Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center (Gabrielle Bluestone/Twitter).
The Tiny Tyrant’s appearance at CPAC, not all he claimed, to say the least. Here’s the roundup:
President Donald Trump complained the media would not report that crowds lined up for six blocks to hear him speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference — and he’s right.
There were no lines outside the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center, where the annual CPAC gathering is hosted, because the event is private, reported The Slot.
Via Raw Story.
CPAC attendees wave Russian flags with the word “TRUMP” written on the front (Screen cap).
Russian flags were being waved all over the place during the Tiny Tyrant’s braggadocio, which alarmed CPAC organizers, who had them quickly collected.
Apparently, the flags were handed out beforehand in an act of brilliant subversion. People who prefer obscurantism are so damn gullible. By the way, if you’re unclear about all the latest on the Russian situation, Think Progress has you covered.
Via Raw Story.
Donald Trump (CPAC)
Lastly, the twitternet exploded over the Tiny Tyrant’s bizzare speech, a mix of bragging and a philippic against media.
Via Raw Story.
U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.
I’m sure that’s going to make us all sleep better. FFS, can’t someone tell him “oh, there’s terrible skit on SNL” or “oh, Celeb Whatever just sucks, but you’re busy…” and distract this fucking moron? Also on the Tiny Tyrant’s agenda, wiping out every bit of progress made on decriminalizing weed, medical weed, and not locking up every other person in prison for years over weed.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a lovely packet of medical weed right now. Fuck.
Women’s March on Washington (Photo: Sarah Burris/RawStory).
The myth of professional protesters continues to be spread by rethugs, and Arizona rethugs have passed legislation which would allow the cops to seize the assets of anyone who attended a protest which turned violent in any way, along with the power to arrest those who planned the protest, although they did not commit any violent acts. The rethugs are extremely unhappy with The Resistance, and are doing everything they can to shut it down. We are all going to have to stiffen our spines and our resolve, and refuse to back down in the face of blatant rights violations.
The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate has passed a bill that would let law enforcement officials seize the assets of people who participate in protests that turn violent — even if those people had nothing to do with any violent incidents.
[…]
The bill would allow police to seize assets of anyone who attended a peaceful protest that happened to turn violent, and it also gives cops the power to arrest people who planned the events, even if they did not personally commit violence.
State Sen. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills), who supported the bill, explained to the Arizona Capital Times that it’s aimed at curtailing the activities of “professional protest” groups whose goal is to start riots and damage private property.
“You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder,” said Kavanagh, a former police officer.
Bald-faced fucking liar. :spits: I’d like to see this flaming asshole address all the violence at Black Lives Matter protests, as the violence was all perpetrated by cops. I’d like to see this asspimple address the overwhelming violence committed by cops against all those at Standing Rock. Fuck you, Kavanagh. People are marching and protesting and protecting because it’s the only recourse we have. It’s not like we can look to our government for help.
Via Raw Story.
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Circa 1500.
The Trump Circus spokespeople have a new, stupid spin on all the money being wasted by the Tiny Tyrant’s need to be hangin’ with his cronies constantly, rather than staying in the white house, like he fucking promised he would, and working. The new excuse? Oh, why being in Florida allows everyday folks, y’know, regular Americans to have access to the prez. Trouble is, that access costs $200,000, taxes, and $14,000 per year in dues. That’s around four times the median income for all those regular Americans. A person could get the feeling that the spokespeople aren’t even phoning it in at this point.
The three consecutive weekends the Tiny Tyrant has already spent in Florida have cost taxpayers about $10 million, which is slightly less than what President Obama spent on travel for a whole year.
The president — whose first budget proposal would eliminate a program that helps provide poor Americans with lawyers, among other cuts — doesn’t seem worried about the burden his unnecessary trips to Mar-a-Lago may place on taxpayers. CNN reports that, with the exception of next weekend, businesses in the Palm Beach area “say they have been told to expect the President every weekend until May.”
Every weekend until May. That’s a lot of picked pockets – Everyday Folks, Regular Americans are going to be picked clean, bone dry, by the Tiny Tyrant’s need to feel validated. None of this seems to bother Trump supporters much, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. If it were Clinton doing this, the howls of outrage would be deafening – “how dare she go on vacation every weekend at our expense!?” and so on. Same applies if it had been President Obama doing this – repubs would never shut the fuck up about how awful, evil, and immoral such an action would be, but Tiny Tyrant? “Oh, that’s okay, we don’t mind that he’s stripping us of all our rights and protections, picking our pockets and destroying our future, it’s greeeeaaaaat!” I just don’t grok it. At all.
