January 31st - February 1st, 2017. 445-446 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 373-374 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.da
After legal setbacks, the rich asshole administration races to Supreme Court
U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, U.S., October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
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When President some rich asshole’s administration took its fight to end a controversial immigration program directly to the U.S. Supreme Court last month, skipping over a California federal appeals court in the process, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said it was a “rare step” to ensure a quick and fair resolution.
But the fast trip to the nation’s highest judicial body was not the first time the administration took the unusual route of circumventing liberal-leaning lower courts and heading straight to the conservative-majority Supreme Court for relief from legal setbacks.
In the last year, the Justice Department sought to bypass lower courts four times using varying legal procedures in several high-profile cases, most recently to defend the administration’s right to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
It also skipped the normal legal process in a fight over whether pregnant immigrant teens held in detention can obtain abortions. And it asked the Supreme Court to quickly intervene in its defense of the president’s travel bans, which primarily affected people from several Muslim-majority countries.
“It’s unusual; it is stretching the boundaries,” said Kevin Russell, a Washington, D.C. attorney who has argued frequently before the Supreme Court and worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The strategy makes sense, some legal scholars say, for an administration that has seen so many of its key policy initiatives challenged aggressively by political opponents, who often file in courts where they are likely to find sympathetic judges.
Administration officials “think they’ll do better in the Supreme Court because it is more conservative than the average circuit (appeals) court,” said John McGinnis, a professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
While major, fast-moving cases often reach the Supreme Court quickly through expedited lower court rulings followed by appeals, skipping steps in the process is rare, many legal scholars said.
Precisely quantifying the number of times previous administrations have bypassed lower courts is difficult, given the volume of matters brought to the Supreme Court and the numerous ways in which cases can be appealed. But the last time the high court decided a case officially filed in advance of judgment by an appeals court was in 2005. That case, during the George W. Bush administration, involved a challenge to criminal sentencing guidelines, not a presidential policy.
Attempts to bypass lower courts are generally considered long-shots, as the court only takes up such requests when the case is deemed to be of “imperative public importance” warranting immediate review.
A Justice Department official told Reuters in a statement that the government seeks emergency relief only when necessary. “The bottom line is we are careful in what we ask for,” the official said.
The department has not sought Supreme Court review of every major ruling that went against it in lower courts, including two that allowed transgender recruits to join the military as of Jan. 1.
REPEATED SETBACKS
The the rich asshole administration’s Supreme Court strategy has grown out of repeated setbacks at the district and circuit court levels.
Many of the rich asshole’s most significant executive actions, in areas including immigration, transgender rights, energy and the environment, have been at least temporarily blocked by courts. The rulings have often been applied nationwide, not just where the lawsuits were filed.
In the DACA case, for example, a San Francisco judge issued an order on Jan. 9 that blocked the government from rescinding the program, which had protected from deportation nearly 800,000 young people brought illegally to the United States by their parents. A variety of states, individuals and organizations sued after the rich asshole decided last year to rescind DACA, effective in March.
In explaining the unusual appeal directly to the Supreme Court, Sessions said the lower court ruling defied “both law and common sense.” He questioned how the DACA program could “be mandated nationwide by a single district court in San Francisco.”
The other cases taken directly to the Supreme Court by the administration also came after district courts moved to impede key the rich asshole policies or actions.
In November, the administration asked the high court to halt an order by a Maryland federal judge blocking the rich asshole’s revised travel ban, preempting review by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
It bypassed the 9th Circuit in asking the Supreme Court to clarify its own ruling from last June over the rich asshole’s previous, now-expired, travel ban.
In the case over whether pregnant immigrant minors in federal custody could get abortions, the administration asked the Supreme Court in November to throw out future claims, even though a Washington, D.C. based trial judge had ruled only on specific teenagers’ abortion bids and not the wider issue.
The Supreme Court at least partially sided with the government in the travel ban cases, allowing the revised version to go into full effect and agreeing to resolve its legality before the end of June. The DACA and immigrant abortion cases are pending.
the rich asshole has frequently lashed out at courts that have blocked his key policies. After the recent DACA ruling he said the system was “broken and unfair.” He has also accused opponents of “judge shopping” by filing in courts where appeals would go to the 9th Circuit.
Others now accuse the rich asshole of doing the same at the Supreme Court. The strategy could backfire, some say, if the public perceives the court as stepping in prematurely to help the administration. It could also backfire with the Supreme Court itself.
“If they maintain this steady stream of requests for the court to take extraordinary actions,” said Russell, “the court may start to take a jaundiced view of those requests.”
Top career US diplomat to quit State Department in latest departure under the rich asshole
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shakes hands with acting U.S. Secretary of State Tom Shannon while delivering remarks to Department of State employees upon arrival at the Department of State in Washington, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
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The U.S. State Department’s third-ranking official, Tom Shannon, is stepping down from his post, the department said on Thursday, becoming the latest senior diplomat to exit since President some rich asshole took office a year ago.
Shannon, who serves as under secretary of state for political affairs, is the top U.S. career diplomat and has been a fixture among the nation’s diplomatic ranks during more than 34 years of service. In a letter to department staff, Shannon, 60, said he was resigning for personal reasons.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Shannon agreed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s request that he stay on until his successor is named. Nauert said Shannon had served under six presidents and 10 secretaries of state.
“My decision is personal, and driven by a desire to attend to my family, take stock of my life, and set a new direction for my remaining years,” Shannon wrote.
His departure deprives the State Department of a seasoned veteran at a time of pressing diplomatic concerns including the threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Tillerson in November said he was offended by claims that the State Department was being hollowed out under the rich asshole, saying it was functioning well despite scathing criticism from former American diplomats including Nicholas Burns and Ryan Crocker.
The forcing out of many senior diplomats, the failure to nominate or to win Senate confirmation for officials to fill key agency roles, and a perception that Tillerson is inaccessible have eroded morale, according to current officials.
Shannon’s departure is part of a steady stream of senior career diplomatic officers to leave since the rich asshole became president in January 2017. His departure was first reported by the Associated Press.
the rich asshole kept Shannon on board when he assumed the presidency and must now appoint a successor who would need Senate confirmation.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)
‘Smells of a cover-up’: Watergate prosecutor says Hope Hicks could be in big trouble over Don Jr’s emails
Nick Akerman and Stephanie Ruhle (MSNBC)
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A former Watergate prosecutor said White House communications director Hope Hicks could be in legal jeopardy if she suggested destroying emails related to some rich asshole Jr.’s meeting with Russians.
Nick Akerman, a former U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the Watergate case, agreed with former the rich asshole legal team spokesman Mark Corallo that Hicks may have been contemplating a crime when she told lawyers the emails “will never get out,” as the New York Times reported.
“It’s all part of the obstruction of justice,” Akerman told MNSBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. “I mean, this by itself doesn’t prove obstruction of justice, but when you take it in combination with all of the surrounding circumstances — the memo, the excuse that was written up by some rich asshole for his son, as to why that meeting even took place. The nonsense that it was just about adoption, when it was really not just about adoption, which really talked about the Magnitsky Act, and goes to the sanctions, which his one of the critical issues here, which of course was never mentioned in that statement.”
“Then, when you take it and juxtapose it to the (Jared) Kushner statement — I mean, the whole thing smells of a cover-up,” Akerman added.
Hicks’ attorney strongly denied Corallo’s account — although the the rich asshole legal team spokesman told the Times he took notes about the conversation — and Akerman said Mueller would likely try to flip the president’s close aide.
“She’d be a great witness, there’s no question about it,” Akerman said. “I think all of these people are open to being flipping. There’s nobody there to super loyal some rich asshole if it comes down to it’s either them or him.”
‘Work woke’: Watch Angela Rye’s breathtaking stand against the rich asshole — and white people should watch it twice
Angela Rye (BET/screen grab)
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CNN contributor Angela Rye hosted a righteous response to President some rich asshole’s State of the Union on Wednesday and called for Americans not just to “stay woke, but to work woke.”
In a special BET program hosted by Rye, panelists — including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) — outlined solutions for protecting civil rights in the the rich asshole era.
Rye ended the program with a powerful call to action. After replaying videos that show how the rich asshole has embraced white nationalism, Rye called on her audience to “remember the anger caused by those images.”
