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Author | Topic: The Trump Presidency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
With all due respect ...
Trump is obviously drooling over the opportunity to give his beloved Vlad yet another very loving blow job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4DdLYb5AvQ In less graphic terms, Trump is so far into debt with the Russians that no personal debasement could ever be too great. Nothing means more to Trump than money.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
PS: Giuliani claims that Trump's written answers to Mueller's questions include the same information as Cohen's guilty plea, so why is Trump calling Cohen a liar if they both provided the same information - contradictory much? Or we could construct a simple syllogism:
Premise 1: Trump's written answers to Mueller's questions include the same information as Cohen's guilty plea. Premise 2: Trump says that Cohen is lying. Conclusion: Therefore Trump also lied in his written answers to Mueller's questions. QED
From what I understand, in the multitude of lawsuits against Trump over the decades, there has been a clear pattern in which he would lie outright in all his depositions only to eventually arrogantly admit his own wrongdoing, even boasting about it, thinking that he would not suffer any consequences for it. Up to this point, he has been correct in that assessment, but that won't work this time. Can Trump be impeached? He has already committed so many impeachable offences out in the open, mainly obstruction of justice, that it boggles the mind to imagine that he can't be impeached. But the issue is not impeachment, but rather removal from office. I do not doubt that the House could easily impeach Trump, but I also doubt very strongly that the GOP-run Senate would convict him. The Kavanaugh fiasco clearly revealed the Senate Republicans' complete lack of character. Without the ability to convict and remove, no number of impeachments could achieve anything more than symbolic gestures. Furthermore, I've seen the GOP propaganda machinery preparing exploit our impeachment efforts as red meat to feed their base. I can even foresee Trump deliberately commit even worse impeachable offenses in plain sight daring the House to impeach him -- kind of like ordering the police to not arrest a low-level crook because he's going to lead us to the crime bosses, so that crook starts committing serious crimes right in front of the cops. Part of current news show panel discussion is the pros and cons of impeaching Trump. Part of that discussion revolves around the timing, since acting now on Mueller's report (whenever it finally comes out) would place the impeachment too close to the 2020 elections which should be a sure way to remove Trump and the GOP. Also, the Democratic House has a lot of very important business to attend to first, such as revitalizing the Voting Rights Act in order to fight voter suppression. Getting tied up with impeachment proceedings would interfere with that other very important business. Of course, part of the business is the ability of the soon-to-be Democratic-run committees to conduct actual oversight and investigation instead of the Republican malpractice we've had so far. The results of those investigations can not only supply us with the evidence we will need should it come to impeachment, but also plenty of fodder for the 2020 elections. Plus I would very dearly love to see Nunes get everything that he so very richly deserves.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Well, the problem with taking Trump both literally and seriously is that his story keeps changing. That problem is compounded by his appearing to suffer from an Orwellian disorder in which history keeps getting rewritten according to his most recent lie.
Also, so much of what he says is intended for the immediate consumption of his immediate audience with no thought being given to ever following through, let alone what he had said or promised before -- I've been hearing the word, "transactional", a lot lately, which seems to describe that. During the 2016 campaign, I remember a newly recruited Trump supporter explain how he had won her over. Much of what he was saying and promising bothered her greatly, so she approached him and asked about those things. He assured her that he was only saying those things because that was what his audience wanted and that he never intended to actually follow through on any of them. What bothers me more about that is that she had been persuaded by his frank admission of complete and total insincerity and deliberate deception ... unless he was just lying yet again by telling her what she wanted to hear. This could even provide an evolutionary analogy for explaining how a particular trait can be very beneficial and successful in one environment, but fatal in a different environment. Trump's traits of convenient lies to deceive the current audience always worked well for him in the past when no recording of those transactions existed or were limited in their distribution; ie, those lies were made in private. Now he's in a new environment where there is a very public record of every lie he tells and which is very widely distributed -- only his base which feeds from the Fake News Network (AKA "FOX") is sheltered from that public record. I think that a lot of Trump's flailing about is because for the first time he's being held accountable for what he has said and he can't figure out how to handle it. BTW, one of the first WH positions to go away was the recorder, the stenographers whose job it has been with all Presidents of recording and writing transcripts of every conversation that the President has. The rationale for eliminating that position was that they'd be replaced by video recordings, but we've already seen those videos being edited and doctored. Of course, in addition to Trump having no clue why such a record would be needed, there would also be the desire to eliminate such evidence. Another problem presented by Trump's new environment is his higher visibility as well as his now being a vastly greater threat to society and to the world. As long as he remained a small potatoes grifter, he could escape notice and be deemed too low a priority for investigation and criminal prosecution. Now every aspect of his activities will be investigated and