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Nancy knows how to deal with a toddler's tantrums…

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: January 17, 2019, 07:37:44 pm »


from The Washington Post…

Facing Trump's tantrum, Pelosi takes away the TV

Depriving him of the limelight is a grand slam.

By JENNIFER RUBIN | 1:15PM EST — Wednesday, January 16, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) talks to reporters after House passage of a bill requiring retroactive pay for all government workers once the partial shutdown ends, at the Capitol in Washington, on January 11. — Photograph: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) talks to reporters after House passage of a bill requiring retroactive pay for all government
workers once the partial shutdown ends, at the Capitol in Washington, on January 11. — Photograph: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press.


TO SAY House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) has mastered the art of dealing with President Trump would be a gross understatement. She fact-checked him in the Oval Office on live TV and passed spending bills to reopen the government, thereby reinforcing Trump's responsibility for the shutdown. To top it off, she's taking away the president's TV. More precisely, in response to Trump's nearly month-long temper tantrum, she has told him he won't get his prime-time State of the Union address on January 29.

In a letter to Trump, she writes, “During the 19th Century and up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, these annual State of the Union messages were delivered to Congress in writing. And since the start of modern budgeting in Fiscal Year 1977, a State of the Union address has never been delivered during a government shutdown.” She then explains that both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, which are charged with security, “have not been funded for 26 days now — with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs.” Given all that, we couldn't possibly have the speech, she says.

She concludes: “I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.” (I vote for delivering it in writing.)

You wonder why in the world Democrats ever considered replacing her. She knows she has power, she willingly and skillfully deploys it, and, as she has said, as a mother of 5 children, knows how to handle a toddler's meltdown. She also knows what Trump craves most — attention and TV cameras. (Remember, he couldn't stand it when she had the limelight on January 3 so felt compelled to enter the White House briefing room — but take no questions.)

Ultimately, Pelosi's power rests on the unity of her members and the Democratic base — and the president's dwindling power and popularity. According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, “the majority of Americans (58%) continue to oppose substantially expanding the border wall, while 40% favor the proposal…. Overwhelming shares of both liberal Democrats (97%) and conservative and moderate Democrats (89%) oppose expanding the border wall.” Trump's failed Oval Office speech shows he's unable to move public opinion. His handling of the shutdown has earned him harshly negative ratings:


Quote
Overall, just 36% of the public approves of how Trump is handling negotiations over the government shutdown, including 23% who say they strongly approve. About six-in-ten (61%) disapprove of Trump's approach to the negotiations, including 53% who say they strongly disapprove….

Public views of Democratic leaders' handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove (53%) than approve (43%).

In evaluations of how each is handling shutdown talks, Trump elicits stronger opinions than Democratic and Republican congressional leaders. Overall, 75% of adults characterize their opinion of Trump's handling of the shutdown negotiations as either strongly disapproving (53%) or strongly approving (23%). By comparison, only about half of Americans offer strong evaluations of how congressional leadership in both parties are handling the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Trump's overall approval rating is a puny 37 percent. “Trump's support among Republicans and Republican leaners remains high (80% approve), while nearly all Democrats and Democratic leaners (96%) disapprove of his job performance. The partisan gap in Trump's job approval is wider than for any president in more than six decades.”

In short, Pelosi has the full support of her party and a sizable majority of the country behind her. Unlike Trump, many don’t view the wall as a dire issue, but 58 percent do see the shutdown as a “very serious” matter.

We don't know how this will end, but should the shutdown create a serious safety hazard or take a big chunk out of the economy, there is little doubt who’s going to get the blame. And Pelosi knows it.


__________________________________________________________________________

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion from a center-right perspective for The Washington Post. She covers a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican Party and threats to Western democracies. Rubin, who is also an MSNBC contributor, came to The Post after three years with Commentary magazine. Prior to her career in journalism, Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work. She is a mother of two sons and lives in Northern Virginia.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Pelosi urges Trump to reschedule State of the Union

 • VIDEO: Schumer on delaying Trump's State of the Union address

 • Pelosi asks Trump to postpone State of the Union address because of shutdown — or deliver it in writing

 • Pelosi's bold letter about postponing Trump's State of the Union, annotated

 • Will the State of the Union be postponed? That hasn't happened since the Challenger disaster.

 • Pelosi is right to say no to Trump's speech. Because things are not normal.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/16/pelosi-case-tantrum-take-away-tv
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2019, 07:39:52 pm »

Quote
So he definitely won't get legislation passed now the Democrats hold the majority in Congress

I think you make a big mistake

Republicans now hold a bigger majority in the Senate

and yes there will be fun and games
I'll get the popcorn out.


Yep, there is fun and games alright.

Nancy is spanking the immature toddler's arse.

Fucking hilarious!!
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« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2019, 07:40:15 pm »


from The Washington Post…

‘She wields the knife’: Pelosi moves to belittle
and undercut Trump in shutdown fight


The House speaker’s confrontational approach to the president has united Democrats
and cheered liberals — but it also carries risks ahead of the 2020 campaign.


By PAUL KANE, PHILIP RUCKER and JOSH DAWSEY | 8:09PM EST — Wednesday, January 16, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) speaks to reporters after a meeting with President Donald J. Trump at the White House on Friday last week. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California.) speaks to reporters after a meeting with President Donald J. Trump at the White House
on Friday last week. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


HOUSE DEMOCRATS on Wednesday were making plans to undermine President Trump at his January 29 State of the Union address. Just past 8:30 a.m., the leadership's communications arm sent an email to lawmakers urging them to bring furloughed federal workers or other “message-related” guests to the nationally televised event.

Unknown to most of her caucus, however, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) had decided on a more confrontational approach.

Addressing a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, the speaker read a letter she had just sent to Trump asking him to either postpone the speech until the federal government reopens or deliver the text in writing, citing security concerns.

Surprised Democratic lawmakers cheered their leader's rationale: If the government stays shut down, Pelosi would deprive Trump of the spotlight he craves. To a president especially sensitive to acts of disrespect — and one with a hearty appetite for pomp and circumstance — the so-called unvitation was not merely a power play. It was a calculated personal slight.

In the two weeks since she reclaimed the speaker's gavel, Pelosi has moved aggressively to leverage her decades of congressional experience to needle, belittle and undercut Trump with swipes at his competence and even his masculinity.

The two leaders are locked in a standoff over a partial government shutdown instigated by Trump's demand that U.S. taxpayers fund a portion of his promised border wall. Both Trump and Pelosi are gambling that the other will bear the brunt of the blame as the economic impact worsens, with the shutdown now dragging on for nearly a month.

But Pelosi's challenge to Trump also comes with a degree of risk, for her and for Democrats. The more she becomes the face of Trump's opposition, the more Republicans will probably use her unpopularity nationally to label vulnerable House Democrats as Pelosi clones — a potentially potent line of attack against sitting lawmakers who cast votes in lock-step with party leaders.

Still, with a self-declared mandate to provide a check on the president's power, Pelosi is helping to keep Democrats largely united while energizing liberals who have yearned for a leader to challenge Trump directly.

