The Trump Presidency: Part 20

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Stacyhs said:
Do you think your wife finally realized that SHE is paying for the wall and not Mexico?
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She got pretty quiet; she does that a lot when we talk politics. TBF to her, she comes from a god-fearing conservative family*; I was pretty much her first real, extended exposure to the other side of the political fence (whereas, growing up in MS, I'd never not been exposed to her side). I'd like to think that, over the years (20 now), some of that exposure has had an effect- when we do discuss Trump these days, she seems a little more thoughtful, there's no longer just the knee-jerk reflex to defend there used to be. When he was first running for the Repub nomination in 2016, she was like me in absolutely abhorring him on every level; like I said, it was the fact that he became the Repub's choice that made her decide he needed to be hers too. I'm hoping that, if Biden wins the Dem nomination, she will be able to switch to supporting him as a moderate choice that isn't Trump.**

*And, TBF to my wife's conservative family, they're mostly very decent people (one of her brothers is a religious nut who, when she lost her oldest daughter in a road accident in 2004, lectured her on her "weakness" in faith, because her mourning was an inability to accept the Lord's will. He and I don't talk). One of the weird things about living in a place like Mississippi, being in a tiny political minority surrounded by decent people that you can never agree with, is that you can also never see them as ogres just because of that difference.

**My opinion is that only Biden can beat Trump; I side ideologically more with Bernie, but I just don't think he can get enough moderate support to win. His ideas will have their time, Medicare For All will be a reality at some point in the future; right now, the priority must be beating Trump. If you think he's been insufferably bad in his first term, just imagine how he'll be after being empowered by the impeachment acquittal and then winning re-election. And RBG isn't going to live forever; Trump putting another Kavanaugh on the SC will have repercussions that last long enough to affect anything a future Bernie might be able to get done- I can easily imagine another Trump appointee voting along with the others in a majority to negate any progressive gains in health care, civil rights, etc.

This story that Trump made up about Mexico indirectly paying for the wall is just another one of his lies he's telling to cover the truth: the American taxpayer is paying for it. It's as silly as his lie that tariffs are bringing in millions to the country.
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It's a silly and easily-exposed lie; but it's a lie that people who want to believe just won't examine for any truth value beyond what serves their ideological purpose. It's like John Goodman's character says at the end of Red State- "People just do the strangest things when they believe they're entitled. But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe." (Also a family resemblance to George Costanza's "remember, Jerry- it's not a lie if you believe it.")
 
turingtest said:
She got pretty quiet; she does that a lot when we talk politics. TBF to her, she comes from a god-fearing conservative family*; I was pretty much her first real, extended exposure to the other side of the political fence (whereas, growing up in MS, I'd never not been exposed to her side). I'd like to think that, over the years (20 now), some of that exposure has had an effect- when we do discuss Trump these days, she seems a little more thoughtful, there's no longer just the knee-jerk reflex to defend there used to be. When he was first running for the Repub nomination in 2016, she was like me in absolutely abhorring him on every level; like I said, it was the fact that he became the Repub's choice that made her decide he needed to be hers too. I'm hoping that, if Biden wins the Dem nomination, she will be able to switch to supporting him as a moderate choice that isn't Trump.**

*And, TBF to my wife's conservative family, they're mostly very decent people (one of her brothers is a religious nut who, when she lost her oldest daughter in a road accident in 2004, lectured her on her "weakness" in faith, because her mourning was an inability to accept the Lord's will. He and I don't talk). One of the weird things about living in a place like Mississippi, being in a tiny political minority surrounded by decent people that you can never agree with, is that you can also never see them as ogres just because of that difference.

**My opinion is that only Biden can beat Trump; I side ideologically more with Bernie, but I just don't think he can get enough moderate support to win. His ideas will have their time, Medicare For All will be a reality at some point in the future; right now, the priority must be beating Trump. If you think he's been insufferably bad in his first term, just imagine how he'll be after being empowered by the impeachment acquittal and then winning re-election. And RBG isn't going to live forever; Trump putting another Kavanaugh on the SC will have repercussions that last long enough to affect anything a future Bernie might be able to get done- I can easily imagine another Trump appointee voting along with the others in a majority to negate any progressive gains in health care, civil rights, etc.

