field—the rich asshole stil couldn’t be bothered to sing along for at least half of the song. Sad!
the rich asshole repeatedly promised to fully cooperate with Mueller. Things are changing quickly.
the rich asshole's lawyers, all of a sudden, are singing a different tune.
For months, President some rich asshole, through his attorneys, has repeatedly promised to fully cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which includes the rich asshole campaign’s possible collaboration with Russian agents and potential obstruction of justice.
But now that Mueller has expressed an interest in interviewing the rich asshole himself, according to multiple reports, the rich asshole’s legal team is having second thoughts.
In August, when it was reported the Mueller was issuing subpeonas in connection with the rich asshole Jr’s meeting with Russian agents, White House lawyer Ty Cobb promised full cooperation in a statement to CNN:
Ty Cobb, special counsel to the President, said he wasn’t aware that Mueller had started using a new grand jury.“Grand jury matters are typically secret,” Mr. Cobb said. “The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly… The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller.”
In October, when Mueller requested an interview with White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, who was at the rich asshole’s side during the campaign and at the White House, Cobb told the same thing to Politico:
Mueller’s team already has interviewed former aides, including the rich asshole’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and former press secretary Sean Spicer. But the latest round of interviews appears to mark a new phase of the investigation — hauling in current administration officials for daylong depositions.“Nothing about recent events alters the White House’s commitment to fully cooperate with the office of the special counsel,” White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Tuesday in an interview.
Now that Mueller is reportedly interested in speaking with the president himself, however, the rich asshole’s lawyers are actively seeking ways to avoid the rich asshole testifying.
As NBC News reports:
With the possibility now looming that the president himself could be subject to an interview by the FBI or Mueller’s investigators, the rich asshole’s legal team has been debating whether it would be possible to simply avoid it…In addition to the possibility of suggesting the president submit written responses in place of an interview, a second person familiar with the president’s legal strategy said another possibility being contemplated was an affidavit signed by the president affirming he was innocent of any wrongdoing and denying any collusion. It was not clear what such an affidavit might state regarding the president’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 at a time when Comey was leading the Russia probe.
The Washington Post also reports that the rich asshole’s lawyers are “reluctant to allow him to sit down for open-ended, face-to-face questioning” with Mueller.
Mueller is unlikely to bite on these alternatives. Written answers mean the language would likely be provided by the rich asshole’s attorneys, rather than the rich asshole himself. A written submission also precludes follow up questions where investigators can probe inconsistencies. A signed affidavit is even less useful.
I Can’t Believe I Have to Explain Why Oprah Shouldn’t Be President
Please stop.
By Eve Peyser illustrated by Lia Kantrowitz
Jan 8 2018, 3:35pm
Welcome to Evesplaining, politics writer Eve Peyser's column about why everyone else is wrong and she's right.
After she delivered an inspirational Golden Globes speech, the idea of Oprah Winfrey running for president in 2020 immediately began to gain traction. "Nothing but respect for OUR future president," NBC wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "You could close your eyes and imagine that speech being given in Iowa," pundit king Chris Cillizza said on CNN.
“She launched a rocket tonight. I want her to run for president,” Meryl Streep told the Washington Post. "Call me @oprah. I've got some Iowa county chairs who would love to hear from you," Obama's 2012 Iowa campaign manager tweeted. Even conservatives John Podhoretz and Bill Kristol have voiced support for an Oprah presidency, proof that 2018 isn't shaping up to be any more sane than 2017 or 2016.
I'm not going to deny the power of Oprah's speech, which was undoubtedly the highlight of a sometimes awkward Golden Globes. "We all know the press is under siege these days," said the billionaire media mogul in one particularly rousing bit. "But we also know it’s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies."
And I'm not going to criticize Winfrey's politics, which seem fairly progressive. What's more, she's done more than most celebrities to actually effect change: In the 90s, for instance, she helped lobby for the National Child Protection Act, which created a database of known abusers and became known as the "Oprah bill."
But can we let celebrities just be celebrities? Or to put it a little more pointedly, have we learned nothing from some rich asshole?
