In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Donald Trump's forced
condemnation of alt-right racist white supremacist terrorists, followed
by his immediate retweeting of one of them, sending a signal of support
and alliance.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Jimmy Fallon monologue addresses Charlottesville
The ‘Tonight Show’ host began Monday’s show by discussing racism and Donald Trump's response to the weekend violence by white supremacists in Virginia.
A Few Comments On Hating The Hateful
Posted by Rude One
"They really, really hate them some 'niggers,'" my pal told me over the phone from Virginia. He lives in a small town, and he's just about had it with the Trump-loving, racist motherfuckers there who pretend to love Jesus when all they love is their hate. We were talking just before one of these doughy, deranged cumbuckets on the Confederate/Nazi right (fuck "alt") plowed his black Dodge Challenger into a crowd of anti-Confederate/Nazi protesters, killing one and injuring many others, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.
My pal, bringing out his natural Southern accent for the occasion, told me about neighbors who "love them some Trump," about a woman who said how she doesn't know how she'll afford her medical bills if the ACA goes away but stands by her president, about how nothing really matters except abortion and homophobia. "These people'd live under a bridge," he said, "as long as them babies get born and two men ain't sucking each other's cocks."
And racism, he reminded me. Don't forget the racism, the lifeblood of the Trump-loving Confederacy-humpers.
Donald Trump, who looks like a stack of traffic cones topped with baboon's ballsack, has been justifiably excoriated for his seeming refusal for two days to condemn the white nationalists responsible for the violence and murder in Charlottesville. His initial statement wasn't just milquetoast both-sides-ism. No, it was an implicit wink to the racist thugs who took it as such. His pissy statement today, where he finally called out "the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups," was presented with all the enthusiasm of a man in a bathroom stall asking for toilet paper.
But his delay empowered these assholes, this savage collection of bearded rednecks in torn rebel flag t-shirts, batshit militia dickheads toting assault weapons, golf-shirted and pampered little boys, and pathetic suit-wearing Nazi wannabes who Hitler would have laughed at as he had them executed for being too fucking dumb to know how to wrap a gas-covered cloth around a stick to make a torch. Most of them would have shit themselves and run for their mothers if they had been actual Nazis or actual Confederate soldiers, facing the American war machine that tore the hell out of both those armies of losers.
The most pathetic thing here is how shocked they pretend to be that their views are attacked, as if no one ever told them that slavery and genocide (not "white genocide," which is so dumb it barely deserves mention) are bad things to support. And maybe that's on all of us.
It's certainly on the media. Every time there was an article or CNN investigation on whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, the media made it seem like it was a legitimate story. Led by the nose by right-wing bullshit websites and commentators, the mainstream media gave the spittle-strewn glow of credence to it all, whether it's ACORN or the New Black Panther Party or the thuggish images of black victims of violence, like Trayvon Martin. And that's just recent shit.
Almost all the so-called liberal press places extremism on an equal plain with rational thought, so we'd get semi-sensible conservatives like Ana Navarro and hell hounds of insanity like Jeffrey Lord, both given equal airtime (until Lord finally went full Nazi last week). Van Jones should walk the fuck off the air if CNN makes him debate some reprehensible Breitbart shit-for-brains.
There are some things we need to agree on as a nation to move forward. The problem isn't that people think they're Nazis or neo-Confederates, per se; we're never eliminating stupidity. It's that we think there is something noble about tolerating Nazis; about trying to understand their ideology in an almost sympathetic way, about writing goddamned profiles about the new, sexy white nationalist movement, as if a fucking racist isn't just, in the end, a fucking racist, no matter how many times he wears an ill-fitting sports jacket.
And it is long, long past time to stop tolerating in any sense the idea that the Confederacy is a heritage worth honoring. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck your ancestors who fought to maintain slavery. I don't give a dry rat turd how nobly they fought. They believed that human beings were property and could be beaten, raped, and killed. Fuck 'em. If you think there should be statues to them, then you're the asshole. If I found out my great-grandfather was a child molester, I sure as hell wouldn't want to honor him because he built a nice house. And I'd be appalled if anyone wanted to celebrate his architectural heritage.
Trump himself appealed to the lies of American history in both his sad little statements. In the first, on Saturday, Trump said, "We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history." Cherish our history? Motherfucker, our history is a goddamned horror show with occasional outbreaks of humanity, like the defeat of the Confederacy and the Nazis, like the welcoming of immigrants and the civil rights movement.
