Rebekah Mercer And Kellyanne Conway Need To Compete In A Who Looks More Like A Skeleton Contest

We need to stop talking about Bannon and start talking about the REAL source of all this.

Steve Bannon is a just another tool of the Mercers.

He is. Conway is, and Trump is. They're tools. To make all of this about him or them is to allow the source of their power to remain largely unknown. Between the perpetual campaigning and Citizens United, we need to shine bright spotlights on the money sources that influence - CONTROL - our government.

After the Russians, this reclusive father-daughter team exercised massive control of the last election. THEY need to be outted widely. Can you say Cambridge Analytica? Can you say Breitbart?

Robert Mercer - father/patriarch
Diane Mercer - mother
Rebekah Mercer - daughter/on-the-ground-face-of-the-family







After bankrolling the Trump campaign's dirty tricks squad, the Mercer's started enjoying what they bought. Big Bux Bob, the dad, put his 42 year old little girl, Rebekah-Friend-Of-Czarina-And-Secretary-Of-Everything, on the Presidential Transition team.



Even the god-fearing set get this:

Know Thy Enemy: Ephesians 6:11-12

So yeah, use their names whenever you want to speak of Bannon, their current field general.

 

By Stinky The Clown

Republicans stand by as the nation goes to hell

By Kerry Eleveld

After GOP Sen. Bob Corker raised the prospect last week that Donald Trump could propel us into World War III, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded to the horrific prospect this week with the fierce urgency of whatever.

They should just "talk it out" among themselves, Ryan told reporters Wednesday.

It was a revelation of sorts in the sense that it was hard to imagine Ryan carving out an even more useless space for himself in Washington than he has already been occupying. Conservative columnist Michael Gerson wrote:

So how does Ryan imagine a Corker/Trump conversation might unfold? Over dinner, Corker accuses the resident of being a chaotic, directionless, shallow liar who could start a nuclear war. Trump passes the peas and attacks Corker for being short. This is, after all, the way gentlemen resolve their differences.

Trump, who has consistently fumed over the nettlesome nature of being resident, appears to have reached a perpetual boiling point.

Angry at Congress's inability to dismantle his predecessor's signature achievement, health care, Trump is taking it upon himself to scrap the government subsidies millions of Americans depend on to pay for their coverage. Trump, who clearly believes this was a master stroke that will force Democrats to the bargaining table, has now placed the squeeze on Republicans to fix the subsidies fast lest millions of Americans see their premiums skyrocket 20 to 25 percent by 2020. 

After all, the first spike in coverage will come at the beginning of next year—becoming the GOP's de facto opening bid in a midterm election year that will ultimately be a referendum on their turn at one-party governance.

But hey, for a guy who often can't even remember why he stepped into a room, so goes his negotiating prowess. The White House is less about “strategy” these days than simply scrambling to keep Trump from blowing up the world.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster reportedly toiled to find a way for Trump to shake his fist at Iran without totally sinking the Iran nuclear deal with which U.N. investigators say the country has complied. When Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had originally advised Trump to stay in the deal, he apparently "threw a fit." So Trump's national security team spent months formulating a compromise between Trump's need for cathartic juvenile expression and our country's imperative to keep another regime from becoming the next unsolvable nuclear problem, à la North Korea.

In short, alongside Trump's governing incompetence, his bouts of rage have emerged as the most consistent and predominant feature of his residency. He “gets angry” when he realizes what his proposed policies will do; he's mad at Congress about health care, the Iran deal, taxes, ad infinitum; he seethes over his abysmal media coverage and wants “equal time” in the so-called ‘fake’ news; he's irate that a Puerto Rican mayor dare question his leadership as the death toll rises around her; he chafes at being called a “moron”; he's furious with Rex Tillerson and before him, Bob Corker, and before him, Jeff Sessions, and before him, James Comey, and... and... and.

And yet, in the face of what has become a crystal clear and present danger to the existence of our country, Ryan and his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell have emerged as some of the most feckless, immoral, and negligent leaders of our time. More simply put—these guys might well be the biggest couple of tools to ever "lead" Congress.