“Let that anger be righteous,” she said. “The kind that doesn’t repay evil with evil, but rather the kind that drives us to act, to move, to protect black bodies, to preserve our rights, to ensure our advancement.”
Rye recalled that the rich asshole had asked black voters “what in the hell do you have to lose” by voting for him.
“He has worked to ensure that we are constantly taking ills,” she explained. “He’s not just undoing the legacy of President Obama, but by reversing key regulations, executive actions and trying to repeal laws enacted to protect the most vulnerable.”
“Please wake up,” Rye pleaded. “Hear me loud and clear, this is about reversing civil rights protections that have been on the books for 50-plus years. And they started working on these reversals before the rich asshole was ever running for president.”
According to Rye, the actions of the rich asshole are “past partisanship.”
“Understand that this is a matter of survival,” she insisted. “I’m not here to debate the odious. the rich asshole and his supporters — racism, xenophobia — the many way in which they otherize us, including a strong desire to take us back to when America was allegedly it’s greatest in the 1950s.”
“No, my challenge is for you,” she continued. “What will you stand up for? When is it too much, when is it too far. We’ve seen enough. We know enough. And we’ve had enough. But when will we do enough?”
“Your silence, your lack of action is an endorsement of this hatred fueling violence,” Rye stated. “How are you going to allow someone to say we don’t belong on the soil of the very country we built? This is not about them. It’s about us. What will it take for you to stand up, to show up, to fight, to force constructive change?”
She concluded: “We have the tools, we are equipped. Will you join us? … We must mobilize in our communities to ensure our present reality doesn’t become our permanent future. It’s time to not just stay woke, but to work woke.”
Watch the video below from BET.
the rich asshole admits shady Nunes memo is intended to discredit Mueller’s Russia probe: report
some rich asshole at the NBCUNIVERSAL 2015 Winter TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel (Shutterstock)
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Sources are telling CNN that President some rich asshole is championing a controversial memo written by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) as a way to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“In phone calls last night and over the past days, the rich asshole has told friends he believes the memo would expose bias within the agency’s top ranks and make it easier for him to argue the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him,” CNN writes, citing two sources.
CNN’s sources also claim that the president is plotting for ways to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel last year after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from handling the Russia probe.
“Another person said the rich asshole is so frustrated with the Russia investigation and, in turn, Rosenstein that he may look for any opportunity to build a case for Rosenstein’s firing,” CNN reports. “He could argue that Rosenstein failed to scrutinize the information initially used to request the warrant and therefore didn’t do his due diligence.”
The FBI on Wednesday issued an extraordinary statement slamming the Nunes memo as based on cherry-picked intelligence and called its conclusions misleading. Despite this, the president is still expected to release the memo.
BY CRISTINA MARCOS AND MIKE LILLIS - 02/01/18 06:00 AM EST
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are proving central to efforts to impeach President the rich asshole.
Black lawmakers say that’s the result of the rich asshole repeatedly stirring racial controversies, from personally attacking two members of the caucus to casting equal blame on white supremacists and counterprotesters for fatal violence in Charlottesville, Va., last summer.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), former head of the CBC, said the bitter feelings originated well before the rich asshole arrived in office, when the real estate mogul began raising doubts about former President Obama’s birthplace — and, by extension, his authority to be president.
“I don’t know if the people around the country understand that he has launched … an assault against African-American people starting with his refusal to accept the first African-American president, by continuing to declare that he was from Kenya,” Cleaver said. “No other president in history has had to face that kind of criticism.
“We’ve come to conclude that this is a part of his belief system.”
Just under two-thirds of the 48-member CBC has backed impeachment in House floor votes forced by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), himself a CBC member. The CBC includes two senators, two nonvoting delegates and one Republican, Rep. Mia Love (Utah), who does not support impeaching the rich asshole.
CBC members made their disgust for the rich asshole clear at Tuesday night’s State of the Union, where many pointedly refrained from clapping or shaking his hand — or skipped the event altogether.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) was positioned along the center aisle, but kept his distance as GOP colleagues nearby enthusiastically jostled to shake the rich asshole’s hand on national television. Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett (D) stood with her arms crossed as the rich asshole walked past.
Most CBC members, including the group’s leader, Rep. Cedric Richmond(D-La.), sat down well before the rich asshole reached the dais and refrained from joining the raucous applause emanating from the GOP side of the chamber.
And that’s just the reaction from CBC members who attended the rich asshole’s State of the Union. More than half of the 14 House Democrats who boycotted the speech were members of the caucus.
The articles of impeachment put forth by Green don’t allege the rich asshole has committed a crime; instead, they assert that the rich asshole has “brought the high office of president of the United States in contempt, ridicule, disgrace and disrepute” and “has sown discord among the people of the United States.”
Green’s articles cite the rich asshole’s reported comments in an Oval Office meeting about immigration policy describing Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “shithole countries”; the president’s equivocating response to the Charlottesville violence; and the rich asshole’s attacks on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
Green argued that the rich asshole is “legitimizing bigotry” by aggravating such controversies.
“Saying that certain countries of color are s-hole countries … and then saying it as you’re discussing a ‘merit-based’ immigration policy. Is it really a merit-based policy, or a race-based policy masquerading as merit-based?” Green said. “This bigotry is being evinced in policy.”
The “shithole” controversy led the CBC to stage another protest at Tuesday’s State of the Union: Almost all members of the group in attendance that evening donned ties or shawls made of kente cloth — a colorful fabric originating in Ghana.
Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat and a veteran of the civil rights movement, said Wednesday that the message was one of “solidarity with Haiti, El Salvador and those countries on the continent of Africa that were referred to by our president in very derogatory terms.”
“We thought that it was necessary for us to demonstrate, as members of the Congress, our displeasure with the president,” he said.
Clyburn is the highest-ranking House Democrat to vote in support of Green’s articles of impeachment. Another black lawmaker and member of Democratic leadership, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), has also voted in favor of impeachment.
A total of 58 Democrats first voted in support of Green’s articles of impeachment last month. But the number grew to 66 when Green forced another vote on Jan. 19 following the rich asshole’s profane remarks.
Nearly all of the Democrats on the record in support of impeachment represent deep-blue districts where their constituents want their lawmakers to show resistance to the rich asshole. Indeed, most CBC members hail from districts that are a lock for Democrats.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), a former CBC chairman, originally voted to table the articles of impeachment in December. But he had a change of heart in the ensuing month after hearing his constituents’ outrage over the rich asshole administration.
“I had hoped to see improvements at the White House, but every day brings another scandal. Enough is enough. The time has come to have an open and transparent debate on the issue of impeachment on the floor of the House of Representatives,” Butterfield said in a statement provided by his office.
The fiery debate over race and ethnicity has been at the center of the current fight over the fate of so-called Dreamers, immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
As part of legislation to salvage the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the rich asshole and GOP leaders are pressing for new restrictions on the ability of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents to bring relatives into the country. The Democrats refer to the program as one encouraging “family reunification,” while the Republicans label the process “chain migration.”
The reference to chains has stirred no lack of antipathy from CBC members, who have long accused the rich asshole of advancing white nationalist sentiments and who think the president is blowing dog whistles to his white, conservative base.
“My great, great, great grandfather wouldn’t call [how] he came over here anything but chained migration. And he was brought here from Cameroon,” said Cleaver.
“some rich asshole has never insulted any group accidentally. He knows what he’s doing, and it hurts.”
Still, Cleaver has declined to join the impeachment push, expressing concerns that it could lend ammunition to critics of the ongoing probe by special prosecutor Robert Mueller into whether the rich asshole’s campaign colluded with Russians meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“One of the worst mistakes we could make is to create the image to his base that our goal is first and foremost the impeachment of some rich asshole,” Cleaver said.“Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying that he’s a good [person],” he quickly added. “But in spite of how he has treated my people, my race, I’m not going to allow him to influence me to be like him.”
the rich asshole’s relationship with the CBC hasn’t been helped by his personal attacks on two of its members.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” shortly before the inauguration last year that he didn’t see the rich asshole as a “legitimate” president. the rich asshole drew bipartisan criticism when he tweeted in retaliation that Lewis is “all talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!”
the rich asshole later lashed out at Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), whom he called “wacky” on Twitter after she offered a critical account of his phone call to the wife of a fallen soldier.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, both Lewis and Wilson voted in favor of impeachment and boycotted the State of the Union.