And then, today, he said, "We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal." No, motherfucker, again, we were founded on the "truth" that white men are created equal for that's all they considered "men." It's like Trump is the president of the Confederacy, not the United States.
If we can't agree on our goddamned American history, if we can't agree that some ideas don't deserve a hearing beyond the half-human online scrawlings of some cretinous asshole with a frog avatar and a collection of concentration camp photos he jacks off to, then we're fucked. I want people to feel shame for believing these things. I want them driven out of the public square. I want them fired if they express it publicly, especially if they're cops or in positions of authority. You're free to say and believe what you want. And we're free to say your ideas are barbaric enough to tell you to change or get the fuck out of our society. This is about who we are as a nation.
You're allowed to hate Hate. You're allowed to be prejudiced against Prejudice. You're allowed to destroy the monuments to people who tried to destroy the country. You're allowed to say that support of genocide and enslavement isn't a position that deserves being heard in the modern United States.
You're allowed to tell these tiki-torch-carrying vermin that they can kiss your American ass with their traitorous lips. We kicked them in the balls before and we'll do it again. Your Robert E. Lee statues are fucking done.
Go the fuck back underground. And take your shitty president with you.
(Note: For a good rundown on how Republican politics led us to this moment, check out Charlie Pierce, who wrote half of what I was gonna write today.)
(For the record, the only great-grandfather I know about was a leading rabbi in Poland and did not, as far as I know, molest anyone or build any houses.)
"They really, really hate them some 'niggers,'" my pal told me over the phone from Virginia. He lives in a small town, and he's just about had it with the Trump-loving, racist motherfuckers there who pretend to love Jesus when all they love is their hate. We were talking just before one of these doughy, deranged cumbuckets on the Confederate/Nazi right (fuck "alt") plowed his black Dodge Challenger into a crowd of anti-Confederate/Nazi protesters, killing one and injuring many others, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.
My pal, bringing out his natural Southern accent for the occasion, told me about neighbors who "love them some Trump," about a woman who said how she doesn't know how she'll afford her medical bills if the ACA goes away but stands by her president, about how nothing really matters except abortion and homophobia. "These people'd live under a bridge," he said, "as long as them babies get born and two men ain't sucking each other's cocks."
And racism, he reminded me. Don't forget the racism, the lifeblood of the Trump-loving Confederacy-humpers.
Donald Trump, who looks like a stack of traffic cones topped with baboon's ballsack, has been justifiably excoriated for his seeming refusal for two days to condemn the white nationalists responsible for the violence and murder in Charlottesville. His initial statement wasn't just milquetoast both-sides-ism. No, it was an implicit wink to the racist thugs who took it as such. His pissy statement today, where he finally called out "the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups," was presented with all the enthusiasm of a man in a bathroom stall asking for toilet paper.
But his delay empowered these assholes, this savage collection of bearded rednecks in torn rebel flag t-shirts, batshit militia dickheads toting assault weapons, golf-shirted and pampered little boys, and pathetic suit-wearing Nazi wannabes who Hitler would have laughed at as he had them executed for being too fucking dumb to know how to wrap a gas-covered cloth around a stick to make a torch. Most of them would have shit themselves and run for their mothers if they had been actual Nazis or actual Confederate soldiers, facing the American war machine that tore the hell out of both those armies of losers.
The most pathetic thing here is how shocked they pretend to be that their views are attacked, as if no one ever told them that slavery and genocide (not "white genocide," which is so dumb it barely deserves mention) are bad things to support. And maybe that's on all of us.
It's certainly on the media. Every time there was an article or CNN investigation on whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, the media made it seem like it was a legitimate story. Led by the nose by right-wing bullshit websites and commentators, the mainstream media gave the spittle-strewn glow of credence to it all, whether it's ACORN or the New Black Panther Party or the thuggish images of black victims of violence, like Trayvon Martin. And that's just recent shit.
Almost all the so-called liberal press places extremism on an equal plain with rational thought, so we'd get semi-sensible conservatives like Ana Navarro and hell hounds of insanity like Jeffrey Lord, both given equal airtime (until Lord finally went full Nazi last week). Van Jones should walk the fuck off the air if CNN makes him debate some reprehensible Breitbart shit-for-brains.
