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On today's Irony!

Tucker Carlson whines about taxpayers being forced to pay a capitalist's workers' benefits because the capitalist refuses to pay them decent wages.

The obvious solution is, of course, to abolish the benefits, rather than force said capitalists to pay their workers decent wages or replace benefits and minimum wages with an unconditional social safety net.

Bezos is obviously the headline target because of the fact he's a huge critic of Trump, but Carlson also goes after Walmart and Uber.

This is just... wow. Just wow. He's talking about the evils of taxpayers needing to pay these rich peoples' employees, and does not see that maybe the answer isn't to get rid of social programs.

He also has the causation chain backwards. He implies that if we got rid of welfare, market pressures would force these companies to pay their workers better. This flies in the face of history, which says companies always had a tendency to pay their workers garbage wages, which is why welfare came about in the first place.

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http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-rubin-trump-poll-numbers-drop-20180831-story.html#

Recent opinion polls put Trump a 60% disapproval and 40% approval, matching Trump's all-time low. The vast majority of people think corruption has worsened or stayed the same under his term.

Two-thirds think Paul Manafort's conviction was just, and the plurality of Republicans think he should not be given a pardon.

His gender gap is gigantic: 54% of men disapprove of Trump's performance, while 66% of women do.

Even on the economy, 45% approve and 47% disapprove. Lord help him if there's any dip in performance in the next two months.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/opinions/gillum-wise-not-to-take-monkey-comment-bait-granderson/index.html

Republican candidate for Governor of Florida DeSantis used the expression "monkey this up" in reference to the possibility of Democrat Andrew Gillum (who is black and will be Florida's first black Governor if he wins) winning the race for Governor. This naturally generated plenty of rancor since it came off as a racist dogwhistle, though Gillum has largely avoided discussing the issue, preferring to focus on his progressive platform. Considering all the talk of racism and sexism did little to sink Donald Trump's candidacy, a lot of analysts think this is a smart choice on Gillum's part. Gillum's campaign is focused on issues like expanding healthcare and rolling back the police state rather than airing attack ads about DeSantis' racism.

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Can I just say that it really says something when McCain calls Obama, his political opponents both during presidential campaigns and while opposing each other as Congressman and President, and requests him to speak at his funeral?

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9 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Can I just say that it really says something when McCain calls Obama, his political opponents both during presidential campaigns and while opposing each other as Congressman and President, and requests him to speak at his funeral?

And banning the current president from his funeral on top of that. Seriously, I felt Meghan’s anger when Pence showed up and mentioned Trumps name. Just couldn’t honor a deceased mans request could you?

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14 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Can I just say that it really says something when McCain calls Obama, his political opponents both during presidential campaigns and while opposing each other as Congressman and President, and requests him to speak at his funeral? 

I don't think I ever agreed with John McCain's platform, but I respected him immensely as a politician.  Even admist both ends of the political spectrum engaging in the most petty of cockfighting, as far as I've known (which admittedly might not be much) McCain has always been extremely respectful, even towards his opposition.  He understood that politics are not black and white and that opposing views are valuable.  If nothing else, I feel like even when I disagreed with him immensely, it was because he legitimately felt he was doing the right thing.  It's not to say that he was never problematic or even the least problematic of his particular party, but having a respect for American politics, rather than using it as an extended platform for waving your dick around like a 14-year-old like certain other political figures, is something shouldn't be but honestly kind of is pretty commendable in today's political climate.

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17 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

Republican candidate for Governor of Florida DeSantis used the expression "monkey this up" in reference to the possibility of Democrat Andrew Gillum (who is black and will be Florida's first black Governor if he wins) winning the race for Governor. This naturally generated plenty of rancor since it came off as a racist dogwhistle, though Gillum has largely avoided discussing the issue, preferring to focus on his progressive platform. Considering all the talk of racism and sexism did little to sink Donald Trump's candidacy, a lot of analysts think this is a smart choice on Gillum's part. Gillum's campaign is focused on issues like expanding healthcare and rolling back the police state rather than airing attack ads about DeSantis' racism.

