Newsweek asks "Is Donald Trump obsessed with Barack Obama?" Duh!

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Speaking on his CNN show on Saturday, following Trump’s attempt to roll back the Iran deal, Don Lemon asked the question: “Does President Trump have an Obama obsession?” and suggesting the Republican was “making it his mission to undo every last bit of the Obama legacy.” 

Political analyst David Gergen told Lemon he believed the recent announcement on the Iran deal, as well as Trump killing Obamacare subsidies, was “more about blowing up the former president’s legacy than anybody wants to admit.”

“Anything which has the name Obama on it automatically becomes a target for Donald Trump and he’s trying to reverse as much of that as possible,” he added, warning that the tendency of presidents to reverse domestic policy set by their predecessors was now rolling into foreign policy. 

Indeed, back in August, a European diplomat reportedly told BuzzFeed anonymously that in his dealings with President Trump, he had noticed the Republican was driven more by a desire to scrap Obama’s policies than to enact his own. 

“It’s his only real position,” the diplomat told BuzzFeed. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.”

This is by no means a new observation, people have been talking about it almost since Trump took office. However it is interesting that now even reputable news magazines are coming to that consensus.

Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod thinks he understands why Trump has this obsession.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

"There’s some other thing at play here that I don’t have the qualifications to analyze that clearly motivates him," Axelrod said in an interview on CNN's "Smerconish" Saturday. 

"Because every time he talks about anything that President Obama did, he talks about it in these very caustic terms as if he’s jealous or envious of the esteem with which Obama left office.” 

Axelrod added that Trump is "motivated" by the desire to "obliterate the Obama legacy."

That makes pretty good sense actually.

President Obama was a particularly gifted leader who seemed to handle the day to day problems that cropped up with relative ease and a quiet dignity.

I will always believe that Donald Trump has been obsessed with Obama probably almost since he took office in 2008, and then it was during that fateful White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011 that Trump decided he wanted to destroy him, and his legacy, forever.

Donald Trump personally involved in hunt for park service employee that pointed out small inaugural crowd size.

Courtesy of CBS: 

Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump was "directly involved" in the search for the person who, using the official National Park Service account, retweeted side-by-side comparisons of the crowds at Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony and former President Barack Obama's 2009 ceremony, CBS News has confirmed. 

The retweet was deleted soon after it was posted and the Twitter accounts of the National Park Service and other U.S. Interior Department agencies were briefly shut down. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told CBS News two days later in an email that the White House neither demanded the retweet be taken down, nor ordered the Interior Department accounts to be suspended. 

But emails released by the National Park Service in response to a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the new president was "concerned" about the retweet. 

"Obviously, this has become a very sensitive issue, especially since the President has gotten directly involved and contacted Acting Director Mike Reynolds concerned about one of the images that was retweeted," wrote Tim Cash, Chief of Digital Strategy at the National Park Service in a Jan. 21 email to Shaun Cavanaugh, the agency's Chief Information Security Officer.

You know if this idiot's skin were any thinner you could take his x-ray by holding him up in front of a bright light.

And his inability to let things go, or to take the high road, should terrify every person living in the country that he supposed to be leading.

Suspect in Mississippi university shooting takes his own life. Motive for shooting may have been jealousy.

Mississippi shooter Shannon Lamb.

Courtesy of Fox News: 

An instructor at Mississippi's Delta State University suspected of killing the woman he lived with and a colleague -- possibly as the result of a love triangle -- died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound late Monday, authorities said. 

Local media, citing the Washington County Sheriff's office and other agencies, reported that Shannon Lamb, 45, was being chased by police in his black Dodge Avenger on Highway 1 near Greenville when he pulled the car over, bailed out on foot, and ran into some woods along the side of the road. Lamb had earlier spoken to police, telling them "he's not going to jail." 

Delta State University police chief Lynn Buford told the Associated Press that the pursuing officers heard a single gunshot before finding Lamb wounded. The suspect was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

....

