# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070 "2016-12-07T00:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2184
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43667 "2020-05-19T23:24:22Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > He might have muscled his doctor into prescribing it for him, but I doubt he’s taking it. I could see him taking one just to say he’s taking it, but I even doubt that. No need to take them when he could take the bottle and pour the pills into the toilet. Try to keep up. Trump knows it takes 10 or 15 flushes to get a toilet to work, so he’d hide them somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43668 "2020-05-20T02:33:58Z")
Individual 1 has fired the Department of Transportation IG. [https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386](https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43669 "2020-05-20T04:52:04Z")
Oh, [what a delightful](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/national-guard-coronavirus-267514) “person”. The WH has ordered National Guard deployments – members who are out on the lines helping with testing and contact-tracing – to end on 24 June. It is a cost-saving measure, meant to avoid being exposed to having to make possible future outlays for education and/or retirement benefits for some of those freeloaders. Cut them off one day before many of them would qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43670 "2020-05-20T04:56:47Z")
Hasn’t the damn dirty lying sack of dung in the White House pulled a similar stunt at least once already duirng this (mal)(mis)(anti)administration? ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43671 "2020-05-20T06:09:32Z")
Speaking of this (mal)(mis)(anti)“administration”, there are few I despise more than the evangelical-agenda driven, ignorant, corrupt self-entitled crust on the bum of the nation, Mike Pompeo, grifter extraordinaire. I hope his “[Madison dinners](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/pompeo-s-elite-taxpayer-funded-dinners-raise-new-concerns-n1210746)” (NBC) – a misnomer if ever I heard one – garner a lot of attention. > [@](#): > > As federal workers file out of the State Department at the end of a Washington workday, an elite group is often just arriving in the marbled, flag-lined lobby: Billionaire CEOs, Supreme Court justices, political heavyweights and ambassadors arrive in evening attire as they’re escorted by private elevator to dinner with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. > > Until the coronavirus shut them down in March, the gatherings were known as “Madison Dinners” — elaborate, unpublicized affairs that Pompeo and his wife, Susan Pompeo, began in 2018 and held regularly in the historic Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the government’s dime. It is hard to express the outrage I feel to know my tax dollars are paying for this corrupt bullshit. Oh, and that illegal sale of arms to Saudi Arabia thing pisses me off, too. He should be in jail. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43672 "2020-05-20T07:30:07Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Hasn’t the damn dirty lying sack of dung in the White House pulled a similar stunt at least once already duirng this (mal)(mis)(anti)administration? He fired acting FBI directer Andrew McCabe 26 hours before his 50th birthday to keep him from qualifying for a full early pension. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43673 "2020-05-20T08:00:50Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > He fired acting FBI directer Andrew McCabe 26 hours before his 50th birthday to keep him from qualifying for a full early pension. Thanks! That’s the person I was thinking of. > [@Aspenglow](#): > > Speaking of this (mal)(mis)(anti)“administration” Thanks for going with my newly-coined term for this disaster inflicting itself on the country. I also like your addition of the scare quotes. You also are absolutely correct that Pompeo, along with a number of members of said (mal)(mis)(anti)“administration”, belong in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43674 "2020-05-20T09:05:01Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Oh, [what a delightful](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/national-guard-coronavirus-267514) “person”. The WH has ordered National Guard deployments – members who are out on the lines helping with testing and contact-tracing – to end on 24 June. What if the governors keep those people deployed? Nevermind, I read the article. I’m getting beyond irritated at this business of the Feds saying the states are on their own, then coming back to interfere with how states are handling it. I’m beyond tired of the “essential workers”, medical people, and frontline workers getting screwed. > [@eschereal](#): > > It is a cost-saving measure, meant to avoid being exposed to having to make possible future outlays for education and/or retirement benefits for some of those freeloaders. Cut them off one day before many of them would qualify. Hmmm… wonder if DeVos had her hand in this, it would be in character… ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43675 "2020-05-20T10:50:22Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Hmmm… wonder if DeVos had her hand in this, it would be in character… Well, there are educational benefits to be had if one is on active duty longer than a certain numbr of days. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43676 "2020-05-20T12:20:22Z")