Weirdly enough, in 1999, the rich asshole himself suggested that if he ran for president, Oprah would be his first choice for running mate. "Americans respect and admire Oprah for her intelligence and caring. She has provided inspiration for millions of women to improve their lives, go back to school, learn to read, and take responsibility for themselves," the rich asshole wrote in his book.
the rich asshole isn't wrong about Oprah, but being an "inspiration" doesn't mean someone should run for president. the rich asshole himself was "inspiring" to many Americans who voted for him despite all his obviously disqualifying traits. We don't need any more "inspirational" politicians, we need people who have actual experience governing.
Oprah, unlike the rich asshole, is actually a self-made billionaire. She doesn't traffic in openly racist rhetoric and hasn't been accused of sexual assault, either. She'd be a step up from the rich asshole for a lot of reasons. But like him, she has no political experience, and no obvious platform beyond her (incredible) personal appeal.
Here's what we know about Oprah's political views: She's seemingly pro-Israel. She believes in the American dream in a sort of Obama-esque way. She endorsed Obama for president in 2008 and Hillary Clinton over the rich asshole in 2016. She donated $10 million to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Where does she stand on healthcare? Weed legalization? Foreign policy? Housing?
Importantly, even though the media has spent the last 12 hours spinning its collective wheels about an Oprah campaign, the candidate herself is actually not a candidate, at least not yet. As recently as June, Oprah has said, "I will never run for public office," but since the Golden Globes she might have had a change of heart. On Monday morning, CNN reported that according to two sources close to Oprah, she is now "actively thinking" about running for president.
If Oprah wants to run for political office, she should go for it—but not the presidency. She should start small, which for her would mean a cabinet post in a Democratic administration or a governorship. We don't have any idea about how she would fare in that sort of job; maybe she'd be amazing at it, but maybe she's more suited to her current incredibly powerful job. If you have enough hubris to want to run for presidency with zero political experience, it's a good indicator that being president probably isn't the right gig for you. And if the rich asshole's presidency has taught us anything, it's this: Don't trust a billionaire to do the job of a politician.
The Debate About the rich asshole’s Mental State, Long Whispered, Blows Wide Open
Wolff book spurs “emperor has no clothes” moment for the president.
WASHINGTON ― some rich asshole was every bit as naked, figuratively speaking, when he rode down his escalator two and a half years ago as he is today.
Yet it took author Michael Wolff to point out what many campaign staffers, White House aides, lawmakers, journalists and others who have dealt with the former reality TV host have privately acknowledged from that first day: There is something wrong with this man.
Just as all the adults in Hans Christian Andersen’s make-believe kingdom only admitted the obvious once a small boy had pointed out that the emperor had no clothes, so now has the national conversation settled on the idea that the president may not be mentally fit to serve in the job.
“Really? We’ve been chronicling it for two years now. It’s not surprising. None of it’s surprising,” said Rick Tyler, who worked on the 2016 GOP presidential campaign of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. “The book confirms what everyone has been thinking.”
Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury, portrays a delusional, ignorant and impulsive chief executive who may also be suffering from a loss of his cognitive skills ― a description that has brought into public discourse what had previously been off-limits. the rich asshole himself appeared to legitimize the question about his mental fitness by declaring himself “a stable genius” over the weekend.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday said a White House source had told him the rich asshole exhibits the early stages of dementia. News outlets from the BBC to USA Today have been discussing the rich asshole’s mental stability. And last week, in the White House daily news briefing hours after the first excerpt from Wolffe’s book had been published, press secretary Sarah Sanders was actually asked about the rich asshole’s mental fitness in light of his statement that his nuclear button was bigger than that of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s. Curiously, Sanders did not defend the rich asshole, but instead said that people ought to be worried about Kim’s mental fitness.
Why the sudden break in the dam?
“Because fuel building up in the forest isn’t a fire. It needs a spark,” said New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, who has railed at reporters who appear to trade access to the White House in return for less critical coverage.
Indeed, the types of behaviors being cited to question the rich asshole’s mental health are nothing new and were evident from the very start of his presidential run. the rich asshole’s campaign announcement on June 16, 2015, was a rambling, barely coherent mishmash of untruths and boasts. The only real policy pronouncement was his call for building a wall along the U.S. southern border, which Mexico somehow would be forced to pay for.
“We were watching it on all three networks and we were falling over laughing,” Tyler said.
Days later, at his first campaign stop in New Hampshire, the rich asshole spent the bulk of his remarks reading aloud his standing in various polls and insulting his opponents and the journalists covering the backyard event.