Yeah at this point, people gotta realize it’s not in politicians favor to push the “racist, sexist, homophobic,etc” angle anymore. After Trump, we’ve seen how it only seems to encourage people to vote in their favor even more as either some “gatcha” to liberals, or because they simply don’t want to vindicate those they disagree with. I think it’s fine for citizens, it’s definitely good to call this shit out, but for politicians, it’s a risk/danger to have those topics be a podium to stand your candidacy on, even if you have other talking points to go with that.

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Hey, you guys ever see The Sum of All Fears? Namely, the ending montage where American and Russian special forces team up and take down all the Nazis who tried to engineer a Russo-American War?

Well looks like we have a real life equivalent of that.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/2/1790985/-Behind-Milo-s-meltdown-Alt-Right-is-suffering-bigly-but-we-need-to-bring-the-final-hammer

Pretty much all the prominent alt-right leaders are broke, imprisoned, or in hiding. Their websites are being taken down or increasingly finding it difficult to stay afloat. They're routinely cut off from friends and family who recognize what they are doing. And while the GOP has been trying to court the white nationalist vote in a lot of races, it's looking like this will be the root of their destruction.

Most delicious is Milo's meltdown as he whines that nobody supports him and how he's a martyr:

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And this is what happens when you’re patient and let karma do its thing.

EDIT: Wait...Milo has a husband?! 

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53 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

And this is what happens when you’re patient and let karma do its thing.

EDIT: Wait...Milo has a husband?! 

Oh yeah, he’s a self hating gay to the max. His conservatism and who he supports alone makes that very apparent. The gay community quite hates him (I still think his “husband” is a stunt personally.)

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I just love that this is a man who delighted building a career on causing pain to other people, laughing at how much he could upset them, and he's surprised when practically nobody cares about when he feels upset in any fashion.

He actually responded to the media covering the meltdown; he upped the victim card by being smug about how it's newsworthy he shows human feelings.

Well yeah, considering what an asshole he's been, it kind of is.

Especially when you apparently do not know how to break something up into paragraphs.

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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/beto-orourke-ted-cruz-texas-senate-race/

Recent polls put Ted Cruz ahead of Democrat Beto O'Rourke by only one point.

Meanwhile, the GOP Governor of Texas has a strong lead on his opponent, so this seems to indicate Ted Cruz has just pissed off enough conservatives and moderates they're willing to let O'Rourke kick him out.

The greater significance of this race is that if GOP donors have to pour a ton of money into winning Texas' Senate seat, it will sap resources from races in states like Missouri and North Dakota where Republicans had better odds of kicking Democrats out.

If Beto can mobilize the minority vote in surprising numbers, however, it could put Texas in play in other races going forward, which makes future Presidential races looks very perilous for the GOP. Losing ground in both Texas and Florida in the same year would force some serious soul searching.

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5 hours ago, KHCast said:

Oh yeah, he’s a self hating gay to the max. His conservatism and who he supports alone makes that very apparent. The gay community quite hates him (I still think his “husband” is a stunt personally.)

Mainly as a “I’m not racist” card because his apparent husband is black. 

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It doesn't need to be a stunt.

There are plenty of people the world over who genuinely think you can't be racist/colorist if you're not hostile to another group in every matter of life.

But it's all about the values people were raised with. We've been taught it's wrong to dislike interracial marriage or to like segregation or to say the n-word or to be like the Klan... but not that it's wrong to have passive aggressive attitudes on subjects like police brutality, demonstrations, welfare, etc. Or that it's wrong to support socioeconomic systems that continue to deny equal opportunity to people of color.

Honestly, I'm not surprised a lot of people go down the rabbit hole of becoming far more racist. It's probably their first experience with (heavily flawed) logic, so it seems self-evident to them. They get the pride of being "woke" to things, which gives an enormous mental rush; there is satisfaction in being contrarian. It's why something as stupid as the Flat Earth can so easily ensnare people.

