Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — At this sprawling steel mill on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the workers have one number in mind. Not how many tons of steel roll off the line, or how many hours they work, but where they fall on the plant’s seniority list.

In September, ArcelorMittal, which owns the mill, announced that it would lay off 150 of the plant’s 207 workers next year. While the cuts will start with the most junior employees, they will go so deep that even workers with decades of experience will be cast out.

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Only two important words for 2018: Wave election
Opinion | Only two important words for 2018: Wave election

What to do, what to do? Does this sound like you? Whenever you find yourself contemplating that Donald Trump is president, which is a good deal more often than you’d like, is your reaction cross-eyed disbelief with the flavoring of despair? What to DO?

Answer? Wave election. And if you are desperate for some good, hopeful news, there is some to be had. The pent-up demand in the United States to stop Trump is historic in size. These are big, significant numbers, and it doesn’t matter whether these polls fluctuate. What’s important is that they show what is possible. The Trump phenomenon has been so excruciating partly because the solution was so elusive. Now it’s at hand.

I wrote yesterday about how the tax bill clarified and simplified things. Gone now is any residual hope that the Republican Party will be the check on Trump. It was always a slender hope, given Republicans’ decades-long descent from honesty and self-respect. But when they allowed themselves to be arranged around Trump in the shape of a Cheshire cat grin after their joined-hands passage of a shockingly dishonest and regressive tax bill, they closed that avenue for good. The GOP is now Trump’s party, with no daylight between. Orange is the new red.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Walt Disney World’s “robot President Trump” was officially unveiled this week, and the Internet’s mocking response could be summed up in one word: “Sad!”

The Orlando, Fla., park added Trump to its famed Hall of Presidents, the 700-seat theater featuring “audio-animatronic” depictions of White House residents from Washington forward. Some, like Abraham Lincoln, offer a credible likeness, while others, like Barack Obama, miss the mark a bit.

The new Trump figure, though, is shockingly off, prompting online critics to say it looks more like actor Jon Voight — or a hastily refashioned Hillary Clinton, as if work had begun prior to an Election Day surprise.

Either way, perhaps it’s time to send in the clowns of satire to fix this little fiasco.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Walt Disney World’s “robot President Trump” was officially unveiled this week, and the Internet’s mocking response could be summed up in one word: “Sad!”

The Orlando, Fla., park added Trump to its famed Hall of Presidents, the 700-seat theater featuring “audio-animatronic” depictions of White House residents from Washington forward. Some, like Abraham Lincoln, offer a credible likeness, while others, like Barack Obama, miss the mark a bit.

The new Trump figure, though, is shockingly off, prompting online critics to say it looks more like actor Jon Voight — or a hastily refashioned Hillary Clinton, as if work had begun prior to an Election Day surprise.

Either way, perhaps it’s time to send in the clowns of satire to fix this little fiasco.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

ANIMATRONICS AND LICKSPITTLES
https://claytoonz.com/2017/12/22/animatronics-and-lickspittles/

Do you know who respects ass kissers, suck ups, sycophants, brownnosers, teacher’s pets, and lickspittles? Nobody. Not even the person whose ass is getting kissed. Oh, sure. He may love it…but he doesn’t respect it.

Vice President Mike Pence has been on an ass-kissing tear ever since he was selected to be Trump’s veep. Every vice president praises their boss, but Pence has taken it to an embarrassing, disgusting, vomit-inducing level that would make Waylon Smithers and Eddie Haskel gag. Pence believes God has selected him for greatness that somehow entails selling his soul to the devil.

During Trump’s first cabinet meeting, each member praised Trump, who does love the praise. Pence was among that group, but during Wednesday’s cabinet meeting Pence took it upon himself to suck up for the entire room. According to The Washington Post, Pence spent three minutes with a praise for Trump every 12 seconds. That’s a lot of ass kissing. It would have been more frequent if Pence didn’t have to occasionally remove his head from Trump’s ass to breathe.

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What really ridiculous about all this is that Trump doesn’t need all these people to kiss his ass. He kisses his own ass.