While Ryan wants Trump and Corker to go to couples therapy (as if that'll solve our WW III dilemma), McConnell was busily covering his right flank this week with an offering of red meat to the GOP's starved base. In a Weekly Standard interview, McConnell tried to ease activists’ calls for his ouster by suggesting that Republicans would no longer honor the Senate's "blue slip" tradition. 

The practice allows any senator to effectively block consideration of a judicial nominee from her or his own state, which gives the minority party considerable power to slow down the judicial appointment process (a power that Republicans abused during President Obama's last two years in office). It remains to be seen if Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley will follow McConnell's lead, but McConnell had to dangle something to distract conservative activists from his year of missed opportunities. Why not actively work to give Trump more power since he's been comporting himself so admirably? 

McConnell and Ryan are currently duking it out as the most reviled politicians in the land—detested almost equally as much by Trump's rabid supporters as Democratic voters. They lead a Republican Congress that, in the words of the Senate GOP's campaign arm, "has replaced President Obama as the bogeyman for conservative GOP primary voters."

They couldn't be a more deserving pair as they continue to empower the man-child in chief who is now bitterly destroying everything he can get his stubby little paws on.

Former Wharton Professor: 'Trump Was the Dumbest Goddamn Student I Ever Had'

Surprise, surprise. The resident came to business school thinking he knew it all.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/former-wharton-professor-trump-was-dumbest-gdamm-student-i-ever-had

Trump Doesn't Know What He's President Of

Trump said he met with the President of The Virgin Islands…which would be…himself.

Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, and Mark Thompson, the hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.



“Washington (CNN) resident Donald Trump accidentally referred to the Virgin Islands' governor as their President during a speech Friday - even though he is technically their resident. "I will tell you I left Texas and I left Florida and I left Louisiana and I went to Puerto Rico and I met with the President of the Virgin Islands," he told the audience of the Values Voter Summit in Washington. "We are one nation and we all hurt together, we hope together and we heal together," he said, later adding, "The Virgin Islands and the President of the Virgin Islands, these are people that are incredible people, they suffered gravely and we're be there, we're going to be there, we have really, it is not even a question of a choice."

Trump appeared to be referring to Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp, instead of the "resident" who is Trump himself.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/politics/virgin-islands-president-donald-trump/index.html

The Virgin Islands is a US territory. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. But in the official White House transcript after the speech, his reference to Mapp as President was corrected to "governor." He was referring to how the Virgin Islands was hit first by Hurricane Irma, then Hurricane Maria, which ravaged the island.”

Trump 'hypocrite-in-chief' for signing 50 executive orders

CNN anchor Erin Burnett labeled President Trump the "hypocrite-in-chief" on Thursday after the resident signed his 50th executive order in office.

"Hypocrite-in-chief – resident Trump doing something today he harshly criticized President Obama for doing. Trump signed his 50th executive order today," Burnett said on her show "Out Front."

Burnett noted that on the campaign trail Trump frequently took to criticizing Obama for signing executive orders when he was in office.

"We have a president that can't get anything done so he just keeps signing executive orders all over the place," Trump said in January 2016, according to The Washington Post.

http://thehill.com/media/355253-cnn-anchor-labels-trump-hypocrite-in-chief-for-signing-50-executive-orders

“I Hate Everyone In The White House!”: Trump Seethes As Advisers Fear The Resident Is “Unraveling”

By Gabriel Sherman

In recent days, I’ve spoken with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis, as advisers struggle to contain a resident that seems to be increasingly unfocused, and consumed by dark moods.

At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Times interview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned Trump could start World War III—was an inflection point in the Trump residency. It brought into the open what several people close to the resident have recently told me in private: that Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”

The conversation among some of the president’s longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There’s a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that Trump shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One Trump adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron.”

