United States of America, LLC

[Bmichael]

More to come...

[Carol T]

From an email I got from Democrats.org:

In the first seven days after he took the Oath of Office, Donald Trump signed a variety of truly despicable and irresponsible executive orders and directives that:
1. Authorize construction of a border wall (which we now know will be paid for with our tax dollars)
2. Strip federal funding away from international organizations that even mention abortion
3. Begin the GOP's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act -- a move that will take health coverage away from 30 million people
4. Restart construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines
5. Place harsh restrictions on immigration, including banning refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria, accelerating deportations, and threatening sanctuary cities
6. Prevent government agencies from sharing updates with the press or the public on their social media accounts and websites
7. Order a ban on Muslims from seven countries from entering the United States that goes against our values and makes our country less safe.

And it will only get worse. I'm glad I'm old.

[Bmichael]

Dems boycott confirmation votes for Trump nominees

Peter Schroeder - The Hill - Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Senate Democrats on Tuesday refused to attend a committee vote on two President Trump's more controversial nominees, effectively delaying their consideration.

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted votes to advance Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Trump's pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and Steven Mnuchin, his selection to head the Treasury Department.

The pair had been among some of the more contentious selections to join Trump's Cabinet. Republicans expressed outrage at the move, while Democrats gathered outside the Senate Finance Committee hearing room to outline their gripes with the selections.

"I can't understand why senators, who know we're going to have these two people go through, can't support the committee," said Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

"I'm very disappointed in this kind of crap. ... Some of this is because they just don't like the president."

Hatch said he would try to hold a vote on the nominees later Tuesday.

[Bmichael]

No Orrin...The Dems LOVE McRonald...it's his crap they hate. :)

[Bmichael]

From The National Review:

 

Gorsuch is the Anti-Trump

 

For those worried about executive power run amok under Trump, there could be no better remedy than Judge Gorsuch.

If President Donald Trump is a budding authoritarian, as his critics allege, one of the safeguards is Judge Neil Gorsuch. For all that Trump has flouted norms and gotten off to an at-times amateurish start in the White House, his pick of Gorsuch was extremely normal and highly professional.

The Gorsuch nomination is exactly what everyone should want from a President Trump, especially those who most fear and loathe him. Yet Trump’s fiercest opponents began denouncing Gorsuch immediately.

The knee-jerk opposition to Gorsuch is a sign that Democrats either haven’t thought through what they believe about Trump or are seriously conflicted. Do they want to throw out the rule book because Trump is a potential dictator, or do they want to play by the conventional rules stipulating that they should fight a constitutionalist jurist because he won’t impose their progressive social agenda from the bench?

 

 If they really believe that Trump is as dangerous as they say, they should think of Gorsuch as the equivalent of General James Mattis. He is a responsible choice from what they consider an irresponsible president, and they should embrace him on those grounds. Gorsuch is the opposite of Trump in every way that should matter to the president’s enemies.

If they hate Trump because he’s anti-intellectual, Gorsuch is a Harvard-educated lawyer who is widely admired for his acute analysis and writing.

 

 If they worry that Trump has shown little regard for the Bill of Rights, Gorsuch is a stickler for it, including the Fourth Amendment that will be the foremost obstacle if Trump’s law-and-order agenda goes too far.

 

 If they fear federal power under Trump overawing the prerogatives of states and localities, Gorsuch is a devoted friend of federalism.

 

 If they are anxious about the Trump executive branch trampling on the other branches of government, Gorsuch calls the separation of powers “among the most important liberty-protecting devices of the constitutional design.”

 

Why won’t Democrats follow the logic of their anti-Trump reasoning and support Gorsuch?

 

First, there is sheer partisanship. They believe the Antonin Scalia seat has been “stolen” from them because Senate Republicans refused to act on the nomination of Merrick Garland. It was entirely in their power to reverse this act of alleged theft by winning the presidential election or the Senate majority last fall, but they came up empty.

 

 Second, there is the fact that Democrats don’t truly oppose Trump on procedural or constitutional grounds, and so have no use for the likes of Gorsuch. Liberals didn’t object to President Barack Obama’s executive orders unilaterally rewriting immigration law, or recoil when he was repeatedly shot down 9–0 by the Supreme Court. There is no principle about the limits of the government at stake here, only the question whether it is liberal or populist/conservative policies being imposed.

 

 Third, the Left cares about social issues more than anything else, particularly the judicial imposition of the current abortion regime. If Gorsuch isn’t on board, it doesn’t make a difference whether he will be a presumptive check on the president or not.