But, again. No one likes an ass kisser. They’re pathetic. Nobody likes a person who sheds their dignity and are willing to debase themselves. They’re up to something and they feel their suckling compensates for their lack of ability. The thing is, it’s never genuine. It’s dishonest which means the kisser is lying.

The worst part to me, other than just how nauseating it is, is that Trump hasn’t done anything worthy of the ass kissing. He’s a horrible person who doesn’t know how to conduct himself in a professional or even a decent manner. He can’t even behave like a human being. Does Pence go to the zoo to tell the monkeys how great they are at flinging poo and touching themselves?

How does Pence even look at himself in the mirror after such a public debasement? Can he not see from inside his bubble the appearance he’s given that he’s sacrificed all his dignity?

So, just what is Pence angling for? The car keys this weekend? A better room rate at Mar-a-Lago? A promotion? He’s already vice president so what job is there he can be promoted to….oh.

Mike Pence is the only politician that makes me change the channel. I know when he talks that he’s going to publicly blow Trump and make me nauseous in the process. If you’re even looking for his lips, you can find them on Trump’s ass. Trump’s ass sees more of Pence’s lips than a toilet seat.

The United State’s does not need a narcissistic authoritarian whose insecurities require sycophants to constantly praise him. This isn’t North Korea and Trump isn’t our Dear Leaders.

And next time all these turds feel the demand or whatever freaking impulse it is to brown nose Donald Trump. They should spare the rest of us from the retching display…and get a room.

By the way, Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave a short speech on how wonderful it was Trump was honored by Disney with an animatronic Trump. There’s been debates over who it looks like because it doesn’t look like Trump. Some say Jon Voight while others say the late great Peter Boyle. The working theory is that they were prepared to Hillary Clinton to win and had already built it. So, they merely sprayed it orange, put a bad wig on it and made it an asshole.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON—Saying the current disapproval would soon give way to support, House Speaker Paul Ryan was confident Thursday that the American people will warm up to the new tax plan once they realize life is a cruel and meaningless farce.

“Although it may not be very popular now, I’m certain that Americans will come around to this new system when they begin to understand the ruthless absurdity of existence,” said Ryan, explaining that once taxpayers see that there is no objective moral framework in the unforgiving chaos of the universe, they will learn to appreciate what this bill actually does.

“I think many voters will find a lot in this tax overhaul that they can embrace when it finally dawns on them that they have no agency and it’s futile to resist entropy.

We just need to keep hammering home to average folks that our time here on Earth is a joke with no punchline.”

At press time, Ryan said that once Americans accepted the brutality and pointlessness of life, they’d be just as amenable to gutting Medicare.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Washington (CNN)FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe faced numerous questions this week about his interactions, conversations and correspondence with his onetime boss, former FBI Director James Comey, spanning both the FBI's Russia investigation and its probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server, according to multiple sources from both parties with knowledge of his testimony.

In private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this week, McCabe told lawmakers that Comey informed him of conversations he had with President Donald Trump soon after they happened, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.

The testimony suggests McCabe could corroborate Comey's account, including Trump's ask that Comey show him loyalty, which the President has strongly disputed. Comey previously testified that he briefed some of his senior colleagues at the FBI about this conversation with Trump.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding an Obama-era Justice Department letter that asked local courts across the country to be wary of slapping poor defendants with fines and fees to fill their jurisdictions’ coffers, part of a broad rollback of guidance that Sessions believes overreached.

It’s the latest move in Sessions’s effort to dramatically reshape the Justice Department by undoing many of the reforms imposed by his predecessors and giving the institution a harder edge. Sessions is revoking 25 previous guidance documents dating back decades and covering topics as diverse as ATF procedures and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

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In less than a year in office, Sessions has imposed a new charging policy that calls for prosecutors to pursue the most serious offenses possible, even when that might trigger stiff mandatory minimum sentences. He has restored the use of private prisons. And he has adjusted the department’s legal stances on issues involving voting rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in ways that put him at odds with his most immediate predecessors.

