Islamic State said on Tuesday the United States was drowning and “being run by an idiot”.
In the first official remarks by the group referring to President Donald Trump since he took office, spokesman Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said:
“America you have drowned and there is no saviour, and you have become prey for the soldiers of the caliphate in every part of the earth, you are bankrupt and the signs of your demise are evident to every eye.”
“… There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is,” he said in a recording released on Tuesday on messaging network Telegram.
Trump has made defeating Islamic State a priority of his presidency.
U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake Islamic State’s two biggest cities – Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
“Die of spite America, die of spite, a nation where both young and old are racing to die in the name of God will not be defeated,” al-Muhajer said.
Trump is examining ways to accelerate the U.S.-led coalition campaign that U.S. and Iraqi officials say has so far been largely successful in uprooting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
The loss of Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, would deal a major defeat to Islamic State.
U.S. and Iraqi officials are preparing for smaller battles after the city is recaptured and expect the group to go underground to fight as a traditional insurgency.
https://twitter.com/DeWandaWise/status/849813546779033600
The money web of evil
https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/849618614508560384/photo/1
Wooooooooooo
https://twitter.com/UndergroundWGN/status/849815839121342464
https://twitter.com/TIME/status/849708247141539840
https://twitter.com/UndergroundWGN/status/849813176505978880
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/849688118982848517
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/849700705342554112/photo/1
https://twitter.com/JamilahLemieux/status/849400826284167168
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/851047059155243008
https://twitter.com/WannasWorld/status/848937684722737153
https://twitter.com/y00lz/status/849755101451472896
Dear Pepsi, That Ad was a Gold in the Fail Olympics
Awesomely Luvvie — April 5, 2017
I gotta say that sometimes, I’m impressed by how people fail so spectacularly. Pepsi is the latest inductee into the FAIL Hall of Fame. I don’t think we’ve fully forgiven them since they set Michael Jackson’s hair on fire back in 1984. We just knew they didn’t curl allaway over. And now, they’ve taken their proclivity to hustling backwards to new levels.
Pepsi released their latest ad and showed what it looks like when upper management lacks sensitivity, has no checks and balances, and no person of color who has a voice in the C-suite. It is what happens when peak caucasity is at the wheel.
………………………………………..
Dear Pepsi,
On the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., y’all decided to drop an ad that features a protest where a Kardashian hands a can of Pepsi to a cop to establish common ground.
Read that slowly. And take in how everything about it is wrong. EVERYTHING about it was stupid.
This commercial was 2 minutes and 39 seconds of “OMG STAHP” because everything about it was cringe-worthy. First, was the pandering to people’s calls for media and commercials to reflect the world as it is. This ad made sure to tick off every box in diversity bingo. Muslim! Trans! Black! Asian! Woman! Y’all must have thought that once you did that, everything else didn’t matter. Know that the presence of marginalized people makes no difference if they’re being tokenized, and that’s what happened here. It was shoved down our throats with no deeper meaning attached to any of them.
Kardasians, nothing but TRASH, the lot of them.
https://twitter.com/hollywoodblvd1/status/849785202452738048
https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/849620289063399424
https://twitter.com/soulphoodie/status/849396731930447874/photo/1
bardgal @bardgal
When do we cross the Rubicon of Trump destroying not only the credibility of the US GOV, but the office of POTUS itself w/GOP assistance?
12:07 PM – 5 Apr 2017
Ken Gude @KenGude
Important for Dems to recognize that Trump/Nunes goal in absurd Rice attacks is to give GOP a way to get in the game on #TrumpRussia 1/
…
Trump’s months-long effort to get GOP to view Russia story as part of Dem sour grapes & plot to undermine him went nowhere. 2/
…
Trump got no real support from GOP elected officials with his attacks on the Intelligence Community/Deep State. 3/
…
Flynn lying/firing & Sessions recusal kept adding to the momentum and GOP left weakly defending the indefensible. 4/
…
Now after trying to make Evelyn Farkas the foil to no avail, Trump found the target that would motivate GOP to go on attack: Susan Rice. 5/
…
The ridiculousness of the charge is immaterial; the GOP now has its bete noire, w right-wing media & GOP elected officials joining fight. 6/
…
Dem response should not focus only on pushing back on facts of Trump’s claims against Rice, but create costs for GOPs giving Trump cover. 7/
…
Dems must now hit these GOPers for aiding a cover up of possible Trump collusion w hostile foreign power to subvert election. 8/8
0 replies 4 retweets 3 likes
https://twitter.com/axios/status/849655310532923393
https://twitter.com/alaynatreene/status/849709281201065984
https://twitter.com/stanleysteemer/status/849701583545917440
https://twitter.com/wsvn/status/849790070420799489
Remember when Coke was marketed as a catalyst for world peace? I guess what worked in the 70s seems really lame in 2017. Maybe that’s progress.
