Wolff

Wolff https://www.dailykos.com/news/Wolff News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Sun, 26 Jan 2020 04:18:19 +0000 Sun, 26 Jan 2020 04:18:19 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Lewinsky Trump edition? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/20/1734433/-Lewinsky-Trump-edition <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/m/2285abe1-9ce0-3954-804c-25c67089c919/ss_michael-wolff-is-%E2%80%98absolutely.html" target="_blank">www.yahoo.com/…</a> <blockquote> “There is something in the book that I was absolutely sure of but it was so incendiary that I just didn’t have the ultimate proof,” Wolff said while appearing on Real Time With Bill Maher last night. “Well, I didn’t have the blue dress.” </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (ca cokz) trump Wolff _1734433 Sat, 20 Jan 2018 18:25:13 +0000 The Augean Stable Genius https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/10/1731490/-The-Augean-Stable-Genius Trump likes to throw words around that other people are using and giving them a new spin. So when he was called “unstable” , an “idiot” , a “moron” and a “child” by everyone of his high level White House staff who spoke with writer Michael Wolff, Trump denied these slurs by countering that in fact he is a stable genius. Words have meanings, many meanings. Definitions are important to the understanding of what we are being told by the Leader of the Free World (LOTFW). Let us start with the word “stable”. The first Google entry for stable def points to the Augean stable. : “a condition or place marked by great accumulation of filth or corruption.” (From Merriam-Webster). Clearly that fits here. In spades. No one alive today will have experienced a greater degree of filth and corruption eminating from the White House than that of the Trump Administration. It is swamped in it. Obviously, Trump couldn’t have used stable in the sense of “ sane and sensible; not easily upset or disturbed” (from Bing.com). That would make no sense at all in his case and couldn’t possibly apply. Trump is easily upset and disturbed most of the time, according to his compatriots who are getting more adept at controlling these periods which inevitably occur on a daily basis. Scratch that definition. Then there’s stable in the noun sense of “a building in which domestic animals are sheltered and fed; especially such a building having stalls or compartments.” (Ibid.) We are talking about a place where horses relax. This actually could fit in Trump’s case when connected to the word “genius” in that it is possible that he would rank at the high end of the intellectual scale of equine creatures, hence he very well may be a “stable genius”, the smartest horse in the hay. Recall that the genus equus includes horses, asses, and zebras. The first two of that group taken together would characterize the LOTFW, though at great risk of slandering horse and asses. An accepted definition of genius, from Wikipedia citing Cox, Catherine M. (1926). The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses. Genetic Studies of Genius Volume 2. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press, is: “...a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creative productivity, universality in genres or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge.” Cox notes however, that “many geniuses have shown high achievements in only a single kind of activity”. Trump is a self-proclaimed genius in three areas: college (he’s known to have maintained whopping “B” average), in business (he made it to Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code four times), and in the Electoral College (with a squeaker of a victory - 70,000 votes in three states). And perhaps employing the hacking abilities of internet trolls at 55 Savushkina St. , St. Petersburg, Russia was an act of bodacious genius. Or maybe it doesn’t rise to that level, because one would only get away with that if he won the election and successfully stood in the way of the inevitable investigation of the malefaction by the FBI. Hey, wait a minute.... ### rss@dailykos.com (Robertkroll ) Fire fury Genius Horse stable trump Wolff _1731490 Wed, 10 Jan 2018 15:20:47 +0000 In Celebration Of A Very Stable Genius, With a Very Mighty...:) a Must Read Paean of Great Hilarity https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/7/1730688/-In-Celebration-Of-A-Very-Stable-Genius-With-a-Very-Mighty-a-Must-Read-Paean-of-Great-Hilarity In response to EJ Dionne’s fine piece about Wolff’s book, in which he questions why it took everybody so long to see the light, a poet posted this — with props, no doubt, to Gilbert & Sullivan: <blockquote> I am the very model of a Very Stable Genius, I've got the biggest button and a very mighty penius, I know words that are the best, my winning is historical And also I did not collude and this is categorical I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters arithmetical: My crowds were extremely big and not at al patheticall, Don’t listen to the FBI