Trump

[bralbovsky]

You had me for minute there, and I wished I lived in a witchless world. We all know, of course, that at least Baba Yaga is real.

[Phoebe]

Headline: Donald Trump Jr Criticizes London Mayor after Deadly Attack

I can't even read the story, I don't even want to know, because all I know is that the London mayor is a Muslim and I can only imagine the level of honesty and compassion required for this.

[Mike]

It was tame. It did not mention the mayor's ethnicity or religion. It was insensitive and offensive and dumb but not worthy of the amount of press it's been getting.

[Phoebe]

Normally I'd agree with you, except that Ivanka just got a security clearance and took her White House office, so the remarks of the offspring are likely to be taken more seriously than one would expect and therefore deserve a heightened degree of scrutiny.

[Cazmonster]

I'm down to two hopes I will say out loud about Trump.

1. I hope Melania can protect her son from whatever fall out comes. As an addition, I hope she gets billed for the additional security at Trump Tower.

2. I hope the rest of them enjoy living somewhere the US can't extradite them from.

[Phoebe]

Clinging as I do to the hope that two pussybows worn to two debates, plus more events later, cannot possibly be a coincidence, I wonder if all this stuff coming out in the media now is why Melania has kept such a distance. I seem to be the only one of my friends who has much respect for her decision to keep her kid in his same school and stay where she is instead of moving to the White House. I don't know, maybe I'm giving her too much of the benefit of the doubt.

[akiva]

[Bonefish]

[Eliahad]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

Yet another set of our neighbors apparently are Trump supporters. I prefer knowing the truth, and yet. There is one group of Democrats who lives a block away. Almost everyone here is a Republican and either Catholic or Evangelical Christian. I have to tell you in total honesty, it makes me nervous. Like if they knew me better would they want to deport me or put me in jail or worse? You really have no way of knowing at this point. This is a sad pass we have gotten to. I realize that my feelings are part of the overall problem but it's very hard not to wonder, because when they support white nationalist ideas from leaders, how on earth would I know whether they support that personally or not, and how far they'd go to enforce it?

[bralbovsky]

I had some perverse satisfaction visiting my sister, who claims to be fundamentalist, after she voiced her fandom, I ran through the ten commandments, asking her whether 45 had complied with ANY of them. He got 1/2 a point for honor father and mother, which I grudgingly gave even though he lowballed his father's assistance. I, of course, don't believe she changed her mind, but she blessedly avoids the topic now.

[Phoebe]

Gorsuch. I was ok with his qualifications and then he showed a very unpleasant personality in the hearings, unbefitting the type of person you want on the court. Even the intellectually pugnacious Scalia was by all accounts a gracious and charming colleague. So add that fault to the Senate's shocking violation of duty on Garland, and I'm glad Democrats are going to force the issue.

[Phoebe]

Clearest explanation I've heard: Trump WH has no access to the FBI investigation but seeks to monitor it. Gets these docs and then, finding material that can be twisted to support the false surveillance claim, has Nunes come in to look at it. Pretends Nunes then needs to tell WH what it already knows about this.

[Mike]

Or that there were no documents and no evidence of anything.

And now Flynn is promising to spill all in exchange for immunity. It's a sucker bet. Once he has immunity, he goes all Ollie North and takes full responsibility for everything. He takes one for the team for which he will be well rewarded, and now there's an official line on record that clears the rest of the administration of any wrong-doing.

[Stan]

Trump tweet: "The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

This sort of thing is something I figured would happen sooner or later. Trump has to get back at people. If he encourages infighting within the GOP, he robs himself of the benefits of a congressional majority. Most of the things proposed so far have no bipartisan support; he'd have to eject Bannon's team's ideas to get any Dems on board with anything. We could be looking at mainly rule by executive order.

[Eliahad]

In some silly way, doesn't this mean our form of government is working? I understand that in terms of progress, it isn't, but in terms of checks and balances, it is?

[Stan]

Yea, and it's better for me as there's nothing much on their agenda that I want passed. It shows how little Trump and Bannon understand how to get things done. And Ryan et al. have put themselves in a corner by being defined by being anti-Obama. It was easy to hate Obamacare when their votes were meaningless. Now, how do they get rid of something that is so much like their early healthcare ideas? After 7 years of complaints, they just don't have a real plan beyond more tax breaks for the rich and big corporations and a few comic book villain level ideas.

[Bonefish]

Being the party of "No" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[Cazmonster]