 

 Finally, Democrats are getting sucked into the politics of the primal scream. They are heading toward all-out war against Trump, in which case all that matters about Gorsuch — or anyone or anything else — is that he is associated with the president. The best way for Trump to overcome this unhinged opposition is to make choices as sound as he did with Judge Neil Gorsuch — an unassailable pick being assailed by people who profess to yearn for sobriety and traditional norms, even as they reject both themselves.

 

 — Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: [e-mail]. © 2017 King Features Syndicate

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444563/donald-trump-neil-gors...

 

 

 

[Westerly_2]

"Primal scream," is it? Hmmm. I think I'll take it. Some things are bigger than Gorsuch, bigger than Trump. Even Bigger than the nuclear option. Otherwise, what is a primal scream for?

[Bmichael]

Donald Trump, Middle-School President

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL - The New York Times - Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

Any parent who has had children in middle school is familiar with their teenage excuses. First, they complain that the teachers are mean and assign too much homework, then that the reading is boring, and then when all else fails, they give you that aggrieved look and whine, “It’s tooooo haaaaard.”

The point is that whatever happens, it’s someone else’s fault.

It’s annoying when it comes from a 13-year-old. When it comes from the president of the United States and his team, it’s downright terrifying.

In a chilling article in The Times this week, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman described President Trump’s Keystone Kops White House where aides meet in the dark because they can’t figure out how to use the light switches (setting them to “on” might be worth trying), and Trump wanders around his living quarters in his bathrobe watching CNN and obsessing about how mean everyone is to him.

When his executive order putting Steve Bannon into the top circle of the National Security Council drew howls of protest, Trump got mad — because, Thrush and Haberman reported, he had not been fully briefed on the order before he signed it.

Not fully briefed? Didn’t Trump think he should at least have a conversation about the ramifications of setting aside a seat in the Situation Room for a purely political aide with no known national security credentials? (And no, Bannon’s seven years as a junior Navy officer do not amount to national security expertise.) Did Bannon just write the order himself without telling Trump what was in it?

Apparently there was not sufficient discussion of the anti-Muslim refugee and visa ban, either. Maybe the White House got overloaded with math homework or finding the light switches and couldn’t get to it. Nor was there time to discuss an order that gave the Central Intelligence Agency the power to go back into the “black site” prison business, or one that rolled back protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. (The first was revised and the second, apparently, scrapped.)

Now, we learn from the Times article, Reince Priebus has had the brilliant idea of actually looping the president in on the creation of executive orders and not just leaving the job to Bannon and to the White House policy director, Stephen Miller. There will be a 10-stage process for vetting such orders that will include thinking about how to communicate them to the public. It’s quite an innovation, except that it was standard procedure in previous administrations.

But it may make it harder for Trump to blame other people for his own problems, as he did when he attacked the federal judiciary over his visa ban, which presumably sets the stage for blaming the judges if there is a terrorist attack in the future. In the same spirit, Trump’s failure to win a majority in the national popular vote apparently was the fault of illegal immigrants and dead people.

The juvenile whining was a crescendo during the one-hour argument this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is considering whether to allow the visa and refugee ban to resume while legal challenges proceed.

At one point, a judge asked for evidence that the visa ban would actually make the government safer, and the government’s lawyer, August Flentje, responded with the “it’s too hard” dodge. He told the judges that the government had not had a chance to present evidence because “these proceedings have been moving quite fast, and we’re doing the best we can.”

Why hadn’t the administration gathered evidence to support its claim before issuing the visa ban?

Trump was back on Twitter on Wednesday morning attacking the appellate court judges — an astonishing attempt by a president to interfere in the judicial process. “If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled,” Trump said.

The logic of that eludes me. If Trump loses this case, he’ll pick up his marbles and go home and not try anything else to keep America safe? He’ll hold his breath until he turns blue? Or will he just pass notes around to all the other eighth graders about how mean the teachers are?

[Carol T]

Teen Vogue, which has stellar political reporting mixed in with the fluff, says people are dealing with this by sending postcards addressed to President Bannon.

People Are Addressing 'President Bannon' on Postcards to White House

It's time for #PostcardstoBannon.

Lily HermanFEB 8, 2017 5:56PM EST

Critics of President Donald Trump are trying to put a rift between him and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Their method of choice? Snail mail.

