Trump II

[Schewe]

File this under "what took her so long?"

Anthony Scaramucci's wife reportedly filed for divorce because he was 'hell-bent' on joining Trump

The New York Post reported Friday that incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci's wife filed for divorce because of his political ambitions.

Citing "multiple sources," The Post's Page Six reported that Scaramucci's wife, Deidre Ball, filed for divorce after three years of marriage because of Scaramucci's efforts to get close to President Donald Trump.

Ball, who worked as a vice president for SkyBridge Capital, the firm founded by Scaramucci in 2005, reportedly "despises" Trump, according to the Page Six report.

Scaramucci and Ball were said to have started dating in 2011 and married in 2014.

Sadly they have two kids...

[Schewe]

This is fun because the artist is a home town boy...

Alien Donald Trump appears on Mexico City billboard


A giant billboard shows a drawing depicting U.S. President Trump in Mexico City

A massive image of U.S. President Donald Trump as an alien intruder now towers above one of the busiest roads in Mexico City urging motorists to "Make America Great Again."

The gaudy billboard sports a caricature of Trump with a blue and red fleshless face beneath his blond hair. It went up above the two-tier inner city ring road known as the Periferico last week after failing to find takers in the United States.

Backed with an American flag, the 13-by-7 meter (43-by-23 feet) placard of a finger-pointing Trump was originally intended to adorn a U.S. city, said its creator, Chicago-based artist Mitch O'Connell.

"America is afraid to put up this tongue-in-cheek billboard," O'Connell told Reuters by telephone. "Then Mexico came to mind because Trump started out his campaign by being cruel and mean to everyone in Mexico."

The White House had no comment on the sign.

Way to go Mitch!
(I don't know Mitch but happy to encourage him!)

[Schewe]

Bye Reince, you and Sean are the lucky ones...

Reince Priebus, shortest-serving chief of staff in White House history

(CNN) - Reince Priebus's six-month stint in the White House landed in the history books on a rainy Friday afternoon: He became the shortest-serving chief of staff. Ever.

No White House chief of staff's term has ended more swiftly than the former GOP chairman's short 189 days on the job.

The widely anticipated announcement followed a series of public attacks on Priebus this week from new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who boarded Air Force One with Trump and Priebus for a Friday afternoon event in New York.

Since the position was first created in 1946, the average tenure of the 29 chiefs of staff stretches nearly two and a half years, according to a CNN analysis of data from a Discovery Channel project called The Presidents' Gatekeepers.

All but seven chiefs of staff have lasted at least one year in the job.

The next shortest serving chief of staff, Kenneth Duberstein, worked 203 days for President Ronald Reagan from 1988 to 1989. And Jack Watson worked under Jimmy Carter for 223 days from 1980 to 1981.

So, can we now all agree that Trump isn't doing very well as president?

The only thing he accomplished of note was the Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch (and that took changing the Senate's super majority rule). Travel Ban? Nope... Build the wall? Nope... Repeal and replace ObamaCare? Nope... He's pissed off our allies (and our enemies) and our military. About the only group he hasn't pissed off (yet) is his hard core supporters but at a 36% approval rate he's likely to loose a lot of them (he's lost the independents). And his tweets are still sheer lunacy!

The only real thing he's done is to systematically try to undo EVERYTHING Obama has done and even that is largely undone...and his campaign and administration are still under investigation with the noose tightening it seems, daily.

 

[Schewe]

Sorry...busy day in Trumpolitics™ today...

Struggling to govern, Trump faces growing Republican unease


U.S. President Donald Trump arrives aboard Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S. July 28, 2017.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As fellow Republicans labored to repeal Obamacare this week, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly swerved off-topic, escalating concerns in his party about his ability to govern the country six months after taking office.

While senators grappled with healthcare, Trump banned transgender people from the military. He regaled a Boy Scout jamboree with a tale from a New York cocktail party. He indulged an obscene tirade by his flamboyant new communications director.

In the end, the Senate's efforts collapsed in a predawn vote on Friday, magnifying the ineffectiveness that often goes with the chaos around Trump, the constant storm of tweets, the White House infighting, the self-inflicted wounds.

"We're seeing clear evidence that all of these distractions are standing in the way of their ability to achieve legislative accomplishments," said Republican strategist Alice Stewart, a top aide to Senator Ted Cruz's presidential campaign last year.

In the latest twist, Trump late on Friday named U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new White House chief of staff, replacing Reince Priebus, who has been in a feud with Trump's new communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

Among some establishment Republicans, there were signs that patience with Trump was wearing thin.

His national security team, seen as a bedrock of normality, increasingly is frustrated. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were described by sources as unhappy with their handling by the White House.

