Hillary Clinton commenting on the fact that Fox News seems to think that she is the President.

@HillaryClinton’s comments tonight about @FoxNews trying to impeach her 😂 pic.twitter.com/ti3e28R4HY

— Dylan 💫 (@dylxn_t) October 29, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story:

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee spoke at a dinner for the Human Rights Campaign held in Washington, D.C., where she took a few shots at the cable news network that has breathlessly been promoting fake scandals about her all week — while the Trump White House braces for arrests on Monday. 

“It does strike me that in the last few days at least, Fox News seems to think that’s where I live, in the White House,” Clinton told the crowd. “Because they spend a disproportionate amount of their time talking about impeaching me.” 

“So, look, if they want to make a trade, I’d be more than willing,” she quipped. “I would have much preferred to have come to the dinner tonight from a slightly closer residence.” 

Now this idea that Fox News thinks that Hillary is the president, and needs to be impeached, may seem ridiculous, but then there is this.

Lewandowski: "The speculation is so insane right now. What we should be focusing on is the continued lies of the Clinton administration." pic.twitter.com/QgdZkNhmBo

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 28, 2017

I'm sorry WHOSE administration?

It is almost like Fox News, and even members of the Trump campaign, actually wanted Hillary to win so they could spend the next four years beating her up.

And even though she didn't win they see no real reason to change their plans.

Trump is having a hard time finding Republicans willing to jump onto his sinking ship.

Who wouldn't want to join my team? It's the best, most amazing team ever.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency has compounded the White House’s struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government. 

Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit. 

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

Of course the Administration is denying this report, because that is what they do.

Here is how Spicy responded:  

“I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office,” said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. “There is a huge demand to join this administration.”

Are those people "knocking down" the door the same people who said that Trump's inaugural numbers were the largest EVER, and that Trump is not being investigated by the Special Counsel I wonder?

Or is this a different group of imaginary people?

The facts really speak for themselves here:  

At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obama’s first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by The Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition.

And it makes perfect sense. 

After all it is one thing to offer verbal support for a president whose presidency is going down in flames, and quite another to strap your career to it's side so that you both plummet to your mutual demise together.

Just a reminder.

Obama's accomplishments seem even more courageous and progressive when compared to the juvenile rantings of the guy who replaced him in the White House.

President Obama worked hard to make this country a better place to live, Donald Trump seems to be working hard to leave the biggest smoking crater possible in its place.

Donald Trump is now apparently pissed off at his own Attorney General. Probably because he cannot make the Russia investigations go away.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Few Republicans were quicker to embrace President Trump’s campaign last year than Jeff Sessions, and his reward was one of the most prestigious jobs in America. But more than four months into his presidency, Mr. Trump has grown sour on Mr. Sessions, now his attorney general, blaming him for various troubles that have plagued the White House. 

The discontent was on display on Monday in a series of stark early-morning postings on Twitter in which the president faulted his own Justice Department for its defense of his travel ban on visitors from certain predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Sessions’s department of devising a “politically correct” version of the ban — as if the president had nothing to do with it. 

In private, the president’s exasperation has been even sharper. He has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump’s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation.

Check out Spicey's response when he was asked whether Trump still has confidence in Session courtesy of HuffPo: 

White House press secretary Sean Spicer refused to answer a question on Tuesday about whether President Donald Trump still has confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

“I don’t have a comment on that,” Spicer told reporters during his daily briefing, when asked to describe the president’s confidence in Sessions. Pressed further, Spicer said, “I have not had that discussion with [Trump], and if I haven’t had a discussion about a subject, I tend not to speak about it.”

Now you would simply expect the spokesperson to say 'Of course he still has confidence in his Attorney General, what a silly question." But since that was not the response that only  lends credibility to the New York Times reporting.

Then late last night the Washington Post reported this:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions offered to resign at one point in recent months after his relationship with President Trump grew increasingly tense, according to two people close to the White House.

I have to say that I am looking forward to the inevitable deterioration of Trump's Administration as these investigations move forward.

At some point each member of his cabinet is going to have to assess whether it is better for their career to stick it out the bitter end, or jump ship while the jumping is good.

I wonder just how long Sessions will continue to bail water on this president's behalf. 

Last night SNL's cold open was not to be missed. Update!

