Summations Only

And now Trump is unloading on Sessions. The New York Times this morning mentioned how firing Sesssions would alienate the "conservative" portion of his base.I felt at the beginning that his mix of Wall St/Washington insiders and right-wing nihilists would be unstable. I wonder if this is where the mix becomes unviable.

I'd love to see Sessions get fired.

To paraphrase Andy Warhol: Everybody will get a chance to be in Trump's cabinet for fifteen minutes.

In a move that should have surprised not one person, Trump announced today that folks who are transgender could not serve in the military in any capacity. The commander-in-chief's announcement reverses a position adopted by the military just over two years ago. In May 2015, service members were told that they could serve openly without fear of being discharged solely for being transgender.Link to old policy:https://www.defense.gov/...l-Reports/0616_transgender-policy

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Effective immediately, transgender Service members may serve openly, and they can no longer be discharged or otherwise separated from the military solely for being transgender individuals.

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Trump announced the new policy on Twitter.https://www.washingtonpost.com/...der-people-in-u-s-military

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After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military, Trump wrote on Twitter. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail

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When can this shite be over?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

As would have to be expected for a DOJ being run by Jeff Sessions, civil rights are an impediment to freedom and must be curtailed at all costs.

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The Justice Department filed an amicus brief Wednesday saying that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not cover employment "discrimination based on sexual orientation."

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The DOJ filed the brief in the case of Donald Zarda, who had filed suit against his former employer Altitude Express in a case that questions whether sexual orientation is included in Title VII's protections.

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The DOJ, of course, had the option of just keeping silent on the issue, but apparently wanted it made clear that it is okay with firing a skydiving instructor because a customer knows he is gay. This is the crap Jeff Sessions stands for and always has stood for. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

New Cat's Eye writes:

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I'd love to see Sessions get fired.

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The problem is that no matter how bad the current situation is, changing it up simply means it'll get worse.Impeach Trump and Pence becomes the president and he's even more vindictive...and actually has some competence in running government. You don't really think that Trump's tweet about kicking out trans people from the military came from him talking to generals, did you? No, that was Pence (he was behind the anti-trans legislation that failed in Congress a couple weeks ago...and was actively getting three new anti-trans pieces of legislation into the pipeline.)Get rid of Sessions and you can pretty much guarantee that Mueller will get fired. Trump's pissed that Sessions recused himself? Didn't he pay attention to the confirmation hearings? That was one of the things they asked Sessions about: Since you were part of Trump's election team, will you recuse yourself from the investigation into Russian involvement in the election? Trump can't fire Mueller directly. That's for the AG's office to do. Sessions can't do it because he's recused himself and it was Deputy AG Rosenstein who appointed him so he's not going to do it, either. And third in line, Brand, doesn't seem likely to do it, either. So the only way to get rid of Mueller is to get rid of Sessions and appoint a new AG. But, Trump seems to have enough sense (at least for now) to know that he can't fire Sessions directly, so he's trying to make it difficult for Sessions to remain so he'll quit. And he's hoping to do so when the Senate is in recess so he can make a recess appointment of someone who will be "loyal" and fire Mueller.And let's not forget how Spicer was replaced with Scaramucci.There isn't anybody in Trump's administration that doesn't have an even worse person waiting in the wings to take over, all the way up to and including Trump.

The chief of the boycotts apologized today for the political remarks made at the Trump speech.

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Boy Scouts of America Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh has penned a blog post apologizing for President Donald Trump's speech at the 2017 National Jamboree, following days of intensifying pressure to denounce the president's politically charged remarks.

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But those real moments of Scouting were overshadowed by the remarks offered by the President of the United States, he wrote.

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We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program, he added.

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Trump's spokespeople are pretending not to know what the fuss is about.Boy Scouts chief apologizes for Trump's politically charged speech - ABC News

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Asked to respond to the criticism Thursday, incoming White House press secretary Sarah Sanders repeatedly touted the energy of the crowds responding to the president and said nothing about the substance of the president’s remarks.