This is in the Twitter Hall of Fame.
PURE-D-ETHER!!
https://twitter.com/Fusion/status/849834066539012096&rel=0
https://twitter.com/Fusion/status/849834066539012096
https://youtu.be/N7h_y_G7syU&rel=0
JUST LOOK AT THIS ISH…
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/849724861765349376
What an immature ass! (frown)
Video: Memories…Dave Albo says his wife rejected sex with him following his transvaginal ultrasound bill https://t.co/59YUawa7s5 pic.twitter.com/jdLQcESya8
— lowkell (@lowkell) April 5, 2017
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/849718787624419328
In Pushing the Susan Rice Story, Did the Trump Administration Just Out Themselves?
by Nancy LeTourneau April 5, 2017 10:13 AM
……………………….
All of that is by way of background to an interesting nugget contained in this AP story.
All of that makes the question posed by Barton Gellman very prescient.
Trump is Failing for Same Reason That Boehner Failed
by Martin Longman April 5, 2017 11:58 AM
Jonathan Chait thinks the Republicans will come to regret that Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected president. His reasoning is solid. If elected, Clinton would have found her legislative agenda mostly blocked by a Republican Congress, and there’s a decent chance that the left would have disintegrated in frustration, leading to more big midterm gains for the GOP and possibly an easy victory in the 2020 presidential race.
………………………………………….
In truth, however, almost no Washington Republicans voted for Trump in the primaries. The elite conservative intelligentsia never saw Trump as fit for office, nor did they see him as an ideologically acceptable conservative. They had reconciled themselves to a Clinton presidency and were gearing up to win the battle over the autopsy of Trump’s campaign. Most of them did not want Trump to win and we’re relieved that the polls indicated that he had no chance to win. When I wrote yesterday that “our country has been atomic-wedgied on a flagpole” by the Russians, I intentionally referred not just to the left or the Democrats. Trump spent his whole primary campaign giving wedgies to the Republican establishment. Jeb was “low energy” and “Little Rubio” was a lightweight, John McCain was no war hero and, by the way, here’s Lindsey Graham’s personal cell phone number. Give it a call.
If President Trump is the most successful college prank ever pulled off, both parties are the victims.
…………………………..
The last thing that Paul Ryan was thinking at that moment is that he might have the opportunity to put his repeal and replace Obamacare bill on President Trump’s desk. Frankly, he didn’t even want that outcome, and he was hardly alone.
But he was wasn’t thinking three steps ahead, like Chait is asking us to do. He wasn’t calculating that the GOP would be better off in the end with a President Clinton. He considered a Clinton win a disaster, too. It’s just that, given the choice, it was obvious that Trump wasn’t an option because he wasn’t in any way “in keeping with our party’s principles and values.”
But Chait is correct that rank-and-file Republican voters largely stayed with Trump, meaning that they “brought disaster upon their country.” This led Trump to make a fatal miscalculation. He thought he won with a partisan vote so he should be able to govern with an exclusively partisan coalition. That was incorrect because his victory was a victory over both parties, and the Washington Establishment didn’t accept him irrespective of which party they represented.
Darn…Politics is not a noble profession..
Watching Abdullah of Jordan act a weasel…not just kissing the buffoon’s b*tt, but seriously throwing President Obama under the bus …
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/849664816662884355
He is a walking, living breathing, crime!
…..His whole life
From what I understand, his father didn’t like him. However his father was a jerk so that isn’t sayin much.
In the name of all that is Holy, get this monster out of the Oval Office
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/849663824542224384
Republicans Prep Regulatory War on Women’s Health-Care Benefits
Apr 5, 2017, 9:21am
Christine Grimaldi
GOP infighting in the U.S. House of Representatives effectively killed Republicans’ unpopular American Health Care Act and by their own admission preserved President Obama’s signature health-care reform law as the law of the land—indefinitely. But the damage Republicans can do to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the alternately vilified and venerated Obamacare, and protections for reproductive health care, remains a very real possibility.