I swear this SNL cast may be one of the most talented in the history of the show.

My favorite by far is Kate McKinnon who seems to have no limit to her abilities.

Speaking of McKinnon, I think I kind of preferred her version of Hallelujah.

SNL is now going on their summer hiatus so we will not have their help in mocking the president and his cabinet, but I am sure that there are many others up to the challenge.

Update: Most watched season finally since 2011.

The White House is consumed with paranoia.

Courtesy of Politico:  

A culture of paranoia is consuming the Trump administration, with staffers increasingly preoccupied with perceived enemies — inside their own government. 

In interviews, nearly a dozen White House aides and federal agency staffers described a litany of suspicions: that rival factions in the administration are trying to embarrass them, that civil servants opposed to President Donald Trump are trying to undermine him, and even that a “deep state” of career military and intelligence officials is out to destroy them.

Aides are going to great lengths to protect themselves. They’re turning off work-issued smartphones and putting them in drawers when they arrive home from work out of fear that they could be used to eavesdrop. They’re staying mum in meetings out of concern that their comments could be leaked to the press by foes. 

Many are using encrypted apps that automatically delete messages once they’ve been read, or are leaving their personal cellphones at home in case their bosses initiate phone checks of the sort that press secretary Sean Spicer deployed last month to try to identify leakers on his team. 

It’s an environment of fear that has hamstrung the routine functioning of the executive branch. Senior advisers are spending much of their time trying to protect turf, key positions have remained vacant due to a reluctance to hire people deemed insufficiently loyal, and Trump’s ambitious agenda has been eclipsed by headlines surrounding his unproven claim that former President Barack Obama tapped his phone lines at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

I had written before about Spicey's paranoia concerning leaks, which resulted in him conducting spur of the moment "phone checks," but clearly this paranoia has now spread and deepened. 

In other words the Trump White House is grinding to a complete stand still.

Hard to see that as bad news.

The Obama Administration moved swiftly to preserve information about Russian hacking. It's a good thing they did too, since Trump's new AG seems to be compromised as well.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators. 

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. 

Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

Apparently the Obama administration also made sure to spread the information throughout the intelligence agencies and to politicians on both sides of the aisle "to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see it, even if people without security clearances could not."

The concern of course was that members of the Trump Administration would be compromised by the Russians and that the investigation would be swept under the rug.

And it appears that they had reason for concern.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general. 

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, "Well this sounds bad, but how bad is it?"

It's this bad.

Here’s the money shot of Sessions lying to Franken (if you believe the WaPo report). pic.twitter.com/0vK12oMed1

— Jamie O'Grady (@JamieOGrady) March 2, 2017

Now of course today Jeff Sessions is denying ever talking to anybody in Russia, knowing how to find Russia on a map, or ever having put Russian dressing on a salad, but he is now with the Trump Administration so what did you expect?

However despite denials, the noose is clearly getting tighter.

Courtesy of the AP: 

White House staffers have been told to preserve any materials related to Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, according to The Associated Press. 

The White House counsel’s office handed down the order on Tuesday in a memo to aides, the news wire reported. 

The move comes after Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the White House and law enforcement agencies to keep materials related to Trump associates’ alleged ties to Russia. 

Separately, the Senate Intelligence Committee last month asked federal agencies to keep materials that tie into its investigation into Russian cyber hacking and other efforts to disrupt the election.

Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, is there anybody associated with the Trump Administration or campaign NOT compromised by the Russians?

And should we trust ANYBODY that Trump appoints to any cabinet position or opening in the  Supreme Court?

Oh I think you know my answer.

Trump's pick to replace Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser says "Oh hell no."

Vice Admiral Robert Harward.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

President Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, has turned down the offer, sources familiar with Harward’s decision said on Thursday. 

Harward was offered the job after Michael Flynn was fired by Trump on Monday for misleading Vice President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. 

Two sources familiar with the decision said Harward turned down the job in part because he wanted to bring in his own team. 

That put him at odds with Trump, who had told Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland, that she could stay.

This seems to have come as somewhat of a surprise to Trump who had vaguely referred to Harward in that wild and crazy press conference earlier in the day. 

I really do think that at this point Trump is going to have some difficulty finding folks excited about joining his administration, and those he DOES find willing will certainly NOT be the cream of the crop.

