What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Barrister]

I keep hearing Merrick Garland's name being mentioned for FBI Chief.  Obviously there's some mischief-making by Republicans going on (hard for Dems to block a man they once said was qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, plus he'd vacate his Appeals Court seat)... but if offered, should Garland accept such the position?  He doesn't seem as if he'd have any problem saying "no" to Trump, and he would be well qualified for the position.

[derspiess]

Told you before, at election time, you're better off there.  No room in Trump's America for the likes of you.  Save yourself.

[The Minsky Moment]

It's not going to happen.  Garland would be confirmed of course, but this is really about GOP Senate-Trump relations not the Democrats.  Garland was being pitched by McConnell to the Trump people as a way of avoiding a special prosecutor appointment, but Trump isn't going to take the hint. 

[Valmy]

I keep hearing Merrick Garland's name being mentioned for FBI Chief.  Obviously there's some mischief-making by Republicans going on (hard for Dems to block a man they once said was qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, plus he'd vacate his Appeals Court seat)... but if offered, should Garland accept such the position?  He doesn't seem as if he'd have any problem saying "no" to Trump, and he would be well qualified for the position.

The mischief being a person the Democrats would find acceptable? Tricky!

[Barrister]

It's not going to happen.  Garland would be confirmed of course, but this is really about GOP Senate-Trump relations not the Democrats.  Garland was being pitched by McConnell to the Trump people as a way of avoiding a special prosecutor appointment, but Trump isn't going to take the hint.

I agree.

[CountDeMoney]

Told you before, at election time, you're better off there.  No room in Trump's America for the likes of you.  Save yourself.

#MakeAmericaStraightWhiteMaleAgain

[celedhring]

The mischief being a person the Democrats would find acceptable? Tricky!

Maybe they will come round and start advancing sensible policies just for the sake of confounding the Dems!

[derspiess]

Told you before, at election time, you're better off there.  No room in Trump's America for the likes of you.  Save yourself.

#MakeAmericaStraightWhiteMaleAgain

Everything else is now outlawed.

[CountDeMoney]

And if you're a reeeally good boy, I'm sure Jefferson Beauregard Sessons III will let you lynch a darkie, or maybe even a fag.

[CountDeMoney]

POLITICS
Trump's Fans Shrug Off Oval Office Leak
'Total bullshit,' one pro-Trump troll said of reports that the president disclosed sensitive intelligence to the Russians.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/16/trumps-fans-shrug-off-oval-office-leak-215140

They're concerned not so much about the president's ability to protect state secrets as they are with the depravity of the "deep state" and the lying mainstream media.

[derspiess]

Thanks for clarifying, Seedy.  You sent me off on a wild goose chase on what the hell a dag is and why I'd wanna kill one.

[garbon]

It's actually something that I need to raise with them, as yeah, I won't be all that useful to them if I'm dept head who has to relocate to the US. Maybe they can temp move me to Dublin for 12 months when/if the time comes?

Sounds like you're not thinking of the UK as a temporary location, but a permanent home?

Actually, I've wised up and I'm not going to say anything to my employer yet. At end of 2018, I'll have some sort of leverage. Right now, all I'd do is flag to them that they shouldn't actually think of me as a long-term employee.

[Caliga]

Good boy.  If ever asked by HR or management, your current job is your dream job and you aspire to nothing else or nowhere else.

[garbon]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/15/a-congressman-said-making-a-man-get-maternity-insurance-was-crazy-a-womans-reply-went-viral/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.e83de64afdb5

A congressman said making a man get maternity insurance was 'crazy.' A woman's reply went viral.

Between rounds of jeering that interrupted his every sentence, Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) took a little more than two minutes to explain what else he'd like to change about the Obama-era health-care law now that he has voted for the GOP's partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

"Get rid of some of these crazy regulations that Obamacare puts in," Blum suggested at an Iowa town hall meeting Monday, "such as a 62-year-old male having to have pregnancy insurance." The crowd yelled all the louder.

The gathering in a Dubuque high school gym went on for more than an hour like that: angry questions, political explanations, boos from the bleachers.

Barbara Rank, a retired special education teacher, did not get up from her seat like many of her neighbors did. "I did not have a question to ask," she told The Washington Post. But the next day, on her morning walk past a boulevard of government-maintained flowers, Rank realized she had a response to Blum. She wrote it down in 96 words and sent it to her local newspaper — and since then, more than 100,000 people have offered a fair critique.



Rank, 63, has an AOL email account but no Facebook account. She learned what Reddit was only on Friday, she said, when her daughter informed her that someone had posted a snapshot of her letter under the headline, "This is democracy manifest," and that tens of thousands of people were voting it onto the website's front page.

"It makes me laugh," Rank said. "It's such a silly little piece."

Tell that to the Daily Kos, where a writer thanks her "for calling out ignorant so-called public servants like Rod Blum of Iowa."

Or to thousands of like-minded commenters on Reddit and Twitter.

So on Monday morning, a week after the town hall meeting, Rank helped her grandson off to school and explained her writing process to The Post.

She hasn't been politically active since college, she said. But as she taught in schools around the United States, she has made a point of reading the local newspaper in each city — writing in whenever "I get fired up."

And sure enough, Blum's town hall gathering got her fired her up, even if she didn't say so that evening.

Rank wakes up before 7 a.m. every day, she said, and walks four miles through Dubuque to get the first cup of coffee from a bakery. "That's my thinking time," she said. On Tuesday, she was thinking about what Blum had said — about men being forced to pay for maternity insurance.

"Come on," she said. "Didn't we learn this in fifth-grade social studies?"

Her walk parallels the Mississippi River and the great public bridges that span it into other states. Thus her question in the letter: "Why should I pay for a bridge ..."

[Admiral Yi]

Her response is pretty silly.  All those things she mentioned are public goods.  Maternity insurance for a 62 year old man is a cross subsidy of a private good.