the rich asshole’s 2020 campaign manager and favorite NYT reporter just threw down on Twitter — here’s the exchange
Maggie Haberman and Brad Parscale/Screenshots
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some rich asshole’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, just had a heated exchange with the president’s favorite New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman.
The beef regarded the rich asshole’s poll numbers. the rich asshole is the least-popular president of all time, but his allies have pushed hard against these numbers, cherry-picking polls and putting on a brave face.
In reply to Haberman tweeting about trump’s poor polling, Parscale responded that the rich asshole’s numbers are “higher than they have been in 12+ months” and that Democrats are now supporting him.
In my data his numbers are higher than they have been in 12+ months. The republican base is solid. We have doubled Democrat support from earlier in the year and independents are seeing the change they wanted. He is winning again just like I predicted in the 16 election. twitter.com/maggienyt/stat…
He then attacked her sourcing.
Welcome. Ask your so-called sources, I know who, who they thought was going to win in 16. Both your sources were playing the press setting themselves up for the loss. I did the opposite and put my whole life on the line, knowing that @realDonaldTrump was going to win. twitter.com/maggienyt/stat…
Haberman then responded that Parscale did not understand her sourcing—but that she appreciated him confirming that he had told the rich asshole his numbers were higher than ever.
I say this with respect, sir - you have no idea who we are talking to. twitter.com/parscale/statu…
I appreciate the confirmation that you’ve told him his numbers are the best they’ve ever been. twitter.com/parscale/statu…
What you were responding to was a tweet where I said you don't know who we're talking to. You said, "Oh I know" as the first part of your response. I suspect we both have better uses of our day today, sir. Have a good one. twitter.com/parscale/statu…
They both then told each other to have a good day.
Have a good day ma’am. twitter.com/maggienyt/stat…
You previously acknowledged you don’t know who we are talking to, so this tweet is hard to scan. But if you think we are only talking to two people, that would be a mistake. Regardless, have a good weekend. twitter.com/parscale/statu…
Here is what the rich asshole really means when he cries ‘fake news!’
some rich asshole (Youtube)
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One of the distinguishing traits of the troll-style politics that dominates the rich asshole-era conservatism is the utter disregard for any values outside of winning at all costs and, perhaps even more importantly, defeating liberals. Decency, political norms and truth itself are all treated as acceptable casualties in the endless quest to fuck with the left.
This article was originally posted at Salon
But while many of the excesses of the right seem new, the reality is that the Trumpian right is just the outgrowth from roots laid years, even decades ago, in the American right. The racism and sexism, the conspiracy theories, the harping about political correctness? All of it goes back decades and is only exploding out of control now because the right wing political infrastructure has let these foul ideologies and stupid ideas flourish for so long.
Nowhere is this more obvious than when it comes to some rich asshole’s war on the media. All his lies and outrageous accusations can be traced directly back to decades of right-wing pundits and politicians encouraging conservative voters to believe that mainstream media sources have a “liberal bias” and are not to be trusted. the rich asshole simply takes it to the next level, dispensing with the notion that truth and facts themselves are relevant and insisting that the validity of a news report depends entirely on how flattering he finds it.
“Fake news” started as a banal term, invented by Buzzfeed reporters, to describe fabricated stories that were being passed off by hoaxsters as real news reports. Soon, however, the rich asshole, whose ego was bruised by hearing that fake news had helped elect him, started aggressively using the term “fake news” to demonize any news he disapproves of. Soon, the usage was picked up across the right, and now the term is almost exclusively used to mean news that is actually true, but which conservatives reject for ideological reasons.
It’s particularly disconcerting to witness the way conservatives yell “fake news” at every unfavorable news story with an unmitigated glee. They know that cavalierly dismissing obviously factual stories as “fake” really aggravates liberals, and trolling the left is, for right-wingers circa 2018, an activity more pleasurable than sex.
Calling obviously true news “fake news” is gaslighting, a form of manipulation where the manipulator tells blatant lies to the victim and, when called out, stands by the lies, often blaming the target’s supposed mental damage if the target insists that the truth is true.
Gaslighting people, especially women, by calling them “crazy” for rejecting his lies is a favorite practice of the rich asshole’s. He’s questioned the sanity of Mika Brzezinski, Megyn Kelly, Maureen Dowd and Bernie Sanders, among others, for the high crime of saying things about him that happened to be true.
“In authoritarian governments,” Brian Klaas writes in “The Despot’s Apprentice,” gaslighting “aims to force citizens to question their own sanity, rather than the government’s narrative. Winston’s experience in ‘1984’ was an example of systematic gaslighting.”
Most authoritarian governments go about gaslighting with the utmost seriousness, using the power of the state and social pressure to get citizens to agree, like Winston in “1984,” that 2+2=5. The “fake news” gambit, however, is something different and possibly new. Rather than trying to induce insanity by making liberals question reality itself, conservatives are trying to make liberals go crazy by trolling them. All conservatives need to do is keep a straight face while insisting that they believe that 2+2=5, and liberals will exhaust all their mental and emotional reserves trying to explain that no, really, 2+2=4. Eventually, conservatives will point to the frazzled, distraught state of liberals begging people to believe that 2+2=4 and laugh and say, “What a nutjob!”
What are conservatives thinking when they call something “fake news”? What is the rich asshole thinking? It’s hard to imagine conservatives literally believe that the media is making stories up about the the rich asshole-Russia investigation or that the rich asshole had smaller inauguration crowds than Obama. Instead, the Republican war on media needs to be understood more as a rejection of truth as a value. To call something “fake news” isn’t to say that it’s real or not real, but a way of indicating that truth itself doesn’t matter — that the only thing that matters is loyalty to the rich asshole and the right-wing tribe. Telling lies, in fact, is recast as a fun, sporting way to annoy liberals, and to punish liberals for their goody-two-shoes politically correct insistence that facts matter.
Dan Kahan, a Yale professor of law and psychology, runs the Cultural Cognition Project, a research project dedicated to studying how things like identity and social values shape people’s understanding of facts. When I interviewed him in 2016 about the tendency of the rich asshole supporters to proudly declare their allegiance to false, often plainly ridiculous beliefs, he explained that, for many conservatives, saying these kinds of things is a “kind of middle finger” to liberals and less an expression of their real-world understanding of empirical fact.
For instance, a 2014 study published in Public Opinion Quarterly found that a conservative’s answer to questions about Obama’s birthplace was heavily shaped by what he thought the purpose of the question was. If the researchers presented the question as a quiz about how knowledgeable the subjects were of political facts, and the subjects felt they were being judged based on the accuracy of the answers, conservatives were more likely to give the correct answer (Hawaii). But when, the researchers wrote, the question was framed in political terms, more conservatives saw it as “an opportunity to express anti-Obama sentiment by challenging the legitimacy of his presidency.”
Claiming Obama was born in Kenya isn’t experienced by a lot of conservatives as a direct statement of belief about the material facts. It’s that espousing birtherism satisfies the emotional desire to undermine a black man’s legitimate claim to the Oval Office, without having to come out and plainly state that the birther doesn’t believe black people should be eligible to hold office.
“People have a stake in some position being true,” Kahan told me, “because the status of their group or their standing in it depends on that answer.”
“Part of the reason they might be doing it is because they know it’s really going to get an aversive response from people who have an alternative identity and who know that’s the true answer,” he added.
In other words, they’re trolling.
Everyone does this, it must be said, to some degree. We all, liberal or conservative, sometimes say things because that’s what’s expected of us and not because it’s what we really think or believe. But the gap between left and right has widened dramatically in recent years, to the point where conservatives, particularly the rich asshole loyalists, flatly reject the idea that truth even matters.
“If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me the rich asshole is with Russia,” one the rich asshole supporter told CNN a year after the election, “I would tell him, ‘Hold on a second. I need to check with the President if it’s true.’”
Of course, your average secularist liberal might quibble with the idea that Jesus Christ has some special access to the empirical truth, but let’s just glide past that to look at what this man’s metaphor is conveying: He’s basically admitting that he values the rich asshole’s instructions on what to believe over what a god who is forbidden to lie is telling him. His expression is a fanciful way of saying that he simply doesn’t care what is true. All he cares about is believing what the rich asshole tells him to believe.
