LOL!
Most of the president's tweets in the past two days have been retweets of stuff he saw on FOX TV (10 tweets in all) plus four comments about what he saw.
During the same 48 hours, he complained about Democrats three times, commented twice on the appropriateness of Ivanka sitting in his chair at the G20, and offered condolences to the family of Marines killed in a plane crash. He also twice claimed big wins against ISIS, says he is working hard to get the Olympics for LA, and seems to take credit for opening the beef market with China.
There is pitifully little commentary on issues of real interest to the nation. Nothing specific about health care. Nothing about DeVos's move to reneg on student loan relief for students who got ripped off by private colleges. Nothing about the opioid epidemic. Nothing about international concerns with the growing number of cholera cases. Nothing about wildfires out West. Nothing about infrastructure.
Does this man even live in the same country as me?
There is no evidence that Trump is in any way engaged with the political process except at the level of casting aspersions on his enemies and defending himself and his family from criticism.
For those who can stand it, the Fox retweets are after the break.
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HRC mishandles and destroys classified info-NO PROBLEM! Pay/play on Uranium one NO PROBLEM! Lynch BC tarmac: it's a "matter" NO PROBLEM
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Head of the NYPD union slams Mayor de Blasio for skipping vigil for assassinated cop Miosotis Familia
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Who knew being president was so boring and low maintenance!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Getting the job done"?!!? That would be the repeal and replace, or maybe just repeal, or maybe nothing to see here, or maybe Addison Mitchell McConnell's Waterloo -- have we mentioned that McConnell is accounted a great legislative genius?
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember the fantasist promising a r&r bill on the day his HEW secretary was confirmed or, if not on that day, by the end of that week because it was all ready to go and it was beautiful. He is still holding HRC to account for what Hannity imagines she must have done, but no one holds him to account for the content of his fantasies. We all happily go on to gasping at his next one.
Talked to a visitor from Germany. As part of his business dealings, he visits Georgia and Texas. In conversation with business associates from that region before THE election, they told him they didn't care if Trump WAS an idiot, they couldn't vote for Hillary. I don't think this level of hate for HRC is justifiable and piggybacks on misogyny using Fox Nooz propaganda. But, from a political strategy standpoint, it was there, personal animus. For that reason, I think Warren or Sanders would have been better candidates, along with their being perceived as more sincerely progressive and populist.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure misogyny was a factor. However there's more to it than that. Some of my sister-in-law's family are from Arkansas. Not everyone has fond memories of the Clintons. There were some shenanigans, and we'll just say they didn't leave a memory of sterling irreproachability, either at the state level, or during Bill's presidency. I believe people cared less about the hanky panky with interns than they did some of the other stuff, perceived or real. I think you are right that Warren or Sanders would have been better. Of course many don't see the irony of voting for Trump because they thought the Clintons were shady.
DeleteI think we have to stop blaming losing the election on the DNC or on the Democratic candidate. She won the popular vote. If there's someone to blame, it's the jerks who voted for Trump even knowing what a monster he was but only caring about getting more for themselves.
ReplyDeleteTHe Trump campaign was shrewder than Robbie Mook's campaign. HRC didn't bother with areas that she thought she had it sewed up and that nonsense cost here the Electoral College vote. And those votes are what elected Trumplethinskintinyhands, not the popular vote.
DeleteCrystal, sorry, but if we hope to recover from the Repub apocalypse, we'll have to figure out how to get the needed votes of jerks. To me, the DNC is out of touch.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe we need to lose the idea that everyone who voted for Trump are jerks. There were mixed reasons for doing so. I live in a red state. I can count on my fingers, without running out of them, the people I know who didn't vote for Trump. I'd be in a sorry way if basically everyone I come into contact with was a jerk. Unfortunately the perceived culture war played a big part in this. Some people really believe that you can't be a good Christian and vote Democrat, the way things presently stand. The Dems have a big religion problem. I would like to see both sides forget about the hot button culture war issues for awhile and focus on things government can really do something about, such as health care reform, economic equality, and a coherent foreign policy, to name a few.
DeleteHow should the Dem party get the votes of jerks ..... become a copy of the Republican party?
ReplyDeleteThis is like relationships. You can't get people to love you by finding out what they want and portraying that. You have to be yourself, the best and most authentic self you can be, and hope that someone out there will be able to love you for what you really are. Anything else will eventually fail.
An authentic populist untarnished by Wall Street might do it. I don't have to love someone to vote for them. Defending the DNC after this last election reminds me of the joke about an epitaph on a tombstone, "He had the right of way."
ReplyDeleteWall Street doesn't seem very important. Trump has appointed Goldman Sachs guys to his administration. What seems to matter is health care for all, protecting the environment, civil rights. Those are things the present Democratic party is trying to do.
ReplyDeleteI consider Wall Street to be effectively the capital of the US. The percentage of the economy that is financial has grown to 40%. That is ridiculous and the resultant wealth concentration is a democracy killer. To ignore this is almost as bad as ignoring climate change. All the things you care about, Crystal, cannot be fixed in a dysfunctional economy.
ReplyDeleteBut all these things are interconnected. What Bernie didn't understand when he supported a pro-life candidate is that the ability to decide if and when you have kids has a huge economic impact on women and also on society.
DeletePolitics is not for purists, and it's nothing like a love affair, in my experience.
ReplyDeleteI think Katherine is absolutely right that the Democrats have a religion problem. Democrats must let in pro-life candidates and stop making reproductive rights and other controversies a litmus test.
Back in the 1980s, every Democrat in the Upper Peninsula was a pro-life Catholic. This was an issue on which Democrats agreed to disagree. I covered most of these people as a reporter, and this was something individuals could discuss civilly.