The belligerent attacks, meandering phrasing and clear ignorance of policy continued through the debates ― perhaps most notably when the limit of his knowledge about nuclear weapons was illustrated by his comment that their “power” and “devastation” were “very important to me,” or when he could not detail his health care plan beyond eliminating “the lines around the states.”
the rich asshole’s behavior and the possible pathologies behind it, though, escaped widespread scrutiny for the whole of the campaign and during almost all of his first year in office, for a variety of reasons.
In the months before any primary ballots were cast, the other GOP presidential candidates and most observers assumed that the rich asshole’s support would collapse as more voters began paying closer attention. With the exception of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who consistently called the rich asshole emotionally ill-equipped for the presidency, the other candidates saw only disadvantages to attacking the rich asshole and angering his reality-TV fans.
Only as the rich asshole appeared as if he could win the nomination did the other GOP candidates start questioning his mental stability, by which time the criticisms seemed like desperation tactics. After the rich asshole secured the nomination, most Republicans fell into line to support him, hoping that they would somehow hold onto the Senate in what they expected to be a landslide loss in November. While they would privately question his behavior, they refused to publicly speculate on his fitness to serve.
Only a core of “Never the rich asshole” Republicans and some Democrats openly questioned the rich asshole’s sanity, while even then-President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton resorted to euphemisms like “temperamentally unfit.”
The societal taboo against calling people crazy worked to the rich asshole’s advantage even more after he pulled off a victory. In fact, the election win seemed to advance a theory that the rich asshole’s success proved he was only pretending to be unhinged, when instead he was engaged in high-level strategy. Under this theory, the apparently crazy tweets were an ingenious distraction, designed to put his opponents off guard.
“I have friends and relatives who say he’s playing five-dimensional chess,” Tyler said. “And I’m saying: He’s not playing chess. He’s not even playing checkers.”
Now that the question of the rich asshole’s mental health is out in the open, it remains to be seen what, if anything, will change. Despite having promised in 2016 to be “boring” and “presidential,” the rich asshole has shown no inclination to alter his behavior at all. In fact, his increasingly light work days give him even more time to watch the cable television news shows that get him riled up and often spark his tweetstorms.
The only mechanism for removing him from office over his mental stability is the 25thAmendment, which requires Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to agree that the president is unable to carry out the duties of his job.
In a new academic paper about the rich asshole’s “rhetorical signature” that she co-wrote, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, is doubtful that could ever happen. “The likelihood that those personally selected by a president would invoke this amendment is, of course, vanishingly small and the evidentiary burden to warrant such action, daunting,” she wrote.
Bannon definitely meant to insult the rich asshole Jr.: Wolff
January 8, 2018
Greg Price
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Steve Bannon indeed said President Donald Some rich asshole's eldest son was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic," despite his denials about those insults, according to Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff.
Wolff on Monday shot down Bannon's belated claims that he had been talking about former Some rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort, not Donald Some rich asshole Jr., when he made the raging remarks reported in Wolff's new book.
"I like Steve, I’m grateful for the time he gave me, the insights he gave me and I don’t want to put him in more hot water than he’s already in,” Wolff told MSNBC Monday morning.
But Wolff noted about Bannon's fury: “It was not directed at Manafort, it was directed directly at Don Jr."
Wolff then confirmed that Bannon was talking about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling when Bannon said that Some rich asshole Jr. would be “cracked like an egg” on national television.
“[Bannon] believes that there was obstruction here," Wolff said. "I think he believes that Don. Jr. had no idea what he was doing."
Wolff on Hope Hicks: "She was always in this kind of frenzy of, what do I say, who do I talk to."
In Wolff's book, Bannon is quoted complaining about Some rich asshole Jr. for taking a Some rich asshole Tower appointment in June 2016 with Russians who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Some rich asshole was joined at the meeting by Manafort and Jared Kushner. The meeting has become a focal point of the investigations into the Some rich asshole campaign's suspected collusion with Russia.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately," Bannon said, according to Wolff. Wolff said Bannon also believed Some rich asshole Jr. took the meeting to impress his father.
After the book sparked an out-and-open feud between Bannon and the president, Bannon offered an apology and claimed Wolff got it wrong.
"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate,” Bannon told Axios on Sunday. "He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr."
