Jimmy Carter Lusts for a Trump Posting

Interview by Maureen Dowd @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 21, done in Plains GA.

And Rosalyn and him disagree about whether Rusisans influenced the election.

Excerpt:

[....] When I asked about Trump’s souring our image in the world, Carter defended his successor.

“Well, he might be escalating it but I think that precedes Trump,” he said. “The United States has been the dominant character in the whole world and now we’re not anymore. And we’re not going to be. Russia’s coming back and India and China are coming forward.”

Holy malaise.

He also said he liked Trump’s initiative reaching out to Saudi Arabia. He doesn’t know Jared Kushner but is not totally dismissive of the idea that the son-in-law could succeed where others have failed.

“I’ve seen in the Arab world, including the Palestinian world,” he said, “the high esteem that they pay to a member of one’s own family.”

Indeed, Carter was harder on Obama during the interview than he was on Trump [.....]

Including link to good Scientific American article.

By Masha Gessen @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, Oct. 20

Lede: The chief of staff sees his role as controlling Trump. If the President obeys him, then the President cannot be criticized.

Consider this nightmare scenario: a military coup. You don’t have to strain your imagination—all you have to do is watch Thursday’s White House press briefing, in which the chief of staff, John Kelly, defended President Trump’s phone call to a military widow, Myeshia Johnson. The press briefing could serve as a preview of what a military coup in this country would look like, for it was in the logic of such a coup that Kelly advanced his four arguments [....]

Both political parties may be doomed

By David von Drehle @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 20

[....] The truth is, both parties are in crisis — and may be headed for worse [....]

[....] For generations, the major parties have served as rival department stores anchoring opposite ends of America’s political shopping mall. They chose which products to offer and favored certain ones with their most prominent displays. They marshaled big budgets for advertising and thus loomed over the boutiques and specialty stores — the greens, the libertarians and so on — serving smaller clienteles.

Smartphones and the Internet are killing big retail by connecting buyers directly to products. The same is in store for the major parties. Donald Trump went directly to the voters through Facebook and Twitter; they, in turn, swept him past Republican gatekeepers to commandeer the mannequins and display cases of the GOP. Likewise, Sanders has found plenty of volunteers and cash to support his attempted hostile takeover of the Democratic Party.

Voters no longer need — nor, in many cases, want — a political party to screen their candidates and vet their ideas. They prefer to build their own movements, often with stunning speed. The change is not limited to the United States. Britain’s major parties didn’t want Brexit, but it’s happening. Major parties in France didn’t want Emmanuel Macron; now he’s president [....]

By Melissa Quinn @ WashingtonExaminer.com, Oct. 19

Posted because it's an innovative approach to questions. Looks from this that is 22% of Republicans that are the hardcore fans, but a disturbingly high number of Republicans, 79%, are overall still okay with him as president. Still, 42% of the population is a pretty damn high number for rating a president "worst in history" even though it's not been a full year:

[....] The poll from the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion released Thursday found 16 percent of adults say Trump's legacy will be below average, while 42 percent believe the president will be remembered as one of the worst in history.

Seven percent of adults say Trump will be considered one of the best presidents, compared to another 11 and 19 percent who say he will be remembered as an above average or average commander in chief, respectively.

Expectations for Trump's presidency are divided among party lines, with 88 percent of Democrats believing the president will be remembered as either below average or one of the worst American presidents.

By contrast, 79 percent of Republicans think Trump will leave behind a more positive legacy. Thirty-one percent of GOP voters think people will remember Trump as average, while 26 percent say he'll be above average. Twenty-two percent said Trump will be rated as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history [....]

video with recording @ link to judge for yourself

By Max Greenwood @ TheHill.com, Oct. 20

The widow of an Army staff sergeant who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year shared her call with President Trump days after her husband's death with The Washington Post.

Natasha De Alencar, the widow of Army Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar, who was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan in April, described her conversation with Trump as a "moment of niceness" during an otherwise turbulent and heart-wrenching time.

“At that moment when my world was upside down and me and my kids didn’t know which way we were going, it felt like I was talking to just another regular human,” she told the Post [....]

A flurry of House GOP retirements could make the speaker's job even harder.

By Rachel Bade @ Politico.com, 10/19/2017 06:20 PM EDT

Paul Ryan’s governing caucus is dwindling.

A number of the speaker's closest comrades in the House have called it quits in recent weeks because they're tired of President Donald Trump's antics, depressed over the GOP's dearth of legislative accomplishments this year or have personal reasons. Whatever the causes, the departures are certain to make Ryan's job as House speaker harder, depriving him of loyal lieutenants in a conference already riven by ideological and stylistic divisions [....]

By Maya Salam @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 19

For the first time in its 64-year history, Playboy magazine will feature a transgender Playmate, a decision that Cooper Hefner, a top executive at the magazine, said on Thursday was in keeping with its founding mission of embracing changing attitudes about sex.

The French model Ines Rau, 26, will appear as the November centerfold in the first issue since the death of Mr. Hefner’s father, the magazine’s founder, Hugh Hefner. Selecting Ms. Rau “very much speaks to the brand’s philosophy,” said Mr. Hefner, 26, Playboy’s chief creative officer. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving.” [...]

Caption:  Ines Rau, a French model, is the November Playmate of the Month in Playboy’s November/December collector’s edition. Credit Derek Kettela

The Republican senator let loose on the president in an interview with POLITICO, even though it will likely hurt him in his 2018 primary.

By Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim @ Politico.com, Oct. 19

[....] If anything, Flake is determined to make his campaign against Trump-aligned candidate Kelli Ward a referendum on the future of the Republican Party.

“You can always eke out an election victory here and there,” he told POLITICO in an interview this week. “But … resentment is not a governing philosophy.” [....]

New survey data casts doubt on a popular framework used by universities to identify microaggressions. 

By Conor Friedersdorf @ The Atlantic.com, Oct. 16

As the ranks of college administrators have swelled in higher education, one task they’ve undertaken is more aggressively training students—and at times, faculty members— in what is variously called “cultural competence” or “diversity and inclusion.”

The aims of these efforts are laudable [....] But when training faculty members or educating students so that they are “culturally competent,” a process that should involve telling them pertinent facts, is instead used as a pretext to indoctrinate them into a contested ideology, the laudable becomes objectionable [....]

The Cato/YouGov survey on free speech and tolerance that I reported on last week included questions about whether folks find the same sentiments expressed above offensive.

Among the results?

Telling a recent immigrant, “you speak good English” was deemed “not offensive” by 77 percent of Latinos; saying “I don’t notice people’s race” was deemed “not offensive” by 71 percent of African Americans and 80 percent of Latinos; saying “America is a melting pot” was deemed not offensive by 77 percent of African Americans and 70 percent of Latinos; saying “America is the land of opportunity” was deemed “not offensive” by 93 percent of African Americans and 89 percent of Latinos; and saying “everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough” was deemed “not offensive” by 89 percent of Latinos and 77 percent of African Americans [....]

Ok, they say only $80K, but the number will grow as they dig in more, like with everything else.

Everything they complained about Hillary doing was something they were and still are, but to a much higher degree than fathomed.