Summations Only

Is there any difference between Trump and Obama, you ask? It depends on the category. Is the category people? They're both people. Is the category people who have served as president? They both fit. Is the category political party? They're both different. Is the category scumbags? One is, one isn't. In my example the category was wars over access to resources, a recurring theme throughout history. No, my point wasn't that there will always be conflict (though I do think there will never be an end to war). My point was that history, contrary to the claim in the article (What Trump does and doesn't have in common with Hitler), does continually repeat itself. Wars over access to resources was just an example of a recurring pattern of history. I would disagree that wars over resources are not a recurring pattern throughout human history, but more generally, that there are patterns throughout history is not a novel or fringe idea but is widely held. The phrase "patterns of history" is familiar to everyone. Check out historic recurrence over at Wikipedia. Type "patterns of history" or "history repeating itself" in to Google. I of course agree. I wasn't taking that position, but if I did then I would disagree with me, too. --Percy

To me the funniest one yet is Trump wanting to change the libel laws in the US (very difficult to change).He's the Am President who's lied the most about people, ever. Does he even realise that if he manages to to do it he would be the first one serving many years in some penetentiary, or has to pay more than the 7 billion he claimed to have? Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

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Every one of the mainstream sources and many of the others are reporting Trump's remarks on immigration from countries like Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and African countries.
http://www.foxnews.com/...s-in-oval-office-negotiations.html

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Trump reportedly asked, "Why are we having all these people from s---hole countries come here?" He additionally expressed his preference to have immigrants from Norway instead.

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Trump tweeted a denial of having made the above statement. However Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who was in an Oval Office meeting Thursday when the President called them "s---hole countries has confirmed that the President did use vulgar language to describe the countries from whom he wanted no immigration. Durbin noted that Graham confronted the president about his remarks.What I find amusing is that folks are defending these remarks even as Trump denies having made them.Beyond the racism and jingoism behind Trump's remarks, I think we should point out how misguided they are from a practical view. Generally speaking, why would we expect folks from Norway to immigrate here when on average they have it just as good at home, and by at least some measures better than here.By and large, the reasons for immigration here are twofold. 1) Better their situation financially, politically or both. 2) Reunite family members. Guess what that means? Not many Norwegians and a few more Nicaraguans are going to request to come here. Strip away the racist language, which Trump's denial attempts to do, and what's left is a racist immigration policy.And apparently, folks in Trump's base are more than willing to defend Trump's words on that basis. Namely objecting to the "browning of America".ABE:I did not intend to modify my original remarks, but instead to respond to them.A couple of GOP senators have indicated that they "do not recall" Trump making those remarks. But Lindsey Graham has confirmed that the reports "are basically accurate". At this point. I'm convinced that Trump is now lying.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Edmund Duffy was an editorial cartoonist with the Baltimore Sun at the same time as H.L. Mencken yet so many of his cartoons done in the 30s seem so pertinent today.

I’ll bet $100 that Mr Trump includes Mr Shah’s ancestral country in his list of shitholes.
I wonder if Heard Island is looking for immigrants for a 3-year stay?

Trump refuses to visit the opening of a new embassy building in Britain because, well, Obama.President Trump cancels London visit over 'bad' embassy deal | CNN Politics

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US President Donald Trump won't be paying a visit to London to open his country's billion-dollar embassy, he tweeted Thursday.

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The trip, which would have been Trump's first to the UK as president, had not been officially announced but was expected next month.

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"Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,' only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!" the full tweet reads.

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Of course this is total crap given that the decision to move the embassy from the old location was made in 2008 by the Bush administration.

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The decision to move the embassy from Grosvenor Square to Nine Elms was made in 2008 under George W. Bush, not Obama. It would have been impossible to retrofit the aging concrete building with the security measures needed, officials said at the time.

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I suspect that the real reason for Trump not to visit has to do with the reception he is going to receive. Unlike the situation when Trump visits China or some other countries were dissent is going to be suppressed, Trump can likely expect a combination of boos and cheers with the possibility that the former are more prevalent. Trump has yet to make a state visit.

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Former Labour leader Ed Miliband replied to Trump's tweet shortly after it was posted, challenging the assertion that it was Trump's dissatisfaction with the deal that had derailed the visit.
"Nope it's because nobody wanted you to come," Miliband wrote in a reply to the US leader's tweet. "And you got the message."

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Trump Denies Using Vulgar Slur; Top Democrat Says He Said ItI have a theory, which I may have mentioned before. Trump is purposefully being as newsworthy and controversial (yes and stupid and racist) as possible in order to distract the public from the actual Republican Agenda and to lure public opinion into focus on him exclusively. Any other explanation couldn't begin to describe his errant behavior.

There's an old aphorism (looking it up it apparently has a name, Hanlon's razor) that goes:

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"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Trump is impulsive, ignorant, manipulative , bullying, arrogant, narcissistic and a pathological liar - these are the primary qualities that render him incompetent and unfit for the office of president by a magnitude unsurpassed by any previous president, including his entirely appropriate (for him) hero, Andrew Jackson. These qualities rule the expressions of his defective character, which include misogynism, homophobia, bigotry, white supremacy, racism, xenophobia and greed.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix grammar.

And remember, no President except maybe Ronald Reagan had a greater disregard for the Rule of Law and the US Constitution as well as a greater love for Genocide than Andrew Jackson.