Sessions previewed the most recent shift in a November speech at the National Lawyers Convention , where he revealed he was directing Justice Department officials to stop issuing guidance documents that try “to impose new obligations on any party outside the executive branch,” saying too that he would “review and repeal existing guidance documents that violate this common-sense principle.”

By then, the department already had revoked the Obama-era guidance on federal protections for transgender students, and it was clear others were potentially in the crosshairs. Sessions views many of his policy changes as restoring a strict, by-the-book interpretation of federal law. Civil liberties advocates say the changes are misguided and they disenfranchise or otherwise harm poor minorities and LGBT people.

The letter on fines and fees is not the only guidance that Sessions plans to revoke, though it is particularly significant.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The strongman knows that it starts with words. He uses them early on to test out his plans to expand and personalize executive power on political elites, the press and the public, watching their reactions as they arrange into the timeless categories of allies, enemies and those who help him by remaining silent. Some say the strongman is all bluster, but he takes words seriously, including the issue of which ones should be banned.

That’s why those who study authoritarian regimes or have had the misfortune to live under one may find something deeply familiar about the Trump administration’s decision to bar officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from using certain words (“vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based”). The administration’s refusal to give any rationale for the order, and the pressure it places on CDC employees, have a political meaning that transcends its specific content and context. The decision as a whole links to a larger history of how language is used as a tool of state repression.

Authoritarians have always used language policies to bring state power and their cults of personality to bear on everyday life. Such policies affect not merely what we can say and write at work and in public, but also our expression of who we are as individuals and as members of that private institution the state tries so hard to breach: the family. We may be ordered to add new words to our vocabulary for public use, as when Germans had to greet colleagues and friends with a “Heil Hitler.” Benito Mussolini banned common foreign words such as “cocktail” and “chauffeur” as part of fascist campaigns of cultural autarky and Italianization. Italians who spoke Slovenian and other Slavic languages had to change their names (and even family tombstones). The same applied to Zairians who were affected by Mobutu Sese Seko’s anti-colonial “authenticity” policies.

The strongman fears language as a symbol of identity and creator of community bonds. That’s why he attempts to use it instead to sow unease and discord among his people, and to erase from the public record what and whom he rejects from the nation. The Hitler salute and salutation, writes Tilman Allert, “took a normal social situation and imbued it with the threat of sanction and punishment.” Through altering how we use language, such rulers aim to change the way we think about ourselves and about others. The weaker our sentiments of solidarity and humanity become – or the stronger our impulse to compromise them under pressure – the easier it is for authoritarians to find partners to carry out their repressive policies.

It’s no surprise, then, to see the word “vulnerable” on the Trump administration list. Its ban simply codifies an informal emotional training Trump has been giving Americans since his presidential campaign. His crusade to mobilize hatred and mistrust for the media, judiciary, and other sectors of society that value documentation and inquiry has gotten the most attention (and is perfectly expressed in the ban on the terms “evidence-based” and “science-based”). Yet President Trump has also been encouraging us to unlearn feelings of care and empathy that lead us to help and feel solidarity with others.

Banning words works together with another language game authoritarians play: floating extreme ideas to make them acceptable to mainstream audiences. Often, this is done through casual or “humorous” remarks, but there’s no kidding about their impact when they spark news cycles or are circulated by the leader to his millions of followers.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

On Dec. 14, the Trump administration provided policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with a list of forbidden words and phrases. Analysts were told that when they sought funding for various projects, it would be best to avoid them. Two of the prohibited phrases were “science-based” and “evidence-based.” The response from scientists, public health officials, the media, and the public was swift and one-sided. How was the CDC, a science- and evidence-based organization, supposed to avoid these phrases? And, more importantly, why should they?

In truth, the forbidden words directive shouldn’t have been so surprising. Science denialism isn’t new to the Trump administration.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have sought bank records about entities associated with the family company of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, according to four people briefed on the matter.

In recent weeks, prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the giant German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner family real estate business.

Mr. Kushner, who was the Kushner Companies’ chief executive until January, still owns part of the business after selling some of his stake. The family businesses include many legal entities. It is not clear which records were sought by prosecutors, what they are seeking to learn from them or to what degree, if any, they directly involve Mr. Kushner.