Defense Secretary James Mattis was coming to grips with Trump's abrupt decision on Wednesday, via a tweet, to ban transgender individuals from military service. The Pentagon said it would not execute the order without more guidance.

If he starts losing his cabinet members (including Sessions) Trump's presidency will be shut down by the GOP and they will fall into CYA mode and try to mitigate the disaster that the 2018 midterm election would be for the GOP.

Personally, I hope Trump keeps poking the GOP with a sharp stick...makes for a more interesting reality show :~)

After the healthcare debacle does anybody think Trump and Congress could possibly do tax reform? Yeah, me neither...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

"Race-based attacks..." and the "tolerance and inclusion" of the left. Or reverse racism and self-inflicted segregation?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-boyle-heigts-huizar-coffee-20170729-story.html

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

"Hamburg supermarket attacker 'was known Islamist'"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40763369

"...asylum seeker...suffered from "psychological" issues...It is not yet clear what the suspect's motivations were."

So many crazies in Germany, so many possible motives

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

"Hamburg supermarket attacker 'was known Islamist'"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40763369

"...asylum seeker...suffered from "psychological" issues...It is not yet clear what the suspect's motivations were."

So many crazies in Germany, so many possible motives

Indeed, and yesterday in the USA 20 people were killed, and 42 were injured, all by crazies who were waving guns.

Cheers,
Bart

[Schewe]

Now Trump is threatening not only ObamaCare, but Congress' own healthcare...

Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
After seven years of "talking" Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!
11:19 AM - Jul 29, 2017

Followed by...

Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!
11:27 AM - Jul 29, 2017

Wait, what? Does Trump think threatening Congress will force them into doing something that currently can't be done?

Separately, Trump is extolling the Senate to get rid of the super majority rule...

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!
4:20 AM - 29 Jul 2017

Course, that had zero to do with the failed "TrumpCare" failure now did it?



Does this buffoon have the slightest idea what he's doing? Nope...

[Schewe]

And he thought this through?

Of course he didn't, he quit reading the friggin' teleprompter!

Police after Trump speech: We don't tolerate 'roughing up' prisoners


"don't be too nice" during arrests...

Law enforcement agencies condemned police violence Friday after President Trump advised New York officers "don't be too nice" during arrests.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a statement stressing that officers are extensively trained to ensure use of force is applied carefully.

"Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect," the organization said. "This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and policy legitimacy."

The assurance came after Trump's remarks to a group of officers on Long Island, N.Y.

“Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’" the president said.

Wow...just wow. It's like we don't have enough problems with police and community relations, now our friggin' president is telling cops to "don't be too nice"?



How can anybody support this big orange buffoon?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...It's like we don't have enough problems with police and community relations...

We do not have problems with police. We have problems with communities and politicians pandering to them for votes.

[Schewe]

Conservatives Are Turning On Trump As Wall Street Journal Calls Him Weak And Not A Real Man

"Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn," Peggy Noonan wrote in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor."

This was written before the Trump Obamacare repeal fail and subsequent White House whines and tantrums.

It gets worse. The President’s primary problem as a leader isn’t that he is brash and stupid, “It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.”

“He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically, of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump must remind people of their first wife.”

Precisely because of the conservative view of women, which is none too attractive and involves using being feminine as a negative, this is damning criticism. For conservatives, Trump was supposed to be the BMOC, the Decider, Big Daddy in the White House, Clint Eastwood cleaning up crime with the heart of a vigilante. Instead, he is a whining little drama prince throwing tantrums on an hourly basis, in public, because someone won’t give him the candy he wants right now.

Conservatives elected this man; this is the end game of the values into which they have warped their party. Gone are the deep thinking intellectuals, the generous and caring patriarchs, the fiscally responsible adults… gone.

This is what they have become: Everything they loathe.

Everything Republicans assure themselves they are not, Trump is. He is entitled, spoiled, lazy, whining, immature, nasty, vulgar, obscene, and ignorant.

If you have access to the WSJ you can read the entire article here:

Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor

By Peggy Noonan
July 27, 2017 6:06 p.m. ET
The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.

He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.

and then there's this...

Someone Is Photoshopping Trump’s Face On The Queen, And The Results Are Scary

[Schewe]

We do not have problems with police.

Yeah well you used to live in Chicago and you think there hasn't been major problems in the CPD?

Did you forget this?

Justice report rips Chicago police for excessive force, lax discipline, bad training

In perhaps the most damning, sweeping critique ever of the Chicago Police Department, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded Friday that the city's police officers are poorly trained and quick to turn to excessive and even deadly force, most often against blacks and Latino residents, without facing consequences.

The 164-page report, the product of more than a year of investigation, paints the picture of a department flawed from top to bottom, although many of the problems it cites have, for decades, been the subject of complaints from citizens, lawsuits by attorneys and investigations by news organizations.