Representative Steve Cohen (Democrat-Tennessee) called her letter to Trump to delay the State of the Union speech her “Gene Hackman moment,” comparing it to an inspirational speech the actor gives a basketball team in the movie “Hoosiers”.

“It's smart for two reasons,” Cohen said. “Number one, Pelosi would be right behind him, and she'd have to sit there as he put the onus on her for the shutdown. Number two, it gives him a reason to end the shutdown, because he loves the TV audience and the attention.”

Josh Holmes, an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky), called Pelosi “a total fighter.”

“She understands political leverage. She wields the knife,” Holmes said. But he argued that her call to delay Trump's speech was “a major screw-up” and predicted it would backfire.

In her letter to Trump, Pelosi said the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have been “hamstrung” by furloughs and therefore should not bear the burden of securing the president's address in the House chamber. The White House had no immediate response, but Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said her department and the Secret Service were “fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union.”

Trump was largely indifferent to Pelosi's letter on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with his remarks about the issue who requested anonymity to speak about internal discussions. Trump and the White House decided not to respond because it was unclear whether Pelosi was actually canceling the event or just making a political statement, both of these people said.


President Donald J. Trump debates with Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York) about his proposed border wall as Vice President Mike Pence listens in the Oval Office last month. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.
President Donald J. Trump debates with Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York) about his proposed
border wall as Vice President Mike Pence listens in the Oval Office last month. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


Marc Short, the Trump White House's former legislative affairs director, said if security truly were Pelosi's concern, she would not have extended a formal invitation to Trump to deliver the address, which she did earlier this month after the shutdown began.

“If we really can't secure the president of the United States in the Capitol, then we have a much bigger problem,” Short said. “It's a bogus claim to say there are security concerns. Everybody can look at that and say she doesn't want to give the president a platform to speak to the nation about border security.”

House Minority Whip Steve ­Scalise (Republian-Louisiana) said, “It's just that Nancy Pelosi is afraid of hearing what the president has to say.”

One danger for Pelosi is that Democrats could eventually appear intransigent to voters. Having said she considers the president's long-promised wall immoral — and joking that she would only agree to allocate a single dollar to it — Pelosi could find herself in a bind should Republicans offer a compromise deal that would partially meet Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding.

Pelosi's strategy for dealing with Trump was born of exasperation, advisers said. She has been deliberately trying to get under his skin and “to talk to him in a way he understands,” according to one person familiar with her views.

After Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer's December 11 Oval Office meeting with Trump, their first since the mid-term elections, the speaker-designate told House Democrats their session was like “a tinkle contest with a skunk” and that she felt his wall demand was “like a manhood thing for him,” according to an aide in the room.

Pelosi kept her digs coming. After Trump backed off his demand that the wall be built of cement, she suggested he wanted “a beaded curtain or something.” She has implied he cannot relate to furloughed workers and “thinks maybe they could just ask their father for more money,” a reference to the president's inherited wealth. And she has described his behavior as unstable and childish.

“It's a temper tantrum,” Pelosi said after Trump stalked out of a negotiating session last week. “I'm the mother of five, grandmother of nine. I know a temper tantrum when I see one.”

Pelosi is setting the tone for how her party plans to confront the president over the next two years — in the political and legal fights consuming Washington as well as the presidential campaign taking shape across the country.

“She's had so much experience and has been attacked so much that she's secure,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a longtime Democratic strategist. “She is a woman of power who knows how to use it and is not at all cowed by what [Trump's] reaction is to her. It's not a concern. That frees her to take actions that others might be afraid to do.”

Navigating among powerful men is old hat for Pelosi, the youngest of six children from a political family in Baltimore, growing up with five older brothers, one of whom followed their father's footsteps into the mayor's office. She rose as a political force in her own right, first as a California fundraiser and local party activist and then in Congress, at a time when men vastly outnumbered women in the profession.

Trump is a proud counter-puncher, but when it comes to Pelosi, he has pulled back on his jabs. That is deliberate, aides and advisers said, because the president believes she would help protect him from impeachment and because he considers her more reasonable than other Democrats.

Privately, one adviser said, Trump has complained about the quotes he reads from Pelosi about him in newspapers but has said he is impressed by her political savvy.

“He says Cryin' Chuck and Nancy, not Cryin' Chuck and Nasty Nancy or whatever,” said this adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's views, referring to Trump's Twitter mentions of Pelosi and Schumer (Democrat-New York).


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference in the Capitol last week. — Photograph: Calla Kessler/The Washington Post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference in the Capitol last week. — Photograph: Calla Kessler/The Washington Post.

Democrats won 40 House seats in November's mid-term elections — their largest gain since the Watergate-era class of 1974 — after Republican anti-Pelosi ads failed.

Pelosi's approval rating has improved since the election, but she remains unpopular. A Quinnipiac poll released this week found 35 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of her, up from 27 percent in mid-2017. The survey found 48 percent held an unfavorable image of Pelosi, largely unchanged from her unfavorable rating over the past five years. A number of polls have shown Pelosi is as popular or more popular than Trump.

On the campaign trail last fall, Trump's aides encouraged him to attack Pelosi by name at his rallies. They argued with him that she was more unpopular with his supporters than his favorite foe, Hillary Clinton, according to one senior administration official.

But as soon as Pelosi secured the House majority, Trump decided to call and congratulate her, even though aides had told reporters he was not planning to do so.

White House aides said Trump respects Pelosi, and he has suggested they strike a deal on infrastructure. He often brings up Pelosi's Catholic faith. Before one meeting last year, he asked her to pray, and at a meeting earlier this year, he said that the Vatican had a wall and that she was a “good Catholic,” according to someone familiar with the exchange.

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser, said the president probably figured he could manage Pelosi just as he dealt with foes in real estate.

“I think that, as usual, he thought he would be able to charm her and that at the end of the day, they would have this great bipartisan type of deal-making,” he said. “I think it's completely naive.”

Trump has sought to drive a wedge through Pelosi's caucus, which includes centrists elected in districts he carried in 2016 as well as liberals already pushing for the president's impeachment.

But for now, at least, Pelosi has kept her members united, in part with stealth moves like Wednesday's State of the Union letter. She kept her plans a secret from most of her own leadership team, though she gave a heads-up to Schumer. The two have been working in sync, talking five to six times a day during the shutdown. Pelosi asked Schumer to trek across to the Capitol on Wednesday morning to attend the House caucus meeting and show his support for the plan, which he did.

Pelosi's unexpected announcement did cause some confusion. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Democrat-Maryland) went on CNN, without having carefully read the letter she sent to Trump, and incorrectly declared that the State of the Union was “off”, even though Pelosi made clear that if the government was fully funded before January 29 the event could go forward.

Still, the move served to rally Democrats.

Representative Max Rose, a centrist Democrat elected last fall in Trump-friendly Staten Island in New York, was one of seven Democrats in the “Problem Solvers Caucus” who went to the White House on Wednesday to meet with Trump. But he said he was solidly in Pelosi's corner, even though he did not support her as speaker.

“She's bailing the president out, man,” Rose said. “Do you think the president of the United States is going to deliver a State of the Union during a government shutdown and say it's good?”


