Much like the Trump White House the RNC is shedding staff at an amazing rate as well.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Sara Armstrong, the top staffer at the Republican National Committee, is departing, according to three people familiar with the move — the latest in a string of exits from the committee. 

Armstrong, the RNC's chief of staff, is exiting to take a senior-level job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She had been serving in the chief of staff role since early this year after helping to oversee President Donald Trump's inauguration planning.

Armstrong is the sixth staffer to leave the RNC in just over a month. That includes a handful of aides in the committee’s data department who left recently amid a change in departmental leadership. The wave of departures, coming less than a year after the 2016 election, has surprised the tight-knit world of Republican operatives.

This of course reflects a similar situation as the White House which is losing staff, even high level staff, almost daily it seems.

Is there a connection?

Hells yeah there's a connection.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

Interviews with a dozen Republican operatives and activists around the country revealed genuine frustration—and for some, disgust—over Trump’s repeated suggestions that there is an equivalence between the neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and white supremacists who marched in Virginia this weekend, and those who turned out to protest them, even as a woman died after a white supremacist rammed a car into a group of the counter-protesters. 

“He is destroying the GOP one day at a time, one reckless statement and action at a time,” said Sally Bradshaw, a longtime adviser to Jeb Bush who co-authored the “autopsy” report and went on to leave the party over Trump. “Why would anyone consider supporting a political party when the leader of the party is anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and anti-black? He makes me sick.”

In the past the GOP would trot out the image of Ronald Reagan as the party's standard bearer, but the election of Donald Trump changed all of that and now they are forever tied to  a pussy grabbing, incompetent, racist, Nazi sympathizer.

And trust me Donald Trump will feature prominently in ads touting Democratic candidates for decades to come.

That is a party I would run screaming in the streets from as well.

Reince Priebus is toast!

Courtesy of Politico:  

Reince Priebus, is out as White House chief of staff, and President Donald Trump announced on Twitter on Friday that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will replace him. 

A senior White House official said Priebus had resigned on Thursday. 

"I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration," Trump wrote. 

He added, "I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!" 

Priebus' resignation follows a sustained attack campaign from new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who went on an expletive laden rant against Priebus to the New Yorker earlier this week, calling the chief of staff a “f------ paranoid schizophrenic” and accusing him of trying to “c--- block” him and keep him out of the West Wing. Scaramucci had also accused Priebus of leaking to try to undermine him. 

So I guess the Mooch stays and Priebus gets the bum's rush.

Let's face it Scaramucci is Trump's kind of people.

Brash, loud, vulgar, and completely full of shit.

By the way I seriously doubt that the source of the White House leaks leads to Priebus.

I have a feeling that somebody dodged a bullet and is laughing their ass off behind the scenes.

Let's see, since taking office Trump has fired White House usher Angella Reid, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, US Attorney Preet Bharara, FBI Director James Comey, Chris Christie (According to some), former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was allowed to resign to avoid the shame of being fired, Sean Spicer up and quit, and now Reince Priebus gets the boot.

For somebody who claims he hires "the best people" he certainly goes through them in a hurry.

Spicey is snatching the phones of White House staff in order to find leakers. Can you say "paranoia?"

Courtesy of Politico:  

Last week, after Spicer became aware that information had leaked out of a planning meeting with about a dozen of his communications staffers, he reconvened the group in his office to express his frustration over the number of private conversations and meetings that were showing up in unflattering news stories, according to sources in the room. 

Upon entering Spicer’s second floor office, staffers were told to dump their phones on a table for a “phone check," to prove they had nothing to hide.

Spicer, who consulted with White House counsel Don McGahn before calling the meeting, was accompanied by White House lawyers in the room, according to multiple sources. There, he explicitly warned staffers that using texting apps like Confide -- an encrypted and screenshot-protected messaging app that automatically deletes texts after they are sent -- and Signal, another encrypted messaging system, was a violation of the Federal Records Act, according to multiple sources in the room. 

The phone checks included whatever electronics staffers were carrying when they were summoned to the unexpected follow-up meeting, including government-issued and personal cell phones.

