The Trump Presidency: Part 17

[alfaniner]

Trump Tweets

From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good @FoxNews Poll. Whoever their Pollster is, they suck. But @FoxNews is also much different than it used to be in the good old days. With people like Andrew Napolitano, who wanted to be a Supreme....

...Court Justice & I turned him down (he’s been terrible ever since), Shep Smith, @donnabrazile (who gave Crooked Hillary the debate questions & got fired from @CNN), & others, @FoxNews
doesn’t deliver for US anymore. It is so different than it used to be. Oh well, I’m President!

Very prophetic short segment from The Groove Tube 1974

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time. They have been fighting forever. We have no soldiers or Military anywhere near the attack area. I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS. Talking to both sides. Some want us to send tens of thousands of soldiers to....

....the area and start a new war all over again. Turkey is a member of NATO. Others say STAY OUT, let the Kurds fight their own battles (even with our financial help). I say hit Turkey very hard financially & with sanctions if they don’t play by the rules! I am watching closely.

 

[Belz...]

I get the feeling that it's like there's a reverse FOTL (Freemen Of The Land) thing going on here. FOTLs believe that specific phrases have almost magical powers to allow someone to avoid paying taxes or drive their car without a licence or unlock a multi-million dollar fund that the government holds for you from birth.

President Trump, his administration, and almost the whole of the GOP seem to think that unless a specific form of words is used in conjunction with a series of actions then that person isn't guilty of any wrongdoing. It's like claiming that I'm only guilty of murder if I repeat three times "I'm murdering you" while I stab you in the chest. If I don't say it, or say it twice or four times then I cannot be guilty of murder.

Ha! Nice post.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Thank you to @OANN One America News for your fair coverage and brilliant reporting. It is appreciated by many people trying so hard to find a new, consistent and powerful VOICE! See you tonight at the Big Rally in Minneapolis.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Sure. Except for the fact that he is nominating judges that will probably end up rolling back things like voting and reproductive rights.

And that he signed a tax bill that resulted in rich people paying a lower tax rate than poor people, with the added bonus of a huge spike in the deficit.

And except for the fact that he is likely speeding up the next recession, and making it harder for future governments to dig themselves out of trouble through his tariffs and other financial mess-ups.

But apart from that? Its like he's not there. Or a figurehead.

Yes. I realize I did not make my point well. What I mean is: Horrible as he is, he seems quite far from having dictatorial power. In fact it seems that the administrative level is throttling him quite a bit.

Hans

 

[TragicMonkey]

Yes. I realize I did not make my point well. What I mean is: Horrible as he is, he seems quite far from having dictatorial power. In fact it seems that the administrative level is throttling him quite a bit.

I'd like him to be throttled much more.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong. He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems & Media are FIXED!

Why isn’t the IG investigating his so-called Whistleblower? All bad info!

Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I? I meet with the Vice Premier tomorrow at The White House.

 

[Horatius]

Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I? I meet with the Vice Premier tomorrow at The White House.

I'm taking the over on China cancelling this meeting since Trump clearly isn't negotiating in good faith. Again.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'm taking the over on China cancelling this meeting since Trump clearly isn't negotiating in good faith. Again.

On the other hand, Trump's just demonstrated how open he is to being pressured by dictators. Perhaps China will take the meeting in the hopes of getting his blessing to annex Taiwan!

 

[Solitaire]

Strange... those figures seem to conflict with Wikipedia (Romney: ~61 million, Trump: ~63 million).

I miscalculated, redoing it over in a spreadsheet give much closer results.
Still the data only has two digit accuracy and it's little bit off by a percentage
point when you sum up the totals – probably rounding errors.

Either way, when you're talking about total votes you're right:
Trump did get more voters than Romney.

However, it should also be noted that Trump received 46% of the votes
in 2012, while Romney got 47%. So by that measure, Romney beat Trump.

What this implies is not that "Trump was more popular than Romney",
but that there were millions more citizens of the U.S. who were able to
cast a ballot. I suspect that if both politicians were dealing with the same
default population, Romney probably would have beaten Trump in total
votes cast.

Agreed.

But Romney would've lost to Trump in the Electoral College.
(Just a little joke there.)

 

[Ladewig]

He's like an angry, dying, senile old man who's lost control of his bowels but who's determined to leave his **** everywhere before he goes.

And he is projecting a lot.

I meant President Trump and not Shemp. I have no evidence that Shemp is accusing President Trump of wanting to leave his **** everywhere because Shemp wants to leave his **** everywhere. Sure, he’ll occasionally fling poop at a specific person, but that is not equivalent to leaving his **** everywhere.

 

[Ladewig]

It's likely that any increase in terror will happen in Europe rather than the US but in any case, any Islamic terrorism attacks, especially any in the US play into the Trump/GOP narrative that Muslims are bad and should be kept out of the country. Heck it makes President Trump look smart for insisting on the Muslim ban.

The withdrawal of US troops means fewer US soldier deaths and President Trump makes good on his promise to bring them home and stop US involvement in useless foreign wars (i.e. the ones he didn't start). To his base that's a President doing his job.

The Trump base don't care about wider geopolitics, they have no interest in grubby foreign wars and they don't care how the US is perceived internationally, they think that isolationism is a good thing.

Hell the whole thing is the Trump business model in a nutshell, get what you want from your supplier and then screw them over when the bill is presented.