__________________________________________________________________________

Mike DeBonis and David Weigel contributed to this report.

Paul Kane has covered Congress since 2000, when he started at Roll Call with a beat focused on the Senate leadership agenda. He started with The Washington Post in 2007, covering topics such as the congressional response to the 2008 financial crisis and the Obama-Republican fiscal wars. He now writes a regular column on Congress and its interactions with the Trump administration.

Philip Rucker is the White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. He previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House, and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Rucker also is a Political Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He joined The Post in 2005 as a local news reporter.

Josh Dawsey is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the newspaper in 2017. He previously covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for The Wall Street Journal.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: What Nancy Pelosi wants to accomplish as speaker

 • A subtle shift in the Trump-as-Toddler analogy


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/she-wields-the-knife-pelosi-moves-to-belittle-and-undercut-trump-in-shutdown-fight/2019/01/16/e6861fbe-19b0-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html
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« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2019, 03:10:14 pm »


Now it's tit-for-tat…







…Nanci Pelosi should call President Shit-For-Brains' bluff and fly off to Europe along with the other members of Congress on commercial flights and leave Trump to stew in his one dung-pile in the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Then, after returning, refuse to supply any more money to US military in Afghanistan due to the fact that she and her fellow congress members weren't able to go there to ensure that the Trump administration isn't using that money corruptly. An easy way to deal with an immature toddler throwing a tantrum.
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« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2019, 03:15:02 pm »


from The New York Times…

Trump and Pelosi: A Game of Spite and Malice

She gets under his skin. He punches back. Game on.

By MICHELLE COTTLE | Thursday, January 17, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not afraid of going toe-to-toe with President Donald J. Trump. — Photograph: Tom Brenner/for The New York Times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not afraid of going toe-to-toe with President Donald J. Trump. — Photograph: Tom Brenner/for The New York Times.

IT SEEMS that the speaker of the House has gotten under the famously thin skin of the president.

On Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle by effectively disinviting President Trump from delivering his State of the Union address to Congress this month.

In a letter citing concerns about the security implications of the continuing government shutdown, Ms. Pelosi suggested, “sadly,” that it might be best if she and the president could “determine another suitable date after government has reopened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing.”

The communiqué was at once excruciatingly polite and brutally dismissive, driving home how the power dynamic has shifted on Capitol Hill. As congressional Republicans sputtered about how grossly political the speaker was being, Mr. Trump was reminded not only of the limitations of his own power, but also of how his House enablers have been stripped of theirs.

Surprised and clearly irked, Mr. Trump fired back on Thursday with a petulant, taunting letter postponing a congressional delegation that Ms. Pelosi had been scheduled to lead to Brussels and Afghanistan — or at least canceling military support for it — for the duration of the shutdown. “Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative,” snarked the president.

It was a transparent bit of retaliation for Ms. Pelosi's taking his big television moment away from him — not to mention a blatant attempt to drag the speaker down into the sort of cheap playground tussle at which the president excels.

But if anyone has the chops to manage Mr. Trump's brattiness, it is Ms. Pelosi.

Mr. Trump may in some ways be a unique political animal, but Ms. Pelosi is not unfamiliar with his type, having risen to political prominence in a field full of arrogant, entitled, patronizing men.

Along the way, she has been repeatedly underestimated. In 1985, having reached the top of the California Democratic Party, she campaigned, unsuccessfully, to head the national party. As Ms. Pelosi tells it, one union organizer dismissed her as “an airhead.” Other players told her that Democrats wouldn't risk elevating a woman to such a high-profile post on the heels of Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential loss with Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. Ms. Pelosi never forgot those slights.


Photograph: Tom Brenner/for The New York Times. Photograph: Tom Brenner/for The New York Times.
Both photographs by Tom Brenner for The New York Times.

Upon arriving in Congress in 1987, she had to carve out a space in what was then still an old white boys' club. She succeeded through a combination of sweat, savvy and sheer will. She learned how Congress works, both as an institution and as a collection of egos. As she showed in quashing a challenge to her leadership after the mid-term elections, she knows how to find people's pressure points.

She also knows how to handle pressure. As House minority leader, she helped derail President George W. Bush's efforts to privatize Social Security by ignoring the conventional wisdom that Democrats needed to offer an alternative plan. Resisting criticism from both the White House and her own conference, Ms. Pelosi focused on taking down Mr. Bush's plan.

This time around, Ms. Pelosi is aiming not merely to rein in the out-of-control president but, in the process, to deflate his cherished image as a Master of the Universe. She has mocked Mr. Trump's obsession with what she terms his “manhood” and gone all in with the grandmother-wrangling-an-unruly-child shtick. What he paints as strong leadership and standing his ground, she dismisses as a temper tantrum. Rather than outrage or disbelief, Ms. Pelosi's most common response to Mr. Trump amounts to one long, exasperated eye roll.

The speaker's move is not without risk. Public sentiment can be fickle, and if the voters starts to feel like Democrats are trying to score cheap political points against the president, they could turn on Ms. Pelosi.

But, here again, few politicians are as well equipped to weather a political storm. Ms. Pelosi has been a polarizing figure for longer than most members have been in Congress. For years, Republicans have been using her as a boogeyman, painting pretty much every Democratic candidate nationwide as a tool of her and her radical San Francisco agenda. As a result, her public appeal is much like that of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, slightly above a root canal. But while Pelosi-bashing has its charms — Republican voters do love hating on the speaker — as the mid-terms showed, it also has its limits.

For her part, Ms. Pelosi is not overly concerned with personal popularity. Like Mr. McConnell, she has a job to do, and if getting it done requires taking some heat, so be it.

Word around Washington is that Mr. Trump admires the speaker, considers her more reasonable than many in her conference — possibly even likes her. This is said to be why he doesn't smack her as gleefully as he does other prominent Democrats and why he hasn't settled on a sophomoric nickname for her like Cryin' Chuck or Crooked Hillary. This restraint is unlikely to hold, as Ms. Pelosi picks away at Mr. Trump. The big question is whether she can avoid getting pulled down into the muck right along with him.


__________________________________________________________________________

• Michelle Cottle is a member of The New York Times' editorial board.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/pelosi-trump-shutdown.html
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« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2019, 09:59:10 am »


from The New York Times…

Washington as Unruly Sandbox: Squabbles, Antics and Tantrums

As the shutdown drags on, Trump-like behavior proliferates. The president
“does generally force people to play down to his level,’’ says a biographer.


By MARK LANDLER | Thursday, Januar 17, 2019

As the shutdown drags on, political tantrums and bickering have become the norm in Washington. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.
As the shutdown drags on, political tantrums and bickering have become the norm in Washington. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.

WASHINGTON D.C. — In a week of White House tantrums and fast-food dinners, of canceled speeches and aborted congressional trips, it seemed fitting that Karen Pence, the wife of Vice President Mike Pence, announced that she was going back to her job as an elementary schoolteacher.

Washington these days resembles nothing so much as an unruly sandbox. As the shutdown drags on, septuagenarian politicians are squabbling like 7-year-olds, House freshmen staged a boisterous protest march to the empty office of the Senate majority leader and the president's lawyer went spectacularly off the rails in a television interview. There did not seem to be an adult in sight.

