#tired of the mitch slander

[mmmitchmmmarner]

the mitch marner situation

i know that this fanbase is a lot. but this feels excessive even for us. the leafs are doing bad right now, they are capable of better and it’s frustrating. i want the best for them and it sucks to see them struggle like this. but everyone needs to slow down.

on the benching: mitch should have been benched. he was having a rough game, he was clearly frustrated, it was affecting his game and he needed to sit out. fine. thats not what you want from a star player, but at the end of the day he’s still human. i don’t think he needs to be traded, the fuck? players make bad plays and have bad games and have rough patches, but mitch is one of the best players in the league, who are you going to trade him for? for the people coming for mitch, auston also made some horrible plays in that game, are you gonna trade him? 

on the tunnel tantrum: i would love it if all of these players could always channel their negative emotions into their play to help them play a more aggressive, passionate game. but that’s not how this works. they’re not machines, they’re not characters or puppets. mitch is not a puppet. players get mad and smash their sticks all the time, its really not that big of a deal. it was a weird choice to go down the tunnel to do it, bit it’s not that hard to figure out why he might want to have a moment away from the cameras, especially seeing everyone’s reactions right now. dude can’t even vent without everyone coming for his throat. the toronto media is brutal, and we all know it, of course he just wanted a moment to himself. this is all so blown out of proportion.

the media comments from like two weeks ago that are still coming up for some reason: coaches. apologizing. to. their. players. is. good. actually. it doesn’t make keefe a weak coach, it doesn’t make the star players (read: mitch) soft. i don’t care how true it is, he shouldn’t have said that to the media. he can say it in meetings, with the team, to the players, but that doesn’t need to leave those rooms. keefe said something mean about his players to the media on a night where everyone was clearly frustrated. we don’t know exactly what happened, but he says that he chose to apologize and i’m choosing to believe him. there wasn’t a reason for him to address it again if he didn’t want to. he wanted to set the record straight with his players that this wasn’t something he should have said to the media. so why is it mitch specifically? he’s a face of the franchise, but he’s not their star and he’s not their captain, so why do the media turn to him specifically after keefe publicly chastised the star players? these questions need to be taken into consideration when looking at the narratives that the media spin about mitch, there is a heavy bias against him already, so whatever comes out needs to be taken with a grain of salt. the fanbase needs to stop paying so much attention to the media, they need to slow down and really think. We as fans, get such a small look into what is going on behind the scenes and one of our only widows in is a media group that we ourselves acknowledge is awful.

in conclusion, fucking chill.

[thisdaynews]

Why Pelosi is so good at infuriating Trump

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/why-pelosi-is-so-good-at-infuriating-trump/

Why Pelosi is so good at infuriating Trump

The confrontations between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are getting to be recurring spectacles. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images

congress

The speaker stands firm against the president like few others.

Something about Nancy Pelosi just gets under Donald Trump’s skin.

On Wednesday, for the third time in barely six months, a meeting between the president, the speaker and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blew up in spectacular fashion.

Story Continued Below

And in each case, Trump handed Pelosi a huge gift, a priceless moment that helped unify the Democratic Caucus behind her at a crucial time.

“She’s smarter than him, and she’s tougher than him, and I think that bothers him,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a Pelosi ally. “It’s hard to get inside that head of his and figure out what drives him, other than an oversized ego and an undersized sense of ethics.”

Trump doesn’t have a condescending nickname for the speaker as he does for other Democrats. He even appears to have a grudging respect for Pelosi, the first woman to serve as House speaker. He treats her as a peer who commands her chamber with a firm hand, and he knows she can deliver on votes, and that she is willing to call any bluff at any time.

The latest episode of “Trump vs. Pelosi” featured Trump storming out of a planned White House meeting with Pelosi, Schumer and other top Democrats over a proposed $2 trillion infrastructure package.

It was just the type of explosion that allows Democrats to portray the president as unreliable, tempestuous and impossible to negotiate with. And Trump’s refusal to cut any deals with Democrats while they engage in oversight — something every president has to live with — backs up what Democrats have said since the 2016 campaign: Trump is only out for Trump, not the American public.

“Guess what? He behaves like a child. This is what we have in the White House now,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who served under Pelosi in the House. “I’m used to it. I’m not expecting a grown-up any longer. I’m not expecting him to grow into the role.”