After all would you be willing to board a vessel when you already see the crew preparing the lifeboats for the inevitable disaster?

Donald Trump's national security adviser, Mike Flynn, resigns. Update!

Courtesy of CNN: 

Embattled White House national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned Monday night, an abrupt end to a brief tenure. 

His departure came just after reports surfaced the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians. 

"I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology," Flynn wrote, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by CNN.

"I am tendering my resignation, honored to have served our nation and the American people in such a distinguished way," he wrote. "I know with the strong leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the superb team they are assembling, this team will go down in history as one of the greatest presidencies in US history." 

The move comes less than a month into the job, making him one of the shortest-serving senior presidential advisers in modern history. 

This changes NOTHING.

As was pointed out on a variety of cable news shows it is HIGHLY unlikely that Flynn reached out to Russia to discuss sanctions without the knowledge and direction of Donald Trump.

For one thing Flynn simply could NOT make any assurances unless he had Trump's blessing to make the calls.

By having Flynn take the bullet here the Trump administration is hoping that all of this Russian talk will blow over and that Trump can start receiving intelligence briefings again like nothing ever happened.

But fuck that.

Trump is the guy the Russians worked to get into the White House, not Mike Flynn, so clearly he is the one that they are counting on to do their bidding.

The media needs to keep the heat on and the Democrats need to continue to push for those investigations into Trump's ties with Putin and to get his tax returns released.

Mike Flynn is a good start, but our country will not truly be safe until the entire Trump administration is fired, impeached, or thrown in jail.

Update: By the way the man who feels that continuing to go after Hillary Clinton is still reasonable, sees no reason to investigate Flynn.

Chaffetz says investigation of Flynn is "taking care of itself." Says further investigation is purview of intel committee not oversight.

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 14, 2017

I think Chaffetz needs a few more rousing choruses of "Do your job!"

Useless POS!

Another news report that things inside the Trump White House are going to hell in a handbasket.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

These are chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council, the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world. 

Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks. 

The national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has hunkered down since investigators began looking into what, exactly, he told the Russian ambassador to the United States about the lifting of sanctions imposed in the last days of the Obama administration, and whether he misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations. His survival in the job may hang in the balance. 

Although Mr. Trump suggested to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that he was unaware of the latest questions swirling around Mr. Flynn’s dealings with Russia, aides said over the weekend in Florida — where Mr. Flynn accompanied the president and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe — that Mr. Trump was closely monitoring the reaction to Mr. Flynn’s conversations. There are transcripts of a conversation in at least one phone call, recorded by American intelligence agencies that wiretap foreign diplomats, which may determine Mr. Flynn’s future.

That is just the beginning of an article that goes into much detail about the White House staff's damaged morale and bunker mentality.

However the administration is not so much worried about outside attacks as they are from internal ones, emanating from the president himself who has become so deeply suspicious of all those around him that it inspired some of the staffers to meet at night to discuss purging their social accounts of anything that could be perceived as "anti-Trump."

This report also follows other reports of turmoil within the administration, and the more recent report that the intelligence agencies now consider Trump possibly be a spy for Vladimir Putin.

There are times when I try to imagine how it must feel to have been a Trump voter and to see all of this happening, while desperately trying to pretend that it is not a big deal, or something manufactured by the "liberal" press, or perhaps that it is all just a terrible nightmare.

But I simply can't.

All of this, ALL of it, was easily predicted many months before the actual election, and yet Trump supporters simply refused to see it. 

One has to wonder, can they see it now?

Intelligence agencies are so mistrustful of Donald Trump that they are withholding classified intelligence from him.

Courtesy of the Observer: 

Our Intelligence Community is so worried by the unprecedented problems of the Trump administration—not only do senior officials possess troubling ties to the Kremlin, there are nagging questions about basic competence regarding Team Trump—that it is beginning to withhold intelligence from a White House which our spies do not trust. 

That the IC has ample grounds for concern is demonstrated by almost daily revelations of major problems inside the White House, a mere three weeks after the inauguration. The president has repeatedly gone out of his way to antagonize our spies, mocking them and demeaning their work, and Trump’s personal national security guru can’t seem to keep his story straight on vital issues. 