“I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do, which is to teach art,” Ms. Pence said in a statement about her new job, conjuring up a world of finger-painting and construction paper that seemed more civilized than the “Lord of the Flies” playground inhabited by her husband and his colleagues.

In that world, President Trump sent Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter telling her that he was postponing her trip with a congressional delegation to visit American troops in Afghanistan. The president's salvo came 24 hours after Ms. Pelosi informed Mr. Trump that because of the shutdown, she was rescinding her invitation to him to deliver a State of the Union address in the House chamber.

Democrats celebrated Ms. Pelosi's letter as a power move by a seasoned Washington heavyweight. But the speaker could not resist one last taunt: Mr. Trump, she said almost under her breath to a scrum of reporters, could always deliver the speech from the Oval Office if he wanted.

Mr. Trump struck back in characteristic style, denying Ms. Pelosi access to a military plane to take her to Afghanistan. There was to have been a stop in Brussels, where she would have met with NATO officials.

“In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate,” Mr. Trump wrote, mimicking the faux-solicitous tone of her letter to him. “Obviously,” he added, “if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.”


President Donald J. Trump denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California access to the military plane she planned to use to visit troops in Afghanistan. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.
President Donald J. Trump denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California access to the military plane she planned to use
to visit troops in Afghanistan. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.


Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat who was scheduled to accompany Ms. Pelosi to Afghanistan and Belgium, swiftly accused Mr. Trump of “fifth-grade conduct.” Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, said, “He's very childlike in his view of the world. It's all about him.”

Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from the other, more grown-up Washington, said she recognized much of the current behavior in the nation's capital from her time as a preschool teacher. Every classroom, she said, had the full range of personalities, including bullies and victims, and the trick, she said, was not to cede to the bully or allow tantrums to disrupt the entire classroom.

“My experience is, you let them calm down and come back to you peacefully before you give them anything,” Ms. Murray said. “You don't hand them that cookie or piece of candy when they're yelling and screaming because then you will be doing that until they're 18 years old.”

Ms. Murray, unsurprisingly, was generous toward her fellow Democrat, Ms. Pelosi. She likened her to a sure-footed teacher in her handling of Mr. Trump. Certainly the new speaker, who has fact-checked Mr. Trump during meetings and publicly warned him not to disparage the power of her Democratic majority, seems to have gotten under the president's skin in a way that few others have during his two years in Washington.

Yet the tit-for-tat between the speaker and the president suggested something else: that despite his inability to change the politics or institutions of Washington, Mr. Trump has managed to change its culture. The capital now plays by his freewheeling rules.

“He does generally force people to play down to his level,” said Michael D'Antonio, a biographer of Mr. Trump. “It's impossible to deal with him in any other way. It takes almost a Zen master to resist being provoked by him.”

There is no doubt that Trump-like behavior is proliferating. When the House freshmen, all Democrats, arrived at the office of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, on Wednesday to deliver a letter demanding that he reopen the government, they quickly discovered he was not there.


House freshmen, including Representatives Katie Hill, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Lauren Underwood and Angie Craig, marched to the office of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, on Wednesday to deliver a letter asking that he reopen the government. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.
House freshmen, including Representatives Katie Hill, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Lauren Underwood and Angie Craig, marched to the office
of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, on Wednesday to deliver a letter asking that he reopen the government.
 — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.


One of Mr. McConnell's deputies, Don Stewart, accepted the letter and promised to give it to his boss. The lawmakers then milled outside Mr. McConnell's office to plot their next move, as tourists gawked and cameras clicked, particularly at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York and a media darling.

“Oh, my God, this is your life!” Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas, said to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 29, as she watched the hubbub swirling around her colleague.

It was the kind of spectacle that Mr. Trump would appreciate.

Mr. Trump seemed less likely to appreciate the spectacle that unfolded a few hours later on CNN. One of his personal lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, told the host Chris Cuomo, “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign” — a statement that made him the first Trump adviser to concede that it was possible that members of the Trump campaign had worked with Russia to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

The next morning, Mr. Giuliani walked back his remarks, saying, “I have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign.” For good measure, he added that Hillary Clinton's campaign was the one guilty of collusion with Russia.

Nor could Mr. Trump have appreciated fake copies of The Washington Post that hoaxers handed out to passers-by outside the White House and elsewhere in the capital. “Unpresidented,” a banner headline said. “Trump Hastily Departs White House, Ending Crisis.”

Like much in Mr. Trump's Washington, even Ms. Pence's decision to return to teaching is not without an undertone. The private Christian school where she will teach does not allow gay students and requires employees to affirm that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.


Members of Clemson’s football team, winners of the college football championship last year, were served fast food at the White House this week. — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.
Members of Clemson’s football team, winners of the college football championship last year, were served fast food at the White House this week.
 — Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times.


For the president, the most comforting moment of this turbulent week may have come on Monday, when he welcomed the Clemson University football team, winners of the college football championship, to the White House for a meal of burgers and fish sandwiches from McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King.

The image of fast food under the twinkling candelabra of the State Dining Room — which Mr. Trump said was a necessity, given the lack of White House staff because of the shutdown — gave rise to a thousand snarky tweets and jokes on late-night television.

“I thought it was a joke,” said one Clemson athlete, overheard in a video shared on Twitter.


__________________________________________________________________________

Mark Landler is a White House correspondent at The New York Times. In 24 years at The N.Y. Times, he has been diplomatic correspondent, bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. He is the author of Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Twilight Struggle over American Power (Random House).

• A version of this article appears in The New York Times on Friday, January 18, 2019 of the New York print edition with the headline: “A Sandbox Where the Adults Need to Be Given a Timeout”.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Trump Hits Back at Pelosi, Threatening Her Trip to See Troops

 • Pelosi Asks Trump to Reschedule State of the Union Amid Shutdown


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/us/politics/shutdown-sandbox-squabble.html
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« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2019, 11:17:31 am »


from The Washington Post…

Pelosi goads Trump into another temper tantrum

Five reasons Pelosi scored.

By JENNIFER RUBIN | 3:33PM EDT — Wednesday, May 22, 2019

President Donald J. Trump on May 22 held a news conference about the Mueller investigation in the White House Rose Garden. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.
President Donald J. Trump on May 22 held a news conference about the Mueller investigation in the White House Rose Garden.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) has done it before. Earlier this year, she called President Trump's bluff, held tough and forced him to reopen the government after he shut it down over the wall. She has a knack for making Trump look especially peevish. So it was on Wednesday:

Quote
President Trump abruptly ended a meeting with Democratic leaders on Wednesday, saying he was unable to work with them on legislation following comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) that he was “engaged in a coverup.”

Trump made an unscheduled appearance in the Rose Garden shortly afterward and in a meandering 10-minute address said he had left the meeting with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York) at which they were supposed to talk about working together on a $2 trillion infrastructure plan.

Trump was apparently aggrieved that Pelosi accused him of conducting a coverup. The man who paid off Stormy Daniels to keep his extramarital affair quiet during the campaign insisted that “I don't do coverups”.

