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[UberTag]

Shit will hit the fan the moment the first natural disaster hits and people can point and say, "We didn't have enough people or resources because of him!"

I hope we have the most benign, uneventful hurricane season ever, as I hope every year, but a Katrina-like event would be devastating to this country and his presidency. It would probably cause him to lose a bunch of core supporters. (Remember how lucky Bush was to have Katrina in his second term?) Again, hoping for the best, but the crystal ball looks pretty clear.

Screw that. I want a Class 5 hurricane to slam directly into Mar-a-Lago and flood that sucker.

Incidentally, Don is on this year's list of hurricane names.
I hope whatever tropical depression is designated with that name is responsible for untold havoc and destruction.

 

[Wyndstryker]

Screw that. I want a Class 5 hurricane to slam directly into Mar-a-Lago and flood that sucker.

Incidentally, Don is on this year's list of hurricane names.
I hope whatever tropical depression is designated with that name is responsible for untold havoc and destruction.

Especially if it alone floods Mar-a-Lago and just that

 

[Vagabundo]

How long will it take things to really turn sour. There is no way this doesn;t have some effects by the end of the year. It will effect the US economy/jobs etc. Repubs will start coming under enormous pressure. This is an interesting experiment in downsizing the government.

 

[FyreWulff]

and whenever a dem gets back in power they'll go "THEIR EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT" from actually filling all the positions

 

[jiiikoo]

https://twitter.com/ap/status/871102650481299457

 

[Squire]

So, are we back to Bannon is the black mage running everything in the shadows mode? Or is this more from the fact that Trump has no idea what he's doing, is surrounded by people who have no idea what they're doing, and is so mixed in scandals and a strong desire to campaign over govern? Is this really a calculated attempt to dismantle the federal government, or is this a driver at the wheel not really knowing what the knobs and pedals do and not really caring?

Bannon was saying this was his goal when it looked like Trump would never win. I don't think he's a genius or a puppet master, but he is getting his way. What do the specifics even matter at that point?

 

[Za-Neen-Jya]

Man, Lisa Simpson is going to have a LOT of work ahead of her fixing all of this shit. Good thing China is still cool about us paying later.

 

[UberTag]

Man, Lisa Simpson is going to have a LOT of work ahead of her fixing all of this shit. Good thing China is still cool about us paying later.

Nothing a temporary refund adjustment won't cure.

 

[Imperfected]

Boy, it's a good thing he broke tradition and demanded that everyone in those positions vacate them immediately instead of giving them a transitional period for their kids to finish school for the year and smooth out their move. Otherwise his non-existent replacements would have been sitting on their thumbs waiting for the position to open.

 

[Apdiddy]

Let's say that if Trump continues at the current pace, by the end of the four years, none of the seats/vacancies will be filed. If the government doesn't have enough money to even have budgets to operate on a functional level, then I think the U.S. government will be insolvent by the end of the 4 years (or likely beyond).

Of course, if Trump is still President by the end of his first term, he will claim that the government being insolvent is 'fake news' and ignoring all the signs that would be there.

I think a major snowstorm in the Northeast or Midwest, flooding in the South, and hurricanes will be worse than Katrina once this continues.

I don't think homelessness, starvation or even death will convince Trump's base that they were wrong.

 

[BlastProcessing]

CNN: Starting hurricane season without leaders of NOAA and FEMA should 'scare the hell out of everybody'

Going into hurricane season with a leaderless and understaffed FEMA and NOAA, it's the little things.

We are going to go from "Heck of a job Brownie" to "Heck of a job TBA".

 

[Dai101]

Errr, the disaster relief departments also have no heads, right? Hurricane season is going to be brutal. Moron.

Is a disgrace that a lot of people will suffer for this bunch of imbeciles and their greed. Meanwhile the people that put them in power and voted for them don't care, even if they are part of the ones that will suffer, and then afterwards will vote for them AGAIN.

 

[Tovarisc]

CNN: Starting hurricane season without leaders of NOAA and FEMA should 'scare the hell out of everybody'

Going into hurricane season with a leaderless and understaffed FEMA and NOAA, it's the little things.

We are going to go from "Heck of a job Brownie" to "Heck of a job TBA".

https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/870786186842955779

Something like that, but x10 worse incoming.

 

[Shoeless]

CNN: Starting hurricane season without leaders of NOAA and FEMA should 'scare the hell out of everybody'

Going into hurricane season with a leaderless and understaffed FEMA and NOAA, it's the little things.

We are going to go from "Heck of a job Brownie" to "Heck of a job TBA".

It's going to be so depressing if an environmental disaster hits, with people dying and families broken up and the people directly affected will still be screaming "DAMN HER EMAILS! DAMN HER EEELY, EEELY EMAILS! TRUMP COULD HAVE SAVED US IF NOT FOR HER!"