Bannon also praised Some rich asshole Jr., who has faced scrutiny by congressional investigators over the meeting, while showing regret about what he told Wolff.
"Donald Some rich asshole, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around," he said.
Bannon added, "I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr. has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency."
Manafort previously ran a campaign for an exiled, Russia-backed former Ukrainian president and his party, receiving some $12.7 million over five years. In August 2016, Manafort left the Some rich asshole campaign after reports surfaced of Ukraine officials discovering a ledger showing the alleged payments.
Manafort, along with fellow former campaign official Rick Gates, was hit by a 12-count indictment from Mueller's probe in October. The charges include allegedly laundering $75 million in foreign accounts, but there were no allegations of election collusion with Russians.
Wolff’s book has left the White House reeling since excerpts of it trickled out last week before it was rushed to publication Friday. The president’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried to stop its release citing defamation, libel and malice.
This is how Michael Wolff got all of the rich asshole’s secrets
January 8, 2018
Harriet Sinclair
Posted with permission from Newsweek
The author of a tell-all book about Some rich asshole’s White House has revealed the best way to get all of the president’s secrets is to befriend him.
Michael Wolff, whose book Fire and Fury: Inside the Some rich asshole White House is causing a stir in Washington D.C., commented in a Monday interview with CBS This Morning that he had spoken to the president like a friend,
“Well I think he probably had no idea he was speaking to me for this book,” Wolff said of Some rich asshole in the interview.
“When I would meet the president in the White House, we would chat as though we were friends,” he added.
Some rich asshole has claimed the book is fictitious, and stated he had never spoken to Wolff for his book. Wolff maintains that he kept records and notes of the conversations he had with Some rich asshole and other White House officials, despite acknowledging the president may not have been aware that he was speaking on record.
Some rich asshole said in a tweet that he had authorized "zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book!"
"I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve [Bannon]!" he said.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” Some rich asshole later tweeted after the contents of the book became known. “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! ”
But Wolff insists the book is not “fake,” telling NBC’s Today show: “I absolutely spoke to the president, whether he realized it was an interview or not, but it certainly wasn't off the record.”
“I have records, I have notes. I am certainly in every way comfortable with everything I have reported in this book,” he added.
Wolff is not the first person to suggest that a friendly, or flattering, relationship with the president goes a long way.
Following Some rich asshole’s assertion that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement that he was not involved in any attempt to meddle in the U.S. election, pundits observed that Some rich asshole appeared to be taken in by the Russian leader and was being manipulated by him.
Lindsey Graham tells ‘The View’ that some rich asshole is no longer a ‘xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot’ because he’s the president
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (Photo: Screen capture)
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) famously called President some rich asshole “a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot” during the 2016 campaign. But now, he’s changing his tune.
During the Monday political panel with “The View,” the hosts all wanted to know if he agreed that the rich asshole is “a really stable genius,” as he claimed on Twitter over the weekend.
“The first thing I want to tell you is he beat me like a drum,” Graham said, not answering the question. “He ran against 17 Republicans and crushed us all. He ran against the Clinton machine and won. So, all I can say is you can say anything you want to say about the guy. I said it was xenophobic, race-baiting religious bigot. I ran out of things to say. He won. He’s our president.”
He ultimately concluded that if the rich asshole “doesn’t call himself a genius, nobody else will.”
Guest host Ana Navarro asked Graham if he still believed those things about the rich asshole.
“In my view, he’s my president and doing a good job on multiple fronts,” Graham said, also not answering the question.
“But, you didn’t answer the question, senator,” Hostin called Graham.
“No, I don’t think so, he’s my president,” Graham replied.
“You don’t think he is a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot?” co-host Joy Behar asked.
“Not as president,” Graham said, seeming to explain the only thing that has changed is the rich asshole’s title.
In an earlier part of the interview, Graham explained the reason he is demanding an investigation into Christopher Steele and the dossier is because Steele gave the dossier to the FBI. At that point, it seems Graham believes Steele became an informant for the FBI, though it’s never been reported Steele was a paid informant on the books for the FBI. As Graham said, Fusion GPS is attributed as the main source of the funding for the Steele dossier after the Republican Party stopped paying Steele.
