John McCain Is The Perfect American Lie

By Drew Magary

Seventeen years ago I gave John McCain’s Presidential campaign five bucks. It was my first time donating to a political campaign, much less a Republican one. But like a lot of people, I marveled at his backstory of surviving years and years in Viet Cong captivity (I even read, like, three pages of that big David Foster Wallace story about him), and—more important—I eagerly took all his Straight Talk Express horseshit to heart. Hey, that Republican is saying stuff about other Republicans! He seems like a real rebel!

Back in 2000, McCain scratched that itch for anyone like me who enjoyed pretending to be politically independent, and who happily latched onto McCain as a talisman of that independence. You see, guys! I can vote for a Republican when it’s the RIGHT Republican! And over the course of this century, McCain has dined out on his reputation as The Good Conservative. He’s the senator who gives thunderous copy to reporters, and does SNL, and issues bipartisan reports on the military giving the NFL promo money, and does the occasional cameo on Parks &Rec. He fulfills every Brokawian wet dream certain members of the press still have about politicians setting aside their differences and doing the RIGHT THING, by God.

Today, Senate Republicans moved one step closer to dismantling Obamacare, potentially leaving millions of people uninsured, jacking up their premiums, and letting insurance companies cover only what they feel like covering. John McCain voted for that bill because of course he did. He has always been a big talker, but when it comes to the actual meat-and-potatoes voting process, he falls in line.

He didn’t do the right thing. He didn’t even come within 500 yards of doing the right thing. For the past two decades, he has never done the right thing. He’s a fraud. Alex Pareene had him nailed ages ago. In fact, it’s “nice” Republicans like McCain who provide cover for evil swine like Mitch McConnell, allowing them to gut the American security net and fuck over anyone who doesn’t live behind an iron gate.

But that didn’t stop McCain from having the gall—the unmitigated, repulsive GALL—to stand up in front of the Senate today and put on his Maverick jammies and deliver a sermon bashing the very non-legislation that, only minutes earlier, he had flown cross-country to help will into being:

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/889928867468775424

This is the part where I point out that McCain has brain cancer and is likely dying. And while I wouldn’t wish brain cancer on my worst enemy, McCain’s illness shouldn’t act as some magical shield that absolves him from abetting—no wait, LEADING—a GOP whose appetite for brazen monstrousness grows by the day. And yet, there were Senate Democrats giving our man a standing O right after he gleefully fucked their constituents, because Democrats would happily set aside differences with Godzilla for the sake of gentility. There was scumbag opportunist Cory Booker, hugging McCain and acting like this was some kind of heartwarming meeting of the minds. And of course, there were the usual political access merchants who were more than happy to line up and shine McCain’s boots:

https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/889927208646701058

https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/889923333982232576

This is vile. John McCain was never anyone’s white knight. This is the man who ushered in the age of troll candidacies by tapping Sarah Palin as his running mate. This is the man who caved to Donald Trump even after Trump had the audacity to mock his time as a POW. This is the man who called his own wife a cunt in public. This is a man who has spent all this time acting as if all the Bad Republicans were forcing him to go along with their nefarious deeds while voting in lockstep with them. He is not a reluctant Republican. He’s a shitbag, same as the rest of them.

If you’re some Pollyanna offering your support to John McCain as he hollows out Medicaid, you’re a naïve dupe. As this guy said, The West Wing wasn’t real. It was never real. The twin illusions of bipartisanship and decorum have always provided handy cover for anyone looking to willfully ignore the fiendish inequalities of the American political infrastructure and the GOP’s rapturous thirst for cruelty; a thirst that has only recently emerged in the foreground thanks to the existence of President Trump.

"John McCain is the perfect American lie, a man who professes to be noble and fair and just while being none of those things."

I was duped when I gave McCain my pitiable little sum all those years ago, but I know better today. Everyone should know better. Everyone should realize that John McCain is the perfect American lie, a man who professes to be noble and fair and just while being none of those things. He served his country honorably in combat, but in no other fashion. And he serves out his time in the Senate, and here on planet Earth, as a pathetic enabler. Never the lion; always the sheep. For seventeen years, gullible people have been waiting for him to make his face turn, to make some grand defiant move for the sake of God and country. But that was always just clever branding on his part, and today should serve as a cold slap in the face to anyone who still thought he might have that kind of political courage left in him.

He's a fucking disgrace.

John McCain Is Neither A Maverick Nor A Hero - He's A Coward

Another Big Republican Lie On The ACA: They Can Give You Something Better

Posted by Rude One

We know that Republicans have lied nonstop about the Affordable Care Act ever since it was passed into law by a Democratic-led Congress and signed by the Negro President.

We know that Republicans are stuck because the ACA is mostly based on Massachusetts's Romneycare and both come from plans from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

We know that Republicans lied and continue to lie about the effects of the AHCA and then the BCRA, the House and Senate versions of their "repeal and replace" bills.

But there is one more thing, one more set of lies, that is responsible for sticking a shiv into the GOP's dream of murdering a bunch of poor people so rich people can be richer.

See, Republicans keep trying to put the blame for the fix they're in on American voters. "We have to keep our promises to the American people," Republicans say. "We won the last three elections by promising to repeal and replace Obamacare," they whine like a dog that caught a cat only to realize it was a fucking mountain lion. Yeah, they're right. Voters did put Republicans in power over the promise of getting rid of the Obamacare horror and torture or whatever drama queen word you wanna use. But, and this is important, they only wanted to get rid of it because Republicans said they'd do better. Or, to put it another way, they lied about what they could do for people if the Affordable Care Act was overturned.

Senator after senator told you how you were enslaved by Obamacare and that the GOP would set you free. John McCain proclaimed, "Families in Arizona and across the country should have the power to make their own medical decisions – not Washington bureaucrats. This bill puts patients and doctors back in charge of their health care by fully repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a free-market approach that strengthens the quality and accessibility of care." John Thune promised, "It’s time to repeal this law and replace it with something that works. And that’s precisely what we’re going to do."