and various Fake Mainstream News It was a locker room discourse and not a sexual abuse Although I'm very, very good at grabbing female genitals And in the theater of war II know more than generals Despite of scourge of bone spurs in areas calcaneus, I am the very model of a Very Stable Genius. , I quote in iambus all the crimes of Evil Crooked Hilary, And I instruct my DoD in matters of artillery I can explain to Rocket Man the physics of the fusion And many, many people say there was no collusion. I got a medal and a sword from the Saudi Royalty My very bestest cabinet me tells of their loyalty There isn’t any field in which my knowledge could be iffy I even know, I believe, True Meaning Of Covfefe I labor every day and night on tweets that are ingenuous, I am the very model of a Very Stable Genius. by Anonymous Poster bobr1 </blockquote> Never let it be said the American people have lost our sense of humor. And the journalism emerging from this disaster of orangeness is truly distinguished. So on the serious side, Dionne has concluded that the more Trump abandons his supposedly populist ideals, which were probably phony to begin with, the more he resembles a traditional right wing Republican, attacking the environment, financial regulations, national parks and monuments, women’s rights, Civil Rights, safety nets, brown people and marijuana. This has endeared him to the GOP Congress, which is apparently willing to sell their country not to mention their souls in exchange for drilling rights than NOBODY thinks should be granted, and tax cuts that everybody hates, and the erosion of personal and civil liberties that only an authoritarian could love. I think they’re disgusting. But Dionne’s thesis is the only one I’ve read that actually makes sense, tempting as it is to believe that Putin is blackmailing the spineless wonders. They’re even back to investigating Hillary’s emails. I ask you. Is this just business as usual? Or have we really fallen through the looking glass? <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dam-of-denial-has-broken/2018/01/07/1e29d85a-f330-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.34883772a7a7" target="_blank">www.washingtonpost.com/...</a> rss@dailykos.com (Colorado Blue) Benghazi DonaldTrump FireAndFury GOP Republicans verystablegenius Wolff _1730688 Mon, 08 Jan 2018 04:52:48 +0000 To Hurt Sales of 'Fire and Fury,' WikiLeaks Posts Entire Book Online https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/7/1730643/-To-Hurt-Sales-of-Fire-and-Fury-WikiLeaks-Posts-Entire-Book-Online If you needed any more evidence of whose side <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/367832-wikileaks-shares-full-text-of-wolffs-trump-book" target="_blank" title="">WikiLeaks is on</a>: <blockquote> WikiLeaks posted the full text of Michael Wolff’s explosive new book about <a href="http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump">President Trump</a> on Sunday. The website’s official account tweeted a link to a Google Drive containing the full text of the book. “New Trump book ‘Fire and Fury’ by Michael Wolff. Full PDF:” the tweet read. </blockquote> The tweet is in the article, which I am not going to include. This isn’t about the free flow of information. It’s about propping up Trump for Russia by attempting to hurt sales. “See, it’s fake. People aren’t buying it because they don’t believe it.” Not sure how they think it will actually help, but desperate times call for desperate measures. rss@dailykos.com (anonevent) MichaelWolff Recommended Russia trump Wikileaks Wolff _1730643 Sun, 07 Jan 2018 22:36:35 +0000 The Review: Fire and Fury, Treason, Money Laundering and a Very Stable Genius https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/6/1730445/-The-Review-Fire-and-Fury-Treason-Money-Laundering-and-a-Very-Stable-Genius Perhaps the big news of the week was the release of Michael Wolff's book on Trump, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/03/new-trump-book-bannons-treasonous-claim-ivankas-presidential-ambitions-and-melanias-first-lady-concerns/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_fix-trumpbook-1237pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.f936d9fa37ba">Fire and Fury</a>”. It is based on 200 conversations over the past 18 months with Trump, members of his senior staff and others they had spoken with. Presumably the title is taken from Trump’s August 9, 2017 remarks that North Korea would be “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-vows-north-korea-could-be-met-fire-fury-n790896">met with fire, fury</a> and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before." In the book, Steve Bannon, former Trump White House chief strategist, said that the infamous June 2016 meeting by Donald Trump Jr. and his father's top campaign officials with a group of Russians was "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/01/03/us/politics/03reuters-usa-trump-russia-bannon.html" title="">treasonous</a>”. We were wondering how to characterize that meeting. Bannon also