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The Trump Presidency: Part 18

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Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

A total Witch Hunt!

The Associated Press
@AP
BREAKING: Russian President Vladimir Putin says U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment is far-fetched and predicts the U.S. Senate will reject it. http://apne.ws/QSginnX
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Did Trump tweet, or retweet, the AP item? And he thinks this helps? It's tailor-made to ruffle at least a few feathers in the Senate GOP. Which Putin surely knows, so why is he doing this?
 
 
Minoosh said:
Did Trump tweet, or retweet, the AP item? And he thinks this helps? It's tailor-made to ruffle at least a few feathers in the Senate GOP. Which Putin surely knows, so why is he doing this?
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Ruffling feathers is what Putin wants. He doesn't particularly care about who actually wins any given election or political fight, what he wants is that, no matter the outcome, some segment of the population will be convinced that it's all ********, and that they lost because "it's all rigged, man!"

Destroying faith in US (and other) democracy is his endgame.
 
The Don said:
I'll have a go at translating this into English:

I've never understood the left's obsession with wind power. Obviously, because of my comprehensive engineering and scientific knowledge I know all about wind turbines, which is why I don't understand the left's obsession - after all they kill birds and cause cancer.

I also think that the left is stupid to obsess about global warming and there are so many natural processes contributing to greenhouse gases that even if global warming were real (and it's not), it's down to natural, not man-made factors.

Furthermore our world is tiny in the great scheme of things and the idea that humans could have that kind of effect when the universe is so huge is ridiculous. Sunspots and solar cycles have a far greater impact on climate than humans ever could.
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Disagree. I think he's talking about carbon emissions from the manufacture of turbines. And he really means the world is tiny, thus all the bad fumes are hurting it.

I wonder, how new is all of this? Could someone in social media be reviving old idiocy to distract from recent criminality? Here we are, talking about it, debunking it. Could be paranoia on my part, but I think it's probably good to examine the motivation of anything that comes up in social media, and to be aware that people are trying to manipulate the conversation.

BTW skyscrapers kill way more birds than windmills.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
“I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air,”

- Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
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This is what you get when you go off script, and/or don't use a teleprompter: The ramblings of a moron.
 
Hey everyone! Look at this ridiculous speech about windmills and stuff over here! Get the camera here! Microphone! Spotlight! I'm ready for my close-up, Mr De Mille!

...and don't look at that impeachment over there. Yesterday's news. Not relevant now...
 
Horatius said:
Ruffling feathers is what Putin wants. He doesn't particularly care about who actually wins any given election or political fight, what he wants is that, no matter the outcome, some segment of the population will be convinced that it's all ********, and that they lost because "it's all rigged, man!"

Destroying faith in US (and other) democracy is his endgame.
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OK, but does he want his fingerprints all over the ruffling? I assume he does, or he wouldn't be doing it.

Maybe he wants to foster the illusion that the GOP senators are all in his pocket. Yes, I could see this as a very backhanded blow to democracy. I don't really believe he does have have them all in the bag, but then, they'd look silly contradicting him on this, since they've said they're all-in for Trump.

Still. I think there's some things Putin doesn't understand about democracy. Maybe he thinks he can manipulate the free press, and to some extent he can. However, he's used to thinking of a free press as a liability for democracy. He possibly does not understand the resilience of a system where anyone can say whatever they want. He thinks dissent weakens democracy, without understanding that dissent is in fact a core principle that strengthens democracy.

The U.S. has held together better than the Soviet Union, IMO. We had a horrible war over principles, and in the end, we still had a union. Maybe that was just luck, but I kind of doubt it.
 
Minoosh said:
OK, but does he want his fingerprints all over the ruffling? I assume he does, or he wouldn't be doing it.
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Because he doesn't see what he is doing as anything to be ashamed of. Because he most certainly wants to get credit for doing it.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because he doesn't see what he is doing as anything to be ashamed of. Because he most certainly wants to get credit for doing it.
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I take it as axiomatic that Putin doesn't experience shame. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's driven by shame over the failure of the great Soviet experiment. Despite its lofty (stated) ideals the wheels fell off and he now is the scion of an empire that crashed hard after just 70-odd years. He wants to strike back.

