Trump 30: Donald Trump and the Deathly Comb-Over

[47of74]

Just saw this on Craigslist 

Since it'll probably be gone before too long, here's a screenshot... 

LOL

 

[fraurosena]

First it was Mexico, then it was the taxpayers, now it's the military... 

Trump privately presses for military to pay for border wall

Quote

President Trump frequently said Mexico would pay for a wall along the southern border as he sought the presidency in 2016. Now, he is privately pushing the U.S. military to fund construction of his signature project.

Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting that the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.

After floating the notion to several advisers last week, he told House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that the military should pay for the wall, according to three people familiar with the meeting Wednesday in the White House residence. Ryan offered little reaction to the notion, these people said, but senior Capitol Hill officials later said it was an unlikely prospect.

The individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about private discussions.

In another such interaction with senior aides last week, Trump noted that the Defense Department was getting so much money as part of the $1.3 trillion spending package that the Pentagon could surely afford the border wall, two White House officials said. The Pentagon received about $700 billion in the spending package, which Trump repeatedly lauded as “historic.” 

Meanwhile, the $1.6 billion in the bill for some fencing and levees on the border not only fell far short of the $25 billion that Trump was seeking, but it came with tight restrictions on how the money can be spent. 

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflected a question about the military financing construction of the wall. “I can’t get into the specifics of that at this point, but I can tell you that the continuation of building the wall is ongoing and we’re going to continue moving forward in that process,” Sanders told reporters Tuesday.

 “Build WALL through M!” Trump recently wrote on Twitter. He retweeted those words on Tuesday. Two advisers said that “M” stood for “military.”

It would be unlikely for the military to fund the wall, according to White House and Defense Department officials. The president has suggested to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that his department, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, could fund the construction, two Trump advisers said.

The Pentagon has plenty of money, but reprogramming it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president does not seem to have. Taking money from the current 2018 budget for the wall would require an act of Congress, said a senior Pentagon official.

To find the money in the 2019 defense budget, Trump would have to submit a budget amendment that would still require 60 votes in the Senate, the official said.

Democrats in Congress would probably chafe at military spending going to the construction of a border wall, and military officials may also blanch, White House advisers said.

“First Mexico was supposed to pay for it, then U.S. taxpayers, and now our men and women in uniform? This would be a blatant misuse of military funds and tied up in court for years. Secretary Mattis ought not bother and instead use the money to help our troops, rather than advance the president’s political fantasies,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement to The Washington Post. 

Trump has grown frustrated watching constant TV criticism of the spending deal he signed last week and is determined to find a new way to fund the wall, several advisers said, privately grousing that his political supporters could become disenchanted without progress. After a recent trip to see prototypes of the wall in California, Trump has grown more animated by the issue, advisers said. 

The president’s comments raising the possibility of using Pentagon funds to build the wall came after the collapse of negotiations with Democrats to secure $25 billion in long-term wall funding in exchange for protections for young immigrants at risk for deportation because of Trump’s cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 

The White House offered three years of protections for DACA recipients, according to multiple congressional aides, but Democrats demanded protections for a larger group of “dreamers,” including those who never applied for or are ineligible for DACA. The negotiations fell apart before the $1.3 trillion spending bill was drafted and passed last week.

 

[fraurosena]

This, my dear fellow FJ'ers, is why I take absolutely no stock in polls whatsoever.

From The Hill...

Poll: Trump's approval rating highest in nearly a year

Quote

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 03/26/18 04:27 PM EDT

President Trump’s approval rating jumped to its highest point in roughly 11 months but remains underwater, a survey released Monday found.

The CNN poll, conducted from March 22-25, showed Trump with a 42 percent approval rating, up 7 points from the network’s same poll last month. Meanwhile, 54 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Trump got positive marks on his handling of the economy, where 48 percent of people approve of his performance, compared to 45 percent who disapprove. 

Just over 50 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of both gun policy and foreign affairs, the poll found.

This month’s CNN survey features Trump’s highest marks since April 2017, when the network found 44 percent of voters said they approved of Trump’s performance.

Monday's poll comes amid a string of personnel changes in Trump's Cabinet. Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, resigned earlier this month, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was forced out a short time later.

Trump has since announced national security adviser H.R. McMaster is leaving early next month, and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is reportedly set to be the next to go.

Trump has personally been the subject of recent claims he had multiple extramarital affairs around 2006.

Adult-film star Stormy Daniels detailed her alleged affair with Trump during an interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes," while former Playboy model Karen McDougal shared her story late last week on CNN.

The White House has denied the women's claims.

Monday's CNN poll found 63 percent of Americans said they believe the women, while 21 percent said they believe Trump's denials of those affairs.