Trump's fit amounts to saying “I will NOT do my job so long as Congress is doing its job!” That's what this amounts to, a confession of sorts that his legal stonewall strategy may not be sufficient and that his personal vulnerability is so great that he is unable to do his job. That would seem, well, grounds for impeachment. But while impeachment is unpopular, a president refusing to do things he promised to help voters because he is under investigation is even more unpopular.

In her comments to the media after Trump stalked out, Pelosi observed that maybe it was “lack of confidence on his part” that caused him to short-circuit infrastructure talks. “He just took a pass and it just makes me wonder why he did that,” she said. “In any event, I pray for the president of the United States. And I pray for the United States of America.” She certainly knows how to rub it in.

However, she was not done. Appearing shortly afterward at the Center for American Progress Ideas Conference, she recounted, “In an orchestrated, almost to an ‘oh, poor baby’ point of view…. [Trump] came into the room and said that I said that he was engaged in a coverup.” She continued, “It's really sad.” As she put it, it was all “very, very, very strange.” For good measure, she added, "This president is obstructing justice and he's engaged in a coverup. And that could be an impeachable offense.”


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) said on May 22 that House Democrats believe “no one is above the law, including the president of the United States.” — Photograph: Rhonda Colvin/The Washington Post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) said on May 22 that House Democrats believe “no one is above the law,
including the president of the United States.” — Photograph: Rhonda Colvin/The Washington Post.


Whether Pelosi intended this result or not, her ability to treat Trump as a spoiled child and provoke even more self-destructive behavior has several positive benefits for Democrats in this context. First, it puts the blame for not accomplishing anything on infrastructure — or anything else — squarely on Trump's shoulders. Second, he makes it nearly impossible for incumbent Republicans to run in 2020 on any record of accomplishment. The GOP will rightfully be called the do-nothing party. (Well, in fairness they do plenty — excusing Trump, enabling Trump, ignoring Trump's wrong-doing, etc.) Third, it's a preposterous position — what else will he refuse to do? — for someone who will be running for re-election in 2020. Fourth, more than anything, he has shown how panicked he is about investigations, thereby giving Pelosi the ability to talk to frustrated members of her caucus who want to start on impeachment the perfect comeback: We've got him on the run. Fifth, if they ever do get around to impeachment, Democrats can add another count against him: Refuses to do his job while lawful investigations are going on.

All in all, Pelosi once again demonstrated that the best person to deal with a weak narcissist prone to temper tantrums is a mother and grandmother.


__________________________________________________________________________

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion from a center-right perspective for The Washington Post. She covers a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican Party and threats to Western democracies. Rubin, who is also an MSNBC contributor, came to The Post after three years with Commentary magazine. Prior to her career in journalism, Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work. She is a mother of two sons and lives in Northern Virginia.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • REUTERS VIDEO: Pelosi: Trump is engaged in a ‘cover up’

 • VIDEO: ‘I don't do cover ups’: Trump responds to Pelosi accusation

 • Trump abruptly ends meeting with Democratic leaders

 • Trump's gripe-filled news conference, annotated

 • Judge rejects Trump's request to halt congressional subpoenas for his banking records

 • N.Y. passes bill giving Congress access to Trump's state tax data

 • Jennifer Rubin: Nancy Pelosi is in charge

 • Jennifer Rubin: What Nancy Pelosi gets right


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/22/pelosi-goads-trump-into-another-temper-tantrum
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« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2019, 11:45:47 pm »


from the print edition of the Los Angeles Times…

Pelosi, Schumer rejected at White House

Trump, angry at House investigations, bolts meeting with Democratic leaders on infrastructure.

By ELI STOKOLS and JENNIFER HABERKORN | Thursday, May 23, 2019

President Donald J. Trump appears with a pre-made sign at a hastily called news conference after he stormed out of the White House meeting, saying bipartisan cooperation was impossible “under these circumstances.” — Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.
President Donald J. Trump appears with a pre-made sign at a hastily called news conference after he stormed out of the White House meeting,
saying bipartisan cooperation was impossible “under these circumstances.” — Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.


WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump abruptly blew up an infrastructure meeting with Democratic leaders at the White House on Wednesday and declared that bipartisan cooperation was impossible while House committees are investigating him, underscoring the increasing combustibility between two warring branches of government.

Trump refused to even sit down when he walked into the scheduled Cabinet Room meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-San Francisco) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York). He then headed to a hastily called news conference in the Rose Garden.

Trump told reporters there that he gave the surprised Democratic leaders an ultimatum, warning that they needed to choose between pursuing infrastructure or their investigations of his finances, businesses and administration.

“You probably can't go down two tracks,” he said. “You can go down the investigation track, or you can go down the investment track.

“I walked into the room and I told Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, ‘I want to do infrastructure. I want to do it more than you want to do it’,” Trump said.

“But you know what? You can’t do it under these circumstances. So get these phony investigations over with.”

The acrimony erupted as the president was dealt another setback in court. For the second time in two days, a federal judge rejected Trump's refusal to honor congressional subpoenas and ordered him to turn over financial records to Democratic-led committees.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York rejected Trump's efforts to block a subpoena aimed at forcing Deutsche Bank and Capital One to hand over his financial records to the House Financial Services and Intelligence committees. Trump's attorneys are expected to appeal the decision.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled that Trump cannot block a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee for financial information from his accounting firm, Mazars USA. Trump's lawyers already have appealed.

And lawmakers in New York passed legislation on Wednesday that will allow the state's Department of Taxation and Finance to release the state tax returns of public officeholders at the federal, state and local levels that are requested by the leaders of congressional tax-writing committees. Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill into law.

It wasn't clear if Trump's threat not to cooperate with Democrats was mere bluster or signaled the death knell to any infrastructure plan or other compromises on key legislative issues before the 2020 election.

In January, Trump stormed out of a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer during a partial government shutdown over funding for his border wall. The 35-day shutdown ended when the president backed down.

Trump laid down a similar threat of non-cooperation during his State of the Union address in February, saying: “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn't work that way.”

Trump made clear on Wednesday he was irked by Pelosi's charges, made at an earlier news conference, that the president's stonewalling of up to 20 House investigations amounts to a “cover-up,” comments that added fuel to some Democrats' demands for impeachment proceedings.

“I don't do cover-ups,” Trump said, blaming Democrats for what he called unfair harassment. “These people are out to get us.”


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, said that President Trump “couldn't match the greatness of the challenge that we have” on infrastructure. “He just took a pass.” — Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia-EFE/Shutterstock.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, said that President Trump “couldn't match the greatness of the challenge
that we have” on infrastructure. “He just took a pass.” — Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia-EFE/Shutterstock.


After returning to the Capitol, Democrats called their own news conference to say they were stunned that Trump had stormed out of the meeting before anyone else could speak.

“To watch what happened in the White House would make your jaw drop,” Schumer said. “We are interested in doing infrastructure. It's clear the president isn't. He is looking for every excuse.”

Schumer said the pre-made sign affixed to the president's lectern in the Rose Garden — “No Collusion, No Obstruction,” it read — showed that Trump's walkout was long planned. He suggested the president had staged the incident because the White House had failed to find a way to fund an infrastructure bill.