Police believe that hours before Lamb shot and killed Schmidt, he murdered his domestic partner, 41-year-old Amy Prentiss, at the home the couple shared in Gautier, Miss., approximately 300 miles from Delta State's campus in Cleveland. 

Lamb, a geography and social science education instructor, allegedly believed Prentiss was also in a relationship with Schmidt. However, authorities early Tuesday declined to formally identify a motive for the crimes.

I said in an earlier post that the majority of the shootings that take place in this country have NOTHING to do with self defense and are usually the result of depression or anger.

However I obviously left out one motivation...jealousy.

These shootings were not due to mental illness as so many pro-gun folks would have us believe.

They were carried out by an intelligent, well educated individual who was temporarily unable to deal with his emotions.

Without an available weapon this would likely have been a case of one man punching another in the face. Everybody would have lived to someday put the incident behind them.

But when guns are readily available all it takes is one bad day, one bad hour, one bad minute, and everything changes forever.

Just another case of a gun being used for what it is usually used for in America, murder and suicide.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Two people died in a suspected murder/suicide after police said that a man shot his ex-girlfriend’s new lover and then himself. 

WFMZ reported that 42-year-old David Lopez-Cintron was let into the home of his ex-girlfriend early Monday morning by one of her two sons, ages 2 and 14. 

Once inside the home, Lopez-Cintron went into the bedroom where he found the couple together. The suspect allegedly tried to shoot the woman, but his gun jammed. 

When Lopez-Cintron aimed the gun at the new boyfriend, Alexis Nogueras-Torres, it fired, killing the 44-year-old Reading man. 

The 14-year-old boy and the ex-girlfriend were present when the shooting took place. The 2-year-old boy was in another room. 

According to the Reading Eagle, Lopez-Cintron fled the scene, but by 10 a.m., police had learned that he could be hiding out a few blocks from the shooting, near the 600 block of South 15th Street. By the time investigators arrived on the scene, however, the suspect was dead of what police said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

You know the NRA can advertise that gun carrying Americans are the Dudley Do-Rights of the world and that they are constantly rescuing cats from trees and babies from burning buildings, but the facts are that when guns are used in this country some version of this is the usual scenario.

Or muggings, armed robberies, or rapes of course. 

This is NOT the wild west, and arming every person walking the streets is NOT the key to reduced crime and fewer gun deaths.

People get angry, people get jealous, and people get suicidal. And often the only thing that increases the chances for them, and others, in surviving those feelings is the absence of a firearm.

Massachusetts man demonstrates how guns are usually used in this country. For murder and suicide of course.

Courtesy of the Providence Journal:

A Massachusetts man shot and killed a Pawtucket man and then turned the gun on himself after finding his ex-girlfriend in the other man's bedroom Monday night, according to Pawtucket police. 

Robert Amado, 43, of 22 Plymouth St., in Carver, shot into the bedroom window of the first-floor apartment at 96 North Bend St. after seeing his ex-girlfriend and 45-year-old Timothy J. Robillard inside, said Maj. Arthur Martins. 

Amado then forced his way in through the broken window after the couple, firing multiple times at Robillard, according to the police. Robillard was killed, and the woman fled. 

Amado then fired a final shot, killing himself, Martins said. Officers called about gunfire and screams at the apartment at 10 p.m. found both men dead, Martins said. A revolver was next to Amado. 

Despite what the NRA and ammosexuals want you to believe, THIS is how guns are most often utilized in this country. 

They are used by angry, jealous, or suicidal people to take the life of another or their own, NOT by courageous patriots repelling invaders from a foreign land while standing on their back porch or fighting off a horde of bad guys determined to hurt their families or steal their flat screen TV's.

Just in case you didn't realize Fox News is run by a bunch of juvenile middle school bullies.

Courtesy of News Hounds:  

Maddow is not the only one Fox Nation stoops to calling names. Bill Maher is routinely referred to as "Pig Maher." 