My favorite part of this story is that it ALSO leaked out, which means that Spicey is going to lose his shit that his attempts to stop leaks was also leaked to the press.

This is really starting to feel like Hitler's final days in the bunker.

They know the end is coming and they have already started to suspect and distrust those around them.

Someday all of this is going to make a great book.

Though they will probably put it in the Fiction section since nobody will believe it could have really happened this way.

Former Trump campaign staffers explain how to control the giant orange baby.

Courtesy of Politico:  

President Donald Trump’s former campaign staffers claim they cracked the code for tamping down his most inflammatory tweets, and they say the current West Wing staff would do well to take note. 

The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk.

"If candidate Trump was upset about unfair coverage, it was productive to show him that he was getting fair coverage from outlets that were persuadable," said former communications director Sam Nunberg. "The same media that our base digests and prefers is going to be the base for his support. I would assume the president would like to see positive and preferential treatment from those outlets and that would help the operation overall."

So apparently their methodology was to treat Donald Trump like a bratty, tantrum throwing child, by only saying nice things to him to keep him calm and deflecting negative information that might cause him to act out.

That is not only a terrible way to support the most powerful man in the world, that is extremely poor parenting.

If Trump's handlers want him to rise the responsibilities of the job that the Russians gave him they need to use a little tough love.

Definitely tell him the bad news, ALL of the bad news, and then tell him how much worse that news could get if he goes off on a Twitter tirade.

The president HAS to know the real dangers facing the country, also how complicated the solutions will be.

Keeping this man in a bubble to protect his ego and control his impulses is not going to, in any way, help the American people.

I once again have to take a moment to wonder just how in the hell people in this country could have voted to put somebody this incredibly unfit, unpredictable, and potentially volatile in the most important job on the planet.

It literally boggles the mind.

The New York Times records the final, frantic, days of the Donald Trump campaign.

Here are a few of the highlights from the New York Times piece.

Trump's state of mind:

He requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track. “Look at that crowd!” he exclaimed a few days ago as he flew across Florida, turning to his young press secretary as a TV tuned to Fox News showed images of what he claimed were thousands of people waiting for him on the ground below. 

And he is struggling to suppress his bottomless need for attention.

.....

In the final days of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump’s candidacy is a jarring split screen: the choreographed show of calm and confidence orchestrated by his staff, and the neediness and vulnerability of a once-boastful candidate now uncertain of victory. 

On the surface, there is the semblance of stability that is robbing Hillary Clinton of her most potent weapon: Mr. Trump’s self-sabotaging eruptions, which have repeatedly undermined his candidacy. Underneath that veneer, turbulence still reigns, making it difficult for him to overcome all of the obstacles blocking his path to the White House.

On how his staff is controlling him:

Aides to Mr. Trump have finally wrested away the Twitter account that he used to colorfully — and often counterproductively — savage his rivals.

....

Taking away Twitter turned out to be an essential move by his press team, which deprived him of a previously unfiltered channel for his aggressions. 

On Thursday, as his plane idled on the tarmac in Miami, Mr. Trump spotted Air Force One outside his window. As he glowered at the larger plane, he told Ms. Hicks, his spokeswoman, to jot down a proposed tweet about President Obama, who was campaigning nearby for Mrs. Clinton. 

“Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs and fixing Obamacare?” Mr. Trump said. “Get back to work.” After some light editing — Ms. Hicks added “for the American people” at the end — she published it.

The article is filled with references to staff walking on eggshells around the famously brittle candidate, and doing their best to reshape bad news into more palatable positive information to keep him firmly in a state of denial.

They are essentially creating a fact free bubble within which Trump can remain calm, blissfully unaware of the damage that has been done to his campaign and the fact that any chance of victory is all a mirage.

Back on his plane, heading into the campaign’s final weekend, Mr. Trump reclined in his leather chair and refused to entertain any suggestions that his unorthodox, unpredictable and now uncertain campaign for the presidency would end in defeat. 

