Month: June 2017

 
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We didn’t discuss it —

PRESIDENT IOHANNIS: Yes —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We didn’t discuss it. But there would be certainly — it would be something we will discuss.

PRESIDENT IOHANNIS: I mentioned this issue, and I also mentioned it during other meetings I had, because this is important for us, it’s important for Romanians who want to come to the United States.

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

And though it’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in past decade, the seemingly elemental question of What Would Jesus Do?, is one the professed religious folks running this country right now and those applauding them from pulpits and pews, would be wise to resurrect.

Ironically today in America, Republican Christians are putting on a master class in missing the point of our faith.

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From Tommy Christopher:

Donald Trump’s political allies have long since abandoned any pretense of fidelity to American principles of law and justice, and now, so has his legal team. On the same day that the head of the RNC directed Congress, on behalf of the White House to drop the Trump/Russia collusion investigations, a member of Trump’s legal team refused to rule out presidential interference in former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

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From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

Paul Ryan is defending Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with FBI investigations (commonly called “obstruction of justice”) by claiming that Trump just didn’t know:

Of course, there needs to be a degree of independence between [the Department of Justice], FBI and the White House, and a line of communication’s established. The president’s new at this. He’s new to government. So he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, the FBI and White Houses. He’s just new to this.

Is Ryan claiming that ignorance of the law is a good excuse? Even for the president?

But I personally don’t think that this is even a believable excuse.

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From Just an Earth-Bound Misfit:

Trump cryptically refused to say whether those private exchanges [between Trump and Comey] were taped — a matter at the heart of the conflicting accounts of what passed between them at a time when Comey was leading an FBI investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

But Trump tweeted that there were “tapes,” or so he pretty much threatened.

If there were tapes and if Trump had released them in May, I would have put stock in them. Not now.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

• Infidel753 looks through the unexpected electoral disaster for Conservatives in Britain and concludes that it does not represent a repudiation of Brexit.
   
• nojo at Stinque helps explain the Britain vote with the Conservative healthcare proposal for a “dementia tax.” Seems similar to Republican plans for Medicaid.
   
• At The Intersection of Madness and Reality, Rippa hears from a few friends on the left. Seems they doubt that Russia hacked the elections. That’s because Hillary was awful, and it’s just an excuse, and intelligence agencies say Russia interfered and you can’t trust government, and the nomination was stolen from Bernie, and Bernie would have won. Same as the right but for reasons most of which are different. So Rippa gets irritated and reviews the truth.
   
• Max’s Dad accuses James Comey of giving him another reason to hate his job.
   
• Tommy Christopher asks if anyone is surprised that Trump is willing to perjure himself.
   
• Frances Langum spits out her coffee as Corey Lewandowski, of all people, questions Comey’s manhood.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger acknowledges that, while our President did a number of disturbing things, there are lows to which Donald Trump would not sink.
   
• Jon Perr, at PERRspectives, watches healthcare, budget, and economic promises as Republicans dream their fond vision dreams, then keep banding into the Congressional Budget Office.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post points out that the Koch brothers do not encompass all of extreme conservativism in America. He takes a look at the Bradley Foundation.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, David Anderson takes a look at the mostly ignored humanitarian tragedy in Yemen, accelerated and magnified by new random Trump policies.
   
• Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes knows how to fight terrorists. Seems that, as a kid, he was impressed as could be by a British Major who served in a fight against a communist insurgency in Malaysia in 1954. Since terrorists hid in villages, collectively punishing all those villagers eventually forced information about the insurgents. So, harsh collective punishment against residents of whatever areas terrorists find to hide will work against religious terrorists as well. Well, yeah. What could go wrong?
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit warns would-be leakers that they could be ratted out by their printers.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass explains the new strategy of Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin to fight crime with street prayer patrols.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce explains the journey he and his wife away from the ministry, then from his church, and finally from Christianity and religion. In this chapter, they react to rampant financial hypocrisy.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz counsels a gay friend on finding ways to deal with a conservative family, beginning with self-acceptance.
   
• Scholar Reza Aslan published, via twitter, a profane opinion about President Trump. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged detects double and triple standards as CNN fires him.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever is managing to stay calm after hearing that Coke-Zero is about to fall off shelves.
   
• James Wigderson’s fight with city bureaucracy over street repairs and warning signs is finally ending semi-well.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from PoliticsUSA as Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz insists Trump is ‘Totally Vindicated’
   

Trump and Muslims and a Question that Answers Itself

Terrorists attack London. People are killed.

Police respond heroically. Citizens rally.
A mayor reacts with calm and vigilance.

And my President’s first impulse is a childish taunt.

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

• ITEM: Trump frequently claims he’ll do something — roll out a plan, make a decision — “in two weeks” and then does not follow up.
   
• ITEM: Trump’s $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia turned out to be almost entirely fictional — turns out that what “deals” there were preceded the Trump administration, and nothing in the new “deal” moved forward from previous tentative steps.
   
• ITEM: Trump on Monday held a mock signing ceremony for his decision to endorse privatizing air traffic control.
   
• ITEM: EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has been touting 50,000 new coal jobs which turn out to be closer to 1,000 new coal jobs.

The accomplishments of the Trump administration have a knack for turning out to be hollow — this week has been a pretty brutal reminder of that, and it’s only Tuesday. But how does it affect Trump’s ability to govern?

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