predicted that special counsel Robert Mueller would focus on <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bannon-trump-tower-meeting-treasonous">money laundering and would prosecute Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner</a>. Given Trump’s unusual business dealings with various Russians over the years, that would not be a surprise, but we shouldn’t discount the other claims of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election and obstruction of justice. In a separate piece, Wolff said that he spoke to a number of people close to Trump. “My indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/01/04/we-already-know-the-alarming-truth-about-trump-michael-wolffs-book-just-confirms-it/?utm_term=.33aadac47e5b">they all — 100 percent — came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job</a>.” That’s certainly what many others believe as well. Trump’s response was that he was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/us/politics/trump-genius-mental-health.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0">a very stable genius</a>,” because of course that’s what very stable people always say. Speaking of which, earlier in the week Trump tweeted that someone should inform North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that “I too have a Nuclear Button, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/03/daily-202-north-korea-my-button-is-bigger-brinkmanship-again-spotlights-trump-s-fixation-on-size/5a4c5c9e30fb0469e883fea7/?utm_term=.b0f68f2cd19a">it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his</a>, and my Button works!” Subtle double entendre, Don. Also, the Washington Post continues to compile Trump’s lies. As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 false or misleading claims in 347 days, or an average of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/02/president-trump-has-made-1949-false-or-misleading-claims-over-347-days/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_fact-check-trump-505am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.07c3490ce0f5">5.6 false or misleading claims a day</a>. The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FPo_nS1Ce1sC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22prince+of+lies%22+satan&source=bl&ots=U4LqgNbknb&sig=tgphB0ObUobm6uL7HN1rPuhXB3U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifxumwrcTYAhXJTCYKHSj3A9g4ChDoAQgtMAE#v=onepage&q=%22prince%20of%20lies%22%20satan&f=false">Prince of Lies</a> has a contender for that title. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced he would not run for re-election, opening the portal for Republican Mitt Romney to run for Senator there in 2018. He’ll very likely win, so we’ll have Mittens back on the national scene again. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/06/the-idea-of-senator-mitt-romney-should-scare-donald-trump/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_fix-romney-325pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1ddce5049ec4">Romney has been an extremely harsh voice against Trump</a>; that may make for interesting times in the Senate in 2019. Apparently in response to California’s legalization of recreational marijuana taking effect January 1, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-is-rescinding-obama-era-directive-for-feds-to-back-off-marijuana-enforcement-in-states-with-legal-pot/2018/01/04/b1a42746-f157-11e7-b3bf-ab90a706e175_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_sessions-1036am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7fdc0d8b7d48" title="">Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked</a> President Obama’s directive discouraging federal prosecutions in states where marijuana has been legalized. It’s not clear federal prosecutors will be interested in using their limited resources for marijuana prosecutions and it’s possible that at least some juries might refuse to convict. Sessions’ action is also likely to motivate younger voters to turn out for the 2018 mid-term elections, which will make it harder for Republicans to win. It won’t be <a href="https://hightimes.com/">high times</a> for all. Meanwhile, Congress still faces a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/congress-returns-to-a-full-slate-of-difficult-issues/2018/01/01/7cb5da3a-ecdd-11e7-b698-91d4e35920a3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_congress-340pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.ffdb24dd9628">January 19 deadline</a> to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. This time <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/367158-itching-for-a-fight-dems-vow-to-hold-the-line">Democrats are insisting that a number of their issues be addressed</a>. Those include raising non-defense spending by the same amount as military spending, new funding for disaster relief, veterans, pensions, the opioid crisis, health research, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), along with a fix for the DACA (“Dreamers”) program that Trump