“I’m going to win,” he said.

 I think the day after this election Donald Trump's response is going to be reminiscent of a toddler who has just been told there is no more chocolate ice cream for dessert.

The only difference is that a toddler does not have millions of unstable supporters ready to take to the streets in protest, and with thoughts of civil war bubbling in their pea sized brains.

As always I urge you to read the entire article as it is a fascinating look into a megalomaniac's rapidly deteriorating political ambitions and the efforts that his sycophants are undertaking to keep him tranquil (Well as tranquil as Donald Trump ever gets.) and under control until election day.

So let's clear up a few things up.

First off Hillary Clinton did not get sick in a vacuum.

Courtesy of People: 

The illness that sickened Hillary Clinton with pneumonia and caused her to have to be escorted away from September 11 ceremonies in New York on Sunday also struck down several members of her campaign team at Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, PEOPLE has learned. 

 "Everyone's been sick," a campaign source tells PEOPLE. 

At the end of August, two weeks before Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia, a debilitating bug was making the rounds among staff at her headquarters and campaign aides who travel with Clinton, a source tells PEOPLE. 

Secondly Hillary is not the first presidential candidate to campaign with pneumonia.

Courtesy of Garnet News:  

Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate to experience this illness. In 2004 John Kerry also developed “walking pneumonia.” 

From an email he wrote to the New York Times in 2008, “I remember on the bus in Iowa, my staff thought I’d broken a rib from coughing because my walking pneumonia was so bad.”

Do you remember how the press freaked out about Kerry's illness, and claimed that campaign was over and he needed to be replaced at the top of the ticket?

No you don't. And that it because John Kerry was a man, and Hillary is held to a completely different and unfair standard.

You can deny it if you want, but the evidence is overwhelming.

And speaking of different standards: 

For 18 months, Republican strategists, political pundits, reporters and Americans who follow them have been pursuing Hillary Clinton’s personal email habits, and no evidence of a crime has been found. But now they at least have the skills and interest to focus on a much larger and deeper email conspiracy, one involving war, lies, a private server run by the Republican Party and contempt of Congress citations—all of it still unsolved and unpunished. 

Clinton’s email habits look positively transparent when compared with the subpoena-dodging, email-hiding, private-server-using George W. Bush administration. Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House “lost” 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America’s recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons. 

Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails.

So was the Bush administration the focus of numerous Congressional investigations,  culminating with the former president being called to testify as to why he and his staff destroyed evidence and defied the law?

No.

Why not?

Because they are Republicans and fuck you, that's why not!

Remember Republicans do not believe in accountability unless it has to do with the Democrats. And that goes triple if their first name is "Hillary."

Breitbart news is losing staff faster than Sarah Palin loses brain cells.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

A spokesman for the conservative outlet Breitbart has stepped down, citing the website's treatment of a reporter who said she was manhandled by Donald Trump’s campaign manager. 

“When you reach a point where you can’t give 100 percent to people you represent it’s not tenable to continue representing them,” Kurt Bardella tweeted Friday. 

He told CNN that Breitbart hadn’t adequately supported Michelle Fields, a Breitbart reporter who said her arm was yanked by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as she was trying to ask Trump a question Tuesday.

And that is not all, no that is not all.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields and editor-at-large Ben Shapiro are resigning from the company over the site’s handling of Donald Trump’s campaign manager’s alleged assault on Fields, BuzzFeed News has learned. 

Fields and Shapiro informed Breitbart News chair Steve Bannon of their decision Sunday night. 

“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,” Fields said in a statement sent to BuzzFeed News. “I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.”

I REALLY want to feel sorry for these people, but they accepted jobs with Breitbart news, so I just can't.

However I do find it interesting that the violence at Trump rallies has now spilled over into the conservative news media.

Of course it was only a woman who was manhandled so I imagine that most of the conservative news outlets will find it hard to take too terribly serious.

By the way I hate to kick a Breitbart when it's down (I'm lying, I'd love to do that.), but I would just like to point out to the website that once called IM "defunct" that I have not lost one singe staff member since the founding of this blog over eleven years ago.

