Reince Priebus out of Trump White House

Please, if you have contract to anyone who thinks like that: try changing their minds. Last week shows how easily everyone it’s still played by tweets, outrageous rally speeches, and constant disarray. The important domestic stuff like the healthcare debacle and a law clearly in opposition to the president’s own agenda gets lost in this.

A big part of the REASON that people are leaking is that Trump doesn’t pay attention to anything until it is on the cable channels and talked about the whatever conservative talking head commentator has his attention. And THAT is not going to change.

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A former DHS head is probably just what Trump needs to stop those White House leaks.

“Trump is going to find that leaks are a symptom, not the disease. You can crack down all you want. But he has so antagonized permanent Washington — and good on him, his supporters say — that information will still find its way out.” -Axios

Sale on garden seep hoses today…

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I don’t know if it’s the frog in the pot of hot water, or what. It seems a lot like Trump and the Republican majority can’t get anything done, in spite of themselves. The media is distracting us with the spectacle, but stuff like packing the lower courts with conservatives is happening mostly in the wings and so much is happening, it’s impossible to focus.

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I disagree on this point. Tweets and firing staff are not the media’s work, as well as speeches in front of scouts or police officers.

The media jumps on that, but also tries to put it into perspective. At least on this side of the atlantic.

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Damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t; huh?

Try living “on the front lines”; the feeling is even worse.

I am aware, and that’s what I was alluding to when I mentioned that you’ve shared your personal issues. You’re also not the only person suffering from the affliction.

But what you write and how you choose to communicate with others are something that you have the ability to control.

I find the state of the world and especially my country’s government distressing; your words are merely like salt in an already open wound.

Again, you are not the only one.

I’ll ignore the unintended conceit therein and just address the meat of that comment:

It’s not just multitudes of Koreans or Iranians lives that are in danger here.

Black & Brown lives are in more danger than they have been previously, thanks to 45’s recent comments regarding police brutality and violence against minorities in general.

Thanks to his not giving a fuck about the EPA, more children are likely to become sick and die from lead and other pollutants in our drinking water (Flint MI isn’t hardly the only city that has problematic pipes.)

And once people inevitably become even sicker, don’t even get me started on the lack of sufficient health care in my country, or the exorbitant cost.

I could go on and on about all the detrimental effects of this admin, but the bottom line is that multitudes could potentially die; the only difference is if it’s a fast bombing with long term fall-out, or slowly being poisoned/starving to death.

Either result is undesirable.

Lastly consider what I said earlier that you’re not the only person afflicted with depression.

Consider the potential effect of your words on someone else who has trouble just getting out of bed each day, that maybe instead of motivating them to fight, you’re just grinding them down even further to the point that they are ready to give up.

Again, I understand they desire to try to “shake some sense” into people who you think aren’t paying attention, but those people are not the only ones reading your content.

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http://abc7chicago.com/politics/new-white-house-communications-director-resigns/2263973/

Scaramucci just resigned

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Smokes and mirrors, again?

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As I wrote (a year ago!) in that other thread,

Our system is also maddeningly slow, but sometimes that too isn’t a bad thing - just look how quickly the UK broke itself because of one idiot trying to placate another idiot with an ad-hoc referendum. If Trump wins we’re all going to be exceedingly grateful for the inertia in the system.

I’ve been thinking about the question of what constructive things people outside the US can do to help slow the Trump train, and a couple occurred to me:

  • Identify organziations whose job it is to oppose his agenda in the courts, and donate to them. The ACLU, American Immigration Council, and EFF are three to whom I boosted my donations this year, but there are others.

  • Foreign contributions to candidate are illegal, but there are advocacy groups like the CAP and PFAW that keep policy arguments alive and lobby legislators. I understand it might grating to some to support anything with the word “American” in it, or anything that works with the Democratic party.

  • Work on your own legislators to force them to publicly stake out meaningful policies that are independent of the US. Trump doesn’t give a toss about the opinions of other countries, but the State Department leadership and - more importantly - several GOP legislators do.

In a the US political system the way to influence political decisions is to get the legislators to believe that supporting your position is in their personal interest. (Corporate lobbyists have so much leverage in the US because our elections have become so expensive so legislators need lots of money to keep their jobs.) The post-Trump demonstrations in the US don’t seem to have accomplished much, and it is easy to say that more tear gas would have helped, but in fact they have been effective, in unifying the Democratic legislators into more of a block than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Likewise the town hall meetings. If the GOP legislators believe that Trump policies are a genuine impediment to implementing international policies they (or their corporate donors) support, they will have incentive to at the very least permit hearings on the policies, rather than just fearfully rubber stamping them. People outside the US can go a long way to helping them believe this by stepping up appropriate political activity in their own countries.

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And those are just this week’s hit parade. Add in the basic erosion of human rights for anyone who isn’t white, male, and rich. Don’t forget the disassembly of all the protections for our part of the planet that had been slowly working to correct our centuries rape and pillage. There are other egregious changes to the admittedly faulty way of governing the USA, and the world sees only insane supporters on the right and ineffectual protest on the left.

The center is much larger than either, and because America was pretty great already became apathetic after the 60s social movements made their mark. People like to get internet-upset, and facebook-mad, but they’re not going to go march in the streets, because that’s dangerous, on so many levels. Yes, middle-America is much like its stereotype, and suburban dwellers are generally only ready to get involved with community as far as helping with the block party.

That hyper-local focus might be able to be used to mobilize grass-roots movements in suburbs and small towns. People in Rock Creek, Ohio, don’t care what happens in Washington, they care about what happens in Rock Creek. If you can get them to see that Washington does affect Rock Creek, they might be willing to do something. But what? What can someone in Rock Creek do that makes a difference?

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You are mistaken. Bernie Sanders didn’t make it anywhere near that far.

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Yeah, this counterproductive activity is exactly what the subthread has been about.

An American commenting on Brexit should know what UKIP is, or else they haven’t done enough homework to have an opinion worth voicing. The same is true for someone commenting on Trump but not knowing what the ACLU[sic] is.

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That guy in the background with the neo-Nazi medals on his jacket will be the next Communications Director.

Ooh, Omarosa’s getting “uncomfortable built*.”

*Before anyone tries to chide me for “body shaming” please note that I don’t care; I personally knew that horrible heifer in college and I’ve always disliked her.

Pretty much anything bad that happens to her is delicious schadenfreude to me; she’s got it coming, ten times over.

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Thanks for sharing. I’ve always had that suspicion that it’s not just for show, and Assorama (yes I’m resorting to name calling) really is a truly awful person. Nothing I’ve heard thus far has contradicted this.

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Everything I’ve seen about her since she graduated confirms what I thought about her in school; she’s a horrible person with no ethics to speak of.

Furthermore the last thing I heard about was her calling women who heckled her while she was shopping “fat.” From the looks of her now, she has no room to talk…

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