Reading the quote on the page is one thing, but watching the video really shows how clever this man thought this line was. It felt like a practiced line, a joke he trotted out for the knowing chuckles of his fellow the rich asshole lovers. The anchor who asked the question hadn’t even mentioned Russia, but the rich asshole supporter just knew he had this killer line and goddammit, he was going to say it on live TV. It worked as hoped on his fellow panelists, most of whom smiled in shared satisfaction.
And why shouldn’t they? Liberals were bound to hear that line and go absolutely bonkers. Every time a liberal works himself into an outrage, right-wingers count that as a win, even if the cost of provoking that reaction is playing a chucklehead on national television.
Against this backdrop, mainstream media doesn’t even have a chance. Journalists can carefully double check all their facts and gather multiple reliable sources for any report, but if the story is ideologically inconvenient for conservatives, it will be dismissed as “fake news.” Truth is something those liberals care about, and refusing to care about anything liberals care about is a point of pride for troll nation.
The utter shamelessness of conservatives on this front can be breathtaking, but this contempt for truth was not a trait that was formed overnight. Instead, it took years of careful propaganda, geared at provoking conservative insecurities and resentments, to get right-wingers to the point where they care less about facts than they care about sticking it to those liberals.
Complaints about mainstream media bias against conservatives have been aired on the right for decades. Historian Nicole Hemmer traced the narrative back to the 1940s, when a nascent conservative media emerged in publishing and radio, fueled by arguments that it was necessary to have this right wing media to balance against a mainstream media hopelessly distorted by liberal bias.
In the 1960s, Hemmer argued in the Atlantic, conservatives decided, in addition to having a media of their own, they “would also have to discredit existing media.”
At stake was the Fairness Doctrine, which the FCC adopted in 1949 to encourage political debate on TV and radio. The rule was fairly straightforward: If a show or station had a conservative viewpoint, equal time was to be offered to a liberal viewpoint. (Or vice versa.) But, as Hemmer explained, conservatives “viewed objectivity as a mask concealing entrenched liberal bias, hiding the slanted reporting that dominated American media. Because of this, the right believed fairness did not require a response to conservative broadcasts; conservative broadcasts were the response.”
This belief, that any view not explicitly conservative must be liberal, has become the first station of the right wing cross of victimhood. Mainstream media sources have, in the decades since, bent over backwards to assure conservative audiences that it isn’t true, to no avail.
Trying to convince the right that mainstream media isn’t biased towards the left has often reached levels of absurdity. The New York Times repeatedly fell into this trap during the 2016 campaign, running stories on Hillary Clinton that were poorly sourced, speculative or based on rumor — usually pitched to them by right wing sources. Shoddy stories about her health, her emails and the Clinton Foundation that would have never passed the pitch meeting if they were about a Republican instead of a Democratic candidate routinely made it to the front page of the New York Times.
It’s likely not because the newspaper is secretly conservative, but because The New York Times editors are so overeager to disprove accusations of liberal bias that they give conservative-friendly stories a handicap that would never be given to any other kind of story.
Fox News, still the country’s most popular propaganda outlet, built its entire brand on this notion that any media that doesn’t have an explicitly conservative viewpoint is inherently liberal. The network’s motto for decades, “fair and balanced,” intrinsically accused other media sources of being anything but fair and balanced.
It was a nifty little trick. A motto like that not only demonizes more even-handed media sources, but it implies that there’s something more trustworthy about the information Fox News is handing out. Repeated studies, however, show that Fox News viewers are less informed about the news than other news consumers. A 2016 study from Fairleigh Dickinson University actually demonstrated that people who took in no news at all were better informed about current events than Fox News viewers. (NPR listeners were the best informed.)
Fox News works primarily as a propaganda outlet whose viewers have an almost cult-like loyalty. Anyone who has conservative friends or relatives over the age of 50 has probably witnessed the way that Fox News has become the wallpaper of red state life, turned on all day to pipe out a steady stream of balderdash. The ratings bear this impression out. For 16 years now, Fox News has been the number one cable news network.
But Fox News does more than indoctrinate elderly white people day in and out. Even though it’s dropped it’s provocative “fair and balanced” slogan, the existence of the channel helps feed this narrative that all other media is hopelessly biased towards the left. That narrative, in turn, is used to guilt-trip mainstream media into publishing or broadcasting conservative misinformation in a fruitless bid to seem more fair and balanced themselves.
And yet, the fact that the rich asshole coalition (Fox News included) has no real views beyond wanting to damage liberals doesn’t mean they don’t present a very serious threat. It’s clear that it’s led the country to this point where our free press is being regularly threatened by the president and his supporters, who have convinced themselves that responsible journalism is just one more annoying liberal affectation that needs to be destroyed. Their anger is ridiculous, but they still have the power to turn their silly bigotries into real life attacks on the journalistic institutions that protect our democracy.
‘Putin has no further use for the rich asshole’: CNN analyst explains why the rich asshole Tower lawyer just admitted Kremlin connections
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin speaks on a panel moderated by Megyn Kelly/Screenshot
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Why did Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya just admit that she’s a Russian informant?
A CNN panel discussed that today, with everyone agreeing that it was something Putin wanted her to do—and wondering aloud whether it’s just to sow more chaos, or if there is a greater strategy at play.
Brain Karem, said his sources are indicating that this may be the next phase in Putin’s efforts to undermine the United States by exposing his help of the rich asshole and further delegitimizing him.
“What this may signal is that Putin has no more use for the rich asshole,” he said. “The timing was specifically made for after he was exhorted in Congress…
This may be further psy-ops, said panelist Ryan Lizza, who pointed out that Vladimir Putin has a long record of denying and later admitting his actions.
“This is part of a vast covert action campaign run out of the Kremlim,” said panelist Robert Baer. “They’re using these proxies, like this lawyer… the old model of using the KGB has been dropped… Putin is bragging about this.”
Watch below.
the rich asshole Just Insulted A Bunch Of Disabled People To Their Faces
Remember when the rich asshole made fun of a disabled reporter during one of his campaign rallies? Who doesn’t? Well, he just took making fun of differently-abled people to a whole new level.
the rich asshole invited a bunch of Paralympic athletes to the White House Friday for two reasons: he needed a photo-op he could use to further his own image and he thought it would be fun to effectively have some fish in a barrel to shoot. During a meeting with the athletes, the rich asshole just couldn’t help himself:
“What happened with the Paralympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me. And I watched — it’s a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.”
Naturally, this didn’t sit well with anyone with a single ounce of human decency — especially the organizers of the Paralympics, who took President Stable Genius to the cleaners over his horrible remark about how “tough” it is to watch their talented athletes giving it their all.
“Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch,” the organizers tweeted on Saturday. “Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics.”
Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch. Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics. twitter.com/Paralympics/st…
Naturally, like everyone The rich asshole insults, they demonstrated more class than he ever will. Like the rest of us, we’re sure that they find his disgrace of a presidency “tough to watch.”
What Fresh Hell?: The Church of the rich asshole edition
some rich asshole and male members of the Saudi royal family place their hands on a glowing orb (Photo: Twitter.com)
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Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House.
This week, there was an unusual kerfuffle on Capitol Hill when House Speaker Paul Ryan quietly fired Patrick Conroy, the Catholic priest who had served as House Chaplain since 2011. Conroy’s crime, apparently, was committed during debate over the GOP’s tax scam, when he prayed for Congress to “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.” Ryan, a Roman Catholic, apparently saw this anodyne suggestion as a grave sin against the holy texts of Ayn Rand.
The story then took an even odder turn when Rep. Mark Walker, an Evangelical Christian from North Carolina who’s leading the search for a replacement, said that he thought the next House Chaplin should be a family man. This, of course, eliminates the possibility that another “papist,” who took an oath of celibacy, could get the gig.
“Some Catholic Democrats erupted upon hearing Walker’s comments,” reported Scott Wong for The Hill. “Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said some lawmakers had surmised that Ryan’s move was designed to appease anti-Catholic sentiments in the GOP conference. Walker, Connolly said, ‘is now confirming our fears.’”