Controversy has swirled around Steve Bannon ever since Trump made him his chief strategist shortly after his election, who was also a part of Trump's campaign. Bannon is the the former head of Breitbart News, a favorite platform of the "alt-right" (AKA white nationalists). In office, Bannon has been considered the mastermind of many of Trump's policy moves, including the Muslim ban that's currently in the midst of a legal battle.

Right after the Muslim ban was announced and Bannon was appointed to the National Security Council, Twitter users began referring to him as "President Bannon" on the platform as a nod to the fact that he's had so much influence over Trump and his administration's agenda. The move created further tension for Trump (and attention for Bannon) because the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence were taken off of the council.

Now, critics of Trump have started a new campaign called #PostcardstoBannon, where they send letters, notes, and postcards to the White House. The catch? Instead of addressing them to the actual president, they're addressed to "President Bannon."

The campaign comes just days after Bannon appeared on the cover of Time magazine and Saturday Night Live poked fun at the chief strategist's seemingly dominant behavior over Trump. So far, no one in the White House has commented on the initiative, but prior to the postcards, Trump did tweet about how he "calls [his] own shots."

Understandably, no one sending these postcards believes Trump or Bannon will respond; the hope instead is that Trump will become even more irritated by Bannon's growing presence (and perhaps fire him), all while Bannon tries to avoid the spotlight and his boss's annoyance.

[Bmichael]

Grinning...and at the same time, rumors are strong that McRonald will soon fire Spicer - largely because Spicer can''t or won't defend the BS and the lies.

[Bmichael]

From The Daily Intelligencer (New York Magazine)

Andrew Sullivan: The Madness of King Donald

Andrew Sullivan - Daily Intelligencer - Friday, February 10, 2017

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

I guess I should start by saying this is not a blog. Nor is it what one might call a column. It’s an experiment of sorts to see if there’s something in between those two. Most Fridays, from now on, I’ll be writing in this space about, among other things, the end of Western civilization, the collapse of the republic, and, yes, my beagles. If you’re a veteran reader of my former site, the Dish, you may find yourselves at times in an uncanny valley. So may I. The model I’m trying to follow is more like the British magazine tradition of a weekly diary — on the news, but a little distant from it, personal as well as political, conversational more than formal.

I want to start with Trump’s lies. It’s now a commonplace that Trump and his underlings tell whoppers. Fact-checkers have never had it so good. But all politicians lie. Bill Clinton could barely go a day without some shading or parsing of the truth. Richard Nixon was famously tricky. But all the traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth — even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a shared reality and bowed to it. They acknowledged the need for a common set of facts in order for a liberal democracy to function at all. Trump’s lies are different. They are direct refutations of reality — and their propagation and repetition is about enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They are attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-faced lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their subjects into submission. That first press conference when Sean Spicer was sent out to lie and fulminate to the press about the inauguration crowd reminded me of some Soviet apparatchik having his loyalty tested to see if he could repeat in public what he knew to be false. It was comical, but also faintly chilling.

What do I mean by denial of empirical reality? Take one of the most recent. On Wednesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal related the news that Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the long-vacant Supreme Court seat, had told him that the president’s unprecedented, personal attacks on federal judges were “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” Within half an hour, this was confirmed by Gorsuch’s White House–appointed spokesman, who was present for the conversation. CNN also reported that Senator Ben Sasse had heard Gorsuch say exactly the same thing, with feeling, as did former senator Kelly Ayotte.

The president nonetheless insisted twice yesterday that Blumenthal had misrepresented his conversation with Gorsuch — first in an early morning tweet and then, once again, yesterday afternoon, in front of the television cameras. To add to the insanity, he also tweeted that in a morning interview, Chris Cuomo had never challenged Blumenthal on his lies about his service in Vietnam — when the tape clearly shows it was the first thing Cuomo brought up.

What are we supposed to do with this? How are we to respond to a president who in the same week declared that the “murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 45 to 47 years,” when, of course, despite some recent, troubling spikes in cities, it’s nationally near a low not seen since the late 1960s, and half what it was in 1980. What are we supposed to do when a president says that two people were shot dead in Chicago during president Obama’s farewell address – when this is directly contradicted by the Chicago police? None of this, moreover, is ever corrected. No error is ever admitted. Any lie is usually doubled down by another lie – along with an ad hominem attack.

