Friday, April 7, 2017

10 Republicans who have done a complete 180 on Syria now that Obama’s not president

By Brad Reed
 
In 2013, President Barack Obama went to Congress to ask for an authorization of force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — and he was turned down, in large part thanks to opposition from Republicans in Congress.



Here are the biggest Republican flip-flops in Syria that have happened over the last four years.

1.) Donald Trump. Trump is, of course, the most notable person to change his mind on the merits of attacking Syria. In 2012 and 2013, he regularly attacked Obama for his desire to get involved with the Syrian conflict, and even suggested at one point that Obama would go to war with Syria to boost his flagging poll numbers.
2. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Although Ryan gave Trump his approval for Thursday night’s airstrikes, in 2013 he said that Obama’s proposed military strike “cannot achieve its stated objectives” and could make things worse.

3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT). On Thursday evening, Chaffetz sent out a tweet that read, “God bless the USA!” But in 2013, he said he would oppose the use of force in Syria on the grounds that he saw “no clear and present danger” to the United States that would justify using force.

4. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Blackburn announced in 2013 that she would oppose Obama’s Syrian airstrike after being briefed. On Thursday evening, she approvingly re-tweeted President Trump’s quote that “no child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

5. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Although Rubio has been blanketing the airwaves praising Trump’s airstrikes, in 2013 he said that “I have long argued forcefully for engagement in empowering the Syrian people, I have never supported the use of U.S. military force in the conflict.”

6. Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT). Hatch gave Trump’s actions an “amen” on Twitter Thursday evening, but in 2013 he said that he had “strong reservations about authorizing the use of force against Syria.”

7. Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX). Olson cited his experience as a Navy veteran as a reason for opposing the use of force against Syria in 2013. Now, however, he is cheering on Trump by praising the president for doing what Obama would not.

8. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL). The congressman on Thursday night gushed about Trump’s airstrike, but in 2013 he worried that Obama had not done enough to seek a “diplomatic” solution to the crisis.

9. Rep. Larry Buschon (R-IN). In 2013, the congressman opposed intervention in Syria on the grounds that he hadn’t met a single person in his district “who believes we should fire missiles into Syria.”

10. Sen. Corey Gardener (R-CO). In 2013, Gardener expressed “skepticism” of striking Syria and argued that he didn’t see “a compelling and vital” national interest in such an attack. On Thursday evening, he called Trump’s strike against Syria a “long-overdue action.”

What A Fucking Day

By TheFerret

Oh wow.

Shit be cray, people. Shit be cray.

Today's news was like if a Tom Clancy novel fucked the notebook where Hunter S. Thompson kept the ideas he thought were "too weird" on top of a big stack of Frank Miller comics. Not the good ones, the recent, shitty, super-racist ones.

We started with news of Devin "Pigfucker" Nunes recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Word is, he was forced out by Paul Ryan and the Shart House, not for being a stooge, but for being an exceptionally shitty stooge. Like so many of the shitbags caught up in this mess, he got caught in a number of easily disproven lies, apparently used by a handful of morons in the executive branch to "leak" information...back to the executive branch. Don't look at me brother, figuring out why these people do the things we do is like hosting trivia night in Arkham Asylum.

Anyhow, Nunes released a feeble little statement blaming "left wing activists" or some such nonsense, which fell apart about thirteen seconds later when it was revealed he was under investigation by the ethics office (the same one the House GOP tried to drown quietly in the outhouse out back while nobody was looking, remember that?) for revealing classified information, for the TOTAL BULLSHIT REASON that...he appears to have revealed classified information. Devin Nunes was not built for high-stakes politics, friends. He was built solely for the fucking of pigs.

And we celebrated Nunes' downfall for a hot ten minutes before we realized he was just going to be replaced with stooges who wouldn't be so obvious/stupid about being stooges, i.e. are less likely to call dumb fuck press conferences where they entrap themselves for no discernible reason beyond incurable idiocy. The new chair of the investigating committee is some doorknob who said some shit about how watching a Mexican Soap Opera is basically the same thing as collaborating with a hostile foreign power to influence the American Presidential election, I don't remember his name, look it up your own damn self. (He will be assisted in his abuse of power by Trey Gowdy Doody, he of the Hundred Years War, excuse me, the Benghazi investigation. I would love to rewarded similarly for a history of failure. In that scenario, my 0-for-the-entire-fucking-season in little league would land me a multi-million dollar contract with the Yankees.)

Meanwhile the Senate went Nuclear, which, calm down, doesn't mean what you were hoping it did. There was much hemming and hawing about the ugliness of partisan politics by men and women who spent the day facilitating the ugliness of partisan politics. In the left-wing media, there was a masochistic joy in trudging up past quotes from Death Lord Of All Tortoises Mitch McConnell as proof of his hypocrisy. As if hypocrisy bothers Mitch McConnell one bit.

Let me tell y'all something very important about Mitch McConnell: he doesn't give a shit about anything but winning. He will gleefully tell you on Monday that eating sandwiches is sinful, and then when you catch him eating a big fat fucking reuben on Tuesday, he will laugh in your face as you triumphantly point out his hypocrisy.

Laugh in your face, kick you in the junk, steal your wallet, use your money to take your mom out to dinner* and fuck her in your childhood bed, and it won't bother him one tiny little bit because his job isn't "being consistent," his job is "winning" and he won this one and yeah, fuck him, but it sucks and now we just have to send his terrapin ass back to the minority for the rest of his life so he can flail helplessly on his back while we replace Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy with Rachel Maddow maybe Sarah Silverman.

*Where he orders another sandwich because fuck you that's why.