Others got even more explicit. For instance, here's Wyoming Senator John Barrasso (campaign slogan: "If you can't trust a man whose name includes the phrase 'bare ass,' who can you trust?"), from a speech he gave on the floor of the Senate in November, shortly after the election: "First of all, nobody is talking about taking people off of insurance without a replacement plan in place." Except that's exactly what they talked about. While Republicans will constantly mention how President Obama said, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" (which, to be fair, was an absurd promise), they simply aren't owning that they got voters all excited about this new fantasy health care plan where they wouldn't lose coverage despite repealing the very law that gave them coverage.

In fact, when you get to what President Donald Trump said, Republicans were promising something amazing. Put aside that Trump repeatedly said he wouldn't cut Medicaid and then, immediately after inauguration, put out a plan to cut Medicaid. Trump and his people consistently promised that Americans would have better health insurance coverage, that all Americans would be covered, and that it would cost them less in premiums and deductibles. He literally said this: "You will end up with great health care for a fraction of the price." And he told Americans that we would have a "beautiful picture" in the future of health care.

Republicans like to say that Democrats promise that they'll give people "free stuff" and that people on government programs like Medicaid are "moochers." But Republicans didn't win on the Obamacare issue because people didn't want free stuff. They didn't win because they said they would take away their health insurance. They won because they promised people more free stuff and better free stuff.

In other words, they lied. But voters believed them. They wanted to mooch more.

And the vast majority of Americans realize now that it was a lie because the Trumpcare plan that the Senate may vote to move forward tomorrow does none of the things they promised other than get rid of the health insurance they have now or make it worse and more expensive. So, of course, now we get articles like "These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In." In that New York Times piece, Pennsylvania dumb shits who once thought Obamacare was the worst thing since the theory of evolution say things like "I can’t even remember why I opposed it" and "Everybody needs some sort of health insurance." One stupid fuck went from opposing the law to "Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the insurance away from these people. It’s just not the right thing to do."

But we knew all along that people liked the Affordable Care Act. They liked the elimination of spending caps and of pre-existing conditions determining premiums. They liked keeping their kids on insurance until age 26. And a shit-ton of people got to live because of the Medicaid expansion. Yeah, the ACA was fine. What they hated was Obamacare, which is exactly what Republicans wanted people to think of for a very simple reason:

Most Republican voters don't hate the ACA. They hate that their white asses were saved by a black man.

They resented the shit out of that fact. It put a lie to all the racism they've clung to for generations. The GOP used that racism for years. Now that the black man is gone, though, they're totally fine with the law and its benefits. They gave Republicans a chance to give them more stuff, but they don't want their stuff taken away. Especially when that "stuff" is the right to live a healthy life.

Be careful this week, dear dumb shits and dearer smart asses. Republicans are going to keep coming after the Affordable Care Act, no matter how many shivs you stick in it. Stay on the phones. Keep the pressure up on the few Republican senators who can make the difference. Don't let the liars win. It's life and death, motherfuckers, life and death.

And once we finally put this beast down, let's turn our attention to single payer.

(Fun extra part of Barrasso's speech: "Democrats promised that they would listen to other people’s ideas, and then they went behind a closed door in an office back there, and they wrote the law ignoring all of the suggestions by Republicans, and without any Republican support at all. We’re not going to make that same mistake. We will be looking for Democrats’ help, we will be looking for Democrats to work with. We will be listening to Democrats’ ideas, and we will be working very hard to win Democrat votes for any new law." Insert your own rolling-with-laughter emoji here.)

Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven

And now there’s a coverup underway.

Penn Jillette on Donald Trump, “However bad you think he is, he’s worse”

Comedian and magician Penn Jillette discusses Donald Trump and his time on the Apprentice.

Trump's Been Laundering Russian Mob Money For Decades, Allegedly

Russian mobsters needed a lot of property from a sleazy businessman who never asks questions... Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.

"In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City.

The 38 year old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself.

Bogatin wasn’t hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as “Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58 story edifice with gold plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.”

Read more here: https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

First Contact

GOP trashes Trump’s plan to end dozens of government programs

By William Douglas and Anshu Siripurapu
wdouglas@mcclatchydc.com
asiripurapu@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON 
 
President Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate dozens of federal agencies and programs has collapsed, as a conservative Republican Congress refuses to go along.

Among the programs spared are agencies promoting rural business development and the arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Community Development Block Grants and the National Wildlife Refuge Fund. Those and many others are getting money in bills approved by the GOP-run House appropriations committee. The House plans to vote on spending bills throughout next week, and the Senate is expected to consider spending plans shortly.

Trump unveiled his $4.1 trillion budget plan in March, pledging to “reduce the federal government to redefine its proper role and promote efficiency.”

But in the House, where all 435 members face voters next fall, budget legislation has far more money than Trump had sought for a host of programs. The spending bill for agriculture contains $4.64 billion beyond what Trump requested, an increase of about 30 percent. For interior and the environment, the bump was $4.3 billion or 16 percent. For transportation, housing and urban development, the committee approved $8.6 billion, about 18 percent, more than the budget request.

"There’s that old saying in Washington that the president proposes and Congress disposes," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog.

Indeed, after many House and Senate Republicans complained to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney in hearings about the impact of some of Trump’s cuts, congressional budget-writers quickly made sure they don’t happen.

For example, instead of slashing the Appalachian Regional Commission, the House Appropriations Committee last week approved $130 million for the independent agency, created 52 years ago, that helps fund infrastructure and job-training projects in Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states that Trump won in 2016.

Lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., vowed that doing away with the ARC wasn’t going to happen.

"I am very proud that the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that includes important funding for the ARC, an organization that does a great deal of good in East Tennessee and rural Appalachia," Roe said.

Even agencies and programs conservative Republicans purport to dislike are avoiding the Capitol ax.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been on the list of programs many conservatives and Republicans have wanted to defund since Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was House Speaker in the 1990's.

Trump wants it off the federal books, too, but House appropriators instead included $445 million for the agency.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities have also been favorite conservative targets, and got a death sentence in Trump’s budget plan. That didn’t stop the House Appropriations Committee from approving $145 million for each endowment last week with plenty of Republican help.

