monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I watched Vice the other night. Aside from Bale's quite incredible capture of Cheney's physicality and voice, I wasn't much impressed. It's good to be reminded of this recent history but I thought the casting (other than Bale) to be almost uniformly bad. Steve Carell as Rumsfeld, for **** sake. And then there's the directing and the Reader's Digest style sympathetic portrayal of Lynne Cheney and David Addinton. Etc.

Moral of story - if you want to produce a film about a matter this serious and consequential, don't hire the writer/directer responsible for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues and website Funny or Die.

talking about lies.

The ANTIFA

Wherever people gather, Antifa groups may pursue their indiscriminate search to root out “fascists”. In Bordeaux last Saturday, Yellow Vests had to fight off an attack by Antifa.

It is now completely clear (as indeed it always has been) that the self-styled “Antifascists” are the watch dogs of the status quo. In their tireless search for “fascists”, the Antifa attack anything that moves. In effect, they protect stagnation. And curiously enough, Antifa violence is tolerated by the same State and the same police who insult, attack and arrest more peaceful demonstrators. In short, the Antifa are the storm troopers of the current system.

I was all fired-up

This article concerns France but Antifa does the same thing in the US. And we also see the police here arresting anyone but them.

I was all fired-up about going to see the film until I saw that they were billing it as a 'comedy'. I have no interest in seeing monstrous Cheney and Rumsfeld portrayed as sympathetic or serio-comic characters.

Many have long wondered whether some of Trump’s actions — like him asking Comey to “let” a Russia-related investigation into Michael Flynn “go,” and eventually firing the FBI director when he didn’t — were part of an effort to obstruct justice.

But the FBI seems to have also been wondering whether they were part of an effort to obstruct justice to Russia’s benefit.

The Times reporting, Wittes writes, suggests “the FBI did not think of the Comey firing simply as a possible obstruction of justice. Officials thought of it, rather, in the context of the underlying counterintelligence purpose of the Russia investigation.”

In his interview with the New Yorker, the Times’ Adam Goldman suggested another implication — that the counterintelligence probe into the president was central to Mueller’s appointment in the first place, and will likely be central to whatever findings the special counsel puts together at the conclusion of this investigation.

“I think Mueller is going to have to address this,” Goldman said. “Which, by the way, is the question the American public expects him to answer. You don’t need me to tell you that the American public expects an answer to ‘Is Trump working with Russia?’ It’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

To talk about the Democrats’ past and future, I spoke by phone with Rick Perlstein, who has written a series of books on the postwar rise of the American right. In the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed the political lessons of Newt Gingrich’s rise, the trauma carried by the postwar generation of Democrats, and what people are missing about Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric.

An unpopular president’s unpopular shutdown over an unpopular public works project about a non-existent crisis doesn’t seem to be winning him more support

Nate Cohn offered an overview in the Times on Saturday:



There has been little polling since the government shutdown began last month, but what there is indicates that voters oppose a border wall, blame the president for the shutdown, believe the shutdown will have adverse consequences and don’t believe the government should be shut down over the wall.



The wall has consistently been unpopular, with voters opposed by around a 20-point margin over months of national surveys. That makes it even less popular than the president himself.



Support for the wall is closely tied to support for the president, though. Over all, polls show it consistently tracks just a few points beneath the president’s approval rating, and support for the wall is almost exclusively confined to voters who already support the president.



On Wednesday, FiveThirtyEight’s Janie Velencia dug into a few recent ones:



Trump’s efforts to pin the blame on Democrats aren’t working, according to three pollsters who have conducted at least two polls in the two and a half weeks since the government first closed. Rather, polls show that Americans are increasingly blaming Trump.



Polls conducted in the first few days of the shutdown showed that between 43 percent and 47 percent of Americans blamed Trump most for the shutdown, while about a third blamed congressional Democrats. … [T]wo [new] YouGov polls found a 4-point increase in those blaming Trump. There was a 4-point increase among registered voters who most blamed Trump in the two Morning Consult polls. And surveys from Reuters/Ipsos also found a 4-point increase.



As for where Democrats stand in the blame-game, Morning Consult found a 2-point increase in those who blame them the most between their two polls, while Ipsos/Reuters found a 1-point drop and YouGov found a 3-point drop.



And there is broad agreement on how embarrassing and harmful the entire ordeal is, NPR noted on Friday:



Three-quarters of Americans say the government shutdown [is] “embarrassing for the country,” including a majority of Republicans, a new NPR/Ipsos Poll finds. … [About 7 in 10 also say it] is going to hurt the country, that it will hurt the economy and that Congress should pass a bill to reopen the government now while budget talks continue. Just 3 in 10 believe the government should remain closed until there is funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. …



The NPR/Ipsos Poll also found that Trump’s Oval Office address Tuesday had little effect. Just 10 percent of Americans said the president’s speech brought the country closer to ending the government shutdown. (Nearly 4 in 10 said they did not watch or even follow the address.) And not many, if anyone, beyond his base say his speech convinced them that there is a “crisis” at the Southern U.S. border.

Three-quarters of Americans say the government shutdown [is] “embarrassing for the country,” including a majority of Republicans, a new NPR/Ipsos Poll finds. … [About 7 in 10 also say it] is going to hurt the country, that it will hurt the economy and that Congress should pass a bill to reopen the government now while budget talks continue. Just 3 in 10 believe the government should remain closed until there is funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. …

His benchmark for when an emergency begins? When Nancy Pelosi refuses to budge. Which is proof that this “emergency” is pulled out of his giant, shapeless ass.

There is indeed a crisis at the border — caused by a big increase in the numbers of families with children from Central America applying for asylum. But they are not trying to evade a wall, and even if they were, you couldn’t build one fast enough to stop them.

Regular economic migration from Mexico is way down.


The overwhelming majority of drugs come through routine ports of entry, not the open border, or, like fentanyl, through the mail from China.


Almost everything the president has said about all of this is a lie — from his disgusting demonization of illegal immigrants as criminals and animals to the alleged record number of apprehensions at the border this year to his ludicrous insistence that he never actually said that Mexico would directly pay for the wall.


He just wants his goddamn wall, and he will shut down the government and violate the Constitution if he cannot get it.

Which is why I have to say right now — in fear of God knows what — that I cannot see the tiniest chance of Elizabeth Warren winning the presidency, for the same reasons as Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary. If the Dems want to put their huffy principles above their need to win elections, they’re welcome to. Just don’t call everyone who actually wants them to win a misogynist, okay?

58. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?
Strongly approve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25%
Somewhat approve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18%
Somewhat disapprove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%
Strongly disapprove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . 8%

The Economist
/YouGov Poll
Sample
1500 US Adults