And for Pelosi, the timing is perfect. As the drumbeat for impeachment grows within her caucus, she can argue that what they’re doing is already working. Trump clearly doesn’t know how to respond to the barrage of Democratic investigations; they’re winning in the courts and he’s throwing fits. So why bother with impeachment, especially when Democrats know that a GOP-run Senate isn’t going to remove him from office?

Meanwhile, the Trump-Pelosi confrontations are getting to be recurring spectacles, and even Republicans know it hurts the president’s image.

“It’s a disaster,” said a senior Republican who requested anonymity. “It plays right into her hands.”

Last December, Trump clashed with Schumer and Pelosi over his border wall in front of TV cameras. Then during talks to end the ensuing government shutdown in January, Trump slammed his hand on the table and walked out when Pelosi refused to yield on funding for the wall.

“It seems like anytime she strikes a nerve… he freaks out,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). “I think he realizes the walls are closing in on him.”

Wednesday’s blow-up also has very real implications for the president’s near-term agenda.

Democrats and Republicans were nearing a two-year budget deal with the White House; Pelosi and Schumer had been in general agreement with Trump on the need to do infrastructure; and the president was beginning an urgent campaign to get his new trade agreement through Congress. All these efforts could be stalled if Trump follows through on his threat to refuse any deal-making — which would onlydamage the president’s reelection campaign.

Still, the collapse of yet another infrastructure week wasn’t a complete surprise.

It was clear by Tuesday night that Trump was having second thoughts about the gathering, which grew out of a surprisingly cordial White House meeting several weeks ago in which the president rebuffed some of his own advisers to set a massive, $2 trillion goal with Democrats.

Trump warned in a letter that night that he would do an infrastructure deal only if Congress first passed the new North American free trade agreement he negotiated with Mexico and Canada. Pelosi and other Democrats have serious concerns about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, so they were already wary about a potential Trump ambush as they headed to the White House on Wednesday.

Republicans, who were excluded from the infrastructure talks, have been playing down Trump and Democratic leaders’ bipartisan aspirations for weeks.

“Meetings that don’t include the leadership of both parties are unlikely to go anywhere but take a negative turn,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

But what actually set off Trump on Wednesday was a comment from Pelosi earlier in the day. Coming out of a closed-door session with fellow Democrats in which she argued against beginning an impeachment inquiry against Trump, Pelosi said the president “is engaged in a cover-up” of improper behavior.

That was all the president needed to torpedo the Cabinet Room session. An angry Trump accused Pelosi of saying “horrible, horrible things” and being “disrespectful,” then stormed out of the room for a Rose Garden news conference.

“It is the nature of this president’s temperament to blow up with frequency. And perhaps Nancy and Chuck are catalysts of that from time to time,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was present for Wednesday’s drama.

After Trump said hewouldn’t discuss infrastructure or any other legislative priorities until the investigations ended, the meeting ended with a pointed exchange between Pelosi and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Conway asked the speaker to respond to Trump, who had already left the room.

“I’m responding to the president, not staff,” Pelosi said.

Conway countered sarcastically: “That’s really pro-woman of you.”

Out in the Rose Garden, Trump railed against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, then took a shot at Pelosi. “This whole thing was a take-down attempt of the president of the United States,” Trump declared.

“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump added.

Pelosi punched back when she returned to Capitol Hill, saying she prays for Trump and the entire country.

“For some reason, maybe it was lack of confidence on his part that he couldn’t match the greatness of the challenge we have… he just took a pass,” Pelosi said at a news conference.

Trump’s Republican allies, meanwhile, quickly fell in line behind the president, at least publicly, in the latest sign that Pelosi’s probes have zero support on the other side of the Capitol.

“Ridiculous. To accuse the president of the United States of a cover-up is absolutely inappropriate,” said Sen. David Perdue of Georgia.

“The president’s just tired of getting verbally assaulted every day. … To have her continue that kind of slander is probably hard to take,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

Pelosi, though, knows that Trump can rail against her on TV and Twitter, but he still needs her to do anything important, including keeping the federal government open or raising the nation’s debt limit.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged a speedy conclusion to budget negotiations, perhaps in an acknowledgment of how critical it was to seize the bipartisan moment given the up-and-down nature of Trump’s relationship with Democrats.

Now some on Capitol Hill worry that the president will disengage from spending negotiations, too, since House Democrats have no intention of breaking off their investigations.

“Whether he likes it or not, sequestration is coming roaring back. We have a debt ceiling we’ve got to raise. And we have a budget deal we’ve got to reach. Or we face a real risk,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) “Robust congressional oversight is part of the structure and history of our country. And he’s going to have to answer some questions.”

