Donald Trump Continues To Attack His Own Attorney General

President Trump's weeklong effort to undermine his own Attorney General continues.

Donald Trump Jeff Sessions

With yet another morning tweetstorm, President Trump is continuing to wage a  war on his own Attorney General, raising questions about just how much longer Jeff Sessions can or will remain in office:

WASHINGTON — President Trump continued his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, reviving his campaign call to investigate Hillary Clinton’s “crimes” as he slammed Mr. Sessions’s inaction.

His two early morning tweets were the latest in a string of attacks on Mr. Sessions that began when he told The New York Times in an interview that he never would have appointed Mr. Sessions to be attorney general if he had known he would recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. The recusal was the first in a series of steps that led to the appointment of a special counsel to oversee that investigation.

One of Mr. Trump’s top advisers acknowledged that the president likely wanted Mr. Sessions out of the attorney general’s office.

The adviser, Anthony Scaramucci, hired last week as White House communications director, said he did not want to speak for Mr. Trump, but given the level of public tension between the president and his attorney general, it’s “probably right” that Mr. Trump wants him out of that job.

“He’s obviously frustrated,” Mr. Scaramucci said in an interview with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

On Monday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Sessions “beleaguered” in a tweet, raising questions about whether Mr. Sessions would resign. Mr. Sessions, one of Mr. Trump’s earliest campaign supporters, has previously shown no indication that he was considering resigning.

Mr. Trump was critical on Tuesday about what he called Mr. Sessions’s “VERY weak position” on an investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private computer server. The F.B.I. investigated and closed the inquiry without charges in 2016.

Mr. Scaramucci told CNN on Monday that Mr. Sessions and the president needed to “sit down, face to face, and have a reconciliation and a discussion of the future.”

If Mr. Sessions were to resign or be fired, Mr. Trump could appoint a successor during the congressional recess who would not face Senate inquiries into his or her position on recusal and could take over, at least temporarily, without a confirmation vote. That could allow the president to assert greater control over the special counsel investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

In another tweet on Tuesday, Mr. Trump attacked the acting F.B.I. director, Andrew McCabe, for what Mr. Trump described as his role in the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s computer use.

In criticizing Mr. McCabe, Mr. Trump revived reports that Mr. McCabe’s wife accepted contributions from a longtime Clinton supporter in her bid for a Virginia state Senate seat.

Mr. Trump also tweeted that Ukraine tried to “sabotage” his presidential campaign and help Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Trump appeared to be referencing the Fox News host Sean Hannity’s discussion of a January Politico story about Mrs. Clinton’s allies coordinating with Ukrainian officials to research politically harmful information about Mr. Trump and his advisers. Mr. Trump’s supporters have used this anecdote to justify the actions of Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr. In June 2016, the younger Mr. Trump had a meeting with a Russian lawyer in which he was promised potentially damaging information on Mrs. Clinton.

Here are the tweets from this morning in which Trump went after Sessions and Acting F.B.I. Director Andrew McCabe:

Trump is saying all of this about someone who is both his own Attorney General and someone who gave up what was a Senate seat that was so safe that Democrats didn’t even bother putting up a nominee the last time him ran for re-election but also the first real high-profile member of either the House or Senate to back his campaign and who gave Trump the legal excuse he needed to fire former F.B.I. Direct James Comey back in May. At the same time, Trump’s own White House seems to be joining in the effort to push Sessions out the door. This morning, for example, newly elevated Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared on Fox & Friends and acknowledged that the President is “frustrated” with the Attorney General because of his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation as internal Justice Department rules require. Newly hired Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, meanwhile, told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt that Trump probably wants Sessions out because of alleged tension between the two. Additionally, other reports are saying that Trump has recently been asking outside advisers what would happen if he fired Sessions. This comes at the same time that Rudy Giuliani appears to be being floated as a potential replacement for Sessions. Other names being floated include Texas Senator Ted Cruz as well as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has been mentioned as a potential replacement for Sessions for several months now.  In that regard, though, it’s worth noting that Giuliani said yesterday that he believed that Sessions made the right decision when he recused himself from the Russia investigation, and Ted Cruz denied that he’d had any contact with the White House about these reports.