That’s Mike Flynn, the retired Army three-star general who now heads the National Security Council. Widely disliked in Washington for his brash personality and preference for conspiracy-theorizing over intelligence facts, Flynn was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for managerial incompetence and poor judgment—flaws he has brought to the far more powerful and political NSC.

Flynn’s problems with the truth have been laid bare by the growing scandal about his dealings with Moscow. Strange ties to the Kremlin, including Vladimir Putin himself, have dogged Flynn since he left DIA, and concerns about his judgment have risen considerably since it was revealed that after the November 8 election, Flynn repeatedly called the Russian embassy in Washington to discuss the transition.

The article goes on to lay out a rather stunning case for why the intelligence agencies feel that Doanld Trump, nor members of his administration, are to be trusted with the state secrets or intelligence concerning our allies as well as our enemies.

I found this portion in particular to be troubling:

What’s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. “There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in wry frustration.

You know I have, on some level, already assumed much of this.

However having it confirmed by intelligence agents is still a little disconcerting.

After all how can a president and his administration work to protect this country, and make smart decisions, if they have no idea exactly what is actually happening?

So is this article believable? I mean I know it speaks to our own confirmation bias, but does it stand up to scrutiny?

Well first off it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.

Secondly it quotes from a number of other news outlets that are reporting on similar facts about Trump, his ties to Russia, and his disdain for the intelligence community.

There is also the fact that numerous other respectable reporters and news outlets seem to accept the reporting at face value.

Then there is also this article from Politico: 

A top deputy to National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was rejected for a critical security clearance, effectively ending his tenure on the National Security Council and escalating tensions between Flynn and the intelligence community.

Well it is fairly clear that at least one member of Trump's team is unacceptable to the intelligence community.

And Nancy Pelosi essentially feels the same way about Flynn himself: 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday called for the suspension of Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, until an FBI probe determines the exact nature of his “secret contacts” with Russian officials. The congresswoman also said Flynn should have his security clearance revoked.

So yes all of that, plus what we know already about Trump's troubling ties to Putin, certainly lends an air of credibility to this story.

Which means that I guess we now have some confirmation that Donald Trump is seen by US Intelligence as a potential double agent.

I swear if this were the plot for a TV movie, I would turn it off for being too unbelievable.

So yes we now have Jeff Sessions as our new Attorney General. And the bad news just keeps on coming.

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune: 

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration despite fierce Democratic opposition to the Alabama Republican over his record on civil rights and immigration. 

The 52-47 nearly party-line vote capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the Senate's most conservative lawmakers. After the vote was announced, Sessions' Republican colleagues applauded the outcome while barely a handful of Democrats did the same. 

In a post-vote valedictory speech, Sessions alluded to the bitter partisanship and wished for more collegiality. 

"Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body," he said.

That last remark was of course a shot at the heroic Senator Elizabeth Warren who was shut down while trying to read a letter from Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor that King wrote when Sessions was being considered for an appointment as a federal judge.

At this point I really have serious doubts that the Democrats have the numbers to stop ANY of Trump's future appointments. Which includes his Supreme Court nominee.

Congratulations, America. We have an oil man at State, a billionaire idiot at Education, and a racist as Attorney General. #SwampRats

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) February 9, 2017

That does not mean that we don't stop fighting, int fact it means that we need to start fighting harder.

However we must realize that Trump is damned and determined to sabotage the government and roll back progress just as far as he can in the next two years.

Which means we better have our ducks in a row for the 2018 election cycle because that will be the first time that we really have a shot at slowing him down, if not completely stopping him.

And our presidential candidate in 2020 better be a fucking star, because we are going to need one.

#ShePersisted

Any ideas?

White House leaks claim that Donald Trump called General Mike Flynn at 3 AM to ask whether it was a strong or weak dollar that was good for the US economy.

"Yeah, I'm going to save the economy. Just as soon as I figure out how the damn thing works."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

President Donald Trump was confused about the dollar: Was it a strong one that’s good for the economy? Or a weak one? 

So he made a call ― except not to any of the business leaders Trump brought into his administration or even to an old friend from his days in real estate. Instead, he called his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Flynn’s accounts of the incident. 

Flynn has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, that, perhaps, Trump should ask an economist instead. 

Trump was not thrilled with that response ― but that may have been a function of the time of day. Trump had placed the call at 3 a.m., according to one of Flynn’s retellings ― although neither the White House nor Flynn’s office responded to requests for confirmation about that detail.

