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The Trump Presidency: Sweet/Sweat 16

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It was a survey by some luxury travel magazine. I have no idea how well regarded it is, compared to some of the more formal travel/accommodation rating organisations.
All of those travel magazines and top auto and best cities are advertisements disguised as magazines.
 
That’s what sways me to be pro-impeachment.

Enforce congressional subpoenas. Fine or imprison those who ignore them. Get all the obstruction and emoluments violations out in the open, and follow any new rabbit trails that hearings uncover. Diehard Trump supporters will remain unswayed, but they’re unreachable anyway. But there’s a small mushy middle of undecideds out there, and a drip...drip...drip of new revelations might just sway them to either stay home on Election Day or even hold their noses and vote Democratic just to get a criminal out of the White House.

But even if it has either no effect or a negative effect, oversight is Congress’s responsibility. To abandon it due to possible negative polical consequences would be crippling to our three branches checks and balances.
All of this ^
 
I do not know whether the GOP's next election will be "a disaster" for them. I am convinced that future elections will be harder for them as long as Trump continues to excommunicate non-sycophants from the GOP.

Consider Bolton, a man who has done absolutely nothing wrong, not a scandal to his name; and yet he's effectively cast out of influence because he argued with Trump. Tucker Carlson called him "a man of the left" on his Fox News show, on a network on which Bolton himself has served as a conservative commentator.

That says more about Carlson than Bolton.
 
No, Trump almost certainly did NOT tweet this. At least, not without a lot of help. WAY too many points for him to wrangle into a coherent line of thought. The same guy who rambled on randomly about orange lightbulbs also made no spelling mistakes in this effort. Although someone threw in a few too many capitalised words as well to make it look Trumpish. And it isn't nasty enough to be Miller. This is an ass-kissing aide's work.

It's Trump's campaign team working up to the 2020 campaign message no matter who is behind it. This is going to be Trump's 2020 lie.
 
Watching Colbert earlier and Trump referred to his VP as Mike 'Pound', or something close. He's increasingly demented, and I can't help but wonder what the GOP are thinking in letting him carry on like this.

The next election campaign will be a disaster for them.

Mike Pounce.

I'm sure Trump will make up a story that he meant to do that.
 
But I tend towards the view that the House has an obligation to impeach Trump because the apparent incompetence and corruption of the president should be dealt with. To ignore blatant acts such as the repeated, brazen violation of the emoluments clause is to imply that such violations are acceptable. If Clinton should be impeached because of perjury (and I tend to think he should have been), then Trump should be impeached due to his myriad shenanigans (including, some argue, perjury in his written testimony in the Mueller investigation, though I know little about that).

I'm not so inclined to think that Clinton should have been impeached, given the "ha, gotcha on a technicality" level of what was in play there. The constant criminal and deeply harmful to, for example, national security actions of Trump, on the other hand, pretty well demands it.

As an example from... well, now yesterday here....

Trump's plan to pay for border wall with Air Force funds risks national security, report says
The report, compiled by the U.S. Air Force and obtained by NBC News, details the importance of each of the 51 military projects chosen by the Trump administration to lose their funding.


From that, incidentally,

One of the major areas affected were military construction projects supporting the European Defense Initiative, a program intended to increase U.S. military presence in Europe to deter Russian aggression. In some cases, without the construction projects, the bases identified as part of the initiative cannot support the deployment of U.S. airmen or assets.

By now, a blind man could likely see that there's something fishy about Trump's actions related to Russia.

At least...

Trump finally agrees to release military aid to Ukraine after apparent blackmail effort fails

The New York Times reports that Trump has folded on this part of the scheme after the idea of withholding aid from a U.S. ally created outrage on both sides of the aisle. Trump had been claiming that he was delaying the aid while waiting for a Pentagon review. The truth was that the Pentagon had finished the review even before Trump issued the hold. How obvious was Trump’s blackmail effort? So obvious that one of those who went to tell him to let it go was Lindsey Graham.

