"We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous....There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more."

So comforting to know that while Trump is in there bumping around and locking himself in closets there is a resistance of unaccountable republican vampires making sure their agenda of funneling money to the rich, ginning up the military for a war, imprisoning immigrants, and stripping environmental regulations doesn't get off track.

What a brave piece of shit.

Woodward's new book makes some of the very same assertions, which are also based on insider interviews. How bad is it when his own staff has to hide real documents from a fake president?

It's the derp state! Maybe they are trying to push him over the edge so they have a solid pretext for invoking the 25th amendment (I know I know, there was already a solid pretext before he even got elected).

@1 This is an excellent point. I have been known to gripe about the whole Russia frenzy and the general cartoonishness of the debate on both sides of the political spectrum. What's worse than Trump's buffoonery is what he has actually gotten done. Wasn't him that did any of it but rather the Republican apparatchiks in his administration and Congress. Exploding the deficit with massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, accelerating environmental collapse with wild abandon, ramping up the police state on all fronts, sabotaging public education, stocking the courts with far right cretins etc etc. Of course just about any Republican administration would be doing all of these things.

Stephen Miller, is that you?

Reined in, not reigned in.

Glad he spoke up, albeit anonymously, but fuck this guy.

@5,

What about Rick Perry? Turns out the whole bumbling, incompetent imbecilic rube was all a brilliant covert action, meant to infiltrate the very highest levels of our country's apparatus for a greater good... Or Mike Pence? He's not actually a dim-witted and pathetic evangelical boob, but rather a leather wearing, drag-dressing, gay rights advocate who's just playing the long con before publicly outing himself and all the other closeted bigwigs.

I'm pretty sure it's one of them.

Fuck the NYT for publishing this anonymously. If they accepted the content on its face, the author is an accomplice to an anti-democratic coup, the preservation of whose career is worth dogshit compared to the preservation of the republic. Otherwise, this is is just a deceptive yarn meant to reassure Republicans that "Sure, Grandpa Trump can seem a little dotty at times, but don't worry, the grownups won't let him do too much damage." Neither possibility speaks well for the NYT, which has sold its credibility for clicks.

it's kellyanne. she's shrewd enough to have dropped the "lodestar" in there to take the scent off her trail. mike pence is undoubtedly one of those guys who has a go-to word that he has to cram in there, even when it isn't relevant. probably irritated her enough that she though "oh, this is too easy".

This whole thing is bullshit.

It's nothing more than republican propaganda, aimed at anti-trump republicans, to try to give them hope that "sane minds" have control.

Trump's racist hate-filled supporters will continue to support him and now anti-trump republicans can keep supporting the administration with the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" that trump isn't REALLY in control, it's the guys behind the curtain, so rest easy.

Fuck all that shit. Republicans are all self-serving, two-faced, lying sacks of shit. I don't believe any of this for one second.

The moral cowardice of the Right and the NYT on full display. Hey, as long as a few billionaires get their tax cuts who cares if a racist toddler disassembles what's left of democracy. Make sure the source stays anonymous because we wouldn't want to hurt the careers of or impede the agenda of a white supremacist apologist.

Stealing this from reddit but want more people to see it. credit /u/SkiesOfSamsara

Quote from article:
"To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful."

How dare you.

How fucking dare you.

If the president is as insane as you claim he is, the only possible remedy is to come out with it, say it publicly, and let our democracy decide what to do. Anything less than that is a coup (if one with a slightly different flavor than the one being carried out by Russia). If the 25th amdendment needs to be invoked, it is by your silence that the American people have been denied the chance to demand it.

You're not part of "The Resistance".

What you're part of is the greater effort by the GOP to take advantage of Putin's money and Donald Drumpf's criminal rise to power, for your personal gain.

What you're doing (as I suspect you damn well know) is helping the GOP ram a cruel agenda through our system, and rob the American people of their wealth, their representation, and their basic dignity for generations to come, while trying to pin the blame for it on Drumpf.

You do not get to unilaterally decide that it's your responsibility to be Secret President on behalf of this monster.

You do not get to use your position to live out this weird spy thriller novel that you've written yourself into, and tell me that I should be grateful for it.

You do not get to risk our lives, our values, our electoral integrity, hell, our national sovereignty, just so you can try to rehabilitate your terminally corrupt party.

Resign. Confess.

And never work in politics again.

Ok, here it is- my guess.
Now I know the linguistic people have focused on 'lodestar' and want to attribute it to Pence.
My experience from studying Shakespeare is that linguistic analysis people tend to get intoxicated with the trees and lose perspective on the nature of the forest.
So just from reading the tone and connecting the dots- Who has the arrogance? Who is aloof enough?
My guess is- Pompeo.
Yep.

Cui bono?
And what is the goal of writing & publishing this?
- Destroy the credibility of the NYT even further in the eyes of people who vote TRumpublican?
- "Prove" to those who already believe that the Emperor has no clothes? Or pacify them?
- A new media smokescreen for something horrible going on?

Are they trying to install Pence? Or is this some attempt to create a division between Mr. Invisible Pence and Trumpet?

All this is so fucked. i wish we could get back to our normal police state and empire machinations. I'm tired of being furious, and furious of being tired with this shit.

@17 - good guess!

My money is on Kelly; he already thinks his boss is an idiot, and his former military background would easily allow him to delude himself into thinking he's doing it "for the greater good", while actively denying the entirely self-serving venality at the heart of all this. He already sees himself as being somehow above the craven GOP functionaries running around pillaging our democracy like so much pirate's booty, and publishing an anonymous epistle to assure the lower ranks that "the adults are in charge" would be right up his rhetorical alley.

@10
Please explain to the class how invoking the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution can be considered a coup.

Seriously poor reporting. Seriously poor. Copy and paste someone else's words and call it an article? No wonder journalism is dead.

So when is Bob Woodward going to stick a fork in Mein Trumpfy's butt and call him DONE already? I'm ready for a repeat performance of August 9, 1974 when the Woodward / Bernstein team sent Tricky Dicky / Spiro Agnew spiraling down in flames. They can do the same for Team Mein Trumpfy / Mein Pencey ad nauseum. Where are Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman?

What the NYT anonymous op-ed alleges has happened does not comply with any of the processes specified in the 25th Amendment. These are unelected staffers conspiring to delegitimize the Executive branch of the Federal government. If they truly thought the President was unfit to carry out the duties of his office, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet could officially, openly declare so to the leaders of Congress. This has not happened.

Yes, well clearly we're still in the discovery phase, and if Agent Orange can tweet (i.e. lay out in public) his case, don't be surprised if someone on the opposing side takes their case into the court of public opinion, as well.

I found this discussion of the 25th Amendment to be reasonably useful:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-remove-an-unfit-president-with-the-25th-amendmen-1828859155

Chickenshitted of the NYT Op. Ed writer or not, I'd SO love to see journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post stick a fork in Mein TRumpfy's & Mein Pencey's asses--like they once did to Nixon and Agnew---and call their entire neofascist Kabinet full of Swamp Kritters DONE already.

@27 treacle: The 25th Amendment? Impeachment proceedings? We can only hope.
There is certainly more than sufficient incriminating evidence with which to proceed.

The op-ed only serves two purposes. As propaganda, it begs critics to STFU b/c, apparently, there are "adults" in the White House keeping a lid on how shitty the shittiness gets.

And it reveals a conspiracy within the WH to oppose the actual, legit, like-it-or-not government. How naive does one have to be to find that heartening?

Do "they" think we're that stupid? Are we actually that stupid?