…………….
The second prong leaves crucial rollbacks up to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By HHS Secretary Tom Price’s accounting, there are 1,442 citations in Obamacare providing discretion to the secretary. He pledged that HHS will “look at every single one.”
That doesn’t mean HHS can act on every single one.
Some policies are known as statutory. Because they live in the text of Obamacare, they are law. And they can’t be changed without changing the law, as congressional Republicans tried and failed to do.
Other policies are known as regulatory. After a bill becomes law, it’s up to the federal agencies to devise regulations for how the law will be enforced. Agencies often solicit input from the public and key stakeholders to devise guidance, rules, directives, and other documents that have the force of law.
That’s where the power of Price and his HHS lies.
Join Rewire for part one of our series exploring the stakes under the Trump administration—and how some lawmakers and advocates alike are fighting to stop the onslaught against reproductive health care.
From Benen:
The GOP war on women’s health care benefits
https://rewire.news/article/2017/04/05/republicans-prep-regulatory-war-womens-health-care-benefits/
Trump’s EPA moves to defund programs that protect children from lead-based paint https://t.co/LDFkOLMaSi
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 5, 2017
The Black Tax is REAL
https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/849617175128276992
From Bloomberg:
President Donald Trump reorganized his National Security Council on Wednesday, removing his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, and downgrading the role of his Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, according to a person familiar with the decision and a regulatory filing.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster was given responsibility for setting the agenda for meetings of the NSC or the Homeland Security Council, and was authorized to delegate that authority to Bossert, at his discretion, according to the filing.
Under the move, the national intelligence director, Dan Coats, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, are again “regular attendees” of the NSC’s principals committee.
Bannon had no business on the National Security Council in the first place…
https://twitter.com/business/status/849645786128408576
Another one died in Russia.
He “SLIPPED”
SLIPPED?!?!?!?!?!?
Appeals court rejects LGBT employment discrimination
04/05/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
Democrats in recent years have pushed repeatedly for changes to existing laws against workplace discrimination, because there’s an obvious gap. While many states prohibit discrimination against LGBT workers, federal law includes no such protections.
Employers can’t discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, religion, national origin, disability, or genetic information, but federal civil rights law make no specific references to sexual orientation or sexual identity. Democrats have championed measures like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to remedy the problem.
But in a surprising twist, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded yesterday that the law may not necessarily need improving – because existing law should already be interpreted to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT Americans.
GOP considers ‘Zombie Trumpcare,’ which is worse than the original
04/05/17 10:48 AM—UPDATED 04/05/17 10:56 AM
By Steve Benen
Exactly one month ago tomorrow, House Republicans formally unveiled their long-awaited health care plan, along with an online Q&A about the proposal’s alleged virtues. The site asked, “Are you repealing patient protections, including for people with pre-existing conditions?”
Answering their own question, Republicans replied, “No. Americans should never be denied coverage or charged more because of a pre-existing condition.”
Of course, a lot has happened over the last month. House Speaker Paul Ryan was forced to change his “American Health Care Act” in the face of opposition from within his own party, and then change it again. The entire initiative failed spectacularly, though the Republican drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act didn’t disappear.
And so, GOP leaders continued to plot and scheme, looking for ways to alter the party’s plan to satisfy the demands of various party factions, most notably the far-right House Freedom Caucus. NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin reported yesterday on the latest iteration, which takes aim at the protections for those with pre-existing condition – the same protections Republicans vowed to keep.
The proposal the White House is floating would change all that.
To be sure, the emerging compromise – what many are calling “Zombie Trumpcare,” because it’s back from the dead – doesn’t yet exist in written form. Closed-door negotiations have been ongoing, but the talks haven’t led to specific legislative text that we can scrutinize in detail.
But we know enough to recognize that Republicans are weighing a new plan that’s vastly worse than its wildly unpopular original plan.
The new, emerging version includes all of the elements the American mainstream already opposed – taking coverage from tens of millions of people, slashing Medicaid, handing big tax cuts to the wealth – adds the elimination of essential health benefits, including maternity care, and then tops it off by scrapping the “community rating” provision of the ACA.
In practical terms, while “Obamacare” prevents insurers from charging the sick more for insurance than the healthy, the new-and-not-improved Republican plan would scrap the protection.
Some GOP officials have pushed back against this interpretation, saying Americans with pre-existing conditions would still be able to buy private coverage, but there’s no reason to take this seriously. If you were born with a heart condition, and your insurer says, “We’ll cover your heart-related ailments for $1 million,” you’ve effectively had your health security taken away.
