White House in crisis

[Rewind]

You're right, Sarah. God wanted Trump to be President, just as He also wanted Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Mitch, Cyclone Nargis, the Haiti earthquake, the İzmit earthquake, the Sichuan earthquake, the Mexico City earthquake, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the Chennai floods, the California wildfires and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Trump is just the latest in a long line of major disasters.

Sarah Sanders: God 'wanted Donald Trump to become President'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/polit...ump/index.html

[Rewind]

In an interview today with the alt-right "news" site The Daily Caller, Donald "Nothing-is-ever-my-fault" Trump found somebody new to blame for his not getting $5.7 billion of US taxpayers' money to allow him to build the expensive, unnecessary, ineffective Trump Wall monument to himself.

Trump blames former House Speaker Paul Ryan for not getting border wall funding

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...ing/ar-BBSYIOD

[Rewind]

Bipartisan House-Senate negotiations are aimed at keeping government running after February 15. Republicans are urging Trump to not call for another shutdown but Trump says they're "wasting their time" if they can't get him the $5.7 billion of US taxpayers' money that he's demanding so he can build his Trump Wall vanity project. To paraphrase a Tom Petty song, the self-styled "great negotiator" won't back down -- and another shutdown is looking increasingly likely.

Trump digs in on border wall funds but Democrats' opening bid is zero

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...ero/ar-BBSWRFx

[Rewind]

The majority of drugs entering the US from Mexico are smuggled in at legal ports of entry. Trump refuses to believe that, however. To acknowledge that fact would be would be tacitly admitting that The Trump Wall would be unnecessary and ineffective. And look where the biggest seizure of fentanyl took place: at a legal border crossing in Nogales.

Customs official make largest fentanyl seizure ever at Arizona border crossing

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ng/2733543002/

[Rewind]

Three days ago NBC News reported on the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual worldwide threats assessment. Trump has been insisting ISIS is defeated, North Korea is not a threat and Russia didn't meddle in our 2016 election. The heads of the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies showed Trump to be completely wrong. They also said nothing about the need for a border wall.

Trump and his intel chiefs are worlds apart on ISIS, Russia, border

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...border-n964141

Did the pompous, narcissistic, egotistical blowhard admit he was wrong? Of course not. He never admits he's wrong about anything. He said the Intelligence chiefs are wrong. Today he is continuing the unprecedented attack on our nation's Intelligence agencies:

Trump says 'time will prove me right, probably' on split with intel chiefs

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/polit...pel/index.html

[Rewind]

"Sir, I have bad news to report. The dissension in the ranks is spreading."

Senate Republicans break with Trump over plans to pull troops from Syria, Afghanistan
The Washington Post, Jan 31 2019 12:55 PM

The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today in a rebuke of President Trump's rationale for withdrawing US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that Islamic State's continued operations in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States.

The measure was presented as an amendment to a greater Middle East policy bill that has yet to pass the Senate and will face challenges in the House but the vote is nonetheless an unmistakable sign of Republicans' growing frustrations with the President, particularly when it comes to some of the decisions he has made as commander in chief.

Last month, the President announced he would be withdrawing American military personnel from Syria, stating in a Twitter post that "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency." The backlash from Republicans was immediate and has remained consistent, as even some of the President's closest allies have warned him against the dangers of withdrawing from battlefields where the United States has made gains but by no means has expunged Al Qaeda, Islamic State and their affiliates.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-...131-story.html

[Rewind]

Considering how deeply divided our nation has become in the past two years, Trump's goofy slogan on those goofy red caps would be more truthful and more accurate if it said "Make America Hate Again." This restaurant chef/co-owner puts the MAGA caps in the same category as swastikas and white hoods: symbols of "intolerance and hate." Indeed they are.

San Francisco-area restaurant bans 'Make America Great Again' caps
KTLA, Jan 31 2019 8:38 PM

Patrons won't be served at a Silicon Valley restaurant if they wear a "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, a chef-partner of the Wursthall restaurant in San Mateo said in a tweet last weekend that he views the caps as symbols of intolerance and hate.

"It hasn't happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren't getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood or any other symbol of intolerance and hate," he wrote. The tweet was no longer available Thursday but it had more than 2,100 likes and more than 200 retweets as of Wednesday afternoon.

The red caps, which are sold on President Donald Trump's campaign website, have become polarizing. The caps were worn by some Kentucky high school students involved in a January 18 confrontation with a Native American elder near the Lincoln Memorial.