Graham said that this was a conflict of interest for an FBI informant to be speaking to the press. However, Steele was never an FBI informant paid to compile the dossier on the rich asshole by the American government. He was paid by political sources and felt the dossier was important enough to also give to the FBI.
Watch the full interview below:
Wikileaks dumps entire ‘Fire and Fury’ book online
January 8, 2018
Harriet Sinclair
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Wikileaks has shared a link to the tell-all book about Donald Trump’s White House that has made waves in Washington D.C.
In a move that appeared to have the success of Michael Wolff’s tome Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House firmly in its crosshairs, the organization tweeted out a link to a full PDF of the book in a move that may have constituted copyright infringement.
The original post read: "New Trump book "Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff. Full PDF" and shared a link to the pdf, but this was later replaced by a second post that shared a link and observed that the text was leaked onto the internet.
Full text of controversial book on Trump, "Fire and Fury", by Michael Wolff, leaks onto internet: drive.google.com/file/d/1Bt6BSc…
Legal news website Law and Crime warned social media users against downloading the pdf after Wikileaks shared it, suggesting that those downloading the book from Wikileaks could face prosecution for copyright infringement.
“If someone downloads it, they are making another unauthorized reproduction, which is a violation,” Christopher Sprigman a professor at NYU School of Law told the site.
“The damages could be up to $150,000 (this is the maximum statutory damage for willful infringement per work), plus attorney’s fees,” he added.
Wikileaks decision to share the PDF has raised the suggestion that the organization, which previously released hacked emails from Democrats, including Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, was attempting to undermine sales of the controversial book, which has not painted the president in a flattering light.
The book itself sold out within minutes of being released, with the date of its release being brought forward by four days following the furore surrounding the excerpts that were available, and has already prompted outrage from the president—not least about the quotes in the book from his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Following the release of excerpts from the book, Trump lashed out at author Wolff as a “discredited journalist,” described the book as “fake” and referred to Bannon as “sloppy Steve.”
In a strange tweet on Sunday, the president also suggested he would deal with the book’s insinuation he is not mentally fit for office in the same way that former president Ronald Reagan had done. However, exactly what he meant was unclear, and it appeared he was unaware that Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s, which the former president's son has suggested began to show while he was president.
“I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!” Trump wrote, among a number of tweets in which he hit out at Wolff.
Fusion GPS demands pro-the rich asshole judge recuse himself on bank subpoena after working for the rich asshole transition
A lawsuit was filed against the rich asshole administration disputing a six-month delay on ceiling fan standards coming into effect and demanding a court order to enforce them immediately (AFP Photo/MANDEL NGAN)
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Fusion GPS, a political research firm targeted by Republicans because it produced a salacious Russian dossier on President some rich asshole, insisted this week that a judge should be removed from deciding a case because he had been a part of the rich asshole transition team.
In a letter to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, lawyers for Fusion GPS argued that Judge Trevor McFadden’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” because of his work with the transition team.
The news was reported on Twitter by Natasha Bertrand.
According to Fusion GPS, the subpoena is thought to be a reaction to a lawsuit against Buzzfeed, which published the dossier and was then met with threats from the rich asshole allies.
“Public information indicates that the [judge] ‘volunteered as a vetter for President the rich asshole’s transition team,'” Fusion GPS writes of Judge McFadden. “President-elect the rich asshole began making public statements expressing his animosity toward Fusion GPS and its work relating to the rich asshole dossier during the transition.”
Last week, TD Bank reportedly turned over financial records on Fusion GPS to the House Intelligence Committee.
Fusion GPS contends that Republicans are targeting the company because it was paid to gather dirt on the rich asshole during the election.
“The threat of retaliatory disclosure of confidential information in the records is not just theoretical, it is part of a pattern and an underlying purpose of the subpoena,” lawyers for the company said in a statement to the court.
White House staff could face legal trouble if they help the rich asshole with fake news awards
January 8, 2018
Graham Lanktree
Posted with permission from Newsweek
On Sunday, a former White House ethics lawyer warned West Wing staff that if they help the president with "fake news" awards he has promised to hand out, they could be breaking the law.
President Donald Trump said he still plans to go ahead with a "fake news" awards he first suggested in November and promised on Twitter to hand out Monday. However, he tweeted late Sunday that he would push back the announcement of winners to January 17.