appropriate action will be taken based on those investigations. The irony is that if he been content to remain small potatoes then he and his family would never have ended up in prison. The thing about the Wall is that it is a metaphor and it was a very good and powerful metaphor in the campaign. But apparently Trump and his base are too dumb and/or ignorant to be able to understand anything about metaphors, so all they can think of is a literal wall, which is not only a monumentally stupid idea, but nearly worthless for providing border security by itself. Trump keeps talking about how hard it will be to climb over his Wall, but that's not how it will be breached. We have a long history of smugglers digging tunnels under the existing walls and fences. They can go around the wall, which is why our Coast Guard is being kept busy. They come bring their goods (eg, drugs, trafficked people) through our many ports of entry which are nowhere close to Trump's Wall. Most undocumenteds enter the country on regular visas and then overstay those visas; none of them would ever be deterred by Trump's Wall. And because Trump and his base are racist, they only worry about the immigrants who's skin color isn't pale enough to suit them (ignoring Trump's own cheap spray tan job (must be a Trump brand)). There are reportedly more illegal Canadian immigrants than Mexican/Central American, so why isn't ICE conducting an intensive Operation Wetback type of campaign to round up and deport those Canadians, eh? Maybe because they're too white to matter? And there are also reports of large numbers of illegal immigrants from Ireland and not only aren't they being rounded up, but recently Paul Ryan tried to get the number of visas increased for even more Irish to come in and overstay.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
I forgot to mention that we've already tried Trump's Wall and it has been proven to not work.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 under Dubya. Set to cost $50 billion over 25 years, a lot of it is tied up in well over 100 eminent domain lawsuits. And the ones it's supposed to keep out just circumvent it in many ways, such that additional "virtual fence" technology is required anyway. Trump's Wall is like trickle-down economics and ignorance: We've tried it already so we already know that it doesn't work.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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On YouTube I found a series of videos whose premise echoes my own experience: How Creationism Taught Me Real Science. It is a series of more than 40 videos by Tony Reed whose general format is that he starts out "encountering" a creationist claim, finds that it sounds convincing, and decides to check it out, to verify it. And of course the claim falls apart under inspection. That title and approach really appeals to me, because it reflects my own experience, that by verifying creationist claims I have learned so much more actual science.
For that matter, I would be very supportive of a public school class in which specific scientific topics raised by creationism would be examined. Frank Awbrey and Bill Thwaites ran just such a "two-model" class at San Diego State University in which visiting professional creationists mainly from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR, in those days about a dozen miles away in Santee) presented half of the lectures and Awbrey and Thwaites (A&T) presented the other half, primarily to present the actual science and to respond to the creationists -- eg, it was at Gish's lecture on the bombardier beetle where the two chemicals were supposed to react by spontaneously exploding that A&T mixed the two chemicals together and ... nothing happened. The SDSU administration eventually forced A&T to close their class because of pressure from the campus Christian clubs. So much for creationist support of "equal time and treatment". Similarly, this Trump Administration is providing the same service as creationism as it continually raises legal and constitutional questions that extremely few members of the public were even aware of. As Trump continually pushes against the limits of what is allowed or allowable (with no clue as to what is or should be allowed, since he's a "fucking moron" (Tillerson) detached from reality), we gain from all the watchers and analysts, many of whom do have a background in law. Going into this, most of the questions of what the President can and cannot do and of what we can or cannot do against him have for a couple centuries been mainly academic exercises. Now Trump is forcing all that into practical practice. And now we are learning so much more about pardons, the Posse Comitatus Act (1878), the National Emergencies Act (1976), etc.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Tonight on an MSNBC program, a guest pundit made a revealing comment. I think it might have been on 11th Hour, but I could be mistaken.
From memory, the comment was that in the 2016 campaign Trump had promised to run the US government like he had run the Trump Organization. The argument is that Trump has indeed kept that promise. Well, Trump is infamous for mismanaging his business through arbitrary fiat, not paying his subcontractors, demanding personal loyalty, bullying everybody, breaking promises, accepting no responsibility, etc. Really? Is that any way to run a government? Fuck no! So then, as per the indicated pundit, Trump has technically upheld his promise to mismanage the US government in the manner that he had mismanaged his private business. But is that the way to run the government? Fuck no!
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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And so much more. {Trump} fits the definition of anarchist also, and Antichrist. Please refer to frako's contribution at Message 910: "And they shall wear the mark of the Beast on their foreheads". As every single Trumpista does by wearing a MAGA ballcap.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Trump finally agreed to reopening the government for three weeks while talks continue on his demand for money for his border wall. The bill passed the Senate by voice vote, was approved by the House, and was sent to Trump for his signature. So as long as Ann Coulter doesn't get to Trump first, the government will be open by end-of-day.