Schumer said he'd brought a 35-page infrastructure proposal to the White House, attempting to contrast Democrats' good-faith approach to talks with the president's reluctance.

“Now that he was forced to come up with a way to pay for it, he ran away,” he said.

Pelosi, who said Democrats don't believe the House investigations jeopardized the infrastructure talks, opted not to speculate as to what motivated Trump's behavior.

The president, she said, “couldn't match the greatness of the challenge that we have. … He just took a pass, and it makes me wonder why he did that,” she said. “In any event, I pray for the president of the United States.”

On Tuesday night, Trump sent Pelosi and Schumer a letter informing them that he wants Congress to ratify the revamped free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico before they take up infrastructure. In that letter, he asked Democrats to clarify their priorities with specific funding requests.

More House Democrats called this week for impeachment proceedings as the White House continued to defy subpoenas, refusing to hand over documents or allow current or former administration officials to testify in the aftermath of the special counsel report from Robert S. Mueller III, who laid out 10 examples of Trump attempting to interfere with the investigation.

“We've all been struggling with this on a personal basis about what's the right thing to do given our obligation based on the oath we swore to the Constitution,” said Representative Katie Hill (Democrat-Agua Dulce), who said calls to her office about impeachment have risen dramatically, with 3 to 1 in support.

House Democrats have vowed to operate on two tracks: conducting appropriate oversight of the executive branch while they try to work with Trump on legislation. That focus is important for moderate Democrats who won in swing districts and want to cite legislative accomplishments in their 2020 campaigns.

But Trump sought to knock that compartmentalized approach off the table on Wednesday, insisting that Democrats must choose one path or the other. Democrats, buoyed by the latest court decisions, made clear they don't agree.

Shortly before Wednesday's White House meeting, Pelosi huddled with House Democrats, where she asked for patience from those who favor impeachment, given the president's refusal to cooperate with investigations.

“That was really the message: Be a little bit patient,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly (Democrat-Virginia), a member of the House Oversight Committee. “Things are kind of breaking our way, and more is about to happen. Let's not rush to something that we can't take back.”

Pelosi sought to placate the pro-impeachment members by emphasizing that the White House is engaging in a “cover-up” when she spoke to reporters afterward.

“We do believe it’s important to follow the facts. We believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up — in a cover-up,” she said.

Repairing the country's crumbling bridges, airports, roads and other infrastructure was one of the few issues where Democrats and Republicans appeared to have common interests.

Last month, Trump welcomed Pelosi and Schumer to the White House and vowed to pursue a $2-trillion plan, although he didn't say how he would pay for it. The Democratic leaders emerged from that meeting pleasantly surprised by Trump’s eagerness to pass a massive infrastructure bill, and both sides agreed to meet again in three weeks.

The onus, Democrats said then, was on the administration to come up with a funding plan. But Trump quickly faced blowback from congressional Republicans, who opposed raising the gas tax, the traditional funding source for such improvements.

The White House, according to two sources involved in ongoing discussions, has no plan to generate revenue for infrastructure aside from deep budget cuts to existing non-military programs, something Democrats are sure to oppose.

“It was night and day between this time and last time,” Representative Peter A. DeFazio (Democrat-Oregon), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that the House would still try to pass a “big, bold and bipartisan” package, but DeFazio made clear that was unlikely without Trump. “We need him, otherwise there's no prospects for a larger, comprehensive bill with robust funding,” he said.

DeFazio said that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) were both “100% dead set against doing infrastructure,” he said. “Trump has promised it and they don't care.”


__________________________________________________________________________

• Eli Stokols is a White House reporter based in the Los Angeles Times Washington, D.C., bureau. He is a veteran of Politico and The Wall Street Journal, where he covered the 2016 presidential campaign and then the Trump White House. A native of Irvine, Stokols grew up in a L.A. Times household and is thrilled to report for what is still his family's hometown paper. He is also a graduate of UC Berkeley and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

• Jennifer Haberkorn covers Congress in Washington, D.C., for the Los Angeles Times. She has reported from Washington since 2005, spending much of that time roaming the halls of the U.S. Capitol. Before arriving at the L.A. Times, Haberkorn spent eight years at POLITICO writing about the 2010 healthcare law, a story that took her to Congress, the states, healthcare clinics and courtrooms around the country. She also covered Congress and local business news for The Washington Times. Haberkorn is a native of the Chicago area and graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=59601553-9523-49d4-b73f-5f003ce1ec6e
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« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2019, 12:34:57 pm »


from The Washington Post…

The United States is being run by a toddler

He has tantrums. He rips up paper. He disregards facts.

By DANA MILBANK | 2:37PM EST — Friday, November 08, 2019

President Donald J. Trump on October 7 in Washington D.C. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.
President Donald J. Trump on October 7 in Washington D.C. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

MOST AMERICANS don't care what Lutsenko said to Giuliani about Yovanovitch. And we rarely take interest in Kiev if it isn't preceded by “chicken”.

But if you take away the names and the Ukraine intrigue, what you're left with from the thousands of pages of deposition transcripts released this week by impeachment investigators is a striking consensus — among Trump administration officials, Democrats and even, to some extent, Republicans — that the United States is currently being run by a toddler.

He has tantrums. He rips up paper. He disregards facts. He believes crazy conspiracies. He's erratic and ill-informed. Those around him walk on eggshells, trying to prevent him from doing the geopolitical equivalent of sticking his finger in an electrical socket.

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor and political appointee, described Trump's style: “President Trump changes his mind on what he wants on a daily basis. I have no idea what he wanted on the day I called him.” Sondland also spoke about Trump's “completely inconsistent” behavior: “The funny part is that he was railing about the problems with Ukraine in our meeting, but I think shortly after that he sent essentially an unconditional invitation to President Zelensky to come visit him.”

Sondland testified about Trump's unreasonableness (“He sort of went on and on and on about how Ukraine is a disaster and they're bad people”), limited attention (“He didn't even want to deal with it anymore, and he basically waved and said, ‘Go talk to Rudy’”) and poor judgment (“Taking directions from the president, as I must, I spoke with Mr. Giuliani … Please know that I would have not recommended that”). Likewise, George Kent, the deputy secretary of state overseeing Ukraine, painted a picture of aides trying to soothe a child-like Trump. “Initially the president did not want to sign a congratulatory letter, and he actually ripped up the letter that had been written for him,” Kent testified. “But by the end of the meeting he'd been convinced”.


“There was no doubt” about what Trump wanted from Ukraine's president, a White House official testified. — Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.
“There was no doubt” about what Trump wanted from Ukraine's president, a White House official testified.
 — Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.


Republicans' questions suggest they, too, accept that the president is not entirely rational; they urged witnesses to respond as “if you are in President Trump's world,” whether Trump's views are “reasonable or not” and “fair or not”.

For example: “If the president, for whatever reason, true or untrue, develops a feeling that he's got an ambassador that isn't loyal to him, he's going to bring them home, correct?”

And: “If you try to get inside the president's head, I mean, he may have been searching for the name ‘Burisma’ but couldn't grasp it so he spits out ‘Biden’?”