Well sure I don't actually have any paid staff members, but if I did you can bet they would love their job and have great admiration for, and probably a mild crush on, their boss.

Image of the day.

Actually I think this is an older picture, but I thought I would share it because I like to remind people that sometimes the President is just a regular goofy guy like the rest of us.

Sarah Palin is under attack, quick somebody see if there is anybody still willing to defend her. Really, JUST them?

So you knew it was coming, and of course it did.

After yesterday's post by a former Palin-bot expressing her disappointment in her idol for not hobnobbing with her fellow conservatives, it was really only a matter of time before Palin's few remaining supporters, and in this case actually people she pays to defend her, would speak out.

And where is one of the few places left that will provide a platform for the disgraced and no longer relevant Grizzly Mama's defenders to stomp their feet and yell "No fair, no fair, no fair?"

Well Breitbart.com of course:  

Doug McMarlin, who has been with Palin since 2008 and was with her at this year's CPAC, was also perplexed by Hughes's characterization of the event. Palin met with volunteers, supporters and CPAC leadership at this year's event. Palin keynoted last year's CPAC and was the conference's last speaker, which allowed for her to mix with the audience following her speech. 

This year, her slot fell on a Saturday afternoon, which meant there were scheduled speakers immediately after her remarks. It would not have been logistically possible for Palin to even greet the crowd or do talk radio hits from CPAC without causing a huge disturbance due to the crowds that would have swarmed her and disrupted the conference. 

(Well of course! That makes sense, she is SO incredibly popular that her appearance would have caused a stampede of personal scooters and walkers, and would have distracted from the other speakers. Why didn't WE think of that?)

"Never underestimate the level the uninformed with a keyboard will go to make a point based on a lack of information," McMarlin told Breitbart News. "Lamestream, mainstream, and no stream media, it's unfortunate when those who lack facts lash out without regard. Governor Palin, as always, was with volunteers, supporters and fellow conservatives throughout her days at CPAC." 

And joining McMarlin in his paid for umbrage, was fellow Plain staffer Jason Recher.

Jason Recher, a Palin staffer who has been with Palin at nearly every event since 2008, told Breitbart News Palin never asks for a teleprompter. In fact, reporters have often said Palin improvises during her speeches, which forces reporters to pay attention to every word in order to quote her accurately. 

"I've been at almost every speech she's given since '08 and can't think of a time where she ever asked to use a Teleprompter," Recher told Breitbart News. The teleprompters at CPAC were part of the stage set up used for all the speakers; it was not something Palin personally requested. 

Of course that flies right in the face of eyewitness accounts that claim that teleprompters were put in place SPECIFICALLY for Palin:

Yes, just before she was to take her turn with the talky-hatey thing, something very odd happened, for the first time all day. The stage crew appeared and set up … teleprompters. NO ONE had used them up to this point, they weren’t even on or near the stage for anyone else at all. Not even Michele “one L, two crazy eyes” Bachmann had used a teleprompter til then, but Sarah had to have them, because her speech was too long to have written on her hands. Talk about your choots-pah! 

And this eyewitness even provided photographic evidence.

God Palin-bots must HATE photographic evidence!

But Recher was not alone (Well almost, but not quite.) in his paid defense of Snowdrift Snooki.

Bring forth the RAM!

Hughes, with no evidence whatsoever, alleges Palin made a "rush to the exits" at this year's CPAC, implying Palin did not have time for the grassroots. 

Again, not true. 

As the photos below indicate, Palin spent time after the speech meeting with volunteers. 

In addition, Rebecca Mansour, a Palin staffer, told Breitbart News that Palin had to catch a flight immediately after her speech. "She is a very busy working mom with many family and work obligations, including raising a son with Down syndrome who has scheduled therapies," Mansour said. (Yeah, like Palin takes Trig to any of his appointments. I doubt she even knows when they are, or what they are for.)