terminated. The Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate and could fund the government by themselves. Still, Republican tea-party members of the House, aka the House maniacs, are again unlikely to cooperate, making Democratic votes essential. This will get very interesting. And, of course, no week would be complete without further news regarding the Russia investigation. In an op-ed in the New York Times, the founders of Fusion GPS, the firm that compiled the Steele dossier alleging connections between Trump and Russia, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/opinion/republicans-investigation-fusion-gps.html?mtrref=www.politico.com&assetType=opinion&_r=0" title="">asked Congress to release their testimony before Congress to the public</a>. “We suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump’s businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip…. We told Congress that…we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don’t seem to interest Congress.” We’ll see if the Republican-controlled committee allows this. rss@dailykos.com (bmethven) 2018 bannon bigger button donald Election Elections Fire Funding fury Fusion Genius Government GPS Hatch House Jared Jeff Jr kushner Laundering Lies manafort Marijuana Meeting Michael MittRomney Money Orrin Paul Review romney Russia Russians Senate Senator sessions Shutdown stable steve Testimony thereview treasonous trump Wolff _1730445 Sat, 06 Jan 2018 22:47:31 +0000 A lot of you will like this Drew Magary piece in gq https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/6/1730389/-A-lot-of-you-will-like-this-Drew-Magary-piece-in-gq <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/michael-wolff-white-house-trump-access" target="_blank">www.gq.com/…</a> Thank you to GNR for featuring this in her morning diary roundup. I just wanted to repost it because there were so many this morning and I think a lot of Kossacks will really dig this piece, judging from the comments many of you make. rss@dailykos.com (HiVoter) FireAndFury Journalism magary News Wolff _1730389 Sat, 06 Jan 2018 17:58:00 +0000 The White House thought the book would be POSITIVE! https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/4/1729904/-The-White-House-thought-the-book-would-be-POSITIVE Sorry for the hit and run diary but I am in the middle of making dinner. Apparently, sdenior WH staff approved Wolff’s unfettered access to the WH because they thought his account would be positive! You really CAN’T make this stuff up. <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/they-thought-this-was-going-to-be-a-positive-book" target="_blank">talkingpointsmemo.com/...</a> rss@dailykos.com (FairlyImbalanced) Oops Recommended Wolff _1729904 Thu, 04 Jan 2018 22:29:21 +0000 The State of Trump's Dementia https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/4/1729839/-The-State-of-Trump-s-Dementia Trump is scheduled to give his first State of the Union address soon. The address itself is unlikely to give us more information about the much more pressing question of the state of the president’s cognitive function, because he gives the least evidence of his condition when reading a speech off a teleprompter written by unimpaired people. That said, Trump could surprise us if he decides to ad-lib. It’s been obvious for the past year that Trump has at least early dementia. But lately both his public behavior and revelations such as the Wolff book are providing evidence that maybe his disease is more advanced than just early dementia. The distinction makes a potentially huge difference, because while even his early dementia makes him unable to carry out the duties of the office, more advanced dementia casts doubt on the status of everything he’s signed while in office, and the legal exposure of the people who got him to sign things they knew he didn’t understand. Dementia is mostly only diagnosed relatively late in its course, and because of this, most people think of behaviors of late dementia as characteristic of the disease. We usually don’t worry that an elderly relative has Alzheimer’s until and unless they stop remembering how many children they have, or start thinking it’s 1987 — lacunar memory loss and gross disorientation. But if you get a careful history from the relatives when a patient presents with such obvious symptoms, you can build a picture of many years before the lacunar memory loss, of the gradual loss of cognitive function that showed itself in less dramatic ways, manifestations that were written off at the time as the patient just taking it easier, simplifying their lives. People retire anyway in this age range, early dementia or not. The kids grow up and move away, so they don’t have to prepare complicated meals three times a day, or drive anywhere but to the local grocery store, and their finances become dramatically simpler. Dementia is mostly only diagnosed after the progressive inability to process new information finally makes it impossible for the patient to manage even the simpler less demanding