This little Thirty Years War is brewing in The House as some rich asshole — a pervy, foul-mouthed casino mogul who has five kids by three different women and screws porn stars on the side — continues to enjoy unprecedented support among devout Evangelical Christians. There have been a few theories offered to explain this apparent disconnect. In The Financial Times [paywall], Gillian Tett writes that some observers “point to the ‘prodigal son’ phenomenon. Yes, evangelicals know that the rich asshole is ungodly, goes this argument, but we are all sinners — and the rich asshole may yet repent.” Another theory, says Tett, is that “evangelicals are courting the rich asshole because they fear they are losing political clout. Issues such as gay marriage have put them on the back foot, and the proportion of the population who call themselves evangelical plunged to 17 percent in 2017, down from 23 percent a decade ago.” So they’re sticking with him in the hope that the rich asshole will Make Conservative Christianity Great Again.
Perhaps he can assign the task to Jared Kushner — he could get right on it after he solves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the opioid crisis. Thankfully, it doesn’t require a security clearance.
Another theory, proposed by sociologist Francesca Tripodi, is that Evangelicals process all the daily horrors of this regime through a different lens than the rest of us. She wrote that Evangelicals she had observed in the field “consumed a wide variety of news sources and applied their critical interrogation of the Bible to what they were reading, watching, and listening to.” She argues that this is a group of religionists who not only have an abiding distrust for the media but are also taught to engage in “deep reading” of original Biblical texts rather than relying on interpretations of the scripture. Tripodi visited an Evangelical study group that was applying the same technique to the labyrinthian text of the GOP’s tax bill. “I’ve seen hundreds of Conservative Evangelicals apply the same critique they use for the Bible, arguably a postmodern method of unpacking a text, to mainstream media — favoring their own research on topics rather than trusting media authorities,” she writes.
But a paper published in January in the journal Sociology of Religion found a different angle. The authors of the study, titled “Make Christianity Great Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for some rich asshole in the 2016 Presidential Election,” argued that it’s all about Christian nationalism – “an ideology that fuses Christians’ love of God and country,” according to HuffPo’s Carol Kuruvilla. “It hinges on the narrative that the United States has a special covenant with the Christian God.”
This ideology has emerged at various times in U.S. history, but a distinct, aggressive iteration seems to have materialized in the the rich asshole era… This most recent version rejects secular society and seeks to restore America’s identity as a “Christian nation” by leveraging Christians’ influence in the public sphere. Some of the rich asshole’s strongest evangelical supporters believe the president was divinely chosen by God to help them achieve the goal of a Christian nation.[The] research indicates that Americans who believed in several key tenets of Christian nationalism had a strong likelihood of voting for the rich asshole. This was true even when the research team controlled for other influences, like political ideology and party affiliation.The findings suggest that Christian nationalism is a “unique and independent influence” that led to the the rich asshole presidency.
It goes without saying that in the Christian nationalist’s view, America has no room for dirty atheists, Jews, Muslims and people who adhere to other faiths, and certainly no room for the LGBTQ community.
So that’s what we’re dealing with, and their belief that the rich asshole will restore the kinds of values that he’s never adhered to in his long life of privileged debauchery is why they’ll stick with him until the Rapture takes them away, or he’s impeached, whichever comes first.
*****
Newly minted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Islamophobia and dishonesty about his military record got lots of attention during the confirmation process. But Ken Klippenstein reported for The Young Turks that when Pompeo was the CIA director, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) “received complaints from CIA personnel about Pompeo’s introduction of overtly religious behavior into the workplace, including Rapture references.” MRFF founder Michael Weinstein said, “He is intolerant of anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist Christian. The people that worked under him at the CIA that came to us were never confused—they never had time to be confused. They were shocked and then they were scared shitless.”
*****
Meanwhile, Amy Littlefield reports for Rewire News that in North Carolina, “crisis pregnancy centers” – phony clinics designed to lure pregnant women away from real healthcare facilities that may offer abortion services or referrals – are using federal funds to purchase religiously-tinted “educational materials” for pregnant women.
To truly appreciate the blatant hypocrisy of all this, you need to understand that the religious right has long claimed that any federal funds used for contraception, abortion or international family planning programs abridges their religious liberty by forcing them to subsidize things they find sinful. One group took a case all the way to the Supreme Court arguing that just signing a piece of paper saying that they object to Obamacare’s contraception mandate was itself a burden on their faith.
By their own logic, every public penny directed at these anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers” is a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty for every pro-choice tax payer. But don’t expect a “conscience clause” to be introduced for those Americans anytime soon.
*****
Robert Pear reported for The New York Times this week that the rich asshole regime “says it plans to roll back a rule issued by President Barack Obama that prevents doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies from discriminating against transgender people.” So the regime is objectively pro-discrimination. Let’s not mince words.
*****
Let me quote some scripture at you. “For the Lord your God…loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing,” reads Deuteronomy 10:18-19. “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Also: “Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.” [Deuteronomy 1:16]
Oh well…
“Federal agents ignored President the rich asshole’s pledge to protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children by sending a young man back to his native Mexico,” according to USA Today. “After spending an evening with his girlfriend in Calexico, Calif., on Feb. 17, Juan Manuel Montes, 23, who has lived in the U.S. since age 9, grabbed a bite and was waiting for a ride when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer approached and started asking questions.” This week, he was deported “back” to a country he barely knows.
At least ten other Dreamers are in federal custody awaiting deportation, according to the report.
*****
Let’s talk about family values for a moment. Maria Sacchetti reports for WaPo that “the nation’s top immigration and border officials are urging Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to detain and prosecute all parents caught crossing the Mexican border illegally with their children, a stark change in policy that would result in the separation of families that until now have mostly been kept together.”
*****
What happens to the kids who are separated from their families in the process of coming to this “country of immigrants”? In some cases, nobody knows. Ron Nixon reports for The New York Times that the Department of Health and Human Services has “lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children it placed with sponsors in the United States, raising concerns they could end up in the hands of human traffickers or be used as laborers by people posing as relatives.”
That is really some fresh Hell.
*****
Let me again speak clearly: ICE — Immigration and Customs enforcement — is a rogue agency that should be abolished.
The LA Times: “[ICE] agents repeatedly target U.S. citizens for deportation by mistake, making wrongful arrests based on incomplete government records, bad data and lax investigations,…”
A Times review of Department of Justice records and interviews with immigration attorneys uncovered hundreds of additional cases … in which people were forced to prove they are Americans and sometimes spent months or even years in detention.Victims include a landscaper snatched in a Home Depot parking lot in Rialto and held for days despite his son’s attempts to show agents the man’s U.S. passport; a New York resident locked up for more than three years fighting deportation efforts after a federal agent mistook his father for someone who wasn’t a U.S. citizen; and a Rhode Island housekeeper mistakenly targeted twice, resulting in her spending a night in prison the second time even though her husband had brought her U.S. passport to a court hearing.They and others described the panic and feeling of powerlessness that set in as agents took them into custody without explanation and ignored their claims of citizenship.
One US citizen was locked up for almost four years — 1,273 days – trying to prove that he wasn’t an “illegal.” #AbolishICE
*****
According to a report by The Intercept’s Debbie Nathan, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has also been cooking the books, wildly inflating statistics tracking assaults on their officers in order to bolster the rich asshole’s blather about how crazy criminal aliens are running amok in our heavily militarized Southern border region.
*****
Some people argue that the rich asshole’s militarized xenophobia is “un-American,” or doesn’t reflect the values invoked on the Statue of Liberty — give us your poor, etc.. But that lady is French, for crying out loud, and the reality is that the children and grandchildren of immigrants and settlers have always been hostile toward newcomers. It’s really as American as apple pie.
The difference is that it’s 2018, we’re an increasingly diverse country, and, as with virtually every other negative aspect of American life, Marmalade Mugabe’s turned this shit up to 11.
the rich asshole: If Dems win in 2018 midterms, they'll impeach me
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 04/28/18 09:07 PM EDT
President the rich asshole said Saturday that Republicans need to maintain the House majority, otherwise he could face impeachment from Democrats.
“We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him,’” the rich asshole said at a Michigan rally on Saturday.