In recent days, I spoke with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a resident who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods. Trump’s ire is being fueled by his stalled legislative agenda and, to a surprising degree, by his decision last month to back the losing candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. “Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” a person close to Trump said. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”

According to two sources familiar with the conversation, Trump vented to his longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!” (A White House official denies this.) 

Two senior Republican officials said Chief of Staff John Kelly is miserable in his job and is remaining out of a sense of duty to keep Trump from making some sort of disastrous decision. Today, speculation about Kelly’s future increased after Politico reported that Kelly’s deputy Kirstjen Nielsen is likely to be named Homeland Security Secretary—the theory among some Republicans is that Kelly wanted to give her a soft landing before his departure.

One former official even speculated that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event Trump ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said. Even Trump’s most loyal backers are sowing public doubts. This morning, The Washington Post quoted longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack saying he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by Trump’s behavior.

While Kelly can’t control Trump’s tweets, he is doing his best to physically sequester the resident—much to Trump’s frustration. One major G.O.P. donor told me access to Trump has been cut off, and his outside calls to the White House switchboard aren’t put through to the Oval Office. 

Earlier this week, I reported on Kelly’s plans to prevent Trump from mingling with guests at Mar-a-Lago later this month. And, according to two sources, Keith Schiller quit last month after Kelly told Schiller he needed permission to speak to the resident and wanted written reports of their conversations.

The White House denies these accounts. “The resident’s mood is good and his outlook on the agenda is very positive,” an official said.

West Wing aides have also worried about Trump’s public appearances, one Trump adviser told me. The adviser said aides were relieved when Trump declined to agree to appear on the season premiere of 60 Minutes last month. “He’s lost a step. They don’t want him doing adversarial TV interviews,” the adviser explained. 

Instead, Trump has sat down for friendly conversations with Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee, whose daughter is Trump’s press secretary. (The White House official says the 60 Minutes interview is being rescheduled.)

Even before Corker’s remarks, some West Wing advisers were worried that Trump’s behavior could cause the Cabinet to take extraordinary Constitutional measures to remove him from office. Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the resident. 

When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, Trump said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term.

This post has been updated to clarify the details of the negotiation with 60 Minutes.

Seven Deal Breakers With Women

Trump Has Told 1,318 Lies In 263 Days

According to analysis performed by The Washington Post, Donald Trump has made 1,318 false or misleading claims in the last 263 days.

This averages out to a little more than 5 lies per day, or one lie every four and a half hours.

This has to stop.

Conservatives are falling for these lies every single time, and as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains, every one of these lies has a real world consequence.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/10/president-trump-has-made-1318-false-or-misleading-claims-over-263-days/

Time To Out Republicans (Not For What You're Thinking Of)

Posted by Rude One

You've been reading the articles about how Republican Senator Bob Corker said Donald Trump's recklessness and ignorance are setting us "on the path to World War III." Or maybe you've seen the Washington Post story that quotes multiple sources, many anonymous, on how Trump is becoming isolated and rage-filled and unpredictable.

Or perhaps you read Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times saying, "Among people who work in politics, Republicans as well as Democrats, it is conventional wisdom in DC that resident Trump is staggeringly ill-informed, erratic, reckless and dishonest."

Or you could have seen the Politico article that "Trump, several advisers and aides said, sometimes comes into the Oval Office worked into a lather from talking to friends or watching TV coverage in the morning," and they have to calm him down by rubbing his chins or something.

Corker, who isn't running for reelection in 2018, also said, "The vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here...of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road."

And that's the thread that runs through these articles. It's taken as true that many, many Republicans know that Trump is unfit for office. What else we can glean is something that Vox's Ezra Klein tweeted today: "Every political reporter know plenty of top Republicans routinely talk like Corker behind closed doors. There is such widespread cowardice here, and the country is paying the price."

I don't know many people who have access to Republicans in Congress, but the few I've spoken to say the same thing, that, with the exception of the nutzoids in the Freedom Caucus, pretty much down the line and around the nation, Republicans in the House and Senate know that Trump is unfit. What's more, they know he's dangerous. What's more, they know that if he does something completely insane, like nuke North Korea, they are responsible.

