The Art of No Deal

[DB Roy]

What really astonishes me is how we can watch the Trump edifice crumbling into the house of cards it always was and yet his supporters STILL think he knows what he's doing and this is all part of some brilliant plan. Trump hired in Anthony Scaramucci as his director of communications. I can't think of any single word to describe this guy. "Scumbag" seems too nice a term. This guy's tenure is going to be short and a complete embarrassment to the Trump regime. He is like Mini-me in Austin Powers. He is MiniTrump--crass, uncouth, rude, classless, womanizing but rich. I mean, who gives interviews that are going to be read by the entire world where you describe a cabinet member as "sucking his own cock"? Then he cut loose on Reince Priebus and you knew right there Priebus was gone. Sure enough, after 189 days as Chief of Staff, Priebus got his walking papers. Officially, he resigned but we know the truth. His firing has been in the wind just a few weeks after Trump took office.

Sean Spicer hates Scaramucci and immediately resigned after 183 days on the job when he got the news that Trump hired Scaramucci on. Judging from what we've seen, who can blame him? I was wondering how long we'd have to wait to see what Spicer already knew. It turned about 24 hours. So "Mooch" pushed out Spicer and Priebus and he's not done. He and Bannon--the auto-fellatiator mentioned earlier--can't both have Trump's ear. One has to go. My guess is that it will be Bannon. When this happens, all the alt-right goons and weirdos are going to turn against him and who knows what will happen then? But ol' Mooch is threatening to fire the entire staff if the leaks don't stop!! Be my guest!

Two others lost their jobs just before Priebus: Derek Harvey the National Security Council Middle East advisor was fired after 187 days on the job. That same day, Michael Short, assistant press secretary resigned. I don't know if Mooch had anything to do with this but I suspect he did. This guy is really going to damage Trump before he gets the sense to get rid of him.

I also suspect Mooch's arrival may have compelled Walter Shaub to quit two days before Spicer. Shaub was the Director of the Office of Government Ethics.

As I predicted, skinny repeal failed. McCain's strategy seems a bit clearer: since they were using "reconciliation" to try and pass this bill, they only needed 50 senatorial votes with Pence as the tie-breaker. Normally, they would need 60 votes but had no hope of getting that. The problem with using reconciliation is that only certain parts of the bill can be targeted but if the bill is pulled off the floor before a vote, it doesn't count. So a new bill can be immediately introduced and reconciliation is put back on the table. What McCain did was vote for a debate which put the bill to a vote. Then he voted no, which along with Murkowski's and Collins's no votes put the repeal out of reach. It now is dead for the year. One a bill fails under reconciliation, it can't be voted on for the rest of the year.

I wondered how Trump would proceed with a failed skinny repeal and it didn't take long for an answer: he is now threatening to kill Obamacare payments if he doesn't get a repeal. Someone better haul him into court on this quickly because he can severely damage the system quickly if he isn't stopped like right now.

McConnell looked devastated and I loved every second of it. He looked about to cry and that wasn't just my interp--he WAS on the verge of tears. I hope Trump remembers to fire Tom Price as he promised the boyscouts he would if the vote failed. So now McConnell, Ryan and Trump are all essentially lame ducks. They've all been stood up to and been faced down. Trump was faced down by two women who never flinched a bit which is the only time two women ever pissed on him and he didn't love it. Really, what could McCain do but side with these two ladies? I mean, senators were voting for repeal based on assurances from Paul Ryan that he would never allow it to become law!!!! What the fuck???

Meanwhile, on the international front, North Korea, whom Trump assured us would NEVER develop a missile that capable of hitting the US, has developed a missile capable of hitting the US. Iran, also not afraid of Trump, is similarly working on such missiles directly thumbing their noses at him--something they didn't dare do to Obama. Also Russia, seeing that Trump's usefulness has ended, is now loudly rattling sabers over the new round of sanctions. Trump cannot lift or kill the sanctions--his hands are tied because of the investigations. So Putin is kicking out hundreds of diplomats. No more Mr. Nice Guy. That little, amused, tolerant smile he would always display towards Trump (whom he obviously considered an idiot) is gone now. Trump is now going to see the real ruthless dictator in all his naked glory. And all those Russian banks and businessmen he has been far too cozy with over the years are not going to side with him. He is about to see who he's fuckin' with.