Remember this is the guy who is going to dramatically increase jobs and save the economy.

Kind of heard to imagine if he does not understand such a basic premise, and if he continues going to people who have no expertise economics.

It should be noted that there are numerous news articles discussing the unprecedented number of leaks coming from his administration, and even this article suggests that the people working for Trump who are essentially terrified at his lack of experience and extreme impulsiveness:

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s volatile behavior has created an environment ripe for leaks from his executive agencies and even within his White House. And while leaks typically involve staffers sabotaging each other to improve their own standing or trying to scuttle policy ideas they find genuinely problematic, Trump’s 2-week-old administration has a third category: leaks from White House and agency officials alarmed by the president’s conduct.

I know I have said this before, but just in case you missed it, yeah....we're fucked. 

The real power behind the power, behind the power.

Look not every person who voted for Donald Trump is a racist.

But if you ARE a racist, then there is literally no doubt who you voted for.

Donald Trump is now calling polls, and any information that disagrees with his version of reality, fake news.

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017

I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017

Okay, that's insane.

Here is Politifact's scorecard for the Trump team:

We have seen administration play hard and fast with the truth before, but we have NEVER seen anything like this.

Donald Trump is openly calling for people to ignore reality and only accept the "truth" as he sees it.

Trump is also planning to use taxpayer money to set up a commission headed by Mike Pence to look into the "voter fraud" that Trump insists stole the popular vote away from him.

As I said at the top of the page, that's fucking insane!

Donald Trump is going to appoint his son-in-law as his senior adviser. Well of course he is.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be senior adviser to the president, a senior transition official told CNN Monday. 

The 35-year-old businessman-turned-political strategist played a key part in his father-in-law's presidential campaign and his new position is expected to test the limit of federal anti-nepotism rules.

Of course Kushner is the son of an ex-con, with no government experience, and numerous ongoing business deals around the world.

Seems like the perfect fit for a Trump administration.

Welcome to the kleptocracy.

(P.S. Any minute now you can expect Sarah Palin to launch an attack on Facebook concerning this obvious case of crony capitalism. Yep, any minute now. Probably just sleeping in, or getting over a hangover, but you stay tuned cause it's a coming.)

Donald Trump just fired the guys who maintain our nuclear arsenal. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Gizmodo:  

The NNSA is the $12 billion-a-year agency that “maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” It’s unclear when the two officials will be replaced. 

Traditionally, all political appointees of an outgoing presidential administration turn in resignation letters effective on noon of inauguration day, January 20. But appointees in key positions—like the people who make sure our nukes work—are often asked to stay on in their roles until a replacement can be found and confirmed by the Senate, helping ensure a smooth transition and allowing our government to continue functioning. In fact, for the entirety of Obama’s first term and into part of his second, the NNSA Administrator remained a Bush appointee. 

Trump, however, appears determined to immediately push out everyone who was appointed by Obama, regardless of whether or not he has anyone in line for the job. Or, as our source put it: “It’s a shocking disregard for process and continuity of government.” 

Just in case you are not sure if this is a really big deal or not:  

The source later added, “I’m more and more coming around to the idea that we’re so very very fucked.”

Yeah, what he said.

Gee I am trying to think of which leader of a foreign government might be overjoyed at Donald Trump undermining our nuclear capabilities.

Wait, don't tell me, I've almost got it.

Oops, lost it.

Maybe YOU can think of who it might be.

Government Ethics Office upset that Trump cabinet picks scheduled for hearing next week have not submitted paperwork. Update!

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The head of the Office of Government Ethics expressed alarm Saturday that the Senate would begin considering President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet positions before they’ve been fully vetted for conflicts of interests. 

“As OGE’s Director, the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me,” wrote OGE director Walter Shaub Jr. in a letter to Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). 

“This schedule has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews,” he added. “More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings.” 

The letter comes ahead of a week in which there will be a flurry of hearings for Trump’s cabinet picks. There will be hearings on six nominees on Wednesday alone.

By the way this is no mere formality,  without this paperwork there is simply no way that these men can be considered for any position of responsibility in a presidential administration.

In fact it is the OGE's job to help these folks avoid any conflict of interest laws, something they simply cannot do without knowing what those conflicts might be.