While the "we must not tolerate the intolerant" comic is something people love to use in this day and age (it's generally a segue into the state policing speech more aggressively), I think John Stuart Mill's ideas serve us better in the long run. He felt having idiots and bigots being able to present their ideas would make us appreciate the truth more over the long term, because we would need to sharpen our minds (by opposing those ideas) and actually understand the truth. When we actually have to use our reason (a word which, I will note, a lot of far right sources have appropriated, though I think this ties into the fact a lot of progressive ideals are just handed down, so it seems "reasonable" to oppose them), we can better understand things and eliminate logical inconsistencies. We can reduce the incidence of insane things like people opposing government insurance but favoring Medicare-for-All, or thinking racism ends at slurs and overt segregation.

The truth does not change, but appreciation of it does. In a time when a considerable portion of the American public thinks a single state source of information is superior to many competing, private sources, I think this is more accurate than ever.

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5 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

It doesn't need to be a stunt.

There are plenty of people the world over who genuinely think you can't be racist/colorist if you're not hostile to another group in every matter of life.

I’m really not gonna buy that milo of all people is one of those people. I’m also not buying he’s one of those “uneducated rednecks” that are far more likely to fall into racism due to it being “their first time” experiencing logic. Possibly as a kid, but He’s a grown, supposedly educated guy now.

 

And as for the rest of your comment...mmmmmmm can’t say I agree a whole lot there personally. For me, I’d rather not be tolerant and accept the ignorance and hatred and let it continue. Maybe this is coming from a different place as a black man compared to you who’s in a more privileged position and as such can say stuff like this more comfortably, no offense, but I see the contradiction of tolerance of intolerance as something that society needs to get a better grip of if we don’t wanna repeat history in a myriad of ways. Now more than ever especially. We can very much appreciate the truth while still shaming and not being tolerant of bigotry and allowing those people to have legitimate podiums to speak. I’d rather not tempt fate and give them a voice. After all like you just said, it can be easy for many, especially the ignorant, and young, to buy into racism, hate, etc. and especially when the loudest ones on the left currently seem to just hurl insults and yell “you’re a hateful racist/Nazi/trump supporter!” The argument level on both sides is pretty shit, but the way I’ve seen many progressives talk and debate, angrily, hurling attacks, and usually only focus on one aspect, the “identify politics” that make even neutral people roll their eyes apparently, they make the right look more calm and in control of the situation. We shoot our selves in the foot.

i see what you mean, and think the general idea is great, using their hate to sharpen society’s, but it’s a gamble to me, especially given current society on both sides 

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/03/politics/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-justice-department/index.html

The "drain the swamp" talk is revealed to be more bullshit than it was before. Trump has blasted Sessions for moving ahead with indicting two key Republican Congressmen who were early Trump supporters, basically saying the investigation should have waited until after the election (so that they could easily win re-election).

Don't recall him complaining about Comey's statements on Clinton just prior to the election and how those possibly helped him win.

Many prominent Republicans have come out to praise the indictments and criticized Trump for his contempt for the justice system.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/02/politics/cnn-house-key-races-august-update/index.html

In the aftermath of the indictments, 11 seats have moved towards the Democrats and 3 towards the Republicans.

So long as Democrats win all districts that lean towards them and half the tossups, they will make out with 218 seats, a bare majority of the House.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/03/politics/roe-v-wade-kavanaugh-collins/index.html

Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing is tomorrow. He insists abortion law is "settled," but there are words of caution on how little that means.

The future of abortion rights will likely fall to Chief Justice Roberts, who has voted to limit abortion in the past, but is unlikely to want to be remembered as the Chief Justice who let abortion rights get overturned.

13 hours ago, KHCast said:

I’m really not gonna buy that milo of all people is one of those people.

Why not? His kind of take is everywhere. You don't need to be a Nazi or whatever to have the logical fallacy that a relationship with a colored person means you cannot be colorist.

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For me, I’d rather not be tolerant and accept the ignorance and hatred and let it continue. Maybe this is coming from a different place as a black man compared to you who’s in a more privileged position and as such can say stuff like this more comfortably, no offense, but I see the contradiction of tolerance of intolerance as something that society needs to get a better grip of if we don’t wanna repeat history in a myriad of ways. Now more than ever especially. We can very much appreciate the truth while still shaming and not being tolerant of bigotry and allowing those people to have legitimate podiums to speak. I’d rather not tempt fate and give them a voice.