Halting the flow of U.S. support has put an incredible strain on the new administration in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky ran for president on a platform of bringing his country closer to Western Europe and eliminating corruption. But it was exactly elements of the previous corrupt, Russia-leaning government who had been the subject of outreach from Trump and Giuliani. After it was clear that he was no longer welcome in Kiev, Giuliani even traveled to Madrid to make it clear to a Ukrainian official that they needed to play ball in giving Trump what he wanted if they expected to have the support package.


I am sort of pro Impeachment hearings, not so pro actually voting to impeach. I just think the chances of convicntion are zero, and an acquittal would almost guarantee Trump reelection.

Chances of conviction are quite low, yes... but the real question then is whether that can be turned into a millstone to hang around the GOP's neck. Trump's crimes and improprieties that are on par with crimes are numerous, frequently well-documented, and varied, to say the least.

Consider Bolton, a man who has done absolutely nothing wrong, not a scandal to his name; and yet he's effectively cast out of influence because he argued with Trump. Tucker Carlson called him "a man of the left" on his Fox News show, on a network on which Bolton himself has served as a conservative commentator.

That kind of behavior is pretty strong evidence of a cult, incidentally.

She scares them because she's so good at her job. I heard her questioning during a House hearing yesterday and she was incredible.

Not just that, for that matter. Democrats have had serious problems with messaging for far too long - she's helping quite a fair bit to upend that, before getting a whole bunch of other things about her. She's certainly not perfect, but she's done quite well in many, many ways... not least in making a fool of so many "conservatives" who have made inane criticisms of her (much as it can be expected that only the inane criticisms are likely to be seen on the GOP and far right propaganda outlets).

As it is, a couple hours ago, I happened to be subjected to a TV interview where there was a Republican defending her attempt to equate AOC with Cambodian genocide in that ad during the Democratic candidate debate using logic that was basically AOC = single payer = socialism = Cambodian genocide. I think you can likely figure out the foghorn, since it's so far beyond dog-whistles at this point.

Anyways, random news time.

Trump fired us 'so they wouldn’t catch him,' his undocumented workers tell Samantha Bee

...It's honestly rather telling if the superiors actually were actively helping the illegals get fake paperwork.

Then there's this -

Let me get this straight. The US Department of Justice is trying to keep evidence gathered in a criminal investigation of the President away from Congress - which, under our Constitution, holds "sole power of impeachment." This is a lawless delay tactic, doomed to fail in court. @eliehonig

Sums it up nicely.

Voting Rights Roundup: North Carolina GOP unveils new stealth gerrymanders to replace illegal ones

Just in case one might hope that the GOP would obey an unfavorable ruling in good faith. Also a bunch of other news at that link about current voting rights news.

Gay couple sues over Trump admin's denial of 2-month-old baby's U.S. citizenship

Maryland residents Roee Kiviti and Adiel Kiviti are naturalized U.S. citizens, and their baby, Kessem, was born in Canada via surrogate. Both parents are on the child’s birth certificate, but “Immigration Equality, Lambda Legal and the law firm Morgan Lewis, which represent the Kivitis, in a press release notes the State Department is treating the couple’s daughter as ‘born out of wedlock’ because only Adiel Kiviti has a biological connection to her,” according to the Washington Blade.

The couple notes that their 3-year-old son, Lev, was also born via surrogate in Canada in 2016, and they had no issues when it came to his documentation. “We got Lev’s passport within two days,” Kiviti told CNN. “We did the exact same process with our daughter Kessem earlier this month, and then received a phone call indicating that this was being treated as an out-of-wedlock birth, and as such, there are additional requirements that need to be met.”

This is not the only gay couple to recently be blindsided by the Trump administration and have their child’s citizenship put in doubt. “An attorney for the Kiviti family says their suit is at least the fourth such case to challenge the policy,” NBC News reported. Roee and Adiel now worry if their family will be forced apart, or uprooted entirely.
 