So it weighs on these cowards. Do we challenge the president and face the wrath of Breitbart and Fox and the doxing, death-threatening legions of insane tweeters and Redditors and 4 and 8chan-nintgtons, bots and true believers alike? Or do we just keep our mouths shut and hope we get reelected and hope beyond hope that he's not that crazy?

Here is where those political reporters and all the connected pundits come in. Yeah, you're not supposed to name your sources. Yeah, it's a big damn journalistic principle. But if I thought my best friend was going to shoot up a school, I'd violate the bro code or whatever and tell someone because that's what you do. (Note: None of my besties own guns.) When it comes to Trump, we're talking far more than that level of danger, and that's coming from Corker, one Republican who did speak out.

You know how you play this game, the one that asks, "If you could go back in time and stop Hitler, would you?" Here, you don't even have to kill a baby. But you might stop a nuclear war. You might get a madman out of the position to inflict his madness on the world.

Media folk just need to reveal the Republicans who believe that Trump can't function as the president. Out them. Let's get it all out in the open. I don't know if the next step would be for them to impeach or remove him in some way. But at least it might force them to support something like the Lieu/Markey bill to compel a president to go through Congress before launching an offensive nuclear strike.

Sure, you're gonna burn sources. But maybe that's a small price to pay to force sunshine into the darkness we find ourselves facing.

Black Identity Extremists

The FBI is up to its mess and has made up a new term for Blacks who demand an end to government sanctioned tyranny against them.

Trump Offers To Take IQ Test To Prove He Isn't A Moron

Donald Trump is still furious over Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling him a moron over the summer, so Donald has decided to challenge Tillerson to an IQ test to see which of the two men is smarter.

This is an idea that we should all get behind to see just how dysfunctional Donald truly is. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins talks about Trump’s challenge to Tillerson.



http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/10/trump-rex-tillerson-moron-iq-test-243624

Trump, NFL and the hypocrisy of what is "offensive" to white America

Republicans Finally Admit That Trump Is Unfit For Office

Republican Senator Bob Corker unloaded on Trump in a recent interview with The New York Times, where he said that Republicans in DC regularly discuss the fact that Donald Trump is not fit to hold office. Could his admission finally lead to action from the Republican Party to remove Trump from office, or will they roll over and let this unhinged lunatic continue to destroy our country? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/10/09/bob-corker-just-confirmed-it-republicans-know-trump-is-unfit/

Trump Throws Paper Towels At Puerto Rican Victims

How many died again? Whatever, you hurt my budget with all your lifesaving, dammit! Have some towels to dry your tears.

What an asshole!

Trump Loves Genocidal Maniac Christopher Columbus

Trump proclaimed his respect for Columbus on Twitter. Cenk Uygur, Brett Erlich, and Hannah Cranston, hosts of The Young Turks, discuss.

"resident Trump does not acknowledge Native Americans in his first proclamation of Columbus Day, breaking with his predecessor.

Trump’s proclamation — issued Friday — celebrates Christopher Columbus’s role in launching the “age of exploration and discovery” and acknowledges the contributions of Italian Americans to the country.

 “The permanent arrival of Europeans to the Americas was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation,” Trump’s proclamation reads.

“Therefore, on Columbus Day, we honor the skilled navigator and man of faith, whose courageous feat brought together continents and has inspired countless others to pursue their dreams and convictions — even in the face of extreme doubt and tremendous adversity.”



http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/354496-trumps-columbus-day-proclamation-leaves-out-mention-of-native

Columbus Day For The Conquered: Yeah, Trump Dicks Over Indigenous People, Too

Posted by Rude One

Believe it or not, the policies and proposals of resident Donald Trump, for whom the Washington Redskins could rename themselves "Orangeskins" and offend far fewer people, will have or are having a detrimental effect on Indian communities throughout the country. No one is immune from his patented brand of incompetence, cruelty, and fuckery.

