Samatha Bee did a piece on him a while back. She said an easy way to remember who he is that he’s Kris Koback Secretary of State for Kansas–KKK.
I would be surprised if he hires a lightning rod like Kobach. It would be easier to just let Stephen Miller make the decisions and leave a bunch of no-name, ladder-climbing, boot-licking yes men (and women) to carry the water.
To those of us used to normal governance and expect some level of competent administration based on data and facts, what Trump is doing looks dumb. But someone with autocratic tendencies is far more comfortable doing away with conventional bureaucracy and replacing it with a power structure that appears to be amorphous. Trump is replacing the labyrinth with top-down a chain of command.
Believe me, there is no lack of boot-licking toadies who would gladly round up their fellow citizens and put them behind barbed wire. Seriously.
People need to stop thinking that what is happening right now is normal. It is not.
No, it’s not. It’s the Night of the Long Ties.
Night Of The Short Fingers.
There are people who might not have bad intentions who just want to have a job and a paycheck. Most of us reading this have enough experience to know how the workplace works in the real world – executives ask people to do unethical, even illegal things. People go along with it not because they want to, but because they’re afraid of losing their income and their status. Your average person can be convinced to do horrible things. It’s surprisingly easy.
There are lots, LOTS of people who will “go along to get along” and either look the other way, or join in deporting asylum seekers illegally, as long as others are doing it. ( or beating them, or setting up camps or…)
There are also PLENTY of people who would actively enjoy beating up unarmed protesters or asylum seekers, or otherwise acting as brown-shirts. Or even ripping kids out of their mothers arms. Because “those kind of people don’t even have feelings like the rest of us, don’tcha know.” PLENTY of folks like that, I hate to say.
And many of us would be surprised to know who they are when push comes to shove.
It kind of makes you wonder how Mitch McConnell can go on. Is this actually the kind of guy Mitch is? That the whole rest if the GOP congressional delegation are? I mean, I am an independent because I think there are good people everywhere. I am thinking I will have to be the kind of independent who chooses between the Dems, the 3rd parties, and hopefully some future sane conservative party.
In the event we see more elections, that is.
Yes, this is who they are.
Can they make money?
Can they retain power?
These are the only questions that matter. They will do anything, ANYthing to get the answers “yes” to these.
Outside of his ability to get things accomplished, I haven’t seen anything redeeming about McConnell.
That said, I think that the Republican senate is starting to turn the corner on realizing that they’ve been assuming that there was someone in control in the insane asylum. Once McConnell finally turns that corner, I would expect a pretty epic showdown. Though - epic in a very hidden way.
The federal government wants to issue more visas for foreign workers to take temporary jobs … The Departments of Homeland Security and Labor said they planned to issue up to 30,000 additional H-2B visas through Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
really, really full
(perhaps this has something to do with KNielsen’s walking papers)
I caught a few minutes of him on Fox while I was news-channel surfing earlier. Now I know why he was pontificating on how HE would run things - he was auditioning.
Fuck over the people who protect you. Real genius move there, Indira.
You’re just cottoning onto the current administration is a circus? Of course he needs to put clowns on the payroll.
Why wouldn’t that jackass fuck them over? He fucks everyone over. It’s what he does.
The article leaves off the fun bit, which is that Trump apparently refers to Alles as “Dumbo” because of his large ears. So insult added to injury. But I’m sure that this will in no way affect the morale of the men whose job it is to take a bullet for him.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/28/trump-mitch-mcconnell-224296
McConnell is a brutal political tactician whose impact on the Senate will be a legacy that lasts for decades, and most likely forever. It’s entirely possible that McConnell’s tactics have permanently broken the institution that the framers of the Constitution established. McConnell, more than anyone else, destroyed the filibuster, first through obstruction as a minority leader and then by rule when he claimed the leadership of the majority. And he continues to do everything to destroy the slower, more deliberative pace of the chamber.
Trump is doing everything McConnell ever wanted a conservative president to do. He is nominating conservative ideologues as judges. He is crippling federal agencies that regulate business. He is making ordinary people disassociate themselves from the notion that the federal government can be relied upon to assist people in times of need. His record deficits are jeopardizing the future of medicare and social security. And he fires up religious conservatives with his faux Christianity. Trump doesn’t always sound like a conservative from the heartland, but he sure as hell votes and presides like one, and that’s all that matters from Mitch McConnell’s point of view.
The underlying psychology is that humans have a natural tendency to obey authority, to do what their superiors tell them even when they feel uncomfortable about what they’re doing. Moreover, when it’s dressed up under the color of law, that context lends a certain amount of legitimacy to beating up protesters and people on the street that wouldn’t exist if it were just a few rowdy counter-protesters wearing MAGA hats. Added to that is that there’s simultaneously the psychology of power working on the brain. Not only are people in these positions obeying power, but they also possess power - and people like possessing power. We all obey power and we all enjoy power on some level; it takes effort to resist negative impulses where these factors are involved. Furthermore, we enjoy the status that comes with power; we enjoy the income and the stability. And we fear the possibility of losing that status and suddenly being without work, without income, and on the outside of a powerful social network looking in. There’s a reason that a lot of Germans became apparently indifferent to Nazism, which initially started out as right-wing crankism, just as many of the ideas that are being incorporated by Trumpism. But over time, people become anesthetized to them. We accept them first as not so radical, and then eventually, they become our normal - so much so that we can be led to resent those who point out that something’s not right. The transition from humanity to brutality is frighteningly easy.
Rachel Maddow: Trump accuses himself of bankrolling terrorism. The relevant part is between 4:00 and 5:00 but the whole show is worth watching…
I think they’re also getting to the point of worrying about the vital third question: “Can I stay out of prison?”
My guess is that Trump’s started to realize how much his Secret Service detail is seeing. He probably called Alles in for a discussion of what agents would say if put on a witness stand. And Alles wasn’t willing to help in an obstruction of justice conspiracy.