“WARNING to White House staff: the president may be exempt from the rules at 5 CFR § 2635.701 et seq. on misuse of position BUT YOU ARE NOT,” tweeted Norm Eisen, who served as White House Special Counsel for Ethics in the Obama administration.
In his message Eisen told White House staff that if they help the president deliver the awards they could risk violating provisions of the law that forbid the use of government time and money to harm some members of the media and help others.
Eisen is chair of the board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that has attempted to bring a series of lawsuits against the Trump administration for ethics violations over the past year.
"If any [White House] staffers work on this or post it on the WH website, it will be a violation of the Standards of Conduct,” wrote Walter Shaub, the former Director of the Office of Government Ethics, in a supporting tweet directed at the Trump administration’s press secretary Sarah Sanders Sunday.
“Beware of laws on using federal appropriations too, if there are any visuals, certificates, handouts, or trophies,” Shaub added.
Last month White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino Jr. said he has “nothing to do with” the awards, which he noted are being run by Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Dear @jason_kint,
I actually just learned about it from your tweet, and have nothing to do with it — it’s from a campaign...
So carry on with your HATE and FAKE NEWS, as you work at “advancing the future of trusted content and media strategy” over at @DCNorg. LOL
twitter.com/jason_kint/sta…
I actually just learned about it from your tweet, and have nothing to do with it — it’s from a campaign...
So carry on with your HATE and FAKE NEWS, as you work at “advancing the future of trusted content and media strategy” over at @DCNorg. LOL
twitter.com/jason_kint/sta…
“The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!”
Details have not been released about how Trump will deliver the awards or whether any members of the White House are involved in coordinating or assisting the president with the project.
The Republican National Committee has been promoting an online poll for the awards after Trump tweeted about the idea of creating a trophy for “the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me)” in late November.
At the time Trump said the awards would exclude the Fox News network.
We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!
The online poll run by the GOP features stories from ABC News, CNN, and Timemagazine—each of which has been corrected.
Those who respond to the poll are asked to rank each of the three media stories as “fake,” “faker” or “fakest” news.
Days after Trump’s tweet suggesting the awards, the conservative pollsters Rasmussen found that 40 percent of Americans thought the top award should go to Fox News. CNN came in second with 25 percent of respondents and MSNBC with 9 percent.
Ex-World Bank president: the rich asshole is ignoring his advisers and flirting with ‘economic mayhem’
some rich asshole giving a speech in 2016 (via Wikimedia Commons).
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Writing in the Wall Street Journal, the former president of the World Bank cautioned President some rich asshole could plunge the world into “economic mayhem” if he follows through on his demands for tariffs in the name of “national security.”
According to Robert Zoellick, who headed up the World Bank after stints as Deputy Secretary of State and U.S. Trade Representative under President George W. Bush, the rich asshole is ignoring his top economic advisers and pushing for trade protectionism as a sign of strength.
“President the rich asshole’s new National Security Strategy argues that the U.S. must compete in a hostile world,” wrote Zoellick, adding, “The rich asshole administration has stacked up a pile of trade cases that will come tumbling down early in 2018.”
“The U.S. is ready to block steel and aluminum imports through a rarely used ‘national security’ rationalization,” he continued. “As an alternative, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had tried negotiating capacity cuts in Chinese production, but some rich asshole waved him off with a demand for tariffs. Because most of China’s metal exports already face U.S. tariffs of more than 80%, some rich asshole’s tactic will likely trigger retaliation from other countries.”
As Zoellick noted, the rich asshole is also likely to “withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement or both.”
“Mexico and Canada would probably agree on eliminating barriers and setting new rules for the digital age,” he wrote. “But some rich asshole’s real aim is to dictate market outcomes. The administration wants to start with the goal of eliminating the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and then manipulate rules to that end. It wants the U.S. to be excused from keeping its side of the NAFTA bargain.”
“No country wants to do a bilateral deal with some rich asshole now because he demands managed trade, not fair competition. He wants excuses to raise barriers, not rules to boost trade,” Zoellick explained. “America once attracted the world’s talent, but some rich asshole’s hostility is driving people away. If he pulls the U.S. out of Nafta, even financial markets might recognize that his economic isolationism poses a risk to growth.”
Zoellick then took a direct shot at the rich asshole by referencing the rich asshole’s campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.”.