On some level, of course, the manner in which Trump is publicly humiliating the Attorney General is utterly bizarre. If Trump wants Sessions gone, then it’s clear that he has all the authority he needs to demand his resignation immediately for any reason or, quite honestly, no reason other than the vague idea that he has ‘lost confidence’ in Sessions to do the job that Trump appointed him to do. The fact that he isn’t doing that, at least not yet, makes his current public behavior even more bizarre than it ordinarily. One possibility, of course, is that Trump realizes that firing Sessions the way he did Comey would lead to even more questions about his rather obvious efforts to cut off the investigation into Russian interference in the election and contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian officials. Given that, it’s possible that he is engaged in this effort to publicly undermine Sessions in an effort to basically goad him into resigning on his own. So far, at least, Sessions isn’t commenting on this whatsoever, but one has to imagine that it isn’t exactly making him, or anyone else at the Justice Department feel very comfortable.

As with much of Trump’s behavior as President, the manner in which he’s treating his Attorney General violates all the standard norms of American politics. Obviously, any President has the authority to dismiss the Attorney General or any other cabinet official at any time for any reason, but the manner in which the President is behaving here is quite simply unacceptable. From his comments, it’s clear that the President is seeking to do the same thing he was aiming for when he fired the Director of the F.B.I., to undermine the investigation into the still developing Russia scandal and to get the continued questions about it off of his back. His attacks on Sessions and McCabe, therefore, are really nothing less than an attack on the Justice Department in general and the rule of law. I said when he was appointed, that Jeff Sessions was a flawed nominee for Attorney General, and those flaws remain even now. In this showdown with an out of control President, though, those who support the rule of law should side with him over a President who clearly wants to fill the Justice Department with people who are loyal to him first, and the country and the law second. He needs to be stopped before he succeeds in doing so.

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Franklin says:

    I can see why this guy demands such loyalty.

  2. CSK says:

    @Franklin:

    Well, he certainly isn’t commanding much loyalty.

    There’s a single word that perfectly describes Trump, and that word is trash.

  3. reid says:

    As usual, Trump is the loud-mouthed drunk at the end of the bar who lets everyone know that he knows everything and can do a better job than everyone else. Most people know not to elect that guy president.

    Trump’s speech at the Scouts meeting was also a new low. On the other hand, Obama may have said “I” more than previous presidents, so I guess it’s a wash.

  4. CSK says:

    If Sessions really wants to torture Trump (and who could blame him at this point) he should refuse to resign.

  5. teve tory says:

    @reid: Don’t forget, he also wore a tan suit one time. Truly a disgrace to the republic.

  6. KM says:

    On some level, of course, the manner in which Trump is publicly humiliating the Attorney General is utterly bizarre.

    This is how Trump talks about employees everyone he’s not personally happy with. He’s always trashed those in the doghouse as loudly as he could and then expected things to be right as rain if they come crawling back. He publicly humiliates people like he breathes: easily, loudly and smelly as a wet fart and without any concern for those his mouthbreathing offends. He thinks this is leadership – distancing himself from “losers” who can’t do what he wants. Can’t have that taint of failure….

    A phrase comes to mind: “Talk sh^t, get hit”. Somebody needs to teach that man the second part isn’t just a rhyme but the natural reaction of people pushed too far. The more people he back-stabs, the more potential Judases for Mueller to use.

  7. cian says:

    In this showdown with an out of control President, though, those who support the rule of law should side with him over a President who clearly wants to fill the Justice Department with people who are loyal to him first, and the country and the law second. He needs to be stopped before he succeeds in doing so.

    Without the rule of law there is no democracy. It’s the whole show. Everything else is secondary. If Trump does what everyone thinks he is about to do, and the republican party fails to push back, the edifice falls, not immediately, but the first fatal cracks will appear. Many here have being saying this is the direction the republican party and its supporters have been heading in for years anyway. When you take a wrecking ball to the idea of governance, it doesn’t stop swinging once the government has crumbled. It keeps going, smashing the free press, the rule of law and eventually democracy itself.

