The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[DWMarch]

@kaylasdad99

I thought his version of a “trial balloon” was something that his press secretary would later claim was a “joke…”

They saved that one for Trump saying he would pardon people who broke the law to build his glorious wall.

[Monty]

What’d you know? It apears that Tan the Conman is starting to realize there is freedom of the press in the United States.

Oh, my mistake. I read the headline and foolishly thought, “WTF, the clown has learned something!” But then I read the story and he’s just complaining that Fox News is not taking orders from him.

[Nava]

@Sherrerd

It might well be that. It’s also speculated that getting rid of birth-right citizenship altogether is a goal of Stephen Miller and his ilk. This would be in the nature of a trial balloon.

“Speculated”? I thought it was pretty clear it is.

[Skypist]

@Monty

I perused the thing but evidently I’ve been out of the business of understanding bureacratese too long. What implications does this have on those immigrants who joined the Armed Forces and were promised that their time in the service–regardless of where they are posted–counts towards getting naturalized?

I can’t understand the thing at all, but CNN and WaPo are both saying that it seems to affect naturalized citizens who are serving overseas in the military or as a federal employee and have lived in the US for less than 5 years. Any child born to them overseas will not receive automatic citizenship. Their parents will have to apply for citizenship for them before they turn 18.

Supposedly it will affect maybe 100 people a year, so probably not enough to cause trump’s fans in the military to turn on him.

[Folacin]

@Skypist

I can’t understand the thing at all, but CNN and WaPo are both saying that it seems to affect naturalized citizens who are serving overseas in the military or as a federal employee and have lived in the US for less than 5 years. Any child born to them overseas will not receive automatic citizenship. Their parents will have to apply for citizenship for them before they turn 18.

Supposedly it will affect maybe 100 people a year, so probably not enough to cause trump’s fans in the military to turn on him.

You may be right - but it shouldn’t be the raw numbers, it is the disrespect and the added hoops to jump through for their comrades.

Of course, it appears that the average conservative can only empathize with actual shared experience (c.f. Dick Cheney and gay marriage), so I’m probably being overly optimistic.

[slumtrimpet]

@Skypist

I can’t understand the thing at all, but CNN and WaPo are both saying that it seems to affect naturalized citizens who are serving overseas in the military or as a federal employee and have lived in the US for less than 5 years. Any child born to them overseas will not receive automatic citizenship. Their parents will have to apply for citizenship for them before they turn 18.

Supposedly it will affect maybe 100 people a year, so probably not enough to cause trump’s fans in the military to turn on him.

So why the fuck do it at all?
It’s quite obviously bad optics because when simplified for the ‘fake news media’ to spread it comes off as ‘babies born to US citizens overseas will not automatically be citizens’. How many service members and others are going to bother to read the fine print?

[dasmoocher]

More return on Putin’s investment in Trump, it seems:

Trump heavily considering blocking $250M in military aid to Ukraine

President Donald Trump is heavily considering a plan to block $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine, a move that would further ingratiate him to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Such a decision, which was first reported by Politico, would likely prompt bipartisan uproar from members of Congress who believe US aid is essential to countering Russia’s military involvement there.

Multiple sources familiar with the issue tell CNN that the President has floated the idea of halting the funding program for weeks. The White House has recently notified relevant agencies and congressional committees of its intent to block the aid to Ukraine, one source said.

…

Trump’s public deference to Putin and Russia has alarmed US allies and lawmakers. The issue has only been amplified by Trump’s recent comments at the G7 summit, in which he seemingly downplayed Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine and suggested that Russia be reinstated into the group of leading global economies.

[QuickSilver]

@dasmoocher

More return on Putin’s investment in Trump, it seems:

Trump heavily considering blocking $250M in military aid to Ukraine

He’s missing a real opportunity to build his wall.

[Monty]

@Skypist

I can’t understand the thing at all, but CNN and WaPo are both saying that it seems to affect naturalized citizens who are serving overseas in the military or as a federal employee and have lived in the US for less than 5 years. Any child born to them overseas will not receive automatic citizenship. Their parents will have to apply for citizenship for them before they turn 18.

Supposedly it will affect maybe 100 people a year, so probably not enough to cause trump’s fans in the military to turn on him.

If you check (like a fool, I did) the comments sections online for the various news outlets reports on this, you’ll see quite a number of people who think that there’s no difference between what’s happening now and the change. Of course that makes one question why announce a change in policy if there’s no change. Also, it’s not the same. Currently, one does not apply for the child to be a US citizen; one reports the birth abroad of a US citizen.

Fucking morons, Trump and his supporters.

[dasmoocher]

Are these people true believers or are they being paid something extra? I hope they got cash upfront.

‘I don’t think this president has lied’: Trump aide denies he’s ever misled the public

CNN’s Chris Cuomo had a question for President Trump’s campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday: Has the president ever lied to the American public?

“He doesn’t lie,” said McEnany, at the start of a heated 3½-minute exchange on “Cuomo Prime Time.” “The press lies.”

“You don’t think this president has lied to the American people?” the CNN host replied.