The scary part is, we are now about to see the crazy, scared, desperate Trump emerge. If we thought he was unpredictable before, there is no telling what this lunatic might do now over the next few months. The black tunnel we entered on January 20th is about to get a whole lot blacker.

[Harry Marks]

To make a deal in business, everybody at the table WANTS to make a deal. If they don't, you cut them out. They don't want to be cut out, that's why they are there--they want to make a deal. In politics, not everyone at the table wants to make a deal and you still have to put up with them. They are there whether you like it or not because voters put them there and if you can't appease them, they shut the deal down and walk away.

That's a really good comparison. Trump has apparently made much of his money by spotting low-hanging fruit: contractors who are a little bit desperate so they work for him despite his reputation; foreign investors who are attracted by a high profile with apparent success; gullible dreamers who are willing to believe there is a secret to successful negotiation; ambitious investors on the make who think his name and connections can be manipulated (by themselves, of course) into larger empire. By putting together "coalitions of the willing" he has also mastered the art of using his public appearances just to gin up excitement (there is no such thing as bad publicity, in show business) and leveraging the excitement with coalition-building.

The other relevant thing about business is that they are all in it to take the money and run, these days. No investments without "exit strategies." Like Wall Street in the late Nineties and early to mid Noughties, they don't really care if their game is unsustainable. Can you spell "Mooch"?

The dems HATED this legislation and didn't want to vote for it but they gave in. It passed by one single vote! that was all that was needed. The dems came together because if they left Clinton hangin' in the wind, they would have completely neutered his presidency. He would be done and gone in four years. Instead Clinton did two terms and left with a surplus on the books.

The Freedom Caucus behavior was created by four people: The Koch Brothers, who labored long and lucratively to get their agenda passed on the state and local level; Antonin Scalia, who wrestled Citizens United into being; and Ted Cruz, who takes his place in a long line of Southern extremists, going back to Calhoun, who prefer confrontation and a fight for a lost cause over compromise and coalition.

It used to be that a party's "base" was willing to compromise with its center to avoid the damage the other side would do. But the uneasy Republican coalition between populist social conservatives and business-oriented fiscal conservatives is unable to function that way, and keeps falling apart (in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Nevada, and coming soon, in Wisconsin, Colorado and Arizona.) So far the social conservatives have been fobbed off with seats on the Supreme Court (most of whom, like Gorsuch, are really about protecting business from the depredations of regulators) but the Ted Cruz approach may blow up that strategy. And his approach wins elections, because Koch money can scare voters in Red states, and thus chase off the moderates.

[Harry Marks]

As I predicted, skinny repeal failed. McCain's strategy seems a bit clearer: since they were using "reconciliation" to try and pass this bill, they only needed 50 senatorial votes with Pence as the tie-breaker. Normally, they would need 60 votes but had no hope of getting that. The problem with using reconciliation is that only certain parts of the bill can be targeted but if the bill is pulled off the floor before a vote, it doesn't count. So a new bill can be immediately introduced and reconciliation is put back on the table. What McCain did was vote for a debate which put the bill to a vote. Then he voted no, which along with Murkowski's and Collins's no votes put the repeal out of reach. It now is dead for the year. One a bill fails under reconciliation, it can't be voted on for the rest of the year.

Thanks for unpacking that. My reading in the NY Times and occasional forays onto CNN had not explained in enough depth to make sense of McCain's behavior. Looks like the prospect of dying put some spine in the old soldier, or maybe revenge is a dish best served cold.