"Throughout this year, we’ve seen some of the Republican members of that committee saying that they were working hard to make sure that the NEA would be receiving significant funding and certainly rejecting the administration’s termination proposal," said Narric Rome, vice president for government affairs for the Americans for the Arts, an advocacy group.

All this still enrages plenty of conservatives.

"The problem with the Republicans is that so many of them aren’t team players," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policies studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute and editor of DownsizingGovernment.org. "They’re parochial or, with appropriators, it’s just a single-minded devotion to increase spending on the programs that they fund."

Edwards said he was stunned when leading Republicans railed against Trump’s budget plan to eliminate the Community Block Grant Development program, which allocates funds initiatives from affordable housing to after school programs.

House appropriators approved $2.9 billion for CDBG, $100 million less than its Fiscal 2017 funding level.

"Appropriators and other Republican congressmen, they love to give speeches about fiscal responsibility, they love to complain how Obama was a big spender, but now’s the real test," he said.

"Trump has given them the way forward here with some reasonable cuts. Can they rise above their parochial interests and do something that’s good for the overall budget here?."

Other budget-watchers note that the real money issues aren’t even being addressed. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that even Trump’s cuts ignore the fastest growing parts of the federal budget, entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

"To me, it just doesn’t seem to make much sense to be focusing all our energy on cutting the slowest growing part of the budget," he said.

Pond scum moonlighting as a human being

By Walter Einenkel

During President Obama’s administration, useless hedge fund managers cried big boy tears about how persecuted they were being. President Obama had to frequently attempt to remind them that they made way too much money to be crying over anything.

Sadly, President Obama did not have the will to send them all to jail where many of them deserve to be—to this day.

In 2010, after President Obama helped to navigate our country out of the largest economic disaster since the 1929 Wall Street crash, he held a televised Town Hall. During it, a younger and equally craven Anthony Scaramucci got to ask a question.

The question sounded something like “WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH, my feelings!”



To which President Obama replied.

I think it'd be useful to go back and look at the speeches that I've made, including a speech by the way I made back in 2007, on Wall Street, before Lehmans had gone under. In which I warned about a potential crisis if we didn't start reforming practices on Wall Street. At the time I said exactly what you said, which is Wall Street and Main Street are connected. We need a vibrant vital financial sector that is investing in businesses investing in jobs investing in our people providing consumers loans so they can buy products all that's very important and we want that to thrive but we've got to do so in a responsible way. 

I have been amused over the last couple of years this sense of somehow meet beating up on Wall Street. I think most folks on Main Street feel like they got beat up on; and I'll be honestly there's a big chunk of the country--hold on--I was like there's a big chunk of the country that thinks that I have been too soft yet on Wall Street and that's the majority—not the minority. 

Now, what I've tried to do is just try to be practical. You know I'm sure that at any given point over the last two years there have been times where I have been frustrated, and I'll give you some examples—I mean when I hear folks who say that somehow were being too tough on Wall Street, but after a huge crisis the top 25 hedge fund managers took home a billion dollars in income that year. A billion!

For what it’s worth, Scaramucci is exactly like the rest of this administration—pond scum moonlighting as human.

H/T Rawstory

Anthony Scaramucci’s business card seals the deal

By Paul Chandler

The moment Anthony Scaramucci presented his business card to President Trump, the deal was a good as done. Sean Spicer was on his way out, with Mr. Smooth installed as White House communications director.Scaramucci checks all the boxes for Trump: Goldman Sachs background, ties to Russia, Wall Street insider, enormous amounts of hair product, prepared to say anything and most importantly, in love with himself and the President. Truly a match made in heaven

Photo of Spicer immediately after he tendered his resignation

By DemocratSinceBirth

Meet Trump's Newest Scumbag Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci talks a tough game, until he doesn’t.

John Iadarola, Ben Mankiewicz, and Mark Thompson, hosts of The Young Turks, discuss.

The Media Must Fight Back

The press is playing by its old rules while Trump laughs at those rules.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Resigns

By GLENN THRUSH JULY 21, 2017

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, during a briefing last month. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned on Friday morning, telling Trump he vehemently disagreed with the appointment of the New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.

Mr. Trump offered Mr. Scaramucci the job at 10 A.M. Trump requested that Mr. Spicer stay on, but Mr. Spicer told Mr. Trump that he believed the appointment was a major mistake, according to a person with direct knowledge of the exchange.

Terrified Trump May Try To Pardon Himself And His Family Members Over Russia Scandal

The recent actions by Trump suggest that he is running scared as Robert Mueller's investigation zeroes in on the White House.

By Sean Colarossi

Donald Trump, clearly terrified over the direction of the Russia investigation, is considering to use his pardon powers on himself, his family members and his aides, according to a stunning new report in The Washington Post.

The Post reports that Trump has asked his advisers about his ability to pardon himself or others, and another source said that the president’s lawyers are also discussing the possibility of issuing pardons.

The president is also reportedly trying to build a case against Special Counsel Robert Mueller – the man running the wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and Moscow’s connections to the Trump campaign.

More from the eye-popping report:

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.

It’s hard to be shocked by any news about this president or the increasingly explosive scandal surrounding his ties to Russia, but this is a rather incredible development.

The news also comes a day after Trump threatened Mueller in an interview with The New York Times, telling the paper that if Mueller decides to investigate his family’s finances, then he will be crossing a “red line.”

Ultimately, Trump’s efforts to intimidate Mueller in hopes that he will back off the Russia investigation, while now reportedly considering whether to pardon himself and those close to him, suggests this is a man running scared.

Bizarre Trump Interview Suggests Serious Mental Instability

Trump holds an audio interview with The New York Times and denigrates his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and the special prosecutor investigating the Trump-Russia connection Robert Mueller.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-sessions-russia.html

BREAKING: CBO: Premiums will increase by $11,500 for a 64 year old with middle income

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029349689

Trump counterterrorism adviser blames Russia for election hacks

In a break with his boss, Thomas Bossert said Russian entities clearly tried to meddle in the 2016 race.