To their credit, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and the Major as well as the Inspector General Joseph Ferguson are taking the report seriously, but it doesn't help to have the Big Orange Buffoon saying it's ok to slam a suspect's head into the door...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Yeah well you used to live in Chicago and you think there hasn't been major problems in the CPD?..

Nope.

The report was written by Obama's loonies. The more they go after Chicago police instead of thugs, the more crime there is in Chicago. See the correlation?

When I am in Chicago, I approach police patrols and ask to shake their hands, white, black, yellow or brown, male of female, thank then for their service and tell them not everyone is against them.

[Schewe]

When I am in Chicago, I approach police patrols and ask to shake their hands, white, black, yellow or brown, male of female, thank then for their service and tell them not everyone is against them.

Oh, I support good cops (the vast majority) but I'm not ok with shooting unarmed suspects rather than using nonlethal force... I'm not ok with physical abuse of suspects that are not resisting and I'm not ok with the "blue wall" of protecting bad cops just because they are cops.

So, you're ok with unnecessary force? You're ok with Trump advocating "not being nice to them"?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

[...]
and then there's this...

Someone Is Photoshopping Trump’s Face On The Queen, And The Results Are Scary

Frankly, I find that a bit of an insult to Elisabeth II, her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
She's also much cooler than Trump, and has a refined sense of humor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AS-dCdYZbo#t=128.726562

Her sense of humor is also displayed by extending an invitation to an official reception, which Trump declined unless a guarantee was given that public protests would not occur. A big failure to actually draw huge crowds, IMHO.

Cheers,
Bart

P.S. The Queen, age 91, apparently still drives her own car. Donny doesn't, can't be trusted.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Oh, I support good cops (the vast majority) but I'm not ok with shooting unarmed suspects rather than using nonlethal force... I'm not ok with physical abuse of suspects that are not resisting and I'm not ok with the "blue wall" of protecting bad cops just because they are cops.

So, you're ok with unnecessary force? You're ok with Trump advocating "not being nice to them"?

Depends on the definition of "(un)necessary" and "nice." It is easy to be an armchair critic. Walk in their shoes, see it with their eyes, surround yourself with the scum of the earth on a daily basis, and then ask me.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... So many crazies in Germany, so many possible motives

Looks like the German "illness" is becoming pandemic

"Australia police 'foil terror plot to bring down plane'"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40766858

" the four men arrested were allegedly linked to an "Islamic-inspired" plot."

In contrast to Europe (and Obama's America), it looks like Down Under they have no problem calling a spade a spade.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Good questions, Tex.

[kers]

If 0%of muslim foreign nationals secretly  wanted to hurt us Americans, surely it would be immoral to ban ALL muslims from entering the U.S.   If 100% of muslims wanted to hurt us, however, surely it would be morally justifiable to ban ALL muslims.
  So what do we do when the actual percentage is less than 100% but more than 0%?  How much risk are you willing to take? And is it racist/Islamaphobic/intolerant if I am more risk averse than you are? And if so, by how much?  Can you be 10% of a racist?  Are you a racist if you draw the line at 1% but I at 2%?  How much risk should a non-racist be allowed to take? .01%?  1%.  How about 10%?  Maybe 99%?

If 0%of foreign nationals secretly  wanted to hurt us Americans, surely it would be immoral to ban ALL people from entering the U.S.   If 100% of the people wanted to hurt us, however, surely it would be morally justifiable to ban ALL people.
  So what do we do when the actual percentage is less than 100% but more than 0%?  How much risk are you willing to take? And is it racist/Islamaphobic/intolerant if I am more risk averse than you are? And if so, by how much?  Can you be 10% of a racist?  Are you a racist if you draw the line at 1% but I at 2%?  How much risk should a non-racist be allowed to take? .01%?  1%.  How about 10%?  Maybe 99%?

[LesPalenik]

"Hamburg supermarket attacker 'was known Islamist'"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40763369
"...asylum seeker...suffered from "psychological" issues...It is not yet clear what the suspect's motivations were."

So many crazies in Germany, so many possible motives

One day later, another violent event in southern Germany, with one dead and three injured. The shooter was killed by the police.
Since the shooter was an Iraker living there for a long time, technically (according to German police) they wouldn't call it a terrorism, but just in case, they had a helicopter hovering over the nightclub.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A gunman who killed one person and injured three others in a nightclub in southern Germany on Sunday was an Iraqi citizen who had lived in the country for a long time and was not an asylum seeker, police said, ruling out terrorism as a motive.

Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told the n-tv broadcaster that after an initial investigation into the events surrounding the shooting at the nightclub in Konstanz on the border with Switzerland investigators ruled out terrorism. "The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear," he said. "We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background."