Even when they lose family members, it will never occur to them to that the man they elected to office might have contributed to their loss. It's heartbreaking.

 

[Beartruck]

While upsetting, hes only making things harder for himself by doing this. Can't push your moronic idealogy if theres nobody to push it to.

 

[andythinkpad]

Well his plan is to burn DC to the ground and turn it into libertarian utopia.

 

[numble]

Is there anywhere we can track court appointments?

Wikipedia tracks them. According to this NYT article, it seems the administration will announce monthly slates of nominees to fill court vacancies:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile...p-lower-court-nominees-conservatives.amp.html

 

[MechDX]

Mentioned in another thread: hurricane season started June 1st and he has yet to name a director for FEMA or the NOAA.

As a citizen of a gulf coast city this worries the hell out of me. He is gambling with peoples lives

 

[Host Samurai]

Oh boy. It's gonna gonna be bad for red states by the shore.

 

[gabbo]

Mentioned in another thread: hurricane season started June 1st and he has yet to name a director for FEMA or the NOAA.

As a citizen of a gulf coast city this worries the hell out of me. He is gambling with peoples lives

Not his supporters, so he doesn't care - well not all of them anyway

 

[hodayathink]

Not his supporters, so he doesn't care - well not all of them anyway

Except that most of the states most vulnerable to hurricanes went to Trump (if we're talking Eastern Seaboard you have to go as far north as Virginia to find a Hillary state, and the entire Gulf Coast was red).

 

[John Harker]

It's really dangerous that so many people consistently use words and dismissals like "incompetence."

Bannon knows exactly what he is doing and has been very transparent about his goals here

 

[Cagey]

It's really dangerous that so many people consistently use words and dismissals like "incompetence."

Bannon knows exactly what he is doing and has been very transparent about his goals here

He doesn't. Stop attributing hidden genius to incompetence, hidden strategy to inability.

Real life is not House of Cards.

Government agencies continue to function right now without political appointees under a status quo approach. The absence of appointees delays implementing changes from the prior administration.

These supposed dark arts geniuses undermine their own intentions by doing this.

 

[digdug2k]

He doesn't. Stop attributing hidden genius to incompetence, hidden strategy to inability.

Real life is not House of Cards.

Government agencies continue to function right now without political appointees under a status quo approach. The absence of appointees delays implementing changes from the prior administration.

These supposed dark arts geniuses undermine their own intentions by doing this.

I don't really think this is incompetence or genius. These guys (and half the country of more) think the government is filled with wasteful lazy braurocrats. Heck, I imagine trump thought most of his companies were as well. They're taking their fucking time filling positions to try and see what's necessary. What they'll end up with is the minimum of people, killing themselves working 60-80 hour weeks, needed to keep the ship from sinking. They'll think that's success.

 

[Joni]

It is an excellent way to kill these institutions, considering he can now claim nothing changed despite them not working in his eyes. And his people will eat it up.

 

[John Harker]

He doesn't. Stop attributing hidden genius to incompetence, hidden strategy to inability.

Real life is not House of Cards.

Government agencies continue to function right now without political appointees under a status quo approach. The absence of appointees delays implementing changes from the prior administration.

These supposed dark arts geniuses undermine their own intentions by doing this.

?

It doesn't genius to be a deconstructionist.
He believes an admisinstrative state is bad. He gains power, and underfunds and understaffs departments so the the gov't gets smaller and religuishes centralized power. No genius, just very clear and straight forward.

The evil part comes from he impact of such neglect, but he doesn't give a shit about people

 

[Ether_Snake]

Orchestrating a crisis to recreate the government. An economic crisis would also benefit Trump, because a chaotic situation frightens the majority into submission to the leaders for a certain time. That time is used to implement a fascist state.

 

[Lord_Byron28]

Orchestrating a crisis to recreate the government. An economic crisis would also benefit Trump, because a chaotic situation frightens the majority into submission to the leaders for a certain time. That time is used to implement a fascist state.

It didn't for Bush/Obama during the economic recession.

 

[HotHamBoy]

If Trump and Co. had even a semblance of competence I might believe the narrative proposed by Slate.

 

[Tovarisc]

If Trump and Co. had even a semblance of competence I might believe the narrative proposed by Slate.

Planned or pure incompetence doesn't matter at the end, end result is same and it's bad.

 

[Ac30]

Wikipedia tracks them. According to this NYT article, it seems the administration will announce monthly slates of nominees to fill court vacancies:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile...p-lower-court-nominees-conservatives.amp.html

Ugh. Thanks.

 

[Link]

Is a disgrace that a lot of people will suffer for this bunch of imbeciles and their greed. Meanwhile the people that put them in power and voted for them don't care, even if they are part of the ones that will suffer, and then afterwards will vote for them AGAIN.