 By Ali Watkins 07/20/2017 12:49 PM EDT The hacking and subsequent release of stolen Democratic National Committee emails last year were “unacceptable efforts and behaviors by a foreign nation state,” Thomas Bossert said on Thursday. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

ASPEN, CO — Donald Trump’s chief counter-terrorism adviser said Thursday that the Russian government clearly tried to manipulate the 2016 election, and declared that the Obama administration’s retaliatory sanctions didn’t go far enough.

“There’s a pretty clear and easy answer to this and it’s 'yes,'” Thomas Bossert said when asked whether the Russians worked to manipulate the U.S. election — a widely held conclusion that his boss in the Oval Office has repeatedly questioned.

The Obama White House’s response — kicking out 35 diplomats and closing two Russian diplomatic facilities in December — “wasn’t adequate in my mind,” Bossert, a top national security aide under former President George W. Bush, added during a wide-ranging discussion at the National Security Forum in Aspen.

Trump has repeatedly questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election with the intent of helping Trump win. Trump said he pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue during their recent meeting at the G-20 in Germany, but the two sides offered different accounts, with Russia saying Trump accepted Putin’s denials.

The hacking and subsequent release of stolen Democratic National Committee emails last year were “unacceptable efforts and behaviors by a foreign nation state,” Bossert said on Thursday. He stressed, though, that there had been no manipulation of ballot counts.

The administration is not yet in a place to crack down harder on Russia, Bossert said, but is exploring how to deter cyber-attacks. There’s “no evidence,” he said, that offensive cyber operations deter foreign hackers, so the White House is exploring more “draconian” retaliations, like financial penalties.

Those cyber policies are in the works, he said, but their implementation — including potential responses to aggressive cyber-attacks from countries like Russia — will take longer than most would prefer.

“We’ll satisfy you, but we won’t satisfy you in enough time,” Bossert said.

The question of Russian interference in the 2016 election — including whether any of Trump’s associates colluded with the Kremlin — has clouded Trump’s presidency. Special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees are probing not only the issue of election meddling, but other related issues — including whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey.

Bossert touched on several other controversial topics, including Syria, U.S. detention and interrogation policies, and the creation of a bio-defense force.

The administration continues to explore long-term detention facilities for captured combatants overseas, including the use of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, Bossert said. Further, the White House is keeping “all options open” when it comes to reopening notorious black site secret prisons overseas, he said.

Bossert underscored the Trump administration’s commitment to Syria, but said Syrian President Bashar Assad’s departure was not a top priority. The White House has reportedly ended a covert program dedicated to arming anti-Assad groups.

“It’s not important for us to say Assad must go first,” Bossert said, but added, “The U.S. would still like to see Assad go at some point.”

The Trump adviser repeatedly chastised his interviewer, New York Times national security reporter David Sanger, about his newspaper’s coverage of classified U.S. programs. He also strongly objected to a Times article that he said unfairly implied the U.S. has responsibility for the effects of computer vulnerability exploitation programs designed by the U.S. government which fall into foreign hands and are used for malicious purposes.

Bossert also said the Trump administration would develop a comprehensive plan to defend the nation against bio-terrorism, an issue he said has been dangerously neglected, and which has taken on new urgency because of rapidly advancing biotechnology that allows for the creation of synthetic viruses.
Bossert said scientists may now be able to create a synthetic smallpox virus without access to the only two known laboratory samples of the deadly disease — a prospect he called terrifying.

Michael Crowley contributed to this report.

Observations On Trump's Interview With The New York Times

Posted by Rude One

At this point, any new batshit thing that President Donald Trump says comes across less as a shock and more like another punch to the face in a boxing match. If you're an experienced fighter, you know exactly how it's gonna feel when that glove pounds your chin, but, goddamnit, it still hurts and, goddamnit, you want it to stop. So this latest New York Times "interview" (if by "interview," you mean, "a lunatic scrawling in shit on his rubber room walls") with Trump is the usual serving of blithering, dithering, and withering, all tossed into a word salad that sounds like it might be English but is a colloquial bowl of chopped ideas that we could call "Trumpese."

The usual things that crop up any time Trump speaks were in full effect here:

1. Self-fellatio - Trump praises himself endlessly for doing the most, having the most, being the most, even if it's a goddamned lie. Here he is on his speech in Poland: "Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a president...You saw the reviews I got on that speech." Or on the rollback of Obama-era regulations: " I’ve given the farmers back their farms. I’ve given the builders back their land to build houses and to build other things." Can you imagine the hategasm that would splooge all over the airwaves if President Obama had said, "I gave people health insurance"? We'd be cleaning up that goo for years. But Trump's voters love that he acts like he's the king. They want a king. They want to be ruled. They want discipline. Shit, basically, he's their Dom and they're his loyal Subs, except the rest of us have been dragged into it without a safe word or, you know, consent.

2. Shitting on others - Yeah, Trump just sprayed scat all over Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and the Justice Department in general. In addition to questioning the motives of Robert Mueller (as well as threatening to fire him) and bizarrely saying that Sessions shouldn't have taken the job if he was going to recuse himself from Russia matters (remember: Sessions tried not to do so until it was revealed he lied under oath about his meetings), Trump says of his firing of James Comey, "I think I did a great thing for the American people." The American people just want someone who'll do the goddamn job. It's mighty strange, by the way, to say that you did nothing wrong but wanting the investigation shut down.

2a. Shitting on Hillary Clinton - Because of course he did.

3. Cornered rat babbling - Asked about the conversation with Vladimir Putin that wasn't reported until well after the G20 summit, Trump was like a tween caught with weed in his dresser. He wove an elaborate tale about how the chat came to be, setting the scene at the dinner all the leaders attended, who was seated where, who was talking to whom, who else might have been there, the fucking opera they watched. Then Trump said what he and Putin discussed: "Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption." The fuck? (I wish Maggie Haberman had said that instead of "You did?") Trump continued, "We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr.] had in that meeting." That means they talked about the lifting of the sanctions in the Magnitsky Act, which is pretty fucking important. But a cornered rat will do that. Amid the lies and distractions, they will squeak out some truth.

