The Trump Presidency: Part 18

[Aridas]

Missouri Official Admits to Tracking Women’s Periods

During the second day of a weeklong state hearing that will decide whether Missouri’s last abortion clinic will be shut down, the state’s heath director, Dr. Randall Williams, admitted to keeping a spreadsheet that tracked the menstrual periods of its patients. According to the Kansas City Star, Williams said he had requested that the state’s primary investigator identify patients who had undergone “failed abortions” at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood facility.

I'm not sure what to say beyond... This is a red flag.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Missouri Official Admits to Tracking Women’s Periods



I'm not sure what to say beyond... This is a red flag.

Heh. "Red flag".

 

[Aridas]

While Trump and the Republican senate may have put many judges in power, or just more power, I don't think they'd be dimwitted enough to then basically just adjudicate against their own power. Including over him and them (senate Republications).

Going further than that... The argument is farcical and no honest person should allow it to stand for a myriad of reasons, not least because if it were to be substantiated, Trump would have an easy shortcut to dictatorship. That takes us back to the fact that the Federalist Society (and much of the rest of the far right) can't be trusted to select honest people who are actually working for the good of the country and that their decades long campaign has been all too effective, especially in recent years, and that the far right has already managed to pretty much blind-side and undermine a bunch of things.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Republicans will only impeach a Democrats' President if they think it will help them win the next election.

 

[The Don]

Republicans will only impeach a Democrats' President if they think it will help them win the next election.

I reckon they could just do it out of spite....

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I reckon they could just do it out of spite....

they could ... but they won't.
Spite isn't more important than power.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Republicans will only impeach a Democrats' President if they think it will help them win the next election.

Yeah and "Elect us to watch us troll the Demmiecrats while the country goes down the crapper" is probably on the letterhead at GOP Headquarters.

Again there is a sizable part, not all, probably not most, maybe not even many but enough to be a factor, of the Republican Base that has given up on things ever getting their version of "better" and just want to watch it burn.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

This involves the Daily Mail, even if the Daily Mail is taking the story from another publication that I've never heard of, so it probably shouldn't be believed immediately, but... it would help explain what happened surprisingly well, if true.

REPORT: Kushner OK'd Khashoggi Arrest, Turkey Heard Call & Blackmailed Trump over Syrian Troops

Bring on the tapes that Mulvaney spoke of! If this actually isn't true, they'd disprove it, right?

Even if it's a fake story, bring it on, turnabout is fair play.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Trump Tweets

False stories are being reported that a few Republican Senators are saying that President Trump may have done a quid pro quo, but it doesn’t matter, there is nothing wrong with that, it is not an impeachable event. Perhaps so, but read the transcript, there is no quid pro quo!

I didn't do it, but if I did it wasn't illegal.

Now where have we heard that before?

 

[The Shrike]

... if you're 45 or older 3 of them have happened in your lifetime and the last two happened in a 21 year timespan.

That's not a check in the "They aren't getting more common" side of the scoreboard.

True, but all three in my lifetime were based on credible evidence of crime. Nixon and Trump, obviously. I did not support Clinton's impeachment and maintain today that it was a political hack job, but... once it was clear he had lied in deposition, I changed my tune to "Okay, impeach the sleazebag and let's get to the bottom of this."

I am not worried about impeachment happening to every president from here on out, if that's what it takes to get rid of the corruption in our politics.

 

[Craig4]

Republicans will only impeach a Democrats' President if they think it will help them win the next election.

That wasn't the case with Nixon. Republicans seem to have lost both their courage and their loyalty to their nation in the intervening years.

 

[a_unique_person]

I wonder if Trump actually wrote this because it's largely true.

Except Newsom is just the new guy on the block. This has been California's M.O. for decades. Water is what has been fought for over the past century - forget the gold rush.

Here's one con he doesn't mention. That whole "dumping water into the ocean" bit is probably referring to the amount of water we release from reservoirs to supposedly save fish species like the Delta Smelt.

What actually happens is that the water gets sold down south, and at a large profit for some private investors.