lifestyle that old age tends to allow most of us to get away with, demented or not. Dementia can present relatively early if the patient can’t simplify, or even, as in Trump’s case, moves into an even more demanding and complicated life situation. If judgment — executive function — is preserved, and if the patient has support and assistance of subordinates in his new, more demanding circumstances, patients can compensate successfully for their loss of personal cognitive function. They can’t keep all the balls up in the air, but they have enough staff to keep hundreds of balls up in the air. Reagan later developed clear, late dementia, but even at the time and not just in retrospect, he also clearly had early dementia on assuming office. He had this saving grace compared to Trump, however, that he had enough preserved executive function left to let competent staff handle all the details. The job of being president is so complicated that even a person of obviously greater than average mental acuity, like Obama, has to delegate quite a bit. Someone like Reagan or like Trump, with at least early dementia, just has to delegate a lot more to avoid dysfunction in managing his current role in life. It has been obvious from day one of his presidency that Trump can’t do that, can’t delegate successfully to competent staff. That, added to the loss of cognitive function evident in so many other ways, might be interpreted as early dementia working on an existing shaky executive function. But even such inability to delegate at least suggested his dementia was more advanced. Now we have all of this at least anecdotal evidence that Trump shows behaviors out of the public eye that really do call into question his orientation and even, perhaps that he has some lacunar memory loss (doesn’t recognize people he’s known for decades). Early dementia does not, by itself, call in question competence to make decisions. You don’t have to understand every detail of a will you sign to make your signature valid, and if your wealth is extensive and complicated enough, it is not to be expected that even a genius — who didn't also happen to be an expert in the law of successions -- would understand all the details of all the provisions of a will. But if you don’t understand even the broad brush practical effects, who gets approximately how much, if you imagine, and give voice to your imaginings, that it has effects clean contrary to the effects of the document you signed, then your competence in signing comes in question, and your signature on the will might be judged to not represent your assent to contents you do not at all understand. Somewhere between early and late dementia, you become incapable of understanding matters which a president of the US must understand for his signature to be valid, to represent his will and his assent to what he has signed. And that’s exactly where we are now in our knowledge of Trump’s dementia. It was never clearly only early dementia, but now it becomes ever more clear that it has got beyond early, and into a stage at which it cannot be taken for granted that anything he has signed was not some sort of imposture, people other than the president getting him to sign things he had not the slightest clue about what he was signing. Just from early excerpts of the Wolff book, it sure sounds like the WH the past year has been Fraudland and Imposture City in the way staff has handled their demented patient. And he’s got a lot of it on tape, apparently. We already know enough to know that Trump’s dementia requires his removal from office, because his performance has demonstrated an inability to execute competently many of its duties. The question now, one that requires a thorough clinical evaluation to resolve, is whether his cognitive dysfunction has progressed to the point that he was ever, while he has held the office, been competent to understand what he has signed sufficiently that his signature was not an imposture, something obtained fraudulently by his handlers. The people who could have started the 25th Amendment process when it first became obvious, some time in January 2017, that Trump had dementia that resulted in the inability to do his job, failed to do that. That failure has created a trail of executive orders and bills that he has signed since, whose status would enter a legal limbo if these people did their duty today, the 25th was geared up, and Trump was subjected to a clinical evaluation that now seems likely to find that he has dementia advanced enough to call in question how all these things he has signed, got signed. If it was too difficult for the VP and the cabinet and the Congressional leadership to do their duty in February 2017, it has since become much, much harder to do that right thing. Trump is now clearly further advanced into his disease, a clarity that these insiders had available a year ago, and yet these insiders connived at his signing things they knew him to be incompetent to sign. They could have switched out Trump for Pence a year ago, and probably done