In fairness, I’ve been on army-reserve contracts that ran specifically for 89 days to avoid some things that kicked in at 90. One year (quite a good year, actually, since it was a fun job) I had several 89-day contracts in a row with a few unpaid days off between them, in an obvious attempt to keep me working but not give me access to certain benefits. I didn’t mind too much, though. It’s not like it was a national emergency or anything. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43677 "2020-05-20T13:09:05Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Individual 1 has fired the Department of Transportation IG. > [https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386](https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386) The narrative that Trumpians are trying to put together is that the Democrats, not the Russians, tried to interfere in the 2016 election, and that when they lost, they conspired to criminalize and delegitimize the Trump presidency. The Dems had their thumbs on the election and used the deep state to go after Trump and his supporters. Now the government must be deep cleaned of the deep state and the conspirators from the previous administration must be punished somehow. We’re quickly sliding into former Soviet Republic and Putin’s Russia territory here. No doubt this administration has been getting some coaching from Moscow on precisely the steps to take in neutralizing a pro-democracy government. I won’t be surprised if AG Barr starts talking openly about launching a criminal probe of Lynch, Holder, Rice, and perhaps even Obama himself. There are layers to something like this. One layer, obviously, is the political payback against political rivals, which used to be against the norm in modern presidential politics but who remembers norms anymore. But another layer is the delegitimization of the nation’s only non-white president. It’s the ultimate counter-revolution. It’s not enough just to win the election that merely makes a political statement against racial and gender equality; for the neo-confederates who support him, the coup de grace to forever stain that administration with the indignity of being investigated, threatened, and possibly even jailed. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43678 "2020-05-20T13:15:40Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Individual 1 has fired the Department of Transportation IG. > [https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386](https://www.stripes.com/news/us/democrats-open-probe-into-replacement-of-acting-transportation-department-inspector-general-1.630386) To follow up, this firing is undoubtedly done to please Mitch McConnell, whose wife, Elaine Chao, had been under investigation for improprieties and conflicts of administration as the Transportation Secretary. This is a signal for McConnell to come on board and join in on Trump’s conspiracy theories and attacks on all Democrats. It’s a move to consolidate political power and to unify the Republican party in their all out assault on Democracy. This is why it’s not enough to just beat Trump; we have to win the Senate, and we have a golden opportunity to defeat McConnell in KY and he must be defeated. It is as important to win the senate than the presidency. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43679 "2020-05-20T13:37:59Z")
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson plans to mail out absentee ballot applications to Michigan voters ahead of August’s and November’s elections. [In response, Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from Michigan in the middle of a pandemic and epic flooding.](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/20/trump-threatens-michigan-funding-over-bensons-decision-mail-absentee-apps/5226908002/?fbclid=IwAR2zyABllhhbA3_38Me9TZZzGLvQiSvfnEeAoZDJZ-tf20DQI9JwG9TnDdk) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43680 "2020-05-20T13:42:29Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > To follow up, this firing is undoubtedly done to please Mitch McConnell, whose wife, Elaine Chao, had been under investigation for improprieties and conflicts of administration as the Transportation Secretary. This is a signal for McConnell to come on board and join in on Trump’s conspiracy theories and attacks on all Democrats. It’s a move to consolidate political power and to unify the Republican party in their all out assault on Democracy. This is why it’s not enough to just beat Trump; we have to win the Senate, and we have a golden opportunity to defeat McConnell in KY and he must be defeated. It is as important to win the senate than the presidency. Period. McConnell’s not on board the Trump train already? Sure seems like he is. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43681 "2020-05-20T13:55:41Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > There are layers to something like this. One layer, obviously, is the political payback against political rivals, which used to be against the norm in modern presidential politics but who remembers norms anymore. But another layer is the delegitimization of the nation’s only non-white president. It’s the ultimate counter-revolution. It’s not enough just to win the election that merely makes a political statement against racial and gender equality; for the neo-confederates who support him, the coup de grace to forever stain that administration with the indignity of being investigated, threatened, and possibly even jailed. > [@Thomas Jefferson](#): > > Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. > > Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. > > We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. Original wall o’ 18th century text broken up and underlining add by me. What a prescient man he was. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43682 "2020-05-20T15:59:12Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Nancy Pelosi says that Individual 1 should not be taking hydroxychloroquine because he’s old and morbidly obese. > [https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Nancy-Pelosi-Trump-morbidly-obese-malaria-drug-CNN-15279305.php](https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Nancy-Pelosi-Trump-morbidly-obese-malaria-drug-CNN-15279305.php) If I were writing scripts for the Lincoln Project, I’d try to work about a dozen variations on “heavy”, “weighty”, “massive”, etc. into the next ad. Provoking a Twitter tantrum from Trumpelthinskin is proven fundraising gold… ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43683 "2020-05-20T16:22:47Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson plans to mail out absentee ballot applications to Michigan voters ahead of August’s and November’s elections. [In response, Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from Michigan in the middle of a pandemic and epic flooding.](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/20/trump-threatens-michigan-funding-over-bensons-decision-mail-absentee-apps/5226908002/?fbclid=IwAR2zyABllhhbA3_38Me9TZZzGLvQiSvfnEeAoZDJZ-tf20DQI9JwG9TnDdk) It’s clear that mail-in voting will be targeted for disruption. This is not the first time Trump has gone beyond merely deriding mail-in voting and actually maneuvered to interfere with it, having hired a loyalist as the Postmaster General (gee, what could possibly go wrong?). If we’re wondering whether or not the election will be disrupted are targeted for political manipulation (“hacking”), we can stop wondering. That effort has already begun. Trump is deliberately interfering with the presidential election that he fears losing. It’s not a hypothetical; it’s happening. And it’s not a question of whether other Republicans will join him – they will. It’s a matter of who joins him, and what they do to undermine the integrity of the election process. And it’s a question of how widespread that effort is. But they’re not going to stop. They have no reason to. They’ve made it clear that their only use for democracy is to legitimize their ideology of inequality. As far as they are concerned, there are no more rules. Laws and rules don’t apply. They’re daring us to stop them. And they will only be stopped if they fear us. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43684 "2020-05-20T20:04:59Z")
A woman with lupus, who has been taking hydroxychloroquine for 19 years, comes down with coronavirus. > **['How Can I Be Sick?' Woman Who Took Hydroxychloroquine For 19 Years To Treat...](https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/how-can-i-be-sick-woman-who-took-hydroxychloroquine-for-19-years-to-treat-lupus-still-got-covid-19/)** > > A Wisconsin woman is warning people that the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, wil not protect someone from COVID-19. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43685 "2020-05-20T21:10:24Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > A woman with lupus, who has been taking hydroxychloroquine for 19 years, comes down with coronavirus. > ['How Can I Be Sick?' Woman Who Took Hydroxychloroquine For 19 Years To Treat Lupus Still Got COVID-19 - CBS Detroit](https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2020/05/20/how-can-i-be-sick-woman-who-took-hydroxychloroquine-for-19-years-to-treat-lupus-still-got-covid-19/) From article: “Kim said even though she took precautions when leaving the house for the grocery store, she thought she would be safe because of what President Donald Trump has said about the drug.” SO… I’m hoping reporters ask Orangeanus about this and his uneducated experience in medicine. ---
**Author:** ![slumtrimpet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@slumtrimpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slumtrimpet)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/43686 "2020-05-20T23:19:38Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > From article: “Kim said even though she took precautions when leaving the house for the grocery store, she thought she would be safe because of what President Donald Trump has said about the drug.” > > SO… I’m hoping reporters ask Orangeanus about this and his uneducated experience in medicine. “It only works if you’re morbidly obese” 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2183) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2185)