Democrats have been duped by the religious right into entrenching their position on gay rights, abortion, and feminism unto such radical grooves that they have alienated half their former base.
Pat Robertson and his goons who purport to speak for God are laughing up their gold cufflinked sleeves at the party's disarray.
Jean....yes, duped Democrats...heads in the sand etc.
ReplyDeleteAm I right in remembering that Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan helped forged the compromise that passed the ACA, and then got attacked by the Democrats who cared more about abortion than about health-care legislation?
Yes, Stupak got attacked on all sides--by pro-choicers who thought he was pushing a religious agenda AND by pro-lifers who believed he was a sell-out.
ReplyDeleteHe got quite a lot of personal harassment from nut jobs on both sides. He left office after that debacle.
Stupak's district has changed hands twice since he left, both times to Republicans.
What happened to Stupak is an example of our bipolar disorder. If you try to bridge the gap, both sides hate on you.
DeleteJean ... nooooo! ;)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the Democrats are just as religious as the Republicans, they just are not conservatives. Hillary is a Methodist, Adam Schiff is Jewish. Most people who are religious are actually pro-choice, not pro-life. A majority of Catholics, for instance, are pro-choice.
Second, Democrats support the civil rights of women and abortion is one of those rights, as decided by the Supreme Court. There is no way the Democratic party will ever officially become pro-life because pro-life means taking away women's rights. Did you see what happened when pro-life groups wanted to be official partners of the women's march? Did you see what happened when Bernie supported a pro-life candidate in an election? If the DNC poops on women, they will truly be doomed.
The thing with the women's march and Bernie being chastised for supporting a candidate who was insufficiently pro-abortion (the official pro-life wouldn't claim him) was all about a political litmus test. The toxic political culture keeps on being toxic. So we have Trump for a president.
DeleteThe two parties have always been polarized over issues. Imagine the polarization over slavery, over the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement. Who would have said back then that the Democratic party should have caved on its positions just in order to get more votes? Principles matter more than votes.
DeleteBut the pro-life thing is a false issues anyway - it isn't abortion that is polarizing the parties. A majority of Americans are pro-choice, and the Democratic party wouldn't gain more votes if it became pro-life, it would lost votes.
Sorry, but just to clarify ...
ReplyDeleteBy saying the Democratic party can't be officially pro-life, I don't mean pro-life people can't be Democrats, of course.
And, when you say that the Democratic party needs to be open to religion, I think what that really means is that you think the Democratic party needs to be open to social conservatives. The DNC is already religious - look at Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Tim Kaine, Hillary, - they are all religious. Being pro-life is not about being religious, it's about being a political and social conservative who doesn't care about women's rights.
I mean that the Democratic party has to tolerate more of a variety of ideas.
ReplyDeleteI don't care how "religious" Democrats are. I care about whether they are serious about social safety nets, a level playing field, a society that promotes tolerance, and serving as a watchdog on those who wield economic power. Those are core Democratic traditions since FDR.
The party CAN include people who oppose abortion to all or some degree, people who want to retain the rights of churches not to marry divorced or gay people, and those who have patriarchal views within their own families.
We scrutinize people's beliefs far more than we scrutinize their adherence basic party traditions or their ability to govern wisely.
No more litmus tests.
"No more litmus tests." Second that! And vote AYE!
Delete"whether they are serious about social safety nets, a level playing field, a society that promotes tolerance, and serving as a watchdog on those who wield economic power."
ReplyDeleteI think that is exactly how the Democratic party is, which is why I'm a Democrat.
Abortion rights isn't a litmus test, it's a party plank. individuals can believe abortion is ok or not ok, that's the point of pro-choice, but the party can't officially be a pro-life party because that would take away people's existing rights. Pro-choice is the protection of a person's right to choose themselves what to do with their own bodies, whether to have a medical procedure or not to have one. Pro-life people want to force their conservative religious believes on everyone else.
I'm absolutely not calling for an anti-abortipn plank.
ReplyDeleteI would be happy if the Dems recognized that abortion is always a sad ocurrence; that it is an issue on which honest people disagree; that the party encourages no one to have an abortion, but does not support any measure to impose legal penalties on women and their physicians who abiding by Roe v. Wade and additional state laws in harmony with Roe v. Wade.
That is a change in tone rather than in substance. Whether it prevents pro-life Democrats from defecting, who knows? I think decades of Roe v.
Wade acrimony have already done their damage.
Do I think people have unlimited rights to do whatever they want with their own bodies? a adultery is one example. However, I do not believe that my personal morality must be adopted as the law of the land in all cases.
I also get weary of conflating women's rights with abortion. I don't see abortion as a women's rights issue.
And I think I have probably argued all this already here and on the old blog and I should shut up and let others have the last word here.
Oops, correction: Do I think people have unlimited rights to do whatever they want with their own bodies? No, I do not. Adultery is one example.
ReplyDeleteOne thing and then I'll shut up too.
ReplyDeleteStudies show that abortion is not always a sad thing. Nearly all women who get abortions feel relieved, not sad or regretful.
Umm, whether one feels sad or regretful or not doesn't affect the objective morality of an action. Abortion is always a sad thing for the life which was not allowed the chance to finish developing and live on this earth.
DeleteAs for whether "most" Catholics favor pro-choice legislation, a lot depends on whether they are active or inactive. Also on how one defines being pro-choice or pro-life. At one end are those who feel that abortion is always wrong,in every circumstance, full stop. At the other end are those who feel it should be legal basically anytime, anywhere, and by whatever means. Most people find themselves somewhere between these positions. Now I will also shut up on this subject.