Along with removing a very important program which helps people with legal problems (linked above ^) they generally have no recourse to deal with, the rethugs have finally gotten an idiot in office who will go along with killing off the NEA (federal arts funding), public broadcasting, AmeriCorps, and educational television for children. None of these programs cost much at all, and cutting them cannot be justified under “budget!”, but the right wing ideologists have hated them for ages.
While Trump spent millions in taxpayer dollars on travel during his first month in office, his team put together a budget proposal that would cut cultural institutions and important services for poor people.
The proposal would eliminate “longstanding conservative targets like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, AmeriCorps and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities,” the New York Times reports. “Most of the programs cost under $500 million annually, a pittance for a government that is projected to spend about $4 trillion this year.”
Important Reading:
Trump’s first month of travel expenses cost taxpayers just less than what Obama spent in a year.
Trump spox says Mar-a-Lago makes him accessible to ‘regular Americans.’ Memberships cost $200,000.
Trump’s first budget would end program to help low-income Americans get lawyers.
• February 16, 2017.
President Donald Trump, living alone inside the White House, often hungers for friendly interaction as he adjusts to the difficult work of governance. At his clubs, he finds what’s missing.
That showed last November at a cocktail and dinner reception celebrating longtime members of his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. Deep into the process of meeting potential Cabinet nominees, the president-elect invited partygoers to stop by the next day to join the excitement.
“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything,” Trump told the crowd, according to an audio tape of his closed-press remarks obtained by POLITICO from a source in the room. “You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.”
For Trump, the “Winter White House” of Mar-a-Lago offers him more than a warm and gilded setting outside of Washington, D.C. — it puts the isolated president back in the mix with his club family, where friends said he feels most like himself.
“So, this is my real group,” Trump said at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, on November 18, according to the audio tape. “These are the people that came here in the beginning, when nobody knew what this monster was gonna turn out to be, right?”
He added: “I see all of you. I recognize, like 100 percent of you, just about.”
[…]
Turning to a longtime club member that night, he said: “We were just talking about who we [are] going to pick for the FCC, who [are] we going to pick for this, who we gonna accept — boy, can you give me some recommendations?”
The supportive crowd ate it up as the relaxed Trump, in his element, gave them a close-up view of how he was setting up the government. “You are the special people,” he told the crowd of about 100 members, who mingled around a sushi station served by a waiter wearing a camouflage “Make America Great Again” cap.
Politico has the full story on this, and it should upset the hell outta people. It upsets me, and it’s fucking infuriating. The only thing that matters to Trump is being the center of attention, and that attention is best when people are paying obscene amounts of money to be one of the Tiny Tyrant’s “friends.” The special people – filthy rich lickspittles. Obviously, the rest of us don’t matter in the flaky crust of Trump’s manufactured reality.
Twitter.
So many Trump supporters think he’s a good businessman, and that’s why they retain a great deal of faith in him, but Trump’s no businessman, never has been. He started out with not a silver spoon, but a whole set. He’s dismissed his trust fund, and the “little” loan of a million bucks from daddy. For reasons beyond my understanding, supporters don’t seem disturbed in the slightest about any of that, or the numerous failed “businesses”, the open frauds, or the lawsuits. This myth of the “good businessman” persists. Trump sucks at business, and he’s not worth what he claims, either, one of the reasons he doesn’t want those tax returns seen by anyone. I’m sure that’s not the only reason.
Bert Spector has an excellent article up at The Conversation, explaining how Trump does not have business chops, in detail. There’s a big difference between being the CEO of a company, answerable not only to a board, but to shareholders as well. Trump has never done that. He has an LLC, which basically allows him to run a family business, which is not answerable to anyone, so there’s no need to do things in the proper manner, at least not until you get caught. When it comes to Trump, he’s been caught, numerous times, and eventually leaks money out in a settlement, then goes right back to scamming again. The article is in-depth, so just a bit here.
Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made much of his business experience, claiming he’s been “creating jobs and rebuilding neighborhoods my entire adult life.”
The fact that he was from the business world rather than a career politician was something that appealed to many of his supporters.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of a president as CEO. The U.S. president is indisputably the chief executive of a massive, complex, global structure known as the federal government. And if the performance of our national economy is vital to the well-being of us all, why not believe that Trump’s experience running a large company equips him to effectively manage a nation?
Instead of a “fine-tuned machine,” however, the opening weeks of the Trump administration have revealed a White House that’s chaotic, disorganized and anything but efficient. Examples include rushed and poorly constructed executive orders, a dysfunctional national security team and unclear and even contradictory messages emanating from multiple administrative spokespeople, which frequently clash with the tweets of the president himself.
Senator John McCain succinctly summed up the growing sentiment even some Republicans are feeling: “Nobody knows who’s in charge.”