“I’ve got to be moved by my conscience,” Lewis said.
the rich asshole ends Twitter silence with blatant lie, gets corrected by Fox News
Even the rich asshole's favorite network acknowledges his SOTU audience was not the largest ever.
On Tuesday evening, President the rich asshole posted a tweet of a live stream of his State of the Union speech. He didn’t tweet again until Thursday morning, when he told a blatant lie about his speech’s audience.
“Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history,” the rich asshole tweeted. “@FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!”
Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!
But according to widely-shared Nielsen numbers released Wednesday, the rich asshole’s first State of the Union was not the most watched in history.
In fact, as Fox News pointed out after the rich asshole’s tweet, it wasn’t particularly close, with the three presidents who immediately preceded the rich asshole each delivering State of the Union Addresses watched by more than 45.6 people.
#SOTU TV Viewers:
2018: 45.6M
2017: 47.7M*
2016: 31.3M
2015: 31.7M
2014: 33.3M
2013: 33.5M
2012: 37.8M
2011: 42.8M
2010: 48.0M
2009: 52.4M*
2008: 37.5M
2007: 45.5M
2006: 41.7M
2005: 38.4M
2004: 43.4M
2003: 62.1M
1993: 66.9M* (largest TV audience)
*Not an official SOTU
The data released by Nielsen doesn’t include the number of people who streamed the speech online — but that’s also the case for previous years.
the rich asshole’s lie about his SOTU audience is reminiscent of the one his administration pushed about his inauguration crowd size. Despite clear photographic evidence that the crowd at the rich asshole’s inauguration was far smaller than for Obama’s, the the rich asshole administration spent the first days of the rich asshole’s presidency insisting that it “was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period. Both in person and around the globe,” as then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s infamously said during his first press briefing.
It turned out that not only was the rich asshole’s in-person inauguration crowd size smaller than Obama’s, but his TV ratings were smaller as well.
the rich asshole lies about big things, like his claim that millions of voters cost him the popular vote (no such thing happened), and small stuff, like the penalty in China for shoplifting (it’s not 10 years in jail). His lie about his SOTU audience comes while his lawyers are trying to prevent the president from sitting down for a sworn interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller — a setting where ever small fibs could land him in legal trouble.
Coincidentally, the positive news cycle the rich asshole sought to bask in by not tweeting on Wednesday was ruined by explosive Mueller news. On Wednesday afternoon, CNN broke news, later corroborated by other outlets, that the rich asshole asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — the official overseeing Mueller’s investigation in the DOJ — about his political allegiances during a White House meeting. In the evening, the New York Times published an explosive account about how Mueller’s team has honed in on the rich asshole’s role in crafting a misleading statement about his campaign’s Russia connections.
In politics, speeches matter – but even some rich asshole couldn’t make the State of the Union watchable
President some rich asshole delivering his State of the Union Address (Screenshot)
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People like to argue that there is too much performance in politics – that especially in the era of some rich asshole, political coverage is fixated on personality at the expense of policy. Hillary Clinton, for instance, was often roundly decried as a terrible campaigner, but credited with the requisite experience and policy chops to become a highly effective president.
But politicians’ performances aren’t just embellishments or distractions from more serious business. Politics in representative democracies cannot be reduced to the minutiae of policy. Because politicians are entrusted to work on their constituents’ behalf, they have to strike some sort of affective connection with them – yet nation states are vast, and we’re unlikely to be personally acquainted with our senior political representatives.
This is especially true of a polity as large as the US. At the federal level, and most acutely in the case of the president, public performance plays a crucial role in forging trust. On the other hand, because we are asked to invest a politician with our trust, we are just as likely to question whether they are deserving of the confidence we place in them. This connection is akin to the suspension of disbelief we need to get emotionally invested in the fictional action of a film or play, but the stakes are higher: unlike actors, who can leave one character behind and play another, politicians have to convince us that they really are as they appear to be.
Story time
Speeches are a crucial vehicle for forging this delicate, emotional bond between the president and the people. Many of the former White House speechwriters I’ve interviewed in my research link the importance of speeches to storytelling. As one of them told me:
I can list for you ten reasons why a policy is good, but if I tell you a story about a human whose life has been affected [by it], that’s just how we’re going remember things, how we’re going to be convinced of things. And because speeches are the one place in our communications mix where stories are best told, if they’re not told there, they’re not told anywhere.
Speeches do something that other communications strategies cannot do: at their best, they forge human connections through an extended, emotionally resonant engagement with a subject. As another speechwriter put it: “A great speech can change a career, it can change people’s way of thinking, it can change the debate entirely. A tweet is not going to do that.”
Paradoxically, the significance and career-making potential of speeches does not mean that what’s heralded as the most important speech of the year is also the most impactful. In fact, presidential speechwriters know that the State of the Union address is at cross-purposes with the best use of speeches.
Tough gig
On this, former White House speechwriters from both parties can agree. As one said to me in our interview:
It’s the worst speech we have to write all year. It’s one that doesn’t sound like [the president], because it has 70 different policy proposals in it.
Others went even further:
State of the Union addresses are a legislative laundry list that tries to give some lift to [policies], but there’s very little humour, there’s very little argument to it. It’s a wish list. I’d much rather write the turkey pardoning, because nobody ever said, ‘that was the worst turkey pardoning speech I’ve ever heard in my life’.
And:
The State of the Union address – can we not pause and rethink whether it really needs to be like this every year? But, year after year, everyone says ‘it’s going to be different’, and then they go out and they give a State of the Union address that’s utterly conventional.
The standout moments from State of the Union addresses are deviations from conventionality. George H.W. Bush opened his 1992 address with a volley of self-deprecating jokes. Barack Obama ad-libbed a dig at the Republican party in 2015. In response to Republicans applauding his statement that he would run no more election campaigns, Obama countered: “I know, ‘cause I won both of them.”
And yet the State of the Union, which has been delivered in person since Woodrow Wilson was president, has become a near-unshakeable convention. some rich asshole’s speech this week was characteristically ill-wrought; Jeff Shesol, formerly a speechwriter in Bill Clinton’s White House, notes the rich asshole’s bad metaphors in The New Yorker. But the rich asshole’s address was also conventional, making every attempt to get this most “unpresidented” of presidents to sound presidential.
the rich asshole began on a measured, bipartisan note, even extending this to his trademark “Make America great again”, sounding it in a matter-of-fact rather than swaggering tone. He name-dropped a coast guard officer and a firefighter, a well-worn device to liven up a stale speech that hints at storytelling but lacks the narrative arc that would build and sustain engagement. Then followed a long list of the rich asshole administration’s achievements (fact-checked by the New York Times) and appeals to the American Dream.
If the tone of the speech was an exercise in constraint – the rich asshole only seemed to get fired up when, in a call to limit immigration, he spoke about gang members murdering teenagers – its length, as ever, made it an exercise in endurance. Clocking in at around an hour and 20 minutes, the State of the Union address is thoroughly out of step not just with the best purposes of speeches, but also most people’s attention spans. Yet even bad traditions can endure – and it is telling that even a president infamous for his inability to focus could be forced to follow this one.
By Julia Peetz, PhD Researcher in Performance and Politics, University of Surrey
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article
At a coal conference in West Virginia, a political appointee with the Energy Department did not mince words about the administration's priorities.
NATASHA GEILING FEB 1, 2018, 10:32 AM
A day after President some rich asshole dedicated a portion of his State of the Union address to declaring that his administration had “ended the war on clean coal,” a top political appointee with the Department of Energy told a room of coal industry representatives that his sole purpose within the administration was to advocate for coal.
“The good news is I’m with the federal government and I’m here to help,” Doug Matheney, special adviser for the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, said at the West Virginia Mining Symposium in Charleston. “I went to Washington, D.C., for one purpose and that was to help create coal jobs in the United States. That’s my total purpose for being there. I’m not a researcher, I’m not a scientist, I’m an advocate for the coal industry.”
The remarks, which were first reported by S&P Global, offer an unvarnished glimpse into the rich asshole administration’s priorities. A few hours after Matheney’s remarks became public, reports surfaced that the rich asshole administration was considering asking for a 72 percent cut to Department of Energy programs involving renewable energy research.