In the background there's another wave of stories about Shart House infighting. People are screaming "CUCK" at each other, Bannon's down, demoted from the National Security Council, and Kushner's up, apparently single-handedly responsible for 87% of the executive branch's duties. Why does a kid whose resume reads "got daddy's money when daddy went to jail, bought a newspaper and wrecked it" get so much responsibility? Well, because our idiot president has mad respect for the dude who gets to do the one thing he's ever wanted that he can't do, (NUDGE NUDGE FUCK HIS DAUGHTER) and therefore he's in charge of China and peace in the Middle East and reforming the government and Veterans affairs and The Vending Machines in the West Wing Don't Have Zagnuts Can We Get Some Fucking Zagnuts in There Jared and god knows what else.

And we maybe breathe a sigh of relief that Bannon's role in the administration is diminishing because this is a man who boos the ending of Schindler's List, but then you realize that the GODDAMN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED GODDAMN STATES is only swinging from white supremacy to nepotism, and you wonder why he doesn't think, "Hey, maybe try somebody with some relevant experience?" And you know that once Kushner makes a mess of everything, Il Douche is just gonna turn to Gordon Ramsey or that One Girl Who Yells at Baristas in Chicago to run the government for him.

And at this point in the day, you're getting a bit overwhelmed, so maybe you don't notice that the Yokel, I mean "Attorney" General, our President's Loyal Huntin' Dawg Beauregard, has decided to take himself a long leisurely look at all them police abuse settlements arrived at under those colored folks who previously held his office. To Ol' Beauregard, decades of rampant police abuse? Why, that ain't nuthin' atawl, an' if an unarmed black fellah gets shot every couple weeks or so in Baltimore, well, that's jus' the price of law and orduh, don' ya see, and honestly, what's one more or less black fellah, am I right?

By now, the madness has started to settle in. You're seriously thinking rubbing cake frosting all over your otherwise naked body and running around downtown throwing poop and screaming. Maybe you catch a few human interest stories. About Rachel Dolezal going to South Africa to talk about "racial transitioning." About a shocking number of iPhone users desiring a sexual relationship with Siri. About somebody making beer that tastes like Cap'n Crunch. (All of this really happened, I swear to you.)

And in the background you start to see more and more stories about Dorito Mussolini thinking about maybe starting a War of His Very Own in Syria.

And we learn that the Shart Administration is trying to force twitter to reveal (ahem, UNMASK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH OH GOD THE IRONY) of an anonymous user who has been criticizing them, which is a not-at-all-terrifying police state move, oh wait. And we find our the CIA was sounding alarm bells on the Russian interference/possible collaboration LAST SUMMER but somehow James Comey only thought the American people needed to know that Anthony Weiner's personal laptop may've contained the name, location, favorite color and Most Embarrassing High School Moment of every undercover agent in the world. And we even had a quick laugh at Spraytan Zartan bragging about having had the best first thirteen weeks in human history...eleven weeks into his term.

And then things were quiet for a couple hours.

And then the missiles started flying.

Without seeking authorization from congress, without consulting allies, without a strong/competent state department to give advice, without civilian leadership in the defense department, without a single voice in the executive branch any rational human being would consider qualified to weigh in on a decision so large, a military strike on a foreign government backed by Iran and Russia was ordered and executed.

And nobody seems to know what, precisely, is going on, what the long-term plan might be (SPOILERZ, there totally isn't one.). McCain and Graham are jubilant of course, nothing delights that duo quite so much as other people's children dying. Some folks are talking about regime change, but it doesn't seem like anybody thought making those kind of decisions was important before pushing the button.

There's a lot we don't know right now. If there were significant civilian casualties (a distressingly irrelevant factor to the military under the Shart Administration), if more strikes are coming, if there were Russian nationals on the base we hit. What happens next. And yes, in the background you wonder how much of the decision was made to distract the American populace from domestic scandals...nearly every president of my lifetime has played that card.

I confess I'm worried. Our President, as we've learned, doesn't know Shit about Shit, doesn't know what he doesn't know, doesn't care that he doesn't know, and, importantly, is infinitely persuadable. He blindly followed Bannon into the travel ban debacle, and Ryan into the health care clusterfuck. Why? Because he doesn't know Shit about Shit, and anybody who kisses his ass and tells him what a Big Boy With Big Strong Hands he is can, we have seen time and again, manipulate him into doing whatever they want him to do.

And when it comes to war? Wow. Bannon's an apocalyptic lunatic. Tillerson is hopelessly out of his depth. Mattis seems well-intentioned enough, but don't forget that there is a reason why we don't put generals in charge of the defense department, and Mattis needed a waiver to be confirmed in the first place. Priebus is sniveling toady with no stature on this turf. Kushner also doesn't know shit about shit, and early indications are that the brass is manipulating him, and like his father-in-law I don't credit him with the brains to understand he's being manipulated. The institutional GOP defers to McCain and Graham on matters of war, and again those two sprinkle the blood of young men on their breakfast cereal whenever the opportunity presents itself. And Pence of course is a hairshirt-wearing religious fanatic who'll play the role of Crusader with a crazed grin on his face.

Basically we have a bunch of malicious fools making these decisions. I wish I could find a way to laugh at all this, but I can't. Heaven help us all. 

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Our Dishonest President



It was no secret during the campaign that Donald Trump was a narcissist and a demagogue who used fear and dishonesty to appeal to the worst in American voters. The Times called him unprepared and unsuited for the job he was seeking, and said his election would be a “catastrophe.”
Still, nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck. Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.

Instead, seventy-some days in — and with about 1,400 to go before his term is completed — it is increasingly clear that those hopes were misplaced.

In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.

His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.



 
These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.

What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.


Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.

