Cont: The Trump Presidency Part III

[SezMe]

Failure to faithfully execute his duties and defend the Constitution would certainly qualify. Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin thinks we're getting there:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...-card-f:homepage/story&utm_term=.6453a0a138ed

From that link:

Increasingly it seems he cannot separate his personal feelings from his obligations under the Constitution.

Rubin (the author) seems to think his inability to separate those two things is getting worse. I see little evidence of that. I don't think he could on Jan.20 and he has not improved in the interim.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Good evening. It only gets worse....
Breaking News - Story Developing
White House says it cannot lawfully pay subsidies to health insurance companies under President Obama's health care law
Oct 12, 2017
https://www.apnews.com

Blatant move to destroy the ACA.

If they are unlawful, it doesn't matter if it is a blatant move to destroy the ACA.

 

[quadraginta]

I'll point out that it has been just three weeks since Puerto Rico has been, in Trumps own words, been "completely destroyed".

The fact that he brings up the specter of ceasing federal support at this point is not just extremely callus but by tying the federal response to the pre-existing debt problem just hammers the fact that he doesn't care about the people suffering there right now. It's as if they don't deserve help because their previously elected government had run up a debt problem.

This wouldn't have happened if it was Florida that was totally destroyed.

It isn't even happening to the parts of Florida that were partly destroyed.

 

[quadraginta]

I know, right?

Check out this madness: Trump seems ready to pull aid from Puerto Rico. He took a different tone with Texas and Florida.

"TEXAS: We are with you today, we are with you tomorrow, and we will be with you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to restore, recover, and REBUILD," he wrote.​

To Florida:

"Just like TX, WE are w/you today, we are w/you tomorrow, & we will be w/you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to RESTORE, RECOVER, & REBUILD," he wrote.​

Either Trump 1) doesn't realize that Puerto Ricans are American citizens, 2) doesn't care because they can't vote for or against him, or 3) figures the bulk of his supporters don't know or don't care, so he uses the situation to make himself look tough.

Sarah Sanders, official Trump spokescretin, says:

"We are committed to helping Puerto Rico. Our administration is working with Gov. (Ricardo) Rossello and Congress to identify the best fiscally responsible path forward."

I haven' heard the idea of "best fiscally responsible path" be associated with any of the Trump Administration's descriptions of their commitment to seeing the damage in Texas and Florida corrected.

What could the difference be, I wonder.

 

[Cain]

Puerto Ricans are so emotional and demanding. "Gimme clean water. Gimme electricity."

 

[BadBoy]

Really? As i recalled what was considered an "impeachable offence" was an entirely political question.

Gerald Ford certainly thought so:

Just as a contract, the Prime Minister in the UK and Australia can be removed by his/her own party while they are in power, if their party think he/she is messing stuff up.

 

[Carnivore]

Just as a contract, the Prime Minister in the UK and Australia can be removed by his/her own party while they are in power, if their party think he/she is messing stuff up.

Can also be removed by the Governor General in Australia, Canada and New Zealand and by the Queen in the UK. It's only been done once (in Australia) but the provision is there. If that happens new elections are called immediately.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Sarah Sanders, official Trump spokescretin, says:

"We are committed to helping Puerto Rico. Our administration is working with Gov. (Ricardo) Rossello and Congress to identify the best fiscally responsible path forward."

Transparently racist. Sigh. But since when has the Republican Party represented fiscal responsibility? Pardon while I laugh my head off.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

So I auto-censor my earlier post because one can only contemplate disaster for so long every day, and then leave the forum to do some nice reading on baseball, and what do I find, staring me in the face:

WaPo: Despite using the blue slip to block the nomination of Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Lisabeth Tabor Hughes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is leading the charge. He has now reversed the position he held during the Obama administration, arguing that the blue slip should be treated as a “notification” of how a senator intends to vote, even though Republicans used it to block nominees. If successful, Republicans hope to stack the nation’s courts with young, ideological judges who could radically affect civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights and the ability to check the ever-growing power of corporations over Americans.

Removing the only tool that prevents President Trump from choosing anyone he wants to sit on our federal courts could further weaken the judiciary’s ability to serve as an independent check on the executive branch. It’s important to consider how we got here. Trump’s ability to reshape our federal courts was made possible by unprecedented obstruction of Obama’s judicial nominees, often through the use of the very blue-slip process that Republicans now want to dispense with.

Republicans allowed just 22 judicial confirmations in the final two years of the Obama administration, the fewest since President Harry S. Truman’s administration. By contrast, during the last two years of the George W. Bush administration, Senate Democrats confirmed 68 judicial nominees, including 10 judges on one day less than two months before the 2008 election.

These same folks are getting voted into office by those flying Confederate flags and claiming "Russia is our friend." Good-bye, Uncle Sam. Stabbed in the back until dead by racist, Southron misfits. Anybody supporting the GOP at this juncture is an [infinite string of epithets].

 

[KDLarsen]

These same folks are getting voted into office by those flying Confederate flags and claiming "Russia is our friend." Good-bye, Uncle Sam. Stabbed in the back until dead by racist, Southron misfits. Anybody supporting the GOP at this juncture is an [infinite string of epithets].

And they'll keep on getting reelected, because unlike the Democats, they're willing to play dirty to get their legislative agenda through. McConnell spent two years pulling every trick in the book to stop Obama, and he was rewarded with a "Republican" President (RINO, in reality Trumpian), a hardcore conservative, Federalist Society nominee on the Supreme Court (as well as numerous other judges), and a near-free reign to ram through a regressive agenda.

Even if - and that's a big if - the American voters decide to punish the behaviour and reinstate a Democratic majority in the Senate (the House is a lost cause, see the previous paragraph), the damage is already done.