  8. teve tory says:

    from a FB friend:

    The thing that’s really scary is how the Trump supporters ‘flipped’ on Sessions the very second that Trump did. Watch “Fox & Friends”, it’s like living in a dictatorship. When Trump hired Sessions, liberals were all ‘he’s corrupt, he’s a racist’ and 100% of Trump supporters were ‘How dare you, Sessions will be a great man. Great AG. Yay.’ Then Trump flips & half the country does overnight. I saw Fox & Friends this morning: ‘Sessions is corrupt, Sessions is awful, Trump should fire him.’ We have always been at war with Eastasia.

  9. CSK says:

    @teve tory:

    Your FB friend is right. Being a Trumpkin requires pulling a 180 every 24 hours–and sometimes twice a day.

  10. Mark Ivey says:

    Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has now learned what happens when a good old Bama boy gives his loyalty to a Yankee carpetbagger from New York City.

  11. Not the IT Dept. says:

    I doubt if Session’s gives even half a *bleep* what Trump says or tweets about him. He’s old, at the end of his career, got a gold-plated Senator’s pension waiting for him – and the chance to implement all his medieval notions of justice in his current job. His attitude is probably “let me get all this drug and prison “reform” done and y’all can do whatever you want, Mr. President.”

    For Sessions, Trump was always the means to an end, and he’s at the end. And he probably knows a lot about Trump’s campaign that Trump would rather not come out.

  12. CSK says:

    @Not the IT Dept.:

    Is Trump so bloody stupid that he doesn’t understand that all the people he’s alienating probably have a lot of dirt on him?

    Or–worse from Trump’s standpoint–that they can make him look like the utter horse’s ass that he is?

  13. Gustopher says:

    Trump does not have the temperament or maturity to be President. Putin must be very happy.

  14. Paul L. says:

    @CSK:
    I am a “Trumpkin” who did not like Sessions before this.

    Sessions has shown himself to be a Blue Tongue who supports less Law Enforcement transparency and accountability.
    He also supports Law Enforcement being allowed to take the property of people not convicted of any crime under civil forfeiture.
    I will be glad to see him gone and replaced with someone who will order the release of all DOJ Fast and Furious documents.

  15. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Paul L.:

    who will order the release of all DOJ Fast and Furious documents.

    And don’t forget the Area 51 records!!! I mean if we are going conspiracy theory…lets go all in!!!
    This is really all you need to know about Fast and Furious…the rest is just right-wing nonsense.
    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/3b/4c/e7/3b4ce72a1f5e578749b035f99bcb5987.jpg

  16. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    Sessions will not resign because he is well into advancing his far-right ideological agenda; protecting cops, cracking down on anyone who isn’t lily-white, and using criminal justice policy to send a “tough on crime” message.
    This is Sessions wet-dream, one that he was never able to advance in the Senate. Now he has free hand because President Snowflake doesn’t give a fwck about policy.
    So Dumb Don is going to have to actually fire Sessions; he’s not giving up on his wet-dream if he doesn’t have to.

  17. wr says:

    @Paul L.: “I will be glad to see him gone and replaced with someone who will order the release of all DOJ Fast and Furious documents.”

    Wow, you’re even dumber than the average Trumpkin! Congratulations.

    “Trump wants to take health care away from tens of millions of people, his EPA is issuing licenses for unrestricted pollution, he’s stumbling towards war on multiple continents, he may well be under the control of the FSB — but it’s all worth it if I can see some documents that will make the N– president look bad!!!”

    Why do you bother waking up in the morning? Why not just marinate in your own waste?

  18. Terrye Cravens says:

    @Paul L.: Oh come on…do you think any of that matters to Trump? Hell, he would take the right to vote away from people who do not support him if he could. Trump was fine with Sessions, until there was a self serving reason for him not to be. As far as I am concerned, they deserve each other.

  19. Terrye Cravens says:

    Imagine how pissed Trump supporters will be when they get a new AG and there are no new investigations into Obama and Hillary. Morons.

  20. CSK says:

    @Terrye Cravens:

    This.

    Trump labors under the delusion that his cabinet appointees exist to protect him and inflate his ego, not to perform the duties normally associated with whatever the individual post happens to be.

  21. Paul L. says:

    @wr:
    That was some Glorious WHATABOUTISM.

