The Trump Presidency 15

[plague311]

Trump Tweets

Wow! Morning Joe & Psycho ratings have really crashed. Very small audience. People are tired of hearing Fake News delivered with an anger that is not to be believed. Sad, when the show was sane, they helped get me elected. Thanks! Was on all the time. Lost all of its juice!
@foxandfriends

Senate is working hard on America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act. Will have BIG IMPACT on our highways and roads all across our Nation. Interest strong from Republicans and Democrats. Do I hear the beautiful word, BIPARTISAN? Get it done. I am with you!

He's so bipolar. One moment the Dems are complete garbage, everything they do is stupid, the cities they run are garbage, and then the next he just can't wait to work with them!

 

[bruto]

Par for the course in the Trumposphere. I guarantee that right now, somewhere, there is a group of retirees drinking coffee at their favourite table at Hardee's telling each other how Trump personally rescued firefighters and then paid for their medical bills.

And likely also fondly reminiscing about the good old days when Baltimore was a safe and clean city, its affairs so competently managed by that fine true American, Spiro Agnew.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

ok, let's reverse this.
How was the East Coast, or Silicon Valley, or plenty of other thriving places in the US favored over the Rust Belt? Was there some government initiative that helped there but not elsewhere? Were critical resources withheld?
Is there any policy that caused the decline or prevented the recovery?

I think there are factors at play beyond politics, and for some reason, one party gets more blame than the other, when probably neither could have realistically done much to prevent it.
And economists agree that NAFTA helped US farmers, but of course some more than others.

What I'm saying is: if you're trying to change someone's values with facts, no dice.

 

[Segnosaur]

Trump Tweets

Senate is working hard on America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act. Will have BIG IMPACT on our highways and roads all across our Nation. Interest strong from Republicans and Democrats. Do I hear the beautiful word, BIPARTISAN? Get it done. I am with you!

There was a 2 year span in which the Republicans controlled both the white house, and congress. Yet instead of dealing with infrastructure then, they decided to 1) pass a tax cut plan that spiked the deficit, and 2) attack Obamacare.

The fact that Trump is acting so concerned about infrastructure now seems to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

China has lost 5 million jobs and two million manufacturing jobs due to the Trump Tariffs. Trumps got China back on its heels, and the United States is doing great. @AndyPuzder @MariaBartiromo

 

[Andy_Ross]

China’s GDP +6%

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Just reminded my staff that Morning Joe & Psycho were with me in my room, at their request, the night I won New Hampshire. Likewise, followed me to other states....

....Don’t watch show, but heard Mika said I asked to preside over their marriage. Not true—does anyone really believe that? They were married by Elijah, King of Baltimore!

Heading to Jamestown, Virginia. Word is the Democrats will make it as uncomfortable as possible, but that’s ok because today is not about them!

 

[Belz...]

Trump Tweets

China has lost 5 million jobs and two million manufacturing jobs due to the Trump Tariffs.

Has it? I mean, given the source it's much more likely to be false.

 

[TragicMonkey]

He's so bipolar. One moment the Dems are complete garbage, everything they do is stupid, the cities they run are garbage, and then the next he just can't wait to work with them!

Some think he's a hypocrite with a short attention span. I think he's apocatastasistical: periodically Trump is destroyed and recreated anew, a copy perfectly identical but retaining no memories from the previous iteration. He only seems to be getting crazier because the intervals are shortening. Eventually he'll be destructing and rebirthing every couple of seconds, and the beholders will only perceive him as an orange blob in a constant paroxysm of collapse and expansion. Perhaps he could then be hooked up to a generator and used to provide electricity, finally producing something useful.

 

[jimbob]

Has it? I mean, given the source it's much more likely to be false.

Well, there was this earlier tweet:

I understand that China's growth was indeed lower than for about 27 years.

However look at the highlight and Captain_Swoop's other comment...

