Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Blowing off Joe Sixpack

Two days ago, it was reported that among the first things Trump did as president was to shut down the comment lines at the White House. Instead, an automated phone message told callers to use Facebook Messenger.

Now today, Variety reports that no such Messenger accounts exist.

I have never tried to call the White House, although from time to time I have written letters supporting or opposing presidential policies.

If it were some other administration, we might suspect a foulup among new staffers, with someone responsible for setting up the Messenger accounts not acting as fast as the person shutting down the phones. But that won't wash with this crowd.

One, they claim superior skills with social media.

Two, they had a social media director at the keyboard from midnight on the 20th shutting down social media outlets in several departments.

So we know what's going on. Trump isn't not listening to just the intelligence agencies, he's not listening to anyone, except maybe Putin, because he knows everything already.

This conclusion is reinforced by Conway's quick response to the We the People petition at WhiteHouse.gov (still functioning) that demands release of Trump's tax returns. The rules there are that if a petition gets 100,000 signatures within a few weeks, the White House will respond with 60 days.

Trump says nobody cares excet reporters. This morning there were over 300,000 signatures, more than there are reporters. But Conway had already said the returns won't be release.

It's the first thing I've seen her say that I believe.

A few days ago RtO said that Trump's Cabinet appointments were mostly imbeciles. At that time, they had not yet begun testifying to their senatorial review committees. Nor had some of them who are Cabinet-level or near that rank (and so do not have to undergo Senate review) begun performing. Now thay have.

RtO was wrong. They are not imbeciles. Quite a few are subimbeciles.  In that category, for sure now, are Flynn, Conway, Spicer, Perry, Carson, Price, DeVos, with a special mention for Crowley.

And a special special mention for the repellent Branstad, not an imbecile but a man who early in his political career (when I was in Iowa) was a decent, dull fellow. I didn't notice when it happened, because I was not in Iowa and not following its politics, but somewhere along the way he shed the decency.

Most of the leading Republicans in government are not imbeciles (although Rodgers is),  and even if I think they are either followers of an ideology that was proven unworkable before any of them were born or simply opportunists, they are intelligent enough to understand the minimum requirements necessary to keep a government functioning.

They cannot be sleeping well.

UPDATE

Additional evidence (though none is needed) that a social media directorate is managing the memory hole.




20 comments:

  1. RtO was wrong. They are not imbeciles. Quite a few are subimbeciles.

    Another assertion without evidence. I'll bet it ends up in the same pile of nonsense with the rest of them.

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  2. The basic evidence is in their confirmation statements, which are readily available on the innerwebs.

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  3. Let us review the bidding. In the Imbecile Derby, it's never smart to bet against Perry, so start with him.

    Here is a man who offered himself to be chief magistrate of the nation on a platform whose centerpiece was to shut down 3 government departments, including the Department of Energy.

    Although the DoE has a major laboratory in Texas, where Perry was governor for many years, he had no idea what the task of the department is.

    Think abut what that implies. As governor, Perry had donors, allies, associates, flunkies, friends who must have numbered in the hundreds; but we are required to choose between 2 amazing alternatives: 1) not one of these people knew what the DoE does either; or 2) not one cared enough about Perry to tip him to what the DoE is about.

    It is not going to be a simple matter to surpass Perry, but let us not be hasty. There are some remarkably stupid people in the Trump menage . . .

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  4. . . . like Spicer.

    Let us start by admitting that the man took an impossible job. For a moment, I had a theory that as soon as he accepted, he went home and talked with his wife, or communed with himself over a tall glass of whiskey, and realized, No way can I try to be a conduit for Trump's whims for 4 years, or 4 weeks or even 4 days, but how do I get out of this?

    And Trump presented him, right off, with a way.

    He was ordered to lecture the reporters Saturday night about crowds, and was either given or made up on the fly easily disprovable statements.

    Since a press secretary has two clients, his boss and the reporters, and he is useless, even counterproductive if the second set of clients knows he lies, he could go back to Trump and say, Sorry, boss. I did what I could but I screwed the pooch as far as any ability to work with reporters. I'll have to go. So sorry.

    A lcever theory and one that gave Spicer credit for some brains and some honor and some self-respect. But wrong, as we learned 2 days later.