The "saving the Smelt by cooling the Delta" is just the excuse for releasing the water so it can be sold. Nobody cares about the quite literal handful of smelt that are seen in the waterways (I believe 6 were observed a few years ago).

In fact two forty-foot tunnels were to be built beneath the Delta itself to move water away from the area. Now that plan is being changed to maybe a single tunnel. Opponents say this will destroy the Delta ecosystem allowing salt water to move further inland, among other things.

Yep. A (or two) forty foot tall tunnel beneath the Delta water system. What could go wrong?

Finally, during the droughts we all learned that almond trees use an insane amount of water, yet more and more almond orchards appear every year. Guess where some of that water is to be diverted? The almond growers! Big money baby!

Nobody seems to care about the actual water shortage, it's just another way of making money for these people. The water literally goes to the highest bidders.

There is just so much wrong with this post. The fires driven by hurricane force winds are going to spread regardless of the amount of fuel present. They spread on cleared land and through urban areas out of control. They are more fierce because of global warming and this phenomenon is occurring globally. The idea that clearing undergrowth would take everything back to where it was before is just wishful thinking.

 

[a_unique_person]

I think he calls it dealmaking. A lot of people are saying he's the best.

I didn't know that [emoji3]

 

[Trebuchet]

Republicans will only impeach a Democrats' President if they think it will help them win the next election.

I reckon they could just do it out of spite....

They already did.

 

[Ladewig]

Trump's NDAs have generally been considered to be far more scary than enforceable.

Yes. They work well against small contractors who have had to mortgage their houses to stay afloat because of President Trump’s refusal to pay what he owes people. No lawyer will take their case and they are afraid of a corporate legal team.

Against knowledgeable people who have a publishing company backing them, perhaps not so much.

But Aridas has a point

If they even could out the anonymous person, it's a win for them.

Then again, there are variables at play. Once the name is known, President Trump can make fun if the name itself [aside: you’d think that someone who has done that for years would be better at it] but on the other hand, they cannot claim that it is all made up because there is no real source. And a book tour then becomes an option.

 

[Ladewig]

Anyway, where do you think that this deepening divide between the two parties/sides began? The civil rights movement? Nixon? Reagan? Clinton? Bush?

It's obviously been always there, even before confederation, but it's gotten worse.

There are articles and books that say that Newt Gingrich was the tipping point. He’s the guy who suggested that name calling (e.g. “the loony left”) was an appropriate path. He suggested that Democrats and Republicans stop fraternizing on the weekends. He convinced legislators to look at politics as a zero-sum conflict.

ETA: Rush Limbaugh and his ilk helped a great deal.


MORE ETA: And once the internet ushered in the Misinformation Age (2009? 2010?) it was impossible to turn back.

The Great Experiment is over. It failed.

 

[Paul2]

I had the same thought.

I had a spit-out-my-coffee-and-choke-and-give-myself-the-Heimlick-maneuver thought.


If you multiply any standard hypocrisy times its importance, that one has to be in the top one of all-time hypocrisies.

 

[dudalb]

OK, if democracy is de facto dead, what is our next step and what do we replace it with?
I got a feeling that H.G. Wells idea of a small group of scientist taking over the world and producing Utopia will be popular.

 

[dudalb]

There is just so much wrong with this post. The fires driven by hurricane force winds are going to spread regardless of the amount of fuel present. They spread on cleared land and through urban areas out of control. They are more fierce because of global warming and this phenomenon is occurring globally. The idea that clearing undergrowth would take everything back to where it was before is just wishful thinking.

Clearing undergrouth from around your house if you live in a rural area is a very good idea, but it's not a total solution.

 

[Paul2]

Anyway, where do you think that this deepening divide between the two parties/sides began? The civil rights movement? Nixon? Reagan? Clinton? Bush?

It's obviously been always there, even before confederation, but it's gotten worse.

The civil rights movement was when the Dixiecrats went Republican and the law-and-order strategy went into play. But, of course the civil rights movement has it roots in the Civil War, and the very constitution as originally written.


Race truly is America's original sin, and while it's not the only issue, it sure tracks the divide in the country fairly well.