However, not everybody will get back pay. Certainly, all government employees will get their back pay, but contractors and their workers won't (depending on the terms of their contracts. Nor will the businesses that have lost money because their regular customers couldn't buy anything. Furthermore, the federal workers' spending habits will undoubtedly change to only buy essentials while hoarding all the money they can into a reserve that they can draw from during the next shutdown, like in three weeks -- once bitten, twice shy. That got me thinking and a question came up. Prison correctional officers have been having to work without pay, but what about the for-profit prisons? The payments to those contractors must be tied to the funding of actual federal prisons, so they shouldn't have been getting paid either, which would mean that the private correctional officers also weren't getting paid. Now with the return of funding, will those contractors get back pay? Will those private guards get pack pay? This is one case where what happens depends on the actual terms of their contracts. But that leads us down another path. Some commentators (eg, Thom Hartman, I think) notice a right-wing agenda to privatize as many government functions as possible and attribute many of the Republican drives to destroy government to being for the purpose of bringing about their privatization agenda. There are some public services where awarding contracts to private companies makes sense (eg, sanitation, sewage and water treatment), but they need to be regulated properly such as through the terms of their contracts. Of course, the right-wing agendae also push for the elimination of government regulations, which would make privatization much more problematic. In a world where government functions have been mostly privatized, what will happen to their employees during a future shutdown? If this most recent shutdown is any indication, they'll be screwed.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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The commentators talking about a far-right agenda to privatize all the functions of government (so that they can form those private companies and make tons of money) point to the creation of these situations as actions in support of that agenda towards their goal.
According to the commentators, Trump's efforts to make working for the government increasingly difficult, miserable, and even unbearable results in early retirements, fewer recruits, and defections to private industry for better benefits. One (Thom Hartman?) had an air traffic controller supervisor as a guest on his radio show describing how the government is mismanaging them and the effects on morale and how that's causing them to lose personnel and to drive recruits away which in turns makes the situation even worse. The commentator described how that plays into the agenda to privatize in that it gives the privatizers more justification to privatize. Of course, another question is whether this administration is doing that as part of a long-range plan to privatize, or out of sheer incompetence.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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I remember how, at one of Obama's SOTU addresses, a Republican shouted, "Liar!" Now we have a President who always lies, so how should that be handled?
One thought would be for all observers to yell, "Liar!", every time Trump lies. Another thought comes from GoT. Have a nun stand before Trump with a bell. Every time Trump lies, she would ring the bell and shout, "Shame!" One thing that we absolutely must not do would be to turn the watching the SOTU into a drinking game, taking a drink each time Trump lies. I would not want to lose anyone to alcohol poisoning.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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I recent watched "The Caine Mutiny" again. In it, CAPT Queeg earns the nickname, "Old Yellow Stain".
We should refer to Trump as "Old Orange Stain". He and his administration is most certain a horrible stain on the office and on the country.Honor, Courage, Commitment (US Navy) A Christian once asked what I as an atheist believed in. My spontaneous and totally honest answer was sounded corny, but it was true: "Truth, Justice, and the American Way." That's still my answer today. GOP Values: Hypocrisy, Corruption, Greed, Lying, Cheating, Voter Suppression, Election Fraud, Conspiring with the Enemy " ... how hard can that be, to say that Nazis are bad?!"(Barack Obama) "How are we still fighting Nazis today?"(Daisy Johnson, S5E15) "Nance's Law: Coincidence takes a lot of planning."(Malcolm Nance) It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.(Steven Colbert on NPR) |
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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https://www.seattletimes.com/...i-trump-gospel-with-cartoons
quote: quote: quote: quote: Edited by dwise1, : Added quote about the inspiration for this tract
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Back now from the store to pick up some more popcorn. One of the benefits to being retired is that I've been watching the coverage of the release of the redacted report all day, a major part of which has been reading out loud what it says. I guess a lot of members here have/had to wait until they got home from work before they can try to catch up.