The poll of 1,014 adults had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points. 

Also from The Hill...

Poll: Trump's job performance rating drops

Quote

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 03/27/18 11:09 AM EDT

 

President Trump’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest level in months, according to a poll released Tuesday. 

Public Policy Polling found Trump has an approval rating of 39 percent, while 54 percent of voters disapprove of his job performance. The approval number is one of Trump’s lowest since taking office, the left-leaning firm noted. 

Forty-four percent of respondents approved of the president's job performance last month, one of his highest ratings.

A majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of various issues in the latest poll. For example, 52 percent said they believe the president is a liar, 57 percent want to see his tax returns and 54 percent said Trump has not delivered on his promise to “Make America Great Again.”

Public Policy Polling’s results were released a day after a CNN poll found Trump received his highest approval rating in nearly a year. Forty-two percent of voters gave Trump positive marks in that poll.

The latest poll numbers come amid a string of personnel changes in Trump's Cabinet. Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, resigned earlier this month, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was forced out a short time later. Trump has since announced national security adviser H.R. McMaster is leaving early next month, and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is reportedly set to be the next to go.

Public Policy Polling also found Trump trailed nearly every hypothetical 2020 opponent, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.). 

Stephanie Clifford, who acts in porn films under the name Stormy Daniels and has alleged an affair with the president ten years ago, topped Trump by 1 point, 42-41, in a hypothetical 2020 election match-up. When asked the same question using the "Daniels" name, respondents picked Trump, 41 to 32 percent, however, according to the poll. 

Trump has been the subject of recent claims he had multiple extramarital affairs around 2006.

Daniels detailed her alleged affair with Trump during an interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes," while former Playboy model Karen McDougal shared her story late last week on CNN.

The White House has denied the women's claims.

Public Policy Polling surveyed 846 voters from March 23-25. Its findings have a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

Same news outlet. Same author. Two different polls, just one day apart. Two opposing results. So which is it?

It's absolutely ridiculous to believe that 846 or even 1014 voters can possibly represent what more than 250 million people in America think. 

Don't believe poll results. Ever. Instead, believe what you can see around you. Believe in the people out on the streets for the Women's and Never Again Marches. 

[onekidanddone]

58 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

First it was Mexico, then it was the taxpayers, now it's the military... 

He should just pay for it himself.  It can be Yuge. Yugely YUGE. The best wall ever wrapped in gold leaf, and see through. After it is built he can stiff the contractors like he always does.

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Just saw this on Craigslist 

Since it'll probably be gone before too long, here's a screenshot... 

LOL

 

It's being "held for review" (meaning, I think the Craigslist staff gathered in the conference room and had a good giggle over someone's incredibly creative sense of humor).

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Eugene Robinson: "Trump has played his supporters for suckers"

Spoiler

President Trump’s most urgent political problem doesn’t involve Robert S. Mueller III, Stormy Daniels, Vladimir Putin or the hundreds of thousands of voters who marched for gun control. Rather, it’s that his die-hard supporters might be starting to realize how thoroughly he has played them for suckers.

On immigration, the issue that most viscerally connects the president with his thus-far-loyal base, Trump got basically nothing in the $1.3 trillion spending bill he signed Friday.

The vaunted “big, beautiful wall” he pledges to build along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico? Trump got 25 miles’ worth of new wall, along with eight miles of new fencing. And the bill specifies that none of this tiny increment can be built using any of the prototype designs Trump so ostentatiously showed off.

The threatened punishment for “sanctuary cities” that show compassion for undocumented immigrants? Not in there. The money to hire 1,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents? Trump got enough for just 100, with the proviso that they all be administrative and support personnel working in offices, not in the field. The 20 percent increase in funding for detention centers that Trump asked for? Congress not only refused to authorize an extra penny but also went so far as to rebuke ICE for overspending its current detention budget.

The results sent conservative pundit Ann Coulter into paroxysms on Twitter, flying uncontrollably into all-caps mode. One tweet read simply: “CONGRATULATIONS, PRESIDENT SCHUMER!”

Coulter referred, of course, to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), and indeed this spending bill in many ways reflected Democratic spending priorities more than Republican. Think of it this way: If I told you that the president just signed spending legislation that funds Planned Parenthood but not a border wall, you might wonder for a moment if Barack Obama were still president and this whole ridiculous Donald Trump thing had been just a long, profoundly disturbing dream.

Sadly, it’s real. But aside from his business-friendly tax cut and deregulation policies, Trump has offered little more than symbolic crumbs to his red-meat base. As Coulter wrote in a column: If “you’re a Trump voter, you’re scratching your head wondering what happened to those campaign promises that set him apart from every other Republican.”