Obamacare Repeal 2.0 Shows Republicans Have Learned Nothing
By ALICE OLLSTEIN
PublishedAPRIL 5, 2017, 6:00 AM EDT
It’s deja vu all over again on Capitol Hill.
Less than two weeks after declaring their bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act “over” and vowing to move on to tax reform and other issues, Republicans are back at it, repeating the exact steps that led to the bill’s demise the first time around.
Once again, we’re seeing extensive concessions to the hardline House Freedom Caucus that the group’s members say still don’t go far enough. Once again, these same concessions are scaring off moderate Republicans. Once again, senators are skeptical that what the House is proposing can pass the upper chamber.
And as with the first bill, President Trump’ White House is once again pushing for a rapid vote—potentially as soon as this week—though no text of the new bill has been drafted, there has been no Congressional Budget Office analysis, and Republicans received few details at Tuesday morning’s conference.
“It was the shortest meeting we’ve ever had,” Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) told reporters. “The Speaker basically said, ‘We’re talking.’ No timelines were set.”
“The administration would like something this week,” Collins went on. “But a lot of members are saying, ‘Let’s deal with it when we come back [from April recess].’ So that’s the debate: Can we get something done in the next 48 hours?”
The “something” Republicans are discussing involves nominally keeping Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits (EHB) rule in place but allowing states to apply for waivers permitting insurance plans that don’t cover things like maternity care, prescription drugs, mental health, and addiction treatment. They are also considering allowing states to waive Obamacare’s community ratings rule, which prevents insurance companies from hiking patients’ premiums based on geographic location or health status.
pretty, little liar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLPfn9tcjFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxhz8bPxXew
Important to understand how this sort of blatant nepotism usually accompanies authoritarianism. https://t.co/nsXc0pf8lR
— Matt Duss (@mattduss) April 5, 2017
1: Breaking their promise, Republicans now want to quarantine people with pre-existing conditions in separate “high-risk pools.”
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) April 5, 2017
Uh huh
Uh huh
https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/849633388751450112
1/ Trump’s poll numbers suck for a reason. It’s not complicated.
He. Is. Bad. At. Being. President.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 5, 2017
Bravo
https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/849617539294531584
Their parents are bursting with pride
Nick Wade was at track practice late one afternoon last week when he found out. The 18-year-old checked his phone and learned that he had made it into the Ivy League.
“One by one,” he said. “I found out I had gotten into my schools.”
Wade is a quadruplet, though, with three brothers on his high school track team who had also applied to Ivy schools. So about that time on Thursday, they were learning their fates, too.
There was Aaron, who was in the locker room when he logged on. And Nigel, who was stretching out when his brothers told him to check. Zach was going to wait until practice was over, but his brothers weren’t having it.
“It would have taken like 20 more minutes,” Zach said, who said the siblings checked for him. “But they couldn’t wait that long.”
That is how the Wade quadruplets, of Liberty Township, Ohio, learned that all four had been accepted at Harvard and Yale universities — offers that added to a pretty impressive pile of potential college destinations.
“We’re still in shock, honestly,” Aaron said this week. “I don’t think it has sunk in yet.”
“I just felt blessed at that moment,” Nigel said. “It was an unreal feeling, I guess.”
“Honestly, to have one child from a family be accepted to a school like this is amazing,” Zach said. “But for all four to be accepted — I just don’t, I don’t know how it happened.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/accepted-8-times-over-ohio-quadruplets-earn-spots-at-yale-harvard/2017/04/04/6b52f60c-1938-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.7a41fc1ae939
The Trump Administration Continues to Blame Obama For Its Failures
by Nancy LeTourneau April 4, 2017 5:25 PM
………………………
The attack came just four days after U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters, “our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.” That was followed by Sec. of State Tillerson saying that Assad’s longer-term status “will be decided by the Syrian people.”
To further confuse things, on Friday Haley called Assad a “war criminal,” but said that the U.S. might cooperate with him to defeat ISIS.
Today, when news broke about the chemical attack, Sean Spicer read this statement:
……………
Spicer: “These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution.”
Note that the first instinct of the Trump administration is to find someone to blame. So let’s be clear. The person to blame is Assad.