President @realDonaldTrump: "We have to keep the House, because if you listen to @MaxineWaters, she goes around saying, 'We will impeach him, we will impeach him.'"
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) often calls for the rich asshole to resign or face impeachment.
Last week at the Time 100 gala in New York, Waters urged the rich asshole to “please resign.”
“So that I won’t have to keep up this fight of your having to be impeached because I don’t think you deserve to be there,” Waters said. “Just get out.”
However, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has warned against Democratic efforts to impeach the rich asshole, saying it would end up harming the party before the midterm elections.
“On the political side I think it’s a gift to the Republicans,” Pelosi said Thursday. “We want to talk about what they’re doing to undermine working families in our country and what we are doing to increase their payrolls and lower their costs.”
A Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday shows that if Democrats win control of the House, more than 70 percent of their supporters want them to begin impeachment proceedings.
the rich asshole-loving pastor melts down after MSNBC’s Sharpton asks him to name one thing president has done for blacks
Rev. Al Sharpton, Pastor Mark Burns
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An MSNBC panel hosted by Alex Witt turned into a shouting match when fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton pressed a black the rich asshole-loving pastor to name a single policy put forward by the president that helps the black community.
What started out with Pastor Mark Burns — who memorably was booted off MSNBC’s AM Joy in January — defending rapper Kanye West’s recent flirtation with the rich asshole, it quickly took a turn for the crazy when the Reverend Sharpton asked Burns how the president is helping African-Americans.
“It shouldn’t be a Kanye controversy because he supports President some rich asshole,” Burns suggested. “We should be applauding he’s a free thinking black man who believes President the rich asshole has policies. Whether you like him personally or not, his policy [sic] is the best for black workers in this country”
“Let me jump in, and Pastor Burns and I do talk and are friendly,” Sharpton began. “But I would say that even though I don’t fall out with Kanye or Pastor Burns, they should name the policies. If you claim the Democratic Party put blacks in the back of the bus, then they ought to name the policies of some rich asshole what has helped black America.”
“So, show me in any instance where the president has reached out to do anything with black America,” Sharpton added.
Burns then went on a rant about how well he personally has done, saying, “What’s important for the viewers to understand it is by the sweat of my brow that I am where I am. A man who was once on welfare. writing a book right now called ‘From Welfare To The White House.’ I was on food stamps. I’ve been arrested. I know what it is like to feel belittled because of the color of your skin.”
“I also know it was the sweat of my own brow,” he continued. “Nobody ever gave you anything, Reverend Al. Yet you’re the host of one of the most successful shows in America. We’ve got this notion that some president has to create this policy because of the color of my skin for me to be successful.”
“Can I respond?” Sharpton shot back. “First of all, you and I made it by the sweat of our brows because we were allowed to. Our parents and grandparents were not able to do that. We were able to do it because under Lyndon Johnson we got a Voting Rights Act. You go all the way to President Obama –.”
“We made — ,” Burns interrupted, but Sharpton didn’t yield.
“Wait a minute, you ask not to be interrupted, I ask for the same respect,” Sharpton lectured. “We got affordable care. we got a criminal justice initiative where President Obama commuted the sentence — you talk about you’ve been to jail — he commuted the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders more than the last 11 presidents put together. He sent the Justice Department of Eric Holder into court to maintain our voting rights.”
“This president [the rich asshole] and Jeff Sessions said we will not protect the voting rights, we’re closing down the Affordable Care Act if we can,” he explained. “And we are not dealing with police matters specifically. You have mass incarceration right now, because of the policies of others. I can name you from Johnson all the way through on the policies that Democrats have put through.”
At that point Burns and Sharpton engaged in shouting and finger-pointing, while talking over each other as host Witt let it run its course.
You can watch the exchange below via MSNBC:
the rich asshole threatens to 'close down the country' over funding for border wall
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 04/28/18 08:21 PM EDT
President the rich asshole threatened on Saturday to "shut down the country" – an apparent reference to a government shutdown – unless Congress approves funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a fiery campaign-style speech, the rich asshole lashed out at Democratic lawmakers for opposing his pledge to build the border wall, and said that once government funding runs out at the end of September he would call for a so-called shutdown.
"We have to have borders and we have to have them fast and we need security, we need the wall," the rich asshole said at the rally in Washington, Michigan.
"That wall has started. We got $1.6 billion. We come up again on Sept. 28 and if we don’t get border security, we’ll have no choice. We’ll close down the country. Because we need border security."
Journalist Sarah Kendzior: Russian lawyer’s Kremlin confession will implicate more than Don Jr
President some rich asshole and some rich asshole, Jr (Twitter)
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Author and expert on authoritarian regimes Sarah Kendzior analyzed the implications of the latest reports on Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who admitted to being an “informant” for the Kremlin.
“Is there any problem now for some rich asshole, Jr., in your view, if it turns out that the person he was having these discussions about derogatory information about turns out to be a criminal informant,” MSNBC anchor Joy Reid asked.
“I mean yes, there should be a problem,” Kendzior replied. “There should’ve been a problem from the very beginning when he published his e-mails … we saw this laid out, we saw the illicit ties that they had denied a long time — documented.”
The latest reports could haunt President the rich asshole and his administration beyond his eldest son. The meeting between Veselnitskaya and the rich asshole, Jr. was also attended by son-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manfort, who at the timing was managing the rich asshole campaign.
“What’s important is to look at this in the broader scope of illicit connections between members of the rich asshole campaign and the rich asshole administration and the Kremlin and oligarchs,” Kendzior suggested. “the rich asshole, Jr. is only one part of this puzzle.”
“They are trying to say there is no collusion, but I think what we’re seeing here is the cover up,” she continued. “We have two layers of this problem, one is what they did in the illicit ties and the other is the constant lying that’s been going on for the last two years.”
Watch:
the rich asshole: I know things about Tester that would cause him to lose an election
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 04/28/18 08:09 PM EDT
President the rich asshole went after Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) again on Saturday during a rally in Michigan, slamming Tester for pushing allegations against Ronny Jackson, the rich asshole’s former nominee to lead the Department of Veterans’ Affair.
“Tester started throwing out things that he’s heard. Well I know things about Tester that I could say too,” the rich asshole threatened. “And if I said them, he’d never be elected again.”
Tester’s staff reportedly compiled claims made by more than 20 people familiar with Navy Rear Adm. Jackson’s leadership at the White House Medical Unit.
“What Jon Tester did to this man is a disgrace,” the rich asshole said at the Michigan rally.
The report alleged Jackson “wrecked” a government vehicle after being intoxicated at a Secret Service going-away party.
Another claim said that during an overseas trip in 2015 he drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee so loudly that the Secret Service intervened to prevent him from waking former President Obama.
the rich asshole brushed off the allegations during the Saturday rally as nothing more than “vicious rumors” meant to “destroy a man.”
The White House and Secret Service issued statements saying that they found no evidence the two alleged drunken incidents occurred.
the rich asshole attacked Tester throughout the day, calling on him to resign in a set of morning tweets.
Allegations made by Senator Jon Tester against Admiral/Doctor Ron Jackson are proving false. The Secret Service is unable to confirm (in fact they deny) any of the phony Democrat charges which have absolutely devastated the wonderful Jackson family. Tester should resign. The.....
....great people of Montana will not stand for this kind of slander when talking of a great human being. Admiral Jackson is the kind of man that those in Montana would most respect and admire, and now, for no reason whatsoever, his reputation has been shattered. Not fair, Tester!
the rich asshole lashed out again against Tester later in the afternoon, saying his statements were “very dishonest and sick!”
Secret Service has just informed me that Senator Jon Tester’s statements on Admiral Jackson are not true. There were no such findings. A horrible thing that we in D.C. must live with, just like phony Russian Collusion. Tester should lose race in Montana. Very dishonest and sick!
the rich asshole and Tester sparred earlier this week when the president said the senator would pay a steep political price for his takedown of Jackson. Still, Tester maintains that his concerns about Jackson were "not political."
“It’s not political. I’m focused on making sure we have the best person possible to run the VA. It’s a very, very important agency,” Tester told reporters.
Jackson withdrew his nomination Thursday amid the scandal but has denied the allegations against him.