There are some things we need to agree on as a nation to move forward. The problem isn't that people think they're Nazis or neo-Confederates, per se; we're never eliminating stupidity. It's that we think there is something noble about tolerating Nazis; about trying to understand their ideology in an almost sympathetic way, about writing goddamned profiles about the new, sexy white nationalist movement, as if a fucking racist isn't just, in the end, a fucking racist, no matter how many times he wears an ill-fitting sports jacket.
And it is long, long past time to stop tolerating in any sense the idea that the Confederacy is a heritage worth honoring. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck your ancestors who fought to maintain slavery. I don't give a dry rat turd how nobly they fought. They believed that human beings were property and could be beaten, raped, and killed. Fuck 'em. If you think there should be statues to them, then you're the asshole. If I found out my great-grandfather was a child molester, I sure as hell wouldn't want to honor him because he built a nice house. And I'd be appalled if anyone wanted to celebrate his architectural heritage.
Trump himself appealed to the lies of American history in both his sad little statements. In the first, on Saturday, Trump said, "We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history." Cherish our history? Motherfucker, our history is a goddamned horror show with occasional outbreaks of humanity, like the defeat of the Confederacy and the Nazis, like the welcoming of immigrants and the civil rights movement.
And then, today, he said, "We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal." No, motherfucker, again, we were founded on the "truth" that white men are created equal for that's all they considered "men." It's like Trump is the president of the Confederacy, not the United States.
If we can't agree on our goddamned American history, if we can't agree that some ideas don't deserve a hearing beyond the half-human online scrawlings of some cretinous asshole with a frog avatar and a collection of concentration camp photos he jacks off to, then we're fucked. I want people to feel shame for believing these things. I want them driven out of the public square. I want them fired if they express it publicly, especially if they're cops or in positions of authority. You're free to say and believe what you want. And we're free to say your ideas are barbaric enough to tell you to change or get the fuck out of our society. This is about who we are as a nation.
You're allowed to hate Hate. You're allowed to be prejudiced against Prejudice. You're allowed to destroy the monuments to people who tried to destroy the country. You're allowed to say that support of genocide and enslavement isn't a position that deserves being heard in the modern United States.
You're allowed to tell these tiki-torch-carrying vermin that they can kiss your American ass with their traitorous lips. We kicked them in the balls before and we'll do it again. Your Robert E. Lee statues are fucking done.
Go the fuck back underground. And take your shitty president with you.
(Note: For a good rundown on how Republican politics led us to this moment, check out Charlie Pierce, who wrote half of what I was gonna write today.)
(For the record, the only great-grandfather I know about was a leading rabbi in Poland and did not, as far as I know, molest anyone or build any houses.)
When You Forget Your Klan Hood And The Internet Finds Out
Peter Cvjetanovic didn’t really think this through. Cenk Uygur and Ana
Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, discuss. Tell us what you think in
the comment section below. http://www.tytnetwork.com/join
"They didn't wear hoods as they chanted "Jews will not replace us." They weren't hiding their faces as they waved Confederate flags, racist signs and swastikas. They looked straight at a sea of cameras as they made the Nazi salute.
As Matt Thompson wrote for The Atlantic, the white supremacist march and rally this past weekend wasn't a KKK rally: "It was a pride march."
The bare-faced shamelessness was the point. But it was also an opening.
On the Internet, some people are crowd-sourcing efforts to identify and shame the people participating in the rally. Most prominently, on Twitter, the account called "Yes, You're Racist" has been soliciting help and posting IDs. "I'll make them famous," the account pledged.”
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543418271/on-the-internet-everyone-knows-you-re-a-racist-twitter-account-ids-marchers
"They didn't wear hoods as they chanted "Jews will not replace us." They weren't hiding their faces as they waved Confederate flags, racist signs and swastikas. They looked straight at a sea of cameras as they made the Nazi salute.
As Matt Thompson wrote for The Atlantic, the white supremacist march and rally this past weekend wasn't a KKK rally: "It was a pride march."
The bare-faced shamelessness was the point. But it was also an opening.
On the Internet, some people are crowd-sourcing efforts to identify and shame the people participating in the rally. Most prominently, on Twitter, the account called "Yes, You're Racist" has been soliciting help and posting IDs. "I'll make them famous," the account pledged.”
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543418271/on-the-internet-everyone-knows-you-re-a-racist-twitter-account-ids-marchers
Monday, August 14, 2017
Donald Trump Offers A Weak And Late Statement On White Supremacy Terrorists Who Support Him!