4. Paranoid ranting - Everyone is out to get Trump, according to Trump. The news media, of course, but, more significantly, Barack Obama creeps into his head and he can't help but go nutzoid insulting his beloved White House predecessor. "Don’t forget, Crimea was given away during Obama. Not during Trump," he said, speaking of himself in the third person, which is so disconcerting. He then went incoherent until he got back to Obama: "In fact, I was on one of the shows, I said they’re exactly right, they didn’t have it as it exactly. But he was — this — Crimea was gone during the Obama administration, and he gave, he allowed it to get away. You know, he can talk tough all he wants, in the meantime he talked tough to North Korea. And he didn’t actually. He didn’t talk tough to North Korea. You know, we have a big problem with North Korea. Big. Big, big." Jesus, calm down there, big fella. "You look at all of the things, you look at the line in the sand. The red line in the sand in Syria. He didn’t do the shot. I did the shot. Had he done that shot, he wouldn’t have had — had he done something dramatic, because if you remember, they had a tremendous gas attack after he made that statement. Much bigger than the one they had with me." Ah, finally he can let Obama win one: Syria gassed more people under Obama than under Trump. Such a humble man, our president.

5. Just weird shit - Every interview with Trump is guaranteed to have some bizarre notes, those moments when Trump sounds like a Hollywood producer in the 1970's. You could go with his description of the Bastille Day parade in Paris ("You know what else that was nice? It was limited. You know, it was two hours, and the parade ended. It didn’t go a whole day") or even when he jumped subjects like a weasel on meth ("The Russians have great fighters in the cold. They use the cold to their advantage. I mean, they’ve won five wars where the armies that went against them froze to death. It’s pretty amazing. So, we’re having a good time. The economy is doing great.") But I'm gonna go with the saga of French President Macron and his love of holding Trump's hand: "He’s a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand...People don’t realize he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes...I think he is going to be a terrific president of France. But he does love holding my hand." Every night, Macron touches the hand that held Trump's, and a single tear runs slowly down his face as he remembers those soft, small fingers interlaced with his.

Keep in mind that these were easy questions because the reporters know that if you ask Trump something about policy, like "Can you explain a single fucking thing about how the ACA exchanges work?" or if you challenge him, like "Why did you lie about Medicaid cuts?" he'll just shut down like an overstimulated toddler. Even on the softball questions, he got basic facts wrong and he didn't know when to shut the fuck up. Sure, Trump ought to be interviewed like anyone would Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or, fuck, Mitt Romney, but we all know that he's fucking stupid so get the stupid people to talk about the one thing they feel comfortable with: themselves.

It's not shocking anymore. And we need to be careful about that. The thing about a boxing match is that the fighters can never let it get boring and rote. It might be exhausting or excruciating. But you gotta stay in the moments or you'll find yourself flat on your ass, without health care, with your country at war, with your voting rights gone, and with your environment collapsing.

Trump Voters Were Wrong, So Fuck Their Opinions

Posted by Rude One

In just six short months, it's become absolutely clear: Everyone who didn't vote for Donald Trump was right and everyone who voted for him was wrong. Yeah, yeah, they weren't wrong in that Trump won the election, just as someone isn't wrong for supporting a shitty baseball team. But it's incredibly clear now that the poor suckers and greedy fuckers who wanted to nuzzle up to Trump's man-teats for a suckle were wrong on just about every account regarding who he is and what he'd do.

They were wrong that he's a man of his word, they were wrong that he would look out for working people, they were wrong that he would make the nation respected "again" (as if it wasn't before), they were wrong that he wouldn't have scandals, and they were just wrong about him being a human being worthy of the office. They were wrong and we who voted against him (and I'm tossing anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and Deez Nutz into the category of "voted against him") were right.

Trump voters fucked the goat, and so everything they say should be framed within the fact that they are goatfuckers. "Oh, you have an opinion on health care? Sorry, you fucked a goat. I don't give a shit about your goat-fucking opinion," we should think. But that's not what we do. We don't shun the goatfuckers, no matter how savagely they fucked that goat. We see that most clearly by the fact that the news networks and other media outlets still entertain the opinions of people who supported the Iraq war and never said they were wrong about it. Goatfuckers get away with it.

So we're treated on an almost daily basis to articles and stories about Trump voters and what they think about some issue and whether or not Trump's evil, batshit incompetence is enough for them to bail on the Orange King. Every single one of these stories is the same: Here are some assholes who voted for Trump. Let's treat them with reverence, as if they have hard-won wisdom because they shovel shit or work at Wal-Mart. Let's tell them about all the fuckery that Donald Trump has been up to and see what they think. Oh, look, they don't give a shit because he still hates the Mooslems and Messicans. And what might change their minds about Trumpochet? "I don’t know what he would have to do...I guess maybe kill someone. Just in cold blood."

That's an actual quote from an actual person in a Tennesseean article on Wayne County, Tennessee, an almost entirely white rural area with less people than my neighborhood. The thrust of the piece is that Trump voters couldn't give a happy monkey fuck about the Russia scandal. In fact, they think Trump is being maligned and Don Jr. is awesome. This is the newest wrinkle in the genre: What do stupid people think about something they don't understand at all? In the last week, Vox has done a story on Michigan Trump voters, who don't think the Russian connections are any big deal. The BBC sent a reporter to the Nebraska State Fair to get some American color (yes, ironic, I know) and some video of deluded shit heels sharing their delusions.

As Newsweek's Alexander Nazaryn wrote, "The real story here is how thoroughly Trump supporters have been deceived, both by Trump and tireless boot-lickers like Hannity and Jones. Every quote from an Ohioan who declares the Russia investigation is irrelevant is a testament to the delusive brand of Republicanism that now reigns supreme." Joshua Green said much the same in the New York Times.

Each of the Trump voter pieces generally has a token interview with someone who doesn't support Trump. But they are presented as curiosities, the two-headed cow that shouldn't exist but somehow does. But the reality is, obviously, people who think Trump is full of shit vastly outnumber the aforementioned suckers and fuckers who stand by their man. How about interviewing some of us? How about asking us, "How did you know?" And we can say, "Anyone with a fuckin' brain knew." Ask us, "What do you think about the Russia dealie?" And we can say, "Either we do something about it or we're fucked."

