The Rose Garden and White House happenings: Listening to voters’ concerns

I have never read or heard one iota of evidence to indicate that Trump is a GOOD businessman.  He certainly has dealt with more than one bankruptcy and there are plenty of creditors that he has stiffed, etc.  If we were going to elect a businessperson to office (and I think the jury is still out on whether that is a primary qualification), then we should at least have gotten a GOOD one.

bub said:

You know how some things just stick in your head.  I recall MTierney saying, with apparent approval, that the American people decided to elect a businessman.

 I don't know about you but with each days disclosures, tweets, intramural squabbles, near and actual firings, near and actual resignations, I sit back and marvel at the businesslike atmosphere that has taken hold in the White House.  Like a breath of fresh air.  

yes.  it makes you wonder how such a well-oiled machine could have found themselves bankrupt so many times

I'm sure that if Bill Gates or Warren Buffet was elected, the administration would have the same day to day bar brawl feeling that it does now.  Cause, you know, Trump is a businessman just like them.

ml1 said:

bub said:

You know how some things just stick in your head.  I recall MTierney saying, with apparent approval, that the American people decided to elect a businessman.

 I don't know about you but with each days disclosures, tweets, intramural squabbles, near and actual firings, near and actual resignations, I sit back and marvel at the businesslike atmosphere that has taken hold in the White House.  Like a breath of fresh air.  

yes.  it makes you wonder how such a well-oiled machine could have found themselves bankrupt so many times

Trump's new guy goes off...

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

Hilarious but a little terrifying too, like everything else about this admin.

I didn't realize till reading this that the threat to fire "everyone" was an effort to arm twist this reporter into giving up his source.   What a nutty mongrel.

dave23 said:

Trump's new guy goes off...

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

Pics or it didn't happen, Steve.

dave23 said:

Trump's new guy goes off...

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

The Fox News web site is covering the article in lurid detail and not making any effort to defend him. I'll be interested to see what Hannity says tonight.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...

But the comments have spooked some of his co-workers. Speaking to Fox News, one White House official expressed concern.

“This is getting out of hand. I am honestly getting concerned for my safety in the office tomorrow. This type of behavior is unbelievable. Working in the White House and something like that is said, it is a disgrace,” the official said.

Nobody watches Fox, right?

mtierney said:

Nobody watches Fox, right?

Bannon does while doing yoga.

had a mental image of Bannon in yoga pants, thanks!  

Been a tad off the grid of late due to family visits by our kids and a minor surgery for me. 

If that's the worst image of Bannon you have today, you're better off than the rest of us.

mtierney, cheers for the visits from kids! and for the (hoped-for) outcome of your surgery.

sac said:

I have never read or heard one iota of evidence to indicate that Trump is a GOOD businessman.  He certainly has dealt with more than one bankruptcy and there are plenty of creditors that he has stiffed, etc.  If we were going to elect a businessperson to office (and I think the jury is still out on whether that is a primary qualification), then we should at least have gotten a GOOD one.

Exactly.  Trump is not a good businessman.  He made his money through inheritance, bankruptcy protection, not paying taxes, committing fraud, stiffing contractors and others who did work for him, bullying others, aggressive lawyers, and threats.

If his father hadn't started him out with millions and set him up on third base in the real estate industry, Trump would be the tacky guy with orange hair, a fake tan, on his third marriage, screaming at you on local TV to come on down to one of his used car lots for the best deals.

Now he's the tacky guy with orange hair, a fake tan, on his third wife, who screams from the Oval Office about how he has the best deals.

This whole administration has been a disgrace since day 1.  Trump was a disgrace during the campaign.  Trump has been a disgrace his whole life.  There is not one single good or honorable trait about him.

Even the Boy Scouts of America are embarrassed by him.

This country continues to swirl the drain with him at the helm.

mtierney, a lot of us get frustrated by your posts because you vigorously defend the Republican party of 20 years ago (as mentioned in this opinion piece) and refuse to acknowledge what it has become in recent years.

This is what you get when you elect Republicans

This has been quite a week in Washington, a week full of terror, intrigue, suspense, backstabbing and outright chaos. While we might not have been able to predict the particular contours of the catastrophe that complete GOP rule has been, we should have known it would turn out something like this.

Guess what, America: This is what you get when you elect Republicans.

It goes much further than their repugnant and disastrous effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but all the contemporary GOP’s pathologies could be seen there: their outright malice toward ordinary people, their indifference to the suffering of their fellow citizens, their blazing incompetence, their contempt for democratic norms, their shameless hypocrisy, their gleeful ignorance about policy, their utter dishonesty and bad faith, their pure cynicism, and their complete inability to perform anything that resembles governing. It was the perfect Republican spectacle.

It’s remarkable to consider that there was a time not too long ago when the Grand Old Party was known for being serious, sober, a little boring, but above all, responsible. They were conservative in the traditional sense: wanting to conserve what they thought was good and fearful of rapid change. You might not have agreed with them, but there were limits to the damage they could do. The devolution from that Republican Party to the one we see today took a couple of decades and had many sources, but its fullest expression was reached with the lifting up of Donald J. Trump to the presidency, this contemptible buffoon who may have been literally the single worst prominent American they could have chosen to be their standard-bearer. I mean that seriously. Can you think of a single person who might have run for president who is more ignorant, more impulsive, more vindictive and more generally dangerous than Donald Trump? And yet they rallied around him with near-unanimity, a worried shake of the head to his endless stream of atrocious statements and actions the strongest dissent most of them could muster.

...

