https://politicalwire.com/2018/12/30/mcchrystal-denounces-trump-as-immoral-and-a-liar/
Retired four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal criticized President Trump’s behavior and handling of the presidency . . . [read on]
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/trumps-crazy-narcissistic-moods-national-security-issue-without-mattis-retired-general/
Trump’s ‘crazy narcissistic moods’ are national security issue . . . General Mark Herling (Ret.)
Outgoing Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly goes off message
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/30/john-kelly-donald-trump-los-angeles-times-interview
Of Trump’s demanded wall, for which he has shut down the US government despite campaigning on a promise to make Mexico pay, Kelly said: “To be honest, it’s not a wall.” “The president still says ‘wall’,” he said. “Oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration . . .”
More: https://www.vox.com/2018/12/30/18161410/john-kelly-exit-interview-chaos-trumps-white-house
[NB: The new phase of this nonsense is that Trump has quietly redefined what the Wall™ means. It was originally supposed to be an impermeable concrete barrier stretching the entire length of the border (and Mexico was going to pay for it). Now he has said it is 500 miles or so of "new or renovated" fencing. Some of that might be brand new "steel slats," but the main stretches that CAN be built and NEED to be built are ALREADY built. Building wall in the middle of wilderness areas is pointless. So what is this all about now? Clearly, and simply, a way for him to get off the hook with his base to be able to say that he has built the Wall™ -- whatever that means now.]
Moronic
https://politicalwire.com/2018/12/31/trump-compares-border-wall-to-wall-around-obama-home/
Trump Compares Border Wall to Wall Around Obama Home
He's so wrong
https://www.salon.com/2018/12/30/trump-hopes-the-shutdown-will-mean-house-democrats-cant-investigate-him-report_partner/
According to a report by The Daily Beast, the president and his allies consider it a win merely if the government shutdown continues as a stalemate. Even if Trump doesn’t get his border wall, they reason, the shutdown fight will shift attention from incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s agenda to the president’s — and make it harder for Democrats to spend any effort investigating his administration . . .
More: https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-new-low.html
With President Trump, there is no bottom. Every time you think you have seen it, he manages to sink even lower. . . . [read on]
Lindsey Graham leaves a lunch meeting with Trump and claims that he's reconsidering his stance on Syria. And Graham thinks he can broker a deal on the shutdown too. But it isn't clear Trump wants one
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-goes-wobbly-on-threats
More: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/us/politics/trump-shutdown-wall.html
What the president who campaigned on his ability to cut deals has not done, nine days into a partial government shutdown over his signature campaign issue, is reach out to Democratic congressional leaders to strike one. . . Mr. Trump appears to have dug in. . . . Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, met with Mr. Trump over lunch on Sunday. . . “At the end of the day, there’s a deal to be had,” he said on Sunday. . . . Mr. Graham said after the meeting that the president had not signed on to his potential compromise, which would provide wall funding in return for work permits for the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. Democrats also have no interest in such a plan right now. . . .The president is also concerned that if he makes a deal, his core political support will falter, and his voters will see him as inauthentic after he talked about a wall in rally after rally for three years. . . .
He just says s--t
Bluff: https://taskandpurpose.com/trump-defense-sec-no-rush
Trump went on to claim that "everybody and his uncle" wanted the position. "Everybody wants that position. Everybody. Everybody — so many people want to be — who wouldn't want to be Secretary of Defense?" . . . "So we have a lot of people," Trump said. "We have a lot of great people who want to be Secretary of Defense. We'll take our time and we'll make the right decision."
Reality: https://politicalwire.com/2018/12/30/no-one-lining-up-to-replace-mattis/
No One Lining Up to Replace Mattis
Trump passes the 7500 mark for lies in 2018
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/12/donald-trump-enemy-truth
Trump isn't “twisting the truth” or “stubbornly refusing to admit error.” Trump is engaged in *disinformation.* This is a different thing entirely. . . [read on]
More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/2018-the-year-in-trump-lies
Donald Trump uttered an astounding number of falsehoods in 2018. These are our favorites.
Trump's federal pay freeze may not affect his own people
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/30/18161246/trump-orders-federal-pay-freeze-2019
More details on how Trump's properties used undocumented workers
Reports this weekend said the FBI and authorities in New Jersey are investigating whether management at Trump’s New Jersey golf club actually provided immigrants employed with fake documents to make it seem as if they had legal employment status when they did not. The Washington Post interviewed a lawyer for two women who worked at the Bedminster golf resort. The attorney said he met with investigators from the state attorney general’s office and handed over fraudulent green cards and Social Security numbers that club management gave to his clients. . . . “The important point that I think has been left out is that Americans think these hard-working women get these jobs on their own — that’s not what happened,” attorney Anibal Romero told The Post. “People employed by the golf club recruited her and made her the phony documents.”
In Russia news . . .
