Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reasonable Republicans know that the country is about to shift to a hard core brand of liberalism and that Trump will be a one termer. They have to plan for their future jobs and the like in a radically transformed political environment.

No reasonable person expects that. Anyone calling non-wingnuts hardcore or extreme liberals has never lived in the ‘60s or ‘70s. Or the Eisenhower years.

There was still a robust middle class back then, and some semblance of a meritocracy. The world has changed dramatically since then.

Did the person take the position within the administration with the intention of thwarting the duly elected President’s agenda?

The collateral damage of this reckless course of action would be the American electorate. I am glad that will never happen.

I could be wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elaine Chao

Nope. I think her husband is the reason the cabinet hasn’t invoked the 25th Amendment—not enough votes in the Senate. That’s the reason for this op-ed. Unless they have McConnell on board, they can’t successfully remove Trump.

The piece says they decided against it. Both Chao and McConnel were at McCain’s funeral. She’s no dummy, and they are total insiders who would be privy to these anecdotes. They also have nothing to lose.

It would pass if McConnell agreed to bring it to a vote. All or most of the Dems plus a handful of Republicans. Certainly Corker, Sasse, and Flake would vote with Dems. It’s McConnell who’s blocking it, probably until Kavanaough is confirmed.

Anonymous wrote:Kellyanne is not a possibility. Yes, she wants a job after Trump is out. BUT, keep in mind that her greatest professional accomplishment has been...getting Trump elected. She is not a policy person. She is a pollster. And, whether you like it or not, she dragged him across the finish line. So, she has not credibility because she is the one who put him there. It has to be someone who joined the administration, not created it. She'll have her job after she leaves, because Trump in office is the greatest publicity she's ever gotten. Doesn't matter if he ends up imploding or not.

I don't like her but I've often thought she's quite smart. And her DH is vocally anti DJT. I could see the two of them collaborating to write this. Not to be "patronizing" to Kelly Anne as another poster wrote. But does anyone think the author didn't have someone looking at this, proofing it, giving feedback? And who would you trust more than your spouse?

My guess is that it's Kellyanne Conway. First of all, it has to be someone fairly high level. NYT would never have run this for anyone except Cabinet level or someone with direct access to the President. Second, what were they hoping to accomplish with this op-ed? If it was to make Trump more paranoid and more crazy and more determined, then they have succeeded.

But I don't think Kelly or Mattis or Pompeo or any of those men would have done this, simply because they would know that this op-ed would throw the WH into chaos. Same for Haley and Chao and Perdue. If this person truly has the Trump Administration's best interests at heart and is working behind the scenes to subvert Trump's worst instincts, this is the exact opposite thing they would have done.

Given her husband's opposition to Trump, and her stunningly amoral ability to deceive and trick, I'm putting my chips on Kellyanne.

Furthermore, could Trump be a worse judge of character? And have a worse character himself?? I'm fine with the people who voted for Trump in the general election because I understand they had to choose between choices they saw as bad and awful. But those who chose him out of a crowd of 11 in the primaries? They have no character either.

Anonymous wrote:This will hurt Trump's support among the deplorables.

Part of Trump's appeal is his authoritative "strongman" image. The idea that his underlings are basically ignoring his commands and keeping him in his own private playpen undermines this.

You are assuming most will even read or know about the op ed.

Kellyanne is not a possibility. Yes, she wants a job after Trump is out. BUT, keep in mind that her greatest professional accomplishment has been...getting Trump elected. She is not a policy person. She is a pollster. And, whether you like it or not, she dragged him across the finish line. So, she has not credibility because she is the one who put him there. It has to be someone who joined the administration, not created it. She'll have her job after she leaves, because Trump in office is the greatest publicity she's ever gotten. Doesn't matter if he ends up imploding or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's just a complicit rat jumping off the sinking Trump ship (while keeping his paycheck).

After the hype dies down (24hrs to Sunday shows at the latest) it'll leak that's it's some obscure nobody. Yawn.

Trump only hires the best people to leak and rat him out and then abandon their job.

"I love leaks!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am terrified that this is going to cause him to order something galactically stupid and refuse to be talked out of it just to spite the people around him that the op-ed writer claims have been working to rein him in. "I'll show you!" or something like that. He's dangerously paranoid, narcissistic, and idiotic and the walls are closing in on him. If I wake up tomorrow to see that he's ordered the Air Force to carpet bomb Frankfurt, I won't be surprised.

I agree. But I think the military has enough good people who will prevent that from happening.

So... a coup?

How would the military know who to take orders from?

This concerns me. It reminds me of this West Wing episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=315&v=CQoGfOBTx6E

I want Trump gone. But a situation where we have a president in office, but his senior officials are doing their best to keep him from having any effect, doesn't sound the tiniest bit safe to me. If they think he is incompetent they need to do everything they can to get him removed from office.

The Constitutional crisis exists right now.

But are they trying to keep him from having "any" effect or just trying to keep him from making huge, dangerous mistakes?

Anonymous wrote:Sessions?

I wondered this too. Sessions must be bright and can have no love for the boss who keeps picking on him. Yet Sessions doesn't leave.

Anonymous wrote:Do not think it is Haley.

It was all over the news tonight (YES, MSNBC, CNN) that the Times would NOT have run with this if the source were not very, very, very high up. This is unprecedented.

I think someone is setting Pence up with "Lodestar" - certainly he could not be THAT dumb to use his go-to coin word?

Also, everyone is accusing "him" . . . could it be . . . a "SHE?"

BETSY DEVOS???? NO WAY. Not smart enough to pen that.

To be fair I skipped a bunch of pages in the middle of this thread so I probably missed a bunch. But to the PP who guessed Mnuchin? I think not.

My guesses? Louise Linton OR Melania with help of a translator.

God Bless America.

I like Melania but do you really think she's smart enough to write something like this?

If all of these stories are true (and I believe they probably are, there's too much consistency), then the GOP needs to act. They need to step up and govern. If he's incompetent and can't do his job, then he needs to go. We aren't talking about him running a company into the ground, we are talking about a country.

If the President wants to fix this mess, his first step should be to stop tweeting and start acting like a President. He should hire qualified people to work in the White House. And stop golfing. Make some sacrifices to run the country and show you care.

Anonymous wrote:Reasonable Republicans know that the country is about to shift to a hard core brand of liberalism and that Trump will be a one termer. They have to plan for their future jobs and the like in a radically transformed political environment.

No reasonable person expects that. Anyone calling non-wingnuts hardcore or extreme liberals has never lived in the ‘60s or ‘70s. Or the Eisenhower years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My money would be on George Conway except that he's not employed at the White House. Is it too much to expect that SHS has suddenly discovered a conscience?

Maybe it's technically Kelly Anne but her DH helped her write it.

That’s patronizing.

No. She is incapable of writing such a thing. She just spews nonsense. Her husband is very bright. I could see him doing this and getting her to pass it off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a popular tweet by Dan Bloom who is advocating that it is Mike Pence due to language(use of lodestar, which is unusual); mentions senate ties, etc. check it out. I will try to post part here. His username is danbl00m

honestly I cannot square pence's sycophantic behavior toward trump with writing this.

Pence MUST hate DJT however. Pence is very moral majority and obvs the President's personal behavior must be extremely offensive to him.