Is anyone surprised about Trump appointing an obvious ass kisser to the job of Communications Director? I have never seen anyone so comfortable having his nose wedged securely between the cheeks of a fat criminal as Anthony Scaramucci appeared at his opening press conference.
So Sean Spicer quit. What else is new? He was obviously outraged at having The Mooch take his job and disappointed at his own demotion. But could this have been a surprise? Everyone and his brother were aware of Spicer’s shortcomings. The job as defined by the Trump administration was not a normal Press Secretary’s job. Trump’s man had to be a consummate liar just to keep up with the ever-changing truths of his boss. Trump lies about lying about lies. Trying to sell his self image as Presidential is a rock solid impossibility.
Everybody familiar with Spicer says he was a nice guy, in over his head. That’s kind of what it looked like but he obviously wanted the top job and just as obviously he wasn’t equipped to handle it. So The Mooch, a charming nickname for a man high up in our government circles, takes over the job of selling an impossible product to an angry disillusioned public while Sara Huckabee Sanders takes over the job of facing an angry press corps that the President calls the perpetrators of fake news, even as he lies in just about every statement he makes. Sanders is much better qualified for the job than was Spicer. She has the innate ability to lie with impunity and a very straight face about anything that will help secure her job, while Spicer was obviously shaken and embarrassed by the many falsehoods that he was forced to relay in the course of doing the President’s shady business.
Sanders is tough and outspoken and wouldn’t acknowledge the truth if it was moving around in her britches. Sanders tells us that if the press is attacking her she must be doing something right. A hell of a position for someone who has to deal with that same press on a daily basis. Sanders promises to tell the truth about everything she will be discussing. That’s her first lie, at least if she has any hope to keep her job. Trump doesn’t want a truth teller in that job; he wants a functional liar who will back up all his lies. Sanders looks like his girl.
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And then The Mooch hit the tube. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s new Director of Communications was on Meet the Press Sunday talking about how he sees his job, how he views the President and what he thinks should be happening in the nation to move on. That’s what he said last Sunday. Then on Thursday after a couple of days of parrying with various members of the White House staff he came out with an expletive filled assault on Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon. It wasn’t just the language though, it was the attitude! The nasty little punk seems to think he’s a cross between a screen gangster and a rabid dog. AND he hasn’t even been officially hired yet because he needs the President to help him sell his company to China so he has bus fare to get to work.
So far Trump has surrounded himself with nefarious assholes that all have their own twisted agenda and none of them are giving him the right advice. Of course, that’s not to say he s capable of taking advice from anyone. This column is not saying that Scaramucci will change all. He showed well on his first interview but then blew himself out of the water with his New Yorker story. This is this kind of asshole that Trump will probably love but all he is going to do is further damage an administration that is currently holding on by it’s own orange hair.
The basic problem with the Trump administration is that no one has held Trump’s ear for more time than it takes to switch channels and Trump has the attention span of a gnat. This combination has left the nation with no real leadership. To think that Scaramucci, a dirty little gutter rat can supply the voice of reason that will entice Trump out of his balloon and into a place where he, even if only briefly, sees reality is simply an exercise in futility.
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Jay Sekulow, the President’s liar was being interviewed on This Week and he gave a very cogent explanation of conflict of interest as Trump has used it in reference to Bob Mueller. I find that fascinating because every point that Sekulow brought up also referred back to his client, who has been using the Presidency as a way to forward his business interests and make money off the American people. That is the definition of conflict of interest.
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In her interview on the tube this week Sarah Sanders claims that the American people showed in polls that their three areas of greatest interest are; immigration, healthcare and jobs while the press has dedicated its greatest coverage to Russia. This may be true, though I doubt anyone except Trump’s solid 35% and those running from INS, really have much interest in immigration. Sure there is interest in jobs and healthcare but there is not as much of a story there because our government, as led by Donald Trump can’t get its act together to do anything functional about either.
In keeping with her new job and her burgeoning ability to lie, Sanders claims that Trump has done a great deal on both the healthcare and the jobs front. Really Sarah? What? In fact he has done next to nothing except muddy the waters of a solution to each. His view of where the jobs of today and the future will come from is Cro-Magnon. With his closed mind, this clown thinks that future jobs will come from industries like coal and manufacturing when neither will factor in any growth managed by this country or any advanced country in the world.
His lack of knowledge of any healthcare bill he wanted to see passed is already legendary as is his inability to understand any of the real problems of healthcare as it ascribes to the problems of the American people. So basically, Sanders lies. Trump has actually done nothing to help the peoples search for jobs or healthcare, just as he has done nothing to move forward any interests of the country he is supposed to be serving.
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Jared Kushner claims that he knows nothing, he saw nothing and he heard nothing. The first is more than probably true but the problem for his phony story is that he was not the only one in the room. Kushner and Don Jr. can claim that they are functionally stupid and politically naïve but that doesn’t change the fact that they had Paul Manafort an experienced, wily political professional in the room with them, Notice, I did not describe him as moral. Manafort knew what was going on from the git go. He also knew that as soon as he found out what was going on he should have called the FBI. The fact that he didn’t, means that he was complicit with what was going on, which was the Russians offering dirt on Hillary in exchange for something big; most likely the lowering of sanctions when and if Trump took office.
