Donald is here to stay, now what? Cursing and swearing OK

[Animavore]

Scum who will be remembered as such in the history books.

To the cheers of Utah politicians and dismay of environmental and tribal groups, President Donald Trump swept into Utah on Monday and erased most of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National monuments — shaving 2 million acres from their boundaries and replacing them with five smaller monuments.

The historic move was swiftly met with a lawsuit filed by a coalition of conservation organizations and threats of another from American Indian groups, as opponents claimed the reductions are illegal and denounced them as potentially opening pristine lands to development. Protesters along Trump’s route and in downtown Salt Lake City shouted and waved signs opposing his changes, and for a time halted traffic.

...

At the invitation-only Capitol Rotunda ceremony, he signed a proclamation to shrink Bears Ears, created last year by President Barack Obama, from 1.35 million acres to 201,876. The remnants were placed into two new monuments: Shash Jaa (Navajo for Bears Ears) at 129,980 acres and Indian Creek at 71,896 acres.

He signed a second proclamation to reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante — created in 1996 by President Bill Clinton — from 1.9 million acres to 1 million. It was replaced by three monuments: Grand Staircase at 209,933 acres; Kaiparowits at 552,034; and Escalante Canyon at 242,836. The protected areas are still larger than Rhode Island.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/201 ... disappear/

[Joe]

It really is a fuckup of a country.

I remember the reporter Greg Palast wrote a book calling it an "Armed Madhouse." We certainly are demonstrating it. I was amazed to see so many otherwise sane people convince themselves this complete idiot was a viable choice.

I saw this Hitchens meme yesterday...

-snip-

...and was reminded of, to me, the biggest, and most disappointing casualty in all of this mess, is seeing people I used to respect, who are generally good speakers and could argue a point well, debase themselves by reducing themselves to bad arguments (because with Trump, bad arguments are all you can have to defend him). Especially the emergence of whataboutism as somehow constituting an argument. Rather than what it actually is; a tacit admission that they don't mind inequity as long as it's their guy does it, and that they are complete and utter hypocrites for decrying the opposition for the same and that it never really was about the reasons they stated for not wanting to elect that person.

That's the thing about it. Most of Trump's support came from Republican's who supported him because he was the GOP nominee, and continue to support him for that reason. Roy Moore's continued viability in the Alabama Senate election is just another case. Even with out the pedophilia issue, he's been removed from one office, suspended and resigned from another, said that a Muslim Congressman shouldn't be seated, and used his charity as a cash cow. And yet, he's competitive in the race.

It boggles the mind.

[Animavore]

Trump's lawyer, Ty Cobb, releases statement in comic sans.

https://www.boredpanda.com/donald-trump ... s-ty-cobb/

[Joe]

Trump's lawyer, Ty Cobb, releases statement in comic sans.

https://www.boredpanda.com/donald-trump ... s-ty-cobb/

Wow, at first I thought that was some spoof, like the Onion. But it's just Ty Cobb, the same guy who had a working lunch to discuss the Russia investigation in a restaurant favored by reporters from the NY Times Washington bureau.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/us/p ... scoop.html

In any other administration, this guy would be long gone.

[Animavore]

I like the way Soundgarden wrote a song about him years ago before he was heard of.

[Scot Dutchy]

Trump's personal banking information handed over to Robert Mueller

Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump’s biggest lender, is forced to submit documents after special prosecutor issues subpoena

Slowly, slowly the big machine is catching up.

[Tero]

Wiki
Trump's penchant for hyperbole is believed to have roots in the New York real estate scene, where Trump established his wealth and where puffery abounds.[332] Trump has called his public speaking style "truthful hyperbole", an effective political tactic that may, however, backfire for overpromising.[332] Martin Medhurst, a Baylor University professor of communication and political science, analyzed Trump's frequently used rhetorical devices, such as catchy slogans, hyperbole, insinuations and preterition.
Puffery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1881 Italian ad promising to stop the most violent attacks of asthma, nervous cough, colds, extinction of voice, facial neuralgia and insomnia, and to combat all laryngeal and respiratory ailments, just by inhaling the smoke of the Cannabis Indica Cigarillos.
In everyday language, puffery refers to exaggerated or false praise.[1] In law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally.[2] Puffery serves to "puff up" an exaggerated image of what is being described and is especially featured in testimonials.

Puff piece is an idiom for a journalistic form of puffery: an article or story of exaggerating praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary.

[Tero]

Pence has considered defecting, but only before the election.