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

Read More

[oldguardaudio]

Rush Limbaugh on the Mitch Slap of Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren

rush-limbaugh @ Old Guard Audio

Pocahontas​ Elizabeth​ Warren HoaxandChange.com

Feb 8, 2017

  RUSH: Okay, Elizabeth Warren blew up on the floor of the Senate last night, and Mitch McConnell Mitch-slapped her with Rule 19, Senate Rule number 19, and everybody’s saying that Mitch blew it. That by invoking Rule 19 and shutting her down because she was personally insulting Jeff Sessions about things they had already vetted and discussed on a committee hearing on Sessions, shut her down, and that’s turned her into a 24-hour news story and news focus.

But I don’t think that’s why — I don’t think they invoked Rule 19 to shut her down here. It’s the effect of it, but I think it’s got ramifications down the road on confirmation for Gorsuch and other — all of which I’m gonna explain as the program unfolds. But, folks, while all this is going on, and Fauxcahontas Warren is all over leftist media, she’s receiving accolades and cheers and attaboys and attagirls and, “You keep it up, Liz, you keep it up.” And she’s livid and she’s fit to be tied.

And in the midst of all this, she thought it necessary to send me a message. In the midst of all this anger, who is on her mind? None other than your beloved host, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing Maha Rushie. It happened this morning on The View, and this is just one of the many stops that Fauxcahontas has made since having been made famous as a screeching ranter last night on the floor of the Senate. Here is what happened.

BEHAR: Rush Limbaugh has famously said (paraphrasing), “Oh, all this marching and protesting, they’re all gonna get tired of it.” Do you think we’re gonna get tired?

WARREN: No, Rush, we are not gonna get tired. We are here to stay.

BEHAR: I know you’ll never get tired.

RUSH: Not only are you gonna get tired of it, it’s gonna rebound negatively on all of you. You people are digging your grave even deeper with all of this. You just don’t know it. They really don’t. This stuff is not gonna stop Trump. It is not going to stop the Republicans. It is not going to reverse the outcome of the election, and it’s not gonna set them up for better improvements in 2018 or 2020, because they still have no message behind all this other than they’re a bunch of spoiled brats who simply are a bunch of authoritarians who can’t handle losing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Fauxcahontas. By the way, you may wonder why the name “Fauxcahontas.” Elizabeth Warren is as white as the fence behind your house. She wanted to get into Harvard. She wanted to become a teacher. And Harvard, being politically correct and an institution that bows to the religion of affirmative action, said, “No, no, no, no. We’re only accepting people of color.” So she went out and had some so-called official blood test done and found that she was one-tenth of 1% Indian blood, that somewhere back in her family’s lineage there had been an Indian, a Native American.

And Harvard said, “Oh, well, fine.” She said her high cheekbones were the genealogical evidence, the physiological evidence that she has Indian blood, is her high cheekbones. And the left said, “This is great! This is absolutely wonderful! That’s a brilliant move, Fauxcahontas!” We call her Fauxcahontas ’cause she’s a fake Indian. There’s no question it’s all just manufactured. So she’s now a senator, and you should also know that her approval numbers in Massachusetts are down.

She is only at 44%. On the national scene, the far-left hate party loves her. But she’s got problems in Massachusetts. So she’s pulling stunts to try to get noticed, and she went to the floor of the Senate last night to read a letter from Coretta Scott King about Jeff Sessions trying to disqualify him, smear him, slander him. It’s just despicable stuff, and Mitch McConnell invoked Senate Rule 19 which says that senators cannot do that.

You cannot personally assault, personally judge — you cannot slander — fellow members of this body. It’s a seldom-invoked rule, but it was invoked last night. She’s got a history of Rule 19-type behavior. So McConnell slaps the rule on her, which silences her, and the left is all thinking, “This is really great, because now they’ve turned her into the focal point and she’s got a 24-hour story! This happened so late at night, that if McConnell would have just let her rant then nobody would have ever known about it and there wouldn’t be any news about it.

“But McConnell slapped her down and so now she’s big news.” I don’t think that the invocation of Rule 19 was to shut her up last night. I think this does have something to do with potential use of the filibuster, which McConnell doesn’t want to do. Rule 19 also has other things in it, not just you can’t slime a fellow senator. There’s also a rule, part of Rule 19, which says a senator can only speak twice on the same subject during the course of debate on that subject.