even better in political terms since, than they have with Trump in the Oval Office. But that window has closed for them. In the past year it now seems that they have engaged in fraud and imposture that would be exposed if Trump were to be examined for dementia. Even if the laws and orders he has signed will survive legal scrutiny because of legal precedent governing how official acts of dubious provenance are handled (but don’t be too confident of that, this is an unprecedented situation), these public officials would have trouble surviving electoral, and perhaps even legal, scrutiny. The current VP and cabinet and Congressional leadership have lost their chance to remove Trump from office for his dementia. At this point, they simply aren’t going to risk going there. Our side can’t replace the VP or cabinet — at least not in the normal way — until 2020. But the 25th can be implemented by just the Congressional leadership, and we can replace them later this year. And if Trump is ever examined by the relevant clinical specialists for his dementia, that D Congress is likely to thereby gain proof that the VP has committed impeachable offenses, the fraud and imposture involved in conniving at a clearly demented person being allowed to pretend to sign laws and executive orders that Pence knew perfectly well he was clearly incompetent to understand and give the assent required for his signature to be a true expression of his will. rss@dailykos.com (gtomkins) 25thAmendment trump trumpdementia trumpremoval Wolff _1729839 Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:35:46 +0000 Trump lawyers to Wolff: Cease and desist! https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/4/1729764/-Trump-lawyers-to-Wolff-Cease-and-desist A short diary but this is the latest on trump/bannon/wolff <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-attorney-sends-letter-author-book-demanding-cease/story?id=52134956" target="_blank">abcnews.go.com/…</a> <blockquote> <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/donald-trump.htm" target="_blank" title="">President Donald Trump</a>’s lawyer, Charles Harder, has demanded on behalf of his client that author Michael Wolff and his publisher immediately “cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination” of a forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury, according to a letter obtained by ABC News….. …. “We are investigating numerous false and/or baseless statements that you have made about Mr. Trump,” the lawyer wrote to Wolff. The letter goes on to say they are looking into possible defamation of Trump and his family and invasion of privacy. </blockquote> Wow this just gets weirder and weirder. I have always thought that one of the most defining indications of chickenshit, besides the smell, is the inability to take it after dishing it out. Trump loves to dish it out but he sure can not take it. Don’t let the stench gag you, Donald rss@dailykos.com (exlrrp) chickensht Recommended trump Wolff _1729764 Thu, 04 Jan 2018 15:18:08 +0000 'Fire and Fury': What we already knew, but more terrifying https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/3/1729553/--Fire-and-Fury-What-we-already-knew-but-more-terrifying New York magazine <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html" target="_blank">published an excerpt</a> from Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” and it adds detail and dialogue to the seeping toxic landfill mess that we know the presidency has been over the past year. It’s a good read; just be prepared with something positive as a tonic at the end (I took my dog for a walk). It’s full of amaza-crazy, you-can’t-make-this-up material throughout, but here are a few items that stood out for me: <ul> <li>Jared and Ivanka “had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump.” (They actually thought Trump being president would help them?)</li> <li>This conversation with Rupert Murdoch after Trump met with bigwigs from Silicon Valley:</li> </ul> <blockquote> “Oh, great, just great,” said Trump. “These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.” “Donald,” said Murdoch, “for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don’t need your help.” “Take this <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/trump-targets-h-1b-visas-for-real-reform-hell-need-help.html" title="">H-1B visa issue</a>. They really need these H-1B visas.” Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B visas, which open America’s doors to select immigrants, might be hard to square with his promises to build a wall and close the borders. But Trump seemed unconcerned, assuring Murdoch, “We’ll figure it out.” “What a fucking idiot,” said Murdoch, shrugging, as he got off the phone. </blockquote> <ul> <li>Trump is afraid of being poisoned, so much so that he’s commanded his housekeeping staff at the White House not to touch his toothbrush. Apparently this fear is one reason he likes going to McDonald’s, because “nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.”