The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[wolfman]

@Rick_Kitchen

Trump is bragging about how the NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins will be coming to the White House.]

Has anyone pointed out to him that they are not Americans for the most part? He is celebrating Immigrants?

[El_Kabong]

@Rick Kitchen

Trump is bragging about how the NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins will be coming to the White House.

@wolfman

Has anyone pointed out to him that they are not Americans for the most part? He is celebrating Immigrants?

Not to mention that my sources tell me not a single team member is an actual penguin, which I personally find rather disappointing.

[running_coach]

@wolfman

Has anyone pointed out to him that they are not Americans for the most part? He is celebrating Immigrants?

Not immigrants, foreign workers.

[JohnT]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Wow. I’m curious now, too: do we have a working definition of “radicalize” that JohnT is going by that the rest of us could take a look at?

The Ringer effectively took my position:

Raiders owner Mark Davis told ESPN on Sunday that he’d “previously told [players] that I would prefer that they not protest while in the Raiders uniform.” He continued: “I can no longer ask our team to not say something while they are in a Raider uniform. The only thing I can ask them to do is do it with class. Do it with pride. Not only do we have to tell people there is something wrong, we have to come up with answers. That’s the challenge in front of us as Americans and human beings.”

This is the change happening in most NFL locker rooms: On Sunday, for perhaps the first time in league history, players weren’t expected to stay quiet. They were told they could speak out.

For the NFL, merely speaking out is radical.

How Trump Forced the NFL to Finally Acknowledge the Real World

[Chisquirrel]

@Sherrerd

Eventually, every bully overreaches.

Only Trump could consistently lose while punching down.

[Ike_Witt]

@Fiveyearlurker

So, I assume that Republicans don’t care about this anymore, largely because they never actually cared about this in the first place.
*
"Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business.

Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails."*

Lock him up! Lock him up!

[Rick_Kitchen]

Conservative writer David French, writing in the conservative National Review, criticizes Trump and declares his understanding of the players who knelt.

I Understand Why They Knelt | National Review

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Rick_Kitchen

Conservative writer David French, writing in the conservative National Review, criticizes Trump and declares his understanding of the players who knelt.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451697/donald-trump-nfl-protests-why-they-knelt

Thank you for posting this, Rick; I doubt I’d have seen it otherwise since NR isn’t one of the places I frequent.

At one stroke, thanks to an attempted vulgar display of strength, Trump changed the playing of the anthem and the display of the flag from a moment where all but the most radical Americans could unite to one where millions of well-meaning Americans could and did legitimately believe that the decision to kneel represented a defense of the ideals of the flag, not defiance of the nation they love.

Aye; Mr. French gets it.

[Ravenman]

@wolfman

Has anyone pointed out to him that they are not Americans for the most part? He is celebrating Immigrants?

Here’s an opinion from one of the Americans on the Penguins:

“I think that’s the beauty of this country is that people have the ability to do things like that. You know, obviously, [Steeler and former soldier] Villanueva was out [of the locker room], and that’s his right as well,” Cole said after practicing with the Penguins Monday morning. “I don’t think anyone should be looked down upon for whatever they choose to do, and everyone has a right to do whatever they want.”

What a SOB.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Thank you for posting this, Rick; I doubt I’d have seen it otherwise since NR isn’t one of the places I frequent.

So I did poke around bit there and found this piece titled ‘Make America Normal Again’ by Kyle Smith:

@Kyle Smith

A few weeks ago, there was nothing left of Colin Kaepernick’s ill-advised national-anthem protest except a few dying embers. Now the twin bellows that are President Trump’s lungs have blown a blast of pure oxygen into the fire. Suddenly, it’s going stronger than ever. If you’re an NFL fan, you can only be aghast at what Trump has done. His side — our side, the side that said you shouldn’t insult the flag because of the mistakes made by some police officers — was winning. All Trump had to do to secure this small but important victory was keep his mouth shut.