In the days ahead, The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:

1 Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based. Since Jan. 20, he has repeatedly disparaged and challenged those entities that have threatened his agenda, stoking public distrust of essential institutions in a way that undermines faith in American democracy. He has questioned the qualifications of judges and the integrity of their decisions, rather than acknowledging that even the president must submit to the rule of law. He has clashed with his own intelligence agencies, demeaned government workers and questioned the credibility of the electoral system and the Federal Reserve. He has lashed out at journalists, declaring them “enemies of the people,” rather than defending the importance of a critical, independent free press. His contempt for the rule of law and the norms of government are palpable.
2 His utter lack of regard for truth. Whether it is the easily disprovable boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd or his unsubstantiated assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, the new president regularly muddies the waters of fact and fiction. It’s difficult to know whether he actually can’t distinguish the real from the unreal — or whether he intentionally conflates the two to befuddle voters, deflect criticism and undermine the very idea of objective truth. Whatever the explanation, he is encouraging Americans to reject facts, to disrespect science, documents, nonpartisanship and the mainstream media — and instead to simply take positions on the basis of ideology and preconceived notions. This is a recipe for a divided country in which differences grow deeper and rational compromise becomes impossible.
3 His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories, racist memes and crackpot, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Again, it is not clear whether he believes them or merely uses them. But to cling to disproven “alternative” facts; to retweet racists; to make unverifiable or false statements about rigged elections and fraudulent voters; to buy into discredited conspiracy theories first floated on fringe websites and in supermarket tabloids — these are all of a piece with the Barack Obama birther claptrap that Trump was peddling years ago and which brought him to political prominence. It is deeply alarming that a president would lend the credibility of his office to ideas that have been rightly rejected by politicians from both major political parties.

Where will this end? Will Trump moderate his crazier campaign positions as time passes? Or will he provoke confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China, or disobey a judge’s order or order a soldier to violate the Constitution? Or, alternately, will the system itself — the Constitution, the courts, the permanent bureaucracy, the Congress, the Democrats, the marchers in the streets — protect us from him as he alienates more and more allies at home and abroad, steps on his own message and creates chaos at the expense of his ability to accomplish his goals? Already, Trump’s job approval rating has been hovering in the mid-30s, according to Gallup, a shockingly low level of support for a new president. And that was before his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, offered to cooperate last week with congressional investigators looking into the connection between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.



 
On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.

But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.

The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.

This is the first in a series.


Yes, Paul Ryan Actually Did Bend The Knee.

The Washington Post detailed the House GOP’s fight over the ObamaCare repeal and replacement plan this week, rounding up the dramatic details of leadership’s fight to win support for the measure.

At one point, the paper said, House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) got down on one knee to plead with Rep. Don Young of Alaska – the longest-serving Republican in Congress -- to support the bill.  (He was unsuccessful.)

The moments highlighted by the Post during the Republican conference negotiations show what a tough battle Ryan and his deputies faced in whipping the vote.

But they also show the fierce support some offered to leadership - like freshman Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who lost both legs in 2010 in Afghanistan and called on colleagues to unite behind the bill as he and his Army colleagues had done on the battlefield.

At another point, a Republican shouted, “Burn the ships” to Majority Whip Steve Scalise, invoking the command a 16th century Spanish conquistador gave his crew when they landed in Mexico.

The message was clear, the Post said –- the Republicans felt there was no turning back.

The GOP was ultimately unable to coalesce around the party’s plan and Ryan pulled the bill from the floor Friday, when it was clear it did not have the votes to pass.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Mitch McConnell Goes Down In Flames Defending His Merrick Garland Hypocrisy

How the fuck does Kentucky keep re-electing this guy?  dlevere.

By David



Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Sunday blamed the American people for the decision of Senate Republicans not to grant President Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing.

"The tradition had been not to confirm vacancies in the middle of a presidential [election] year," McConnell told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd. "You'd have to go back 80 years to find the last time it happened... Everyone knew, including President Obama's former White House counsel, that if the shoe had been on the other foot, [Democrats] wouldn't have filled a Republican president's vacancy in the middle of a presidential election."

"That's a rationale to vote against his confirmation," Todd argued. "Why not put him up for a vote? Any senator can have a rationale to not to vote for a confirmation. Why not put Merrick Garland on the floor and if the rationale is, 'You know what? Too close to an election,' then vote no?"

McConnell laughed defensively.

"Look, we litigated that last year," the Majority Leader stuttered. "The American people decided that they wanted Donald Trump to make the nomination, not Hillary Clinton."

McConnell argued that Democrats should focus on the issue at hand, the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court pick.

"There's no rational reason, no basis for voting against Neil Gorsuch," McConnell opined.

"You say it's been litigated, the Garland situation," Todd replied. "For a lot of Senate Democrats, they're not done litigating this... What was wrong with allowing Merrick Garland to have an up or down vote?"

"I already told you!" McConnell exclaimed. "You don't fill Supreme Court vacancies in the middle of a presidential election."

"Should that be the policy going forward?" Todd interrupted. "Are you prepared to pass a resolution that says in election years any Supreme Court vacancy [will not be filled] and let it be a sense of the Senate resolution, that says no Supreme Court nominations will be considered in any even numbered year? Is that where we're headed?"

"That's an absurd question," McConnell complained. "We were right in the middle of a presidential election year. Every body knew that either side -- had the shoe been on the other foot -- wouldn't have filled it. But that has nothing to do with what we're voting on this year."

White House Staff Turns On ‘Out Of His Depth’ Jared Kushner Amid Chaos And Turmoil

Kushner is arguably the president’s closest adviser.

Photo Credit: Ovidiu Hrubaru / Shutterstock.com

Thus far, in the scandal-plagued, chaotic presidency of Donald Trump, the chief executive’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has enjoyed a kind of unsinkable “privileged status.”