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"I haven't seen the statement from the Boy Scouts. So I can't comment any further than what I saw firsthand, and that was a lot of individuals, roughly 40 to 45,000 as reported, cheering the president on," she said.

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Sarah Sanders is correct of course about the reaction of the scouts. There was huge cheering among the scouts and their parents as Trump bragged about how great he was while running down Hillary, Obama, etc.I recall an early incident in Obama's presidency when he announced that he planned to make an address to school children. Conservatives couldn't shriek about the idea of Barrack addressing kids any louder than they did.Many conservatives enraged over Obama school speech - CNN.com

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"The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate," an administration spokesman said. "This isn't a policy speech. It's a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school.

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Some of the controversy surrounding Obama's speech stems from a proposed lesson plan created by the Education Department to accompany the address. An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing "what they can do to help the president."

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Of course, conservatives reacted to Obama's plan with outrage despite the fact that Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. had made nationally televised speeches targeted at school children.Of course, those folks did not make a complete buffoon of themselves in quite the way that Trump did. Or in quite the way the Boy Scouts did. They did everything wrong short of yelling, "Lock her up."Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

"Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member" - Groucho Marx"Anyone willing to be part of the Trump administration is probably not qualified/desirable for the position" - MooseMoose

In a move that should not surprise anyone, the well-oiled machine that is the Trump administration fired Reince Priebus today:President Trump To Reince Priebus: You're Fired

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President Trump just announced that Reince Priebus is no longer White House chief of staff. He has replaced the former Republican Party chairman with Homeland Security chief John Kelly.

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Did Reince deserve to be let go?

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On Wednesday night, Scaramucci seemingly implied that Priebus was behind the leak of his financial disclosure forms, by tagging him in a since-deleted tweet in which he railed against so-called leakers. As it turns out, the information Scaramucci claimed was public information was not leaked at all, and was obtained lawfully by Politico.

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Here is my own "prediction" from 6 weeks ago when Priebus did not appear sufficiently obsequious at Trump's public cabinet meeting: I don't recall what I was thinking at the time, but I likely had read others making similar predictions when I posted my comments. Priebus was the Republican Party insider whom many people were surprised was even part of the administration.

I've lost track. Does this mean that only the real lunatics are left in the Administration?

I think there continue to be a few high profile sane folk in there, but the crazy factor seems to be increasing with each replacement. Scaramucci coming in as the new Spicer is certainly an "upgrade" in lunacy.

So much stupidity, but this one seemed extra delicious: Trump’s Bully Act BackfiresSome snippets from the above (read the whole thing there):

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John McCain’s refusal to vote for a bill to repeal Obamacare got all the attention for the dramatic way he did it, but Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was also key to stopping the bill that Trump and McConnell wanted so badly. Trump showed off just how bad he is at politics with the way he tried to intimidate Murkowski.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called Murkowski and the state’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, to threaten that the Trump administration may change its position on several issues that affect the state to punish Murkowski, such as blocking energy exploration and plans to allow the construction of new roads. The message was pretty clear, Sullivan told the Alaska Dispatch News.

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As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Murkowski...

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This demonstrated the degree to which Zinke’s ham-handed phone call was political malpractice. The secretary, or whoever at the White House ordered him to make the calls, clearly doesn’t understand the awesome power that comes with being the chairman of a Senate committee. Only an amateur would threaten the person who has oversight over his agency! If she wants, Murkowski can make Zinke’s life so unbelievably miserable. He has no idea.

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My bolding.Moose

Meh, I don't really care.

ABC, NBC, and CBS are all reporting that Scaramucci is out as the White House Communications Director. Anthony Scaramucci removed as White House communications director - CBS News

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President Trump has removed Anthony Scaramucci from his new job as communications director, exactly 10 days after he was named to the position, according to The New York Times.

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Axios is reporting that it was the new chief of staff, Kelly, that called for his resignation. There may be hope for Kelly yet.