The witness, Kurt Volker, Trump's envoy for Ukraine negotiations, said Trump “would not know or even know how to pronounce or be familiar with the name of a company like that”.

Of course, you don't need to read depositions to know this about Trump; you only need look at his recent public behavior. One moment he's at a rally shouting “we are kicking their ass,” and the next he's retweeting a message calling him a “bad motherf-----”. One moment he's declaring that “this impeachment nonsense … is driving the Stock Market, and your 401K's, down”. The next he's announcing: “Stock Markets (all three) hit another ALL TIME & HISTORIC HIGH yesterday!” One moment he's proposing a “fireside chat” reading of the infamous rough transcript. The next he's threatening a government shutdown.

An anonymous administration official writes in a new book that Trump is “like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport.” Even loyalist Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) posits a dubious new defense of Trump's Ukraine actions: “It was incoherent …They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.”

The depositions make clear Trump appointees and civil servants feel similarly. They describe “great confusion”, a “lack of clarity”, "the absence of “any coherent explanation” and a “vacuum”. The acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, “rarely responded to emails and almost never returned phone calls”.

They describe a president who is “confounding” and paranoid (he “kept repeating it … ‘they tried to take me down, they tried to take me down’”) and volatile (“the president was really in a bad mood”, “it was almost like he hung up on me”). They testified about him being swayed by Russia's Vladimir Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, and about how they coached the Ukrainians on dealing with Trump. They spoke of keeping “dissonant information” from Trump. They talked of fearing tweets from Trump and his family attacking them. As a consequence, they reported feeling “discouraged”, "incredibly frustrated” and “pissed”.

Toddlers have a way of doing that to their caregivers.


__________________________________________________________________________

Dana Milbank is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist. He also provides political commentary for various TV outlets, and he is the author of three books on politics: Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush (Basic Books, 2001), the national bestseller Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes that Run Our Government (Doubleday, 2008) and Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America (Doubleday, 2010). Milbank joined The Washington Post in 2000 as a Style political writer, then covered the presidency of George W. Bush as a White House correspondent before starting his column in 2005. Before joining The Post, Milbank spent two years as a senior editor at The New Republic, where he covered the Clinton White House, and eight years as a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered Congress and was a London-based correspondent. He has been honoured with the White House Correspodent Association's Beckman Award and the National Press Club's Gingras Prize.

IMPEACHMENT DIARY — Dana Milbank on the Trump impeachment inquiry.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump on Sondland: ‘I hardly know the gentleman’

 • Top White House official told Congress ‘there was no doubt’ Trump sought quid pro quo with Ukrainians


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/08/united-states-is-being-run-by-toddler
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« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2019, 09:26:25 am »

The Wankington Post orange mans bad

Fake News For TDS Libtard toddlers
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« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2019, 10:12:30 am »


Donald J. Trump the toddler has an attention span of about … ummm 30 seconds … then his brain begins to “not compute” and switch off.
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« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2019, 08:56:08 am »

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« Reply #12 on: December 07, 2019, 12:13:56 pm »


Yes, Nancy has been spanking Trump's arse … yet again.

That's how you deal with stupid toddlers when they throw tantrums.
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« Reply #13 on: December 07, 2019, 12:46:21 pm »

nancy is an old ugly half-dead retarded whore

ow Nancy Pelosi Got Rich (Corruption, Abuse Of Power Alert)
Let’s just call the top Democrat in the House of Representatives what she always has been: a dishonest thief.

While Investing Millions in Exclusive Visa Stock Offering
by Wynton Hall

Former Speaker of the House–and current Minority Leader–Nancy Pelosi apparently bought $1 million to $5 million of Visa stock in one of the most sought-after and profitable initial public offerings (IPO) in American history, thwarted serious credit card reform for two years, and then watched her investment skyrocket 203%.

The revelation appears in Throw Them All Out, the new book by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, which was the focus of 60 Minutes on CBS this evening, and which is featured in this week’s issue of Newsweek.

[See Big Government article for video]

Schweizer’s investigation of Pelosi and other members of Congress–from both parties–raises a critical question: should it be legal for lawmakers to buy stocks in companies directly affected by their legislative efforts?



In early 2008, Nancy Pelosi and her real estate developer husband, Paul, were given an opportunity to buy into a Visa IPO. It was a nearly impossible feat–one that average citizens almost certainly could never achieve. The vast majority of purchase opportunities went to institutional investors, large mutual funds, or pension funds.

Despite Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.

How did Nancy Pelosi snag one of the most coveted initial public offerings in history? The facts are still emerging. Yet according to Schweizer, corporations that wish to build congressional allies will sometimes hand-pick members of Congress to receive IPOs. Pelosi received her Visa IPO almost two weeks after a potentially damaging piece of legislation for Visa, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, had been introduced in the House. If passed, the bill would have cut into Visa’s profits substantially by lowering so-called “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge retailers pay Visa when customers use Visa cards for purchases. Interchange fees are a critical source of revenue for the four credit card companies–$48 billion in 2008, to be exact.

If the Credit Card Fair Fee Act had been passed into effect, it would have amended antitrust laws to require credit card companies to enter negotiations with merchants over interchange fees, and it would have given the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission the power to arbitrate if the two sides failed to come to an agreement. For that reason, Visa and the other credit card companies strongly opposed the bill.

The Credit Card Fair Fee Act was exactly the kind of bill one would think then-Speaker Pelosi would have backed. “She had been outspoken about antitrust problems posed by insurance, oil, and pharmaceutical companies,” Schweizer notes, “and she was vocal about the need for controlling interest rates individual banks charged to use their credit cards.”

Initially, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act cleared the Judiciary Committee on a 19-16 vote, and the National Association of Convenience Stores began lobbying for a vote on the floor of the House. “It is imperative to tell your Representatives to request a vote on the House Floor from Nancy Pelosi,” the association urged its members. Still, with at least ten percent of the Pelosi family’s entire stock portfolio invested in a single stock, Nancy Pelosi clearly had a vested interest in ensuring that Visa’s profits were protected. And that is exactly what she accomplished. Despite broad public support for the bill—77% in one study—Pelosi saw to it that the bill never made it to the House floor.

Shortly thereafter, a second bill limiting collusion by the credit card companies on interchange fees was proposed. The Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, while not as strong as the first bill, would have required greater transparency from credit card companies in informing customers how much they were paying in interchange fees. Yet again, reports Schweizer, “this second bill suffered the same fate as the first, never making it to the House floor.”

By 2009, both bills had garnered even broader bipartisan support and were reintroduced. Under Speaker Pelosi, however, neither bill lived to see a vote on the House floor.

Pelosi eventually supported something called the Credit Card Reform Act. Curiously, the all-important interchange fees went untouched by that legislation. Instead, the bill stated that the interchange fee issue should simply be “studied.” The bill’s other measures would not affect Visa but rather its client banks. In short, the Credit Card Reform Act ensured that Visa and the other credit card companies dodged a potentially costly bullet.

None of that, however, prevented Pelosi from grandstanding. She publicly declared that the Credit Card Reform Act sent a “strong and clear message to credit card companies” that they would be held to account for their “anti-consumer practices.”