It is extraordinary, in retrospect, that Mike Pence wouldn’t have known about Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak or his foreign lobbying ties. As we now know, multiple members of the Trump campaign were aware that the man who would become Donald Trump’s national security adviser was in communication with the Russian ambassador at a senior campaign official’s behest. Yet Pence, who was in charge of Trump’s White House transition team—directing staffing, organizing agency “landing teams,” and vetting administration candidates—was conveniently out of the loop. (Flynn was ostensibly fired for misleading the vice president about those contacts.) Pence went radio silent again last week, when Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about those conversations. And he was nowhere to be found in the aftermath, as Trump’s legal team raced to contain the fallout after the president potentially implicated himself in obstruction of justice on Twitter.

Pence’s recent absenteeism is only the latest evidence of a delicate balancing act the vice president has maintained since joining the ticket last year. The former Indiana governor has, on the one hand, secured Trump’s trust by serving as an unflappable, unquestionably ideological defender of the president’s agenda.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12 ... earing-act

[DRSB]

Iconic cover of the magazine "Screw", very pertinent to a great deal of what we are seeing right now.
I know the author of the cover pic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_(magazine)

[Animavore]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... hite-house

" Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move US embassy

Officials confirm that US president will break with decades of diplomacy in a move many warn will trigger unrest in the region

Donald Trump will declare formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday, the White House has said, breaking with years of precedent and potentially leading to unpredictable consequences for the Middle East.

The region is braced for the prospect of unrest in anticipation of the declaration, due at 1pm in Washington, and US embassies around the world have been advised by the state department to bolster their security.

US government employees have been told to avoid Jerusalem’s Old City and the West Bank until further notice."

Heh! Remember when freshly-squeezed, Trump-supporting simpletons claimed Trump would usher in World peace?

I remember.

[Scot Dutchy]

Just obeying his Jewish masters.

[Tero]

Michael Moore

On the following metrics, Donald has achieved outstanding results. Maybe the greatest in the history of America. Really, folks. You will never see better.

Ego A+

Ignorance A+

Stupidity A

Misogyny A+

Pathetically weak leadership A

Chaotic office A+

Unintended humor A

Intended humor C

Tweeting as primary method of communication A++ (prize awarded: Best Twit of the Year)

[Tero]

The show often starts before dawn. With a flicker of anticipation or a feeling of dread, people around the world roll over in bed, fumble for their phones and learn whether one of the most powerful people on the planet has tweeted. It’s an uncanny kind of intimacy. He tells us what he’s watching on television, what grudges he’s nursing and what he wants us to think. This is life during the presidency of Donald Trump.

The daily flow of conflict can be numbing. A new Trump tweet can light up cable news for days, then recede into nothingness: Remember his all-out war on the Congresswoman who said he’d been callous to a soldier’s widow?

In a September Washington Post poll, two-thirds of Americans said the President was dividing the country. Trump didn’t cause the growing rifts in American life—the increasing political polarization; the urban-­rural divide; our self-sorting into economically and culturally homogenous tribes. But he has wrenched them wider.

Fuck you Time!

The single most frequent subject of Trump’s angry tweets, according to an analysis by Axios, is the media. From cries of “fake news” to calling journalists the “enemy of the people” to suggesting networks have their licenses cut, he has taken the always-fraught relationship between Presidents and reporters to a new level of hostility. “It is a sustained attack on the press, on freedom of speech and on the Constitution,” warns Richard Painter, a law professor and former ethics lawyer for George W. Bush. TIME had sought and tentatively secured the President’s participation in an interview and photo shoot for this article. On Nov. 24, the day after Thanksgiving, he abruptly pulled out.

Besides the likely tax reform, the major domestic policy accomplishment of Trump’s first year has been a dramatic rollback of the administrative state.

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year ... runner-up/

[Seabass]

[L'Emmerdeur]

Trump doctrine: If there's an attorney in the room while a discussion is taking place between two non-attorneys, a participant in that discussion is entitled to invoke attorney-client privilege.

At this point in history it's become clear that more often than not whenever the name 'Trump' appears, one can exchange it for 'bogus' and it won't change the meaning of the text, whatever the topic. In fact doing so may help clarify it.

'Trump Jr. cites attorney-client privilege in not answering panel's questions about discussions with his father'

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Donald Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.

“I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” he said, after the committee’s lengthy interview with Trump Jr. “That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”

Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower — and the president’s response after it became public earlier this year through a New York Times story — has become a central focus of investigators probing whether any Trump associates cooperated with Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

Though Trump Jr. initially portrayed the meeting as “short,” “introductory” and focused on the issue of adoption, it was later revealed that there were eight participants — including the senior Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort — and that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting with a promise that he would receive negative information about Hillary Clinton provided by the Kremlin.