</li> </ul> rss@dailykos.com (AlanC) bannon Fire fury Jarvanka trump WhiteHouse Wolff _1729553 Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:26:12 +0000 Barbados, Sugarcane and the Tide of American Politics https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/10/1499286/-Barbados-Sugarcane-and-the-Tide-of-American-Politics What an interesting election year! Donald Trump pulls off a three-state coup earlier this week, while avowed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders upsets Hillary Clinton in Michigan, flummoxing all the pundits who saw the real estate mogul 'loosing steam' and the Vermont Senator 'on the ropes.' With both campaigns doggedly marching towards their respective party conventions this summer, heedless of the handwringing and obstructionism by their party elite, it's becoming clear that there's a revolution taking place in American politics, one I would characterize as pitting the last vestiges of self-centered, industrial age capitalism against a rising tide of digitally-directed democratic socialism. While Republican party officials can't seem to understand the appeal of a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201511/7-things-only-narcissists-do" target="_blank" title="">narcissistic personality</a> like Trump, the mainstream media are equally perplexed why young people, in particular, are attracted to a white haired geezer like Sanders, one who openly professes his belief in what he calls 'democratic socialism,' a term that if it doesn't confuse people, certainly leads many of wrongly assume he's talking about communism. After all, aren't the two terms pretty much synonymous? If you're a socialist, then you're also a communist, right? Actually, no. They are different animals entirely, but more on that later. I am reading a fascinating book on the history of Barbados from the perspective of one family, the descendants of one George Ashby, who sailed from England to the then-virgin island around 1640. Through property records, birth and death certificates, and lots and lots of digging into contemporary colonial journals, ships logs, and newspaper broadsides and pamphlets of the period, Andrea Stuart tells 'A Family Story of Slavery and Empire' in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Blood-Familys-Slavery-Empire/dp/0307474542" target="_blank">Sugar in the Blood</a>. Now you'd think there would be little commonality between the rise of the Caribbean sugarcane industry in the late 17th century and the slavery on which vast personal financial empires were built, and our modern high tech world. You might be surprised to learn that the exports, mainly sugar, which Stuart compares to crude oil today in its financial impact, from the tiny island of Barbados of "less than 100,000 arable acres were more valuable in 1680 than the total exports to England from all the North American Colonies." Stuart writes that the fortunes of a tiny elite of planters on Barbados "dwarfed those of the Chesapeake tobacco planters and those of the New York and Boston merchants, as well as their counterparts in Jamaica and the other Leeward Islands. Indeed, the Barbadians produced more sugar and employed more shipping than the other islands combined." <blockquote> "Barbados was no longer a society of peasant farmers like George Ashby, struggling alongside one another to stay solvent; it was now a rigidly hierarchical society. At the top were the elite planters, who were reinventing themselves according to an aristocratic model derived from the feudal culture that they remembered from back home (in England), and which shaped their attitudes and behavior. They dominated the political, military and financial infrastructure of the island, where they held high ranks in government, militia and (Anglican church) Vestry. Beneath them was a middling group of planters and merchants who acted as something of a buffer between the elites and the poorer planters who were struggling to keep their heads above water. The sugar industry was creating extremes of wealth and poverty that would eventually produce a yawning gap between those at the top and those at the bottom, with disastrous consequences." </blockquote> And what were those consequences? The imposition of an unspeakably brutal system of terror and oppression that not only wreaked havoc on the lives of their slaves, but warped the very character of their owners and overseers. Yes, a few planters at the top of the heap got insanely rich by contemporary standards feeding the sweet tooth of Europe, but they secured it through a Faustian bargain that robbed them of their humanity. Even newly arrived colonists who at first were revolted by the slave system, eventually succumb to its diabolic rationale that argued, it's either them (the black slaves) or us (the white planter and his family). The slave system was maintained only by a methodical application of suppression by terror. Gratefully, that system self-destructed, but it left in its wake an all-too-often deadly undercurrent of fear, anger and prejudice that