Republicans don’t care about making an honest case for their priorities; Trump lies nearly every time he opens his mouth. They’re unconcerned about the details of policy; he knows less about how government works than your average sixth-grader. They’re indifferent to human suffering; he literally advocates destroying the individual health-care market so he can blame Barack Obama for the lives that wind up ruined. They advocate a mindless anti-government philosophy; he has so much contempt for governing that he puts his son-in-law in charge of everything from solving the opioid crisis to achieving Middle East peace. They whine endlessly about the liberal media; he spends hours every day watching “Fox & Friends” and takes advice from Sean Hannity. Trump is the essence of the GOP, distilled down to its depraved and odious core.

America was given a reprieve last night, saved from the Republicans’ cruelest plans by a Democratic Party that stood strong, thousands of activists and ordinary citizens who organized in opposition and the GOP’s own incompetence. But this what you get when you give today’s Republican Party complete control of the government. Have no doubt: There are more horrors to come.

So what makes Kelly a "great, great, American" as said by Trump? Besides being president why should we believe who is great from an obvious very deplorable buffoon?

Will Trump, considering his foreign entanglements, be historically known as the Benedict Arnold of our century?

Kelly apparently has a decent reputation and is probably as good a person as you can expect for a Trump appointment.  Trump certainly had nothing to do with Kelly's choice as Homeland Security secretary.

BG9 said:

So what makes Kelly a "great, great, American" as said by Trump? Besides being president why should we believe who is great from an obvious very deplorable buffoon?

Will Trump, considering his foreign entanglements, be historically known as the Benedict Arnold of our century?

drummerboy said:

Kelly apparently has a decent reputation and is probably as good a person as you can expect for a Trump appointment.  Trump certainly had nothing to do with Kelly's choice as Homeland Security secretary.

BG9 said:

So what makes Kelly a "great, great, American" as said by Trump? Besides being president why should we believe who is great from an obvious very deplorable buffoon?

Will Trump, considering his foreign entanglements, be historically known as the Benedict Arnold of our century?

Lincoln was great, great. So was Roosevelt. But Kelly? A decent rep does not make for "great, great."

A proponent of our eternal war:

"If you think this war against our way of life is over because some of the self-appointed opinion-makers and chattering class grow ‘war weary,’ because they want to be out of Iraq or Afghanistan, you are mistaken. This enemy is dedicated to our destruction. He will fight us for generations, and the conflict will move through various phases as it has since 9/11."

(This attitude probably explains why a longstanding Member of our Victorian State Parliament was denied entry to the USA yesterday despite being on an official study tour with his parliamentary colleagues, and holding valid visas etc.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... )

Is Trump sick of winning yet?

Trump supporter screaming with his megaphone at LGBT protestors:

The scene turned ugly at one point when one of them raised a megaphone and hurled insults at the anti-Trump demonstrators.
“You're a bunch of communist pigs and dogs. No different than pedophilia or bestiality. You're all f--king freaks. Go f--k yourselves.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

Such class.   

From an outsider looking on, I'd say a business that has this much top-level management team change continuing to occur well within its first year of running a 'heritage' or 'blue chip' business is being mismanaged and the investors need to take a reality check. 

Having worked in a privately owned, large company that dominated its field and had a high quality reputation, I've witnessed chaos in the HR department used to divert attention from historic financial mismanagement. Took just 6 months and a short series of poor projects/delayed deadlines for things to fall apart and the business to collapse. But you'd never have known it from the management team! Oh no - grins as sparkly and wide, and spending as big as ever!

The bar of cheap melodrama in the WH is so high at this point that this merits a yawn at this point:

http://pagesix.com/2017/07/28/...

in Joanne's link....

"All travellers must clear admissibility laws."

"He said only a small number of the more than 1.2 million people who came to the US each day were denied entry."

It is a tough world.

He's been a Member of Parliament, for over 10 years, and a citizen of Australia for 47 years! We're your allies! And it was a state government business visit, arranged well in advance! For goodness sake, this is ridiculous - first he's told he's not booked, then that his flight is cancelled when everyone else in his party (including other Muslims) can go ahead. 

No way to run a business let alone a country.

It's shameful treatment. But you saw the response from a typical conservative --"tough world."

It's every person for him or herself in the U.S. And half our country likes it that way. 

joanne said:

He's been a Member of Parliament, for over 10 years, and a citizen of Australia for 47 years! We're your allies! And it was a state government business visit, arranged well in advance! For goodness sake, this is ridiculous - first he's told he's not booked, then that his flight is cancelled when everyone else in his party (including other Muslims) can go ahead. 




No way to run a business let alone a country.

you can imagine the outcry here - calls to refuse your current President anywhere near our shores or protectorates, since he's well known for hate speech, and calling for violence to be used as a social resolution instead of law. 

joanne said:

you can imagine the outcry here - calls to refuse your current President anywhere near our shores or protectorates, since he's well known for hate speech, and calling for violence to be used as a social resolution instead of law. 

Decency would demand he be refused.

And if that unlikeliness should occur, respond with "Its a tough world." Whereupon, we will see all the conservatives heads exploding in outrage.

Comment on Kelly by a friend:

“He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” said Kelly’s longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank opinions. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.”

Then I don't see then how Kelly can be of any help in the White House.

After all, Trump is the one who selected his White House staff. Our brilliant genius could not have in any way selected any idiots or fools.

BG9 said:

Comment on Kelly by a friend:

“He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” said Kelly’s longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank opinions. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.”

Then I don't see then how Kelly can be of any help in the White House.

After all, Trump is the one who selected his White House staff. Our brilliant genius could not have in any way selected any idiots or fools.

At least Trump might not be as ready to bully him...maybe.

I am back to taking stock of what's happening in the White House - but the I read the real words of the new communications director and I am stunned that they were in the NYT!

That paper has lost its way.