TPM: The Art Of The Kneel: How Trump's Tactics Kept Shrinking His Wall

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Conservatives are consoling themselves with Trump’s strong hints that he’ll declare a national emergency on the border in order to try and secure more funds for his wall.

“If the president were to sign this bill based on the contours of what has been reported and suggested as in the bill, and did nothing else, it would be political suicide. If he signed the bill, based on the way that we believed the bill to be, and takes other methods to obtain funding for additional border security measure, than I think there is very little political liability from conservatives,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said.

But that move is legally questionable and will likely get tied up in court — potentially for the remainder of Trump’s first term as president.

Trump’s net favorability was -9.3 on the day he forced a government shutdown in late December. That number dropped to -14.5 by the time he allowed the government to reopen in late January. It’s since recovered a bit, and past shutdowns’ political effects have been relatively minimal over the long term, but it’s unclear if his already-dismal numbers will bounce back to a place where he can win reelection.

The shutdown permanently cost the U.S. economy $3.6 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. Trump’s poll numbers took a major hit. And all he has to show for it is 55 miles of fencing, with the fate of his long-demanded wall looking bleaker than ever.


The rest:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-art-of-the-kneel-how-trumps-tactics-kept-shrinking-his-wall

John Fugelsang addresses the VP: "Your umbrage is as selective as your christianity."

Those Charlotesville Tiki Torch patriots chanted "Jews will not replace us,"
Your boss called them "very fine people."
You said nothing.
But @IlhanMN is brown, female & Muslim, and you know what the base likes.
Your umbrage is as selective as your Christianity.

.@IlhanMN tweets were a disgrace & her apology was inadequate. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee. Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.

Manafort lied about passing polling data to Kilimnik bc if he told truth-Trump wouldn't pardon him

As a reminder: SCO says that Manafort lied about passing polling data to Kilimnik bc if he told the truth Trump wouldn't pardon him.







https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1095835735322775552

Pete Souza throws some SHADE: President Obama's golf simulator (with Bill Murray).

😎 #throwshadethenvote




https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt1QJqcFNYn/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_locale_control

Ilhan Omar's perfect response to Trump:

Hi @realDonaldTrump-

You have trafficked in hate your whole life—against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people and more. I learned from people impacted by my words. When will you?


https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1095683268693905410
https://twitter.com/MarkLandler/status/1095668208097468421

So, You don't like Democratic Socialism - Please Select All Items You Wish To Give Up:

A Brit describes Trump

Via Facebook:
Stolen from a friend of a friend. The best description of Trump I have ever read, from a Brit.

Someone on Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response.

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Once again, David Hogg NAILS IT!

@davidhogg111
I'm guessing thoughts and prayers.

@brianschatz
But seriously what is the Republican plan for climate change?
12:36 PM - 12 Feb 2019

Ex-US attorney shuts down Trump's premature victory dance re: Senate Intel Findings...

Ex-US attorney shuts down Trump’s premature victory dance after Senate Intel finds ‘no direct evidence’ of collusion

Former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg on Tuesday told MSNBC that President Donald Trump’s crowing that the Senate Intelligence found “no direct evidence” of collusion was more than a little pre-mature, saying the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative powers far surpassed anything the Senate would be able to produce.

“The nice way to say it is that the Mueller team has authorities, powers, capabilities that the Senate and the House simply don’t have,” Rosenberg said. “I think we should look to the Mueller team and to the investigations in the Southern District of New York as being far more important than what the Senate is doing.”

Rosenberg also took pains to explain why “no direct evidence” was a canard.

“A judge will tell you, and tell jurors when they instruct them at the end of a trial, that circumstantial evidence and direct evidence are given equal weight,” he said. “In fact, in the dozens and dozens of cases I tried to a jury, only once ever did I have direct evidence of a conspiracy. You almost never see that. So to say that there’s no direct evidence of a conspiracy is really not all that damning on the facts of the case.”

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the rest:
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/ex-us-attorney-shuts-down-trumps-premature-victory-dance-after-senate-intel-finds-no-direct-evidence-of-collusion/

"What have you got to lose?"