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PoliGAF 2017 |OT5| The Man In the High Chair

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antonz

Member
McMaster rolling heads today it seems.

Rich Higgins, head of National Security Council strategic planning, is also out, a White House official says - @kwelkernbc
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
I have a super, super hot take.

Scaramucci's communications plan memo actually seems...pretty good. Professional, reasonable, might have actually helped make things smoother for Trump.

It's just too bad he did all that coke I guess.

Reading through that plan, it's almost exactly what they need. It wouldn't fix the big issues, Trump, but it would go a long way towards them not being utter shit.
 
And I think that just exposes the whole charade there. It's always been just about giving the wealthy more money.

They don't want the Democrats involved because there might actually be something that benefits the lower and middle class. The horrors! And at the expense of letting some billionaire buy a third yacht.

Right ... it's a pretty telling maneuver on the GOP's end. At least it SHOULD be. I think it's more than just wanting to never help the poor though. I also think they're still fucking the "never let the dems get a bipartisan" win chicken. This congress isn't interested in finding common ground. Which is depressing in an of itself.



I feel like their plan had *some* meat in it for the lower and middle class (aside from the efforts to eliminate a lot of deductions to screw over people like student debtors).

Give the average American a $4,000 check and i think enough people would be happy.

Weren't there rumblings of fucking with child tax credit or interest deducts or some shit the middle class depends on?
 
Man, I finally get around to reading that Atlantic article about how Ezra Cohen-Watnick is untouchable, and the dude gets fired the next day. (Maybe I should start reading articles about how Trump will never be impeached...)
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Rumor is Scaramucci will be setting up some kind of outside-the-whitehouse pro-Trump propaganda shop?

giphy.gif
 

Sciz

Member
The Mooch plan assumes that with enough propaganda, you can actually make Trump look presidential. Ain't no PR campaign that good.
 

Pryce

Member
Off-topic, but I was looking at polling for the Ohio senate race next year. Brown is down by 8% points to Mandel. I know it's way off, but Ohio's not already lost, right? It seems to be going further right than other rust belt states are.
 
NBC reporter just now on Hardsball says Trump is frustrated with Afghanistan policy and is in a "stalemate" with military generals. She says Trump told Mattis, "Why are we losing this war? I gave you authority to win"...

What.The.Fuck.
 

Atlagev

Member
McMaster rolling heads today it seems.

Rich Higgins, head of National Security Council strategic planning, is also out, a White House official says - @kwelkernbc

Me: "Is this good or bad?"

Report: NSC Staffer Fired After Writing Memo About "Globalists and Islamists"

Me: "Well, that answers that question..."
 

Loxley

Member
NBC reporter just now on Hardsball says Trump is frustrated with Afghanistan policy and is in a "stalemate" with military generals. She says Trump told Mattis, "Why are we losing this war, I gave you authority to win?"...

What.The.Fuck.

Did someone on Fox & Friends say we were at war with Afghanistan or something?
 

Teggy

Member
NBC reporter just now on Hardsball says Trump is frustrated with Afghanistan policy and is in a "stalemate" with military generals. She says Trump told Mattis, "Why are we losing this war, I gave you authority to win?"...

What.The.Fuck.


As in, "I gave you permission to kill civilians?"
 

jtb

Banned
Off-topic, but I was looking at polling for the Ohio senate race next year. Brown is down by 8% points to Mandel. I know it's way off, but Ohio's not already lost, right? It seems to be going further right than other rust belt states are.

Link?

Brown is a very strong incumbent, I have a hard time believing he's vulnerable - particularly when Dems should fare well on a generic ballot basis - but maybe he's about to Feingold it.
 
NBC reporter just now on Hardsball says Trump is frustrated with Afghanistan policy and is in a "stalemate" with military generals. She says Trump told Mattis, "Why are we losing this war? I gave you authority to win"...

What.The.Fuck.

"I know more than the generals, believe me"
 

Ogodei

Member
Off-topic, but I was looking at polling for the Ohio senate race next year. Brown is down by 8% points to Mandel. I know it's way off, but Ohio's not already lost, right? It seems to be going further right than other rust belt states are.