 It's heartwarming to see that Fox Nation has taken time out of its hysterical "War on Christmas," where it complains that America isn't Christian enough, to use ad hominem attacks on a liberal because . . . she got nominated for something. 

You know I think this proves that Fox News is incredibly jealous of the fact that MSNBC is an ACTUAL source of news, who are respected for their work as journalists, rather than cable network that is routinely used as a punchline for every late night comic in the country.

And they wonder why THEY don't get invited to the White House. Hah!

Once again I have to ask, who in the hell watches this station!

Levi Johnston's life might look Sunny right now, but storm clouds are just over the horizon: “Bristol has nothing going on right now – she’s single and has no jobs lined up – so she’s harassing Levi and Sunny.”

"Oh this is not over. It will NEVER be over!"

Courtesy of Radar Online:

Bristol, 22, and her baby daddy were forced to work out their differences on their own after an Alaskan court closed their custody case involving their 3-year-old son, Tripp, because of a “lack of activity.” 

However, the daughter of the former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has no intention of working out their differences according to the Enquirer, especially since Levi still owes her tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid child support. 

“Levi doesn’t have a real job, so at first Bristol thought it might be best to just let him pay when he could,” a family member told the Enquirer. “She was hoping he would man up and pay, but so far that hasn’t happened.” 

In the meantime, Levi has found love with 20-year-old Sunny Oglesby and the pair welcomed baby daughter Breeze Beretta on September 13. 

They married in an intimate ceremony on Oct.28 at Settlers Bay Lodge in Wasilla, Alaska. 

“Bristol has nothing going on right now – she’s single and has no jobs lined up – so she’s harassing Levi and Sunny,” the source said. 

“Their wedding has really gotten under her skin. Bristol may say she’s over Levi, but she always held out hope that they would end up together.”

This is exactly what I have been anticipating ever since I learned that the court case had closed and that Levi and Bristol had worked out "their own" visitation deal. (And who didn't realize that any temporary agreement would fall apart the minute Bristol was booted from DWTS?)

Without the protection of the courts Levi is left vulnerable to the nastiness of perhaps the MOST vindictive family in Alaska. 

And don't think this is JUST between Levi and Bristol either. The Grizzled Mama has insinuated herself into her children's lives in every imaginable way, and in THIS particular case may hate Levi even more than her daughter hates him.

For those who are asking why Levi has not simply taken this to court to finally get it over with, don't forget that virtually ALL of his money was stolen from him, and that he was left with virtually nothing by Rex and Tank. Which is WHY he got so far behind in his child support payments in the first place.

Essentially Levi needs a lawyer to help him take on his old management team to get his money back. And another lawyer to help him fight for custody of his son, all while attempting to work and care for his new wife and newborn daughter. And this while still owing over $40,000 in back child support payments, an amount which increases monthly.

(By the way, in Alaska at least, child support and visitation rights are two separate issues. Just because Levi is in arrears it does not mean that his visitation rights or custody case are impacted.)

You know I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for Levi in this situation. My ex-wife made my life hell for many years and used my daughter as a bludgeon to punish me at every turn. Even after she was remarried and had two other children, she continued to do everything in her power to sabotage my relationship with my daughter and to cause strife in my second marriage.

I don't want to scare Levi, but my ex NEVER got over it. Never!

And that was in a relationship that was NOT with a Palin, and after I won joint custody in family court. I cannot begin to imagine how ugly Levi's situation could become.

Margaret Carlson makes note that Christine O'Donnell is "more Palin" than Palin.

From the Daily Beast:

Why would Palin want an obvious knockoff hawking her wares on the shores of the Delaware? She can tolerate Mamma Grizzlies who aren't poaching her act, like Sharron Angle and Rep. Michele Bachmann. They acknowledge she's the Big Mamma. But look at O'Donnell. She used to be a dead ringer for Elaine on Seinfeld until this election. Now, she’s a mini-me of the queen of the tundra.