Thank you. I was going to respond to that post, but you said everything I wanted to say more clearly and more succinctly than I could.

Spot on.

 

[Segnosaur]

You have an individual who has gained power:

- Despite losing the popular vote...
- With the assistance of at least one foreign government...
- With the assistance of voter suppression tactics...

Yes, you could claim "that's all legal according to the constitution and/or the ways the laws work", but that doesn't necessarily mean people need to accept it. I mean, if Trump actually found a way to get the constitution re-written to make him king for life, the proper response would not be to say "Oh, its in the constitution. I must shut up about it". The response would be to say "whatever tactics were used to re-write the constitution were morally wrong, and it should be challenged."

Whoa, wait a minute. I never suggested you or anyone else shut up about it. I'm specifically talking about armed insurrection.

And so was I.

Simply saying "there was an election and Trump was selected according to the constitution" does not matter if there were underlying reasons that gave Trump an unfair advantage. When there is such an unfair advantage (even if the unfairness is somehow "legal") then individuals may see that an armed insurrection is the only way to restore fairness to the system.

 

[Arcade22]

"Asked about the Kurds, President Trump said that the Kurds did not help the US during WWII or in the Normandy invasion/ D-Day"

Fun fact: neither did Turkey. The Turks didn't help the allies until the very end when Germany was unable to pose any serious threat to them.

 

[Segnosaur]

Here's something else they can toss into the pile of questionable things Trump has done:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/poli...ld-trump-rex-tillerson-oval-office/index.html
Rudy Giuliani used a 2017 Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump to press Rex Tillerson, then-secretary of state, to support a prisoner swap to resolve the Justice Department's prosecution of a Turkish businessman accused of violating Iran sanctions. The businessman, Reza Zarrab, had ties to top Turkish government officials...He was a client of Giuliani's. During the White House meeting, the President invited Giuliani and Michael Mukasey, the former attorney general, to make their pitch to Tillerson...

Not sure what is more surprising here... that Trump was once again abusing his position, or that he was doing so in order to help someone who had violated the sanctions against Russia that he himself set up.

 

[acbytesla]

Here's something else they can toss into the pile of questionable things Trump has done:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/poli...ld-trump-rex-tillerson-oval-office/index.html
Rudy Giuliani used a 2017 Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump to press Rex Tillerson, then-secretary of state, to support a prisoner swap to resolve the Justice Department's prosecution of a Turkish businessman accused of violating Iran sanctions. The businessman, Reza Zarrab, had ties to top Turkish government officials...He was a client of Giuliani's. During the White House meeting, the President invited Giuliani and Michael Mukasey, the former attorney general, to make their pitch to Tillerson...

Not sure what is more surprising here... that Trump was once again abusing his position, or that he was doing so in order to help someone who had violated the sanctions against Russia that he himself set up.

Actually, I don't think there is anything provably wrong with that. In a way, that is how it is supposed to work. Where it gets murky is the personal motivations that we reasonably suspect.

 

[Segnosaur]

"Asked about the Kurds, President Trump said that the Kurds did not help the US during WWII or in the Normandy invasion/ D-Day"

Fun fact: neither did Turkey. The Turks didn't help the allies until the very end when Germany was unable to pose any serious threat to them.

If you want to go back even further, the Ottoman Empire (which sort of evolved into Turkey) was actually one of the countries fighting the Allied powers (of which the United States was one.) back in world war 1.

 

[Segnosaur]

Here's something else they can toss into the pile of questionable things Trump has done:

Rudy Giuliani used a 2017 Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump to press Rex Tillerson, then-secretary of state, to support a prisoner swap to resolve the Justice Department's prosecution of a Turkish businessman accused of violating Iran sanctions.

Actually, I don't think there is anything provably wrong with that. In a way, that is how it is supposed to work. Where it gets murky is the personal motivations that we reasonably suspect.

The motivations (and the personal connections) are certainly one issue. But reports suggest that Tillerson himself thought the request was both inappropriate and illegal.

From: https://time.com/5696760/trump-tillerson-giuliani-client/
Tillerson refused, arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing investigation of the trader, Reza Zarrab, according to the people. They said other participants in the Oval Office were shocked by the request. Tillerson immediately repeated his objections to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly in a hallway conversation just outside the Oval Office, emphasizing that the request would be illegal...

Questionable things about the request:
- Trump interferring in an ongoing investigation. The president is not supposed to be doing that. Zarrab may have had connections to other people who could be liable for prosecution. Sending him to Turkey would likely limit the ability to prosecute other guilty parties
- The personal connections between the people involved (Giuliani using his position as an associate of trump to get favorable treatment for his client
- excuses the violation of Iranian sanctions that the Trump administration itself imposed

 

[Andy_Ross]

Hilary Clinton from 2016

Turkey's at war with the Kurds. If Turkey cuts off Trump Org's cash flow from Istanbul, will Trump, petty & impulsive as he can be, allow that to influence how the U.S. juggles the interests of these 2 critical allies?

Also, NBC reported today that Trump has 119 separate business interests in Turkey. It’s not just the tower.

 

[ponderingturtle]

A lot of people just don't get that.
people forget that Hitler came to power through perfectly legal means.

Or that dictators like Putin are really legitimately popular in their own countries.