Not wanting the state to expand censorship =/= these people are not met with resistance.

The reason I raised the tolerance of the intolerant thing is because it almost always segues into "hey guys we should give the state the right to regulate speech nodnod." My concern is not resistance, it is state expansion into this field. If you read over what I was saying, the whole reason the state not expanding itself works out is because people put up resistance.

You raise the position of privilege, which is possibly valid. But I raise the position of history and political currents. How do you guarantee it is your side of the issue that is in charge of these laws?

You can't. That's why it's a bad idea. There is a reason over centuries of political philosophy, we have decided there are just some powers the state should not have, regardless of how much good they could do in the right hands. Because we can't guarantee the right hands will be the ones holding it.

Never mind the fact restrictions on hate speech by the state just encourage a shift to dogwhistles. Look at us, the free speech loving society, and we already have tons of dogwhistles. The way Europe has been dealing with a lot of neo-fascists and fascist sympathizers lately, as well? That seems to indicate how much good granting further censorship power will actually achieve.

Which is practically none.

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After all like you just said, it can be easy for many, especially the ignorant, and young, to buy into racism, hate, etc. and especially when the loudest ones on the left currently seem to just hurl insults and yell “you’re a hateful racist/Nazi/trump supporter!” The argument level on both sides is pretty shit, but the way I’ve seen many progressives talk and debate, angrily, hurling attacks, and usually only focus on one aspect, the “identify politics” that make even neutral people roll their eyes apparently, they make the right look more calm and in control of the situation. We shoot our selves in the foot.

i see what you mean, and think the general idea is great, using their hate to sharpen society’s, but it’s a gamble to me, especially given current society on both sides 

Which is why it would be an even worse idea to invest that sort of power in the state, because the people in control of the state are elected by those same people.

We will only get as good a government as we have a society, ultimately. But in the meantime, we can keep government from getting too bad by specifically restricting what powers it can possess.

I'm wary of hate speech restrictions for the same way I'm wary of capital punishment and armed police. There is a concerning amount of room for error. What's hateful seems self-evident to us, in our forum group with about ten active contributors or so, but what about across millions of people in dozens, hundreds, thousands of jurisdictions? What about when the levers of power routinely shift, and you could easily end up with a far right group coming into power that starts defining criticism of creationism as hate speech? Maybe calling someone a bigot for not supporting same sex marriage could be classed as hate speech? Do you see where the issue is here?

A lot of people on the left say there is no slippery slope, citing how European restrictions on speech have not broadened too much. But if the case of states like Europe is raised, it needs to be remembered we live in a much more volatile society than most Europeans due to a different history. Europeans pretty soundly reject people like Trump (even though there's a concerning rise of support for people like him). A ton of Americans think someone with his views is a perfectly valid person to rule over us.

We have trouble coming to an agreement that the government should make it so poor people don't die from lack of healthcare. To be quite blunt, why the hell would I entrust the government with regulatory power over speech?

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Over 42,000 documents regarding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were withheld from Senate Democrats until the day before the hearing. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R, IA) refused to acknowledge the Democrat's request for time to examine the documents before the hearing began. In any other legal proceeding the discovery process would ensure that both sides had access to the evidence and no judge would allow the proceedings to continue until both sides had sufficient time to examine the evidence and prepare a case. This is the kind of blatantly corrupt proceeding you'd expect to see in an Ace Attorney game. The only thing missing is Senate Republicans literally flogging the Democrats.

Let Senator Grassley know how disappointed you are in his conduct.

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Details from Bob Woodward's new book have started to emerge, ahead of its release later this month. It's proving to be absolutely beautiful.

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President Donald Trump's closest aides have taken extraordinary measures in the White House to try to stop what they saw as his most dangerous impulses, going so far as to swipe and hide papers from his desk so he wouldn't sign them, according to a new book from legendary journalist Bob Woodward.