As a candidate, the rich asshole acted as a staunch proponent of the coal industry, campaigning heavily on the false idea that repealing Obama-era environmental regulations would help return jobs to hard-hit areas like Appalachia. As president, he has initiated dozens of environmental rollbacks, many of which are aimed at lessening regulatory burdens on the coal industry — repealing rules aimed at protecting streams from mining waste, for instance, and putting on hold stricter limits for mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.
Under the rich asshole, the Department of Energy initiated a study looking at the resiliency of the United States electrical grid, which some critics characterized as an attempt to blame renewable energy or environmental regulations for declines in the coal industry. The study, published in August, found that automation and low natural gas prices were largely responsible for the closure of coal-fired power plants. But that didn’t stop Secretary of Energy Rick Perry from proposing a rule that would have forced utilities — and ultimately, ratepayers — to essentially subsidize power plants that maintain at least a 90-day supply of fuel on site. The rule, which critics argued would have amounted to subsidies for coal and nuclear, was unanimously rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in January.
Despite the rich asshole administration’s bullish anti-regulatory agenda, however, coal jobs saw only a modest, short-lived increase in the last year — and in many coal-producing states, mining jobs actually continued to decline. Despite the rich asshole’s regulatory rollbacks, experts expect the decline in coal jobs to continue as automation and cheap natural gas continue to make coal a less economically-viable energy source. Since the rich asshole took office last year, dozens of coal-fired power plants have announced their intention to retire, citing unfavorable economic conditions and cheaper alternatives, like natural gas and renewable energy.
Rep. Devin Nunes has been caught deceiving his own colleagues in the House — all to protect the rich asshole.
From the outset of House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes’ proclamation that he had a “memo” detailing purported surveillance abuses against some rich asshole at the FBI, it was clear he was working to undermine the Russia investigation to protect the rich asshole.
In his effort to persuade the White House to declassify the document and release it the public, Nunes tricked his committee into voting on one version, and then rewrote it, according to the committee’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff.
On Wednesday evening, Schiff sent a letter to Nunes about the “highly troubling” bait and switch.
“After reviewing both versions, it is clear that the Majority made material changes to the version it sent to the White House, which Committee Members were never apprised of, never had the opportunity to review, and never approved,” Schiff wrote.
Schiff said it is clear the committee’s Republican majority “no longer stands by the representation it made to House Members in the original document and felt it necessary to deceive Committee Members during Monday’s vote,” and that this means “there is no longer a valid basis for the White House to review the altered document.”
Nunes’ spokesman insisted the changes were just “grammatical fixes and two edits requested by the FBI and by the Minority themselves.” Democrats insist they did not request the changes and that they were not, in fact, simply cosmetic.
But as CNN correspondent Manu Raju notes, even Nunes’ response still confirms that the memo submitted to White House officials for redaction and release is not the same memo that was voted out of committee.
For one thing, both other members of Congress and the FBI itself quickly confirmed the memo was full of omissions, conspiracy theories, inaccuracies, and right-wing talking points. And for another, when the Intelligence Committee’s Republicans voted Monday to release the memo to the public, they blocked the release of Schiff’s memo, which refutes Nunes’ central arguments.
Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted Nunes and his hyper-partisanship.
“I had many fights with Congressional Dems over the years on national security matters,” Brennan said. “But I never witnessed the type of reckless partisan behavior I am now seeing from Nunes and House Republicans.”
Nunes’ underhanded tactics make it very clear he is weaponizing a major investigative committee to protect the rich asshole — and his credibility should be judged accordingly.
WATCH: CNN panel mocks the rich asshole fan who says the ‘Deep State’ is leaking to distract from SOTU speech
CNN's Alisyn Camerota mocks the rich asshole supporter Jason Miller for talking about the 'Deep State' (Screen cap).
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A CNN panel on Thursday mocked the rich asshole supporter Jason Miller after he accused members of the “Deep State” of leaking dirt to distract from President some rich asshole’s State of the Union speech this week.
While discussing the latest report that the rich asshole asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he was on the president’s “team,” Miller suggested that the entire story was a leak from within the United States government aimed at undermining the purported success of the rich asshole’s State of the Union speech.
“I think the fact that this happened back in December and then this magically comes out the day after the president’s State of the Union speech — you know, on Monday I tweeted out, ‘I hear the speech is going to be fantastic, I wonder what the Deep State comms directors are coming up with,” he said. “And then, boom, on Wednesday, somebody goes and leaks this out!”
Host Alisyn Camerota subtly rolled her eyes and started mocking Miller’s wild assertion.
“Can you believe how the ‘Deep State’ has taken hold, now people talk about this so it’s real?” Camerota asked panelist Ana Navarro.
“I used to think the ‘Deep State’ was Louisiana,” Navarro cracked.
Later in the segment, Navarro took another crack at Miller for asserting that the FBI is a left-wing organization out to get the rich asshole.
“I am so old, I remember when Republicans used to be against adulterer presidents, against Russian oligarchs and dictators, and for the FBI and law enforcement,” she said.
Watch the video below.
Former CIA Director John Brennan blasts the White House's "absence of moral and ethical leadership" that is "fueling this government crisis."
One day after the FBI took the extraordinary action of publicly rebuking the White House and Republicans for peddling a partisan report alleging misdeeds by prosecutors targeting the White House, former CIA Director John Brennan weighed in with another dose of denunciation.
“I had many fights with Congressional Dems over the years on national security matters,” Brennan said Thursday. “But I never witnessed the type of reckless partisan behavior I am now seeing from Nunes and House Republicans. Absence of moral and ethical leadership in WH is fueling this government crisis.”
Indeed, the GOP’s careless pursuit is drawing condemnations from all quarters. Intelligence veterans in particular are blasting the Republican scheme as a dangerous maneuver that not only rips up decades of protocol, but establishes an unsafe precedent for the future where classified information is recklessly released to the public solely in the name of setting political scores.
As Brennan, who spent years briefing President Barack Obama everyday on national security matters, notes, political battles over intelligence are as old as the CIA and the FBI themselves. What’s so unusual here is the GOP’s refusal to cooperate with the intel community before releasing its secret, gotcha report that allegedly documents FBI malfeasance during the Russia investigation.
Republicans have erased all congressional process norms in terms of trying to get the dubious report released.
Seen strictly as a partisan maneuver designed to damage special counsel Robert Mueller, the botched GOP memo allegedly depicts the FBI as overstepping its bounds in terms of investigating possible collusion between the the rich asshole campaign and Russian operatives in 2016.
On Tuesday, the rich asshole’s appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray OK’d a release in which the bureau stressed, “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
That came one week after the rich asshole’s own Department of Justice sent out a warning signal about the GOP’s smear campaign.
It “would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum,” the DOJ stressed.
Meanwhile, the walls continue to crumble around the White House as the Russia and obstruction of justice scandal deepens. That means pressure is intensifying on the Republicans to come up with a plan to protect the president.
For now, the party’s desperation revolves around essentially trying to destroy the reputation of the FBI. The GOP appears determined to burn that village down in order to try to save the White House.
the rich asshole to allow ‘outrageous’ gold rush-style grab of public lands to begin in less than 48 hours
This image was captured at the Valley of the Gods in the Bears Ears National Monument near Mexican Hat, Utah. (Shutterstock)
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Despite protests from conservationists, local tribe leaders, Democratic lawmakers, and even the United Nations’ expert on indigenous rights, at 6am on Friday the the rich asshole administration will allow citizens and companies to start staking claims on sections of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah so the new stakeholders can conduct hard rock mining on the formerly protected lands.
“It is outrageous to witness the dismantling of the Bears Ears national monument, in what constitutes a serious attack on indigenous peoples’ rights in the United States,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.
Tauli-Corpuz noted that the previous administration’s decision to create the monument “protected thousands of sacred sites which are central to the preservation of regional Native culture,” and warned President some rich asshole’s December decision to reduce Bears Ears’ area by about 85 percent “exposes thousands of acres of sacred lands and archaeological sites to the threats of desecration, contamination, and permanent destruction.”
Critics have turned to social media to denounce the “modern land run.”
"Diminishing the size of the monument puts hundreds of archeological and cultural sites at risk, and threatens our ability to strengthen our people, practice our religion and pass our traditional practices on to the next generation." buff.ly/2Ep0ids #StandWithBearsEars!
