monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I’m in the market for a 1969 Camero. I’ve still got a bit to learn

Are they made of composite plastics?

Do either a semiautomatic handgun or sawed off shotgun do as much damage in the same amount of time as a AR-15 or another similar assault (whatever) gun?

Is it just a matter of a cosmetic (right word?) feature which turns one of those into a deadly weapon

. . . mass shooter's weapons of choice which has been an AR-15

Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump's longest serving advisers, is to step down, the administration says.

The 29-year-old former model has been by Mr Trump's side for years.

She is reported to have told colleagues she felt she had accomplished all she could in the White House.

During the election campaign, Ms Hicks served as press secretary.

She took over as the head of the White House communications team last August, after the abrupt firing of Anthony Scaramucci.

She is reported to have told colleagues she felt she had accomplished all she could in the White House.

News of her resignation comes one day after Ms Hicks told the House Intelligence Committee that she was occasionally required to tell "white lies" for the president as part of her job.

But Hicks' admission that, sure, she had told some white lies while in the service of Trump is yet another example of how the only way to survive and prosper under this President is to be willing to bend the truth.

The simple fact is that Trump misleads and flat-out lies at a rate astronomically higher than past presidents (or any prominent politician.) That, whether you love Trump or hate him, can't be disputed.

In his first year in office, Trump said more than 2,000 things that were either totally or largely false, according to the Washington Post's Fact Checker. That's more than five falsehoods a day. Every day.

This President lies about big things (his alleged opposition to the war in Iraq, 3 to 5 million people voting illegally in the 2016 election, President Barack Obama ordering a wiretap on Trump during the 2016 campaign) and small things (winning 84% of the Cuban vote, Florida being hit with the highest winds ever recorded).

And, that culture of untruth seeps into those who work for Trump -- if they want to work for Trump for long.

Press secretary Sean Spicer found himself lying to media about Trump having the largest inaugural crowd ever just 24 hours after Trump was sworn in a president. Sarah Sanders has lied about Trump never advocating violence. And now, Hicks' supposed white lies.

The point is this: Donald Trump's extremely casual relationship with the truth infects his entire administration. Everyone who works for Trump knows this. And they also know that the best way to keep in his good graces -- and keep your job -- is to facilitate and defend his version of the truth (even if they know it isn't actually the truth.)

Creating an alternate reality -- or using "alternative facts," to borrow a phrase from senior counselor Kellyanne Conway -- is simply an accepted way of doing business in the Trump White House.

That disinterest in accepted facts -- or the belief that everyone is entitled to their own facts -- is both insidious and toxic to the broader culture. Trump's flouting of facts -- and his staff's willingness to enable that tendency -- provides not just cover but growth potential for those who would undermined accepted truths for personal or partisan gain.

Whether Trump is in office for four years or eight years, that assault on truth will be his lasting legacy. And it will be one from which the country won't quickly recover.

News of her resignation comes one day after Ms Hicks told the House Intelligence Committee that she was occasionally required to tell "white lies" for the president as part of her job.

SEBASTIAN GORKA: There's an issue with this question of arming teachers, especially if they're vets. You don't have to be a tier one operator or a classified marksman. If there's one person in the building who's simply laying down fire in the direction of the perpetrator --

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): But there were -- the whole point, Dr. Gorka, is you need guards on every floor. You need the perimeter secure, you need a full threat assessment, security assessment. If we do that for every school, and we have the manpower, and they're on the floor, they're in the building. That's where they should be.

Those of you who were hoping that Oprah Winfrey would run for president in 2020 were probably discouraged by her pretty strong recent statements denying interest in the challenge. “t’s just not in my spirit,” she told one interviewer earlier this month.

But it seems now that there was a loophole in Winfrey’s disclaimer, according to The Hill:

Oprah Winfrey said she’s had billionaires offer to fund her presidential campaign if she runs for the White House, but said she’s waiting for a sign from God.

“I went into prayer,” she said of calls for her to run for president.

But demographics alone, compounded by a decline in conservative religious views that first became so notable among millennials (one expert calls the post-millennials the “first post-Christian” generation), should make this new cohort of citizens problematic for any political party that relies on white identity politics and a firm belief in rigid and often patriarchal norms of sexual behavior. And like the millennials, the post-millennials are a large generation. If the GOP gets on the wrong side of it, there could be political hell to pay for a long time.

Anthony Scaramucci
‏Verified account
@Scaramucci
Hope Hicks is a world class person and is going to go on to have an unbelievable career. She did an incredible job. The best is yet to come.