There is no indication that the subpoena is related to the investigation being conducted by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, into Russian meddling in the 2016 United States presidential election. Three prosecutors on Mr. Mueller’s team previously worked at the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, one as recently as this year. Federal prosecutors around the country typically check with Justice Department headquarters when their investigations may overlap.

The Brooklyn United States attorney has been investigating the Kushner businesses’ use of a program known as EB-5. It offers visas to overseas investors in exchange for $500,000 investments in real estate projects.

But Deutsche Bank does not appear to have been involved in Kushner real estate projects financed through the EB-5 program. That suggests the prosecutors’ subpoena may be unrelated to the visa program.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The loans to Trump weren’t the only abnormal behavior at Deutsche. Around the same time he received his new line of credit, the bank was laundering money, according to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). Russian money. Billions of dollars that flowed from Moscow to London, then from London to New York—part of a scheme for which European and American regulators eventually punished the bank.

Was the timing of this illicit operation and the loans to Trump coincidental? Or evidence of something more sinister—a critical chapter in the president’s long history of suspicious business deals with Russian and post-Soviet oligarchs? In January, Trump claimed the former, tweeting in his usual bombastic style: “I have nothing to do with Russia—no deals, no loans, no nothing.” But the president’s refusal to accept the assessment of his intelligence agencies—that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election—has, among other things, fueled suspicions about his ties to Russia.

Robert Mueller is now trying to find out the truth about those suspicions. The special counsel is investigating Russian interference—from the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow. So far, his team has charged key Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates with money laundering, as well as other offenses. He’s also gotten two former advisers, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, to plead guilty to lying to the FBI and cooperate with the probe.

Now, however, Mueller appears to be following the money, trying to determine if Trump has a financial connection to Russia—one that might at least partly explain his behavior. In December, the German newspaper Handelsblatt https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/yes-deutsche-bank-did-get-a-subpoena-from-mueller-861828. that the special counsel’s office has subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, demanding data and documents related to people or entities tied to the president and those close to him. The White House says the subpoena doesn’t directly pertain to Trump or his family’s accounts. But if the president has a dark Russian secret, the German banking giant’s money-laundering scandal may be key to finding out what it is.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Given that some of Graham’s worst fears about Trump’s Kremlin ties and mental state have been legitimized, what accounts for the senator’s changed attitude toward the president? There are a variety of possible rationales available for conjecture, many of which apply to the GOP at large. Opportunism may play a role, as Graham complies with Trump in order to pursue right-wing extremist economic policies and war. Blackmail may also be an issue, given that Graham has admitted his email was hacked, as was the RNC’s, by Russia. Trump has derided and threatened members of Congress and private citizens, and it’s not a stretch to imagine him unleashing his fire– publicly or privately–on Graham.

Graham’s radical change in rhetoric is reminiscent of the behavior one sees in autocratic regimes when potential political opponents are mollified or threatened into compliance. But the truly troubling question is not what is driving his changed behavior, but what it means for the rest of the GOP, especially as speculation mounts that the Trump administration could end Mueller’s investigation and propagandists recast Republicans like James Comey and Mueller as enemies of the state. In 2016, Graham initiated the call for an investigation into Trump’s Kremlin ties. In 2018, judging by his recent actions, Graham may lead the way in ensuring there are no consequences for what investigators have discovered.

One of the most disturbing questions about the Mueller probe is the unpredictability of its repercussions. Even if Mueller is not fired and the investigation reaches its conclusion, Trump will very likely disregard the findings, as he believes himself to be above the law. This is extremely dangerous. Once autocrats get in, it is very hard to get them out. It falls to other legislative bodies to cleanse the rot, but the GOP has instead proven eager to abet it.

It is hard to imagine justice being served even as injustice is uncovered. Who would act to ensure the integrity of the executive branch, when so many in it– like Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner–have already committed serious violations of federal protocol, yet have faced no consequences? If Trump is found guilty, who would remove him and how? At present, it would fall to the reigning GOP to impeach Trump and demand his resignation.

 

[Michael Scally MD]