Like!
There’s also this:
We heard from sources that Secretary Tillerson has rescinded all delegated authorities last week. The two sources are not Public Affairs shop officials. The revocation of authorities is department-wide and includes everything apparently from the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) sanctions, and even routine authorities related to military exercises.
One called it “completely insane.”
Another said, “Basically it’s a clusterfuck.”
And earlier this month it was reported that Rex commissioned a firm that has recommended that all visa, passport and other travel document issuance be transferred to DHS. A little tin foil hat perhaps, but still.
In the report, the consultants recommended that Tillerson “move issuance of passports, visas and other travel documents to Homeland Security.”
“There may be an opportunity to elevate efficiency and reduce cost by this change,” it said. “Indications are that doing so would elevate security at our borders.”
Jeffrey Gorsky, a former State Department consular official, said the idea of shifting visa issuance from the State Department had been around since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but that improved U.S. security had undercut the argument for this.
Such a shift, he said, would likely require congressional action and could erode the principle of “non-reviewability,” the current doctrine under which consular decisions may not be reviewed by the courts.
I know the border wall has been largely forgotten in all the other insanity, but even Rasmussen is having trouble massaging the numbers to make Trump’s issues look popular.
So what???
Seriously, I don’t even understand after looking 538’s list what it means to “vote in line with Trump.”
The damage the Trump has done to this country has virtually nothing to do with him working with Republican Congress to pass horrible legislation. It is his words, scary tweets, sheer incompetence, and handful of executive orders, several of which were simply reversing Obama executive orders.
I get that he has made several far right appointees that Democrats hate. But to a conservative Republican, they aren’t scarier than a Bernie Sanders is to Harry Reid.
Name me the things that Flake should have opposed that would have actually mitigated the damage that Trump has done?
Conservative can oppose Trump on purely conservative grounds. But most of all any American can and I should oppose Trump because he is a menace to the Republic.
That said Tromp probably has done anything impeachable yet. (At least that we know of today). Don’t trash Republican Senators who oppose Trump hopefully you need their support in 2018 to get rid of Trump.
Meh. The border wall (as a physical object) has never had a plurality support, even among Republicans (at least according to Pew and Gallop). Even back when Trump was accepting the GOP nomination back in July of 2016, more Republicans supported a path to citizenship than actually building the border wall.
Timex
4748
He should have opposed the most recent healthcare bill, because it was objectively bad.
But I believe I get your point, and you’re correct, that they haven’t really done much in congress. And things like the sanctions bill which ties the president’s hands is a good thing.
The easiest way to stop him would have been not to elect him, and we failed that test with flying colors. So I share your pessimism.
Skipper
4752
If Trump just ignores the Judiciary and Congress, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.
(Because it’s about time we just re-quote Trump, at Trump.)
The State Department stuff is just chilling to think about, the long term effects of what’s happening there will be felt long after Trump is gone. It also illustrates perfectly how the ridiculous partisan nonsense has infected the way Republicans govern and made them dangerously ineffective. Many of the State Department staff let go since the Inauguration were career diplomats, some of whom had been at the State Department since the Bush Administration or even before that, and many of whom probably voted Republican in years past. Yet they were seen as “Obama’s State Department people” despite the fact that they weren’t appointees, and anything associated with Obama (even incorrectly so) is something that has to go in the eyes of the new GOP. It’s idiocy, and it leaves the United States dangerously unprepared for something like a military action by North Korea against South Korea, Japan or us, or an action by China against North Korea, or another Russian “annexation” of a former soviet state.
The Trump Administration had us all worried in January 2017 because we looked at Trump, Bannon, Miller, Sessions, Flynn, McConnell, Ryan and others and worried about the real evil they could do with the power they held. It turns out our fears were misplaced. It would have been easier to counter pure evil than it is to counter the gross incompetence and simple blind fumbling idiocy that permeates ever aspect of the Trump Administration.
I have to disagree. I think things would be so much worse if Trump and company were actually good at what they have been trying to do. There will definitely be repercussions and cleanup for a long time but things could be so much worse.
What are you, some kind of Deep State apologist?
Shhh! No one is supposed to talk about the operatives Obama planted in the early years of the Bush administration.
Wait, so there are reverse vampires in the State department?
What do you think Pizzagate was even about? Think, man!
Dejin
4760
I was pretty shocked to discover we don’t have an ambassador to South Korea. With all that’s going on in North Korea, Trump and co. don’t think having a South Korean ambassador is important.
I suppose you can make the argument that having the Charge D’Affaires, who is a career diplomat, run things in place of a Trump stooge is a step up. Still the lack of an actual ambassador does say something about what Trump thinks is important.
Plus South Korea is probably going to be glass soon, so not much point sending an ambassador.
We have troops in S. Korea. We already have a major presence. Maybe they feel they don’t need an ambassador?