@Kyle Smith

Now, thanks to Trump, Sunday brought the spectacle of more dismaying national-anthem protests than ever before. Players were taking a knee from coast to coast. We were presented with the mind-boggling spectacle of Patriots players being booed by Patriots fans for being unpatriotic. Or maybe they were just backing the First Amendment. Or expressing solidarity with fellow athletes such as NBA superstar Stephen Curry, whom Trump blasted in a tweet. Or simply expressing the sentiment that the president of the United States should stay out of their business. Trump gave them a pile of reasons to politicize the presentation of the flag. How can anyone who wanted the NFL to shed its political baggage possibly back Trump this time? Football, and sports in general, had for many years served as a welcome refuge from questions about race. The link between Black Lives Matter and taking a knee during the National Anthem brought racial resentment to the field of play. Trump made that much, much worse.

@Kyle Smith

Those of us who didn’t vote for Trump because we’re more conservative than he is — not to mention more patriotic, being appalled by his suggestion that John McCain is a loser for allowing himself to get captured — are in the position of perhaps being associated with him simply by standing for the national anthem. Now non-radical liberals, people who would never (as Kaepernick idiotically did) wear a Castro T-shirt or socks depicting police as pigs and who would ordinarily never show disrespect during the national anthem, are tempted to scowl at the flag because Trump has stamped his brand all over it. The simplest, most unifying things become divisive in the age of Trump. America is a lot surlier and more disputatious than it was just a few days ago. This is not progress.

Which got a chuckle out of me (but only a chuckle!) because it isn’t often that you see a conservative writer lamenting a lack of social progress.

Still, I think Mr. Smith gets it just like Mr. French gets it.

[SteveG1]

@ike witt

lock him up! Lock him up!

lock him up!

[nearwildheaven]

The Orange One is ignoring the whole Puerto Rican situation, and I think I know why.

They don’t elect the president.

[enipla]

@eschereal

So far, it is not clear that he has broken any laws. Being a businessman, of sorts, he does what those guys do: skate along the fragile surface of the fine print<snip>

Yep, fine print may save him from his questionable business practices. I think obstruction of justice with the firing of Comey is quiet clear though. He admitted on national TV that he got rid of him because of ‘The whole Russian thing’

[jayjay]

@nearwildheaven

The Orange One is ignoring the whole Puerto Rican situation, and I think I know why.

They don’t elect the president.

Well, not yet, anyway. Once all 3.5 million of them move to the mainland because PR is uninhabitable they get to do that, though.

[dropzone]

@simster

You really want audience? Let it be on ‘America’s Greatest Execution’ and let them choose the method.

Was that in Network or Idiocracy?

@Ravenman

Here’s an opinion from one of the Americans on the Penguins:
What a SOB.

Feh. He’s from Ann Arbor. Might as well be from Saul Alinsky’s front porch.

[eschereal]

The Apocalypse that was supposed to take place on Saturday failed due to decades old EPA regulations. The Apocalypse has submitted what has been described as an “unsatisfactory” Environmental Impact Statement which has repeatedly been rejected through even the Reagan years. The current EPA chief, however, in the interest of reducing regulation, is reviewing this longstanding policy. This administration may at last allow the Apocalypse to proceed as planned.

[elucidator]

First dibs on the Cup of Fornications!

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@Snowboarder_Bo

So I did poke around bit there and found this piece titled ‘Make America Normal Again’ by Kyle Smith:Which got a chuckle out of me (but only a chuckle!) because it isn’t often that you see a conservative writer lamenting a lack of social progress.

Still, I think Mr. Smith gets it just like Mr. French gets it.

Wow. That was a thing of beauty. What has our resident Trump apologist got to say about this article? I’m really curious. Clothahump?

[Fiveyearlurker]

Apparently everyone in the Trump administration is using personal email accountson the reg.

To be clear, I don’t give a shit about this, but my not giving a shit now is consistent with my never giving a shit about this.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@Fiveyearlurker

Apparently everyone in the Trump administration is using personal email accountson the reg.

To be clear, I don’t give a shit about this, but my not giving a shit now is consistent with my never giving a shit about this.

And according to Sarah Sanders, the use of private email is limited despite the fact that they’ve been repeatedly and “regularly” advised not to do so by WH counsel (Question at 17:35). :smack:

I must say I enjoyed that particular press conference. It’s gotta be frustrating being inundated with questions about a topic that Trump has fixated on but does not at all serve their supposed agenda. It’s really hard to convince the media that Trump is, in fact, interested in talking about anything of substance. She buries it well, though.