McConnell looked devastated and I loved every second of it. He looked about to cry and that wasn't just my interp--he WAS on the verge of tears. I hope Trump remembers to fire Tom Price as he promised the boyscouts he would if the vote failed. So now McConnell, Ryan and Trump are all essentially lame ducks. They've all been stood up to and been faced down. Trump was faced down by two women who never flinched a bit which is the only time two women ever pissed on him and he didn't love it. Really, what could McCain do but side with these two ladies? I mean, senators were voting for repeal based on assurances from Paul Ryan that he would never allow it to become law!!!! What the fuck???

Ryan and McConnell are skilled at the arts of opposition: never admitting what is really going on, ignoring substance so tactical maneuvering can give the appearance of victory, pretending to stand for something defensible. I'm not so sure they are lame ducks. Looking at the Senate slate in 2018, it is mostly Dems defending their seats, and a substantial number in Red states. McConnell may play for time.

The House is another matter. If Dems can get their act together and quit playing to score moral points, (i.e. talk down their base), they could win it. But as we all know gerrymandering has stacked the cards against them and so far there doesn't seem to be a strategy for leveraging the Trump disaster into election victory. I look at the by-elections in Montana and Georgia and it looks to me like a feat they can pull off - not by running against Trump but by talking sense and working the issues of substance, including the ACA.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. That little, amused, tolerant smile he would always display towards Trump (whom he obviously considered an idiot) is gone now. Trump is

The scary part is, we are now about to see the crazy, scared, desperate Trump emerge. If we thought he was unpredictable before, there is no telling what this lunatic might do now over the next few months. The black tunnel we entered on January 20th is about to get a whole lot blacker.

At least one historian of the 30s is swearing Trump will stage a military coup. I think it is too late for that - the military already hates his guts. But Putin may in fact be smart enough to teach Trump how to gradually take over power and put together a deep state of generals, tycoons and judges who will back further neutering of the other branches of government.

Yet who would bet on another Presidential election won by the lunatic right? If we see a coup it will be at the ballot boxes - a stolen election is way more likely at this point that tanks in the streets.

And then there is the nervous breakdown prospect. I mean, if I were Putin I would have given up on teaching Trump anything useful. Running things is not 45's skill - making noise is.

[DWill]

This might be a good time to insert a paradoxical out of left field--or rather right field. George F. Will has a "bright side" view of the Trump debacle. His column mirrors one that he penned many years ago titled "Feeding our Infantilism," about the American obsession with the office of the president and our continual enabling of its powers. I wonder that Will has not advocated for a parliamentary system; so far as I know, he hasn't.

'To see what is in front of one’s nose,' George Orwell wrote, 'needs a constant struggle.' An unnoticed reason for cheerfulness is that in one, if only one, particular, Trump is something the nation did not know it needed — a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation’s excessive fixation with the presidency.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... dency-good

[Chris OConnor]

Anyone interested in the next fiction book discussion?

[DB Roy]

Well, Mooch is gone. I knew he wasn't going to last long but--damn! He actually managed to last one day shorter than Sally Yates who openly defied Trump and refused to follow his directives! How bad is that?? As a Trump appointee, your tenure isn't measure in years, it's measured in months and, in some cases, days. What a weird, weird regime we have.

I'm not expecting Democrats to take the house next year but I am expecting they will make significant gains. The gerrymandering is just too loaded to overcome. I just can't see it. But the thing is, Trump is actually losing support in the South where he is supposed to be strongest. So I think the dems will gain a lot of seats the GOP doesn't want to lose but they will still hang onto the majority. The dems need to concentrate on 2020 when everything will change.

[DWill]

After this Thursday, I'll be away for most of the next four weeks, most of it without internet, Chris, so I won't be in.

[Harry Marks]

As a Trump appointee, your tenure isn't measure in years, it's measured in months and, in some cases, days. What a weird, weird regime we have.

I almost said, we're not in Kansas anymore. But then, Kansas has been Weird Central for the last six or eight years.

I'm not expecting Democrats to take the house next year but I am expecting they will make significant gains. The gerrymandering is just too loaded to overcome.