So why the seeming contradiction between his businessman credentials and chaotic governing style?
Well for one thing, Trump wasn’t a genuine CEO. That is, he didn’t run a major public corporation with shareholders and a board of directors that could hold him to account. Instead, he was the head of a family-owned, private web of enterprises. Regardless of the title he gave himself, the position arguably ill-equipped him for the demands of the presidency.
If, like me, your understanding of just how businesses work isn’t all that, go have a read, and learn why the whole “I’m a businessman!” rhetoric from Trump is nothing more than another lie.
Belzebuth ou Belzebub ou Beelzebuth, J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863.
Prince of demons, the first in power and crimes after Satan. Cornell University Library.
Rick Wiles has come completely unglued, not that he had far to go in that regard. He’s now floating in Alex Jones territory, doing all he can to keep the pizza place conspiracy alive, although I don’t know why. I’ve lived through two major Satanic Panics, where nationwide devil worship was posited, a massive conspiracy of murder, rape, and sacrifices, oh my! None of this shit actually happened, but plenty of people were happy to believe it, at the behest of those who found it a good way to make money. Books were written, it was on news shows, the whole thing. I guess I get to live through a third one, if these idiotic christian fanatics get their way. I’ll just go with the assumption that this latest is yet another way for these professional liars to fill their coffers. Mr. Wiles and his cohorts should remember that in their chosen mythology, there’s the demon Mammon.
Mammon, J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863.
Wiles also can’t shut up about Ms. Clinton:
Claiming that a tweet from Clinton mocking the conspiracy theory was itself proof that the conspiracy is real, Wiles declared that Christians have no idea how many of their elected leaders are part of a “demonic system” that kidnaps children “to be raped, molested and then murdered.”
Our elected leaders, you say. Okay, why not have a close look at our elected leaders? We can start with the current administration. Plenty of material there without all the demonic pizza.
“Hillary Clinton is telling up front what this is all about,” he said. “She’s bragging it’s about Pizzagate. She’s telling them, ‘We took you down, you dared talk about our filthy child molestation and we took you down.’ That’s what she’s saying.” (Flynn’s son has avidly promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, causing him to lose his job in the administration’s transition team, and Flynn himself has also embraced many wildconspiracytheories, including one linking Clinton to “sex crimes [with] children.”)
I’m pretty sure what Ms. Clinton said amounted to “Oh, bullshit!”
Wiles asserted that “devil-worshiping, Luciferian, demon-possessed maniacs” have formed a “criminal cabal [that is] running this nation and much of the world” that allows them to engage in “child trafficking, child molestation, child rape, [and] child murder.”
The Catholic Church is rife with people who molest and rape children. Child trafficking, child molestation, child rape, and child murder is most often done by people who believe in a god, often the christian god. The person who started raping me when I was a child characterized themselves as a good christian. Lots of “good christians” tied up in those activities. Christians are major consumers of porn. I think you should look to your own houses, they are taking on the stink of the Augean Stables.
When the truth is finally revealed, Wiles warned, “there will be mass vomiting in the society when the people find out what these demon-possessed rulers have been doing for decades with children.”
Oh, there’s plenty of vomiting already taking place over the way theists deal with children. Religion allows for some of the very worst child abuse, such as refusing to provide your child with medical care. Or deciding they are demon possessed, and using that as an excuse to beat the shit out of them. Or denying them an education. Or finding some way to justify sexually abusing them. Or filling their heads with visions of eternal anguish and torment at the hands of a psychopathic god.
“Many of the key officials, elected and appointed, and in corporate board rooms and in Hollywood and in New York City, they are part of a global child molestation ring,” said Wiles, who insisted that Clinton is now “relishing in the fact that they brought down General Flynn because he knows what they are and what they’re doing.”
So Hollywood and New York City are the latter day Sodom and Gomorrah? Trump’s from New York, perhaps you ought to cool it with the east coast blame, eh? The Tiny Tyrant might not like that. The only thing that brought down General Flynn was General Flynn. Like everyone else in the current administration, he was in over his head, lacked the requisite experience, and embodied the Peter Principle.
Via RWW.
The excuses for not doing a damn thing about the current clusterfuck are flying fast, and none of them are remotely good. Think Progress has outlined four of them.
This might be bigger than Watergate. Late Tuesday night, the New York Times reported that U.S. spy agencies had intercepted multiple phone conversations between associates of President Donald Trump and Russian intelligence agents. That means Trump allies may have colluded with a foreign power in an effort to undermine the American democratic process — and that Russia may now have access to the highest levels of American government.
[…]
But lest anyone think GOP lawmakers are dragging their heels, it’s important to note they’ve offered up some good reasons for their desultory approach. Here are some of the best ones.