Republicans panicking because the rich asshole refuses to accept reality GOP will lose Senate and House in midterms
President some rich asshole wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat inside the Oval Office (Facebook).
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President some rich asshole is refusing to consider that Democrats may win in the midterm elections as Republicans fight over the best — or least damaging — role for the GOP, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“That’s not going to happen,” President the rich asshole said of Democrats winning the House of Representatives. The comments reportedly were repeatedly made during dinner with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republican leaders.
At the same dinner, White House legislative liaison Marc Short acknowledged that the House was all but doomed.
President the rich asshole’s “preoccupation with the ongoing Russia investigation adds to the unpredictability, spurring some rich asshole to fume aloud in ways that divide the G.O.P. and raising the prospect of legal confrontations amid the campaign,” The Times explained. “And despite projecting confidence, he polls nearly all those who enter the Oval Office about how they view the climate of the midterms.”
Impeachment reportedly looms over the internal arguments over which races to target in the midterms.
“Among his close associates, a debate is raging about whether to focus on House races that could earn the president chits with Republican lawmakers who might ultimately vote on impeachment, or to dig in to defend the party’s tenuous Senate majority,” The Times reported. “Congressional leaders have left little doubt in private that they see some rich asshole as a political millstone for many of the party’s candidates. In recent weeks, Mr. McConnell has confided to associates that Republicans may lose the Senate because of the anti-the rich asshole energy on the left.”
With both houses potentially in play, Republicans are worried about the rich asshole’s lack of a political organization.
“John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff and a retired Marine general, has scant political acumen,” The Times continued. “This vacuum has, as is often the case with this White House, triggered fierce internecine scrapping among those vying for some rich asshole’s ear.”
The chaos is not just in the White House, but inside President the rich asshole’s 2020 reelection campaign.
“The president’s announcement that Brad Parscale, his 2016 digital guru, would manage his 2020 re-election campaign caught many of his most senior advisers by surprise, according to multiple Republicans,” The Times reported. “And the hasty decision immediately raised suspicions it was part of a power play by Jared Kushner, some rich asshole’s son-in-law, to isolate Corey Lewandowski, the president’s 2016 campaign manager and occasional adviser.”
Crowd chants 'Nobel' at the rich asshole rally over North Korea talks
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 04/28/18 07:48 PM EDT
President the rich asshole was met Saturday with chants suggesting that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize, as he discussed possible talks with North Korea.
"That's very nice, thank you. That's very nice," the rich asshole replied to chants of "Nobel, Nobel, Nobel."
"I just want to get the job done," he added. The chants came as the rich asshole spoke at a campaign-style rally in Washington Township, Michigan.
the rich asshole is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late May or sometime in June. The encounter will mark the first such meeting between a sitting U.S. president and leader North Korean leader.
the rich asshole's remarks on Saturday come just one day after Kim became the first North Korean leader to cross into South Korea, where he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
In a joint statement issued after the meeting, the two leaders vowed to work toward eliminating all nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. The two also stated plans to enter into talks with the U.S. about declaring a formal end to the Korean War of the 1950s.
Paralympics fires back at the rich asshole for insulting disabled athletes as ‘tough to watch’
President some rich asshole -- screenshot
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Using their Twitter platform, the organizers of the Paralympics shot back at President some rich asshole on Saturday morning for his rude comments about the events and athletes being “tough’ to watch.
While meeting with the athletes at the White House on Friday for a photo-op, the president blurted, “What happened with the Paralympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me. And I watched — it’s a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.”
the rich asshole’s off-the-cuff comments did not sit well observers who found his remarks insulting, and Saturday the Paralympics Twitter account included a shot at the rich asshole without specifically mentioning him by name.
“Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch,” the tweet read. “Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics.”
You can see the tweet and the rich asshole video below:
Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch. Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics. twitter.com/Paralympics/st…
Paralympics fire back after the rich asshole says they are 'tough to watch'
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 04/28/18 11:05 AM EDT
The Paralympic Games on Saturday responded to President the rich asshole’s comment that the games are “tough to watch,” tweeting that they hope he “continues to watch and be inspired.”
“Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch,” the tweet read. “Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics.”
Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch. Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics. twitter.com/Paralympics/st…
the rich asshole made the comment during a White House celebration of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Several athletes skipped the traditional White House visit, with some citing the rich asshole's policies as a reason they did not attend.
Among them was figure skater Adam Rippon, the first openly gay man named to a U.S. Olympic team, who has been a critic of the rich asshole's LGBT policies and made donations to Planned Parenthood, GLAAD and the Red Cross in lieu of attending the event.
White House Correspondents’ Dinner host Michelle Wolf taunts ‘cowardly’ the rich asshole for skipping event
Michelle Wolf -- screenshot
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In an interview with CBS the host of Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner called out President some rich asshole for deciding to not attend, choosing instead to hold a campaign-style rally in Michigan as counter-programming.
Noting that this is the second year in a row the rich asshole is avoiding the annual get-together of media personalities and politicians, Michelle Wolf called the president a “coward.”
“Does that make it better for you as a comedian or harder for you that the president is not there? Would you rather the president be in the room?” CBS News’ Jamie Wax asked Wolf.
“I like making fun of people to their face more than anything, like, more than behind their back,” Wolff replied. “It’s nicer to make fun of someone when they’re there.”
“I think it’s cowardly not to go,” she said. “I think it’s– the only other person that didn’t go was Reagan when he was shot. And he called in.”
“I’m not trying to make some sort of bigger point or anything. I just want people to be like, ‘It was really funny,” she said, before adding, “I’ll be really happy when it’s over. It’s a homework assignment.”
Watch below:
the rich asshole defends Ronny Jackson, calls for Tester resignation
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 04/28/18 08:42 AM EDT
President the rich asshole said Saturday that Democratic Sen. Jon Tester(Mont.) should resign because there is no proof of several allegations his staff compiled against Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician.
the rich asshole tweeted a defense of his former Veterans Affairs nominee early Saturday morning after the Secret Service and the White House issued statements finding no evidence of two alleged drunken incidents included in a damning report that helped sink Jackson's nomination earlier this week.
"Allegations made by Senator Jon Tester against Admiral/Doctor Ron Jackson are proving false. The Secret Service is unable to confirm (in fact they deny) any of the phony Democrat charges which have absolutely devastated the wonderful Jackson family," the rich asshole tweeted.
"The great people of Montana will not stand for this kind of slander when talking of a great human being. Admiral Jackson is the kind of man that those in Montana would most respect and admire, and now, for no reason whatsoever, his reputation has been shattered. Not fair, Tester!" the rich asshole added.
Allegations made by Senator Jon Tester against Admiral/Doctor Ron Jackson are proving false. The Secret Service is unable to confirm (in fact they deny) any of the phony Democrat charges which have absolutely devastated the wonderful Jackson family. Tester should resign. The.....
....great people of Montana will not stand for this kind of slander when talking of a great human being. Admiral Jackson is the kind of man that those in Montana would most respect and admire, and now, for no reason whatsoever, his reputation has been shattered. Not fair, Tester!
The White House on Friday said an investigation did not uncover any evidence that Jackson ever drunkenly wrecked a government vehicle and the Secret Service on Thursday denied that it intervened to prevent Jackson from disturbing Obama in 2015.
"The Secret Service has no such record of any incident ... a thorough review of internal documents related to all Presidential foreign travel that occurred in 2015, in addition to interviews of personnel who were present during foreign travel that occurred during the same timeframe, has resulted in no information that would indicate the allegation is accurate," the agency said in a statement.
However, under intense criticism over his ability to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, Jackson already withdrew his nomination on Friday.
"Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this president and the important issue we must be addressing — how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes," he said in a statement.
Tester's report also included allegations that the Navy doctor once provided a “large supply” of opioid painkillers to a White House military staffer and frequently handed out drugs without prescriptions.
“It’s not political. I am focused on making sure that we have the best person possible to run the VA. It’s a very, very important agency,” Tester told reporters on Thursday, after the rich asshole vowed that Tester would pay a political price for his takedown of his VA nominee.
LATINO VOICES
the rich asshole Asks If There Are Hispanics In The Room Before Demanding His Wall
Once he made sure the coast was clear, he gave a bizarre shout-out to Kanye West, too.