Here is what we are supposed to do: rebut every single lie. Insist moreover that each lie is retracted – and journalists in press conferences should back up their colleagues with repeated follow-ups if Spicer tries to duck the plain truth. Do not allow them to move on to another question. Interviews with the president himself should not leave a lie alone; the interviewer should press and press and press until the lie is conceded. The press must not be afraid of even calling the president a liar to his face if he persists. This requires no particular courage. I think, in contrast, of those dissidents whose critical insistence on simple truth in plain language kept reality alive in the Kafkaesque world of totalitarianism. As the Polish dissident Adam Michnik once said: “In the life of every honorable man comes a difficult moment … when the simple statement that this is black and that is white requires paying a high price.” The price Michnik paid was years in prison. American journalists cannot risk a little access or a nasty tweet for the same essential civic duty?

*

Then there is the obvious question of the president’s mental and psychological health. I know we’re not supposed to bring this up – but it is staring us brutally in the face. I keep asking myself this simple question: if you came across someone in your everyday life who repeatedly said fantastically and demonstrably untrue things, what would you think of him? If you showed up at a neighbor’s, say, and your host showed you his newly painted living room, which was a deep blue, and then insisted repeatedly – manically – that it was a lovely shade of scarlet, what would your reaction be? If he then dragged out a member of his family and insisted she repeat this obvious untruth in front of you, how would you respond? If the next time you dropped by, he was still raving about his gorgeous new red walls, what would you think? Here’s what I’d think: this man is off his rocker. He’s deranged; he’s bizarrely living in an alternative universe; he’s delusional. If he kept this up, at some point you’d excuse yourself and edge slowly out of the room and the house and never return. You’d warn your other neighbors. You’d keep your distance. If you saw him, you’d be polite but keep your distance.

I think this is a fundamental reason why so many of us have been so unsettled, anxious and near-panic these past few months. It is not so much this president’s agenda. That always changes from administration to administration. It is that when the lynchpin of an entire country is literally delusional, clinically deceptive, and responds to any attempt to correct the record with rage and vengeance, everyone is always on edge.

There is no anchor any more. At the core of the administration of the most powerful country on earth, there is, instead, madness.

*

With someone like this barging into your consciousness every hour of every day, you begin to get a glimpse of what it must be like to live in an autocracy of some kind. Every day in countries unfortunate enough to be ruled by a lone dictator, people are constantly subjected to the Supreme Leader’s presence, in their homes, in their workplaces, as they walk down the street. Big Brother never leaves you alone. His face bears down on you on every flickering screen. He begins to permeate your psyche and soul; he dominates every news cycle and issues pronouncements – each one shocking and destabilizing – round the clock. He delights in constantly provoking and surprising you, so that his monstrous ego can be perennially fed. And because he is also mentally unstable, forever lashing out in manic spasms of pain and anger, you live each day with some measure of trepidation. What will he come out with next? Somehow, he is never in control of himself and yet he is always in control of you.

One of the great achievements of free society in a stable democracy is that many people, for much of the time, need not think about politics at all. The president of a free country may dominate the news cycle many days – but he is not omnipresent – and because we live under the rule of law, we can afford to turn the news off at times. A free society means being free of those who rule over you – to do the things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves – to exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene. In that sense, it seems to me, we already live in a country with markedly less freedom than we did a month ago. It’s less like living in a democracy than being a child trapped in a house where there is an abusive and unpredictable father, who will brook no reason, respect no counter-argument, admit no error, and always, always ups the ante until catastrophe inevitably strikes. This is what I mean by the idea that we are living through an emergency.

*

I’ve managed to see Scorsese’s Silence twice in the last couple of weeks. It literally silenced me. It’s a surpassingly beautiful movie – but its genius lies in the complexity of its understanding of what faith really is. For some secular liberals, faith is some kind of easy, simple abdication of reason – a liberation from reality. For Scorsese, it’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery, and often inseparable from crippling, perpetual doubt. You see this in the main protagonist’s evolution: from a certain, absolutist arrogance to a long sacrifice of pride toward a deeper spiritual truth. Faith is a result, in the end, of living, of seeing your previous certainties crumble and be rebuilt, shakily, on new grounds. God is almost always silent, hidden, and sometimes most painfully so in the face of hideous injustice or suffering. A life of faith is therefore not real unless it is riddled with despair.