Hell, you don't even have to stick to the cities, where the majority of the country lives. Since you've got a rural jones, you can head to Bolivar, Tennessee, a town in the ass-crack of nowhere, near to the Alabama border, as Deep South as you can get. They went for Hillary Clinton, as did nearby Whiteville. Of course, those are majority African American towns, so you'd have to change the whole goddamned narrative away from the mighty white working class.

Or, here's an idea, why not go to the communities that went for Trump and find the people who didn't. Talk to them. See if they're feeling smug or sad or angry. See what their ideas are for getting us out of this or through this goddamn bullshit time. Find out how they're feeling about Trump's relationship with Russia. Ask them because they, like the majority of the country, were right.

Let's spend a little time and energy, dear, sweet reporters, on people who aren't barking mad or madly barking.

(Note: If you didn't vote at all, go suck a donkey's dick.)

(Note: If you wanna write to me about "goatfucker shaming," I hate you already. Same for "donkey-dick sucker shaming." Some things are just fucking shameful. Sucking a donkey's dick, fucking a goat, and voting for Donald Trump, for examples.)

Weary Trump supporters desperate to tune out bad news

By Brad Reed
 

Press-hating Trump supporter yells at journalists at Florida rally (Frank Thorp V)

 

Bad news keeps piling up for President Donald Trump, but some of his most dedicated supporters have decided to comfort themselves by simply ignoring all of it.

The Guardian talked with several Trump supporters in Pennsylvania and found that many of them are refusing to watch the news.

“About two weeks ago, I stopped watching the news,” Wayne Bisher, a lifelong Democrat who backed Trump in 2016, told the publication. “Because it was just like, it was too depressing. They’re still bitching about the Russia thing, which is still not going to amount to anything. I feel so much better, for the last two weeks.”

“We got fake news, like Trump said, and I’m upset with the news,” 75 year old Bruce Garis told the Guardian. “I won’t even turn on the television any more.”

When asked by the Guardian about assorted Trump scandals, many Trump supporters simply deflect the question to go back to attacking Hillary Clinton.

“No matter how it comes out, even if it comes out that there was some shady business going on there, I’d rather Trump in there than Clinton,” 43 year old Jack Artley explained. “So, whether he had to cheat or not to get in, I’m OK with that.”

“You really talk to people and – you know what drove a lot of people?” conservative activists Tom Carroll told the Guardian. “Believe it or not, they won’t leave Trump for anything. But it’s not because they love Trump, it’s because they love their families, they love their country, and they were fearful of what was gonna happen if Hillary Clinton got elected president.”

Trump's 'Made In America Week' Backfires BIGLY

Twitter had a field day with this one. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.


"President Donald Trump is set to declare this week “Made In America” week to help promote products manufactured in the United States, according to The Hill.

But he’s already coming under fire for the move, given that Trump-branded products are often manufactured overseas.

Many of Trump’s clothing items have been made in Mexico and China. During the campaign last year, his use of steel and aluminum from China became a campaign issue.

And just last week, The Washington Post reported on the fashion line of first daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump, finding that much of it is made by low-wage workers in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.

White House spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferre was asked on Sunday if the president would use “Made in America” week to push his daughter to make those products in the United States.”*

Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-made-in-america_us_596c391ce4b03389bb1878e1

Don’t Trust Joe Scarborough’s Phony Awakening – He Isn’t Leaving The Republican Party

MSNBC host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough announced on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week that he was leaving the Republican Party.  I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t either.  Scarborough wants to capitalize on anti-Trump viewership.  He has always been a loyal Republican, pushing for privatization and elimination of social safety net programs during his days in Congress, and that’s exactly what today’s GOP is all about. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/morning-joe-scarborough-leaving-republican-party/

Sean Spicer Says It Is “Inappropriate” To Ask If Trump Will Make His Goods In The U.S.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer returned to the podium on Monday – though off camera – to address reporters on the first day of “Made In America Week.”  One of the questions asked of Spicer was whether Donald Trump would begin to manufacture the goods for his brands in the US, which Spicer deemed an “inappropriate” question.  If you can’t ask that questions during Made In America Week, then when would it be appropriate? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



https://www.axios.com/spicer-inappropriate-to-say-whether-trump-goods-will-be-made-in-americ-2460971257.html

Trump Is Still Lying About How Much His Administration Has Accomplished

On Monday, Donald Trump told reporters that his administration has now passed more legislation than any other administration in US history at this point.  Not only is that completely untrue, but most of what Trump has signed are bills to just undo what President Obama did.  That isn’t progress, that’s regression. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/politics/trump-laws-bills.html?_r=1

Trump Whines On Twitter About Healthcare Bill Failure, Vows “We Will Return!”

Donald Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats and “a few Republicans” for the failure of the GOP healthcare bill in the Senate.  He then ended his infantile rant with an ominous threat that “we will return.”  Does he not understand that people don’t want the GOP’s healthcare “fix” and that the entire Republican Party needs to simply move on? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



Link – http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/342465-trump-blames-dems-few-republicans-for-collapse-of-healthcare-bill

The Republican Party Is Hilariously Incompetent

With the recent collapse of their healthcare bill in the Senate, the Republican Party has shown us that they are incapable of leading this country.  Obviously, the death of their healthcare bill is a good thing, but you have to wonder how these people can control so much of this country without any clue how to lead. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



Link – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-republican-party-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place_us_596c2c1be4b09e26b6d7693b?section=us_politics

The True Story

Six Long Months Of Trump

By Frank Bruni

From the beginning, people around me talked nonstop about the end.

How long could Donald Trump’s presidency possibly last? Would impeachment or the 25th Amendment undo him? Before Trump, few of us even knew of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to decree the president unfit. But suddenly everybody was up to speed, and no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than the “would you rather” question du jour became him versus Mike Pence. All-purpose lunacy or religious zeal: Choose your governance. Pick your poison.