    If the Fast and Furious documents are just right-wing nonsense, why use Executive Privilege to hide them?
    Republicans no longer care about Fast and Furious as Obama and Holder are out of office and there is no political advantage. to be gained and they do want to embarrass or anger the .DOJ career bureaucrats who tried to railroad Ted Stevens.

    But I like to say I told you so.

  22. Jen says:

    I do not like Trump. I do not like Jeff Sessions.

    Yet I find myself silently rooting for Sessions to stick this out as long as possible, because it’s the only way that Senate Republicans are going to get the message that Trump can’t be trusted with anything.

    Sessions was one of Trump’s first and most loyal surrogates. His support gave Trump credibility, and this is how Trump repays him: by trashing him publicly.

    Trump is an appalling human being who is demonstrating daily that he is completely unfit for office. What a train wreck.

  23. Scott says:

    @CSK:

    There’s a single word that perfectly describes Trump, and that word is trash.

    Yep. As has been often written: Trump is a classless pig and always will be.

    He doubled down on that rep with his BSA Jamboree appearance.

  24. SenyorDave says:

    @Scott: @Scott: @Scott:

    He doubled down on that rep with his BSA Jamboree appearance.

    More than a few people have pointed out that Trump’s values are the opposite of virtually all Scout values:

    A Scout is …
    trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly,
    courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,
    thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

    Trump might have clean, but I defy anyone to demonstrate that Trump lives up to any of the other eleven values.

    For the icing on the cake Trump paid the $7 for Trump Jr.’s Scouting membership in 1989 from his charitable foundation.

  25. DrDaveT says:

    @KM:

    This is how Trump talks about employees he’s not personally happy with.

    This.

    I think people are over-analyzing this. Trump doesn’t want any specific action from Sessions, and he probably doesn’t want him to resign. He just wants to kick him back in line, the only way he knows how. It’s not policy; it’s a dominance ritual. It’s the only way he knows how to behave toward people who “work for him”, and he can’t help it.

    It has a lot more in common with wife-beating than it does with governance.

  26. Liberal Capitalist says:

    Donald Trump Continues To Attack His Own Attorney General

    Well… I’ve heard it called “spanking the monkey”, but if he wants to call his johnson “Attorney General”, then who are we to say anything.

    How he talks Melania into playing hide the attorney general, I’ll never know.

  27. Liberal Capitalist says:

    @teve tory:

    Don’t forget, he also wore a tan suit one time. Truly a disgrace to the republic.

    While on that subject…

    Remember when the right went on a bender about FLOTUS Michelle Obama wearing a sleeveless dress, showing her ARMS ??!!//!11?

    https://pmchollywoodlife.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/melania-trump-vs-michelle-obama-ftr2.jpg

    Clearly a case of IOIYAR.

    We all know that a Democrat never has the right to bare arms.

  28. the Q says:

    I think the frustration that liberals feel about the incredible, almost monastic support that Trump gets from his followers should be compared to what conservatives felt when allegation after allegation about Bill Clinton’s dysfunctional womanizing surfaced, culminated in his lying about fornicating with an intern in the Oval Office. Many of my GOP friends would ask me “how do you guys possibly defend Clinton’s behavior? If that was Dennis Hastert doing the same thing, would you not ask for his resignation? Is politics so partisan that you liberals have to defend him?.

    Look in the mirror neo-libs. What Clinton did was disgusting, un Presidential and an embarrassment to the country.

    Yet, the Dems rallied around good ol boy Billy, with cries of “witchhunt”, “its his own private business”, “he didn’t do anything wrongl”….in other words, the same idiotic justifications that Trump supporters give.when blindly supporting their lunatic.

    I couldn’t believe my fellow liberals weren’t aghast and disgusted with Bill’s behavior and did not back whatsoever calls for his resignation.

    I don’t care how partisan you might be, there is absolutely zero gainsaying or justifying Clinton’s behavior as President.

    And now we have the loony Trump people that we rightfully excoriate for being such close minded partisans doing the same thing – backing their guy even though reality proves Trump’s insanity.

    Kettle meet pot.

    PS, I hope now some of you Hillary fans will realize just how stupendously unpopular she was/is and how once again the Clinton vanity and narcissism almost destroyed the Dem party. Because of her corrupt manipulation of the DNC, her imposing the super-delegate farce, and raising 160 million to scare away other, better candidates…we now have the current clown in the White House. Thank you Hillary and her enablers.