“True competitors honestly assess their weaknesses, adapt and then grow stronger. Those are the qualities that made America great,” he pointedly quipped. “This will be the year that trade policy could define the rich asshole’s fearful America.”
You can read the whole piece here
Joe Scarborough: the rich asshole confidants believe president has ‘early stage dementia’ — but Washington Post wouldn’t print it
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough thanked author Michael Wolff for opening a wider discussion into President some rich asshole’s apparent mental decline.
The “Morning Joe” host has been trying to sound the alarm about the president, whom he’s known for years, but he said political and journalistic norms had kept the topic buried.
“I’ve written twice in my column a quote about one of the people closest to some rich asshole during the campaign saying he’s got early stage of dementia,” Scarborough said. “He repeats the same stories over and over again. His father had it, and it’s getting worse, and not a single person who works for him doesn’t know it. He didn’t think he was going to win. Twice the Washington Post would not let me put that in my column. I salute them for having a high bar, but we’re at this moment, and until your book came out, this was something we were not allowed to speak about.”
Wolff, whose new book Fire and Fury contains numerous examples of the rich asshole associates questioning the president’s fitness for office, said White House staffers are alarmed by his tweets — whether or not they’ll admit it to reporters.
“Everybody sees the president’s tweets,” Wolff told MSNBC. “The whole White House goes into a spasm when he tweets.”
He said White House officials like chief of staff John Kelly try to ignore them and focus on their own jobs, which often involve covering up for the president’s weaknesses.
“Everybody in this White House — and I keep saying this, there’s 100 percent because it is 100 percent of the people closest to the president, to some rich asshole, believe that there is something wrong here, something fundamentally wrong, something that scares them,” Wolff said.
The author said White House staffers feel no loyalty toward the president, and many of them hate one another, but they feel duty-bound to remain on the job.
“As a matter of fact, if there is any reason they stay in the White House now, it’s because they’re scared (and) they believe they have a responsibility to the American people,” Wolff said.
Sean Spicer knocks Oprah’s political inexperience — after working for a game show host with no political experience
Sean Spicer (CNN)
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Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer cautioned media mogul and actual billionaire Oprah Winfrey of thinking of a presidential run in 2020 because she has no experience.
During a Monday appearance on “Good Morning Britain,” Spicer seemed to dismiss the assumption that Winfrey has a shot at the high office.
“She doesn’t have the political infrastructure,” Spicer said. “And we’ve seen this before in our history — where people who have tried to pop in who are not in politics and have had a difficult time adjusting.”
When the rich asshole ran for president, he not only had zero political experience, he also didn’t have any political infrastructure. In fact, until the rich asshole passed the GOP primaries, the campaign didn’t have much staff or infrastructure. Some would argue there isn’t much political infrastructure in the White House today.
“Sean! Sean! Sean!” host Piers Morgan shouted at Spicer. “The current president of the United States had no political experience! Sean! You were his press secretary! Have you forgotten some rich asshole?!”
Spicer quickly pivoted to avoid admitting his error.
“That withstanding, President some rich asshole proves that there is an appetite for outsiders, and that you don’t necessarily have to have [experience],” Spicer said. “The question is: Was that an anomaly, or is that the new norm?”
Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes Sunday sparked conversation about the possibility of the former talk show host running in the next election.
Watch the full clip below:
‘Did he leave his pants there?’ Internet has a field day with news of the rich asshole Tower fire
some rich asshole (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Afire broke out at President some rich asshole’s iconic the rich asshole Tower on Monday morning — and Twitter wasted no time cracking jokes about it.
The fire, which appears to have been an electrical fire that occurred on the roof of the building, has resulted in no injuries and has been brought under control by New York City firefighters.
Twitter users quickly jumped on news of the fire to speculate that the rich asshole might be burning evidence on past crimes, although neither the president nor any members of his family were in the rich asshole Tower at the time of the blaze.
Check out some of the best reactions below.
I'm assuming it was a dryer fire. Money laundering is a dangerous business, especially the drying part.
burning 
guess which one
One things for sure. No matter what actually caused the fire, it's Hillary's fault
Trump will just collect a huge check from the Insurance company for more than the value of the damage.
Didn’t think the dumpster could fit into the elevator to make its way to the penthouse... be safe NYFD
No worries: the chefs are just preparing Trump’s steak, well done.
last
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