We'll probably get a lot of "Haha, take that, coastal libruls!"

 

[psynergylover]

Jesus Christ the next presidency might have to spend their entire 4 years simply undoing the damage shit like this causes.

A federal govt with over 440 seats that are needed to set departmental budgets empty.

It's going to take a term just to repair THIS. Let alone everything else.

Looks like republicans doing their usual; fuck shut up until democrats take office then blame the mess on them.

 

[MagnaderAlpha]

Yeah, the full cycle is:
GOP fucks up --> Democrat picks up the pieces --> People are comfy under democrat, forget how shit it was under GOP --> People elect GOP idiot --> GOP fucks up --> ...

You forget one crucial part:

-GOP fucks up -->

-Democrat elected to pick up the pieces (and DOES gain ground, but slowly), but the damage done by the previous administration proves to be too much for two Presidential terms (especially with GOP House and Senate members fighting to prevent progressive ideas from being passed, even shutting down the government when they don't get their way) -->

-Throughout those terms and especially after, GOP says, "Look, the Democrats are worthless. They couldn't fix NOTHING!!! Just sitting on their hands, no results. Elect US next time, we'll fix EVERYTHING!!", even though through those 2 terms, things HAVE gotten better, slowly, and the fact of the matter is the damage done by the GOP is SOOOOO great, even though the Democrats have been fighting tooth and nail against the GOP in the House and Senate to fix everything, to get actual results would be a feat that would take many, MANY years to accomplish. -->

-Dumbasses want immediate results (even though the world doesn't work that way, Rome wasn't built in a day, especially with fuckers like the GOP trying to stall everything) and drink the kool-aid, electing a Republican President, and thus the GOP start fucking everything up again (especially all the positive and progressive ground made)...

 

[Tovarisc]

Commander in Cable News

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871722020278587393

 

[Version 3.0]

GOP fucks up-->Democrat picks up the pieces

The cycle will continue.

No. The new (well, not that new) cycle is:

GOP fucks up, blames Democrats, get re-elected.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

It's all part of the plan to destabilize the United States. Russia is doing so much damage without firing a single shot.

 

[kaching]

Each of these forms of neglect advances the Bannon/Trump agenda of crippling the federal government. Unfortunately, we’re too busy paying attention to Russian intrigues, presidential conflicts of interest, and unconstitutional immigration policies to notice that the Trump team has already started its campaign to undo the state that has evolved since the New Deal to serve the American people.

This seems like an odd takeaway - it's bloody obvious this administration has been neglectful of their overall duties, that's practically the only silver lining in this shitshow that their malignancy is mostly of the neglectful and incompetent variety. Is the lack of staffing an impeachable offense? Or, more to the point, one as likely to lead to impeachment as, say, collusion with Russians or violations of the emoluments clause? There's priorities here.

 

[nintendoman58]

No. The new (well, not that new) cycle is:

GOP fucks up, blames Democrats, get re-elected.

How does this confirm re-election, exactly?

 

[SocksAndShoes]

Commander in Cable News

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871722020278587393

Dat projection.

 

[Spat_triate]

I work for a federal agency. I and many of the people I work with could have gone to Booz Allen or any other firm in the area. We chose to work here because we believe in the mission and truly want to make a positive impact.

Trump's people are either woefully under qualified and have no fucking clue what they're doing or cynical assholes who seem determined to slow every process to a crawl. They aren't interested in making things more efficient or helping regular Americans - in fact it's just the opposite. Just writing this makes me angry.

 

[darkwing]

It's all part of the plan to destabilize the United States. Russia is doing so much damage without firing a single shot.

they have won the Cold War, it was a marathon, not a sprint

 

[ShironRedshift]

Commander in Cable News

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871722020278587393

Cross-posting from PoliGAF on this matter, but Democrats should really start hammering home the message now that Trump hasn't so much as nominated a name for a department head of FEMA/NOAA, potentially putting any number of lives at risk during the hurricane season that just started (especially as we never know when the next Katrina could happen and if we're not prepared it could be a repeat of that situation if such a storm appears) and not let him set the narrative that it's them who's blocking his nominations (which they can't fucking do in the first place, since they're the minority party and lack the power). Don't let him win this fight and get his talking points in, not without there even being a fight at least.

 

[CoolOff]

Screw that. I want a Class 5 hurricane to slam directly into Mar-a-Lago and flood that sucker.

Incidentally, Don is on this year's list of hurricane names.
I hope whatever tropical depression is designated with that name is responsible for untold havoc and destruction.

We got both Don and Sean in there. Amazing. Or maybe Jose will come across the border from Mexico and live up to everything Trump promised.

 

[Version 3.0]

How does this confirm re-election, exactly?

There are more positions than just the presidency. GOP's been winning more than losing.

 

[Tovarisc]

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/871753549276958721