RT to #SaveGrandStaircase & #StandWithBearsEars! Proclamations dismantling #MonumentsForAll allow for more mining & drilling claims within the original boundaries at 9amEST on Feb 2. It's more important than ever to speak up for America's heritage: monumentsforall.org/action
In response to the attacks on public lands and a proposal from Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) that purports to give management control of the remaining land to indigenous leaders—who say the measure “is tribal in name only”—a group of Democratic senators has introduced a bill to fight back against the rich asshole and Republicans in Congress:
We’re introducing the #ANTIQUITIESActOf2018 today to protect our #MonumentsForAll from the Trump administration’s unprecedented and illegal attacks on our #PublicLands. #KeepItPublic
Pres Trump’s move to eliminate 2M acres of protections for #BearsEars & Grand-Staircase Escalante is largest attack on #publiclands in American history & an insult to Tribes who've worked to protect this culturally significant region. We’re fighting back. #ANTIQUITIESActOf2018
In spite of widespread opposition, the rich asshole administration’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to move forward with allowing stakeholders to claim plots of land on Friday, and has determined the process will be governed by the General Mining Law of 1872, which covers mining for metals such as copper, gold, silver, and uranium (but not coal and petroleum).
“The process for staking a claim remains much as it did during the Gold Rush,” Reuters reports:
A prospector hammers four poles into the ground corresponding to the four points of a parcel that can be as big as 20 acres, and attaches a written description of the claim onto one of them. A prospector then has 30 days to record the claim at the local BLM office….The costs of claiming are low: a $212 filing fee, and an annual maintenance fee of $150. Unlike laws governing petroleum extraction, there are no environmental guidelines specific to hard rock mining, and no requirement to pay a royalty. The claims provide prospectors mineral rights but not ownership of the land.
Lauren Pagel, the policy director of the nonprofit Earthworks, criticized the law as outdated, telling Reuters, “It’s really the last law still on the books from that Manifest Destiny era encouraging a resources free-for-all.”
A new report shows a direct correlation between the president's words and mounting hate crimes.
E.A. CRUNDEN FEB 1, 2018, 8:47 AM
President the rich asshole’s rhetoric and policies are driving a spike in hate crimes and violence directed at Muslim and South Asian communities, a new report indicates.
During the year between November 9, 2016 and November 7, 2017, incidents of Islamophobia and harassment and violence towards certain communities in the United States rose dramatically, according to South Asian Americans Leading Together, or SAALT. The organization documented 302 incidents of hate-based violence or rhetoric in the year following the rich asshole’s election, all aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Arab, and Middle Eastern communities. Around 82 percent of those incidents were anti-Muslim in nature. One in five involved the rich asshole’s name, or a slogan or policy associated with the president.
That’s a striking correlation and one of the starkest indicators yet that the rich asshole’s rhetoric and policies have fueled an uptick in violence. SAALT’s report reflects essentially the entire year following the rich asshole’s election, a longer period than has been covered by much of the previous data on hate crimes during this administration published so far.
Rising Islamophobia has disproportionately impacted South Asian communities in the United States. The community’s visibility has made many members a target, with tragic consequences.
One stand-out tragedy was the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Indian citizen killed in an alleged hate crime in Kansas. the rich asshole remained silent on Kuchibhotla’s murder for six days, finally condemning the killing after mounting criticism. That’s part of a larger pattern for the president, who is quick to comment on tragedies when a Muslim or person of color is responsible, but who often remains silent when those communities fall victim to violence.
Suman Raghunathan, Executive Director of SAALT, told ThinkProgress that the president’s approach to such incidents seems to have bolstered those already prone to Islamophobic behavior.
“The President has exercised his right to remain selectively silent and at times that align with his administration’s white supremacist agenda, such as in the aftermath of mass shootings in Las Vegas. He has otherwise opted to call white supremacists ‘very fine people’ in the aftermath of terrorism in Charlottesville,” said Raghunathan. “Yet, when a tragedy involves a perpetrator who is presumed Muslim, the president resorts to inflammatory rhetoric that creates an environment of anger, fear, and suspicion for Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim.”
A number of organizations and publications have monitored the rise of hate crimes in the time since the rich asshole’s election. Data collected by ThinkProgress between November 2016 and February 2017 showed rising violence against Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslim, and Jewish communities. The release of the FBI’s 2016 Unified Crime Report reinforced those findings. Muslim, Jewish, and LGBTQ organizations told ThinkProgress in November that the 2016 data confirmed that the rich asshole’s rise has imperiled their communities.
“Given the rise of the the rich asshole campaign, white nationalism, the prominence of people like [white nationalist] Richard Spencer, these folks who have been empowered by the rich asshole’s candidacy, it’s not surprising to see the rise in hate,” Ryan Ahari, a policy analyst with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), said at that time. “They’ve been validated. A lot of folks have seen the dog whistles that the rich asshole has been blowing to his supporters and people feel emboldened. They have decided to act out on their violent thoughts.”
Violence directed at Muslim and immigrant communities isn’t new. After 9/11, Islamophobic and xenophobic sentiment spiked in the United States. Much of the vitriol directly impacted South Asians, many of whom are assumed to be Muslim, despite the diversity of the community, which includes those who are Hindu, Sikh, or practice a variety of other faiths.
As South Asians and other communities of color came under attack, a culture of surveillance also grew. Law enforcement officials targeted mosques and neighborhoods in an effort to locate extremists. Those efforts alienated community members and instilled a sense of fear. While some progress has been made — the NYPD reached a settlement in March 2017 in a case accusing the police department of illegally surveilling Muslims — mistrust remains.
Unwillingness to go to law enforcement following harassment or violence skews data on hate crimes, something for which SAALT sought to account. The organization’s findings are based on incidents reported directly to the organization through an online form, an intentional methodology.
“Our communities do not feel safe to report incidents of violence or harassment to the police because they feel the experience may lead to a compounding of their injury at the hands of law enforcement,” Raghunathan explained. “The use of an online form and public hotlines that provide legal support have been effective in providing community members an outlet and sometimes even recourse so they are not suffering in silence after an incident.”
While SAALT’s report focuses predominately on South Asian, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities in the United States, the organization emphasizes the intersectional nature of the violence. Muslim women who choose to cover their heads are disproportionately visible, making them among those most likely to be targeted. Anti-Blackness and colorism — discrimination based on skin tone — also play a major role, according to SAALT’s data.
“Hate violence often occurs at the intersection of anti-Muslim, xenophobic, racist, anti-women and femme, anti-Black, homophobic and transphobic, classist, and casteist systems. In response to these complexities, it is often Muslim, Dalit, Black, queer, and immigrant women and femmes who are leading efforts to fight the onslaught of hate,” the report reads.
Raghunathan cited those intersections as an incentive for coalition-building between communities, highlighting the importance of “building long-term power” across communities of color, and collaborative activism, such as the protests against the rich asshole’s various travel bans, all of which targeted refugees and citizens from a number of predominately Muslim-majority countries.
“It’s important that the nation sees the complete and coordinated attack on our immigration system as a struggle that impacts all of us,” she said, acknowledging the White House’s attacks on the H-1B visa in particular, which allows highly-skilled workers — a disproportionate number of whom are Indian — to stay in the United States. She also pointed to a proposed immigration plan from the White House that would provide protection for more than a million young undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children at the expense of other immigrant communities.
“We must feel equally invested in pushing back against this anti-immigrant agenda as we are with policies such as the Muslim Ban,” she said, emphasizing that immigrant communities should not be pit themselves against one another.
SAALT’s report advocates for a number of measures to prevent against future violence, including the passage of anti-racial profiling legislation and vigilance from the Department of Justice in addressing hate crimes. But Raghunathan said it’s unlikely the trend will slow any time soon.
“We don’t believe the worst is behind us. In just one year we saw a 45 percent increase in hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric from the year leading up to the election,” she said. “White supremacy also remains on the rise, and we are witnessing the resurgence of organized hate groups, particularly anti-Muslim groups, across the country. If this growth continues, emboldened by this administration’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant agenda, we expect to see increasing hate attacks.”
The GOP House Intel chairman wants unlimited transparency for his FBI conspiracy theories, but not for himself.