MSNBC received access to correspondence which shows the OGE desperately trying to do their jobs, and being completely ignored by Trump and his transition team.

Here is what Elizabeth Warren had to say on the topic:

Confirmation hearings historically aren’t conducted until the @OfficeGovEthics certifies that each nominee has no unresolved conflicts.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 7, 2017

This is ridiculous. @realDonaldTrump’s noms can’t drag their feet on ethics paperwork while their Senate friends try to run out the clock.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 7, 2017

Cabinet officials must put our country's interests before their own. No conf hearings should be held until we’re certain that’s the case.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 7, 2017

Personally I don't think that Donald Trump wants anybody in his administration that could pass an ethics investigation.

After all ethics never meant anything to him as a businessman, why should they matter now?

The only question remaining is do they matter to the American people?

Update: Reince "twice and" Priebus says that there is "no reason" for Trump's appointees to fill out government ethics paperwork. 

Let me remind you that until very recently this guy was the head of the RNC. 

Married Trump spokesman quits amid speculation that he perhaps fathered a child out of wedlock.

Trump camp in meltdown. Miller resigns after AJ Delgado posts cryptic tweets re Miller being dad to her child. https://t.co/VsGEEtOGYq

— Yashar (@yashar) December 24, 2016

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

Donald Trump’s inner circle was thrown into turmoil Saturday when his newly-named White House communications director resigned after a transition team staffer posted cryptic tweets suggesting he’s a philanderer. 

Jason Miller announced that he won’t be joining the Trump administration just two days after he was tapped to lead the White House communications team. 

Miller said in a statement that he wanted to spend more time with his family. 

“It’s clear they need to be my top priority right now, and this is not the time to start a new job as demanding as White House communications director,” said Miller, whose wife is expecting their second child.

That is all well and good except for the fact that his resignation followed this Twitter rant from ANOTHER Trump spokesperson.

Source

After that Delgado's Twitter account was deactivated.

Things that make you go, hmm.

Rachel Maddow's interview with Kellyanne Conway was nothing short of amazing.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Pointing out that Trump encouraged his rally crowd to target ABC reporter Martha Raddatz over false claims that she cried the night he was elected, Conway tried to insist that everyone on Trump’s team has “enormous respect” for Raddatz, whom they all agree is a “tour de force.” 

Maddow reminded Conway that “telling a story about her that is not true” to crowds of thousands throughout the United States is hardly indicative of “enormous respect” and asked if Raddatz could expect an apology sometime soon. Conway insisted those types of conversations don’t happen in public. 

“The accusation was made publicly,” Maddow pressed. 

Conway quickly changed the topic, instead discussing Trump’s “relationship with the press” and the “negative press coverage” she says marred his campaign.

Later in the interview Conway defended Melania's hiring of the same lawyer that drove Gawker out of business to go after the Daily Mail and a blogger who insinuated that she had once worked as an escort.

Conway's defense of that is that the damage had already been done so even though there was an apology as well as a retraction of the story it was too late.

When Rachel asked if this lawsuit might continue even after Melania becomes first lady, Conway said that it might.

When Rachel mentioned that this was unheard of for first families, Conway suggested that the Trump's had been under attack by the media in ways that no other presidential family had been forced to endure, “It’s just different for the Trumps."

At this point I literally jumped up out of my seat and yelled at the TV for Maddow to remind this peroxide little bitch, that her boss had risen to national attention by claiming that the sitting President of the United States was not born in this country.

Despite my yelling Rachel did not do that, nor did she mention the number of times that Carson herself had claimed that Hillary Clinton was a criminal and about to be indicted during the campaign.

Nor about that time her boss claimed that Ted Cruz's dad had something to do with the assassination of JFK.

(Though much earlier in the interview she did confront her about Trump's National Security Advisor Gen. Flynn had tweeted that Hillary Clinton was part of that fake Pizzagate scandal, and therefore a child rapist.)

We talk about the death of irony with the election of this orange tinted buffoon, but this interview drove that point home like a stake through the heart.

But even more chilling is that it reveals that not only does this evil administration expect to never be held accountable for their lies and misstatements, but that if any news outlet or blogger reports negatively about them they risk being sued into non-existence.

This is not a presidential administration, this is an authoritarian dictatorship where dissension will not be tolerated, and critics must fear for their livelihoods, if not their very lives.