And this could be a way of getting Sessions confirmed without having to go nuclear and do away with the filibuster. I’ll explain all that in the next half hour, but I want to play for you the sound bite of some of Elizabeth Warren last night. And you know what? Ah, ’cause it takes… It takes four bites to get to where she gets shut down here. Go ahead and play number nine. We have time to squeeze this, at least get started on it.

WARREN: I rise today to express my strong opposition to the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as attorney general of the United States. And I ask, “Where are the senators who will say ‘no’ to the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general of the United States?’ I hope there are at least enough senators here who understand that America is careening over a constitutional cliff and that all of us — all of us — regardless of political party, need an attorney general who can be relied on to enforce the laws fairly and to fight back against lawless overreach by an out-of-control president.

RUSH: Ah, the president’s not out of control. It’s your side, Fauxcahontas, that’s out of control. Felonious, riotous behavior. Anyway, that’s how it got started.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Elizabeth Warren, we’re gonna keep going here. Here’s sound bite number two. It’s three more sound bites before we get to her being shut down with the invocation of Rule 19.

WARREN: Mr. Sessions is a throwback to a shameful era which I know both black and white Americans thought was in our past. It is inconceivable to me that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a U.S. attorney, let alone a U.S. federal judge. He is, I believe, a disgrace to the Justice Department, and he should withdraw his nomination and resign his position.

RUSH: Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina is pro-Sessions, and he has tweeted out the photograph of an award that Sessions got. In 2009, the NAACP gave Sessions their governmental award for excellence. He was a senator in 2009. The NAALCP, National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People, gave Sessions their award for governmental excellence. Now they oppose him, as Fauxcahontas opposes him. So Fauxcahontas is just getting warmed up here. Here’s another bite.

WARREN: A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the enforcement of those laws.

STEVE DAINES: The senator is reminded that it is a violation of Rule 19 of the Standing Rules of the Senate to impute to another senator or senators any conduct or motive unworthy or becoming a senator.

WARREN: Mr. President, I don’t think I quite understand. I’m reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Judiciary Committee from 1986 that was admitted into the record. I’m simply reading what she wrote about what the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be a federal court judge meant and what it would mean in history for her.

DAINES: This is a reminder, not necessarily what you just shared. However, you stated that a sitting senator is a disgrace to the Department of Justice.

RUSH: And so she’s just getting warmed up. This is the kind of stuff she loves. These Democrat hate groups, they love this kind of challenge, and so Fauxcahontas was just getting warmed up. What, by the way, the voice you heard there, that was Steve Daines. He’s a senator from Montana, and the poor guy, he drew the short straw last night in having to act as president of the Senate. He had to be traffic cop for all this, another Democrat all-nighter. They tried to destroy DeVos. Now they’re trying to destroy Sessions.

They’re not gonna succeed at this. This is an exercise here simply to feed the hate to their base, their victimized base, which has a steady diet of undiluted hate. The Democrats have to keep serving it if they have any chance of getting elected. So Mitch McConnell, as she kept going, McConnell stepped in, the Republican leader of the Senate had enough.

MCCONNELL: Mr. President.

DAINES: Majority leader.

MCCONNELL: The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama as worn by the chair. Senator Warren said, quote, “Senator Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.” I call the senator to order under the provisions of Rule 19.

WARREN: Mr. President.

DAINES: Senator from Massachusetts.

WARREN: Mr. President, I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate. I ask leave of the Senate to continue my remarks.

DAINES: Is there objection?

MCCONNELL: I object.

DAINES: Objection is heard. The senator will take her seat.

WARREN: I appeal the ruling of the chair.

RUSH: And she just kept going, and she got hysterical and so forth. The reading of the letter from Coretta Scott King in 1986 was about the Sessions appointment to be a federal district court judge back in 1986 is not even applicable today. The whole thing here is rooted in the left trying to take a joke that Sessions told and turn it into a serious policy statement.

The left wants you to believe that Jeff Sessions was all cool with the KKK. He was fine with the KKK. They were great bunch of — until he found out they smoke marijuana, and when he found out they smoked marijuana, that’s when Jeff Sessions decided he had a distance himself from the KKK. He was telling a joke, I’m giving you it to you out of context. That one episode is what the Democrats have tried to build a case on that Sessions is pro-KKK, anti-black, anti-minority, racist and all. It’s bogus. It’s BS.

Many of the senators that voted against Sessions in ’86 have stated they wished they could do it again. They feel bad they voted against him. Everybody in the Senate knows the guy. It’s all made up. This is why McConnell stood up. It’s made up. It’s a bunch of lies. None of it is true. It’s impugning a senator. It is violation of Rule 19.

