I’m still on the road and was inclined to give Trump one more week off, but I can’t. I just can’t.
1. Always prepared. So Trump spoke at the Boy Scout Jamboree, pointing out that Obama had never done so. Which wasn’t true: Obama had recorded a video message addressing the 2010 Jamboree. Obama was also a Boy Scout in his youth, as were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. But not Trump, of course. Trump made his speech quite memorable, violating eighty years of presidential tradition by presenting a highly partisan speech in which he slammed his predecessor and Hillary Clinton, and told them a long, rambling story about a multi-millionaire who wound up buying a yacht and presumably having sexual activities on it. The Scouts ate it up while the organization quickly released a statement emphasizing that the organization is non partisan. Apparently inviting the president to speak at the jamboree is tradition, but I will be very surprised if they maintain that tradition and invite him ever again. Hëll, let them invite Obama next year. I bet he’ll come.
2) Anyone else getting sick of Health Care? Once again, for something like the sixty second time in the past seven years, the GOP endeavored to get rid of health care and failed. Naturally all the Democrats voted against it, but of greater interest was that enough GOPers voted against it as well. Granted, some of them believed that it was gutted too much while others thought it wasn’t gutted enough. Fortunately even the notion of just scrapping Obamacare while replacing it with nothing didn’t go over. Yet the GOP still won’t let it go, now actively discussing a brand new plan that is a “slimmed down” version of the ACA. One wonders how many rejections they are going to have to endure before they give up. Even Trump is now advocating that they just wait for Obamacare to crash and burn, which–to my understanding–it’s showing no sign of doing, although it is saving countless lives. It’s impressive how something can last when the process is done correctly, over a period of months with public hearings, as opposed to the way the GOP has been attempting to do it.
3) We’ll have a gay old time. People are declaring that the LGBTQ community has been “betrayed” by Trump’s recent declarations that transgender individuals would not be permitted into the army, effectively firing something like 15,000 people. And then the White House built upon that as the Justice Department filed court papers stating that the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. But this is not remotely a betrayal because, I’m sorry, any LGBTQ individual who believed Trump was on their side is quite simply too stupid to have his or her feelings seriously considered.
Of COURSE Trump went back on his word. Trump ALWAYS goes back on his word. Trump ALWAYS betrays you. Just ask his old pal, Jeff Sessions, the first senator to support him who Trump is now relentlessly assaulting on Twitter.
And the truth is of no relevance to him. He declared he spoke with his Generals. The Pentagon said no, he didn’t. He said that he didn’t want to deal with the “tremendous medical costs.” Interesting. The Rand corporation did a study. According to AOL, they “found that the costs of allowing transgender people to serve in the military would have a ‘minimal impact’ on the budget, amounting to $2.4 million to $8.4 million each year, or 0.04 percent to 0.13 percent of the military health care budget. That’s little more than a rounding error when compared to the total U.S. military budget of roughly $700 billion.”
So Trump’s reasons are BS, as is everything he says. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t like gays, period, close quote, end of story. The hilarious thing is that some critics are declaring that Trump’s reasoning is sound because the army has other medical restrictions. For instance, people with cancer, diabetes, etc., can’t join. Because apparently they are stupid enough to think that being transgender is somehow physically debilitating. Idiots.
Did he do anything right? No. It was a solid week of saying and doing stupid things.
PAD
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The media is already coining the phrase ‘Failure Friday. I can very easily see this becoming a weekly event.
And now I’ve got him coming to my neck of the woods (Bay Shore/Brentwood) for a media circus where he thinks he’s going to end the “gang problem”. He’ll probably take credit for the 43 gang members already arrested a few months ago.
I’ve now begun to just share Trump tweets which contradict everything he says today. With zero commentary.
They speak for themselves.
It’s pretty funny to see the Trumpites fight to justify his duplicity.
I have to disagree with you a little, PAD. I think Trump’s decision on banning transgender troops wasn’t because he “hates gays” but because he was getting tremendous negative blowback from his continuing criticisms of Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation. So Trump distracts everyone by creating a policy on Twitter that many conservatives love, most liberals hate, and keeps people from talking about Sessions or Russia.
“One wonders how many rejections they are going to have to endure before they give up.”
How many times did they waste under Obama trying to repeat the ACA? I think we all lost count.
Trump’s only purpose – which he’s too stupid to realize – is to be a distraction while the GOP continues to try and rape America.