Part of this, yes, reflected the company I keep. It doesn’t brim with Trump enthusiasts. But more of this came down to Trump himself — the lidless grandiosity, the bottomless vulgarity, the lies atop lies upon lies. I’ll never forget his second day in office, not just because he used an appearance at the C.I.A. to crow at great length about his many Time magazine covers and to insist, despite ready evidence to the contrary, that any beef of his with intelligence agencies was a media invention. It stays with me because of a text message I received from a journalist who covers him as well as any other, understands him better and was utterly flabbergasted by that display.

“We’re all going to die,” it said. While there was jest and hyperbole in that, there was also genuine alarm and the dark realization that Trump would not be transmogrified by the oath of office into anything approaching a dignified, responsible statesman. No, his extra power was just making him extra mean, and what we saw before Nov. 8 was what we got from Jan. 20 onward: a child in a man’s suit, a knave in a knight’s armor, a dangerous experiment with unforeseeable consequences.

They’re more seeable now. As of Thursday, July 20, Trump will have inhabited the presidency for a full six months, and we can reach certain conclusions with a measure of confidence.

No one can yet say how or when it ends. His dim namesake’s antics, evasions and omissions have reinvigorated talk of impeachment, but Republican lawmakers’ statements last week don’t support that scenario. With rare exception, the sternest words came from the most predictable quarters and hardly rose to the level of revolt. Maybe that’s a relief. Can you imagine Trump, with his thin skin and martyr complex, in the throes of impeachment? He’d wail and thrash and tear down everything around him. I mean, more than now.

We have to stop rolling our eyes when he brags about how much he has done, because he’s right. He has done plenty.

With his stances on climate change, trade and refugees and with all the air kisses blown at Vladimir Putin, he has altered our place in the world and splintered its postwar framework. 

Don’t be reassured by the recent pleasantries between him and Emmanuel Macron: Much of Western Europe is reeling from what it considers a surrender of American leadership. This, post-Trump, may be reparable. But I wonder if our sturdiest allies will ever feel quite the same way about this country again.

With his first Supreme Court appointment, he showed what he would almost surely do with a second and third: fully indulge the social conservatives who are one of the most dependable components of his base. If he lasts a full term and the Senate remains, as is likely, in Republican hands after the 2018 midterms, he could leave behind a court that leans sharply to the right for a generation to come.

With his sloppiness, scandals and inner circle of arrogant neophytes, he is frittering away time. That’s hardly a singular accomplishment, but we can’t afford more government paralysis and procrastination. Infrastructure that’s no longer competitive (or safe), a tax code crying out for revision, a work force without the right skills: When do we fix this? How far behind do we fall?

And what, in the meantime, happens to Americans’ already shriveled faith in Washington? Trump’s election reflected many voters’ exasperation with the status quo and sense of permanent estrangement from some gilded clique of winners. He was their pyrrhic retort. How much hotter will their anger burn when they realize they got played?

I’m more likely to win a season of “The Bachelorette” than he is to build that incessantly promised wall. His professed disdain for Wall Street was a campaign-season pose, abandoned the minute he started assembling his administration. Health care that’s better, cheaper and more universal? Oh, please.

It’s possible that Trump’s fans will never blame him, because of one of his most self-serving and corrosive feats: the stirring of partisanship and distrust of institutions into the conviction that there’s no such thing as objective truth. There are only rival claims. There are always “alternative facts.” Charges of mere bias are the antiquated weapons of yesteryear; “fake news” is the new nullifier, and it’s a phrase so dear to him that his unprincipled acolytes are building on it. Last week a Trump adviser, Sebastian Gorka, lashed out at the “fake news industrial complex.” Trump reportedly swooned.

What happens to a democracy whose citizens not only lose common ground but also take a match to the idea of a common reality? Thanks in part to Trump, we may find out. He doesn’t care about civility or basic decency, and even if he did, he lacks the discipline to yoke his actions to any ideals. The Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik expressed it perfectly, telling me, “His presidency is what happens when you have road rage in the Oval Office.”

I was just 9 when Richard Nixon resigned and a teenager during the Jimmy Carter years. I began paying close attention only with Ronald Reagan. He and every one of his successors bent the truth, to varying degrees. He and every successor had a vanity that sometimes ran contrary to the public good. But none came close to Trump in those regards.

None shrugged off conflicts of interest the way he does. None publicly savaged women (and men) based on their looks or supposed cosmetic surgery. None made gloating a trademark of his public discourse. Two scoops for Trump, one for everybody else. He’s president and you’re not. The pettiness radiates outward, as does the viciousness and lack of ethics — to his lawyers, to his kin. 

And it’s more than just coarse spectacle. It’s an assault on what it means to be president and what the presidency means. The injury to the office won’t be quick to heal.

I can’t shake two incidents in particular. A few weeks before his inauguration, Trump tweeted a New Year greeting that was, instead, a spitball thrown at anyone who hadn’t genuflected before him. Last month, he coaxed his cabinet members to kiss his ring as the television cameras rolled. Those grotesque bookends affirmed that he is changeless and that he rules as he lives, for Trump and Trump alone.

Still I try for optimism: We won’t all die.

But suffer? Count on it.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni) and join me on Facebook.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. 

A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 16, 2017, on Page SR3 of the New York edition with the headline: Six Long Months of President Trump. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Trump using donors' campaign cash to pay for his idiot son's legal defense

By Hunter

Donald Trump Jr., campaigning

In Trump's defense on this one, the meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian team sent to offer Russian government "support" for the Trump campaign was a campaign meeting, not a personal one. So this is fine.

President Donald Trump appears to have used more than half a million dollars in campaign funds to pay legal fees over the last three months, new campaign filings show. The spending included $50,000 in legal expenses to lawyer Alan Futerfas, who is now representing Donald Trump Jr., on June 27th.

That's why Trump quickly launched a "re-election" campaign immediately after entering office, of course. So he could collect a half-million dollars from his brigade of red-hat-wearing morons to pay for his legal defenses out of their own pockets.

As we said, it would be a real problem if Donald Trump were siphoning off cash from his own campaign for the personal benefit of his wealthy but incredibly stupid son. But Trump is fully acknowledging that the meeting with a Russian team set up under the explicit declaration that it was "part of" the Russian government's support for the campaign, a mere week before the Russian government began to leak thousands of files stolen from Trump's campaign opponent, was a campaign meeting involving his campaign staff to hear the provided information in their capacity as leaders of the Trump campaign.