Lopez-Alt wrote the 2015 book The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. He declined to comment, saying his restaurant has received threatening emails following the tweet.

San Mateo resident Jamie Hwang, 42, has mixed feelings about the ban, saying San Mateo is diverse and members of her family support Trump. "I see where he's coming from but I don't think you should keep people out because of a hat," Hwang said. Esther Shek, 39, said she believed the hats have "come to represent racism, intolerance and exclusivity." But she added that refusing to serve Trump supporters would exacerbate a situation where talking about differences might be better.

https://ktla.com/2019/01/31/make-ame...ea-restaurant/

[Rewind]

Donald Trump hates undocumented immigrants -- but not so much that he won't hire them as cheap labor at his golf clubs. Two dozen illegals were recently fired from Trump clubs in New York and New Jersey. Today we learn that a third Trump club hired illegals. Oh, but Trump and the managers didn't know the people they hired were undocumented. That's what they want us to believe -- but the workers themselves say otherwise.

Undocumented workers lose their jobs at yet another Trump property

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...rty/ar-BBT46fB

[Rewind]

During the past two years when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, Trump didn't threaten to declare a "national emergency" in the hope of getting $5.7 billion of US taxpayers' money for The Trump Wall. Why is he doing so now? Probably so he can blame Democrats for being "obstructionists," a charge he would never level against his own party -- but even members of his own party are starting to turn against him.

McConnell privately cautions Trump about emergency declaration on border wall
The Washington Post, Feb 1 2019

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cautioned President Trump privately this week about the consequences of declaring a national emergency to build his border wall, telling him the move could trigger political blowback and divide the GOP, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the exchange.

McConnell told Trump that Congress might end up passing a resolution disapproving the emergency declaration — which would force the President to contemplate issuing his first veto ever, in the face of opposition from his own party.

McConnell delivered the message during a face-to-face meeting with the President Tuesday at the White House, according to the Republicans, who requested anonymity to describe the encounter. The two men met alone and conversed with no aides present. Their meeting was not publicly announced.

The majority leader's comments to the President came amid rising GOP concerns over the fallout if Trump were to declare a national emergency that would allow him to circumvent Congress and use the military to build new stretches of wall along the US-Mexico border. Trump increasingly appears prepared to take that route.

And Trump dismisses chances that he'll get the $5.7 billion in wall funding he wants from a bipartisan Congressional committee charged with producing a border security solution that could forestall another government shutdown. The committee is working to come up with a deal that could pass before February 15, when a stopgap spending bill will expire if there is no action by Congress and Trump. If the stopgap measure expires with no agreement, large portions of the federal government that reopened January 25 after a record-long funding lapse would shut down again.

The prospect of Trump's using a national emergency declaration to build his wall has divided Republicans, with a number of them expressing concerns about the precedent that such a move would set. Lawmakers of both parties expect that a national emergency declaration would be immediately challenged in court and would end up languishing in legal proceedings without producing quick action on the border wall that Trump long promised Mexico would pay for.

And a growing concern for Republicans — which McConnell voiced to Trump at the White House — is that they would be forced to vote on a disapproval resolution aimed at overturning the declaration and that the resolution would pass. At least a half-dozen Republican Senators are fiercely opposed to the idea of an emergency declaration, generating enough opposition that a disapproval resolution could pass the Senate with the support of the 47 Democrats and a handful of GOP Senators — the scenario about which McConnell warned Trump. Republicans expect that Trump would veto the resolution and that the House and Senate would not be likely to muster the supermajority vote needed to override his veto.

A disapproval resolution on a Presidential emergency declaration could expose new divisions within the GOP on Trump's signature issue of a border wall, creating a portrait of disunity that most Republicans would like to avoid. An emergency declaration would also risk further political damage to Trump, whose disapproval rating rose significantly over the 35-day partial government shutdown as more Americans faulted the President than Democrats for the standoff.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...all/ar-BBT3W6Y

[Rewind]

Trump announced yesterday that the US will pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which bans ground-based missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles. Trump says Russia has been violating the treaty and Russia says the United States has been violating the treaty. And now Russia, too, is pulling out. Putin says Russia will start building new missiles, including hypersonic ones. Welcome to The Cold War, version 2.0.

Putin says Russia also suspending key nuclear arms treaty after US move to withdraw
President Donald Trump on Friday announced the US intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty, accusing Russia of violating the agreement "with impunity."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/p...sponse-n966146