One of the remarks I heard on MSNBC expressed amazement at how much journalists had gotten right over the past two years plus. Trump tried repeatedly to interfere with the investigation (obstruction of justice), but was thwarted by his staff among other problems, including his own incompetence. Mueller's ability to investigate was hampered by repeated lies, plus there is evidence of evidence having been destroyed. There is ample evidence of obstruction of justice, but because of that DOJ policy based on a memo Mueller could not indict Trump for it, so he left that to Congress to determine based on the evidence he is passing on to them, but which William Barr wants to redact and keep them from ever seeing. Of course, the appropriate committees want to see the full unredacted report; at the very least the intelligence Gang of Eight (ie, top leaders of the House and Senate plus chairmen and ranking minority leaders of the intelligence committees) should see it and are fully cleared and authorized to see it. The day started out with Bill Barr's press session before anybody else had had a chance to see the report -- except for the White House lawyers who started getting copies of the report on Tuesday in order to prepare the White House "response". A couple hours later, the public version was released. As for Congress' version, Congress is out of town on break -- gee, kind of like Barr had timed it that way. As with his four-page summary, Barr's press session misrepresents Mueller's report. Barr repeatedly referenced "no collusion", yet the report itself, even the unredacted parts, repeatedly demonstrate collusion. Barr claimed no obstruction, yet Mueller repeatedly describes Trump's attempts to obstruct. Why didn't Mueller indict Trump for it? According to that ad-hoc DOJ policy, he couldn't. It was far above his pay grade. Rather, that is the job of Congress, so Mueller explicitly passed it on to Congress (which Barr neglected to mention) and provided Congress with all the evidence they need (which Barr wants to redact and keep from Congress). One of the new details I heard regarded that collusional meeting in Trump Tower between Don Jr. et alia. with the Russians et alia. The Russians had dirt on Hillary and Don Jr. was eager to get it. The Russians reported that Russian oligarchs, the Simt Brothers (or Zimt Brothers -- transliteration from Cyrillics is something of a crap shoot) had made contributions to the Clinton campaign in violation of campaign laws against foreign contributions. Don Jr. asked for evidence of that so they could use it. Sorry, no evidence exists. Don Jr asked Manafort? (his "plus et al." as I recall) why they are wasting their time there. I switched over to FOX News (AKA "the Fake News Network") for a few minutes. Some of what they were reporting about the Mueller Report was factual. But then they brought up a false equivalency by mentioning that AG Eric Holder was referred to as "Obama's wingman". Later, some guest commentator was viciously attacking Mueller and his integrity. OK, I've seen enough of this shit. The end result for AG Barr is that he has exposed himself as a shill for Trump. More than one guest on MSNBC who had worked closely with Barr in the past and had respect for him as a consummate legal professional now express contempt for him. Truly, everybody Trump touches becomes corrupted (a play on the book, "Everything Trump Touches Dies.") But there's another scandal in Barr's past, as Rachel Maddow reported two nights ago: William Barr Record Of Deception For Bush Calls Credibility Into Question. George H.W.Bush (AKA "Bush 41", AKA "the father of Dubya") had tried an indirect plan for the Panamanians to rise up and revolt against Manuel Noriega, which of course failed (not being able to learn from his mistakes, he tried the same thing at the end of Desert Storm where he expected the Iraqi people to rise up in revolt against Saddam Hussein, which did not happen. Of course that did not happen for the second time, which led to Dubya (AKA "Bush 43", AKA "the smart one" compared to Texas Governor Rick Perry currently Secretary of Energy, an agency he could not remember the name of in his Presidential run) working on "daddy issues" to clean up the mess that his father could not, leaving us all with a never-ending war. Anyway, out of some unidentifiable nether orifice Bill Barr pulled out a legal interpretation, but only provided a 13-page summary of it, as I seem to recall, that the FBI could go into any country and apprehend any perpetrator (AKA "perp") we wanted to go after without the permission of the host country (maybe I just overstated that, but that's still the gist). With that Barr summary, we could justify invading Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega and Bush 41 was good with it. At the time when anyone wanted to see the actual interpreting document, Barr informed them that it was classified, so just trust me and my summary of it. A year and a half later, well after the Bush Administration, the "supporting document" finally surfaced and it turned out that Bill Barr had misrepresented it. And now he's doing it again with the Mueller Report. So then, what does everybody else think?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Another interesting thing about Presidential pardons is that by receiving one, you can still be called in to testify in that investigation and you can no longer plead the Fifth.
The reason for pleading the Fifth is to avoid self-incrimination. But if you've been pardoned, then you no longer have any reason to avoid self-incrimination -- indeed, by accepting that pardon you have effectively admitted your guilt, it's just that you won't pay the penalty for it. That means that if called in to testify, you will not only have no excuse for not testifying, but you also cannot refuse to answer any of the questions. And if you lie, then it's perjury which is not what you were pardoned for. So if Trump were to start giving out pardons like candy, it will backfire on him.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5949 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
And "appropriately" summarized by Barr.
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