Trump Tweets

China is doing very badly, worst year in 27 - was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now - no signs that they are doing so. That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through. Our Economy has become MUCH larger than the Chinese Economy is last 3 years....
..My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit. They should probably wait out our Election to see if we get one of the Democrat stiffs like Sleepy Joe. Then they could make a GREAT deal, like in past 30 years, and continue....

...to ripoff the USA, even bigger and better than ever before. The problem with them waiting, however, is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now...or no deal at all. We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!

China’s GDP +6%

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

I'm having trouble finding the lie.

Can you find a single person who saw Trump at the WTC at any time on 9/11? Can you find a single person who saw Trump assist in any way?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The New York Times has publised a fact-checking article about Trump's claims about 9/11. I'd forgotten that he used the opportunity to falsely brag about now having the tallest building in New York.

 

[Aridas]

ok, let's reverse this.
How was the East Coast, or Silicon Valley, or plenty of other thriving places in the US favored over the Rust Belt? Was there some government initiative that helped there but not elsewhere? Were critical resources withheld?
Is there any policy that caused the decline or prevented the recovery?

I think there are factors at play beyond politics, and for some reason, one party gets more blame than the other, when probably neither could have realistically done much to prevent it.
And economists agree that NAFTA helped US farmers, but of course some more than others.

There are factors beyond politics, yes. To delve slightly further, though, and touch on a couple relevant points, because politics and the economy are deeply related...

Policy-wise, the Democratic Party's economic policies are generally notably better for the average American, very much including rural voters. Even moreso, I would dare to say that Democrats favor economic policy that's overwhelmingly better for rural voters. The key underlying concept there, though, is likely how influential corporate interests are on the Party's policy. Corporate interests, which largely are not good for rural areas, have made significant inroads in getting their wishlists enacted into law, with the help of a notable chunk of Democrats. Usually, the more conservative or "moderate" Democrats, for that matter, which is one of the notable underlying causes of friction within the Democratic Party. With that said, Democratic Party messaging focus tends to be focused on people of color, urban areas, and various smaller minorities and largely ignores rural white folk. Further, Democratic Party messaging frequently doesn't embrace the values of said rural folk as well as urban folk.

Current Republican Party policy, on the other hand, has been effectively turned over to corporate interests. Naturally, that leads to policy that is, at best, neutral towards rural folk and frequently harmful to them. It's long been that way, of course, but the current state of affairs harkens more to the time before the Great Depression (that led to the Great Depression) than to, say, the 1980's. Even so, the Republican Party's messaging and strategies tend to focus much more on them, which... matters quite a bit, really. Going further, though, rural (white) folk have long held a distinctly disproportionate amount of political power, especially in the South, and have frequently acted to tip the scales towards themselves. With measures like the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and various things since, Democrats established themselves as the people that were taking away the disproportionate power that the rural white folk had long accepted as the way things should be. Naturally, Republicans exploited the multiple sources of discontent related to that quite effectively.

Ehh. I'm just going to move on, though.

Can we take the sudden change of subject as an admission that you have no evidence that Trump is telling the truth when he claims to have helped out the first responders in the aftermath of 9/11? Can you explain, then, on what basis you have come to believe that it is true?

This time, the claim was more mild, was it not? Just that he had been there, but was not a first responder.

https://twitter.com/OversightDems/status/1155950604495122433



Document embedded in tweet.

Yeah... That's a bit more detail, again, for one of the likely very under-reported stories for this administration.

China is doing very badly, worst year in 27 - was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now - no signs that they are doing so.

*flips the bird at Trump*

It's intentional BS, of course. No point in trying to reason with intentional BS.

Speaking of things that earn such disrespectful gestures...

Rand Paul Offers to Buy Rep. Omar A Ticket To Somalia

Yeah... *flips the bird at Rand Paul*

There was a 2 year span in which the Republicans controlled both the white house, and congress. Yet instead of dealing with infrastructure then, they decided to 1) pass a tax cut plan that spiked the deficit, and 2) attack Obamacare.

The fact that Trump is acting so concerned about infrastructure now seems to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.