    So, subimbecile but, worse than Perry? Before we decide, we have to look at other Trumpeters who never heard that the Internet never forgets . . .

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  5. Think abut what that implies. As governor, Perry had donors, allies, associates, flunkies, friends who must have numbered in the hundreds; but we are required to choose between 2 amazing alternatives: 1) not one of these people knew what the DoE does either; or 2) not one cared enough about Perry to tip him to what the DoE is about.

    Harry, alternative three means we don't have to choose between one and two.

    It was within a day that the blowback erupted to the NYT hit piece. Perhaps you need to be more skeptical of sources that are too good to be true.


    Since a press secretary has two clients, his boss and the reporters, and he is useless, even counterproductive if the second set of clients knows he lies ...

    So, per Perry above, if we know journalists lie, then they are worthless, right?

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  6. Nope, we have Perry's own statement on it. Good enough for me.

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  7. There are 7 subbasements at the Subtreasury in Manhattan. I was reminded of that by the latest subimbecile news from Trump Central.

    I had been planning next to examine DeVos, but now we know that Trump is considering the most notorious adulteress in American politics for the job of minister to the Holy See, I think we have hit bedrock on the imbecility scale.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/callista-gingrich-consideration-vatican-ambassador-job-article-1.2956695

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  8. Where? I don't see Perry's statement.

    So no. Not good enough.

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  9. Harry, you haven't "examined" Perry yet. Foul, evidence free, innuendo doesn't count.

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  10. And still nothing.

    Does this warrant Shenanigans, or Bollocks?

    Why choose?

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  11. Skipper, you need to get with the program: it's called alternative facts. So that when Conway says it is "flatly false" that Tiffany Trump is registered in 2 states, that means she is registered in 2 states. We know that from the public records of the 2 states.

    Or when Spicer says 14% of non-citzens voted in 2008, in a study published by Pew in 2008, that means no non-citizens voted in 2008, and the study was not published by Pew and when it was published, it wasn't in 2008.

    See, easy-peasy.

    So when a Trumpeter says something (like the report on Perry) is false, that means it's true, unless there is public documentation to back the Trumpeter up.

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  12. Bollocks, Harry. You made a claim about Perry that is flatly wrong, then perpetuated it.

    After all, it wasn't "Trumpeters" who said the report on Perry was false, or noted that the "evidence" in the story was ludicrous, even by journalist standards.

    So, clearly you have nothing on Perry. Other than your standard lies, of course.

    Try again.

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  13. Or when Spicer says 14% of non-citzens voted in 2008, in a study published by Pew in 2008, that means no non-citizens voted in 2008, and the study was not published by Pew and when it was published, it wasn't in 2008.

    The NYT has called out Spicer and Trump many times over the last couple weeks for repeating the lie that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the last election.

    What the NYT, and you, don't get is that by doing so, you have defined yourselves as liars: Spicer and Trump are doing judo, you and the NYT arm wrestling. If you know S & T are lying, then by definition you know what the correct answer is.

    You don't. You have no fricking idea.

    You lied. Again.

    (Reminds me of the NYT saying Hillary! had a 85% chance of winning the election. They proved they do not know the first damn thing about statistics, but trotted out that fake number anyway. Why are progressives so stupid?)

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  14. I do know: 0

    There are ways of sampling voters, one is the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

    It says 0.

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  15. You have just proven your unshakeable ignorance.

    Investigate California's voter registration procedures, then rethink your answer.

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  16. I cited the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. As is typical for you, if you dislike te source you pretend it does not exist.

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  17. Harry, pull your head out.

    From the Washington Post, many good reasons to suspect the CCES findings on non-citizen voting are very suspect.

    To be sure, my quick analysis does not at all disprove Richman et al’s conclusion that a large enough number of non-citizens are voting in elections to tip the balance for Democrats in very close races. It does, however, suggest that the CCES is probably not an appropriate data source for testing such claims

    I do not pretend it doesn't exist, I insist that it is worthless in determining how many non-citizens voted in California.

    If you had any knowledge about voter registration in CA, and had not taken leave of reason, you would understand that there is no way to know what the number is.

    Asserting zero is proof you have taken leave of reason.

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  18. And, per usual when faced with unpleasant facts, Harry scarpers.

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