Woodward's 448-page book, "Fear: Trump in the White House," provides an unprecedented inside-the-room look through the eyes of the President's inner circle. From the Oval Office to the Situation Room to the White House residence, Woodward uses confidential background interviews to illustrate how some of the President's top advisers view him as a danger to national security and have sought to circumvent the commander in chief.

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Woodward sums up the state of the Trump White House by writing that Trump was an "emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader." Woodward writes that the staff's decision to circumvent the President was "a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world."

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The book opens with a dramatic scene. Former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn saw a draft letter he considered dangerous to national security on the Oval Office desk.

The letter would have withdrawn the US from a critical trade agreement with South Korea. Trump's aides feared the fallout could jeopardize a top-secret national security program: the ability to detect a North Korean missile launch within just seven seconds.

Woodward reports Cohn was "appalled" that Trump might sign the letter. "I stole it off his desk," Cohn told an associate. "I wouldn't let him see it. He's never going to see that document. Got to protect the country."

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Cohn was not alone. Former staff secretary Rob Porter worked with Cohn and used the same tactic on multiple occasions, Woodward writes. In addition to literally stealing or hiding documents from Trump's desk, they sought to stall and delay decisions or distract Trump from orders they thought would endanger national security.

"A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren't such good ideas," said Porter, who as staff secretary handled the flow of presidential papers until he quit amid domestic violence allegations. He and others acted with the acquiescence of former chief of staff Reince Priebus, Woodward reports.

Woodward describes repeated attempts to bypass Trump as "no less than an administrative coup d'état."

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In one revelatory anecdote, Woodward describes a scene in the White House residence. Trump's lawyer, convinced the President would perjure himself, put Trump through a test — a practice interview for the one he might have with Mueller. Trump failed, according to Dowd, but the President still insisted he should testify.

Woodward writes that Dowd saw the "full nightmare" of a potential Mueller interview, and felt Trump acted like an "aggrieved Shakespearean king."
But Trump seemed surprised at Dowd's reaction, Woodward writes. "You think I was struggling?" Trump asked.

Then, in an even more remarkable move, Dowd and Trump's current personal attorney Jay Sekulow went to Mueller's office and re-enacted the mock interview. Their goal: to argue that Trump couldn't possibly testify because he was incapable of telling the truth.

"He just made something up. That's his nature," Dowd said to Mueller.

The passage is an unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes of Mueller's secretive operation — for the first time, Mueller's conversations with Trump's lawyers are captured.

"I need the president's testimony," Mueller said. "What was his intent on Comey? ... I want to see if there was corrupt intent."

Despite Dowd's efforts, Trump continued to insist he could testify. "I think the President of the United States cannot be seen taking the fifth," Trump said.
Dowd's argument was stark: "There's no way you can get through these. ... Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jump suit."

What he couldn't say to Trump, according to Woodward, was what Dowd believed to be true: "You're a fucking liar."

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Throughout the book, Woodward portrays the President as a man obsessed with his standing in the media and with his core supporters. Trump appears to be lonely and increasingly paranoid, often watching hours of television in the White House residence. "They're out to get me," Trump said of Mueller's team.

Trump's closest advisers described him erupting in rage and profanity, and he seemed to enjoy humiliating others.

"This guy is mentally retarded," Trump said of Sessions. "He's this dumb southerner," Trump told Porter, mocking Sessions by feigning a southern accent.

Trump said that Priebus is "like a little rat. He just scurries around."

And Trump demeaned former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to his face, when Giuliani was the only campaign surrogate willing to defend then-candidate Trump on television after the "Access Hollywood" tape, a bombshell video where Trump described sexually assaulting women.

"Rudy, you're a baby," Trump told the man who is now his attorney. "I've never seen a worse defense of me in my life. They took your diaper off right there. You're like a little baby that needed to be changed. When are you going to be a man?"

Trump's predecessors are not spared either. In a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham, Trump called President Barack Obama a "weak dick" for not acting in Syria, Woodward reports.

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Woodward's book takes readers inside top-secret meetings. On July 27, 2017, Trump's national security leaders convened a gathering at "The Tank" in the Pentagon. The goal: an intervention to try to educate the President on the importance of allies and diplomacy.