 

[uke2se]

And they'll keep on getting reelected, because unlike the Democats, they're willing to play dirty to get their legislative agenda through. McConnell spent two years pulling every trick in the book to stop Obama, and he was rewarded with a "Republican" President (RINO, in reality Trumpian), a hardcore conservative, Federalist Society nominee on the Supreme Court (as well as numerous other judges), and a near-free reign to ram through a regressive agenda.

Even if - and that's a big if - the American voters decide to punish the behaviour and reinstate a Democratic majority in the Senate (the House is a lost cause, see the previous paragraph), the damage is already done.

What's left to do then for the majority of the country that are against this creeping one-party system?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Probably late to the party on this one, but the deafening silence from the White House on the Islamic Extremist Terrorist group that ambushed a group of US Soldiers in Niger killing four of them at the same time the President is tweeting against black protesting peacefully and stirring up trouble in Asia, really is rather telling of his feelings towards the Military.

 

[Craig4]

Trump supporters will die for a lack of health care now. He'll step over the bodies of his supporters just like he'll step over the bodies of everyone else.

 

[The Don]

What's left to do then for the majority of the country that are against this creeping one-party system?

Actually doing *something* would be a start. I was mulling over this while I was raking leaves yesterday. President Trump, the GOP, the repeal of the ACA and so on are supposed to be such a terrible thing and so many people are supposed to be against it and yet where are the people taking to the streets to protest ?

I've been watching (the abridged overseas-market ) Ken Burns' Vietnam series and it's highlighted how many people took to the streets to protest (on both sides) about the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement.

Now maybe we don't do that any more because its not that effective and nobody's mind is changed by that kind of thing but I suspect that it's more likely a combination of fear, laziness and a lack of organisation. If the Democratic Party, the ACLU, the major unions, BLM or whoever could get their acts together maybe there would be tens or hundreds of thousands on the streets of DC peacefully protesting these things but maybe peaceful protest is impossible these days because the only people prepared to protest are extremists

 

[Tero]

They saw the bodies on TV for Vietnam. The bodies of the uninsured just get cremated in a cardboard box. There are no cemeteries for heroes that arriv in flag covered coffins.

 

[Belz...]

Actually doing *something* would be a start. I was mulling over this while I was raking leaves yesterday. President Trump, the GOP, the repeal of the ACA and so on are supposed to be such a terrible thing and so many people are supposed to be against it and yet where are the people taking to the streets to protest ?

I've been watching (the abridged overseas-market ) Ken Burns' Vietnam series and it's highlighted how many people took to the streets to protest (on both sides) about the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement.

Now maybe we don't do that any more because its not that effective and nobody's mind is changed by that kind of thing but I suspect that it's more likely a combination of fear, laziness and a lack of organisation. If the Democratic Party, the ACLU, the major unions, BLM or whoever could get their acts together maybe there would be tens or hundreds of thousands on the streets of DC peacefully protesting these things but maybe peaceful protest is impossible these days because the only people prepared to protest are extremists

Bitching on the internet is doing something!

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Then there is the absolute lie the GOP is telling that businesses which save money on taxes will pass the savings on to employees.

I agree the Trump is largely ignorant about how the economy works.

I’m curious, where do you envision that money saved by companies on taxes will actually go?

 

[Andy_Ross]

I agree the Trump is largely ignorant about how the economy works.

I’m curious, where do you envision that money saved by companies on taxes will actually go?

Thicker gold plating on the CEOs toilet flush handle and a diamond studded tv remote.

 

[The Don]

I agree the Trump is largely ignorant about how the economy works.

I’m curious, where do you envision that money saved by companies on taxes will actually go?

Thicker gold plating on the CEOs toilet flush handle and a diamond studded tv remote.

I think it comes down to how the company is owned, who the shareholders are and the degree of oversight they actually bother to exercise over the executives.

For most publicly quoted companies, the shareholders will be eager to get their share of the spoils which in turn will filter into the pockets of high net worth individuals and to people of more modest means who have mutual funds and the like.

The executives will likely reward themselves for giving a better shareholder return by giving themselves a nice raise - and as they're also probably shareholders, they'll get a second bonus in terms of their increased dividends.

The repeated failure of "trickle down" in the US will mean it almost certainly won't end up in the pockets of working folk and once again will result in a massive transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes to the very wealthiest in society.

 

[Arcade22]

In a series of new surveys, majorities think the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to help Puerto Rico — and one new poll even suggests that a majority of voters don’t think Trump cares about Puerto Rico’s problems.

Trump has tried to talk up the government’s recovery efforts. “We have done a great job with the almost impossible situation in Puerto Rico,” he tweeted earlier this month before visiting the island. “Outside of the Fake News or politically motivated ingrates ... people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military.”

Only people aren’t actually recognizing it, at least in national polls — which, incidentally, don’t include Puerto Ricans. According to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, only 32 percent of registered voters think the federal government has done enough in response to Hurricane Maria. A 51 percent majority thinks the government hasn’t done enough.

Compare that with Harvey and Irma: 47 percent and 46 percent, respectively, think the government has done enough to help victims of the two storms that hit the mainland, while only about a third think the government hasn’t done enough.

The results break largely along partisan lines. Nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters, 74 percent, say the government hasn’t done enough in Puerto Rico, but only 27 percent of Republicans agree. Independents say the government hasn’t done enough in Puerto Rico, 49 percent to 29 percent.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-puerto-rico-poll-243728

Oh look outside of Trumps core supporters he and his government is not actually being recognized by most people as doing a good job. But this is just more #FakeNews! Fake!

Trump is doing a good job no matter what anyone else says and the Fake News Media lies when it says most people don't agree with Trump! Trust no one but Trump!