President some rich asshole was met with silence at a campaign-style rally in Michigan Saturday night when he asked if there were any Hispanics present, then repeated his demand for a border wall.
the rich asshole skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner to instead regale his fervent supporters in Washington, Michigan.
“Any Hispanics in the room?” the rich asshole asked to relative silence. “Naw, not so many? That’s OK.”
TRUMP: Are there any Hispanics in the room?
[crowd boos]
TRUMP: Not so many? That's okay... and in fairness, Kanye West gets it!
Then he took a swerve into: “In all fairness, Kanye West gets it. He gets it.” The president was referring to the rapper’s recent show of support for him.
Satisfied the audience was lacking in Hispanics, the rich asshole launched into a tirade repeating his demand for his border wall, and said those illegally crossing into the U.S. are somehow voting for Democrats in elections.
“All of these people pouring across are gonna vote Democrat,” he claimed, even though studies have shown few undocumented people vote for anyone, Democrats or otherwise, except in the few places where their votes are specifically allowed.
“They do it for a lot of reasons,” the rich asshole said. “A lot of times they don’t even know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, but we have to have borders and we need it fast.”
He threatened to “close down the country” if he doesn’t get funding for his wall in next year’s budget.
Before the rich asshole attempted to reach out to Hispanic voters in South Florida earlier this month, he employed a similar tactic of surveying the audience.
“Are there any Hispanics in the room?” the rich asshole asked during a roundtable discussion on tax cuts, The Washington Post reported.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
“No, I doubt it,” he said.
‘He’s a cardboard cutout piece of sh*tf*ck’: Actor Ron Perlman explains why he would never play the role of the rich asshole
Ron Perlman at Comic Con in San Diego in 2010, photo by Gage Skidmore
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Actor Ron Perlman would refuse roles portraying President some rich asshole, he vowed during an interview with The Daily Beast.
“F*ck no,” Perlman said of playing the rich asshole when asked at a press junket. “Not interested in one-dimensional people who have no redeeming value and nothing that is psychologically compelling.”
Could the rich asshole’s “insecurity, his braggadocio, his compulsive lying” make for compelling psychological issues, The Beast asked.
“I’ve played serial killers and real bad guys, and there is always some sort of psychological gap there,” he said. “the rich asshole doesn’t possess any of them.”
“He’s just a cardboard cutout piece of sh*tf*ck,” he concluded. “There’s nothing there to explore. He’s one-dimensional, and he’s not clever.”
“He’d be very boring to play,” Perlman added.
The Golden Globe Award winner has also used his popular Twitter account to voice his thoughts on President the rich asshole.
We have officially turned into every idealogy we fought to destroy. Trump is the most UnAmerican citizen in America. twitter.com/billbrowder/st…
Re-Reminder: Trump didn't win shit! When all the dust settles and all the evidence is in, that election was flat out fucking tampered with! twitter.com/maxboot/status…
For any decent public servant, working for Trump cannot ever be possible.Anyone who can stand his lawlessness should be considered suspect. twitter.com/preetbharara/s…
Stormy Daniels lawyer chats with Kellyanne Conway at WHCD party
BY LUIS SANCHEZ - 04/28/18 01:54 PM EDT
The lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star suing President the rich asshole and his longtime personal attorney, says he met presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway on Friday night amid festivities in Washington.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing Daniels, tweeted that he had a "spirited discussion" with Conway on Friday night amid celebrations surrounding the White House Correspondents' Association dinner this weekend.
Met Kellyanne Conway last night. We both went to GW law (not Cooley) and we both had @JonathanTurley as a professor. Thus, we are prone to very spirited discussion...
Avenatti did not say where he and Conway talked, though both were in attendance at a party co-hosted by the United Talent Agency and Mediaite on Friday at Fiola Mare in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood.
The party, which drew a mixture of cable news personalities, politicians and Hollywood talent, featured another notable near encounter between former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucciand political reporter Ryan Lizza.
Avenatti has maintained a visible presence on cable news recently going after the rich asshole as Daniels sues the president and his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing the rich asshole to formally void a nondisclosure agreement she signed weeks before the 2016 election. Daniels is also suing Cohen, claiming defamation.
Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 as part of the nondisclosure agreement regarding an alleged affair with the rich asshole a decade earlier.
A judge on Friday granted a request by Cohen to delay the case for 90 days. the rich asshole's lawyer had made the request after invoking his Fifth Amendment right this week, saying he couldn't effectively defend himself in the case because it could incriminate him in a separate federal probe.
Avenatti said Friday after the judge's decision that Daniels might file a new claim or lawsuit against the president for libel.
POLITICS
The Other Reason the rich asshole Hasn’t Fired Scott Pruitt: His Evangelical Christian Ties
The president, wrestling with sex scandals, may want to keep his controversial-but-pious EPA administrator close.
Taking the stage at the glitzy Mayflower Hotel in Washington last November, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt casually quoted the New Testament as he recited his pitch for reimagining the role of the country’s top environmental regulator.
“We as a country have been blessed with tremendous natural resources,” he told the audience gathered for an American Principles Project Foundation gala, according to previously unpublished audio HuffPost obtained. “And to whom much is given, much is required.”
The reference to Luke 12:48 was likely not lost on the crowd gathered that Wednesday night for the conservative religious think tank’s fourth annual Red White and Blue Gala. The event’s brochure, a copy of which HuffPost reviewed, listed the group’s programs on “bioethics and life” and “religious freedom,” and advertised a downloadable white paper responding to the way in which “politics as usual has failed Christian conservatives.”
Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire GOP megadonor and financier of anti-abortion groups, Christian colleges and climate change denial think tanks, bankrolled the confab, according to the brochure.
Brent Bozell, founder of the right-wing Media Research Center, opened the program as the master of ceremonies before Pruitt gave his roughly four-minute speech in acceptance of an award for “human dignity leadership.” The Rev. Thomas Joseph White, a professor at the Catholic Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, followed him with an invocation.
This was Pruitt’s hometown crowd. Until 2017, he had served on the board of trustees at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, an institution that called for “a wife is to submit herself graciously” to her husband and formally opposed “all forms of sexual immorality, including … homosexuality.” The bio on Pruitt’s now-defunct official Twitter account as Oklahoma’s attorney general reads: “Husband, Father, Christ Follower.” He been attending Bible studies with Vice President Mike Pence and other Cabinet secretaries since shortly after taking office at the EPA last year.
While Pruitt’s penchant for rolling back environmental regulations and bolstering the fossil fuel industry is widely touted as the reason President some rich asshole has refused to fire the EPA chief amid a four-week whirlwind of ethical and spending scandals, that largely overlooks Pruitt’s other asset: His reputation as a zealous crusader for conservative Christian politics.
For a president dogged by accusations of adultery and sexual impropriety, that sort of reputation has currency. The ostentatiously devout Pruitt gives the rich asshole cred among evangelical Christian power players at a time when five Republican lawmakers and 170 Democrats in Congress are calling for his resignation. On Thursday, the EPA head testified before two House hearings for a total of six hours, during which Republicans leaped to his defense, arguing the administrator was the victim of “Washington politics,” “innuendo and McCarthyism,” and “a shameful attempt to denigrate the work that’s being done at the EPA.”
Neither the White House nor the EPA returned requests for comment.
“Pruitt is clearly part of the Christian right wing of the Republican Party, and it’s possible that these elite Christian right networks are protecting him, or they’ve sent some kind of message that this is our guy,” said Lydia Bean, author of The Politics of Evangelical Identity. “He’s opposed abortion and worked as an attorney for religious liberty cases, so he checks the right boxes for Christian right evangelicals.”
White evangelicals overwhelmingly support the rich asshole’s job performance, at 61 percent in a December Pew survey, compared to just 32 percent of voters overall. Still, that marks a significant decline from the 78 percent approval in February 2017. Among nonwhite evangelicals, his approval rating plummets, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.
Pruitt has played an outsize role in courting leaders on the evangelical right. In September, the rich asshole hosted a dinner with “grassroots leaders,” including evangelical heavyweights such as Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance, Faith & Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed and Tim Goeglein, a vice president at Focus on the Family. In a photo posted to the White House website, Pruitt appears at the table opposite the rich asshole, the only Cabinet secretary in attendance, though his name is not listed in the caption.
