StrangeSox

How the Conservative Media Became Trump’s Lapdogs from a former senior staffer of Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz

Earlier today, the White House sent out an email recommending this piece: Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why To give just a taste:

Trump supporters love Obamacare so much they think it's Trump's plan.

House has scheduled the vote for this admoniation of a bill for next Thursday. House Freedom Caucus still opposes it. https://twitter.com/freedomcaucus/status/842763614004109314 I have to give credit to McConnell for somehow always being able to duck these s***storms. Even during the campaign, the stories were always about Ryan's on-again, off-again relationship with Trump. He'll dodge another big bullet if this thing fails in the House. e: I guess they're now talking about editing the bill to block-grant Medicaid (i.e. substantial long-term funding cuts) and add a work requirement to the program (unemployed? no healthcare for you!) to appeal to the House Death Cult Freedom Caucus. This will make it that much harder to pass in the Senate, though.

He also has his own private security team. http://prospect.org/article/trump%E2%80%99...and-legal-swamp There are a ton of logistical issues and it's still the SS that's tasked with keeping the President safe though.

This doesn't include the tens of millions of dollars its costing to have Melania live in a golden tower in New York City edit: when was the last time that Trump even saw his wife that he very clearly hates and his son he's had basically nothing to do with ever?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tiller...7e2a_story.html Tillerson only allowed one "journalist" from a rightwing conspiracy (IJR) website to accompany him on this trip. His department is also being knee-capped by the White House and he seems far too weak and incapable to push back and assert State's role in foreign policy. edit: Tillerson also cut his visit short because of "fatigue." Low energy. Sad!

My little brother follows that stuff, but I blame it on smoking entirely too much pot. I'm not sure how much he's still into it since he hasn't brought it up in a few years (this topic of discussion is banned at my parents' house because he drove my mom crazy with that stuff for years) At least some portion of what Jones does is him being an entertainer and being self-aware of that, but he also absolutely believes in tons of crazy things. Funny to see him flip from being "FIGHT THE NWO!" forever to "GOVERNMENT GOOD!" once Trump was elected.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 17, 2017 -> 07:12 AM) --IRS had nothing to do with surveillance - at worst it was more audits to make people's lives more difficult. But also there was never any evidence of Obama or his cabinet or inner circle having anything to do with it. --Not touching Merkel because again, we are talking domestic surveillance here which is a very different thing. --As for the AP and Rosen stuff that actually was surveillance, those were investigations via the FBI that went through all the legal channels and were approved. So again, no evidence of anything at all in the way of illegal surveillance. The idea that a President would do what Trump is accusing Obama of doing is beyond anything since Watergate. Did you seriously try to make the case that one instance of COURT-APPROVED surveillance (the AP/Rosen stuff) is somehow worse than Nixon's illegal spying? Do the courts and the system not even matter to you? If you want to discuss that the law should change to make it harder to get warrants, that's a different discussion. But the facts are quite clear here, there is no evidence of per se illegal (outside the process) domestic surveillance on Obama's part or Bush's part for that matter. The White House had to formally apologize to Britain today for trying to accuse them of colluding with Obama in spying on Trump. I really don't get why people bring up "BUT WE SPIED ON MERKEL!" as proof of anything. It seems like it'd be a dereliction of duty if a country wasn't keeping tabs on foreign leaders both friendly and otherwise. I'm sure Germany etc. have espionage efforts against the US. The rest of this stuff was just an irrelevant Gish Gallop to try to somehow prove that Trump's completely unfounded and very serious claims based on rightwing media wasn't insane.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 16, 2017 -> 03:25 PM) You didn't hear too much about Russia once Trump threw out the wiretapping claim. He's a lying fool, but his methods work. Now he's saying wiretapping means a lot of things. He specifically tweeted his phones were wire tapped. Senate starts hearings next Monday. Things move at an incredible pace in Trumpworld, but these sorts of things usually take time to unfold anyway.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2017 -> 03:15 PM) Yeah those are quite ridiculous. They cost so little, and do so much good. This administration is exceedingly good at shooting itself in the foot. Forgetting the moral argument for a moment, it makes them look like goons and will work AGAINST the people who voted for him in poor rural areas. Sure, but to be fair to the WH this is also the stated agenda of the Tea Party/hard line conservatives poor rural areas keep electing in droves. Some more video from that press conference: The White House is actually arguing that cutting funding for Meals on Wheels is the compassionate thing to do. Seriously. Mulvaney: No evidence that after-school programs to help kids get fed improves performance. (this is not true) This is deliberate and willful cruelty.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 16, 2017 -> 03:14 PM) There is nothing insane about claiming the Obama administration was surveiling anyone. That's par for the course for them. As for Trump saying things without evidence and getting called on it, what's at stake here? Nothing but Donald's ego. I don't care about his ego. Claiming that Obama was wiretapping Trump personally and that it was worse than Watergate based on no more evidence than some idiot on Fox News saying so is absolutely an insane thing for the President of the United States to do.

They're also bragging about cutting Meals for Wheels and after school programs for needy children in the same budget they're demanding billions for increased military spending and for the stupid wall.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2017 -> 02:20 PM) I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of poking that beast. I am not against a new track, but Tillerson is basically saying that things will now be escalated militarily. That's the signal he's sending. And there is a metric f***ton of risk in doing that. I'd love to see the full text on that. Where did you read it? Or see it? The whole interview was nuts, but here's that part in particular: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/842209771457462272 Another good section (transcript): https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/842196143727607809

Uh... Tillerson says diplomacy with North Korea has ‘failed’; Pyongyang warns of war

More details have emerged on Flynn's Russian payments

Trump appointed his fifth Goldman Sachs guy to his administration yesterday.

I remember when the right wing got super upset about Michelle Obama taking a vacation to Europe and how it was costing so many of ARE TAX DOLLARS!

If you want to see the Great Barrier Reef, make plans to do so in the next year or two because it's dying rapidly. Large Sections of Australia’s Great Reef Are Now Dead, Scientists Find Much of the ocean is already struggling to cope with the increased acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

EXCLUSIVE: Nazi-Allied Group Claims Top Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka As Sworn Member

Congress has already more or less told the WH where they can shove that budget. Republicans may be happy to gut the EPA, but they're not going to neuter the State department. e.g. and several Congressional R's have expressed "concerns" over various parts of the budget including Senate Majority Leader McConnell questioning the wisdom of cutting the hell out of 'soft power' i.e. State and foreign aid programs.

In between his busy schedule of golfing and going to his private club in Florida, he's said he's going to be holding biweekly campaign rallies.

By the way, we technically hit the debt ceiling tomorrow. I think they can implement "extraordinary measures" through the summer, but Congress and the White House will need to do something this year to ensure we don't default and send the world economy into a tailspin.

Freedom Caucus going full obstructionist against the ahca, think they have 50-70 Republican votes to block. https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/8421674...src=twsrc%5Etfw