In the wake of the bill’s passage, the Pelosis’ shares of Visa stock rose. Indeed, according to Throw Them All Out, “the IPO shares they had purchased soared by 203% from where they began, while the stock market as a whole was down 15% during the same period.”

Nancy Pelosi is hardly the only member of Congress to be given IPOs, but Pelosi has been especially “lucky” at landing them. She and her husband have participated in at least 10 lucrative IPOs throughout her career. In 1993, Pelosi purchased IPO shares in a high-tech company named Gupta, watched the stock price leap 88% in 24 hours, then seized the profits by selling the stock the next day. The Pelosis did the same thing with Netscape and UUNet, resulting in a one-day doubling of their initial investment. Other fast and lucrative IPO flips included Remedy Corporation, Opal, Legato Systems, and Act Networks.

Schweizer says Nancy Pelosi’s financial disclosure forms typically mask the precise dates of her stock buys. He cites the Pelosis’ December 1999 stock purchase of between $250,000 and $500,000 in shares from high-tech company OnDisplay. A few months later, OnDisplay was bought by Vignette, which resulted in up to $1 million in capital gains for the Pelosis. What was unusual about the transaction is that Vignette’s IPO was underwritten by a major campaign contributor and longtime friend of Nancy Pelosi, William Hambrecht.

Throw Them All Out also chronicles the Pelosis’ $100,000 IPO purchase of Clean Energy Fuels at roughly $12 a share. Schweizer alleges that as Speaker of the House, Pelosi pushed several bills beneficial to the company.

Similarly, in November 2007, Pelosi bought $500,000 in the IPO for Quest Energy Partners before proceeding to champion the natural gas-related legislation that stood to significantly benefit the company. When Tom Brokaw asked her whether her significant personal investments in natural gas represented a conflict of interest, Pelosi shrugged off the question by hiding behind the crony capitalist’s false credo: “That’s the marketplace.”

When you’ve got Democrats in power, you’ve got corrupt “Chicago thug politics” pretty much everywhere.

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/how-nancy-pelosi-got-rich-corruption-abuse-of-power-alert/
« Last Edit: December 07, 2019, 01:08:04 pm by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #14 on: December 07, 2019, 12:56:12 pm »


Donald J. Trump is a corrupt criminal who ended up being America's “fake president” even though he got more than two million votes LESS than Hillary.

All the more reason he is a “fake president” because he had to rely on a gerrymander system to get into the White House.

And every time Trump and Nancy come face to face, Nancy eats Trump for breakfast, because she is intelligent and Trump is stupid and intelligence will always win over stupidity.
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« Reply #15 on: December 07, 2019, 01:17:18 pm »

Trump won the election fair and square

maybe you don't like this but you are an uninformed idiot

America is not a democracy
its a democratic republic otherwise, one state with the most people in it could rule over them all
and that's the reason they have the electoral college

otherwise, the wolves could all vote to kill and eat the sheep
the system was made so that could never happen

I wonder what would happen if China had a real vote instead of an unelected  despot dictator in control of an armed police state
where if you protest they kill you, why don't the Chinese deserve to have any human rights Huh
« Last Edit: December 07, 2019, 01:29:59 pm by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2019, 05:32:57 pm »


Hillary won more votes than Trump.

Which means that Trump had less Americans who voted for him to be president than voted for Hillary to be president.

The only reason Trump ended up president is because America has a gerrymander voting system for electing a president known as the electoral college vote.

And it pisses Trump off right to today that he got more than two million votes less than Hillary.

That's what happens when you have a corrupt electoral system … you get CORRUPT politicians … just like Trump.

You cannot change the facts of the number of Americans who voted for Hillary versus the number of Americans who voted for Trump.

The 2017 election in the USA showed that Hillary was more popular than Trump based on the number of votes each got.

I blame those stupid Christian retards in the southern states for that situation.

The dumbfucks think the god delusions inside their heads are real gods.

Which is why they were stupid enough to vote for Trump.


Anyway, there's good news ahead, either next year or in five years time.

The 45th president's residential address will change from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to a jail cell.
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« Reply #17 on: December 08, 2019, 03:15:21 am »

you're dreaming again

Leftism is a mental disorder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=124&v=u6iPS80FSD8&feature=emb_logo

Trump is the boss get over it fool

Clinton Supporter Gets Caught Registering 19 Dead People To Vote In Virginia, His Jail Sentence Is A Joke
 Editor  November 12, 2019
Some states in America are what we consider swing states, meaning that in any given election year, the state could vote Republican or it could vote Democrat. And then there are even fewer swing states that are considered as critical swing states, like Virginia in this case.

FBI and Richmond police began investigating an incident of multiple cases of voter fraud after 19 Virginia residents were registered to vote…after they had died. This even included a WWII veteran, Mr. Richard Allen Claybrook Sr.

According to The Washington Post,

“His family members were very distraught,” said Garst, who confirmed the existence of the FBI and police investigation but said she could provide few details because the case is ongoing.

All 19 were initially registered as voters in the Shenandoah Valley city of Harrisonburg, although a clerk double-checking the entries later raised questions about one. She recognized the name of Richard Allen Claybrook Sr., who died in 2014 at age 87, because his son is a well-known local judge. She happened to recall that the judge’s father had died.

“He was a retired Fairfax County elementary school principal and had fought in World War II,” said his son, retired Harrisonburg General District Court Judge Richard Allen Claybrook Jr. “So our family is very disgusted that they would pick his name, because he was such a law-abiding citizen devoted to public service.”

This is exactly why we need some hardcore voter ID laws. We can prevent these kinds of things from happening, but Democrats know that they won’t be able to continue using these fake and dead voters to help them win elections. You need an ID to buy tobacco and alcohol, to drive a car, so why wouldn’t you need to have and show an ID before voting to choose the most powerful person in the country?

It started when a private group was trying to get people to register to vote on the campus of James Madison University. Authorities later learned that one of the students in the group, Andrew Spieles was responsible for the fraudulent registrations.

What’s sad is that he was only sentenced to 100 days in prison.

https://tediummedia.com/clinton-supporter-gets-caught-registering-19-dead-people-to-vote-in-virginia-his-jail-sentence-is-a-joke/
« Last Edit: December 08, 2019, 03:34:37 am by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #18 on: December 08, 2019, 10:43:50 am »


More than two million more Americans voted for Hillary than voted for Trump.

FACTS … something you stupid Trump supporters have great intellectual difficulty understanding.
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« Reply #19 on: December 08, 2019, 01:05:47 pm »

watch the Dems lose the house in 2020
they didn't do anything for their people except waste taxpayers money
making up more bullshit about Trump for their phoney impeachment sham
with help from their propaganda fake news lapdogs
they are stupid retarded idiots

the American people are sick of them because they are boring 
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« Reply #20 on: December 08, 2019, 05:20:26 pm »


You claimed Republicans were going to win everything in the mid-terms.

So what are you going to do when the Democrats not only hold onto Congress next year, but take the Senate as well?

Are you going to cry?

Bury your head in the sand?

Hilarious.
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