  29. Steve V says:

    @CSK: Trump’s closest advisor apparently is Sean Hannity. Hannity has been telling his audience for a year now that Hillary violated the Espionage Act and failed to protect thousands of classified documents by using her personal email account. He repeatedly had right-wing attorneys like Victoria Toensing explain the graveness of the offense to his audience and to them it is an open and shut case. He also recently began hyping the so-called “Ukranian collusion” which Trump is also demanding be investigated (and which for all we know is being investigated). So basically Trump is pushing for government by right wing AM talk radio.

    The talk radio hosts are still backing him. I thought Limbaugh might question the hostility towards Sessions, but nope, he’s still hyping Trump 100%.

  30. SenyorDave says:

    @Steve V: The talk radio hosts are still backing him. I thought Limbaugh might question the hostility towards Sessions, but nope, he’s still hyping Trump 100%.

    Donald Trump is the human embodiment of talk radio. This country is fwcked as long as he is president. Between his norm busting and putting people in positions where they can damage the country long term he can cause an amazing amount of damage.

  31. CSK says:

    @Steve V:

    I’m not surprised Limbaugh is hyping Trump. These radio screamers go with what their audience wants, and the audience wants Trump cheerleaders.

    And look at what Limbaugh and Trump have in common: Two fat rich golf-playing charlatans with multiple trophy wives and big gaudy houses in Florida..

  32. Franklin says:

    @CSK: Oops, thanks, I was actually thinking ‘command’ and meant that to be sarcastic. But oddly, my sentence still works as written, as he in has to demand loyalty because he certainly isn’t going to earn respect by treating his underlings well.

  33. CSK says:

    @Franklin:

    I read it as him having to demand the loyalty of his minions, which indeed he does.

    Sessions just threw down the gauntlet. His spokesperson Tweeted that he has no plans to resign and no plans to speak to Trump.

    No plans to speak to Trump…Donnie’s gonna be frothing and gibbering. His AG just dissed him publicly, bigly.

  34. the Q says:

    Wow, 5 thumbs down ….no doubt from neo libs who think sticking a cigar up a cooch in the office that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, or where FDR gave his fireside chats is somehow excusable.

    You are no different than the Trump lunatics supporting the indefensible.

  35. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Liberal Capitalist:

    How he talks Melania into playing hide the attorney general, I’ll never know.

    I feel fairly certain that scenario involves anti-nausea medication and cash register sounds.

  36. Monala says:

    @Liberal Capitalist: As a tall woman I know once pointed out, one reason why tall women like Michelle Obama and Melania Trump (and Ivanka Trump!) favor sleeveless dresses is because it’s very hard to find a dress with sleeves long enough to cover their entire arm. So they forego the sleeves altogether.

  37. teve tory says:

    I do not like Trump. I do not like Jeff Sessions.

    Yet I find myself silently rooting for Sessions to stick this out as long as possible, because it’s the only way that Senate Republicans are going to get the message that Trump can’t be trusted with anything.

    I can see your point. On the other hand, if Sessions was accidentally bumped in the face by the Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Train doing 267 mph, I’d have a party and get DRONK.

    (PS–it does appear to be Sitemeter.com which is making OtB take fracking forever to load now.)

  38. Neil Hudelson says:

    @the Q:

    Out of curiosity, how old are you? I ask not because you are being very childish here (although to be clear, you are), but rather I ask because you write about Clinton’s affair as if it happened yesterday, and it happened to you.

    I’m 32. I’ve voted in four Presidential election. There are three generations* of voters younger than me, and I barely–barely–remember the Clinton scandal. I sure as f*ck don’t care about it. Not because I’m immoral, but because I’m living 20 years after it and I can see that it had literally no ramifications on Clinton’s ability to perform as President.

    You are asking generations of voters to care about ancient matters that they have no living memory of, and which have nothing to do with current world. And you are asking them to base their vote not on the candidate in front of them, but of that candidate’s husband. You are railing against a party and a voting populace that simply doesn’t exist. The Lewinsky affair is history, in the most literal sense.