Ohio's hardly that far gone despite Trump's lopsided win there. That was more the case of Hillary being particularly bad candidate for Ohio Dems to rally behind. Brown is, of course, tailor-made for them.

Hell, not even McCaskill's polling 8% behind potential rivals.
 

antonz

Member
Me: "Is this good or bad?"

Report: NSC Staffer Fired After Writing Memo About "Globalists and Islamists"

Me: "Well, that answers that question..."

Yeah I think as was mentioned above that Kelly in as CoS has allowed the decent people inside the White House as limited as they are to begin clearing the shit out. Kelly probably demanded his position be respected and the power the CoS typically wields be honored.

Of course this is good news in the sense the snakes and cockroaches are going to start being eliminated but it also might start making the white house itself look functional beyond whatever idiot in chief tweets.
 

Kusagari

Member
I think Brown will win, but I'm not super confident.

It's bizarre I have more faith in the guy representing the state Trump won by 42% than any of these other Dems in danger.
 

Teggy

Member
They're probably going to need varsity, jv and freshman debates by the time democrats are done lining up for the 2020 primary.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Rumor is Scaramucci will be setting up some kind of outside-the-whitehouse pro-Trump propaganda shop?

Well Trump had all of his ducks lined in a row for a whole Trump network when he was sure he was going to lose the election

Scarmooch probably just picking up the blueprint on that
 

Holmes

Member

JettDash

Junior Member
I assume he'll run as an independent, if at all. It fits with his actions of seeing and posting about all 50 states and espousing his diversity of thought with Peter Thiel.

If he runs as an independent, he's an idiot who would be wasting his money and time.

0% chance an independent wins the presidency.
 

chadskin

Member
When new White House chief of staff John Kelly huddled with senior staff on his first day at work, he outlined a key problem in President Donald Trump’s White House that he planned to fix: Bad information getting into the president’s hands.

Kelly told the staff that information needed to flow through him – whether on paper or in briefings –because the president would make better decisions if given good information.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/john-kelly-trump-west-wing-241268

No more fake Time magazine covers for Trump. Sad!

Also: Leaks!
 

JettDash

Junior Member
Has Trump actually given Kelly authority to enforce things? Like will Kelly be able to fire Ivanka or Jared or even Steve Bannon if they ignore him?
 
To expand on the Afghan story:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-says-u-s-losing-afghan-war-tense-meeting-generals-n789006

Trump Says U.S.‘Losing’ Afghan War in Tense Meeting With Generals

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has become increasingly frustrated with his advisers tasked with crafting a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and recently suggested firing the war's top military commander during a tense meeting at the White House, according to senior administration officials.

During the July 19 meeting, Trump repeatedly suggested that Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford replace Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, because he is not winning the war, the officials said. Trump has not met Nicholson, and the Pentagon has been considering extending his time in Afghanistan.

Over nearly two hours in the situation room, according to the officials, Trump complained about NATO allies, inquired about the United States getting a piece of Afghan’s mineral wealth and repeatedly said the top U.S. general there should be fired. He also startled the room with a story that seemed to compare their advice to that of a paid consultant who cost a tony New York restaurateur profits by offering bad advice.
...

During the meeting, Trump criticized his military advisers seated around the table in the White House Situation Room for what he said was a losing U.S. position in the war, according to the senior administration officials. At one point the president directed his frustration at Mattis, saying Trump had given the military authority months ago to make advances in Afghanistan and yet the U.S. was continuing to lose ground, the officials said.

"We aren't winning," Trump complained, according to these officials. "We are losing."

One official said Trump pointed to maps showing the Taliban gaining ground, and that Mattis responded to the president by saying the U.S. is losing because it doesn't have the strategy it needs.

..

Told that Trump was considering firing Gen. Nicholson, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "I can't think of a good reason to fire the general. I think he's done an admirable job."

