The Politics Thread

[marceline]

I don't consider the that Twitter account gospel. Mainly because if what I've heard is true it's manned by numerous people and for their own safety they will occasionally have to tweet something wrong to throw the White House off the scent but it's obvious Trump is obsessed with Obama and has been since the birther stuff. I'll be interested to see what happens when Obama starts making public appearances and speeches. Trump's going to stroke out.

[DramatistDreamer]

Meet the Hundreds of Officials Trump Has Quietly Installed Across the Government

 

Among the 400 new hires, many are lobbyists and others from the far-right media.

 

I can believe that Trump would dislike Obama just on Obama's integrity because Trump clearly has none.

He seems determined to turn the White House into a modern day Tammany Hall. He's either going to try to bribe or bully the GOP Congress, judging from this post by The Hill.

 

GOP healthcare critics invited to bowl at White House

Edited March 8, 2017 by DramatistDreamer

[ReddFoxx]

What's he going to do? Throw anyone who disagrees with him down the lane into the pins like a bowling ball?

[DramatistDreamer]

There's a subtweet in this thread that strikes me as very sad. I'm hoping the woman is being sarcastic but I think it speaks to the sense of desperation that some high-risk pool people might be thinking when they read the projections about how much Trump's Health plan will cost the most vulnerable for how little in return.

 

[rhinohide]

This scares me so much. I've about decided that the GOP promotes climate change less to benefit carbon fuel producers and more in hope rising sea levels will wipe out the remaining Democratic strongholds. 

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-but-disappeared/?ex_cid=story-twitter

[DRW50]

 

Is that based on gerrymandering?

[rhinohide]

 

It doesn't seem so. It's based on actual counties. Keeping in mind that densely  populated counties show up the same as sparsely populated ones. 

 

The article was mostly about how polarized voting has become. The more interesting graph was about how that's shifted over time. 

 

"More than 61 percent of voters cast ballots in counties that gave either Clinton or Trump at least 60 percent of the major-party vote last November. That’s up from 50 percent of voters who lived in such counties in 2012 and 39 percent in 1992 — an accelerating trend that confirms that America’s political fabric, geographically, is tearing apart." 

Edited March 9, 2017 by rhinohide

[DRW50]

A lengthy evisceration of Tavis Smiley and his staff, from one of his former producers (who seems like a raging egomaniac...). It's one of the more openly virulent of these types of things I can remember. 

 

http://observer.com/2017/02/pbs-host-tavis-smiley-and-the-sham-of-public-broadcasting/

Edited March 9, 2017 by DRW50

[GregNYC]

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Trump appoints gay conservative Richard Grenell as US ambassador to NATO

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/trump-said-to-pick-former-un-spokesman-grenell-for-nato-post

 

President Donald Trump will nominate Richard Grenell to be his ambassador to NATO, according to a White House official, a selection that would make the longtime loyalist and former U.S. spokesman at the United Nations the highest-ranking openly gay person to serve in the administration.

 

A spokesman under John Bolton and three other Republican-administration ambassadors at the UN from 2001 through 2008, Grenell has been a Fox News contributor for four years and a Trump supporter since the start of the campaign.

 

If he wins Senate confirmation, Grenell will take a pivotal position in the Trump administration. The president spurred widespread anxiety in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when he called the alliance “obsolete” and suggested during the campaign the U.S. might not honor its defense commitments if other members don’t pay their share.

 

In recent weeks, other officials including Defense Secretary James Mattis have said NATO members must come up with plans by the end of the year to fulfill promises to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Grenell’s selection needed sign-off from the Defense Department given the job’s prominent national-security element.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I'm not suprised frankly about the criticism of Smiley, that entire vortex of Smiley and Cornell West has proven toxic. Smiley, as I've mentioned in the past, sees himself as a 'shoulda been, coulda been' political rival to President Obama. That obviously never worked out and he has tried out various political stances through the broadcast TV medium ever since.

 

Honestly, I'm still reading but I also side-eye some of these Opinion Editorials. One most remember that it is an Opinion piece. While some Op-Eds are thoroughly researched and contain accurate statistics, others are used as a means to 'hash out' agendas, perceived slights and other feelings. 

 

I'm just going to put this out there- I'm also skeptical of the Observer in their judgement of PBS, since we all know what the Conservative attitude is toward PBS and make no mistake-- the Observer (aka NY Observer) has a definite Right-Wing bias.

[Roman]

b.b.‏ @bbganjabuddy  22h22 hours ago

More

#morningjoe Morning joe ranked 38 on Nielsen, 677k viewers.

[DramatistDreamer]

So years ago, when Jon Huntsman was ambassador to China under President Obama, Trump complained that he would give the U.S. away to China. Now that the Orange Menace is in the White House, Huntsman is his pick for ambassador to Russia??

Something is clearly wrong with this man. SMH.

 

Oh and the first lawsuit against the 'same taste, less filling' 2.0. Muslim Ban has been filed by the state of Hawaii.

 

Federal judge to hear first lawsuit against new travel ban

 

 

And your daily reminder that even more organizations are speaking out against the GOP Health insurance plan.

[marceline]

I'm so glad that piece mentioned how he treated Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. That's what made me write him off for good. But that writer certainly seems to be all up in his feelings. Plus the fact he voted for Stein doesn't exactly make me think he's a genius.

Edited March 9, 2017 by marceline

[DramatistDreamer]

[marceline]

I saw her quoted in the Washington Post. She seems to be making this a crusade. She deserves every bit of pain she's going to get.