As Pruitt’s scandals mount, Christian groups have rallied to defend him. On April 6, the Conservative Action Project published an open letter calling for Pruitt’s “continued tenure at the EPA” and thanking him “for the significant actions he has taken to implement President the rich asshole’s deregulatory agenda.” The list of 186 signatories included Christians for a Sustainable Economy Executive Director David Kullberg, Christian educator Lisa Calvert and Faith Wins President Chad Connelly. Some of the religiously affiliated signatories, such as Anne Schlafly Cori, chair of the “pro-family” Eagle Forum, have a history of backing climate change denial efforts, according to research compiled by the nonpartisan Climate Investigations Center.
White evangelical Christians, more than 80 percent of whom supported the rich asshole in 2016, are the least likely of any religious group in the U.S. to understand the science behind climate change, according to 2015 data from the Pew Research Center. Just 28 percent of white evangelicals believed the planet is warming primarily due to human activity, compared to 41 percent of white mainline Protestants and 56 percent of black Protestants. About 37 percent of white evangelicals don’t believe the climate is changing at all.
In 2005, the National Association of Evangelicals was on the cusp of affirming climate science in a new national platform called “For the Health of a Nation.” But, after passing the board unanimously, the proposal tanked in a rank-and-file vote that followed a massive donation spree by oil, gas and coal-linked groups. Since then, the same dark-money donors ― including Mercer ― who sponsor the network of think tanks that provide contrarian (and readily debunked) research contesting the consensus on climate change have also funded conservative Christian groups. The fossil fuel industry made climate change denial, as Splinter’s Brendan O’Connor described it last year, “the word of God.”
Pruitt hasn’t been shy about proselytizing that view. Last October, Pruitt invoked God’s warning to pagans in the book of Joshua to “choose this day whom you will serve” in a speech announcing a new policy barring scientists who receive EPA research funding from serving on the agency’s advisory boards.
In a February interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pruitt said, “The biblical worldview with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we’ve been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind.”
In March, Politico published tapes from more than decade ago in which Pruitt disputes evolution: “There aren’t sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution, and it deals with the origins of man, which is more from a philosophical standpoint than a scientific standpoint.”
The statements have rankled EPA workers.
“It’s terrifying,” said one EPA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The impression we are left with is that his faith has led him to counterfactual beliefs.”
The staffer, who identifies as queer, said Pruitt’s past affiliations with groups that take hard-line stances on gender and sexuality “are painful to confront.”
“Knowing that the man I work for every day not only disrespects the agency’s mission but also believes that I, as a pansexual woman, and many other EPA employees … are ‘perversions’ in his belief system, is a heavy weight I feel each day at work,” she said.
Though Pruitt’s reputation for piety may help protect him for now, Bean cautioned that it may not filter down to ordinary evangelical voters.
“He’s not an individual with a mass following, not a household name for the evangelical rank and file,” she said. “I do not think Scott Pruitt has a national brand as an evangelical leader that, by itself, would stop the rich asshole from firing him.”
Pruitt’s legacy could alienate him from moderate evangelicals. Ronald Sider, a professor at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, called Pruitt’s lead role in pushing the rich asshole to withdraw from the Paris climate accord one of the administration’s “really big, longer-term negative policies,” and said the administrator’s failure to take climate change seriously will define his tenure for years to come.
“It’s really immoral and tragic,” Sider said. “Unless that can be turned around fairly soon, our grandchildren will pay for it.”
the rich asshole touts rally as alternate programming to correspondents’ dinner: ‘Will be live on TV’
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 04/28/18 10:27 AM EDT
President the rich asshole urged Twitter followers to watch live coverage of his planned Michigan rally Saturday night, seemingly suggesting the event as alternative programming to the evening's White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
In a tweet, the president noted that his rally in Michigan, which is slated to be about job creation and business growth, would be "live on T.V."
"Look forward to being in the Great State of Michigan tonight. Major business expansion and jobs pouring into your State. Auto companies expanding at record pace," the rich asshole said.
"Big crowd tonight, will be live on T.V.," he adds.
Look forward to being in the Great State of Michigan tonight. Major business expansion and jobs pouring into your State. Auto companies expanding at record pace. Big crowd tonight, will be live on T.V.
2018 marks the second year in a row the president has hosted a competing event during the annual Washington gala, which is also typically broadcast live and honors the press and news reporters who cover the White House.
In 2017, the rich asshole held a competing rally in Pennsylvania and mocked the press for being stuck at a "boring" dinner in Washington, D.C.
"A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now," the rich asshole told the crowd in Harrisburg, Pa., last year.
"They are gathered together for the White House correspondents’ dinner — without the president," he added. "They would love to be with us right here tonight. They’re trapped at the dinner, which will be very, very boring."
"They are gathered together for the White House correspondents’ dinner — without the president," he added. "They would love to be with us right here tonight. They’re trapped at the dinner, which will be very, very boring."
Last year's rally began about an hour before the dinner, and this year's rally is slated to begin at around 7 p.m., two and a half hours before the WHCD is scheduled.
It's unclear whether the rich asshole is expected to begin speaking exactly at 7 p.m., or how long his remarks will be. Local media coverage of the event notes the rally is expected to begin "around the same time" as the dinner.
Last year, because of the time separation, most cable news networks did not have to split time or choose between broadcasting the two events. However, the rally was presented as competition to the dinner, The Washington Post reported.
Here is why the Russian lawyer from the rich asshole Tower meeting suddenly changed her story
some rich asshole, Jr. speaking with supporters of his father, some rich asshole, at a campaign rally at the Sun Devil Fitness Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Natalia Veselnitskaya, one of the key figures in the June 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting held by top members of the rich asshole campaign in an effort to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, originally told Congress that she was a private lawyer without ties to the government.
The New York Times reported Friday, however, that Veselnitskaya misled Congress and the American people when she testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee last November that she works “independently of any governmental bodies.” The Times found evidence that had previously worked with Russia’s chief legal office, and she later confirmed she was an “informant” for the government.
One of the reporters who helped break the story, Sharon LaFraniere, went on CNN Friday night and explained how she changed her story.
“She was a little bit taken by surprise because we and NBC News obtained a series of emails exchanges between her and the Russian prosecutor general,” LaFraniere said. “An NBC News correspondent chased her down in Moscow — and she just blurted it out when she was asked: ‘What’s your relationship with the prosecutor general?’
“She said, ‘Well, I have a dual role, I’m a private attorney and I’m an informant.’ From there on, she backtracked.”
Separately, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said on MSNBC that even this word was misleading. “She’s a spy,” he said.
Watch the clip below:
Maher to Roseanne: Admit ‘you impulse-purchased a the rich asshole’
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 04/28/18 09:16 AM EDT
Comedian Bill Maher implored his friend, actress Roseanne Barr, to admit that she "impulse-purchased a the rich asshole" when she voted for the president and announced that her character on the "Roseanne" TV reboot would be a rich asshole supporter.
In the monologue Friday on "Real Time with Bill Maher," the comedian said that Barr's character, who rations pills on the show because she can't afford health-care costs, was one of the Americans hurt the most by GOP efforts to gut ObamaCare and reform the tax code.
"There's no shame in it. You saw a miracle product on TV, and you ordered it," Maher said, to laughs. "You impulse-purchased a the rich asshole."
"[But] if in the next six months you don't see the rich asshole's magic starting to work for you, you're still trading pills and driving an Uber, wouldn't the more realistic plotline for season two be your disillusionment with the rich asshole?" he asked.
Maher also questioned whether Barr's previously stated political leanings would put her more in line with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), not President the rich asshole.
“You’re a socialist!” Maher exclaimed. “You’ve been one for 30 years!"
"You said ‘all of my ideas are based in socialism.’ How does that intersect with the rich asshole? All his ideas are based on national socialism," Maher added, to groans from the crowd. "I'm kidding, he doesn’t have any ideas," he quipped.
“You’re not Archie Bunker— you’re Bernie Sanders!” Maher added.