Trump obviously didn’t actually mean much of the crazy stuff he said during his campaign, but his racism and xenophobia did seem sincere. On immigration, it’s probably the sheer incompetence of the Trump White House that has caused the president to go back on his word.

On the question of national security, Trump drew cheers at his rallies when he blasted prior administrations for miring us in long-running wars that had drained the country of trillions of dollars without making us any safer. He promised an “America first” foreign policy that ended attempts at nation-building abroad and instead focused resources and attention on domestic concerns.

Yet last week he boasted of having hiked defense spending to record levels. Trump has sent additional troops to Afghanistan and plunged the U.S. military into the Syrian civil war. And as his new national security adviser he is hiring John Bolton, a super-hawk you might remember from the George W. Bush administration. Bolton is the guy with the Yosemite Sam mustache who led the cheers for the Iraq War, saying, “We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction . . . .”

Trump has brutally ridiculed the architects of that war, so he and Bolton will have a lot to talk about. Better that they focus on the past than on the present, because Bolton appears determined to foment dangerous and ill-advised crises with both Iran and North Korea — perhaps at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in a MAGA hat holding up a sign that says, “Start two more wars!”

Trump clearly sees the political peril. He briefly threatened not to sign the spending bill, then caved and signed it, then vowed in a tweet that “I will NEVER sign another bill like this again.” To prevent a recurrence, he has demanded that Congress give him a line-item veto on spending bills and eliminate the Senate’s filibuster rule — neither of which is going to happen. So he will surely be presented with such legislation again.

There’s something Trump is as eager to hide as any entanglements with Russians and porn stars: The man who gave us “The Art of the Deal” couldn’t get Congress to approve a resolution supporting Mother’s Day. Even if he brought flowers.

 

[47of74]

Fuck face has been served...

 

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

Fuck face has been served...

 

 

 

Kinda proud of my state right now

 

[47of74]

49 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

 

Kinda proud of my state right now

 

Should we get the big ass bags of popcorn ready for the inevitable three am tweet storms? 

op

[onekidanddone]

Cheese puffs Hon.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

That's why you run for President:so you can sic the DOJ at people you don't like

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

I guess his staff decided he needed more "executive time".

[JMarie]

21 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Just saw this on Craigslist 

Since it'll probably be gone before too long, here's a screenshot... 

LOL

 

Just a thought:  Santorum's a lawyer, and those occasional CNN appearances aren't gonna pay all his bills....

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting op-ed: "Trump is running on animus autopilot"

Spoiler

Joshua Matz is a constitutional lawyer based in the District. He is also the publisher of the legal analysis blog Take Care.

President Trump is hard at work making animus the law of the land. Justice Department lawyers revealed his latest effort Friday night, announcing a revised plan to exclude nearly all transgender soldiers from the armed forces. 

As many commentators have observed, the reasoning offered to support Trump’s policy is riddled with empirical errors and anti-trans stereotypes. It comes nowhere close to disproving the comprehensive study in 2016 that recommended allowing transgender people to serve openly. Like so many other missives from this White House, it makes only a token effort to conceal the disdain and disgust that underlie it.

Trump’s original “transgender ban” was blocked by four federal courts. After two of those rulings were affirmed on appeal, the administration decided against seeking Supreme Court review. It’s therefore safe to assume that Trump’s latest order will not go into effect unless it survives constitutional challenges.

And in thinking about that litigation, it’s hard to escape a feeling of deja vu. A little more than 14 months into Trump’s presidency, a pattern has emerged in cases challenging some of his most despicable decisions.

Step One: Trump shoots from the hip in creating policy.

Examples are easy to come by. Shortly after taking office, Trump asked a gaggle of incompetents to make good on his long-promised “Muslim ban” — and then revealed it with little internal preparation. In February 2017, he blustered in an interview with Bill O’Reilly that he planned to use “defunding” as a “weapon” against “sanctuary cities.” And that July, he sparked temporary panic at the Pentagon with a series of inartful tweets, issued over 14 minutes, announcing that the government will not allow transgender people to serve in the military.

At this step, Trump’s animus-laden intentions are clear for all the world to see. He is moved by instinct and prejudice — his own and that of his base — rather than by any credible policy justification. Because many of Trump’s orders exist largely to symbolize the inferiority of targeted groups, they have not only caused chaos and confusion, but have also inflicted widespread suffering and cruelty. 

Step Two: Trump’s original policy is successfully challenged on legal grounds.

It’s possible that no president has fared worse in court than Trump. His apologists blame “the resistance,” but often the real culprit is Trump himself. He proudly tweets his own unlawful intentions and sabotages his lawyers’ best arguments. Many of his orders, moreover, cannot withstand even cursory factual or logical review.