still affects us today. I need point no further than Donald Trump rallies or the controversy around the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Economist <a href="http://www.rdwolff.com/" target="_blank" title="">Professor Richard D. Wolff</a> , who founded <a href="http://www.democracyatwork.info/" target="_blank">Democracy at Work</a> in support of economic justice gave a video lecture several years ago that described the evolution of economic systems. Beginning with the simplest community-based exchanges where farmers and villagers traded their surplus, society has progressed through a series of economic experiments, including the ancient invention of slavery dating back to the Bronze Age if not earlier, to the Catholic religion-enforced imposition of feudalism and serfdom of the Middle Ages, to the creation of capitalism at the beginning of the Age of Discovery (Columbus' first voyage was venture funded by Spain's monarchy), finally to the relatively-modern spread of communism, which itself arose in a now-failed attempt to counter the economic inequities of the capitalist system. With the exception of those early community exchanges, all subsequent systems have had one thing in common: a gradual stratification of society in which the few pretty much control everything and everyone else. That's again where we find ourselves, and explains why voters in 2016 appear to be attracted to the likes of Trump and Bernie Sanders. The capitalist system, as Wolff and more recently Elizabeth Warren and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich have warned, is rigged. It is a rigged system where for the last thirty years, the rich few have gotten the lion's share of the wealth of the world. Check out this <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph" target="_blank">Mother Jones article</a>from 2011. And the gulf has only gotten wider since then. While Senator Sanders, like Professor Wolff, who is a specialist in Marxism, calls for greater economic justice starting with the break up of the "too big" to fail banks, ironically, Donald Trump is the poster boy for all that's wrong with the system. Inheriting millions from his father, being bailed out more than once by bankruptcy courts, the only thing he appears to excel at is promoting his brand, himself, which is, of course, the core value of capitalism: look after number one first. It's the concept epitomized in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," which was written as her response to the communist revolution in Russia from which she'd fled and that appropriated her family's pharmacy business without compensation. The Cuban revolution did the same with private businesses there. So, as I see this election cycle unfolding, we're viewing a rekindled debate between what I call "community" and "self." Between socialism in all its varied hues and colors and self-centered capitalism with its promised allure of personal fortune and power, the very same siren call that drew George Ashby from his stratified life in feudal England to the promise of wealth and independence in far-off Barbados. But as he and others who followed soon discovered, reality was much harsher. He survived, but fortune and power would elude him. If you go over to <a href="http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-capitalism-failing" target="_blank">Debate.org</a> you find an interesting series of dialogues about the merits and failings of capitalism. There's similar discussions and articles pointing out the problems of socialism; and it has its shortcomings, for sure. But like the colonists on Barbados, the wider the gap grows between the few haves and the multitudes of have-nots, the greater the tension generated and the more oppression that's needed to maintain that unequal status quo: ranging from huge militaries to police SWAT teams to backdoors into our smart phones. I think Sander's supporters sense this and see the need for change, for a more equitable economic system, while Trump supporters just want things to go back to the way they were, which, in a way, are pretty much similar goals. But what's clear is this: a lot of people are unhappy with the current system and are expressing it during with their caucus and primary votes; and that's got both parties in panic mode. rss@dailykos.com (My EV World) AynRand Barbados Capitalism Democracy Marxism sanders Slavery Socialism Sugar trump Wolff _1499286 Thu, 10 Mar 2016 20:20:52 +0000 DCCC $olicitation v Debbie Wasserman Schultz 'Actions' https://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/20/480865/-DCCC-olicitation-v-Debbie-Wasserman-Schultz-Actions DWS 'rowing' in the opposite direction but 'Hey' don't pay any attention to that.. sends us your money 'we' must work together! Someone should memo the DCCC, Dodd, Wolff, and DWS.  How about us!! rss@dailykos.com (Ken Tucker) DCCC DebbieWassermanSchultz DWS Florida Much Ado About Nothing MuchAdoAboutNothing SenatorChrisDodd Wolff _480865 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:26:42 +0000