    And this is ignoring the more obvious flaw in your analysis. I can find no evidence–no exit polls, no predictive polls issued before the election, no analysis afterwards–nothing that supports your argument that people voted Trump because Bill Clinton received a blowjob.

    You are an angry version of Tyrell, insisting the world of yesteryear still exists, confused by why no one sees what you see.

    *Using the term ‘generations of voters’ loosely. I find most people don’t start paying attention to politics at all until their first POTUS election.

  39. KM says:

    @reid:

    As usual, Trump is the loud-mouthed drunk at the end of the bar who lets everyone know that he knows everything and can do a better job than everyone else. Most people know not to elect that guy president.

    More people are that loud-mouthed drunk inside then they care to admit. In vino veritas is a axiom for a reason and it helps explain Trump’s appeal; he gets to be That Guy all the time and they really, really wish they had that kind of freedom. That’s why they bought his stupidity and BS as honesty – it sounds like the little nasty voice in the back of their heads that they know better to voice in public. He’s an a-hole Jiminny Crickett they’ve wanted to be their whole lives. It really doesn’t matter if he succeeds or not. He pisses off liberals with his “realness” so he has their vote.

  40. teve tory says:

    “I will be glad to see him gone and replaced with someone who will order the release of all DOJ Fast and Furious documents.”

    Wonder what Paul L has against the Bush administra

  41. teve tory says:

    Paul L. says:
    Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 13:12
    @wr:
    That was some Glorious WHATABOUTISM.

    Dum-dum, you started it. This thread is about Trump, and you’re all “Whatabout Fast and Furious?”

    I can understand why you trumpers hate education and universities. You’re intellectual failures.

  42. KM says:

    @Neil Hudelson :
    It’s the political version of Get Off My Lawn. Most voters today have to be reminded there already was a President Clinton – Bush is usually the earliest President they remember/paid attention to since our national mindset took a hard reboot at 9/11. The only people who give a damn about the 90’s are (a) those who are still stuck in them and (b) those who are cynically using them for a cheap Whatabout, usually accompanied by a highly edited and biased summary of what happened because they damn well know most people online today neither know nor care when it happened.

    Children born in 2000 will be of voting age within a year. Children born in the 80’s and 90’s didn’t give a damn about politics on the playground. To scream about them caring about Lewinsky is the same as screaming about DOS not being taught – maybe it was fundamental to how you learned about the process but it’s long since been passed over.

  43. al-Ameda says:

    @the Q:

    PS, I hope now some of you Hillary fans will realize just how stupendously unpopular she was/is and how once again the Clinton vanity and narcissism almost destroyed the Dem party. Because of her corrupt manipulation of the DNC, her imposing the super-delegate farce, and raising 160 million to scare away other, better candidates…we now have the current clown in the White House. Thank you Hillary and her enablers.

    Indulge your anti-Clinton fetish as long as you like.
    People such as yourself enabled the election of Donald Trump. How anyone could see Hillary Clinton as worse than the malevolent narcissist and impulsive lying greaseball that Trump is, is unfortunately a measure of just how dumbed down America has become.

  44. MarkedMan says:

    @teve tory:

    Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Train doing 267 mph

    Alas, unless something has chagned in the last 2-3 years, that train no longer does 267MPH. But it did! Somewhere I have a selfie form inside with the display reading 403 KPH. But maintanence costs and the fact that it was primarily for tourists eventually led to them scaling it back to an oh-so-slow 300KPH (200MPH). Meanwhile here in Red State America (“Who needs a new roof? Putting a big ol’ blue tarp on it is good enough!”) ouur Republican politicians berate us for think that high speed rail is even possible.

  45. Monala says:

    @the Q: You do know that FDR had a long-standing extramarital affair, one that included meetings in the White House (that he asked his daughter to arrange!)? And he wasn’t the only former president not named Clinton to carry on in the White House.

    Yeah, Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky was pretty tawdry. It was also: a. private (at least until Ken Starr made it public); b. consensual; and c. unrelated to his work as president. How does that even begin to compare to Trump’s very public twitter rants, self-serving speeches, policy ignorance and incoherence, lack of decorum, general nastiness to not only his political opponents, but to any American he doesn’t feel supports him with the loyalty he thinks he is owed, alienation of allies, praise for dictators… I could go on, but I hope you get the point.