Step Three: The Trump administration engages in animus laundering.

When Trump loses in court, he doesn’t walk away. Instead, he grudgingly allows his lawyers and advisers to undertake a series of bogus, ends-driven “reviews.” As demonstrated by the travel ban and transgender ban cases, the goal here is to put just enough lipstick on the pig to pretend it isn’t a pig anymore. Often that is achieved by drafting a new order that uses slightly more polite and legalistic language to express the raw bigotry underlying Trump’s original decision. Justice Department attorneys can then insist in court that the (minimally revised) policy has been certified as legitimate by an assorted handful of Cabinet secretaries.

It has become fashionable to insist that advisers such as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly can pacify Trump’s most destructive instincts. With respect to the president’s animus-laden orders, however, they have displayed little interest in that role. Kelly publicly championed Trump’s travel ban. And it is rumored that Mattis, despite opposing the transgender ban, deemed this fight unworthy of his political capital. As a result, Trump’s agencies have largely run on animus autopilot.

Step Four: Trump’s revised policy is again challenged in court.

Brandishing a new executive order, Trump’s lawyers insist that any deficiencies have been cured. The plaintiffs who challenged the original policy, however, are unimpressed by this claim. They poke holes in the shoddy, results-oriented justifications advanced by the government. And they emphasize that minor tinkering cannot save a policy whose only reason for existing in the first place was Trump’s desire to harm a vulnerable group.

It remains to be seen when and where these arguments will succeed. As a logical matter, there must be some limits. Evidence that Trump originally acted with impermissible motives cannot (and should not) permanently preclude him from making policy.

But that isn’t the situation we confront. Trump has made no effort whatsoever to dispel or deny the aura of animus that envelops so many of his orders. To the contrary, he and his advisers have leaned into the hate. With each passing day, it spreads like a poison.

We thus live in a strange new world, where bigots serve openly and soldiers are forced into closets.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

 

Howard Stern has some advice for President Trump: “get the f--k out” of the White House.

“I was watching the news. They said that the president calls his friends and asks advice,” Stern said on his eponymous SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday, following a discussion about adult film star Stormy Daniels’s allegations that she had an affair with Trump. “He’s never once called me and asked for advice,” Stern lamented. “Which kind of got me a little upset.”

As a New York real estate mogul, Trump was a frequent guest on Stern’s radio show, where he dished on everything from celebrities to his sex life. While the 64-year-old former “America’s Got Talent” judge has insisted he’s not “an insider” when it comes to Trump, he’s had a personal relationship with the president and called him a friend.

“Well, maybe he’s just not thinking that you have good advice,” Stern’s co-host, Robin Quivers, said.

“Yeah, probably not,” Stern replied. “My advice would be, like, get the f--- out of there, man.”

“Why do you need that for?” Stern exclaimed. “Go back to Mar-a-Lago and hang.”

 

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/380464-howard-stern-to-trump-get-the-f-out-of-there-man 

Stern says Trump should simply pack it in and hand things over to his vice president.

“Just give it over to Pence — let him do his thing.”

Stern predicted last year that Trump would regret becoming president.

“Seventy-year-old guy who has made so much money — he’s made billions of dollars — that he has his own helicopter, he has his own airplane. He has a hot wife. He’s got fame from a No. 1 television show,” Stern said last May. “He can walk around Mar-a-Lago, which is like any palace — better than the f--king White House.”

“And then when he went out on the campaign trail, and he started to win, it was like, 'Oh my God, I’m going to be president, and all these crowds love me, and it’s going to be fun,'” Stern told his listeners. “No f--king idea the shitty life he was gonna have."

 

IDK about that, it seems to me that president or not, he still lounges about Mar-a-Lago quite a bit

[Botkinetti]

56 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

An interesting op-ed: "Trump is running on animus autopilot"

  Hide contents

 

Trump asked a gaggle of incompetents 

 

“A gaggle of incompetents”

I enjoyed the article but I particularly liked that sentence. It describes his advisors perfectly. I am glad they are incompetent though because it lessens the chance that any of his hideous policies will ever become law.

[Cartmann99]

At the rate that Trump is burning through lawyers, I keep expecting to hear that he tried to contact the late Andy Griffith to see if Matlock would represent him. 

 

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

At the rate that Trump is burning through lawyers, I keep expecting to hear that he tried to contact the late Andy Griffith to see if Matlock would represent him. 

 

Perry Mason would be better.  He always won!

[onekidanddone]

16 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Perry Mason would be better.  He always won!

Raymond Burr was gay, so I don't think Trumpy could deal with that.

[onekidanddone]

Yea, this