So it's fine.

Hypocrisy And The Name Trump Go Hand In Hand

Being a HYPOCRITE is just part of being a TRUMP. How is that fight against cyber-bullying coming Melania? Or what about women's rights Ivanka? Hosted by Francis Maxwell. See more TYT Facebook Originals at http://fb.com/theyoungturks/videos

The Intercept Discloses Top-Secret NSA Document On Russia Hacking Aimed At US Voting System

The report details an operation targeting voter registration in 2016.

By Ben Dreyfuss

On Monday, the Intercept published a classified internal NSA document noting that Russian military intelligence mounted an operation to hack at least one US voting software supplier—which provided software related to voter registration files—in the months prior to last year’s presidential contest. It has previously been reported that Russia attempted to hack into voter registration systems, but this NSA document provides details of how one such operation occurred.

According to the Intercept:

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the US election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed US government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A US intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into US voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document:

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

Go read the whole thing.

Unlike Most of the GOP, the Trumps Are Shitty Liars

Posted by Rude One

Let's be clear here: The Republican Party holds the power it does because it is unafraid to lie. From the overhyped fear of Communism to the overhyped fear of crime to the overhyped fear of terrorism, the GOP has jumped from lie to lie to lie in order to maintain power, often pivoting back to ones that work so well, like welfare fraud and, time and again, crime. They recovered from their near dismantling in 2006 and 2008, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 washed away the Bush bullshit, by going big with the lies about Barack Obama and, especially, about the Affordable Care Act. And as Republican leaders in the Senate desperately try to come up with a way to squeeze out one more turd of a Trumpcare bill, they are lying with abandon, and not just about what's in the aforementioned turd.

Obamacare markets aren't "collapsing." They're stabilizing. People on the Medicaid expansion aren't desperate to get rid of it. They are satisfied with the care they are getting. Over two-thirds of the country, including a majority of Republicans, support the birth control mandate in Obamacare, the subject of another fake controversy just to appeal to yahoo religious nutzoids.

And the reason that they've gotten away with lying is that they are so fucking good at it. They are so fucking good at playing the media, playing their constituents, playing the Democrats, playing everyone. They are master bullshitters. They get away with it because conservative ideas in a political context are so fucking simple to understand. What's easier on the brain? "We should provide decent education, housing, job-training, and anti-poverty programs to help combat crime"? Or "Lock 'em up"? Democrats can't compete until they come up with a better story than the lies that have worked so well for so long.

It was going along so well for the GOP until the Trumps, this family of outsiders, came along and fucked it all up. Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and Junior have lived on a privileged plane of existence, where having a cadre of brutish dickhead attorneys on retainer is enough of a deterrent for anyone who would dare question them or try to get paid fairly. They could intimidate people into silence or, if that fails, settle any lawsuits with the handy provisions that they admit no guilt and the plaintiffs can't talk about it. They could be bumblefuck corrupt business shitheels and get away with it.

The biggest problem in getting into the public arena is that, all of a sudden, the Trumps have to deal with the federal government, an entity that doesn't just have lawyers but entire goddamned bureaus devoted to investigating just the kind of fuckery that the Trumps have regularly been involved in. Throw in a media that realizes it had better make itself relevant again or just fucking give up, and a group of people as boisterously, unashamedly moronic as the Trumps don't stand a chance. You don't want to be probed and pilloried? Then either don't be corrupt (except in the usual way of sucking up to Wall Street and other rich fucks - that's just sadly acceptable now), like Obama, who could take all the shit and toss it back, or don't fucking run for office.

We'll never know what toxic combination of hubris, narcissism, and lickspittlism got Donald Trump to run for president to win. But we do know that another toxic combination got him elected, and one of the primary ingredients in that poison was the interference of the Russian government. We also know that we are learning all this because the Trump family was too fucking dumb to cover it up well. They're shitty liars as well as being shitty human beings.

You can imagine Karl Rove slapping his bloated forehead when he saw the emails between cartoon louche Richie Gallstone or whatever the fuck that guy's name is and Donald Trump, Jr. You can imagine Rove getting on the phone with John Boehner and the two of them, liars of the first order, screaming with laughter, "The subject line...the subject line is 'Russia-Clinton.'" You can imagine them both calling Mitch McConnell and taunting him about having to deal with this shit. You can imagine McConnell slowly cursing the fact that he worked so hard to get all these lies working, all the cocksucking and ratfucking that went into them, and now they're being brought down by these Trump assholes.

You can be corrupt. You can be stupid. You can't be stupid and corrupt. Otherwise, you don't know when to shut the fuck up. You don't know when to keep your head down. You don't know when to not fucking tweet out the evidence that, at the very least, reveals the very thing everyone has been trying to pin on you.

So now it falls to the professional liars, the liars with experience, to try to unfuck this fucked up situation. You are going to see a hard-press from the right-wing attack dogs about how this is nothing, how the Democrats are more corrupt and destructive, how it was just a Washington naif's error. It's happening already, and they're saying that it's essentially treasonous to not support the president, a hypocrisy that they have no problem with. They'll say it's about bringing down the great man Trump, it's about sour grapes over the failure in the election, and it's about the mighty flag-waving patriots who don't want to see the country dragged down by what they don't even see as a scandal.

Which brings us back to the top of this here post. The Trump lies and power-at-any-cost actions are part and parcel of what the Republican Party does. The GOP is filthy with masterful sleaze merchants. They can fuck your ears and tell you it was God's blessing. It's going to be up to the Democrats to come up with a simple, straightforward narrative here that can slap the Republicans down until they scurry back to the gutter.

How this turns out will reveal who gives a shit about the nation. Who is enraged that this has happened. Who the real patriots are.

(Note: Sure, Democrats went along some of the time with GOP lies because they can get swept up in a lie as much as anyone, but they rarely have been the originators of a big lie in the last 50 years. And, yeah, the country ain't perfect. No shit. Patriots work to make it better.)