Just to rewind a bit, this is what Donny said about orange lightbulbs:
HEAVY, STRONG AND THEY WILL COST A LOT LESS MONEY. PEOPLE SAID WHAT IS WITH THE LIGHTBULB? HERE IS A STORY. I LOOKED AT IT. THE BOLD WHERE -- BULB WE ARE BEING FORCED TO USE, NUMBER ONE, TO ME, MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE LIGHT'S NO GOOD. I ALWAYS LOOK ORANGE, AND SO DO YOU. THE LIGHT IS THE WORST. NUMBER TWO, IT IS MANY TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THAT OLD INCANDESCENT BULB THAT WORKED VERY WELL, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW THIS, THEY HAVE WARNINGS. IF IT BREAKS, IT IS CONSIDERED A HAZARDOUS WASTE. -- WASTE SITE. IT IS GASES INSIDE. READ WHAT THEY SAY. IF IT BREAKS, BRING IT TO YOUR LOCAL WHATEVER, HAVE IT WRAPPED -- WHAT ARE WE DOING? WHAT ARE WE DOING? I SAID TO ONE OF THE PEOPLE TODAY, THEY BREAK A LOT, SO WHAT DO THEY DO -- THEY THROW THEM AWAY.
So questions...

1) When has Trump ever changed a lightbulb?

2) When has Trump ever bought a lightbulb?

3) What the **** is wrong with his brain?
 
Just to rewind a bit, this is what Donny said about orange lightbulbs:
So questions...

1) When has Trump ever changed a lightbulb?

2) When has Trump ever bought a lightbulb?

3) What the **** is wrong with his brain?

Trump is an old, demented man who considers the entire world to be his front lawn.
 
Oh... and this.

Trump and Barr get an embarrassing slapdown as grand jury reportedly will not indict Andrew McCabe

Getting a grand Jury to provide an indictment is famously easy. As in, “would indict a ham sandwich” easy. If the letter is accurate in saying that a grand jury returned “no true bill” when confronted with the evidence against McCabe, that’s not just an unusual result; that’s a crushing embarrassment for Barr’s Justice Department and its first attempt at turning “Lock (insert name here) up” from a rally chant to reality.

<snip>

At that time, McCabe’s attorney made a particularly telling statement about any attempt to indict McCabe: “[We are] confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office would conclude that it should decline to prosecute.” Prescient. Very prescient.

Apparently it did not decline. And there’s every reason to think the U.S. Attorney’s Office moved entirely based on a pile of “inappropriate pressure” applied by Barr, or Trump, or both. And now it seems like they’ve collected a legal rebuke across the nose.

Good.
 
I'm not happy with Biden at all. The reason is Trump. Biden will not have the ability to debate Trump live. The debate will be a disaster to Biden. The independent voters already know what they get with Trump, and it will be embarrassing for us Democrats. With Biden as the alternative, people will still vote if they hate Trump, but the turnout will be better for any of the other Democrats.

Is Trump perhaps pushing for this Biden candidacy?
 
Just to rewind a bit, this is what Donny said about orange lightbulbs:
So questions...

1) When has Trump ever changed a lightbulb?

2) When has Trump ever bought a lightbulb?

3) What the **** is wrong with his brain?
Christ. Like reading the ramblings of some particularly unhinged conspiracy theorist.
 
Trump Tweets

94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party! Tuesday night in the Great State of North Carolina proved that high and very beautiful number correct.
 
Just to rewind a bit, this is what Donny said about orange lightbulbs:
So questions...

1) When has Trump ever changed a lightbulb?

2) When has Trump ever bought a lightbulb?

3) What the **** is wrong with his brain?



I think this is a symptom of his mental illness. He knows he looks orange but it can't be his fault, therefore he rejects reality for his delusion, it's the lights not him, and anyway you all look orange as well.
 
Lights come in many colors.

Production lighting is generally controllable in this regard.

Cameras have white balance.

Our President is a blithering idiot.
 
I think this is a symptom of his mental illness. He knows he looks orange but it can't be his fault, therefore he rejects reality for his delusion, it's the lights not him, and anyway you all look orange as well.

Lights come in many colors.

Production lighting is generally controllable in this regard.

Cameras have white balance.

Our President is a blithering idiot.

I honestly think the whole "looking orange" thing is his (speechwriters' ?) failed attempt at self-deprecating humour.
 
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