Interesting week for Trump, ever by the standards of the previous week when the Fire and Fury book came out. I didn't have time to post about these during the week, so here's a summary:

• Monday:
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  Mueller announces he wants to interview President Trump about the Russian election influence investigation. Trump says he's willing to meet with Mueller.
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• Tuesday:
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  In a meeting with congressional Republicans and Democrats about immigration, Trump expressed a variety of contradictory views and opinions, seeming always to agree with whoever addressed him last. He both endorsed and rejected pure DACA. He both endorsed and rejected including the Wall as part of the legislation. He both endorsed and rejected a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He both endorsed and rejected comprehensive immigration reform.
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  Later on Tuesday a Federal judge put a hold on Trump's executive order cancelling DACA.
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• Wednesday:
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  Trump walks back his expression of willingness to meet with Mueller, reiterating many times that "no collusion" has been found. Why he thinks that's meaningful to say about an investigation that is still ongoing and hasn't announced any findings is baffling.
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• Thursday:
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  In vulgar terms, Trump disparaged El Salvador, Haiti and the entire continent of Africa, calling them "shithole countries". Worldwide condemnation of Trump followed. Republican Senator Linsday Graham, present at the meeting between Trump and a Senatorial delegation of three Republicans and three Democrats, reportedly retorted, "America is an idea, not a race." Later in an interview he said, "I've always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals."
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  Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said:
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  "In the course of his comments, (Trump) said things which were hate-filled, vile and racist," Durbin said. "I use those words advisedly. I understand how powerful they are.

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  "I cannot believe that in the history of the White House and of that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday. You've seen the comments in the press. I have not read one of them that's inaccurate."

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• Friday:
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  There's the old joke, "If his lips are moving he's lying," but amazingly we seem to have elected president someone for whom this is literally true. It's actually a bit more nuanced than that, but not much, and it includes both verbal statements and his Tweets. He's either lying or being misleading or being self-contradictory. At one point during this past week Trump was described as having a Twitter debate with himself and losing (this about the Internet surveillance program.)
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  On Friday Trump Tweeted and lied, claiming he hadn't used the language that has been confirmed by multiple news outlets to have actually been used.
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  In other news, it was confirmed Friday that just a month before the election the Trump campaign paid a porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair she'd had with Trump in 2006 while Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Barron.

Here's a link to the New York Times webpage enumerating Trump lies through last November: New York Times Trump Lies PageThe Washington post has its own lies page, but you need a subscription to view it with Javascript: Washington Post Trump Lies Page--Percy

A "former White House official" was quoted in The Hill (Trump allies see 's***hole' controversy as overblown) as saying:

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It’s a classic example of how D.C. and New York react versus how the rest of the country reacts. What people in the media class still don’t understand is that this guy talks like a normal person and that’s why he won in the first place. I’m sorry if it offends the media’s delicate sensibilities but the reality is more Americans speak like President Trump than speak like [CNN anchor] Jim Acosta.

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About that last sentence, I do not think it true that "more Americans speak like President Trump than speak like Jim Acosta." I think it would be more accurate to say that the more uneducated, racist, bigoted and xenophobic someone is, the more likely they are to speak like Trump.--Percy

I agree with you Percy. But making the story all about Trump's language is just a deflection that many of Trump's supporters are employing. As disgusting as his language is, the real point is the nature of immigration policy that Trump and his supporters are insisting on. Trump's language and his desire to deport Haitians and not accept African immigrants because they are not "Norwegian enough" are both abominable, but the latter seems to something close to mainstream among Trump supporters and many members of Congress.It actually turns out that Nigerian immigrants are among the most successful highly educated immigrants among all folks who come here. If you want to have a merit-based immigration system, which is what folks claim they want, then such a policy would NOT start with barring folks from a shithole continent.Secondly, the reason a 'chain migration' policy was put in place was to reunite more folks with their families. Sounds pretty humane to me, and apparently, that was okay when more folks were coming here from Germany and Norway. But now, god forbid that Jose wants his brother Julio to come to America.Thirdly, who is going to request to immigrate here anyway? Folks who already have it great at home? Yes, folks who want to come here are in problematic countries, but is that news? What are those words on the Statue of Liberty again?Locker room language is the least thing wrong with what Trump said.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Not sure if this is getting as much play on the other side of the Atlantic, but Trump recently appointed a new ambassador to the Netherlands.He was a controversial choice from the first because, despite being of Dutch ancestry, he ha publically promoted the view popular in some circles that Europe has already succumbed to Islamic fundamentalism. He was caught out in a deeply embarrassing interview with a Dutch journalist, who asked him about his claims that politicians in the Netherlands were being set on fire by Islamic fundamentalists. He claimed this was fake news, and upon being presented with video evidence, denied that he had called it fake news (a few minutes before).The poor chap is being hit in the face with the fact that such gaslighting techniques do not work when everything you say is being recorded. He had his first press conference in Holland recently. A journalist asked him to either back up his claims or retract them. He announced that he did not want to revisit the issue. A second journalist asked him to either back up his claims or retract them. He tried to ignore the question. A third journalist asked him to either back up his claims or retract them. It gets very painful to watch,I find this all a bit puzzling. Is this ideology trumping policy? Is it an intentional distraction from more important issues? Is it a misguided belief that the PVV represent the Dutch and Hoekstra would therefore find a happier reception?

Somebody posted an article about it here. Nothing is deemed more important than letting the folks at home know that you are putting another country second. Because that seems to be the way to put America first.At least Trump has gotten around to appointing a diplomat for your country.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.