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Donald Trump's LATE and WEAK
statement this morning on hate groups and white supremacy terrorists in
America.
Ex-KKK Leader David Duke Has A Meltdown After Trump Condemns White Supremacists In Charlottesville
By Hayley Miller
Former KKK leader David Duke was none too pleased that President Donald Trump
on Monday finally got around to condemning extremist groups by name ―
including including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan ― for the deadly
weekend protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Minutes after Trump’s speech, Duke lashed out in a series of tweets, claiming Trump had been manipulated by the media.
“It’s
amazing to see how the media is able to bully the President of the
United States into going along with their FAKE NEWS narrative,” Duke
tweeted.
Soon after that, in an anti-Semitic, racist Periscope video rant,
Duke spoke directly to Trump, claiming white nationalists abhor
violence. He said “it’s just ridiculous” that the president felt he had
to make Monday’s statement.
“President
Trump, please, for God’s sake, don’t feel like you need to say these
things,” Duke admonished in the video. “It’s not going to do you any
good.”
Duke
also stuck up for James Alex Fields, 20, the white nationalist motorist
accused of ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing
Heather Heyer, 32. “When you’re under attack ... you panic and you do
things that are stupid and you do things that are wrong,” Duke said.
Trump
made an address to the nation on Monday, after two days of withering
criticism for a vague Saturday statement that criticized hatred and
bigotry on “many sides.”
“Racism
is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and
thugs, including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate
groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as
Americans,” Trump said.
Lawmakers
from both parties had called Trump out for not specifically denouncing
hate groups in the wake of a white nationalist rally that left three
people dead, including two state troopers, and at least 19 injured.
Some
white supremacist organizations, such as the Daily Stormer, praised
Trump’s vague weekend statement. Duke at the time appeared to warn the
president against calling out white nationalists, a group that has
largely embraced Trump.
Duke said on Saturday that the rally would help fulfill Trump’s “promises.”
“This
represents a turning point for the people of this country,” Duke said.
“We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the
promises of Donald Trump.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Trump 'seriously considering' pardoning convicted racial profiler Joe Arpaio
According to a report from state news channel Fox News, Donald Trump is “seriously considering” pardoning Crooked Joe Arpaio, who was recently convicted
of criminal contempt of court for his racist and illegal campaign
against Latinos and immigrants in Maricopa County as sheriff.
He faces up to six months for his reign of terror.
Fox says that Trump’s interview took place on Sunday, which means that Trump prioritized speaking out about a possible pardon for Arpaio over finally saying that his KKK and Nazi supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, were bad. Clearly, “bad hombres” will always defend “bad hombres” when it comes to terrorizing people of color:
He faces up to six months for his reign of terror.
Fox says that Trump’s interview took place on Sunday, which means that Trump prioritized speaking out about a possible pardon for Arpaio over finally saying that his KKK and Nazi supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, were bad. Clearly, “bad hombres” will always defend “bad hombres” when it comes to terrorizing people of color:
“I am seriously considering a pardon for
Sheriff Arpaio,” the president reportedly told Fox News at his club in
Bedminster, N.J. “He has done a lot in the fight against illegal
immigration. He’s a great American patriot and I hate to see what has
happened to him.”
Arpaio is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5
and could spend up to six months in jail. Though his attorneys are
planning on appealing the conviction, a presidential pardon would be the
swiftest exit from the case.
Trump told the network the pardon could come as early as this week.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/14/1689535/-Trump-seriously-considering-pardoning-convicted-racial-profiler-Joe-Arpaio
With his approval rate now at 34%, the end is near for this cretin. Thank God.
With his approval rate now at 34%, the end is near for this cretin. Thank God.
GoDaddy dumping white supremacist site The Daily Stormer
The site, which was involved in organizing the white supremacist rally
in Charlottesville, has been given 24 hours to move its domain or have
it cancelled.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/godaddy-pull-plug-daily-stormer-after-article-mocks-charlottesville-victim-n792406
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/neo-nazi-website-daily-stormer-to-lose-domain-name/ar-AAq2Our
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daily-stormer-being-dumped-by-godaddy-apparently-seized-by-anonymous/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/godaddy-pull-plug-daily-stormer-after-article-mocks-charlottesville-victim-n792406
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/neo-nazi-website-daily-stormer-to-lose-domain-name/ar-AAq2Our
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daily-stormer-being-dumped-by-godaddy-apparently-seized-by-anonymous/
Trump - "He's One Of Them. Let's Stop Pretending"
By Josh Marshall
As we get underway today, a few thoughts on yesterday. In addition to going out of his way not to denounce the white supremacist and neo-nazi marchers yesterday, for those primed to hear it (which is the point) the President made a point of calling out and valorizing the marchers. In his at length on-camera comments, in addition to bromides and calling for people to love each other, Trump noted that we must “cherish our history.”