According to Politico, however, resentment is growing against Kushner in an already factionalized and strife-torn White House. Hardline conservatives see the moderate-minded, 36 year old Kushner as an obstacle to their agenda and worry that Kushner ally Gary Cohn — a Democrat — will pressure Kushner to steer the administration toward the middle.

Thus far, Pres. Trump has tasked his daughter’s husband — a government neophyte with no previous policy or legislative experience — with solving the crisis in the Middle East and overseeing the U.S. relationships with China, Canada and Mexico. On top of that ambitious portfolio, Kushner and Cohn this week established the White House Office of American Innovation, an initiative to modernize and streamline the operations of the federal government.

“But Kushner’s status as the big-issue guru has stoked resentment among his colleagues, who question whether Kushner is capable of following through on his various commitments,” wrote Politico’s Josh Dawsey, Kenneth P. Vogel and Alex Isenstadt. “And some colleagues complain that his dabbling in myriad issues and his tendency to walk in and out of meetings have complicated efforts to instill more order and organization into the chaotic administration. These people also say Kushner can be a shrewd self promoter, knowing how to take credit — and shirk blame — whenever it suits him.”

“He’s saving the government and the Middle East at the same time,” one administration official quipped to Politico.

Kushner is arguably the president’s closest adviser — the last person to speak to him each day and also the administration’s hatchet man. During the 2016 campaign, it fell to Kushner to fire campaign managers Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort. It was also Kushner who axed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) from the Trump transition team.

Lewandowski in particular is rumored to be pursuing a vendetta against Kushner, planting anonymous stories about the president’s son-in-law with conservative media outlets. Other campaign officials who didn’t get hired by the administration are reportedly aligned with Lewandowski and believe that Kushner is insufficiently conservative.

Far-right radio host Mark Levin has attacked Kushner before, calling him “some 32-year-old, liberal Democrat kid out of New York.” Other neoconservatives and Zionist Israel supporters said they had high hopes for Kushner because he is an Orthodox Jew and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, but thus far they say he has disappointed them.

A source told Politico that “those hopes mostly have been supplanted by ‘deep concern that Jared is not the person we thought he was — that this guy who is supposed to be good at everything is totally out of his depth.’”

Kushner himself remains breezily confident, telling associates not to fret over the Russia investigation because it “isn’t going anywhere” and assuring others that his father-in-law’s administration will get past its early stumbles.

“But if it doesn’t,” Politico said, “allies and aides say, one thing is clear: the president will surely find someone else to take the blame. And Kushner will likely be delivering the bad news.”

Kushner was the subject of Republican ire in the wake of the president’s failed healthcare bill after he and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump left Washington for a ski-trip to Aspen, CO. This week it came out that the presidential son-in-law is wanted for testimony in connection to an FBI investigation of a bank implicated in Russian money laundering.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Republican Identity Crisis

A conservative by any other name would still be confused about where they fall on the ideological spectrum in the Trump era.

About the Author

  • McKay Coppins
    McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

    These are confusing times to be a Republican.

    For the past several decades, members of the GOP have mapped the ideological range found within their party onto a fairly straightforward spectrum—one that runs from “moderate” to “conservative.” The formulation was simplistic, of course, but it provided a useful shorthand in assessing politicians, and in explaining one’s own political orientation.

    A small-government culture warrior in Arizona would be situated on the far-right end of the spectrum; a pro-choice Chamber of Commerce type in Massachusetts might place himself on the other end. And across the country, there were millions of people—from officeholders to ordinary Republican voters—who identified somewhere between those two poles.

    But with the rise of Donald Trump—and his spectrum-bending brand of populist nationalism—many longtime Republicans are now struggling to figure out where they fit in this fast-shifting philosophical landscape. In recent weeks, two prominent Republicans have told me they are sincerely struggling to explain where they fall on the ideological spectrum these days. It’s not that they’ve changed their beliefs; it’s that the old taxonomy has become incoherent.

    For example, does being an outspoken Trump critic make you a “moderate” RINO? Does it matter whether you’re criticizing him for an overly austere healthcare bill, or for reckless infrastructure spending plan? And who owns the “far right” now—is it “constitutional conservatives” like Ted Cruz, or “alt-right” white supremacists like Richard Spencer?

    When I raised these questions on a Twitter earlier this week, I was swamped with hundreds of responses and dozens of emails from longtime Republicans who described feeling like they are lost inside their own homes.

    Some, like Jordan Team from Washington, D.C., related how their attempts at explaining their personal politics have devolved into a kind of absurdist comedy:
    I've always identified as a more moderate R - even "establishment Republican", if you will. I usually always use "moderate" or "Establishment" when saying I'm a Republican to separate myself from more hard-line Tea Party Freedom Caucus conservatives.
    These days, however, I feel like it requires even further explanation to separate myself from the nationalism/populism that Trump & team espouse, since they're all now technically Republicans. Usually it's something super catchy & brief along the lines of: "I'm a moderate Republican - or at least, have been one, not really sure that that means anymore - but I don't support Trump or populism - I'm traditionally conservative"  And even that doesn't always get the point across. I think the easiest when trying to have a conversation with someone is a two step process. Step 1: "I'm a Republican but don't like Trump," and then if the convo keeps going/they know politics/they're interested, there's step 2: "I'm more moderate/establishment than Tea Party/Freedom Caucus".
    Other people, meanwhile, shared more tragic testimonials. “I feel honestly like a part of my identity was stolen,” wrote Alycia Kuehne, a conservative Christian from Dallas, Texas.
    But virtually everyone who wrote to me shared a common complaint: The traditional “Left ↔ Right” spectrum used to describe and categorize Republicans has become obsolete in the age of Trump. The question now is what to replace it with.