Take, for instance, Trump's budget proposal from a few months back. It cuts federal funding to Indian country over 10 percent. That's $300 million less for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, $50 million cut from HUD's budget for housing for Indian communities, and $150 million cut from the Indian Health Service. Oh, and Indian education programs would be cut by $64 million plus an additional $58 million cut from funds to repair worn-out school buildings in Indian country.

On and on the cuts go, to law enforcement, to youth delinquency programs, to assistance programs, to tribal national resource management programs. And because the war on children by this administration is never truly complete, cuts to child welfare programs on reservations are proposed, too.

The budget proposal so thoroughly dicks over Indian country that an Oklahoma Republican member of Congress, Tom Cole, who is a Chickasaw, spoke out, saying, "I can tell you, whoever came up with this budget, I don't hold them in high esteem."

Trump himself actually met with tribal leaders back in June, and he didn't talk about Pocahontas or Tonto or say, "How" and tap his "woo-woo"-ing mouth. Of course, what he did was make unrealistic promises because he had no fucking clue what they were talking about. "We love Indian Country, right?" he said because, yeah, that's what he does. And Trump talked about how he was going to make land use much easier for Indian tribes: "All you want is the freedom to use them, and that’s been the problem. It’s been very difficult, hasn’t it? It will be a lot easier now under the Trump administration."

While some things won't happen (like a weakening of the National Environmental Policy Act so drilling and other shitty activities can get going faster), the Native American groups' representatives there hoped for an answer on getting land-into-trust requests expedited. This is how tribes get more land around their reservations, by restoring traditional lands to the tribes. But the Trump administration just last week announced that Department of the Interior was proposing to make the already years-long process more onerous and to actively discourage tribes from getting land back. So, in other words, deregulation is great except when it might benefit someone other than huge corporations.

Meanwhile, North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, has proposed a bill to help with the "epidemic" of "missing and murdered Native women." In a speech on the floor of the Senate, Heitkamp told the stories of four women whose cases are still open. She said, "Native women and girls face a crisis of exploitation, violence, and murder – we must take action to protect them as I’ve long been working to do."

The bill, named after a young woman who disappeared when she was 8 months pregnant and was later found murdered, would require "federal agencies to discover the extent of the problem by reporting on the numbers of missing and murdered Native women every year. To address potential shortfalls, it creates a standardized protocol for federal, tribal, state and local governments to follow in dealing with these types of cases."

Heitkamp's impassioned plea, followed by equally strong words from Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who is co-sponsoring the legislation, received virtually no media coverage. This despite the fact that, as Heitkamp points out, "In 2016, North Dakota had 125 reported cases of missing Native women according to the National Crime Information Center, but numbers are likely much higher as cases are often under reported and data isn’t officially collected."

Which is a situation that Christopher Columbus would approve of.

Mike Pence Protests A Protest - Costs Taxpayers $100,000's!

In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Donald Trump and Mike Pence's stunt at the Colt's game on Sunday at which he left the game in protest of the silent and peaceful protest on the field... All at a massive cost to taxpayers!

Wealthy Republican Donors Furious That They Backed Incompetent Buffoons To Run The Country

According to reports, wealthy Republican donors are growing angry over the fact that they spent millions of dollars electing a group of incompetent simpletons to run the country. But they aren’t mad that these people are pushing for disgusting policies – quite the opposite, actually.

They are angry that the morons they paid for aren’t able to pass legislation to screw over American citizens, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins points out.



http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/353993-report-top-gop-donors-revolting-over-legislative-failures

Trump’s Pledge To Hire “The Best People” Might Be His Biggest Lie Ever

Donald Trump promised that he was going to pack his administration with “the best people.”

Well, after 8 months we’ve seen people like Priebus, Gorka, Bannon, Spicer, Flynn, Scaramucci, and several others vacate the Trump administration, and the few that are left all seem to be under investigation – including Trump’s own children!

Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Colin Kaepernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is A Celebration Of Slavery

Few people know this, because we only ever sing the first verse. But read the end of the third verse and you’ll see why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not just a musical atrocity, it’s an intellectual and moral one, too:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.