Poll-Axed (UPDATED)

Let's hope this "Voyage to the Bottom of the Polls" becomes a regular feature.

CNN/ORC:

Donald Trump will become president Friday with an approval rating of just 40%, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, the lowest of any recent president and 44 points below that of President Barack Obama, the 44th president. 

Following a tumultuous transition period, approval ratings for Trump's handling of the transition are more than 20 points below those for any of his three most recent predecessors. Obama took the oath in 2009 with an 84% approval rating, 67% approved of Clinton's transition as of late December 1992 and 61% approved of George W. Bush's transition just before he took office in January 2001.

Trump's wobbly handling of the presidential transition has left most Americans with growing doubts that the President-elect will be able to handle the job. About 53% say Trump's statements and actions since Election Day have made them less confident in his ability to handle the presidency, and the public is split evenly on whether Trump will be a good or poor president (48% on each side).  [snip] 

Across all three of these measures, Americans' impressions of Trump have worsened since November. In that time, disapproval of his handling of the transition has climbed seven points to 52%, the percentage who think he'll do a good job has dropped five points, and the share saying they have lost confidence in Trump's ability to be president grew 10 points. (our emphasis)

Once again: There. Is. No. Mandate.

The next time you hear Cheeto Benito or one of his flunkies say "The American people don't care about Mr. Trump's taxes," you may quote this poll by ABC News/ Washington Post:

Americans divide evenly on whether the incoming Trump administration is complying with ethics laws. And while a bare majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll accepts President-elect Donald Trump’s business ownership plan, three-quarters say he should release his tax returns. 

Contrary to his comment that the American public doesn’t care about the issue, four in 10 of those polled say they care “a lot” about Trump releasing his tax records. (our emphasis)

Give those numbers on ethics compliance time to marinate;  beyond the ongoing personal corruption of the Donald J. Trump "Greatest Shitshow on Earth," you have his Cabinet of plutocrats, weasels and deplorables that are already being accused of violating the law (see post below) or are dragging their feet on making required financial disclosures.  Expect one or two nominees to be unable to bluff their way past these concerns (or hit the silk before further damage is done).

UPDATE: And there's more good news (NBC News/ Wall Street Journal):

As Republicans get closer to repealing it, President Barack Obama's federal health-care law – or Obamacare – has never been more popular, according to results from a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. 

And half of Americans – 50 percent – say they have little to no confidence that Republican proposals to replace the law will make things better. 

The poll finds 45 percent of respondents believing that the health-care law is a good idea, which is the highest percentage here since the NBC/WSJ poll began asking the question in April 2009. (our emphasis)

UPDATE II:  Cheeto Benito didn't like the polls, so of course he took to Twitter;  here are the twit's tweet and some of the responses.  What a thin- skinned, childish narcissist.

Rump's Inner Circle or Circular Firing Squad?

A while back, narcissist and pathological liar Donald "Rump" Trump was playing to the gullible corporate media and the Brooks Brothers wing of his party when he invited former critic and fellow plutocrat Willard "Mittens" Romney to his New Jersey golf club, allegedly for a chat about the Secretary of State position. It was meant to show "no hard feelings" toward Mittens after his refusal to endorse (or reportedly vote) for Rump, and, more importantly, to assure the Rethug "establishment" that Rump was open to working with them in a Rethug  "unity" government.  All seemed to be going according to plan, when former Rump campaign manager and piranha / human hybrid Kellyanne "Con For Short" Conway, in an interview with CNN yesterday, said that Rump's mouthbreathing base would feel "betrayed" if Mittens were to get the post of Secretary of State, among other slights aimed at Mittens.

With Rump trying to assemble his Cabinet of incompetents / dangerous wingnuts, Conway's public airing of her own opinions and agenda undercutting her boss was reportedly not appreciated by a "furious" Rump. Said one unnamed aide to the shitgibbon:

"Instead of driving Donald Trump's message, she's pushing her own agenda. It's dangerous."

Dangerous, especially to Con For Short, who later defensively insisted the reports of Rump's anger were "false" and (this is rich, coming from her) "sexist,"  and boasted that she could have "any job I want." Sounds like Rump's narcissistic personality disorder -- and perhaps delusional behavior -- has rubbed off on someone.

BONUS:  She may or may not be off message again, this morning issuing a vague threat to re- open Rump's campaign promise to pursue Hillary Clinton's imaginary "crimes." These people are the scum of the earth.

(photo: Careful of the bite.)

Today's Cartoon - The Swamp

(click on image to enlarge)


(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

This is just the transition.  Wait until they start to run the government (though if they run the government like this, it may be our best hope).

Morning Reading - A Warning And A False Hope?

There's a warning this morning from Eliot A. Cohen, former State Department counselor in the Bush administration to fellow Republicans considering serving in the shitgibbon's administration.  Time for an extended quote:

This time may be different. Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York. 

In the best of times, government service carries with it the danger of compromising your principles. Here, though, we may be in for something much worse. The canary in the coal mine was not merely the selection of Stephen K. Bannon for the job previously filled by John Podesta and Karl Rove, that of counselor to the president and chief strategist. Rather, the warning signs came from the Republican leaders excusing and normalizing this sinister character — and those who then justified the normalizers. 

One bad boss can be endured. A gaggle of them will poison all decision-making. They will turn on each other. No band of brothers this: rather the permanent campaign as waged by triumphalist rabble-rousers and demagogues, abetted by people out of their depth and unfit for the jobs they will hold, gripped by grievance, resentment and lurking insecurity. Their mistakes — because there will be mistakes — will be exceptional. 

Nemesis pursues and punishes all administrations, but this one will get a double dose. Until it can acquire some measure of humility about what it knows, and a degree of magnanimity to those who have opposed it, it will smash into crises and failures. With the disarray of its transition team, in a way, it already has. 

My bottom line: Conservative political types should not volunteer to serve in this administration, at least for now. They would probably have to make excuses for things that are inexcusable and defend people who are indefensible...  (our emphasis)

On the same page today, E.J. Dionne, Jr., hopes for "an alliance for the Republic," to exercise vigilance in thwarting the coming anti- democratic, un- Constitutional excesses of the shitgibbon's rule.  So far, he's not seeing it:

Such vigilance, alas, seems in short supply among elected Republicans. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), for one, was unperturbed by Bannon. “This is a person who helped him win an incredible victory,” Ryan gushed. “We’re confident about moving forward.” I guess we can’t expect much independent oversight from the GOP House, given that a “Make America Great Again” hat was placed on the seat of every caucus member at its Tuesday meeting. Is the House about to be reduced to a cheering section? [snip] 

Trump is signaling that he’s prepared to run roughshod over the benchmarks of decency and (small-r) republican government long endorsed across ideological lines. Left and right will have their differences over policy. But if they don’t come together from the start to thwart Trump’s departures from widely accepted practices and values, our country could face a very grim four years. 

While some see fissures in the Republican Party possibly expanding into debilitating fractures, the old cliche that, in politics, "Democrats want to fall in love, Republicans just fall in line" would seem to suggest that the opportunities presented by having a unified Republican government undoing the last vestiges of progressive policies and programs will =ahem= trump those that might be inclined to make common cause with Democrats to thwart the shitgibbon's "departures from widely accepted practices and values."  We haven't seen these Republican unicorns in the past, and we don't expect to see them now that they're in complete control.  We need to be vigilant, but not expect Republicans to put country ahead of party, since they haven't done that for as long as we can remember.

BONUS:  Jamelle Bouie has an excellent read on how Democrats are already in danger of screwing up their opposition to the shitgibbon.