I fear you are right. I wonder how effective grass roots efforts to take state houses, state by state, will be to shift the gerrymandering after the next census. It just seems like Dems aren't that kind of party anymore, and that is a big part of the problem.

So, gains in the suburbs, but meanwhile the economy keeps perking along and the Republicans find one wedge issue after another to play their old games. Immigration cutbacks, the Wall, voter registration restrictions, trans people in the military, affirmative action challenges, claims that every new job was brought by Trump, restrictions on states legalizing pot. There is no shortage of stuff for Fox News to play "persecuted" about.

I want to see Democrats stand for something mainstream that counts. Fortunately Obamacare has begun to look like the place to take that stand. But if you can be Republican and unwilling to repeal, how effective is that?

But the thing is, Trump is actually losing support in the South where he is supposed to be strongest.

I don't know. Jeff Flake lost a lot of support for criticizing Trump, and that was in Arizona, which is getting close to being a swing state. The hard core folks are really hard core.

[DB Roy]

Well, where do we begin for this week? I guess we can start with North Korea. The world's two most unstable and narcissistic leaders are now in a pissing contest. Trump has promised to hit NK with what seems to be the threat of nuclear war. Once again, his staff as well as the Pentagon were caught completely off-guard by the threat. World leaders quickly denounced it and responsible members of Congress from both sides also denounced it. Kim Jong Un then threatened to hit Guam. Trump then reassured Guam's leadership that the threat would boost their tourism. Boy, it is really taxing trying to figure out where this guy comes up with the stuff he blurts out. I can only imagine the incredulous looks the people of Guam gave one another when that bit of news made the rounds.

A lot of Americans like Trump getting tough with Kim but they don't like this nuclear war rhetoric. After all, if you talk it and they call your bluff, you have to back it up. This could easily get SO out of hand quickly. And Trump isn't exactly the kind of guy who can sit their poker-faced and calm. I hear some people say we should have gone to war with them 20 years ago and we wouldn't be in this mess now. The problem there is that it's hindsight talking. We didn't want to go to war then anymore than we do now. It's pointless speculation.

With that simmering on the back-burner, Trump wants to lean on China for not doing more about his spat with Kim. What he expects China to do is beyond me. YOU picked the fight, not China. So now he's going to look into their trade practices. Careful, Trump--you and your daughter have enough business deals there already. This follows Trump declaring China is not currency manipulator which follows his declaration that China is a currency manipulator. Not sure fucking with China is wise after pulling out of the TPP.

THEN there is the rally in Charlottesville, VA where a statue of Robert E. Lee was to be removed. The alt-right, through the Daily Stormer website, organized this rally to protest the statue's removal. The Klan was there, the neo-Nazis were there, Confederate groups were there. Anti-racist groups as Antifa showed up en masse to protest the protesters. At a certain point, a right wing nut job ran his car into a crowd of antiracist protesters killing a woman and injuring others--some severely.

Trump shows up and, instead of condemning the white supremacists, blames "many sides." This has seemingly proven to be Trump's Achilles' Heel. He has been reprimanded publicly for not denouncing the racists. Two days later, he finally does but it's too little too late. How genuine is it when he had to be forced to finally say it. By waiting, he now has prove he means it by firing Bannon.

The antiracists forces really turned the heat up by outing white supremacists who stood in formation at the rally. Some have lost their jobs, others fear they will lose theirs, others are insisting they are not angry racists at all--just guys pissed off about the replacement of white European culture in America, that's all.

But now other states stepping up their schedules to remove Confederate statues. Kentucky, for example. So whatever gains the supremacists think they gained by the murder are in fast retreat.

Even Trump supporters are upset over the failure to repeal, the tough-guy routine with Kim and the incompetence shown the wake of the Charlottesville murder. Slowly the noose continues to tighten.