“No, I don’t think this president has lied,” she told Cuomo, before repeatedly backing the honesty of Trump, who has given more than 12,000 false or misleading statements during his presidency, according to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker. (The Fact Checker generally avoids describing Trump’s falsehoods as “lies” since that suggests intent.)

:smack:

It seems like Trump does nothing but lie. I’m curious whether these people are so blinded by partisanship that they don’t see it or whether they’re just making money without any ethical considerations just like their boss.

[bobot]

It’s a simple lack of ethics. She’s lying, too.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

So at that point Cuomo ended the interview and laughed McEnany out of the room, right?

Because at that point what’s been said is, “I am a propagandist with no interest in the truth or informing anyone.” What possible benefit to the public is there in continuing that interview, or starting it to begin with?

[dasmoocher]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

So at that point Cuomo ended the interview and laughed McEnany out of the room, right?

Because at that point what’s been said is, “I am a propagandist with no interest in the truth or informing anyone.” What possible benefit to the public is there in continuing that interview, or starting it to begin with?

From later in the linked article:

After McEnany’s repeated insistence that Trump has never lied, Cuomo cut the segment.

“Interview’s over, Kayleigh,” Cuomo told her. “If you can’t admit that this president has lied to the American people, you will not have credibility with the audience.”

“The fake news media lies every day and that’s why you’ve lost credibility,” she replied.

Cuomo then reminded the Trump aide that her boss believes the media is “the enemy of the people” and mentioned the president’s tweet about world leaders supposedly asking him why the media hates the U.S.

“He is to blame for sowing the seeds of division,” Cuomo told her.

McEnany told Cuomo to “take a look in the mirror” before calling her or Trump a liar.

“I don’t lie to my audience every damn chance I get,” he said before thanking her.

I wonder if the surrogates get paid a bonus each time the mention the words “Fake News Media”?

[elucidator]

I think she believes! She has that semi-dazed look of someone who has latched on to a big and simple Answer, and cherishes Her Precious! Without having any clue that the bigger and simpler a Truth is, the less likely. Pobrecita!, she means well.

[bobot]

“Interview’s over, Kayleigh,” Cuomo told her. “If you can’t admit that this president has lied to the American people, you will not have credibility with the audience.”

“The fake news media lies every day and that’s why you’ve lost credibility,” she replied.

OK, I have to amend my reply. Turns out she’s not suffering from a lack of ethics but embracing an utter disdain for ethics.

[Skypist]

@Folacin

You may be right - but it shouldn’t be the raw numbers, it is the disrespect and the added hoops to jump through for their comrades.

Of course, it appears that the average conservative can only empathize with actual shared experience (c.f. Dick Cheney and gay marriage), so I’m probably being overly optimistic.

Yes they should care about their fellow citizens and comrades, but I keep thinking about the way trumpsters treat Ilhan Omar. She’s a naturalized citizen but some people want her to “go back” or even want to shoot her.

[ElvisL1ves]

Good article here about how Mattis decided he couldn’t “hold the line” anymore.

Trump was turning on him publicly; two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat and said, in reference to NATO, “I think I know more about it than he does.” (Mattis, as a Marine general, once served as the supreme allied commander in charge of NATO transformation.)

“I think back to his ‘Hold the line’ talk, the one that was captured on video,” Mullen said, referring to an impromptu 2017 encounter between Mattis and U.S. troops stationed in Jordan that became a YouTube sensation. In the video, Mattis tells the soldiers, “Our country right now, it’s got problems we don’t have in the military. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.” Mullen said: “He obviously found himself in a challenging environment.”

The subject of North Korea represented my best chance to wrench a direct answer from Mattis. I had collected some of Trump’s more repellent tweets, and read aloud the one that I thought might overwhelm his defenses. It is a tweet almost without peer in the canon:

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019

Mattis looked at his hands. Finally he said, “Any Marine general or any other senior servant of the people of the United States would find that, to use a mild euphemism, counterproductive and beneath the dignity of the presidency.”

[dasmoocher]

@ElvisL1ves

Good article here about how Mattis decided he couldn’t “hold the line” anymore.

The final paragraph:

I thought back to what he’d [Mattis] told me earlier in the summer, when I had asked him to describe something Trump could say or do that would trigger him to launch a frontal attack on the president. He’d demurred, as I had expected. But then he’d issued a caveat: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”

We know from Bob Woodward’s book Fear, Trump wanted to assassinate Assad* after his chemical attack and Mattis told his people something like “Yeah, we’re not doing that.”

Can you imagine the batshit crazy stuff we don’t know about?

• Trump wanted Syria’s Assad assassinated, Bob Woodward claims in extraordinary new book

[ElvisL1ves]

I did notice that. I wish he’d been clearer about when his verbal embargo expires - in time for the campaign next year or not?

[Nava]

@Skypist

Yes they should care about their fellow citizens and comrades, but I keep thinking about the way trumpsters treat Ilhan Omar. She’s a naturalized citizen but some people want her to “go back” or even want to shoot her.

The same people want three other women who didn’t even need to get naturalized to “go back”.