    To provoke interesting answers, I asked people who wrote to me to imagine the Republican voter who is furthest from themselves—be it ideologically, philosophically, or attitudinally—and then to answer the question: What is the most meaningful difference between you and that person?

    The proposed spectrums that emerged from their responses—some of which I’ve included below—are not meant to be peer-reviewed by political scientists. But they offer new, and potentially more useful, ways to map the emerging fault lines that now divide the American right.

    LIBERTARIAN ↔ AUTHORITARIAN: One of the most common responses I received from Republicans argued that the party could be divided between authoritarians (who tend to gravitate toward Trump) and libertarians (who are generally repelled by his strong-man instincts). In an email that was typical of several I received, Aaron L. M. Goodwin, from California, wrote:
    I grew up in a pretty conservative household. We were home-schooled Mormons. We listened to conservative talk radio. I was the only 10 year old I knew of who loved to watch C-Span. These days I feel completely alienated from the GOP. But, I don't feel like I'm the one who sold out. So where does that leave me?

    I believe the conservative/liberal spectrum has been overtaken by one for democratic/authoritarian ... Most of the Republicans I still feel some kinship with are from a multitude of ideologies, but they share an ideology based on classical liberal democracy. We all share a deep-seeded suspicion of rule by power, and I believe, are closer to the original intent of our founding documents.
    GRIEVANCE-MOTIVATED ↔ PHILOSOPHICALLY MOTIVATED:  Liz Mair, a libertarian-leaning GOP strategist, wrote that she’s been convinced after “300 gazillion conversations with all sorts of conservatives”—including a range of lawmakers, writers, pundits, candidates, and grassroots-level activists—that the biggest division within the party is one that separates Fox News-a-holics driven by tribal grievance from people who have some kind of philosophically rooted belief system: 
    I honestly think the split in conservatism comes more down to philosophy versus identity politics than anything. Are you opposed to things on philosophical or tribal grounds? Are you a believer of a member of our clan? (Said in the Scottish sense) ...
    I bet if you polled Trump primary voters and asked them what was the bigger problem—insufficiently limited government or transgender Muslim feminists being celebrated at the Oscars, a big majority would say the latter.
    ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT ↔ ESTABLISHMENT: The outsider/insider trope is well-worn in contemporary conservative politics—so much so that you could argue the terms have lost their meaning. But based on the emails I received, many Republicans (on both ends of the spectrum) still view the party through that lens. On one end are people who respect existing political institutions, and believe in conforming to their norms and using the system to advance their agenda. On other end of this spectrum are people who believe the establishment is hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual, and that it should be circumvented whenever possible.
    The flaw in this formulation, it seems to me, is that virtually every Republican who has entered Congress over the past eight years started out on the anti-establishment end of the spectrum, and then slid—involuntarily, perhaps, but inevitably—toward the establishment end. That’s because, as Stephen Spiker from Virginia emailed, once you run for office and win, you necessarily become a part of the system, an insider:
    I see many colleagues in the party taken in by the "establishment vs anti-establishment" spectrum. Essentially populism, as the anti-establishment folks are "burn it down" because they don't feel represented and want a fighter. That lead to Dave Brat winning in 2014, and Trump winning in 2016.
    Now that its Trump vs Brat, you're going to see the inherent decay in this school of thought: the anti-establishment crowd turning on their former heroes like Dave Brat (as they turned on Cantor previously). He's in Congress, he's an insider, he's standing in the way, etc.
    It will eventually turn on Trump as well, as he falls short on goal after goal. When it happens (as in, before or after Trump is out of office) is always dependent on having the right person run at the right time on the right message, but it will happen.
    Most notable about the anti-establishment position is that there's no consistent end game or policy goal. It exists for the sake of itself. That's what frustrates folks who actually have firm ideological stances.
    ABSOLUTISTS  ↔ DEALMAKERS:  Many of the most high-profile intra-party battles in recent years have been fought not over ideas, but tactics and a willingness to compromise. While Republicans in Washington were essentially unanimous in their opposition to President Obama’s agenda, they differed—at least at first—over whether they should cut deals at the legislative bargaining table, or, say, shut the government down until they got exactly what they wanted. The absolutists largely won out during the Obama presidency—but what about now?

    On one end of this spectrum are people like the Freedom Caucus purists from whom it is all but impossible to extract concessions; on the other are the dealmakers who will compromise virtually anything to get some kind of legislation passed.
    Several Republicans who wrote to me were, I think, circling this idea, which my colleague Conor Friedersdorf recently articulated:
    Do populist Republicans want a federal government where politicians stand on principle and refuse to compromise? Or do they want a pragmatist to make fabulous deals?
    … Is a GOP House member more likely to be punished in a primary for thwarting a Donald Trump deal … or compromising to make a deal happen? Were I the political consultant for an ambitious primary candidate in a safe Republican district, I can imagine a successful challenge regardless of what course the incumbent chose, voters having been primed to respond to either critique.
    OPEN/TOLERANT ↔ NATIVIST/RACIST: This is the probably the most provocative construct that was proposed, but it was also a popular one. For many Trump-averse Republicans, one of the biggest perceived differences between themselves and hardcore Trump fans is attitudes toward racial minorities and foreign immigrants. The alt-right dominates one end of the spectrum—and they place themselves on the polar opposite end.