Well gee, of course she talked to a few people standing around that would not leave her alone until she posed for a picture and pretended to give a shit about them. What do we think she is, a nasty bitch who is so incredibly insensitive that she abandoned her family, almost allowed her fellow Alaskans to die in the cold, and now ONLY makes appearances for money?

Oh we do? Well then explain these clearly not taken with people who volunteer to keep her name in the media or who paid to see her at the convention pictures! Smart ass!

Palin with volunteers from Organize4Palin and C4P.

CPAC attendees that stopped her in the hallway.

Organize4Palin coordinator and the guy she pays to carry her purse.

See? She was TOTALLY talking to the little people who are still ignorant enough to think she is special and are willing to volunteer their time on her behalf or who bumped into as she made a hasty retreat.

Stupid Teabagger ex-Palin-bot stinky head!

What's worse than receiving a check after working for a campaign that bounces? Receiving a check with a condom that bounces, and being told you're screwed.

Courtesy of Freak Out Nation:

Well this sucks for Linda McMahon’s staffers. McMahon’s U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut told WTNH-TV they were not paid after Election Day. After they received bounced checks, McMahon’s people stated that new checks would be mailed out (wink wink), but Twaine Don Gomes was punished for speaking to the press. Apparently, no one should know about McMahon’s cheap ass — who is only cheap with those working for her. McMahon spent $100 million on two failed campaigns for Senate. 

Twaine Don Gomes was one of the people who first complained to News 8. While being handed a check, he states that the campaign told him they were mad that he reported the bounced checks, so he got a little something extra in his envelope, in the form of a condom, then promptly told him that he was screwed. Say what? OK, and to top this off, the ‘screwed’ staffers were part-timers who cashed their checks at M&M Check Cashing Company — meaning, they were low paid staffers who didn’t even have bank accounts, but they were generously afforded a big fuck you from the millionaire wrestling magnate. 

Courtesy of Political Carnival

“Basically he handed me a check with a condom in it, told me I was screwed,” Gomes said. “That’s the rudest gesture you can ever do to a person, it’s like spitting in a person’s face.

By the way, the check that Gomes received ALSO bounced, so he was indeed "screwed."

Classy.

But hey what does one expect when they work for a politician who made her millions by greasing up steroid infused morons and having them fake fight in a giant ring in front of idiots?

Though to be fair, this type of attitude is not completely unknown within the Republican party. As you may remember even the GOP presidential candidate himself cancelled staff credit cards only minutes after HE lost.

Oh those fiscal conservatives, they certainly know how to save a buck don't they? Of course it is by screwing over the little people, but isn't THAT the Republican way?

President Obama becomes emotional thanking his campaign staff. "I'm really proud of all of you."

Such a great man, and we are SO lucky to have him.

Bush tells ex-staff member to ignore subpoena.

The Bush administration is urging a former White House political director to ignore a subpoena and not testify before Congress about the firings of federal prosecutors, her lawyer says.

The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to hear from Sara Taylor at its hearing Wednesday and she is willing to talk. Testifying, however, would defy the wishes of the president, “a person whom she admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years,” lawyer W. Neil Eggleston said.

You know it is almost fascinating to watch a man who built his political career on bringing criminals to justice, do a complete reversal when the crimes are being committed by him or his people.

While Bush was governor of Texas he allowed 138 executions. He ran for President on the promise of bringing integrity back to the White House. And he was so angry at the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 that he vowed to "bring them to justice".

But his idea of justice turned out to involve starting an illegal war, and then sending enemy combatants to illegal detention centers, or using "extraordinary rendition" in which we have other countries hold our enemies so that they can torture them while giving us deniability.

Then he uses our fear to push laws through Congress to take away our freedoms, spies on our citizens, and uses his ability to choose Supreme Court Justices to try and repeal every law that he finds to progressive.

And now he is just refusing to allow his ex-staff to serve the sentence that a jury of their peers gave them or answer a subpoena from the Congress of the United States, whose constitution he pledged to uphold.

Every time I see another example of the hypocrisy of George Bush I have to wonder how any of his supporters can still show their face in public much less continue to defend his actions.