Olbermann calls bullshit on Hannity's assertion that Trump went "above and beyond" on TrumpCare

[Miles Archer]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[OldHippieChick]

1. Keith is so correct on this.

Cheetohead probably did do everything in his power because he has no idea what he is doing. He's in the big leagues now and no amount of swagger and arrogance can make him a pro overnight. Given his age and the fact this is how he's always "negotiated", I doubt he will ever change.

[Miles Archer]

2. A brief anecdote from my career that sums this up nicely

This is from the days when I worked in a warehouse, decades ago. Our supervisor got fired. They moved a supervisor over from another department. Our department and their department got along like oil and water. This guy was blunt and direct and actually had a style as abrasive as Trump. On day one he walked us through a tour of our own department, pointing out things which displeased him, and concluded with "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS." We just looked at him and laughed on the inside and for the next 30 days we all took turns doing impressions of him saying "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS."

We undermined him, we never treated him like our supervisor, and after he'd had his ass kicked enough, he reached out to us. In those days I was always the guy to point out that the emperor had no clothes, so I told him "You came in on day one and acted like a dick, so we treated you like a dick."

And to his credit, he actually appreciated the honest feedback and slowly started to come around and actually work with us, rather than try to be an authoritarian figure in a department filled with people who wanted no part of that.

As time went on, we actually joked about the "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS" thing.

He "got" it. I don't think Trump's ego will ever allow him to "get" it.

[dalton99a]

8. Great story.

[Hortensis]

4. Exactly. Vox's "How Paul Ryan played Donald Trump"

summarizes this so clearly. As for learning, that has never been 45's strong point.

Donald Trump promised to be a different kind of president. He was a populist fighting on behalf of the “forgotten man,” taking on the GOP establishment, draining the Washington swamp, ...

Instead, Trump has become a pitchman for Paul Ryan and his agenda. He’s spent the past week fighting for a health care bill he didn’t campaign on, didn’t draft, doesn’t understand, doesn’t like to talk about, and can’t defend. Rather than forcing the Republican establishment to come around to his principles, he’s come around to theirs — with disastrous results.

For some of the rest of an article about just how in over his head Rump is,

Sixty days into his presidency, Trump has lashed himself to a Paul Ryan passion project that’s polling at 56-17 percent against. As political scientist Ryan Enos drolly observed, “in a hyper-partisan political climate, it's actually an accomplishment to write legislation this unpopular.”

Donald Trump has become Paul Ryan with orange hair. How did it happen? ...

I don’t mean to whitewash Trump. His populism often edged into xenophobia and bigotry. (How about 3 coats of white paint?) But it seemed real enough — even as his campaign policy team churned out standard-issue Republican fare, everything he did and said suggested he had very unusual instincts on some issues, particularly health care. Here was a guy who had praised single-payer in the past and promised to protect Medicare and Medicaid from cuts. Whatever Trumpism was, it sure as hell wasn’t Ryanism.

And then it became Ryanism. This is what happens when you don’t sweat, or even understand, the details. ... “Don’t source to me,” the person wrote, “but R’s astonish[ed] how in over his head Trump is. He seems to neither get the politics nor the policy of this.”

Politico reports that Trump doesn’t even like talking about health care — and his staffers have started, amazingly, to see that as a good thing: ... ...it’s easy to get spun by people who do know and care, and it’s easy to get trapped in processes that people are building for their benefit rather than yours.

We are 60 days into Trump’s presidency, and Trumpism is already being strangled by Ryanism. As Drudge wrote, sometimes the swamp drains you.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/24/15039664/paul-ryan-donald-trump-ahca

And the next big item on the agenda is tax cuts designed to accelerate the dismantling of our government systems.

Btw,what we have not been seeing are any outstanding Rump rages. Even in the face of constant attacks, no enraged "housecleanings," no big firings based solely on offended narcissism. Even in his extreme incompetence, Rump so far is more high functioning than some expected. COULD he settle into allowing Ryan, Pence, Bannon/whomever to basically run the country?

[Miles Archer]

9. Excellent article, thanks for posting

I saw all of this play out before my eyes, the ass kissing about "closer" and "ultimate closer" and "he not only knocked the ball out of the park, he knocked the cover off the ball," and thought "this can't possibly end well."

And it didn't.

My guess is that Ryan is seen by Republicans as pure walking poison at this point.

Bannon tried to play both ends against the middle. He hates Ryan, and the anti-Ryan rhetoric on Breitbart has risen. No one should be fooled by the fact that Bannon "resigned his position" there to work for Trump. At the same time, he told Trump to keep a "shit list" of any Republican who didn't vote for it.

My guess is that as soon as this is no longer front page news, Ryan will no longer be Speaker. No matter how arrogant or narcissistic or clueless Trump may be, I'd bet the farm on the fact that he KNOWS he was played by Ryan. And as a self-professed "vengeance seeker," he will seek vengeance, when he feels the timing is right. He'll find a way to squeeze him out, one way or another.

It's like the movie "Casino," where, at the end, Robert DeNiro talks about the demise of mob rule in Vegas, and says "It was the LAST time guys like us were given a chance to run things here."

There is no victory to be found in Paul Ryan. Trump's in sad enough shape without him. But this went public, EVERYONE threw Ryan under the bus.

Soon, it will be Trump's turn.

[Hortensis]

13. Notice Limbaugh, Breitbart, Newt all piling on Ryan.

Ryan himself seems almost as clueless as Rump in this quote:

"Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains," Ryan told reporters Friday. "And well, we're feeling those growing pains today."

After studying Republicans in office over the past 35 years ex-Republican John Dean has concluded that conservatives CAN'T govern a democracy. They always attempt to rule instead and always misuse their power to increase wealth among themselves.

So Ryan thinks this step to eliminating taxes on the wealthy by forcing terrible, hurtful policy down the throat of our nation was learning to "govern." Uhuh. What he needs is lessons from Tom "The Hammer DeLay on how to rule his fiefdom more ruthlessly.

[malaise]

3. Let me see

Obama had 28 meetings for Obamacare, the Con had seven

[dalton99a]

10. Betcha all he did was brag about himself and talk shit in those meetings

[Miles Archer]

11. That's because he took no vacations, played no gold, never left the White House...

...just like he promised on the campaign trail, right?



He made the mistake of handing the keys to the car to Ryan and saying "You drive, and I'll just sit back and take credit for it."

And that's where things are at. He can blame the Dems all he'd like. He's the guy who was stupid enough to trust Paul Ryan.

It's not the same as George W. Bush kicking back and letting Cheney have power...to my knowledge, Cheney never did one thing that "crossed" the Bushes. He was juiced in, old school, and if Poppy had a whiff of something he didn't like, he would have been spanked hard, and fast. Cheney was "vetted" by the Bushes, and passed muster, as ridiculous as that may sound.

Ryan is a snake and Trump is lazy. That's the difference.

[C_U_L8R]

5. Did he even talk to Democrats?

Or what about Doctors (beside sleepy Ben Carson or the one called Oz)?

[Miles Archer]

7. No Dems

Schumer and Pelosi confirmed that they were never contacted.

Read an article yesterday that said "the obvious choice" for him to contact, Joe Manchin, wasn't approached either.

Zero Dems. Paul Ryan & crew had late night, closed door meetings, tried to do an end run around the Dems, and the rest is history.

[Vinca]

6. Trump spent far more time golfing than thinking about health care.

I bet he couldn't name 3 provisions of the bill.

[kacekwl]

12. If he just looked at 17% approval for this shit

he could have saved himself the humiliation . All he can hear is the screaming fans from his rallies in his head . Pay attention dummy.