California Republican Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, has been aggressively abusing his office to protect some rich asshole from the Russia investigation — which House Speaker Paul Ryan has happily let him do, despite Nunes’ initial recusal from the probe.
His latest tactic is to release a memo, ostensibly based on classified info, indicating widespread abuse of surveillance law at the FBI to bring down the rich asshole campaign. The memo is a lie-ridden conspiracy theory, but neither the public nor journalists are equipped to judge its contents, because Nunes blocked the release of a Democratic memo refuting it.
The FBI itself slammed the GOP for its conduct in the matter, in a rare public rebuke from the agency.
Nunes and his allies at the White House claim all of this is in the interest of transparency. But that rings hollow, given how shockingly secretive Nunes himself has proven in his own conduct.
According to NBC reporter Alex Moe, Nunes refused to speak with reporters when they asked him about the committee voting to release the memo. “You have to talk to the Democrats,” he said simply. “They talk to you, I don’t.”
Nunes has even made himself unavailable to his own constituents. According to Town Hall Project, he has declined to hold a single town hall meeting open to the public in his Central Valley district for this entire term.
Incidentally, Nunes’ opponent, local Fresno prosecutor Andrew Janz, has pledged to hold regular town halls with his constituents if elected. And the local paper in his district, the Fresno Bee, has hammered Nunes over his two-faced method of “transparency,” calling him “the rich asshole’s stooge.”
If Nunes truly wants to be a crusader for “transparency,” he cannot only care about it when it is politically convenient for himself and his party.
Accessibility is a part of being an accountable lawmaker — something in which Nunes appears wholly uninterested
‘It grieves me to say it’: Morning Joe condemns John Kelly as just another ‘the rich asshole sycophant’
Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough has finally realized White House chief of staff John Kelly is just another “sycophant” for President some rich asshole.
The “Morning Joe” host said Kelly, a retired U.S. Army general, and House Speaker Paul Ryan had shredded their reputations in service of the president and his efforts to undermine the investigations into his Russia ties.
“Unfortunately, we can’t trust Paul Ryan, and now it grieves me to say it, but Gen. Kelly, a man who has dedicated so much of his life to this country and has given so much to this country,” Scarborough said. “We can’t trust either one of these men to do the right thing.”
Kelly called for the release of a memo prepared by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) the FBI has called purposefully misleading and a danger to national security, but the rich asshole and his GOP allies believe will justify ending the Department of Justice probe.
“You have the Republicans constantly coming at all of us, coming at anybody who dares to try to hold this president accountable, with conspiracy theories, outright lies, loyalty oaths — we saw again, another loyalty oath, this time to (deputy attorney general) Rod Rosenstein, the very man in charge of the investigation of the president,” Scarborough said.
Republicans have called to investigate the FBI to justify the rich asshole complaints about the probe into possible Russian collusion during the election, and Scarborough said the GOP is helping the president gather autocratic powers.
“Republicans and Trumpists, the rich asshole loyalists, are actually investigating the investigators,” he said. “Here you have an autocratic move, you have a president who is under investigation, demanding loyalty of the man in charge of the investigation. That’s not America, that’s Turkey — that happens in Turkey, that happens in Russia, that happens in China. That does not happen here. That’s what the president did.”
Scarborough said the president had asked for an assurance of loyalty from FBI director James Comey and deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, and pushed out both officials when they refused.
“The other one that’s fascinating, (FBI agent) Peter Strzok, who has been put at the center of this deep-state conspiracy theory by the rich asshole sycophants and mouth-breathers on TV, they come up, Devin Nunes comes up with a different conspiracy theory it seems, every time some rich asshole gets in big trouble,” Scarborough said.
the rich asshole and his allies on Capitol Hill and on Fox News say text messages sent by Strzok to another FBI agent prove a conspiracy to take down the president — but a new report seriously undercut those claims.
“We learned yesterday that Peter Strzok supported reopening the investigation helped draft the crucial Comey letter to Congress that ended Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Scarborough said. “Historians will look back — they will say it wasn’t Russia that elected some rich asshole, and it wasn’t this, it wasn’t that — it was that Comey letter that did more to defeat Hillary Clinton than anything else. Peter Strzok, who is supposedly in the middle of this great, Harry Potter-like secret society, deep state conspiracy — he supported that and helped draft the letter that effectively ended Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”
President Obama was better.
some rich asshole’s first State of the Union address might have been one of the longest, but it certainly was not one of the popular.
Which hasn’t stopped him from lying about it.
After a nearly 34-hour silence on Twitter, the rich asshole crowed Thursday, “Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history.”
But the rich asshole’s address wasn’t the highest-watched in history. Not even close. In an all-too-familiar crushing embarrassment for him, the rich asshole fell short of President Barack Obama — again. Obama’s first address in 2010 was viewed by 48 million Americans.
the rich asshole also fell short behind Bill Clinton and George W. Bush too.
the rich asshole spends every day in the shadow of the much more accomplished president who preceded him, and from whose policies he still benefits.
With his pathetic and demonstrably false boast about viewers, the rich asshole went out of his way to remind us all that Obama bested him again. It won’t be the last time.
BY MIKE LILLIS AND NAOMI JAGODA - 02/01/18 06:00 AM EST
Democrats are vowing to undo parts of the GOP’s tax-code overhaul if they win back control of the House in November, hoping President the rich asshole’s first major domestic achievement will be a liability for the Republicans in the midterm elections.
The effort is reminiscent of the Republicans’ long-drawn campaign to hammer away at the Affordable Care Act and turn President Obama’s signature health-care expansion into a down-ballot albatross for the Democrats — an effort that helped the Republicans retake the House with sweeping election victories in 2010.
“We should repeal it and I think we should offer an alternative tax plan, which is we’re going to provide the tax relief to the middle class and the working class,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
Democratic leaders are encouraging their troops to stage district-based tax-reform “teach-ins” designed to convince voters “what this tax scam means to families,” in the words of the direct appeal from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Republicans are ready to hammer Democrats for vowing to repeal much of the tax law, arguing their opponents would be foolish to run on a message of raising taxes.
“I would welcome Democrats running for election based on, ‘Let us slow down the American economy, raise taxes and make sure people’s paychecks are stagnant for another decade,’ ” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told reporters earlier this week.
“That would be a terrible campaign theme for them to run on, but I welcome them to do it,” he said.
Republicans think the new law will ultimately be to their benefit, noting that polls show support growing. A Monmouth University poll found voters evenly split between approval and disapproval of the law, though it also found that more people expect to see their taxes go up than see their taxes go down.
Democrats are offering few details about what a replacement plan would look like, recognizing that legislation to roll back parts of the law won’t get far while the rich asshole is in the White House. But painting in broad strokes, the lawmakers say they want to shift a bulk of the law’s benefits from the wealthy to the middle class.
“The polling on this bill is terrible for them,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). “Americans don’t like it because they think they’re getting crumbs and people like some rich asshole are getting, literally, millions of dollars.”
The tax law the rich asshole signed in December lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. It also lowers rates across the board for individuals and creates a new deduction for income from noncorporate businesses.
No Democrats voted for the law, saying it’s a “scam” that helps the wealthy at the expense of working families. Democrats also resented the partisan process in which the legislation was drafted and a lack of hearings on legislative text.
Democrats are particularly critical of provisions cutting the top individual tax bracket from 39.6 percent to 37 percent and raising the threshold for exemption from the estate tax, both of which benefit wealthy people. They also strongly oppose the cap on the state and local tax deduction, which hurts the rich but also impacts others in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California.
“The state and local tax deduction alone is an assault on the livelihoods and the property values of millions of Americans,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin(D-Md.). “The doubling of the estate tax exemption is a comical giveaway to the richest people in the country. And their territoriality provision is an invitation to businesses to export jobs and to offshore their operations.”
The corporate rate cut poses a question, as Democrats have long supported a reduction — just not one as steep as the GOP bill.
“I agreed to the corporate rate deduction to 25 percent and nothing less,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.).
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters shortly after the tax bill’s passage that he thinks most of the law should be revamped.
“There are probably a small number of provisions we might not repeal,” he said. “It certainly would need drastic overhaul aiming it at the middle class, not the wealthy and powerful.”
Pelosi acknowledged Democrats will need to retake the House to have any chance of repealing and replacing the tax law.
“It may have to be a ‘replace and repeal’ — replace them and repeal the bill,” she said.