However, there is an interesting piece about this by a writer named Sean Davis over at The Federalist. In his opinion, this is related to the upcoming battle over Judge Gorsuch. And it’s rooted in the fact that McConnell and the Republicans would really love to get Gorsuch confirmed without having to invoke the filibuster, to nuke it. Which means they would like to be able to get 60 votes for Gorsuch. But Rule 19, you see, Rule 19 provides a route around the necessity for 60 votes without blowing up the filibuster. And here is the part of the Rule 19 that is relevant to this aspect of it.

“When a senator desires to speak, he shall rise and address the Presiding Officer, and shall not proceed until he is recognized, and the Presiding Officer shall recognize the senator who shall first address him. No senator shall interrupt another senator in debate without his consent, and to obtain such consent he shall first address the Presiding Officer, and no senator…” This is the key to it: “[N]o senator shall speak more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same legislative day without leave of the Senate, which shall be determined without debate.”

You heard her ask for leave in the Senate. That means, basically, suspension of rules, which was denied. So the key element of Rule 19 which shut her up might actually be a test for the use of Rule 19 in another area, and it is the area which prevents a senator from speaking more than twice about any one subject. So the upshot is that no senator can speak more than twice on any legislative day on the same subject. So if you’re talking about the debate on Gorsuch on the floor, on whether he should be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice…

So what McConnell could do here, because he’s the leader of the Senate, is he could simply deem that the floor debate on Gorsuch will occur in one legislative day. And he can do that if the Senate is not gaveled into recess. Which means that the debate would actually become a real filibuster. It means that every senator rising has to speak about the subject and can only speak about it twice, and the Senate can’t go into recess. So you have a legitimate filibuster. It’s just a filibuster where every senator can speak, not just one.

And since a senator can only speak twice about a single subject, the theory is that you could have the Senate legislative day comprise 48 hours and give every opponent to Gorsuch two different chances to say whatever they want to say about him. After everybody has had their opportunity to speak twice on the floor of the Senate, whether it’s at noon or midnight or whenever, they’re done. When every senator has had his chance to speak twice, it’s over. The legislative day is over.

Once that’s all done, there’s nobody remaining who can legally take the floor in order to continue the debate because every senator will have spoken twice about the nomination of Gorsuch. So at that point McConnell would say that the debate is over by rule and call for the final confirmation vote. There would not be a 60-vote cloture vote necessary, wouldn’t be a need for 60 votes, wouldn’t be a necessity for it. Because once that rule — the Rule 19 two-speech rule — has been applied to everybody who wishes to speak, the debate is over.

And then McConnell would schedule the final floor vote, and Gorsuch would sail in. It’s a little bit more involved than that because it’s all involved in shutting down the debate. The debate can’t go on because Rule 19 prevents any senator from saying anything more than twice on the same subject. So the invocation of Rule 19 calls it a legislative day, and the day goes on until every senator’s had a chance to speak twice. Well, the Republicans won’t speak twice, but Democrats will. For every Democrat speaking twice, whatever, take 48 hours, a legislative day, 48 hours.

And after that, there can’t be any more debate on the subject because Rule 19’s invocation prohibits any senator from speaking more than twice on a subject, and you have to have a vote after this. So it’s a way around. It’s obvious they do not want to have to use the filibuster to get Gorsuch confirmed, and some people looking at this think that the invocation of Rule 19 will be a way of getting that done, because you eliminate the need for 60 votes, ’cause the debate ends.

It’s 60 votes that ends the debate normally.

You’ve gotta have 60 votes for cloture.

But if you invoke Rule 19 and senators can only speak twice, then that’s it. Debate’s over. You don’t need 60 votes to stop the debate. Rule 19 has stopped the debate. Then you have the vote, and Gorsuch gets confirmed by 52, 53, what have you, whatever it is. That is the thinking. So while the left thinks that Elizabeth Warren scored a big knockout here by becoming the focus of Republican obstructionists and so forth, what’s really happening here is everybody has been prepared for Rule 19. People know what Rule 19 is now, and there’s another part of it, and it looks like it’s about to be used.

Rush Limbaugh on the Mitch Slap of Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren Feb 8, 2017 RUSH: Okay, Elizabeth Warren blew up on the floor of the Senate last night, and Mitch McConnell Mitch-slapped her with Rule 19, Senate Rule number 19, and everybody’s saying that Mitch blew it.