Barr incited fury among the rich asshole critics with her character's direction in the reboot of her popular show, "Roseanne," as well as her controversial tweets about the "QAnon" conspiracy theory in recent weeks.
the rich asshole privately thanked the actress in a phone call, however, congratulating Barr on the show's ratings.
“We just kind of had a private conversation but we talked about a lot of things and he’s just happy for me,” Barr later told ABC’s “Good Morning America" of the call.
“I’ve known him for many years and he’s done a lot of nice things for me over the years. And it was just a friendly conversation about working, and television, and ratings,” she said.
POLITICS
the rich asshole: Mueller Should Never Have Been Appointed
The president was gloating over a controversial House committee report.
some rich asshole got a head start on his weekend tweets Friday night when — again — he called the investigation into possible collusion between the Russians and his campaign a “witch hunt.” This time, though, he said special counsel Robert Mueller should never have been appointed.
The comments again raised the possibility that the rich asshole might be considering firing Mueller.
The president was gloating about a controversial report released by Republicans on the House intelligence committee Friday, in which they said they found no evidence of collusion — over the objection of the committee’s Democrats. Earlier in the day the rich asshole tweeted “Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!”
This time, he called concerns about collusion a “big Hoax by the Democrats.”
The Republicans issued their conclusion just hours before NBC aired an interview with Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya in which she said she is a Kremlin “informant.” Veselnitskaya met with some rich asshole Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the rich asshole son-in-law Jared Kushner at the rich asshole Tower in Manhattan during the presidential campaign just months before the election to discuss turning over damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
The Twitterverse wasn’t impressed by the House Republicans — or the rich asshole’s tweet:
So the House Intell Committee concludes no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Hmmm... I’m no Congressman but I think the evidence tells a different story. I think I’ll hold judgment until the Mueller investigation has concluded. Good luck Donald Trump.
The continuing revelations of Kremlin involvement with the @realDonaldTrump campaign contradict today's GOP House Intelligence Report release. My prediction is that when Special Counsel Mueller is done with his investigation, the GOP Intel Members will look really stupid. twitter.com/nytimes/status…
the rich asshole’s love-hate relationship with the press
BY AMIE PARNES - 04/28/18 06:00 AM EDT
President the rich asshole is skipping the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday and for the second year in a row will instead appear at a political rally, this time in the swing state of Michigan.
The presidential snub underscores the rich asshole’s tense and strained relationship with the media, and will once again lead to split screens on cable news networks, highlighting the friction between the president and the press.
Fights between the White House and the media are nothing new to Washington, but the rich asshole has taken it to another level with complaints about “fake news” and “dishonest” reporters he sometimes dubs “flunkies.”
the rich asshole’s distaste for the media goes beyond the shots on Twitter, at campaign-style rallies and at White House events — where politics are traditionally supposed to remain outside the gates.
The president hasn’t had an official solo press conference — without a foreign leader at his side — since February of last year. His predecessor, former President Obama, held 11 formal news conferences during his first year in office, while former Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton held four and 14, respectively.
the rich asshole has also avoided sitting down with individual reporters since he was interviewed by NBC’s Lester Holt — with the exception of a string of appearances on Fox News.
On Thursday morning, he called into one of his favorite programs, “Fox & Friends.”
While speaking to the three hosts, the rich asshole repeatedly slammed the press but also highlighted another unique feature about his relationship with the media: The president is a cable news fan who watches closely what is said about him.
As he often does, he called CNN “fake news” and then said he doesn’t “watch NBC anymore."
“They’re as bad as CNN,” he said.
He also claimed he doesn’t watch CNN “at all” but then in the next sentence said he “watched last night” when former FBI Director James Comey appeared at a town hall put on by the cable network.
The comments were played on loop on other cable networks throughout the day with analysts dissecting his every word.
Political observers say both the rich asshole and the media feed off one another, using the other to their own advantage.
“From the start of primaries the media has been obsessed with the rich asshole and vice versa,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a communications professor at Boston University who specializes in political communication. “Both provide oxygen to each other. Ratings gold for the media and a detested target for the rich asshole to rev-up his base.”
“The media is in 24/7 the rich asshole attack mode. the rich asshole is in 24/7 Twitter attack mode,” Berkovitz added. “This is a dysfunctional symbiotic relationship. The war of words and visual images will continue to become more intense. the rich asshole revels in the battle and the media uses its angst about the rich asshole to ride the high horse of saving democracy.”
A Monmouth University poll earlier this month suggested more people trust the networks than the rich asshole.
It found that 48 percent of those surveyed trusted CNN more than the president, with 35 percent saying the opposite. MSNBC topped the rich asshole 45 percent to 32 percent, while Fox News received 30 percent to the rich asshole’s 20 percent.
To be sure, the rich asshole has had moments of civility with the press corps. He has talked to reporters behind the scenes when he feels the need to weigh in.
At times, he has called reporters individually or has invited them to the Oval Office for private one-on-one chats. He has also taken questions from reporters in more casual settings such as Air Force One, as he did earlier this month.
On the presidential plane, he took questions about Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims she had a sexual encounter with the rich asshole and says she received hush money weeks before the 2016 election.
And while he won’t be making an appearance at the correspondents' dinner, last month he did attend a smaller white tie affair put on by Washington’s esteemed Gridiron Club, made up of top journalists.
The dinner, largely a roast, provided the rich asshole with moments of levity in his remarks.
“I do want to say this is one of the best times I can ever remember having with the media,” the rich asshole said during his speech. “This might be the most fun I’ve had since watching your faces on election night.”
Reporters don’t expect relations with the president to warm anytime soon and with the Russia investigation looming over the White House, it may continue to worsen.
Julian Zelizer, a professor of public affairs and history at Princeton University, predicted that the relationship will never get better because the rich asshole “thrives on the conflict.”
“It will get worse for sure but if the Russia investigation was not there to fuel it, he would find something else to take its place,” Zelizer said.
While the rich asshole has often kept a distance with the White House press corps, he invited reporters' children to the Oval Office on Halloween last year. And earlier this week, he took some time to invite their children into the Oval Office for pictures during National Take Your Child to Work Day.
At the same time, he took yet another swipe at his favorite target.
“You know, your parents are being very nice right now, I can’t believe it,” the president said to reporters’ sons and daughters. “You know why? Because they don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of you.”
GOP senator crushes the rich asshole’s attempt to blame nomination failure on Dems
By
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the rich asshole tried to blame Democrats after he screwed up the nomination of a new Veterans Affairs secretary — but a Republican senator immediately made it clear that the rich asshole has no one to blame but himself for his latest failure.
A leading member of the Republican Party immediately pulled the rug out from under the rich asshole Saturday after he tried to blame his botched nomination for a new VA secretary on Senator Jon Tester (D-MT).
the rich asshole is still reeling from the embarrassing withdrawal of Ronny L. Jackson’s nomination to serve as head of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In early morning Saturday tweets, the rich asshole fumed, “Allegations made by Senator Jon Tester against Admiral/Doctor Ron Jackson are proving false.”
“Tester should resign,” the rich asshole added. “The great people of Montana will not stand for this kind of slander when talking of a great human being.”
Tester’s office received reports of troubling behavior from Jackson, and in the interest of an informed public, authorized the release of what they found. Soon after, Jackson withdrew his nomination and became the 23rd the rich asshole nominee to do so.
the rich asshole’s own party poured cold water on his overheated rhetoric against Tester.
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) is the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. The Washington Post reported that Isakson knew about Tester’s investigation and did not object to his decision to release the information on Jackson.
After the rich asshole’s tirade, Jackson’s office was asked to comment on the demand that Tester resign.
His spokeswoman told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny: “Senator Isakson has a great relationship with Senator Tester. He doesn’t have a problem with how things were handled.”
the rich asshole wants someone to blame for his administration’s latest failure. They still haven’t been able to explain how Jackson, the White House doctor, was qualified to oversee a system responsible for the health care of over 9 million veterans.
The allegations uncovered by Tester’s investigation just compounded the problem, and as usual the rich asshole White House was unprepared to deal with the fallout of the rich asshole’s decision-making.
Now his own party, which has usually propped up his unpopular decisions and ideas, has pulled the rug out from under him, letting him take the fall for his latest failure.
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