1. There’s already an ongoing investigation, so a new one would be redundant.
That’s a favorite excuse of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who have now spent months deflecting calls for an independent commission by gesturing at existing committees and U.S. intelligence agencies.
[…]
2. Executive privilege means we can’t get the information we’d need.
Speaking of Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee leader said Tuesday that he would not examine conversations between Flynn and the president because of executive privilege.
[…]
3. Flynn resigned, so the whole thing took care of itself.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) told reporters Tuesday the fact of Flynn’s resignation meant there was no point in scrutinizing the events leading up to it.
“It’s taking care of itself,” he said.
[…]
4. We’re too busy trying to repeal Obamacare.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks a full investigation would get in the way of all the other important work that Congress needs to do — such as cutting people’s health insurance.
“I just don’t think it’s useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party,” said Paul. “We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do like repealing Obamacare if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense.”
All the excuse details are at Think Progress.
© DonkeyHotey.
Seems that everyone in the White House is close to panic, and in survival mode. Perhaps we should all be in survival mode, too.
The past several days have been tumultuous for the Trump White House, and administration sources are now leaking information about the mood of panic that’s emanating from the West Wing.
Sources tell Axios’s Mike Allen that the White House at the moment is in a state of “borderline chaos” and that “some staff is in survival mode” and is “scared to death” by what’s about to happen.
A “West Wing confidant,” meanwhile, tells Allen that it looks like “nobody is in charge” at the White House at the moment, and that the scandal surrounding fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn shows the Trump administration is either “reckless” or simply has “total incompetence.”
[…]
On Tuesday evening, both the New York Times and CNN reported that senior Trump campaign officials were in constant contact with Russian intelligence officers during the 2016 presidential race.
Here’s hoping the current mess is one the repubs will not be able to ignore and handwave away. Full story here.
Also see: I was hoping you could tell me what the fuck is going on over there.
© C. Ford.
North Dakota legislators have been pushing a raft of draconian bills through to make any protesting impossible to do, if you’re actually outside your abode. The worst of them is one which would allow drivers to ‘accidentally’ hit a protester without penalty. Thankfully, it didn’t pass, but the shit-filled asshole who authored it still wants it to be enacted, because:
Republican state Representative Keith Kempenich told local media that he sponsored the bill after his mother-in-law was caught in a protest while driving.
Kempenich defended the bill Monday before a vote, saying current laws had failed to protect citizens, and that the much publicized bill was mischaracterized by the media.
“I’d like to see this bill passed forward. I think that it shows that we are willing to stand up for the citizens of this state,” he said.
How about you say what you mean, you piece of shit? You want that bill to pass because you think us nasty Indians ought to be killed. We sure as hell obviously aren’t citizens of this state in your colonial, genocidal eyes. Fuck you, Kempenich.
Via Raw Story.
CREDIT: CNN screengrab.
So, where are all the repubs, and why are they keeping so darn quiet over the Flynn mess? Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, so…it must be the wives’ fault! Or something.
Asked on Tuesday morning about the conspicuous silence of Republican leadership about the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) dismissed the scandal.
“Well, it’s Valentine’s Day and I guess they’re having breakfast with their wives,” Collins said during a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo. “Really, all I can say is I’m sorry to see Gen. Flynn go. I don’t know the details of what transpired. I do know Gen. Flynn, I know that he’s very loyal to President Trump, I know he’s a great American.”
I don’t do Valentine’s Day, never saw the point, but somehow I never got the impression it was a breakfast sort of thing. You don’t know details. That little song and dance is getting seriously old, and it’s only been a month. Yes, yes, Flynn’s a great guy, he just seriously fucked up, indulged in illegal behaviour, and may have been subject to extortion, but of course, that doesn’t require any sort of investigation, no.
Collins, who served on the Trump transition executive committee and was President-elect Trump’s congressional liaison, went on to repeatedly say he thinks it’s time to “move on” now that Flynn has resigned.
He’s far from the only Republican who thinks that. On Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chair and tireless Benghazi investigator Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said he doesn’t see a need to further investigate Flynn’s pre-inauguration contact with Russian officials, including conversations about Russian sanctions.
Oh, Chaffetz, who also doesn’t think there’s any need to investigate the Tiny Tyrant’s violations of the constitution, and is protecting the public at large from those tax returns being made public, under the rubric of American freedom and privacy. Yeah.
Trump also tried to shift focus from the Flynn scandal to leaks on Tuesday morning.
Of course. Donny changes his opinion so damn much he makes wheat in the wind look ramrod straight. Whatever lie will serve at the moment, that’s our Tiny Tyrant. The full story is at Think Progress.