Trump's philosophy on diplomacy was personal. "This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim," he said of North Korea.

His inner circle was worried about "The Big Problem," Woodward writes: Trump's lack of understanding that his crusade to impose tariffs could endanger global security.

But the meeting didn't go as planned.

Trump went off on his generals. "You should be killing guys. You don't need a strategy to kill people," Trump said of Afghanistan.

He questioned the wisdom of keeping US troops in South Korea.

"So Mr. President," Cohn said to Trump, "what would you need in the region to sleep well at night?"

"I wouldn't need a fucking thing," the President said. "And I'd sleep like a baby."

After Trump left the Tank, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared: "He's a fucking moron."

The book provides the context for the now-infamous quote that marked the beginning of the end for Tillerson's tenure. Tillerson tried to downplay the dispute -- "I'm not going to deal with petty stuff like that," he said at a news conference after NBC reported the remark — but he was ultimately fired via tweet.

Woodward also quotes an unnamed White House official who gave an even more dire assessment of the meeting: "It seems clear that many of the president's senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views."

A recurrent theme in Woodward's book is Trump's seeming disregard for national security concerns because of his obsession with money — trade deficits and the cost of troops overseas.

In meeting after meeting, Trump questions why the US has to pay for such a large troop presence in South Korea.

"We're doing this in order to prevent World War III," Mattis, the defense secretary, bluntly explained to Trump at one January 2018 meeting, which prompted Mattis to tell close associates afterward that Trump had the understanding of a "fifth or sixth grader."

Trump still wasn't convinced. "I think we could be so rich if we weren't stupid," he later said in the meeting, arguing the US was being played as "suckers," Woodward reports.

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Appalled by some of his more outrageous posts, Trump's aides tried to form a Twitter "committee" to vet the President's tweets, but they failed to stop their boss.

Priebus, who was blindsided when Trump announced his firing on Twitter, referred to the presidential bedroom as "the devil's workshop" and called the early morning hours and Sunday night — a time of many news-breaking tweets — "the witching hour."

Trump, however, saw himself as a Twitter wordsmith.

"It's a good thing," Trump said when Twitter expanded its character count to 280, "but it's a bit of a shame because I was the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters."

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Finally, "Fear" is filled with slights, insults and takedowns from both family and staff that speak to the chaos, infighting and drama that Trump allows to fester around him.

Both Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are targeted by the inner circle.

There is a pointed shot at Ivanka from the President's now-ostracized chief strategist Steve Bannon, who frequently clashed with the first daughter and her husband.

"You're nothing but a fucking staffer!" Bannon screamed at Ivanka at a staff meeting, according to Woodward. "You walk around this place and act like you're in charge, and you're not. You're on staff!"

"I'm not a staffer!" she shouted back. "I'll never be a staffer. I'm the first daughter" — she really used the title, Woodward writes — "and I'm never going to be a staffer!"

Two of the harshest comments in the book are directed at Trump and come from his chiefs of staff.

After Trump's Charlottesville, Virginia, controversy, in which he failed to condemn white supremacists, Cohn tried to resign but was instead dressed down by Trump and accused of "treason."

Kelly, who is Trump's current chief of staff, told Cohn afterward, according to notes Cohn made of the exchange: "If that was me, I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times."

And Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, encapsulated the White House and the thrust of Woodward's book by describing the administration as a place with "natural predators at the table."

"When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls," Priebus is quoted as saying, "things start getting nasty and bloody."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/bob-woodward-book-donald-trump-fear/index.html?adkey=bn

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After Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html

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Trump faced widespread criticism after he initially said that “both sides” were to blame for the violence that broke out at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last August.

He later condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the urging of his advisers, according to Woodward.

“That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made,” Trump reportedly told aides almost immediately after the condemnation.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404940-trump-said-condemning-white-supremacists-was-biggest-f-ing-mistake

I... I just... there are no words. It's going to be an incredible book, and I fully expect heads to roll, voluntarily and not, very soon. This is beyond Fire & Fury, way beyond that. The White House is downplaying the revelations as lies told by disgruntled former staffers, but there are so many (including the full context of Tillerson's famous "Fucking moron" comment) that I don't see it doing Trump's approvals a bit of good to dismiss them. It won't sway his base, of course it won't, but then, nothing would sway them anyway.