Secondly, the reason Spicer is so intent on pointing the finger of blame at “the past administration” is because the current crew has so obviously muddled the U.S. position over the last few days that it is hard to avoid the question of whether or not they signaled weakness to Assad.
While the incompetence of the Trump White House might be what is saving us from even more draconian domestic policy, it is literally a ticking time bomb on foreign policy.
How the Sexism of Trump and Pence Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
by Nancy LeTourneau April 4, 2017 4:14 PM
Adding to what we already knew about Mike Pence’s extremist position on reproductive rights, we were recently reminded that “he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.” That restriction for evangelicals dates back to what became known as the Billy Graham Rule.
On its face, that might seem to be the polar opposite of the kind of sexism exhibited by Donald Trump — who made a name for himself by bragging about committing sexual assault shortly after he married Melania. But in actuality, they are two sides of the same coin. Emma Gray summed it up this way:
Pence’s sexism can be misleading because to some, it appears chivalrous. But in the end, it relegates women to being nothing more than sex objects. Being alone with a woman is first and foremost a temptation to infidelity. That is exactly the reason why women in some Muslim countries have been forced to wear burqas – so that men aren’t tempted by the mere presence of a female body.
Karen Pence is cast as the shield that is the only thing standing between her husband and depravity. As the flip side of Trump’s promiscuity, we see the age-old binary way of defining women as either the Madonna (save me from my uncontrollable urges) or Whore (indulge by uncontrollable urges).
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ethics mess gets worse ahead of Xi Jinping visit
04/05/17 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
China’s Xi Jinping will arrive in Florida tomorrow for a couple of days of talks with Donald Trump, which will be held at the lovely Mar-a-Lago resort. The visit comes just two months after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended events at the same private locale.
The fact that the resort has become a hotspot for meetings with foreign heads of state is a real commercial coup for Mar-a-Lago’s owner. Oh wait, its owner is the one arranging the meetings.
This will be the American president’s sixth trip to Mar-a-Lago since taking office. Trump’s only been president for 12 weeks.
Maxine Waters @MaxineWaters
Susan Rice didn’t ask the FBI for immunity from prosecution. Mike Flynn did. Obama’s campaign was not under FBI investigation. Trump’s is.
1,293 replies 17,956 retweets 35,443 likes
John Schindler @20committee
Russian spies suddenly got a lot better at cyberwar just months after Snowden defected to Moscow.
Weird.
4:18 PM – 4 Apr 2017
36 replies 441 retweets 908 likes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 4/4/17
Rep. Schiff: WH will continue to interfere with our investigation
The phony ‘unmasking’ scandal involving former National Security Adviser Susan Rice is ‘yet another attempt to distract attention from the Russia probe,’ according to Rep. Adam Schiff.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/4/17
Scandalized Trump camp pushes distraction story, Obama blame
Rachel Maddow looks at the political practice of “changing the narrative” to distract the media from talking about a scandal, and its application by Donald Trump and his supporters in trying to make the Trump Russia scandal somehow about the Obama administration
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/4/17
Maddow obtains apparent EPA memos on plan to eliminate…
Rachel Maddow reports on a pair of memos believed to be from the EPA describing the new system and schedule for eliminating environmental regulations.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/4/17
Trump hides signing of unpopular legislation behind closed doors
Rachel Maddow shows how Donald Trump likes to make a big show of signing things unless he’s signing something he knows is unpopular, like stripping Americans’ internet privacy, which he signs behind closed doors.
Obamacare has what Trump does not: popular support
04/05/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Over the course of several years, the Affordable Care Act has been called many things, but it looks like we can add a new adjective to the list: popular.
To be sure, Republican voters still don’t much care for “Obamacare,” but GOP support for the reform law has gone up 10 points since the fall, which has helped propel overall support for the Affordable Care Act above the 50% threshold.
Gallup’s findings are consistent with the latest results from Public Policy Polling, which also recently found support for the health care law above 50% for the first time.
uh huh
Politico reports on documents showing that SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch plagiarized the work of others. Behold: https://t.co/XQnCmd62Ia pic.twitter.com/ooc2TkG2bA
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) April 5, 2017
Gorsuch is another Paul Ryan, a mediocre white guy in an EMPTY SUIT, propped up by the same.
Good,Everyone😄😄😄
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone HUMP DAY!
Just wrote a post about Daesh and their call for more lone wolfs: https://astoamerica.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/daesh-calls-for-lone-wolfs-again/
Because Dolt45 would use the line wolf to shred the Constitution even more.