That's the fact Jack.  Just take a look at the picture up above put together by the AP.  Hasn't Sarah ever seen "Single White Female?"  Of course that only addresses what O'Donnell has in common with the Granny Grifter, it is the differences that Palin my find the most troubling.

Which brings up another plus. While O'Donnell has plenty to be embarrassed about, tall tales about graduating college years before she did, getting fired for running a for-profit public-relations business out of a nonprofit, she doesn't have children or pesky virtual in-laws to worry about. There will not be multiple People covers featuring her daughter and an on-again, off-again putative fiancé, Levi Johnston, no revelations that Palin turned a blind eye to Levi sleeping with Bristol while she holed up in the bedroom watching decorating shows.

Palin had to make a choice between public office and making money off her fame and so gave up the stature of the governor's office. But O'Donnell can have it both ways. She lives on fumes. Earning less than $6,000 last year, a Senate salary of $174,000 with retirement and dental will look like the king's ransom to her. If she wins, she gets both the platform and dignity of office and a cushy life.

O'Donnell also was to a TV studio born, completely unfazed when she makes bizarre remarks or speaks with a lack of substance. Palin was rattled when she couldn't remember a newspaper she'd read or a Supreme Court opinion she would change in an interview with Katie Couric. Even now, Palin can get the deer-in-the-headlights look when she doesn't know something. For instance, on Thursday night, on the Bill O'Reilly show, she couldn't remember who she'd endorsed in the New Hampshire race—even though her choice had won a nail-biter in the Granite State 24 hours earlier (no more calls; it is Kelly Ayotte, former attorney general). Palin stared blankly for what seemed an eternity.

Ouch that comparison of abilities in front of the camera has got to hurt!  I imagine that by now Palin believes she rocks in front of the camera, having been insulated by Fox News for so long.

Of course the problem with Carlson's comparison is that we now know O'Donnell has canceled her previously scheduled Sunday television appearances.  So perhaps she is not as confident in her ability to remain "unfazed" as Margaret has described.

I believe that O'Donnell's candor in past television appearances has handed her detractors, and the media, an overflowing armory of embarrassing gaffes that she may have no real defenses against and that may be used to do her campaign some serious harm. Palin also had numerous skeletons in her closet that were gleefully trotted out, and which essentially derailed the momentum that her selection initially provided the McCain campaign.  Since then Sarah has managed to attract some very gifted, and frighteningly loyal advisers that seem to pull her back from the brink of destruction right when it looks like she is about to drive her "career" off of a cliff.  I don't believe that O'Donnell has that safety net in place yet.  Though Palin tried to advise O'Donnell to stay close to Fox News, which would be the first start.

The main difference I see between Palin and O'Donnell is that Palin keeps her emotions in check, and is very mistrustful of others, and it appears that O'Donnell wears her feelings on her sleeve and still has enough naivete that it will leave her vulnerable to criticisms. 

Having said that I would caution journalists not to be too aggressive.  Palin has turned playing the victim into an art form, and if O'Donnell, with her open face and bubbly personality, adopts that strategy and breaks down on camera in response to aggressive questioning, I have to imagine that it would rally support to her in a way that Palin could not have hoped for even in her wildest fantasies. Just ask Karl Rove about that.

As for any jealousy, my best guess would be that every time Sarah sees the press fawning over this new sensation, and even when they pick her apart over her past bizarre statements, her eyes flash green with envy.  However I bet that the long suffering Todd Palin has a completely different response, and that despite O'Donnells' professed moral objections to certain "activities" that when he thinks about his wife's younger doppelganger, he pictures her like this:

And that a certain song by the Divinyls plays through his mind on a never ending loop.

By the way please read the rest of Margaret's wonderful piece linked above.  I only used a small portion for this post and there was much more worth reading I can assure you.

Update: According to a yesterday's column by Maureen Dowd, Ms. O'Donnell might have an even more fragile psyche than I first anticipated.