It adds to an overall air of incompetence and corruption surrounding Trump's White House, which is pulling the GOP's numbers in the Generic Congressional Ballot into heavy loss territory.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

It hasn't been this bad for Republicans since the start of the year.

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3 hours ago, Patticus said:

Details from Bob Woodward's new book have started to emerge, ahead of its release later this month. It's proving to be absolutely beautiful.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/bob-woodward-book-donald-trump-fear/index.html?adkey=bn

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404940-trump-said-condemning-white-supremacists-was-biggest-f-ing-mistake

I... I just... there are no words. It's going to be an incredible book, and I fully expect heads to roll, voluntarily and not, very soon. This is beyond Fire & Fury, way beyond that. The White House is downplaying the revelations as lies told by disgruntled former staffers, but there are so many (including the full context of Tillerson's famous "Fucking moron" comment) that I don't see it doing Trump's approvals a bit of good to dismiss them. It won't sway his base, of course it won't, but then, nothing would sway them anyway.

It adds to an overall air of incompetence and corruption surrounding Trump's White House, which is pulling the GOP's numbers in the Generic Congressional Ballot into heavy loss territory.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

It hasn't been this bad for Republicans since the start of the year.

That's... I... Wow. Just, WOW.

You know what the worst part is? It's that, for all the appalling shit listed, the most shocking revelation to come out of this is that Trump knows who Ernest Hemingway was.

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/massachusetts-primary-democratic-direction/index.html

Another establishment Democrat has been unseated by the primaries. In this case, both Democrats are the same ideologically, but the challenger felt her opponent was not assertive enough in pressing the agenda.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/opinions/how-to-prepare-for-ex-president-trump-opinion-geltzer/

A piece on the possibilities of what Trump will do whenever he leaves office. The overall verdict: he will be dangerous. His refusal to commit to accepting the results of the 2016 elections, his questioning of the legitimacy of the midterms if they return a Democratic Congress, and his incessant campaigning, lack of decorum, and social media usage are likely to make him a headache for years to come for not only Democrats but the American republic as a whole.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/white-house-response-bob-woodward/index.html

Like clockwork, just about every member of the Trump administration has come out and denied what they have been accused of saying in Woodward's book.

I can't imagine why someone would deny calling their boss an idiot or something.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/north-carolina-court-gerrymander-midterms/index.html

Dampening hopes for a Democratic House majority, a federal court has ruled there is not enough time to redraw North Carolina's gerrymandered electoral map prior to the midterms. However, they are expected to redraw it afterward, which will likely result in special elections.

It's a strange prospect, but the GOP may actually end up retaining control of the House for a few months after Election Day until special elections unseat them. The GOP controls 10 of 13 seats from North Carolina, and it is expected several will shift Democratic with a redrawn map.

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It won't sway his base, of course it won't, but then, nothing would sway them anyway.

No doubt about that. Trump complains about "anonymous reports" and a lot of his supporters nod in approval, even though anonymity is an accepted custom to get the truth out. It raises the concept of lies, but if one is convinced it's only a lie when it makes your side look bad... something is wrong with that person.

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A senior official within the Trump administration has written a letter to the NY Times, and they published it anonymously yesterday.

Quote

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html

Incredible scenes. Whomever these Trump-resistant insiders are, I think they deserve a fucking parade - far more than Trump ever could; their actions have already prevented wars and assassinations (see: Woodward book excerpts).

Mikes Pompeo & Pence have both publicly denied being the author, but, well, why would they forfeit their ability to keep on protecting the country by coming clean now? And their denials, while clearly designed to reassure the President, only lend the article more credibility.

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He's flailing right now; already angry and upset about the new Woodward book (backed up by hundreds of hours of tapes), his already high levels of paranoia must be increasingly daily. I don't know how he can go on much longer. I'm sure he'll try, but goddamn, he'll put himself in the grave doing so.