Here’s the passage …
Where
does this come from? Who knows who wrote this text for Trump. But many
of Trump’s most important speeches were written by white nationalist
aide Stephen Miller, who came from Jeff Sessions’ senate office. Miller literally worked with Alt-Right leader (he coined the phrase) Richard Spencer
on racist political activism when he was in college at Duke (Spencer
was a grad student at the time). This isn’t some vague guilt by
association. He’s one of them.
When Gabriel Sherman asked what he identifies as a ‘senior White House official’ why the White House didn’t denounce the Nazis in Charlottesville, he got this: “What about the leftist mob? Just as violent if not more so.” Maybe I’ve missed some other background comments out of the White House. But I haven’t heard anything that approaches that level of venom about the nazis or white supremacists. When the top ideologues at Trump’s White House look at yesterday’s spectacle, they instinctively see the counter-protestors as enemies.
Was that official Miller? Who knows? It could have been Bannon or Gorka or frankly a number of others. There are plenty to choose from. That’s the point. This wasn’t resistance to making a conspicuous denunciation or being cute. Those were Trump’s supporters. He recognizes them as supporters, indeed as part of his movement. And he supports them. This is probably largely instinctive on Trump’s part. It’s more ideological and articulate on his aides’ part.
He’s one of them. Let’s stop pretending.
As we get underway today, a few thoughts on yesterday. In addition to going out of his way not to denounce the white supremacist and neo-nazi marchers yesterday, for those primed to hear it (which is the point) the President made a point of calling out and valorizing the marchers. In his at length on-camera comments, in addition to bromides and calling for people to love each other, Trump noted that we must “cherish our history.”
Here’s the passage …
Above all else, we must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first. We love our country. We love our God. We love our flag. We’re proud of our country. We’re proud of who we are. So we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville, and we want to study it. And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country, where things like this can happen.I spent the better part of a decade training as an historian. I’m definitely pro-history. But in context, this is an explicit call-out to the white supremacist and neo-Confederate forces at the march whose calling card is celebrating Southern ‘heritage’ and America’s history as a white country. Zero ambiguity or question about that. And they heard the message. White supremacist leaders cheered Trump’s refusal to denounce them and his valorization of their movement.
My administration is restoring the sacred bonds of loyalty between this nation and its citizens, but our citizens must also restore the bonds of trust and loyalty between one another. We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history and our future together. So important. We have to respect each other. Ideally, we have to love each other.
When Gabriel Sherman asked what he identifies as a ‘senior White House official’ why the White House didn’t denounce the Nazis in Charlottesville, he got this: “What about the leftist mob? Just as violent if not more so.” Maybe I’ve missed some other background comments out of the White House. But I haven’t heard anything that approaches that level of venom about the nazis or white supremacists. When the top ideologues at Trump’s White House look at yesterday’s spectacle, they instinctively see the counter-protestors as enemies.
Was that official Miller? Who knows? It could have been Bannon or Gorka or frankly a number of others. There are plenty to choose from. That’s the point. This wasn’t resistance to making a conspicuous denunciation or being cute. Those were Trump’s supporters. He recognizes them as supporters, indeed as part of his movement. And he supports them. This is probably largely instinctive on Trump’s part. It’s more ideological and articulate on his aides’ part.
He’s one of them. Let’s stop pretending.
Donald Trump Signs Congress Russian Sanctions Bill Quietly And In Private
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Donald Trump's departure from
his usual trait of bluster and bragging, where he signed the tougher
Russian sanctions bill sent to him from Congress in private rather than
with a public ceremony.
Stephen Miller - Another Racist In The White House?
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Donald Trump's White House
Senior Domestic Policy Advisor, Stephen Miller, and his troubling past.
Including his close relationship with Nazi Richard Spencer.
Steve Bannon To Be Fired Because Of Too Many Donald Trump Jokes?