He was acting similarly concerned during those years, too! As the Republicans pushed a plan to just sell off a whole bunch of infrastructure to corporate interests as their plan for how to deal with it.

In more serious problematic foreign influence matters...

Trump aide submitted drafts of 2016 'America First' energy speech to UAE for edits, emails show

Foreign Policy speech on Russia written by a Russian lobbyist and now this? Yeah, the American people have overwhelming cause to be concerned about whether Trump is in the pockets of foreign powers.

Four Florida county election systems were infiltrated by Russia, Senate committee confirms

The picture keeps being shown to be worse. Too bad that Trump and McConnell are actively working against those trying to act on the problems.

Here's a little round up of a few of the "highlights" from the Senate report on Russian Active Measures and Interference, incidentally.

For example,

1. (U) Russian Access to Election Infrastructure: Illinois

(U) In June 2016, Illinois experienced the first known breach by Russian actors of state election infrastructure during the 2016 election.[146] As of the end of 2018, the Russian cyber actors had successfully penetrated Illinois's voter registration database, viewed multiple database tables, and accessed up to 200,000 voter registration records.[147] The compromise resulted in the exfiltration of an unknown quantity of voter registration data.[148] Russian cyber actors were in a position to delete or change voter data, but the Committee is not aware of any evidence that they did so.[149]

• [REDACTED] DHS assesses with high confidence that the penetration was carried out by Russian actors.[150]

• (U/ [REDACTED]) The compromised voter registration database held records relating to 14 million registered voters, [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. The records exfiltrated included information on each voter's name, address, partial social security number, date of birth, and either a driver's license number or state identification number.[151]

That, alone, shows that efforts to strengthen security are greatly overdue.

On a totally different topic...

Sentencing is Symbolic: In One Georgia County Harsher Burglary Sentences had No Effect on Recidivism

Of note, the data is obviously limited. Still, it's in agreement with what a number of supporters for reform expect, I think. After a certain, relatively low bar, harsher sentences have a negligible effect for many crimes, both for reform and for deterrence.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

snopes also fact-checked Trump's 9/11 claims, although the article is a year old so doesn't specifically address these new claims.

 

[The Don]

Facts literally don't matter any more.

For 40%-45% of Americans, Donald Trump was personally a first responder on 9/11 who actually helped a little and furthermore he provided hundreds of people out of his own pocket to help with the immediate recovery in the days following 11 September 2001.

Anyone who contradicts this version of events is part of the #FakeNews media who want to try and sully the legacy of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) US President in history and can safely be ignored.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Well, I'm hoping that theprestige, specifically, will address this issue, as he is the person who here has claimed to believe Trump's version of events.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Facts literally don't matter any more.

For 40%-45% of Americans, Donald Trump was personally a first responder on 9/11 who actually helped a little and furthermore he provided hundreds of people out of his own pocket to help with the immediate recovery in the days following 11 September 2001.

Anyone who contradicts this version of events is part of the #FakeNews media who want to try and sully the legacy of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) US President in history and can safely be ignored.

I don't know about that, his supporters always seemed to know he was full of ****. Like the wall was a metaphor or take him seriously but not literally. It is really impossible to know what they think only that the blatant lies don't matter.

 

[pgwenthold]

Which suggests yet again that Trump didn't compose that tweet. He would just tweet his mind (which is been no better than profane alphabet soup these days, but anyway...)

Trump can't spell hell because he can't find toothpicks on his keyboard.

(#obscurejokes)

 

[Doubt]

Curious as to how Trump would have gotten to ground zero during the rescue. Subway? Walk? Limo?

Cannot believe he would walk any real distance. Subway stations nearest to the buildings were out of action. Limo might get him there but also just be in the way undermining any concept that he might have helped.

 

[The Don]

I don't know about that, his supporters always seemed to know he was full of ****. Like the wall was a metaphor or take him seriously but not literally. It is really impossible to know what they think only that the blatant lies don't matter.

They only call it a metaphor once it's proven to be **** - a bit like the bible which is also to be taken literally unless it's figurative.