But he certainly doesn't experience shame over manipulating the U.S.
 
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Ladewig said:
In very broad terms, yes.
Some are so stupid as to believe that the US could win a nuclear exchange and there would be no ill effects on us.
Some are pre-tribulationists and think that they are the exact type of Christian that God will float up to heaven before the AntiChrist is released.
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There was a saying I encountered somewhere, that a significant number of the people eagerly anticipating the collapse of civilization think that they'll be Lord Humungus, ruling their own personal kingdom from atop a throne of human skulls, when the reality is that they're more likely to end up part of someone else's throne.
 
Armitage72 said:
There was a saying I encountered somewhere, that a significant number of the people eagerly anticipating the collapse of civilization think that they'll be Lord Humungus, ruling their own personal kingdom from atop a throne of human skulls, when the reality is that they're more likely to end up part of someone else's throne.
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I think it's simpler, more basic, and a lot more depressing the that.

We have a dozen types of broad category cynics who want to be the "I told you so" guy so goddamn bad that they don't want anything to get better.

"Bitter and Jaded" is practically a 3rd Major Party in the US right now, perhaps elsewhere.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Hey everyone! Look at this ridiculous speech about windmills and stuff over here! Get the camera here! Microphone! Spotlight! I'm ready for my close-up, Mr De Mille!

...and don't look at that impeachment over there. Yesterday's news. Not relevant now...
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Yeah I'm sure everyone's forgotten about the impeachment because of his windmill rant.
 
Minoosh said:
OK, but does he want his fingerprints all over the ruffling? I assume he does, or he wouldn't be doing it.



Maybe he wants to foster the illusion that the GOP senators are all in his pocket. Yes, I could see this as a very backhanded blow to democracy. I don't really believe he does have have them all in the bag, but then, they'd look silly contradicting him on this, since they've said they're all-in for Trump.



Still. I think there's some things Putin doesn't understand about democracy. Maybe he thinks he can manipulate the free press, and to some extent he can. However, he's used to thinking of a free press as a liability for democracy. He possibly does not understand the resilience of a system where anyone can say whatever they want. He thinks dissent weakens democracy, without understanding that dissent is in fact a core principle that strengthens democracy.



The U.S. has held together better than the Soviet Union, IMO. We had a horrible war over principles, and in the end, we still had a union. Maybe that was just luck, but I kind of doubt it.
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It's not (healthy) dissent he's going for, it's withdrawal of engagement/participation and rejection of legitimacy.

His statement is meant to deepen suspicions of (cherished?) institutions, specifically the audience is low-information liberals.

If Trump supporters wield Putin's statement as valid input on the subject, the audience is even bigger in terms of deepening incredulity and mistrust of "the other side" by a broad spectrum of liberals. The guffaws and condemnation given in response makes it a mutual enmity.

For examples see: how Rome dealt with Germanic tribes.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Is that for real?
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This post neatly encapsulates the whole Trump phenomenon ... this whole period in American history (and the UK?). One can only wonder what is real and what is not.

We libtards need caps like the MAGA ones, only blue and with "Is that for real?" written across the front.

This whole thing is just bewildering beyond words.
 
I'm just going back to something I asked three years ago: are we absolutely sure this whole Trump thing isn't an elaborate prank? Ashton Kutcher and some TV cameras aren't waiting to jump out and say we've been punk'd? Because I still think that's the most logically parsimonious explanation for all this.
 
Minoosh said:
BTW skyscrapers kill way more birds than windmills.
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Research suggests that while wind power does contribute to bird deaths, more birds are killed by cats or other types of power plants.

According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, collisions with turbines kills between 140,000 and 500,000 birds annually. Other energy sources, such as coal, oil and power lines, contribute to millions of bird deaths. However, cats remain the biggest threat to birds, killing an estimated 1.3 to 4 billion birds each year.
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https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/23/politics/wind-turbines-trump-fact-check/index.html
 
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