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses the sideways NON-ANSWER Donald
Trump gave when directly asked about whether or not he still has
confidence in Steve Bannon.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
5 Escape Hatches Republicans May End Up Using To Avoid An Imploding Presidency
It's a very hard thing for a political party to abandon an elected fool, but they may end up doing it.
By Jefferson Morley
While the downfall of Donald Trump is far from assured, the signs are multiplying that the Republicans are preparing for a world in which Trump is no longer commander-in-chief. This is not the dreaming of the liberal resistance or the conservative #NeverTrump crowd; we’re talking about the actions of the Republican leadership, rank and file and Vice President Mike Pence himself.
No, the Republicans are not going to impeach Trump, demand his resignation or invoke the 25th Amendment to say he is incapacitated. But they are preparing escape routes from the fallout from his dismal poll numbers, stalled legislative agenda and mounting legal problems.
Six months ago, Republicans, whatever their qualms, saw no need for such planning. The 45th president, it was assumed, would sign into law the agenda of the congressional Republicans. The GOP would, in return, accommodate the president on his signature issues: jobs, immigration crackdown, revisiting free trade agreements, and restoring friendlier relations with Russia. With complete control of the government, the Republican vision seemed realistic.
Fat chance. Impulsive, unfocused and mendacious, Trump is now treated as an unpredictable menace against whom Republicans must build defenses. These defenses can also serve as escape routes if and when the GOP feels the need to break with the president.
1. The Sanctions Firewall
On July 27, House and Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, dooming Trump's yearning to make nice with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The president's allies originally resisted the additional financial penalties, but caved in under the weight of Trump's repeated lies about his campaign's contacts with Russians and his refusal to acknowledge the U.S. intelligence finding that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump's identification with Russia has become so toxic that virtually every member of his party took the opportunity to reject it. The president can be accused of coddling Putin, but all of his putative allies on Capitol Hill have inoculated themselves against the charge.
2. The Sessions Firewall
Trump’s attempts to humiliate Attorney General Jeff Sessions into quitting were a transparent gambit to create a vacancy at the top of the Justice Department. With the Senate out of session in August, Trump could then make a “recess appointment” of a new AG who would not need Senate confirmation. The new AG could then fire independent counsel Robert Mueller, as Trump has made clear he wants to do.
In response, Senate Republicans united to set up a procedure under which the Senate is not formally recessed during the August break. If you check the Senate calendar for August, you will find a succession of days dedicated to "pro forma business," which means “keeping the president from doing something stupid.”
To underscore their resolve, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a stalwart conservative and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added that there is “no way” the Senate would consider confirming a new attorney general if Sessions were fired.
If Trump fires Sessions, Republicans now have a position from which to oppose him.
3. The Mueller Firewall
Two Senate Republicans have gone further to protect Mueller past August.
Thom Tillis, a hard-right Republican from North Carolina, has joined with Delaware Democrat Chris Coons in co-sponsoring legislation allowing the special counsel to make a legal challenge to any dismissal that would be reviewed by a three-judge panel.
Asked by Fox News if the measure was intended to protect Mueller from being fired by Trump, Tillis said, “There's no question that it is.”
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham joined Democrats Cory Booker, Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal in introducing the Special Counsel Independence Protection Act.
“Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong,” Graham told reporters when introducing the bill.
If Trump does fire Mueller, the Republicans have established a strategy for separating themselves from the White House.
4. The Pivot to Taxes
Senate Republicans are ignoring Trump’s insistence that they continue the party’s failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan say they are moving on to tax legislation, which they feel offers a better chance of success.
Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) rejected Trump's call, saying, “We’re not going back to health care. We’re in tax now. As far as I’m concerned, they shot their wad on health care and that’s the way it is. I’m sick of it.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the health committee, is working with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Democrats on potential measures to shore up, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act.
When Trump threatened the health care plans of Congress if the Senate didn’t heed his demand, Republicans called his bluff. He predictably moved on to other obsessions.
5. The 2020 Escape Hatch
The New York Times reported that interviews with 75 Republicans at every level of the party reveal “widespread uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump would be on the ballot in 2020 and little doubt that others in the party are engaged in barely veiled contingency planning.”
Pence has set up a presidential political action committee, the first sitting vice president to do so.
Pence’s outraged reaction to the Times story only underscored how threatening the perception of post-Trump planning is to the White House. Yet post-Trump planning is visible everywhere.
Conservative Republicans with presidential ambitions, like Ben Sasse and Tom Cotton, are cultivating donors and advisers as if there were no Republican incumbent in the White House.