    Granted, this spectrum was not proposed to me by any Trump supporters, and no doubt many of them would strongly disagree with this categorization. But there’s no question it’s one of the defining debates inside the party right now. Evan McMullin, a conservative who ran for president last year under the #NeverTrump banner, was quoted saying that racism is the single biggest problem with the party today.
    * * *
    This is, of course, by no means a comprehensive list of the divisions within the GOP. For example, one of the most talked-about conflicts to emerge in the past year has been between “nationalism” and “globalism.” But despite efforts by Steve Bannon and other Trump advisers to frame the ideological debate that way, very few GOP voters—at least none who wrote to me—identify as “globalists.” Instead, these new spectrums represent a few of the ways in which Republicans—eager to escape the disorder and confusion of the Trump era—are categorizing themselves and each other.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Majority Want Trump To Resign If His Campaign Colluded With Russia

If the Trump campaign worked with Russia to sway the 2016 election, the American people want the president to start packing his bags.

By Sean Colarossi

If it turns out that Donald Trump’s campaign did, indeed, work with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton in last fall’s presidential election, a majority of the country – 53 percent – thinks the president should resign.

According to the explosive new poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which debuted Wednesday night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the American people said – by a 14-point margin – that Trump should step down if there was collusion.



Another result revealed on Maddow’s program found that a plurality of the country believes Trump’s campaign did, in fact, work with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor.

If you’re keeping score at home: The American people think both that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia and that the president should resign as a result.

While there is endless political polling released on a weekly basis asking about hypothetical scenarios, what should be terrifying to the White House is that the explosive Russia scandal is just one more investigation or one more small piece of evidence away from making the questions posed in the PPP survey a reality.

At that point, the president will have to face a country that doesn’t just believe he isn’t doing a good job, as polls repeatedly suggest, but also that he should no longer have the job at all.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The Trump Diaries


DNC just asked all its staffers to resign

By Tyler Durden

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who took over as the chair of the Democratic National Committee in late February following Hillary's stunning November defeat, has asked for his entire staff to submit their resignation letters by no later than April 15th.

Of course, the move comes after a series of scandals plagued the DNC throughout the 2016 election cycle, including rather undeniable evidence that former Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz intentionally undermined the campaign of Bernie Sanders while her replacement, Donna Brazile, seemingly did the same by passing Hillary's team debate questions in advance of Town Hall discussions with Bernie.
 
According to NBC, Tom Perez decided to clean house at the DNC shortly after taking over the leadership role from Donna Brazile and will use the mass firing as an opportunity to restructure how the party will be run going forward. 
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has launched a major reshuffling of the party's organization that has been stung by recent crisis — and the DNC has requested the resignation letters of all current staffers be submitted by next month.

Party staff routinely see major turnover with a new boss and staffers were alerted earlier to expect such a move. However, the mass resignation letters will give Perez a chance to completely remake the DNC's headquarters from scratch. Staffing had already reached unusual lows following a round of layoffs in December.

Immediately after Perez' election in late February, an adviser to outgoing DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation dated April 15, according to multiple sources familiar with the party's internal working.

A committee advising Perez on his transition is now interviewing staff and others as part of a top-to-bottom review process to help decide not only who will stay and who will go, but how the party should be structured in the future.
Back in late February, Perez appeared on Meet the Press to tell Chuck Todd that he would look to implement a "culture change" at the DNC before comparing his own party to a busted plane traveling at 20,000 feet.
Perez has spent his first weeks on the job in "active listening mode," hearing from Democrats in Washington and in small group meetings across the country before making any big moves.

"What we're trying to do is culture change," he told NBC News between stops of a listening tour in Michigan Friday. "We're repairing a plane at 20,000 feet. You can't land the plane, shut it down, and close it until further notice."

"If your goal is you have to please everyone then you end up pleasing no one," he added.
 We're still awaiting confirmation from Rachel Maddow that this mass firing came after the discovery that the DNC was infiltrated by Russian spies coordinating with the Trump campaign.

Bill O'Reilly: Black Congresswoman Has "James Brown Wig"

Conservative pundits have a history of racist disparagement of black women. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.



"Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday he "didn't hear a word" Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said during recent comments on the House floor because he was focused on "the James Brown wig."

"I love her. Maxine Waters should have her own sitcom," "The O'Reilly Factor" host joked on "Fox & Friends" when asked about the longtime congresswoman questioning the patriotism of President Trump's supporters in a speech on Monday.

"People get angry with Maxine Waters. I want more of it," he said.

O'Reilly was then shown a clip of Waters saying Trump supporters "turned a blind eye to the destruction" the president was "about to cause the country.””*

Read more here: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/326107-oreilly-mocks-maxine-waters-for-wearing-james-brown-wig

Hosts: Cenk Uygur
Cast: Cenk Uygur

Maxine Waters Delivers Epic Smackdown Of Fox News After Bill O’Reilly’s Racist Attack

"Don't allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are, do what you do."

Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters delivered an epic smackdown of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night, following O’Reilly’s racist attack against the representative on Tuesday’s edition of Fox & Friends.

The controversy started this morning when O’Reilly was asked to respond to a clip of Waters speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, and he said this: “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig.”

While O’Reilly faced bipartisan outrage after making the comments and eventually was forced to apologize, Waters seemed unfazed when she appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes and issued a brutal takedown of O’Reilly and Fox News as a whole.

Video:



Waters said to women everywhere:

Don’t allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are, do what you do. And let us get on with discussing the real issues of this country. Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes have no credibility. They have been sued by women. They have had to pay millions out in fines for harassment and other kinds of things, and so we know about that checkered past. 

After that epic takedown of Fox, Waters showed that she had no intention of dwelling on it and said, “I’m not going to be put down, I’m not going to go anywhere – I’m going to stay on the issues.”

Waters said it’s more important to get to the bottom of Trump’s ties to Russia.

“We have a president of the United States who’s wrapped his arms around Putin and Russia and the Kremlin, and I believe that if we do credible investigations…that they will find that there was collusion,” she said.

