I was thinking that maybe Mike Pence would lapse and take Sarah “Pearl Necklace” Huckabee to Red Lobster, just the two of them, alone at the table. Scandalous.
It worked! Trump will sign a bill sanctioning Russia for meddling in the election (even though Trump isn’t sure Russia meddled). Republicans are taking power away from the Failing Cheeto.
Josh Marshall at TPM lays out the timeline of Priebus’ firing.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-brief-symphony-of-cruelty-and-cowardice
In a nutshell:
- Air Force One lands at Edwards.
- Trump waits until after Priebus has left the plane, then tweets that John Kelly is the new Chief of Staff.
- He waits for Priebus’ car to leave the area, then finally comes off the plane and gets in his limo.
I suppose it’s possible that Priebus knew he was fired before he stepped off the plane, but knowing the cowardly way that Trump fired Comey (Comey found out when he saw it on the TV), I’m guessing he was too chickenshit to do it to his face.
Yeah, the healthcare failure still needs another day or so to fester. I predict some crazy over the weekend.
I think Bannon’s gone - Trump’s got no use for him now. He doesn’t need Bannon to be an extremist bigot. Trump’s idea of investing in infrastructure is only going to get done with democratic support, and they pretty much smell blood in the water with Mueller’s investigation cranking up.
I am obviously not Trump, but if I were in his position, with these odds stacked higher and higher against me, I’d say fuck it and double down on extremism and turn the wolves loose on the wussies in congress who clearly have no backbone to stand on their own.
If I’m Trump, I go full on gun-toting, anti-human tea party and also reach out to religious zealots. I’d also be telling these various constituencies: "Look, this Constitution and rule of law shit - it’s not working. You voted for an unconventional president, right? You wanted to shake things up, break the system, right? I’m not a politician, I’m a bidnessman. I get things done. Just remove these little rules and laws, and I’ll deliver. The problem’s not me, it’s the Constitution, the law, the Senate, the House, Obama."
Honestly not 100% sure that the above “Hey, let’s induce a Civil War,” scenario is not what’s going on.
Elaborate please!
mc
Once I got past the squick factor, I must tell you this made me laugh pretty hard. 
Plus 1. Don’t think that Putin won’t blame Trump for the sanctions bill. Putin simply won’t understand why Trump didn’t just kill it in the cradle (or kill a couple of Congressmen). That’s what Putin would do, so why can’t Trump?
After reflection, I have to admit I was hasty and and incorrect in my initial assessment. It will not be open war between two factions. There are three that will be swinging dick, Trump and the Pips, the establishment GOP in the senate, and the T-party house, who have to know that 18 months is a very short time from now.
Bah, still a tool, IMO. The sniveling statement he made after his unceremonious dumping shows that he’s quite the (Trump) Organization man after all:
TL-DR? “Thank you Sir, may I have another?”
At least he hasn’t designed a presidential sash for himself.
Um, I think Priebus is going to end up having to yield that last one to Kelly.
I kinda figured this was Ivanka’s job.
Please let it be a sex tape of Trump engaging in watersports with Russian prostitutes.
If more of us had lived lives of prayerful meditation, humility and chastity, such a prayer might be answered. Alas.
Depending on how deep the Russian thing goes, I could imagine Trump seeing this as his best, if unlikely, chance at keeping himself and his family out of prison.
You don’t need to be Merlin for that, while Trump is in office, to be a safe prediction.
- Is coralled along with Micheal Flynn and to-be-bannonated-in-next-two-weeks himself, yes - Mr. Gin-Blossom-Nose-of-Apocalyptic-Drunken-Groping-PukeHeadeness, to the nefariously secretive Dancing With the Stars Combine.
Preibus will be a little reticent in whatever routine he comes up with, given his bland approach to everything, and Bannon will need to get in shape, lose maybe 35 pounds, but Flynn, though…I honestly think he’s still sprightly enough to get the crowd wrapped around his finger, especially if he’s had significant skating experience. I’m not expecting triple lutzes or anything, but I hope he gets paired Peggy Fleming if she’s still around.
missed edit window…
cool - so much for mixing up all this dancing surfaces shit.
His daughter is the chairman of the company that makes EpiPens and jumped up their charges for the people who have no choice in buying them or not and has no interest in actually making a decent profit instead of an exorbitant profit.
That’s exactly the point – the rule of law is after him, so the only way out of this is to break the rule of law into pieces.
Coincidentally or not, Vladimir Putin’s irreversible path toward becoming a strongman started under similar circumstances. There were multiple corruption investigations against him early in his presidency, and like Trump, he knew that if he ever left power, there would be the chance that someone could appoint a prosecutor and have him jailed. He wasn’t willing to take that chance, so he moved to stop the investigations. His tactics evolved to become increasingly extreme.
It was obviously easier to accomplish that in the chaos of post-Soviet Russia, but what people here haven’t considered until now is that the Constitution actually gives the Executive a lot of power. Presidential power has not been used to its extremes because we’ve always elected people who were honorable enough to respect the political norms established by the early leaders of the country like Washington and Jefferson. Most of the times when presidential power has expanded it has been with popular consent, such as during times of national crises. Again, we’ve been fortunate in that there has usually been enough transparency for people in congress and in the public sphere to know when something is a ‘crisis’ or when it’s just a bullshit power grab.
Nixon was the one president who exercised power against this implicit consent, and he was stopped - but that was against a mostly opposition congress and that was also at a time when the institutions of a free press were stronger and enjoyed more credibility. The circumstances are different now. With the way things are going now, this could well develop into the greatest constitutional crisis since the American Civil War. We’ve never had an Executive who has challenged the legitimacy of the Constitution and what it represents, but Trump seems to be different in every imaginable way.
It’s true that the institutions in the United States are strong and our traditions of democracy, liberty, and separation of powers are also strong - arguably stronger than in most of the countries that have succumbed to authoritarian rule. How much stronger? What are the stress limits? Those are the real questions, and nobody has the answers. But it seems that just assuming it’ll all work out in the end is a dangerously naive assumption.
I think we’ve just passed the point when every NATO country starts dusting off their contingency plans for resisting a US invasion. They’re no longer a rational actor in international politics.