Rep. Charles Dent, a senior Republican from Pennsylvania and a relative moderate, said many in the party would welcome Trump’s exit.
“For some, it is for ideological reasons, and for others it is for stylistic reasons,” Dent said, complaining about the “exhausting” amount of “instability, chaos and dysfunction” surrounding Trump.
Six months ago, the Republicans gave Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. Now they doubt he will benefit them, and they are acting accordingly.
Jefferson Morley is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. He is the author of the forthcoming biography The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton (St. Martin's Press, October 2017) and the 2016 Kindle ebook CIA and JFK: The Secret Assassination Files.
By Jefferson Morley
While the downfall of Donald Trump is far from assured, the signs are multiplying that the Republicans are preparing for a world in which Trump is no longer commander-in-chief. This is not the dreaming of the liberal resistance or the conservative #NeverTrump crowd; we’re talking about the actions of the Republican leadership, rank and file and Vice President Mike Pence himself.
No, the Republicans are not going to impeach Trump, demand his resignation or invoke the 25th Amendment to say he is incapacitated. But they are preparing escape routes from the fallout from his dismal poll numbers, stalled legislative agenda and mounting legal problems.
Six months ago, Republicans, whatever their qualms, saw no need for such planning. The 45th president, it was assumed, would sign into law the agenda of the congressional Republicans. The GOP would, in return, accommodate the president on his signature issues: jobs, immigration crackdown, revisiting free trade agreements, and restoring friendlier relations with Russia. With complete control of the government, the Republican vision seemed realistic.
Fat chance. Impulsive, unfocused and mendacious, Trump is now treated as an unpredictable menace against whom Republicans must build defenses. These defenses can also serve as escape routes if and when the GOP feels the need to break with the president.
1. The Sanctions Firewall
On July 27, House and Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, dooming Trump's yearning to make nice with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The president's allies originally resisted the additional financial penalties, but caved in under the weight of Trump's repeated lies about his campaign's contacts with Russians and his refusal to acknowledge the U.S. intelligence finding that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump's identification with Russia has become so toxic that virtually every member of his party took the opportunity to reject it. The president can be accused of coddling Putin, but all of his putative allies on Capitol Hill have inoculated themselves against the charge.
2. The Sessions Firewall
Trump’s attempts to humiliate Attorney General Jeff Sessions into quitting were a transparent gambit to create a vacancy at the top of the Justice Department. With the Senate out of session in August, Trump could then make a “recess appointment” of a new AG who would not need Senate confirmation. The new AG could then fire independent counsel Robert Mueller, as Trump has made clear he wants to do.
In response, Senate Republicans united to set up a procedure under which the Senate is not formally recessed during the August break. If you check the Senate calendar for August, you will find a succession of days dedicated to "pro forma business," which means “keeping the president from doing something stupid.”
To underscore their resolve, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a stalwart conservative and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added that there is “no way” the Senate would consider confirming a new attorney general if Sessions were fired.
If Trump fires Sessions, Republicans now have a position from which to oppose him.
3. The Mueller Firewall
Two Senate Republicans have gone further to protect Mueller past August.
Thom Tillis, a hard-right Republican from North Carolina, has joined with Delaware Democrat Chris Coons in co-sponsoring legislation allowing the special counsel to make a legal challenge to any dismissal that would be reviewed by a three-judge panel.
Asked by Fox News if the measure was intended to protect Mueller from being fired by Trump, Tillis said, “There's no question that it is.”
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham joined Democrats Cory Booker, Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal in introducing the Special Counsel Independence Protection Act.
“Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong,” Graham told reporters when introducing the bill.
If Trump does fire Mueller, the Republicans have established a strategy for separating themselves from the White House.
4. The Pivot to Taxes
Senate Republicans are ignoring Trump’s insistence that they continue the party’s failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan say they are moving on to tax legislation, which they feel offers a better chance of success.
Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) rejected Trump's call, saying, “We’re not going back to health care. We’re in tax now. As far as I’m concerned, they shot their wad on health care and that’s the way it is. I’m sick of it.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the health committee, is working with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Democrats on potential measures to shore up, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act.
When Trump threatened the health care plans of Congress if the Senate didn’t heed his demand, Republicans called his bluff. He predictably moved on to other obsessions.