But Pelosi also said that, to endure, any tax reforms should be bipartisan. And she left the door open for a low corporate tax rate.
Liberal activists are also getting involved. The Not One Penny coalition has organized a series of events making the case for the need to repeal the “most harmful” provisions in the new law. Several Democratic politicians have participated or are planning to participate in the group’s events, including Pelosi, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.).
Not One Penny spokesman Tim Hogan said Democrats should hit Republicans hard on the tax law in the midterms and work on repeal moving forward.
“It would be wise for Democrats to continue the fight and show that they will do what they can to make sure the economy works for everyone, not just the wealthiest,” he said.
Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, suggested Democrats should be careful not to over-promise. Just as the Republicans had no chance of passing Affordable Care Act repeal while Obama was in the White House, he cautioned, the Democrats face near impossible odds of repealing the Republicans’ tax reforms while the rich asshole holds the veto pen.
“It’s important for us to take back the House and the Senate so we can make that effort,” Levin said. “[But] as long as the president is the president, we’re not going to have two-thirds to override a veto.”
‘We’re done’: MSNBC’s Mika boots Michael Wolff over ‘disgraceful’ innuendo about Nikki Haley and the rich asshole
Michael Wolff and Mika Brzezinski (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski abruptly ended an interview with author Michael Wolff after he refused to take responsibility for hinting that UN ambassador Nikki Haley was having an affair with President some rich asshole.
The author of “Fire and Fury” appeared Thursday on “Morning Joe,” where he discussed a new report about Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks discussing some rich asshole Jr.’s meeting with Russians — which Wolff witnessed himself.
“At one point she and Bannon had a screaming fight, and it was sort of about Bannon said to her, ‘If you don’t go and get a lawyer now, I’m going to call your father and make him get you one,'” Wolff said.
He said Bannon, who has been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, knew everything going on in the White House — and then Republican political strategist Susan Del Percio changed the subject to Haley.
“You said you believed it was true but you had no proof that the president had an affair with someone in his administration,” Del Percio said, and Wolff agreed. “Then you kind of led and indicated that if you follow the bread crumbs you can figure out who it was. After a lot of rumors came out, it was speculation that you meant Nikki Haley, and you said, ‘She’s embraced it.’ Don’t you find it irresponsible at this point in time, where we are as a society, when you’re talking about a woman who’s a high-profile woman in the the rich asshole administration to go after her without any evidence, without any facts, it just seems that it is so irresponsible.”
Wolff insisted he hadn’t accused her of having an affair with the president, but he said it was “puzzling” Haley would deny the relationship — and that’s when Brezinski stepped in.
“I’m going to go as far as to say you might be having a fun time playing a little game dancing around this, but you’re slurring a woman — it’s disgraceful,” Brzezinski said.
Wolff again insisted Haley had been accused of nothing but still denied the affair, but Brzezinski wasn’t buying it.
“Are you kidding me? You’re on the set of ‘Morning Joe’ — we don’t BS here,” she said.
Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg asked whether Wolff had used ambiguous language to hint at the affair, and the author asked them to read what he’d written or said to suggest that.
“Are you kidding? I’m not reading you anything,” Brzezinski said. “If you don’t get what we’re talking about — I’m sorry, this is awkward. You’re here on the set with us, but we’re done. Michael Wolff, thank you. We’re going to go to break now. Bye, everyone.”
Wolff snapped back at Brzezinski a short time later on Twitter.
the rich asshole uses people of color as props to defend his racist policies
Facts only get in the way of what the rich asshole is selling to his most-coveted supporters.
After a year in the White House during which he has repeatedly used racially divisive rhetoric to appeal to his far-right adorers, President some rich asshole wanted Americans to believe his first State of the Union address was an effort to unite the nation.
“So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, religion, and creed,” the rich asshole said Tuesday.
Nothing in the speech truly helped to heal the deepening rift between the rich asshole and the many communities of color that have already been harmed by his words, actions, and behavior in office. In fact, he might have made matters worse by trotting out people of color throughout the speech to serve as props for his racist immigration policies.
Indeed, as evidenced by their stone-faced reactions, members of the Congressional Black Caucus weren’t impressed with much of what the rich asshole said during his nearly hour-and-half oration, and they quickly condemned the speech the next morning.
“President the rich asshole is still who we thought he was and we won’t be fooled by this speech,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), chairman of the black caucus, told reporters Wednesday. “The Congressional Black Caucus can now answer the question he posed to the African American community in 2016 with 100 percent certainty: African Americans have a lot to lose under the the rich asshole administration and we have lost a lot already, especially when it comes to his justice, voting rights, education, housing, and health care polices.”
Of course, the rich asshole isn’t seeking approval from the black caucus or, by extension, African American voters. Instead, his talk of unity is aimed at shoring up uber-conservatives in Congress who are dependent on the slice of white, far-right Americans who remain supportive of the rich asshole and his racist policies. The New York Times noted, “[a]s he took the dias at the Capitol, some rich asshole had the weakest approval rating of any president of the modern era entering his second year in office, with 37 percent of Americans approving of his performance in the job.”
In an effort to shore up his standing with his base, the rich asshole’s speech displayed his huckster roots, showcasing a cavalcade of individuals and families drawn from communities of color to hide the not-so-subtle racism embedded in his immigration policies. Most prominent among them were pairs of grieving parents, Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens, who are African American, and Evelyn Rodriguez and Freddy Cuevas, who are Latino; the rich asshole said both couples’ daughters were killed by MS-13 gang members. Then there was Celestino “CJ” Martinez, a special agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, who was cited by the rich asshole for his skill at rooting out violent immigrant gangs.
These people were used by the rich asshole to sell his noxious argument that immigrants cause violent crime in America. It’s a misleading message that has been central to his political rise and one that continues to resonate with his base supporter. Fact of the matter, study after study have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes in the United States than native-born residents.
But facts only get in the way of what the rich asshole is selling to his most-coveted supporters, who want to believe the president is keeping them safe from nonexistent dangers. In turn, the rich asshole tells ardent and faithful white fans that they have reason to be afraid of immigrants and he is doing all he can to protect them from murder and mayhem. To close the deal, the rich asshole calls upon sets of black and Latino families willing to stand up and receive applause for their personal tragedies. And, as a byproduct, the rich asshole is shielded from charges of racism.
So protected, the rich asshole felt liberated to implicitly link family reunification under current immigration policies with violent crime. “For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities,” the rich asshole said. “They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.”
Minutes later, in what was perhaps the most offensive and insensitive comment of all, the rich asshole elevated white American fears of immigrants over the desire of Dreamers, or recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too,” the rich asshole said with a churlish grin.
If there was any doubt for whom such fork-tongued language was intended, the celebratory tweet from white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke makes clear the president hit the mark with the audience he wants most to satisfy.
And it makes it equally apparent that by stoking the fears and embracing the applause of his racist, white nationalist base, this president is unwilling and incapable of uniting a racially polarized nation.
In every way, the rich asshole just can't measure up to President Barack Obama.
some rich asshole’s first official State of the Union speech was not only a dark and depressing litany of lies and smears — it was also a ratings failure, as he lost once again to President Barack Obama.
Preliminary data shows that 40.4 million people watched the rich asshole deliver his speech across broadcast and cable outlets.
In January of 2010, over 48 million people tuned in to watch President Obama’s first official State of the Union.
It is the latest area where the rich asshole falls far behind his immediate predecessor. Attempting to undo Obama’s accomplishments has become one of the driving forces of the rich asshole’s tenure, as he has tried to erase the 44th president’s legacy even if America gets hurt in the process.
The State of the Union failure will now live alongside the rich asshole’s poorly attended and viewed inauguration, along with his record-breakingly awful first year approval ratings — the lowest since it has been measured.
the rich asshole is not liked, his agenda has largely failed to attract votes, and the amount of people who want to see him speak is dwindling.
He has spent the last year wholeheartedly embracing racism while also working to push tax giveaways to the ultra-rich and take away health care from millions.
That’s on top of convictions of his top campaign aides while his own attempts to obstruct an ongoing federal investigation into election meddling continue to come to life.
Congressional Republicans are retiring at a record pace, rather than face a wave of anti-the rich asshole voters, while his own White House staff can’t turn in their resignations quickly enough.