The Democratic congresswoman went to lay out some of the ways the president is already damaging the United States’ reputation around the world and hurting the American people.

“This president has come into this office, he’s disrespected our allies across the world. He has tried to dismantle comprehensive health care for everybody under Obamacare. This is a president who won’t even show his taxes,” she said.

The attacks on her, Waters concluded, are used by the president and his supporters to distract from the real issues.

“When you talk about them, when you pin them down, when you’re able to unveil all that they’re doing, they’ll try to shut you down. I am not going anywhere. I’m going to stay on message,” Waters said. “I’m going to fight for the people of this country. I’m going to fight for comprehensive health care. And I don’t care what Bill O’Reilly or Ailes or Trump or any of them, we have a responsibility as elected officials to do good public policy in the best interest of all the people.”

Instead of stooping to the level of those waging racist attacks against her, Waters handled the controversy with grace and urged the media and the American people to stay focused on the issues.

As former First Lady Michelle Obama famously said, “When they go low, we go high.”

In the face of despicable attacks on Tuesday, Maxine Waters went high.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Trump's Fool On The Hill: Devin Nunes Is Making A Mockery Of The Russia Investigation

The House Intelligence Committee Chairman has proven himself hapless or worse. 
 

Trump could learn a lot from his mistakes. He won’t.

Opinion writer
Last week’s health-care fiasco could end up being a positive experience for President Trump if he learns a few obvious lessons. Spoiler alert: He won’t.

The first thing that should dawn on Trump is that the warring Republican factions in Congress have multiple agendas, none of which remotely resembles his own. This is why the bill that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was forced to withdraw on Friday — the abominable American Health Care Act — made such a cruel mockery of Trump’s expansive campaign promises.

A “populist” president who promised health insurance “for everybody” ended up supporting legislation that would have taken away coverage from 24 million people. Many, if not most, of the victims would have been working-class voters — the “forgotten Americans” Trump claimed to champion. Now that he has time, maybe he will actually read the bill (or have someone summarize it for him) and realize how truly awful it was.

You don’t have to be a policy wonk to recognize that replacing income-based subsidies with less generous across-the-board tax credits would mean a net transfer of resources from poorer people to wealthier people. That’s just fine with Ryan and the “mainstream” House Republicans who hung in there with legislation that Ronald Reagan or even Barry Goldwater would have considered extreme.

For members of the Freedom Caucus, however, the bill didn’t go nearly far enough. They wanted to strip away the requirement that health insurance policies cover eventualities such as maternity, hospitalization, emergency care, mental illness — basically, all the reasons anyone would need insurance in the first place. These ultra-radicals believe health care is like any other product and the free market should be allowed to work its magic. To them, it’s irrelevant that the question is not who buys the latest flat-screen television and who doesn’t, but who lives and who dies.

As Trump lobbied House Republicans to support the AHCA, according to The Post, he kept asking aides, “Is this really a good bill?” They assured him it was, but on some level, he must have known the truth was an emphatic no. What happened to those fabled Trumpian instincts?

The president let himself be convinced by Ryan that health care would be an easy win. That should make him wary of going down another garden path with a speaker who can’t even marshal his own chamber, let alone produce important legislation with a chance of making it through the Senate. Yet Trump seems ready to make the same mistake with tax reform.

Note to the president: If Ryan is saying “trust me on this one,” don’t.

The same dynamic is shaping up. House Republicans will all agree on tax cuts, just as they all agreed that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed. The Freedom Caucus, which can only be emboldened by its recent triumph, will make extreme demands. Ryan will accommodate many of them. The end result will be legislation that is more about ideology than policy. The wealthy will benefit enormously, the middle class hardly at all, and the working class will suffer.

Such a bill could never win 60 votes in the Senate. Only more modest changes that don’t balloon the deficit qualify for the “reconciliation” process under which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can pass legislation by simple majority — and if just three Republicans balk, even such a limited bill would fail.

Trump should wonder why someone on his staff isn’t explaining all of this to him and trying to come up with an appropriate strategy. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and budget director Mick Mulvaney were supposed to know how to get things done in Washington. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon reportedly tried to bully Freedom Caucus members, who instead seem to have stiffened their resolve. Advisers Jared Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, went skiing.

Meanwhile, Trump’s approval, as measured by Gallup, stood Monday at 36 percent — a stunning new low. The financial markets seem a bit shaky as investors worry about the administration’s competence. If this were a business, the chief executive would be reading up on Chapter 11.

During the campaign, Trump was nothing if not headstrong. Yet in office he has let others lead — and is getting nowhere. He could still change course. He could get rid of the sycophantic aides who spend so much time blaming each other. He could focus on parts of his agenda, such as infrastructure, that have popular support, including among Democrats.

But that would mean acknowledging his mistakes thus far. Don’t hold your breath.

Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.

CNN panel erupts after Republican guest claims Russian interference is no big deal

By Erin Corbett

A Monday night Don Lemon panel got heated over the continued questions over whether or not Russia tampered with the US 2016 presidential election.

Republican Betsy McCaughey started by saying it is “shameful” that the Democratic party is attempting “to taint, to smear Devin Nunes … who has done something very import for this country, not just for the Trump administration or the Republican party,” in his push to apparently unmask the Washington establishment’s efforts to “undermine the effectiveness of the Trump administration.”

Lemon asked her, “You have no problem with him going to the White House first ahead of his committee?”

CNN Political Commentator, Alice Stewart pointed out that in his position, Nunes’ role “first and foremost is to notify your colleagues in your committee, Democrats and Republicans.” Lemon clarified this is “because the evidence doesn’t change no matter who you take it to.”