"If the president doesn't listen to the generals, like Gen. Nicholson and he goes down the road that President Obama went, Afghanistan is going to collapse," Graham said. "Here's my advice to the president — listen to people like Gen. Nicholson and McMaster and others who have been in the fight."

Trump, however, appeared to have been significantly influenced by a meeting he'd recently had with a group of veterans of the Afghanistan war, and he was unhappy with the options presented to him.

Trump vented to his national security team that the veterans told him forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have not been helpful, and he lamented that China is making money off of Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion in rare minerals while American troops are fighting the war, officials said. Trump expressed frustration that his advisers tasked with figuring out how the U.S. can help American businesses get rights to those minerals were moving too slowly, one official said.

China purchased mineral rights in Afghanistan a decade ago, an investment the U.S. supported at the time. Beijing has since had teams mining copper outside of Kabul.

The focus on the minerals was reminiscent of Trump's comments early into his presidency when he lamented that the U.S. didn't take Iraq's oil when the majority of forces departed the country in 2011.

To underscore his view that the veterans who fought in the war may be better positioned to advise him on an Afghanistan strategy, Trump compared the policy review process to the renovation of a famed New York restaurant in the 1980s, officials said.

Trump told his advisers that the restaurant, Manhattan's elite '21' Club, had shut its doors for a year and hired an expensive consultant to craft a plan for a renovation. After a year, Trump said, the consultant's only suggestion was that the restaurant needed a bigger kitchen.


Officials said Trump kept stressing the idea that lousy advice cost the owner a year of lost business and that talking to the restaurant's waiters instead might have yielded a better result. He also said the tendency is to assume if someone isn't a three-star general he doesn't know what he's talking about, and that in his own experience in business talking to low-ranking workers has gotten him better outcomes.

...
Trump left the national security meeting without making a decision on a strategy. His advisers were stunned, administration officials and others briefed on the meeting said.

Two Pentagon officials close to Mattis said he returned from the White House that morning visibly upset. Mattis often takes a walk when grappling with an issue. That afternoon, the walk took longer than usual, the officials said.

Among those at the meeting were Trump's senior White House advisers including Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and then chief-of-staff Reince Priebus, plus Mattis, Dunford, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

At one point, Dunford offered to set up a meeting for Trump with Gen. Nicholson in the hopes that personal interaction may soothe Trump's concerns about his leadership.

Mattis also defended Gen. Nicholson, an official said, adding that the conversation about the commander ended inconclusively.

...

J
F
C

War is not a restaurant, you fucking asshole.


That's the only way he could win?

Not that I think he would have much of a chance.

I mean he could try running in the Dem primaries, but he'll get trounced.

Although if he does run (as an independent) he might steal some of the moderate vote.

I think he's evaluating his possibilities, but he has no chance as an I or a D
 
Off-topic, but I was looking at polling for the Ohio senate race next year. Brown is down by 8% points to Mandel. I know it's way off, but Ohio's not already lost, right? It seems to be going further right than other rust belt states are.

The poll is by People's Pundit Daily, a very pro-Trump internet site. Their polls are not included in averages by RCP, 538, or Huffington Post, which is a bit of a red flag. They claimed to be the most accurate poll in "battleground states" in 2016, a qualifier that's reminiscent of the tactics of sports betting touts to convince people to buy their picks (their overall accuracy appears to be nothing special). It doesn't appear to be a completely fabricated poll a la Delphi Analytica, but at the same time it appears to be a bit fishy in terms of how it's marketed and probably in how it's conducted as well given that it's excluded by the major aggregators.

I certainly think Brown is more likely to win than not given his strong approvals and midterm dynamics, but it's something of a race to watch given Trump's strong performance in Ohio this past election. I'd like to see some results from more respected pollsters.
 
Off-topic, but I was looking at polling for the Ohio senate race next year. Brown is down by 8% points to Mandel. I know it's way off, but Ohio's not already lost, right? It seems to be going further right than other rust belt states are.

There has been almost real polling for Ohio Senate, so it's hard to say. But, no.
 
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