Trump tweets that the FBI was part of a fix to throw the 2016 election to Clinton. If so, they did a pretty piss-poor job of it
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1079214392758145024
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/14/17448960/inspector-general-report-justice-fbi-clinton-emails-comey
[June 14] A hotly anticipated inspector general report about then-FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation is finally complete. . . . The report contradicts President Trump’s often-expressed belief that the investigation was rigged to get Clinton off the hook. . . . Comey’s public statements about the case continued, first in extensive congressional testimony, then in an October 28 letter announcing the FBI had discovered new emails that could be relevant. . . All this was highly unusual, to say the least, and some analysts believe Comey‘s late letters helped swing the election to Trump. . . .
[NB: Meanwhile, the FBI said NOTHING publicly about the ongoing investigation of Trump and Russia, and the suspicious meetings they already knew about. You might think that if they were trying to throw the election to Clinton they would have said something about that. But . . . they didn't.]
Newt Gingrich, then and now
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/newt-was-worried-about-systematically.html
[1998] "There is something profoundly demeaning and destructive to have the White House systematically undermine the Department of Justice. And when I watch these paid hacks on television, to be quite honest, I am sickened . . . ."
[Now] "This whole thing is an absurdity. We've now had Paul Manafort and his wife in their pajamas at 3 in the morning having the FBI break down the door. Cohen, the lawyer, had the door taken off of the hinges at 6 in the morning. It ain't the rule of law when they kick in your door at 3 in the morning and you're faced with armed men. And you have had no reason to be told you're going to have that kind of treatment. That's Stalin. That's the Gestapo in Germany. That shouldn't be the American FBI."
In other news . .
.
We used to talk about "education presidents," in both parties. No one would ever make the mistake of calling Trump that
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1821864
The damage done to our educational system by Betsy DeVos may be deep and long-lasting
https://thinkprogress.org/teachers-quit-their-jobs-in-record-numbers-during-2018-497f2162b3a6
Teachers quit their jobs in record numbers during 2018
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/back-to-school-season-marred-by-chronic-underfunding-endless-charter-school-scandals/
The labor unrest that swept across schools in red states earlier this year has now reached blue states too, as teachers in Los Angles, the nation’s second-largest school district, and across the state of Washington have threatened to strike, or are on strike, over working conditions and poor pay. . .
Bad news for election transparency
In Russia news . . .
Trump tweets that the FBI was part of a fix to throw the 2016 election to Clinton. If so, they did a pretty piss-poor job of it
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1079214392758145024
“It
turns out to be true now, that the Department of Justice and the FBI,
under President Obama, rigged the investigation for Hillary and really
turned the screws on Trump, and now it looks like in a corrupt &
illegal way. The facts are out now. Whole Hoax exposed.
[June 14] A hotly anticipated inspector general report about then-FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation is finally complete. . . . The report contradicts President Trump’s often-expressed belief that the investigation was rigged to get Clinton off the hook. . . . Comey’s public statements about the case continued, first in extensive congressional testimony, then in an October 28 letter announcing the FBI had discovered new emails that could be relevant. . . All this was highly unusual, to say the least, and some analysts believe Comey‘s late letters helped swing the election to Trump. . . .
[NB: Meanwhile, the FBI said NOTHING publicly about the ongoing investigation of Trump and Russia, and the suspicious meetings they already knew about. You might think that if they were trying to throw the election to Clinton they would have said something about that. But . . . they didn't.]
Newt Gingrich, then and now
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/newt-was-worried-about-systematically.html
[1998] "There is something profoundly demeaning and destructive to have the White House systematically undermine the Department of Justice. And when I watch these paid hacks on television, to be quite honest, I am sickened . . . ."
[Now] "This whole thing is an absurdity. We've now had Paul Manafort and his wife in their pajamas at 3 in the morning having the FBI break down the door. Cohen, the lawyer, had the door taken off of the hinges at 6 in the morning. It ain't the rule of law when they kick in your door at 3 in the morning and you're faced with armed men. And you have had no reason to be told you're going to have that kind of treatment. That's Stalin. That's the Gestapo in Germany. That shouldn't be the American FBI."
In other news . .
.We used to talk about "education presidents," in both parties. No one would ever make the mistake of calling Trump that
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1821864
The damage done to our educational system by Betsy DeVos may be deep and long-lasting
https://thinkprogress.org/teachers-quit-their-jobs-in-record-numbers-during-2018-497f2162b3a6
Teachers quit their jobs in record numbers during 2018
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/back-to-school-season-marred-by-chronic-underfunding-endless-charter-school-scandals/
The labor unrest that swept across schools in red states earlier this year has now reached blue states too, as teachers in Los Angles, the nation’s second-largest school district, and across the state of Washington have threatened to strike, or are on strike, over working conditions and poor pay. . .
Bad news for election transparency
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/30/congress-super-pacs-donors-hidden-1076623
Congress unlikely to stop super PACs from hiding donors
Bonus item: 83 fascinating facts
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/83-things-blew-our-minds-2018/579046/
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/83-things-blew-our-minds-2018/579046/
Sixty percent of gun deaths in 2017 were suicides. . . .
***If you
enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of
this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sharing its
URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com)
with others via email or social media. Thanks for helping to spread the word!
I don’t
get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing
it (I don’t run ads, etc.). The credit really all goes to the people whose
material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a “mission,” it is to get
this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
