Day 280

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

Updated 10/26/2017 10:22 AM PDT

1/ The House passed its budget blueprint, which maps out the recommended spending and revenue levels for the 2018 fiscal year. No Democrats voted for the budget, which passed 216 to 212. The legislation will also allow Republicans to now pass tax reform and add as much as $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade without any Democratic votes. The deficit for the 2017 fiscal year totaled $666 billion (New York Times / Washington Post)

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2017/10/26/day-280/

[anon95374541]

@matt

Trump said the soldier’s widow must be wrong because he has “one of the greatest memories of all time.”

Greatest memory of all time, my ass! As soon as he’s in court is a different story. Another day another pack of lies.

“I don’t remember,” Trump told lawyers 35 times during his December testimony, which was released on Wednesday.

Trump Can't Remember 'World's Greatest Memory' Boast

[mouseam (Ashley)]

@matt

4/ Congress will investigate the $300 million government contract awarded to a Trump donor.

The actual contract has been leaked and…just wow. Here it is: Whitefish Contract

Also, here is great twitter thread analysis of how corrupt AF the contract is.

@matt

Department of Presidential Quotes

Love this new section!

[John]

@matt

I “really started this whole fake news thing.”

Also known as “propaganda”.

Trump loves to take credit for inventing obvious phrases…

In a WaPo interview from April 1, 2016 (PDF), he claimed he came up with the phrase “rigged system” (page 18):

I think the system is rigged. And that was the word that I came up with that now everyone is using. They picked up many of my wonderful words. You never heard the system is rigged before until I started it. Now, Bernie Sanders is using the exact same expression. But the system is rigged. It’s rigged in a different way. It’s rigged for the Republicans differently than for the Democrats. The Democrats, it’s a much more obvious rigging of the system because you have the super delegates which are a disaster. With the Republicans, it’s really different.

In an interview with The Economist on May 11, 2017, he claimed he invented the term “priming the pump” (in use since the 1930s):

President Trump: That all goes into tax reduction. Tremendous savings.

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”?
Yes.
We have to prime the pump.
It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?
Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

But hey, I’m not the genius with the best memory of all time who knows the best words, so yeah…

[OCRJake (Jacob Dohm)]

Jeff Sessions, how could you possibly expect people to “just say no” to their doctor that is prescribing these opioids because some pharmaceutical rep gave the doctor a quota to make.

[kimmer37]

This high alert crisis mode that I’ve been in since 11/9 is really wearing on me.

We are on the brink of nuclear war with no way out, we are in the midst of a drug addiction pandemic that is literally leaving children to rot (see alta vista,ia) with no funding, our troops and virtually every department of our government is demoralized and understaffed, our president is exacerbating everything for attention and because he’s living in a ‘ratings reality’, and now we are about to experience, yet another, massive wealth transfer leaving pretty much everyone even broker than we already are. Which is obviously going make us dumber and less healthy in the long run. Half our country is in rubble after losing everything because of natural disasters. Pretty much everywhere else in the world is experiencing turmoil too.

As if things couldn’t get bleaker. The ‘me too’ campaign might be making some people feel less alone but for me it’s just brought a tsunami of flashbacks of past sexual abuses that I’ve survived, sought therapy for, and shut the door on. It’s all exposed again and now I know for sure that sex abuse in this country is happening every second of everyday to almost everyone. Getting sexually violated is the norm not the outlier.

It takes a lot less time to burn a house down than it takes to build one. Our separation of powers and checks and balances system isn’t working, it’s crumbling.

I’m simultaneously planning to run for state house rep while researching how to get citizenship to literally anywhere but the states. I don’t want to jump ship but if this talking anus gets a second term, I’m out. Which he probably will.

WTF has helped a lot because it saves me from having to check multiple sources multiple times a day which makes my anxiety skyrocket and I know I can just dive in when I’m ready and get caught up quickly but I should probably quit reading the news. Matt, I sincerely thank you. Your poor soul has to fully immerse itself daily in this shit storm in order to keep us informed.

I quit watching t.v. long ago and that helped but now i’m thinking of choosing ignorance. I thought staying informed was my best way of fighting this beast but it’s just too much too bear.

Thanks for allowing me to have a place to put this. Sorry in advance for being such a negative snowflake. Let’s all try to give more hugs right now.

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

@kimmer37

Your poor soul has to fully immerse itself daily in this shit storm in order to keep us informed.

Honestly, I just kinda black out everyday. It’s really no different than college, I guess.

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

@kimmer37

We are on the brink of nuclear war with no way out, we are in the midst of a drug addiction pandemic that is literally leaving children to rot (see alta vista,ia) with no funding, our troops and virtually every department of our government is demoralized and understaffed, our president is exacerbating everything for attention and because he’s living in a ‘ratings reality’, and now we are about to experience, yet another, massive wealth transfer leaving pretty much everyone even broker than we already are.

Sounds kinda like the cloud that hung over Reagan’s 80s.

[anon95374541]

@kimmer37 I hear you. It’s easy to feel down, everyday is parade of bad news. If there’s one thing we all can do right now, it’s not give up on hope. When I struggle and start feeling down about the state of the union, I often remember this speech that Obama gave in 2008 before the election about false hopes. I’m going to leave it here, just in case anyone needs a boost of optimism. We can change things, we’ve done it before…

https://youtu.be/t6NS9unm-OQ

[MissJava]

@Seabass

not give up on hope

Obama had (and has) an incredible faith in the American people, it always lifts my spirits thinking about that.

[anon95374541]

@missjava Yes!! We can’t let them tear down President Obama’s legacy because it’s OUR legacy too. We worked together and we changed minds and we elected a truly great leader. We need to remember what Obama taught us, we need to work hard, engage with people and to never give up hope. Sometimes we will lose and it will hurt but that should make us all the more determined to do better next time. We may not have a clear candidate for 2020 but we are all contenders and as one, we can change our world. #truegrit #hope