So it’s a sure thing that Manafort knew exactly what was going on and being as he did, why would he keep it a secret from Kushner and Junior. There is no reason unless he as looking to drag them into the swamp with him. So Kushner and Junior knew, and all three were complicit. Stupidity is cute if you like clowns but if you are a serious person and there are serious people looking at this little peccadillo, being stupid is no excuse. These guys are guilty as hell. That’s where all the lies are coming from. The more they speak, the deeper they are going to get in the quicksand. Just like Nixon’s henchmen, these guys are eventually all going to jail and because they all know in their hearts that he would sell them out for a nickel, just like he is trying to sell out AG Jeff Sessions, one of them is going to sell out Trump.
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Donald Trump interviewed with the NY Times this week. It was a character revelation par excellence. Trump indicated that he was dis-satisfied with Jeff Sessions. Well, we’re all dis-satisfied with Sessions but for entirely different reasons. We didn’t want the tiny racist appointed in the first place. Once Trump appointed him, Sessions finally did one thing right. He recused himself from the Russian investigation because of contacts he had with the Russian Ambassador. That infuriated Trump because the fat President doesn’t understand anything like an act of character.
Trump is especially angry with Bob Mueller who is investigating the Russian affair and has already feinted with veiled threats about what might happen if Mueller goes too far and looks into his messy financial affairs. When, not if, Mueller goes past Trump’s red line, the leaders of the Senate and the House will face choices that they just don’t want to deal with.
John McCain, the Senate’s leader in character is seriously ill. Who will step up and challenge a President who thinks he is a dictator? Who will say, ”Enough,” to a cheap crook, utterly devoid of any knowledge of what character or honesty mean?
Trump appeared the other night before a Boy Scout Jamboree at which he attacked Sessions for doing what he actually had to do by law. Yes, Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russian investigation because he had met with a Russian official and by law, he could no longer carry on the investigation because he could have been compromised.
Of course Trump doesn’t understand this. All he understands is that Sessions’ honest action, one of the few that he has been guilty of, has caused him some angst. So Trump attacks him because Trump isn’t interested in whether Sessions is doing right or wrong. All Trump cares about is whether or not Sessions is doing what Trump wants. Sessions has been the most loyal of Trump’s lackeys. He was Trump’s first important backer and he stuck by Trump when everyone was betting against him but Donald only wants to know, “what have you done for me today.” Trump is a gross punk and everyone who has any objectivity understands that.
Trump seems to think that if he gets rid of Sessions, who can’t fire Mueller because he has recused himself, he could appoint a new AG who would grovel at his feet and do as he says regarding the firing of Bob Mueller. But he may be very wrong about that. Right now the anger in the Congress over the way Trump is beating up on Sessions, even on the Right, is pointing towards there never being a chance that they would okay any Trump nomination to Attorney General if he dumped Sessions. That could leave us without an AG for a long long tine. Aeds without a new AG there would be no way for Trump to fire Mueller.
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The Senate Trumpcare bill is going down to defeat and a clueless, lazy, incompetent President rails against the Democrats. What happened to the Republicans? They have the majority, but the bill is so bad, so lacking in the ingredients necessary to provide health care that even some GOP Senators can’t vote for it.
So Trump sits in the White House and does a fat ugly imitation of a French Queen who shall remain headless. “Let them eat cake!” he screams at his voters as he threatens to let Obamacare fail. What does he care if poor people lose their healthcare? He’s rich! He already knows how to look down on them.
For almost eight years the GOP screamed about repealing and replacing the ACA. When they got their shot, when they had all the elements of government under their control, they blew it. They were unprepared; they had no viable plan. AFTER EIGHT YEARS TO PREPARE! And the idiot Trump wants to blame it n the Democrats, while he threatens, like a spoiled child, to force the existing Obamacare program to fail.
What’s really infuriating is that Trump claims he wanted the bill to pass. How can he say that when he really doesn’t have any working knowledge of what’s in it or how to fix it? He was so unprepared to speak about the bill that McConnell eased him out of the meetings so they could get something done. No it wasn’t enough.
Trump doesn’t really care that the GOP didn’t get what it wanted. All he cares about is that he didn’t get to sign a bill, any bill. Like the spoiled fat child that he is, Trump sits at the table pounding his fists and whining, but like that spoiled child, he has no idea what it really takes to get what he wants or what it costs.
All he knows is that he loves to be applauded. That was shown when he met with a group of GOP Senators who already supported the Senate bill, instead of meeting with those Senators who didn’t plan to vote for it. It was just another dumb move. He should have been courting the moderates and the far right legislators who wouldn’t vote, yes! Instead he surrounded himself with sycophants who knelt at his shrine and made him feel like a big deal. What a pathetic idiot