To show how poorly the rich asshole did, he could not even match his own previous performance, with viewership well below his joint address to Congress.
Of course, that speech also underperformed President Obama. By nearly 5 million.
He just can’t measure up. Sad!
All the lies on immigration the rich asshole told in the State of the Union
"Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives."
President some rich asshole’s speech Tuesday night at the State of the Union left one thing clear: there is still no consensus on how to overhaul the immigration system.
the rich asshole focused on the White House’s recent new immigration proposal, first released last week, and said it “will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.” The pillars of the proposal are: a pathway to earned citizenship for certain immigrants who came to the country as children; funding for a $25 billion trust to enforce restrictive border security measures; the elimination of the diversity visa lottery, which supplies 55,000 total visas for countries that do not generally send many people to the United States; and new limits on the family-based reunification system.
But the White House proposal, and the way the rich asshole talked about it, simply do not match the reality on immigration today. Here’s how he was wrong on all four pillars:
Pathway to citizenship
What the rich asshole said: “The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age — that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration.”
Facts on the ground: The Obama administration supported a comprehensive immigration reform bill that offered an earned pathway to citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants beyond the younger generation of immigrants known as “Dreamers.” That bill would have covered immigrants who aged out of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program but similarly came to the country as children. That 2013 bill, which passed the Senate with a majority vote, never made it to the House floor under the leadership of then-Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). That bill polled well with Americans, including 74 percent of people according to a Fox News poll.
the rich asshole announced an end to the DACA program in September — leaving the lives of 800,000 young people in limbo. The issue is still tied up in the courts.
Border security
What the rich asshole said: “The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border… Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country — and it finally ends the dangerous practice of “catch and release.”
Facts on the ground: “Catch and release” is an unofficial term that refers to the apprehension of border crossers and “releasing” them instead of detaining them until they are done with their immigration court proceedings. The program officially ended in 2006 and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began holding more people in detention while they wait for their court proceedings.
the rich asshole has accused his predecessor of engaging in the practice in the past. But actually, under the Obama administration, DHS used “rapid removal procedures” to detain people at record-high levels, according to a 2016 American Immigration Lawyers Association fact sheet, which found that the average number of people detained for immigration violations was 37,350 people, or an increase of 74 percent since the end of the “catch and release” program. According to the same AILA document, the individuals DHS typically release are asylum seekers, families, and children, with the use of alternatives to detention like ankle bracelets to monitor immigrants on the rise.
Diversity visa lottery
What the rich asshole said: “The third pillar ends the visa lottery — a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system — one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.”
Facts on the ground: As ThinkProgress previously reported, the diversity visa annually awards 55,000 visas and mostly benefits Africans and Eastern Europeans. The diversity lottery has long been a program that helps workers without college education to enter the country. For proponents, the program is a good thing because it helps recognize skills that may not be acknowledged as “being particularly proficient but they are.”
“For instance, people who do construction work learn on the job and they learn differently than U.S. workers learn, and there aren’t mechanisms by which those skills could be measured,” Deborah Weissman, professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told U.S. News.
Family reunification
What the rich asshole said: “The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children.”
Facts on the ground: The the rich asshole administration has brought back the outdated term “chain migration” to denigrate the process of family-based reunification which allows people who live in the United States to sponsor visas for their relatives. In theory, this kind of immigration process could allow someone to bring in an immediate family member, for example a brother who eventually becomes a U.S. citizen, and that brother can then bring in a child. In practice, the process could take decades.
As of January 2018, the U.S. government is still processing applications from the 1990s for family members, as seen in the chart obtained from the Department of State website below. The F1 category refers to unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens; the F2A category refers to spouses and children of permanent residents (or green card holders); the F2B category refers to the unmarried children of permanent residents; the F3 category refers to married children of U.S. citizens; and the F4 category refers to siblings of U.S. citizens. As the chart states, the United States is still processing sponsorship applications from March 1995 — or about 23 years ago — for U.S. citizens to sponsor their Filipino siblings.
the rich asshole barely acknowledged Puerto Rico at the State of the Union. It’s not going over well.
Latinx leaders aren't happy.
Latinx leaders and lawmakers slammed President the rich asshole’s State of the Union speech after the president made only one throwaway reference to the struggles hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico is facing.
The remark came one day after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced it would end food and water aid to Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from damage incurred during Category 4 Hurricane Maria.
“To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else, we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together,” the rich asshole said Tuesday night, near the beginning of his hour and a half-long speech. He then rattled off the names of states and territories impacted by climate disasters last year before quickly moving on to other topics — none of which were Puerto Rico.
That dismissal went over poorly with a number of officials. Puerto Rico is worse off than any other part of the United States right now and the president’s decision to ignore the island enraged lawmakers and advocates alike, especially within the Latinx community.
“Over the past [four] months, this President has neglected Puerto Rico and the reality that he has presided over the worst humanitarian crisis in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina,” José Calderón, president of the Hispanic Federation, said in a statement following the speech. “Today, he made a quick passing reference to being with and even loving the people of Puerto Rico, along with other disaster-stricken American territories. These represent empty words from an empty President who has proven incapable of leading a necessary project of relief, recovery and reconstruction in Puerto Rico.”
He added, “Mr. President, please don’t say you stand with us when you continue to fail to provide Puerto Rico the basic resources it needs and deserves to heal.”
Calderón wasn’t alone in his frustration.
“I was hoping for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico, but I heard nothing,” said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL). “Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this president sees all Latinos and people of color: He does not see us as his equals, and he does not see us as fellow human beings.”
Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL), who brought as his guest Claudia Baez, a woman who was forced to leave Puerto Rico after the hurricane, said he hoped Baez’s presence would inspire others to remember the island. When that didn’t happen, Soto expressed his disappointment on Twitter.
“As @realDonaldTrump tells the people of Puerto Rico at #SOTU ‘we love you & we stand with you,’ he is allowing FEMA to stop providing food and water aid overnight!” Soto wrote.
FEMA’s decision to end food and water aid to Puerto Rico comes as the island continues to languish, more than 130 days after the hurricane first made landfall. Hospitals and schools are struggling to operate and many on the island lack access to electricity. Twenty percent of the island is still without potable water.
NPR reported that FEMA would be ending aid on Monday, but the news only began to circulate on Tuesday. Following the rich asshole’s speech, lawmakers pointed to the decision as further proof of White House negligence.
“After one of the worst humanitarian crises in our nation’s history, @realDonaldTrump just mentions #PuertoRico in #SOTU, saying he “loves ” those recovering – on same day it comes out FEMA is cutting off help. Shameful!” Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), the first Puerto Rican to be elected to Congress, tweeted during the rich asshole’s speech.
After one of the worst humanitarian crises in our nation's history, @realDonaldTrump just mentions #PuertoRico in #SOTU, saying he "loves " those recovering - on same day it comes out FEMA is cutting off help. Shameful!
One of the rich asshole’s biggest critics, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, was in attendance for the president’s speech as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) guest. Cruz has repeatedly criticized the rich asshole’s failure to help Puerto Rico and she didn’t hold back Tuesday night.
“Not even a mention on PR & FEMA will stop providing food and water tomorrow,” she tweeted. “We are not in the Republican radar. We must double the fight.”
“Mr the rich asshole lives a reality of his own not shared by most. He is definitely in ‘wonderland,'” she added moments later.
Actor and activist Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Republican strategist Ana Navarro also retweeted condemnations of the rich asshole’s decision to bypass any real mention of Puerto Rico on Tuesday night.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are lobbying FEMA to reverse its decision to end food and water aid to Puerto Rico. The government of Puerto Rico said on Tuesday that while officials were aware aid would eventually end, the announcement came as a surprise. FEMA officials themselves have offered conflicting information. In an email to NPR last week, an agency spokesperson said that food and water aid would end on January 31, at which point the mission would “officially shut off.”
FEMA spokesman William Booher contradicted that statement on Wednesday, telling the Associated Press that the agency was in fact still deciding when to formalize the decision to end the aid.
UPDATE: In a reversal, Puerto Rico’s government announced on Wednesday that an agreement has been reached with FEMA to “maintain the distribution of aid to communities that still need it.” Secretary for the Department of Public Security Hector Pesquera said that Puerto Rico is “confidant that FEMA will continue to provide the necessary assistance” to the island.
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