everyone's favorite house ethics chair Jason Chaffetz
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...o7u9kCSumc0jR8

when asked about trump and co using the pres to enrich themselves.

"He's already rich" “I don’t see how that affects the average American and their taxpayer dollars”

Yeah, if he was poor it'd be an issue, but he's rich so what's the problem?

Guess the least surprising thing about him is he was a college kicker.

Excuses excuses. You are complicit in this. You don't get to say "Hey, don't look at me! My vote didn't count!"

See, here's the thing. Sooner or later, you will need to come to terms with the fact that you voted in a guy that thinks its OK to grab your (pick one, many, or all!) mother, aunt, grandmother, sister,wife, niece by the pussy. This cannot be stated enough. You elected a guy that thinks its OK to commit sexual assault. Seriously. The next time you see a female member of your family, look at her. Then imagine the President of the United States grabbing her pussy. What would you do?

This is on you and all the other Trumpkins that fell for a conman. Stop blaming this on other people. You need to take responsibility for your actions. You voted Trump in and the entire country has to deal with this mess. Why? Because you had a temper tantrum over Hillary's emails. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

https://twitter.com/MarkSalter55/sta...76573508272128

it's being revealed more and more that the character assassination campaign was led by russia in order to weaken america, and awall (a guy who feels he loves america) fell for it, and it's difficult to admit you've been played so bigly, especially when you're so invested in the lie, like making hundreds of posts online bashing hillary and it's all because he got tricked by foreign influence. that's not to say it isn't easy to get americans to dislike the concept of putting a smart capable woman in a position of power, he's certainly a misogynist too.

thats how the long con works and people continue to get taken by somebody until there's literally nothing left, despite red flags everywhere. it's an ego/fear thing, to admit that you've been conned is to admit that you made a mistake- deep down they know they're probably being scammed, but the thought of owning up to that is too stressful/mortifying, and it's more comforting to believe the lie than admit the truth

That gif is incredible.

Tom Price Intervened on Rule That Would Hurt Drug Profits, the Same Day He Acquired Drug Stock
https://www.propublica.org/article/t...ent=1490986177

He really seems to like that game ^

He better be careful, if it comes out he did shady **** like this 5 or 6 more times he might get a hefty wrist slap.

btw I just noticed that "witch hunt" isn't in quotation marks. That means that Trump believes that it is an actual hunt for actual witches.

Give him credit. At least he didn't spell it which hunt.

lol these ****ing guys...


https://twitter.com/dncpress/status/847492219854602240

Con man.


https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/stat...72376872325121

con′fidence game`
n.
a swindle in which the swindler, after gaining the victim's confidence, robs the victim by cheating at a gambling game, appropriating funds entrusted for investment, or the like. Also called, Brit.,con′fidence trick`.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/confidence+game

http://time.com/money/4717000/trump-.../?xid=homepage

Thought this was interesting. It makes sense. Even many of the middle class Republican voters would like to see a lot done before giving the rich a tax break.

Ann Coulter of all people even said she is sick of this corporatist agenda.

Sad that congrsssmen don't understand the constitution nor their job.

Honestly anybody in congress who says they work for the president... well I guess it doesn't matter they got elected in the first place.

Lol at revoking citizenship; so where can they go and be citizens if you take it away? He doesn't think through any of his ideas, ever. Just spitballs things that sound good to him and his base

Grunting but lol at this, this applies to any non-usa country.

Edit: lol non-usa auto-corrects to non-essential

[Twitter]847878820220858369[/twitter]

2 things.

1)At one point he says George Gorsuch.

2) JFC turn down the background music.

Editing... who needs it?

Here's a hypothesis: assume Trump was/is completely sincere and was trying to advocate for policies that were not only politically advantageous among certain, shall we say, less educated voters, but that he also believed were good policy generally. (He wasn't but work with me here.)

Let's face it, Trump basically farmed out his policy shop to Fox's morning show, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc. Large scale manufacturing and low foreign imports Made America Great when Trump was a kid (with the economy a fraction of the size it is now), so why not set the ole policy time machine lever back to 1960. What could go wrong?

Now, point is, Trump is basically clueless about domestic policy (foreign too, but we're dealing with domestic here), whether political or economic or other, including issues like crime, healthcare, immigration, federalism, and basically everything else. And because he had no policy staff and could always count on supportive talking points from people likely Jeffry Lord, Kallyane, and Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, etc., during the campaign, there was no corrective mechanism when it came to domestic policy, no way for Trump to understand what was real and important vs what Hannity thought up while sniffing nutmeg.

Unlike Hillary, who knew all the policy tradeoffs and pitfalls, and therefore was very narrow in what she could support or advocate for (Bernie is closer to Trump in this regard-he doesn't really do reality-based policy constraints), Trump could loudly proclaim that everyone was going to get great healthcare at lower prices, that manufacturing jobs would come back when we fix those damn trade agreements and round up the illegals and Mexico pays for the wall, etc.

Because Trump and his base do not live in a world where reality constrains policy options and proposals, Trump was able to passionately and sincerely advocate for policy prescriptions that make no sense. And much of the media, with its, "one side says vaccines work, the other says they don't; here's one guest with each perspective, you decide" was both not inclined to and incapable of calling out Trump's bull****, particularly among the sort of "many pictures, few words" media his supporters and potential supporters consume. (Sure, Vox/Slate/New Yorker called him out on the daily, but if you're reading Vox/Slate/New Yorker, you ain't voting for Trump.)

The analogy to Arrested Development's Build a House episode make sense (already with the "elite" references--how low the bar has fallen). When your only concern, whether in running for president or pushing Trump University or building a house, is not achieving some substantive goal (making America Great Again, educating people in a manner that improves their lives, providing viable shelter) but merely meeting some metric (getting elected, signing people up and having then pay additional fees, building the facade of a house but not the interior) that may or may not be related to any substantive goal, then it's easy to undermine the actual end goal.

And you may even believe the substantive goal is easy or implied by the metric, because you're an idiot, so you are sincere in your advocacy. And the voters, being clueless themselves, and "knowing" you are a very successful billionaire, and you're pretty much hitting all the tropes of their Fox News-informed policy understanding, so of course you're going to make America great, because you're not in the pocket of all those "special interests" who come up with really complex things like Dodd-Frank and the TPP, thousands of pages, which have obviously screwed the little guy, because I'm struggling and the neighborhood is going to hell, and the plant closed down and the coal jobs left, so voting for Trump is a slam dunk among a good percentage of the midwest.

In fact, while racism and racial grievances are an important component of Trump's support ("FOX NEWS--not racist, but #1 with racists"), I really think the above story has double or triple the explanatory power. I mean, only real dumb****s are "out" racists and think like "out" racists, while most of the uninformed, uneducated, policy-hating 'Muricans who voted for Trump did so because they shared his simplistic understanding of policy and government, as told by Fox, and thought, "Finally, someone gets it, tells it like it is, and can make American Great Again!"

This more akin to notes for an argument than a developed theory, but I do think "policy-stupidity," which has been fostered, nurtured, and advanced for 40 years by the GOP, its donors, its media, and its politicized "think tanks" is the real reason Trump could run and win.

Now, however, he has to apply his "understanding" of policy and politics to govern, but he can't do that effectively, because when you are not operating with a reality-based model, it's hard to shape reality to your ends, other than by dumb luck (see e.g, homeopathy or any other "fake" science).

It's not likely to be in the first few stories outside the US but if it's even in the news somewhere it may be the biggest news story in the world at the moment.

Not necessarily, he likes to use quotes for "emphasis" so he might have just wanted to "avoid" emphasizing "witch hunt".