[Harry Marks]

Well, where do we begin for this week? I guess we can start with North Korea. The world's two most unstable and narcissistic leaders are now in a pissing contest. Trump has promised to hit NK with what seems to be the threat of nuclear war. Once again, his staff as well as the Pentagon were caught completely off-guard by the threat. World leaders quickly denounced it and responsible members of Congress from both sides also denounced it. Kim Jong Un then threatened to hit Guam.

It seems to me that Trump will appear to the right to have won that round, especially now that NK has backed away from their most specific threat.

A lot of Americans like Trump getting tough with Kim but they don't like this nuclear war rhetoric. After all, if you talk it and they call your bluff, you have to back it up.

OK, I see you share my concerns. So, the Chinese have done what the adults in the West Wing hoped they would do. Is that a win for Trump? I'm not sure. If they get the ability to make him back down on trade (which many of his advisers will be telling him to do anyway) then all he gets is the ability to pretend he got them to back down by blustering. But then, that seems to be all he's really after anyway.

I hear some people say we should have gone to war with them 20 years ago and we wouldn't be in this mess now. The problem there is that it's hindsight talking. We didn't want to go to war then anymore than we do now. It's pointless speculation.

Well, but their point is that things only get worse if left alone. The dynamics of the situation impel the NK overlords to make themselves as invulnerable as Israel by being so radioactive no one else will touch them. The main alternative turns out to be soft power, which it always has been. [That's why Jeane Kirkpatrick and Henry Kissinger were intent on arguing that totalitarianism is forever, and no one ever comes back from it.] The U.S. smuggles in (I wonder if the cost includes the occasional rosy-cheeked farm boy coming back in a coma and dying) USB sticks and other sources of information about what life is like in SK and the rest of the world. It is a tenable hypothesis that Kim Jong Un has turned out to be such a paranoid provocateur precisely because he lived in the West for many years and sees how tempting that world must be to the ordinary minions of NK if they ever find out what they are missing.

What he expects China to do is beyond me. YOU picked the fight, not China.

China did what he wanted them to. Their boycott of NK exports is almost certainly what got KJU to back down. In my view, however, China was reacting entirely to KJU and even the mildest of public rebuke by the U.S. would have been just as effective as long as it was accompanied by clear back-channel communication as to our actual interests, in which red-line acts of war have warlike responses spelled out if China doesn't restrain their nuclear chihuahua. China certainly knows it doesn't want war on the peninsula or nuclear fallout drifting over the border. The idea that there are no levers on a regime willing to use nuclear weapons is just absurd.

Trump shows up and, instead of condemning the white supremacists, blames "many sides." This has seemingly proven to be Trump's Achilles' Heel. He has been reprimanded publicly for not denouncing the racists. Two days later, he finally does but it's too little too late. How genuine is it when he had to be forced to finally say it. By waiting, he now has prove he means it by firing Bannon.

Just the opposite. He now can appear to "let Trump be Trump" while playing wedge issues the same way he has for 15 years. His envy of Roger Ailes may kill us all yet - I mean, what could make you a bigger star than getting everybody to talk about you non-stop for five years by relentlessly posing as "fair and balanced" to cue the fragility of whiteness-ego?

As far as I am concerned the left is playing into his game. I understand that toleration of hate groups makes vulnerable people afraid. But wearing our little safety pins and calling out Trump so we can be seen to be on the right side is not nearly as important as just reminding people what the Nazi symbols mean and what white supremacy is about. What could have been a clear expression of our disgust has been turned into meaningless blather about "false equivalencies" while Trump gets to play wedge issues again. The antifa are not our friends, and striking a dramatic pose on the moral high ground does not win elections.

It would be good to remember who stopped Joe McCarthy. It was the military. We can trust ordinary people to recognize it when extremists go too far.

But now other states stepping up their schedules to remove Confederate statues. Kentucky, for example. So whatever gains the supremacists think they gained by the murder are in fast retreat.

Leaders within Red States still know that it is not in their interest to get frozen out by the major corporate leaders. Behave themselves and they can hope for a Foxconn deal. Act up and they can spend ten years in the doghouse, like Kansas.