  46. wr says:

    @Paul L.: “Republicans no longer care about Fast and Furious”

    Republicans NEVER cared about Fast and Furious, except as a way to attack Obama. Not one of them believed there was a real scandal there, not one of them cared about anything except riling up their “base,” which consists of people so stupid they will believe anything they’re told. Hey, Hillary’s selling child sex slaves in the basement of a pizza parlor in a building that doesn’t have a basement! And morons like you lap it up and demand more.

    Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t show up at that pizza place with an assault weapon.

    My God, even your local Tea Party congressman would laugh in your face if you asked him about F&F. That game is over.

  47. wr says:

    @the Q: Yes, having consensual extramarital sex is exactly the same as dismantling the EPA, taking health care away from tens of millions, and conspiring with Russia to destroy our electoral system.

    What a keen mind you have!

    (By the way, how did you feel about the affairs carried on by FDR and JFK?)

  48. An Interested Party says:

    Just to pile on to old man Q, who loves to belittle issues facing LGBT folks, particularly transgendered folks, it is something like this that points out how everyone is deserving of dignity and respect, no matter how small of a minority they may be a part of, and that represents some of what is best about the Democratic Party that he claims is focusing on the wrong issues…

  49. Kylopod says:

    @the Q: So now “neo lib” isn’t just a term for an economic outlook but applies to anyone who disagrees with you on the proper response to Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions?

    Let’s see where that reasoning takes us…

    Mr. Speaker, I have never fully appreciated before just how out of touch this institution is with the needs of the American people.

    Forty-three million Americans have no health insurance. Millions of senior citizens cannot afford their prescription drugs. And this House is going to vote to send to the Senate for a trial to go on month after month to discuss where Bill Clinton touched Monica Lewinsky.

    The global economy is volatile. The average American today is working longer hours for lower wages. We have the widest gap between the rich and the poor, and we are voting today perhaps to paralyze our government as the Senate explores the President’s extra-marital relations and his lies and his cover-up of that relationship.

    Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton acted deplorably in his personal behavior. But what the American people are saying loudly and clearly is, let’s get on with the business of the American people….

    There is great political instability in the world–wars and famine in Africa, tensions in the middle-east, in Bosnia, in Latin America, in Ireland–and a war being fought as we speak in Iraq. There are weapons of mass destruction in place all over the world–nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons–all of which can destroy the world.

    And we are voting today to impeach a President has extra-marital sexual relations, lied about them and attempted to cover them up.

    Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton acted deplorably in his personal behavior with a 22 year old intern. What he did was wrong–and he should be censured. He should not be impeached, however, and the United States Congress should get on with the business of the American people.

    –Bernie Sanders, 1998

  50. Tyrell says:

    This might be a good time to do a complete reset and changeover in the asministration.
    Spicer is gone and Sessions is twisting in the rind. Price hasn’t helped any.
    Maybe some hounger people would help here.
    Big D needs to keep General Mattis and Huntsman. He should bring in people with new ideas and impeccable recores.

  51. de stijl says:

    @Kylopod:

    The Q’s usage of “neo lib” has no discernable meaning beyond as a pejorative.

    It’s a fancypants stand-in for “poopyhead.”

  52. Kylopod says:

    @de stijl:

    The Q’s usage of “neo lib” has no discernable meaning beyond as a pejorative.

    It’s a fancypants stand-in for “poopyhead.”

    Yeah, pretty much. Jonathan Chait wrote a piece last week on how “neoliberal” was a vacuous slur with no real meaning, but even he didn’t suggest it was being used as broadly as the Q is doing here.

  53. de stijl says:

    @Kylopod:

    During the mid to late aughts “neo con” was abused as a pejorative basically meaning pro-Bush / pro-Iraq War.

    Stupid then. Stupid now.

    Neoconservatism and neoliberalism are real ideologies with definable principles.

  54. Matt says:

    @the Q: FDR was actively cheating on his wife for some time but that’s fine because you like FDR. Lincoln on the other hand most likely cheated on his wife while on the road with one of his close friends that he shared his bed with. Unlike FDR though there’s no solid 100% proof of this.