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/05/politics/trump-tax-returns/index.html

Due to a 1924 law, a Democratic-controlled Senate or House would have legal ground to use one of the tax committees to request Trump's tax return from the IRS. This is legal procedure, so Trump would honestly be truly screwed.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/05/politics/trump-woodward-book-leakers/index.html

As Trump continues to scream that the Woodward book is entirely fiction, more sources indicate that the White House has started to try and hunt down those who cooperated with it.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/05/politics/kavanaugh-senate-support/index.html

Kavanaugh's nomination is expected to pass with all Republicans in favor and some red state Democrats joining.

While left wing partisans will scream at Democrats siding with Trump on this, it's important to remember how much of Washington politics is scripted. Minority leaders very often will tell their vulnerable party members to vote with the majority to help with re-election when it's obvious the majority is going to win. With McCain having been replaced and Susan Collins not showing any opposition to the confirmation, this vote's outcome has already been decided.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/jon-kyl-to-replace-john-mccain/index.html

John McCain's replacement is Jon Kyl, who had previously held the retiring Jeff Flake's seat. He has not committed to serving the full term until January 2021 (he said he may only serve until January), but he has said he does not intend to stand for re-election. This makes sense, considering Kyl had retired from politics originally and was basically chosen because of his popularity with both Trump and McCain circles.

If Kyl serves until January 2021, the election of 2020 will decide a successor who will serve until after the 2022 election.

Arizona will be a state of intense interest the next several election cycles as a result.

Kyl's lack of commitment to a lengthy term is a blessing, considering he is one of the most conservative Senators out there. If the Democrats manage to win the Governorship of Arizona this year, they could be in a position to appoint a liberal Republican to replace Kyl if he steps down (the replacement has to be a Republican).

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/kavanaugh-hearing-document-booker-testimony/index.html

As Cory Booker ups his efforts to become a 2020 darling of the Democrats by releasing documents against Senate rules, the GOP has responded that the documents he released were already cleared.

You might give Booker the benefit of the doubt since the GOP isn't above lying but let's remember who Mr. Booker is exactly:

https://observer.com/2017/06/cory-booker-big-pharma-bernie-sanders-released-audio/

He shares more donors with GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell than any other Democrat, at least as of mid-2017, and has scuffled with Bernie on bills that would allow cheaper importation of drugs (though he will point out Bernie voting against drug importation bills with high safety restrictions).

One policy Booker stands out among other Democrats is how expansive his marijuana legalization bills are; he wants to direct lots of funding towards rebuilding black neighborhoods ruined by decades of the Drug War. But it's important to remember Justice Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court, also radically shifts leftward the moment African American rights are being discussed. Guess what Booker and Thomas have in common?

Booker and Thomas come off as people who only care about something when it's their demographic that's affected.

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139825/cory-booker-not-friend

He is also a supporter of voucher schools and accepted more Wall Street money in 2014 than any other Democratic candidate. The list goes on to how awful Booker is from a progressive standpoint.

In short: class politics and identity politics belong together. Too many Democratic politicians use identity politics as a smokescreen to avoid class politics. There are several minority candidates who would be far better choices than Booker.

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On 8/31/2018 at 2:18 PM, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

On today's Irony!

Tucker Carlson whines about taxpayers being forced to pay a capitalist's workers' benefits because the capitalist refuses to pay them decent wages.

The obvious solution is, of course, to abolish the benefits, rather than force said capitalists to pay their workers decent wages or replace benefits and minimum wages with an unconditional social safety net.

Bezos is obviously the headline target because of the fact he's a huge critic of Trump, but Carlson also goes after Walmart and Uber.

This is just... wow. Just wow. He's talking about the evils of taxpayers needing to pay these rich peoples' employees, and does not see that maybe the answer isn't to get rid of social programs.

He also has the causation chain backwards. He implies that if we got rid of welfare, market pressures would force these companies to pay their workers better. This flies in the face of history, which says companies always had a tendency to pay their workers garbage wages, which is why welfare came about in the first place.

You know, I literally watched everything Tucker Carlson said, and nowhere did he advocate for the removal of these social programs.  That's pretty dishonest of you Ogilvie.

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