There are moments – surpassingly rare but often indelible – when you do hear the voice of God and see the face of Jesus. You never forget them – and I count those few moments in my life when I have heard the voice and seen the face as mere intimations of what is to come. But the rest is indeed silence. And the conscience is something that cannot sometimes hear itself. I’ve rarely seen the depth of this truth more beautifully unpacked. Which is why, perhaps, the movie has had such a tiny audience so far. Those without faith have no patience for a long meditation on it; those with faith in our time are filled too often with a passionate certainty to appreciate it. And this movie’s mysterious imagery can confound anyone. But its very complexity and subtlety gave me hope in this vulgar, extremist time. We cannot avoid this surreality all around us. But it may be possible occasionally to transcend it.

[Westerly_2]

Yeah, I read that too.  But not the Parker yet. I like Kathleen Parker

[Bmichael]

Kathleen Parker: Trump’s two-year presidency

Kathleen Parker - The Washington Post - Saturday, February 11, 2017

 

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

 

Good news: In two years, we’ll have a new president. Bad news: If we make it that long.

My “good” prediction is based on the Law of the Pendulum. Enough Americans, including most independent voters, will be so ready to shed Donald Trump and his little shop of horrors that the 2018 midterm elections are all but certain to be a landslide — no, make that a mudslide — sweep of the House and Senate. If Republicans took both houses in a groundswell of the people’s rejection of Obamacare, Democrats will take them back in a tsunami of protest.

Once ensconced, it would take a Democratic majority approximately 30 seconds to begin impeachment proceedings selecting from an accumulating pile of lies, overreach and just plain sloppiness. That is, assuming Trump hasn’t already been shown the exit.

Or that he hasn’t declared martial law (all those anarchists, you know) and effectively silenced dissent. We’re already well on our way to the latter via Trump’s incessant attacks on the media — “among the most dishonest human beings on Earth” — and press secretary Sean Spicer’s rabid-chihuahua, daily press briefings. (Note to Sean: Whatever he’s promised you, it’s not worth becoming Melissa McCarthy’s punching bag. But really, don’t stop.)

With luck, and Cabinet-level courage that is not much in evidence, there’s a chance we won’t have to wait two long years, during which, let’s face it, anything could happen. In anticipation of circumstances warranting a speedier presidential replacement, wiser minds added Section 4 to the 25th Amendment, which removes the president if a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president think it necessary, i.e., if the president is injured or falls too ill to serve. Or, by extension, by being so incompetent — or not-quite-right — that he or she poses a threat to the nation and must be removed immediately and replaced by the vice president.

Aren’t we there, yet?

Thus far, Trump and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade of ethics violations ranging from the serious (business conflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department store for dropping his daughter’s fashion line). And, no, it’s not just a father defending his daughter. It’s the president of the United States bullying a particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free enterprise.

To an objective observer, it would seem impossible to defend the perilous absurdities emanating from the White House and from at least one executive agency, the Agriculture Department, which recently scrubbed animal abuse reports from its website, leaving puppies, kittens, horses and others to fend for themselves.

In a hopeful note, a few Republicans are speaking out, but the list is short.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz recently got a taste of what’s ahead for Republican incumbents. Facing an unruly crowd at a town hall meeting in Utah, the House Oversight Committee chairman was booed nearly every time he mentioned Trump. Even if many in the crowd were members of opposition groups, the evening provided a glimpse of the next two years. From 2010’s tea party to 2018’s resistance, the pendulum barely had time to pause before beginning its leftward trek.

While we wait for it to someday find the nation’s center, where so many wait impatiently, it seems clear that the president, who swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, has never read it. Nor, apparently, has he ever even watched a Hollywood rendering of the presidency. A single episode of “The West Wing” would have taught Trump more about his new job than he seems to know — or care.

Far more compelling than keeping his promise to act presidential is keeping campaign promises against reason, signing poorly conceived executive orders, bashing the judicial and legislative branches, and tweeting his spleen to a wondering and worrying world.

Trump’s childish and petulant manner, meanwhile, further reinforces long-held concerns that this man can’t be trusted to lead a dog-and-pony act, much less the nation. Most worrisome is how long Trump can tolerate the protests, criticisms, humiliations, rebuttals and defeats — and what price he’ll try to exact from those who refused to look away.

Read more from Kathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.

[Westerly_2]

"Ah, Kathleen Parker. She says "shoved to the exit," but I think, what if he decides to leave himself, and make it look like it was all his idea? Rumored rumblings have him dismayed and frustrated that this gig is  not all working out like running one of his own businesses. He's so surprised, enraged and disappointed that  the loyal opposition in congress, the free press and the legal branch are not asking  "how high?" when he says jump, as his loyal underlings at Trump LLc used to do. It must be enough to drive a potentate craaazy! How much longer?