…and, now, of course, he’s fired Priebus, the only nearly-sane voice in the entire Misadministration.
Trump is rapidly turning the US into a banana republic, because only with that level of chaos giving him a chance to push off the results of his continuing combination of nonfeasance, malfeasance and misfeasance in office* onto the schmendricks, putzes and just plain idiots around him does he have any hope of convincing the public (well, enough of the public**) that his presence should be allowed to continue to pollute the Presidency.
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* Actual charges filed by the feds against a sheriff in SC years ago: “He failed to carry out most of the duties of his office, most of what he DID do was corrupt and the rest he just screwed up.”
“Yez can fool some of the people alla the time, and all of the people some of the time, which is generally long enough to get elected President of the United States…” – Spike Milligan, Puckoon
Don’t forget his advocacy of police brutality during a speech Friday!
Look at the three Tweets banning trans-people from the armed forces, and look again at everything else he spews onto Twitter.
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He didn’t write that himself. The sentences are too coherent, the spelling and punctuation too correct for that to have come from his fingers.
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And the “Thank you.” at the end. He never says that. That’s the standard speechwriter ending to any presentation.
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One FB Friend of mine has the opinion that it was written by Steve Bannon. Personally, I’m not familiar with anyone else’s speech or writing patterns to conjecture which subaltern wrote it, I’m just certain it wasn’t him.
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,,,which means in the early hours of a morning, somebody else logged into his Twitter account, whether with his advance permission, or his after-the-fact agreement.
More likely without his knowledge.
Even after it blew up in the media.
Look at the bright side…the Boy Scouts will (hopefully) not have to worry about inviting him to the next Jamboree, because it’s not an annual event; it’s every 4 years. The next one is in 2021.
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–Daryl
I dunno, he managed to get elected once, I’ve lost all faith in the American Electoral Process….
I did say “hopefully.” 😉
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–Daryl
Peter David: “…effectively firing something like 15,000 people.”
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Luigi Novi: For now, at least, transgendered military personnel will not be terminated. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a Thursday memo to commanders and senior enlisted leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines that Pentagon policy on transgender troops would not change, despite Trump’s announcement, until the White House has issued Trump’s directive to Secretary of Defense James Mattis through formal channels — not on Twitter — and the secretary’s office issues guidance on implementation to the service chiefs. Until then, Dunford said, there will be “no modifications” to Pentagon policies, and the military will continue to “treat all of our personnel with respect.”
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Source:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-top-u-s-general-tells-military-leaders-1501171360-htmlstory.html
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Peter David: “It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t like gays, period, close quote, end of story.”
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Luigi Novi: Actually, commentators/analysts are saying there’s a deeper political motive than just personal transphobia/homophobia on Trump’s part.1 The announcement, after all, came as lawmakers on the Hill debate the current practice of requiring the Pentagon to pay for medical treatment for gender transition, with Missouri Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler having offered an amendment that would prohibit the Pentagon from spending money on transition surgeries or hormone therapy, which was narrowly defeated earlier this month.2 Rachael Bade and Josh Dawsey of Politico assert that this was the reason for Trump’s snap decision, saying that it threatened funding for Trump’s Mexican border wall.3 According to Chris Tognotti of the online women’s magazine Bustle,4 Jonathan Swan of Axios5 related that an unnamed Trump administration official confirmed that the ban was political, and quoted him as saying, “This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to take complete ownership of this issue. How will the blue collar voters in these states respond when senators up for re-election in 2018 like Debbie Stabenow are forced to make their opposition to this a key plank of their campaigns?”5
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Sources
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/politics/trump-transgender-military.html?_r=0
2. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/26/trump-announces-ban-on-transgender-individuals-serving-in-military.html
3. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-transgender-military-ban-behind-the-scenes-240990
4. https://www.bustle.com/p/why-did-trump-ban-transgender-people-from-the-military-it-might-be-a-trap-for-democrats-72779?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=bustle
5. https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/890202683721863168
Everybody: Could this White House be any more dysfunctional?
Mooch: Hold my beer.
And now… THIS.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/politics/white-house-officials-tricked-by-email-prankster/index.html
Wow. Just… WOW.
Oh lord, this week’s freakout may be just as expansive…
Trump basically wrote his son’s adoptions excuse, Mooch gone, he lied about the response to his Boy Scout speech, he apparently refers to the WH as a dump, and he thinks colleges discriminate against white people.
I really miss having a sane leader.