5. The 2020 Escape Hatch
The New York Times reported that interviews with 75 Republicans at every level of the party reveal “widespread uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump would be on the ballot in 2020 and little doubt that others in the party are engaged in barely veiled contingency planning.”
Pence has set up a presidential political action committee, the first sitting vice president to do so.
Pence’s outraged reaction to the Times story only underscored how threatening the perception of post-Trump planning is to the White House. Yet post-Trump planning is visible everywhere.
Conservative Republicans with presidential ambitions, like Ben Sasse and Tom Cotton, are cultivating donors and advisers as if there were no Republican incumbent in the White House.
Rep. Charles Dent, a senior Republican from Pennsylvania and a relative moderate, said many in the party would welcome Trump’s exit.
“For some, it is for ideological reasons, and for others it is for stylistic reasons,” Dent said, complaining about the “exhausting” amount of “instability, chaos and dysfunction” surrounding Trump.
Six months ago, the Republicans gave Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. Now they doubt he will benefit them, and they are acting accordingly.
Jefferson Morley is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. He is the author of the forthcoming biography The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton (St. Martin's Press, October 2017) and the 2016 Kindle ebook CIA and JFK: The Secret Assassination Files.
I DENOUNCE Donald Trump
By NanceGreggs
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who cannot – nay, will not – denounce racists, white supremacists, and Nazis, and call them out for who they are and what they represent.
I denounce any man who sees any equivalence between those promoting hatred and violence and those who are willing to stand against them, their ideology, and their tactics.
I denounce ANY American – regardless of their political affiliation or their political position – who is too spineless to speak out clearly and decisively against those who would divide us as a nation, those who would cast our fellow citizens as unworthy of inclusion as Americans based on their race, religion, or ethnicity.
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who sees today’s events as being the result of ill feeling “on many sides”, when it is only one side that is promoting violence, and advancing the idea that racism is not only acceptable, but something to be embraced.
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who dismisses today’s events as being something that’s “been going on for a long, long time”, as though racism is something we should just learn to live with, rather than unite to eradicate.
I denounce Donald Trump as being a champion of violence, a champion of bigotry, a champion of encouraging division among us.
In addition, I denounce the Republican Party that saw Trump repeatedly incite violence and divisiveness throughout his campaign, and supported him and elected him nonetheless. They knew who he was from the beginning, and their comments today, which amount to Oh, my, we never saw THIS coming, are an insult to every citizen who saw today’s occurrence as an inevitable outcome of putting a self-proclaimed bigot in the Oval Office.
Trump has never been, and never will be, my “president”. And I denounce any and all attempts to portray him as other than what he is: an ignorant, lying bigot desperately clinging to his “base” of knuckle-dragging racists, who have not only been encouraged by his remarks, but ultimately emboldened by them.
I denounce Donald Trump, his racist supporters, and the party that enabled him. There is no place in our country for any of them.
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who cannot – nay, will not – denounce racists, white supremacists, and Nazis, and call them out for who they are and what they represent.
I denounce any man who sees any equivalence between those promoting hatred and violence and those who are willing to stand against them, their ideology, and their tactics.
I denounce ANY American – regardless of their political affiliation or their political position – who is too spineless to speak out clearly and decisively against those who would divide us as a nation, those who would cast our fellow citizens as unworthy of inclusion as Americans based on their race, religion, or ethnicity.
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who sees today’s events as being the result of ill feeling “on many sides”, when it is only one side that is promoting violence, and advancing the idea that racism is not only acceptable, but something to be embraced.
I denounce a so-called “pResident” who dismisses today’s events as being something that’s “been going on for a long, long time”, as though racism is something we should just learn to live with, rather than unite to eradicate.
I denounce Donald Trump as being a champion of violence, a champion of bigotry, a champion of encouraging division among us.
In addition, I denounce the Republican Party that saw Trump repeatedly incite violence and divisiveness throughout his campaign, and supported him and elected him nonetheless. They knew who he was from the beginning, and their comments today, which amount to Oh, my, we never saw THIS coming, are an insult to every citizen who saw today’s occurrence as an inevitable outcome of putting a self-proclaimed bigot in the Oval Office.
Trump has never been, and never will be, my “president”. And I denounce any and all attempts to portray him as other than what he is: an ignorant, lying bigot desperately clinging to his “base” of knuckle-dragging racists, who have not only been encouraged by his remarks, but ultimately emboldened by them.
I denounce Donald Trump, his racist supporters, and the party that enabled him. There is no place in our country for any of them.
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