Ana Navarro noted that Nunes “actually apologized to his colleagues in the committee for having sidestepped them and gone instead to President Trump. Perception matters with this, and it matters because we’re talking about something that is the pillar of our democracy.”

She argued, “if I were a Trump supporter — which clearly I’m not, America, as you well know — I would want an investigation above the board in every aspect so they can finally get this monkey off their back.

Navarro explained that it’s time for Republicans to question whether Nunes’ is able to conduct “a full and fair investigation because Americans watching this are going to wonder if Republicans, who are in charge, are capable of doing this and if they’re not, they’re going to take it out in the ballot box.”

She added that Americans might not necessarily take it out on Nunes, “but certainly against some Republicans in very marginal, tight district races.”

She later went head to head with McCaughey, who claimed that foreign governments attempting to influence US public opinion in an election is nothing new, and that there’s a distinction between “tampering with an election” and “interfering with public opinion.”

The latter is fine, according to McCaughey and somehow is different than tampering with the results.

She argued that releasing the emails of the Clinton campaign was not tampering with the election results because it wasn’t messing directly with ballot boxes.

Lemon cut in, “How does that have nothing to do with tampering with the election?”

Watch the full clip below.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Dear Donald, you were just played for a sucker

Donald, This I Will Tell You




Donald, you said you could shake up Washington and make it work again. Instead, you’re the one who got worked over. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Dear Donald,

We’ve known each other a long time, so I think I can be blunt.

You know how you said at campaign rallies that you did not like being identified as a politician?

Don’t worry. No one will ever mistake you for a politician.

After this past week, they won’t even mistake you for a top-notch negotiator.

I was born here. The first image in my memory bank is the Capitol, all lit up at night. And my primary observation about Washington is this: Unless you’re careful, you end up turning into what you started out scorning.

And you, Donald, are getting a reputation as a sucker. And worse, a sucker who is a tool of the D.C. establishment.

Your whole campaign was mocking your rivals and the D.C. elite, jawing about how Americans had turned into losers, with our bad deals and open borders and the Obamacare “disaster.”

And you were going to fly in on your gilded plane and fix all that in a snap.

You mused that a good role model would be Ronald Reagan. As you saw it, Reagan was a big, good-looking guy with a famous pompadour; he had also been a Democrat and an entertainer. But Reagan had one key quality that you don’t have: He knew what he didn’t know.

You both resembled Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, floating above the nitty-gritty and focusing on a few big thoughts. But President Reagan was confident enough to accept that he needed experts below, deftly maneuvering the strings.

You’re just careering around on your own, crashing into buildings and losing altitude, growling at the cameras and spewing nasty conspiracy theories, instead of offering a sunny smile, bipartisanship, optimism and professionalism.

You promised to get the best people around you in the White House, the best of the best. In fact, “best” is one of your favorite words.

Instead, you dragged that motley skeleton crew into the White House and let them create a feuding, leaking, belligerent, conspiratorial, sycophantic atmosphere. Instead of a smooth, classy operator like James Baker, you have a Manichean anarchist in Steve Bannon.

You knew the Republicans were full of hot air. They haven’t had to pass anything in a long time, and they have no aptitude for governing. To paraphrase an old Barney Frank line, asking the Republicans to govern is like asking Frank to judge the Miss America contest — “If your heart’s not in it, you don’t do a very good job.”

You knew that Paul Ryan’s vaunted reputation as a policy wonk was fake news. Republicans have been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years and they never even bothered to come up with a valid alternative.

And neither did you, despite all your promises to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” because you wanted everyone to be covered.

Instead, you sold the D.O.A. bill the Irish undertaker gave you as though it were a luxury condo, ignoring the fact that it was a cruel flimflam, a huge tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill. 

You were so concerned with the “win” that you forgot your “forgotten” Americans, the older, poorer people in rural areas who would be hurt by the bill.

As The Times’s chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse put it, the G.O.P. falls into clover with a lock on the White House and both houses of Congress, and what’s the first thing it does? Slip on a banana peel. Incompetence Inc.

“They tried to sweeten the deal at the end by offering a more expensive bill with fewer health benefits, but alas, it wasn’t enough!” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau slyly tweeted.

Despite the best efforts of Bannon to act as though the whole fiasco was a clever way to bury Ryan — a man he disdains as “the embodiment of the ‘globalist-corporatist’ Republican elite,” as Gabriel Sherman put it in New York magazine — it won’t work.

And you can jump on the phone with The Times’s Maggie Haberman and The Washington Post’s Robert Costa — ignoring that you’ve labeled them the “fake media” — and act like you’re in control.

You can say that people should have waited for “Phase 2” and “Phase 3” — whatever they would have been — and that Obamacare is going to explode and that the Democrats are going to get the blame. But it doesn’t work that way. You own it now.

You’re all about flashy marketing so you didn’t notice that the bill was junk, so lame that even Republicans skittered away.

You were humiliated right out of the chute by the establishment guys who hooked you into their agenda — a massive transfer of wealth to rich people — and drew you away from your own.

You sold yourself as the businessman who could shake things up and make Washington work again.

Instead, you got worked over by the Republican leadership and the business community, who set you up to do their bidding.

That’s why they’re putting up with all your craziness about Russia and wiretapping and unending lies and rattling our allies.

They’re counting on you being a delusional dupe who didn’t even know what was in the bill because you’re sitting around in a bathrobe getting your information from wackadoodles on Fox News and then, as The Post reported, peppering aides with the query, “Is this really a good bill?”

You got played.

It took W. years to smash everything. You’re way ahead of schedule.

And I can say you’re doing badly, because I’m a columnist, and you’re not. Say hello to everybody, O.K.?

Sincerely, Maureen