Based on the potential outcomes of a trump presidency him being a buffoon and doing very little in implementing his agenda when his party controls both houses is a big win.
We are existing in one of the better versions of the trump is president multiverse. So yes his presidency has been successful so far and would vote yes again.
So Trump pissed in the pool instead of crapped in the pool? I still don't want to be in that pool.
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It's good the GOP has been so ineffective (IMO) but it's also a bad thing. The "first 100 days" thing exists for a reason. It is that legislation that has a chance to impact people going into the mid-terms. Miss that window and whatever changes that are made don't start taking effect until year 3 or 4 of the presidency.
So good that for right now they haven't screwed over the public trying to lines the pockets of their masters. Bad because that means people aren't going to feel first hand how bad their platform is before going to the ballot box again...I'm afraid the blinders will still be on.
I think the biggest problem with Republicans is how they seem to be relentlessly pursuing their dogmatic agenda past the point of sensible public policy. I think the attraction in the 80s in the move to lower taxes, reduce regulatory burdens and so forth was that there seemed to be some good in doing it. The idea of cutting red tape, and competitive taxation, and generically "smaller" government basically became orthodoxy. They won that war of ideas, but now it's way, way too much of a good thing.
Now, they don't know how to stop - it's now past the point of diminishing returns. The constant pursuit of a dogmatic agenda lower and lower taxes, cutting more and more programs actually severely harms society. Income inequality is grotesque, social safety nets are gone, unregulated marketplaces lead to economic catastrophe.
The democrats have largely bought into those free market principles but their approach is much more pragmatic and moderated - which is why I think Presidents like Obama and Clinton have been far better fiscal stewards that Republican ones, who slash important programs, spend elsewhere (Military) and lower taxes to such a ridiculous extreme that huge deficits result and massive debt accumulates.
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Trust the snake.
Last edited by Bunk; 07-31-2017 at 04:58 PM.
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Is everyone prepared for the military junta that Kelly is going to institute at the White House? This administration is going on quick lock down and will be managed like a military division. Press briefings are going to be pure propaganda from now on. There will be no worries about message discipline as those who vary off script (Trump excluded) will be shot at sunrise.
Trump will be first to go, like the Princes in the tower his twitter account will close, no one will see him much, eventually he will disappear completely, at some point General Kelly will announce that he died in his sleep with a pillow over his face but that his last order was General Kelly gets to be President for life.
So yeah, shall we start the "When will Kelly get fired" pool?
Quote:
New White House chief of staff John Kelly was so upset with how President Donald Trump handled the firing of FBI Director James Comey that Kelly called Comey afterward and said he was considering resigning, according to two sources familiar with a conversation between Kelly and Comey.
Both sources cautioned that it was unclear how serious Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, was about resigning himself.
"John was angry and hurt by what he saw and the way (Comey) was treated," one of the sources said.
Comey learned of his dismissal on May 9 from televisions tuned to the news as he was addressing the workforce at the FBI office in Los Angeles, law enforcement sources said at the time. Comey made a joke about it to lighten the mood and called his office to get confirmation.
Comey, who took Kelly's call while traveling back from Los Angeles to Washington, responded to Kelly by telling him not to resign, one of the sources said.
On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, President Trump’s advisers discussed how to respond to a new revelation that Trump’s oldest son had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign — a disclosure the advisers knew carried political and potentially legal peril.
The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.
But within hours, at the president’s direction, the plan changed.
Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared an article, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.”
The claims were later shown to be misleading.
Over the next three days, multiple accounts of the meeting were provided to the news media as public pressure mounted, with Trump Jr. ultimately acknowledging that he had accepted the meeting after receiving an email promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s campaign.
The extent of the president’s personal intervention in his son’s response, the details of which have not previously been reported, adds to a series of actions that Trump has taken that some advisers fear could place him and some members of his inner circle in legal jeopardy.
As special counsel Robert S. Mueller III looks into potential obstruction of justice as part of his broader investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, these advisers worry that the president’s direct involvement leaves him needlessly vulnerable to allegations of a coverup.
“This was . . . unnecessary,” said one of the president’s advisers, who like most other people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”
Quote:
Circumstances changed when the New York Times began asking about the Trump Tower meeting, though advisers believed that the newspaper knew few of the details. While the president, Kushner and Ivanka Trump were attending the G-20 summit in Germany, the Times asked for White House comment on the impetus and reason for the meeting.
During breaks away from the summit, Kushner and Ivanka Trump gathered with Hicks and Raffel to discuss Kushner’s response to the inquiry, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Kushner’s legal team joined at times by phone.
Hicks also spoke by phone with Trump Jr. Again, say people familiar with the conversations, Kushner’s team concluded that the best strategy would be to err on the side of transparency, because they believed the complete story would eventually emerge.
The discussions among the president’s advisers consumed much of the day, and they continued as they prepared to board Air Force One that evening for the flight home.
But before everyone boarded the plane, Trump had overruled the consensus, according to people with knowledge of the events.
It remains unclear exactly how much the president knew at the time of the flight about Trump Jr.’s meeting.
The president directed that Trump Jr.’s statement to the Times describe the meeting as unimportant. He wanted the statement to say that the meeting had been initiated by the Russian lawyer and primarily was about her pet issue — the adoption of Russian children.
Air Force One took off from Germany shortly after 6 p.m. — about noon in Washington. In a forward cabin, Trump was busy working on his son’s statement, according to people with knowledge of events. The president dictated the statement to Hicks, who served as a go-between with Trump Jr., who was not on the plane, sharing edits between the two men, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
The "other" Arizona Senator speaks out about Trump and the sins of his party. Very refreshing to hear a Republican admit they lost their way.
I am happy that Flake has gone public with his feelings...We can only hope that other members of the GOP, who oppose what Trump is doing, also step out of the GOP line.
The Banana Republicans are making America anything but great again...
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Gotta wonder if Kelly made Trump agree to certain conditions before he took the job as CoS. From all accounts he is a big straight shooter with little tolerance for BS.