It's a silly and easily-exposed lie; but it's a lie that people who want to believe just won't examine for any truth value beyond what serves their ideological purpose. It's like John Goodman's character says at the end of Red State- "People just do the strangest things when they believe they're entitled. But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe." (Also a family resemblance to George Costanza's "remember, Jerry- it's not a lie if you believe it.")
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Thank you for that well thought out post. I enjoyed reading it immensely and I agree with your thoughts, especially the highlighted parts.
 
dudalb said:
I think 95% of the people who post in this Political section know what CPAC is.
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95% of the Americans probably do. I had to look it up.

I'm guessing it's the Conservative Political Activists Conference, as the other possibilities on wiki's disambiguation list look relatively harmless. Unless you have something against anime fans or athletes.
 
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/opin...ale-president-dynastic-women-smith/index.html

Please, oh please let the Trump spawn called Ivanka run for president. We all know one of Trump's nits who grew into lice would. It would be so wonderful to savor her destruction as a human being. Her nickname in the administration is the "mother of all bad ideas". Think of the leaks from "former Trump administration sources" who have been waiting in the tall grass for the whore. The deliciousness of her father living to see his daughter serving as a human sacrifice on the alter of Political Catharsis is almost irresistible.
 
Pixel42 said:
95% of the Americans probably do. I had to look it up.

I'm guessing it's the Conservative Political Activists Conference, as the other possibilities on wiki's disambiguation list look relatively harmless. Unless you have something against anime fans or athletes.
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Pretty much. They're the people who, for example, in response to the Green New Deal, decided to threaten Democrats en masse because the Green New Deal meant that Democrats wanted to take away and kill all the cows, according to them. Trump, of course, is still spouting that lie. :boggled:

Yeah... the "conservative" part may as well be treated as a brazen lie by now.

In other news, looks like some people have looked a bit more into the current head of the CDC. What did they find? That superficially, he seems okay. Dig a little deeper, though, and you get stuff like...

Redfield's early engagement with the AIDS epidemic in the US in the 1980s and 90s was controversial. As an Army major at Walter Reed Medical Institute, he designed policies for controlling the disease within the US military that involved placing infected personnel in quarantine and investigating their pasts to identify and track possible sexual partners. Soldiers were routinely discharged and left to die of AIDS, humiliated and jobless, often abandoned by their families.
In the 1980s Redfield worked closely with W. Shepherd Smith, Jr. and his Christian organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, or ASAP. The group maintained that AIDS was "God's judgment" against homosexuals, spread in an America weakened by single-parent households and loss of family values.
Redfield wrote the introduction to a 1990 book, "Christians in the Age of AIDS," co-written by Smith, in which he denounced distribution of sterile needles to drug users and condoms to sexually active adults, and described anti-discrimination programs as the efforts of "false prophets."
In the early 1990's, ASAP and Redfield also backed H.R. 2788, a House bill sponsored by deeply conservative Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-California). It would have subjected people with HIV to testing, loss of professional licenses and would have effectively quarantined them. (The bill died in Congress.) In the 2000s, Redfield was a top advocate for the so-called "ABCs of AIDS" in Africa, pressing to prevent HIV infection through sexual abstinence, monogamy and the use of condoms only as a last resort.
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Yeah, he's quite a piece of **** and has no experience running anything like the CDC. I wonder how many people died entirely avoidable and horrible deaths because of him. And how many more will, especially under the present circumstances.

Related to the CDC -

White House overruled CDC on recommendation that seniors avoid flying

Yeah... it's bad when we pretty much can't trust the government because of what looks to be a guy lusting after the title of Tangerine Idi Amin.

Next up, well, when one can accurately write this sentence -

A rabid anti-choicer and vanity press publisher has entered the political fray just weeks after being pardoned by Donald Trump for her role in a car theft ring.
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Something is probably very, very wrong in the picture.
 
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Anyone else wonder if Trump refuses to handle appropriately handle the coronoa virus situation because he's a germaphobe? That he is simply in denial because the idea of a virus pandemic is too scary to him?
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Anyone else wonder if Trump refuses to handle appropriately handle the coronoa virus situation because he's a germaphobe? That he is simply in denial because the idea of a virus pandemic is too scary to him?
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That wouldn't be the normal reaction of a germaphobe.
 
Just saw the US Surgeon General on TV, looks to be a rather fit guy in his 30s. When he said "The President is healthier than I am" I immediately questioned his credibility on everything else he talked about.
 
Trump Retweeted
Sean Hannity
@seanhannity
@realdonaldTrump to Bloomberg: "One thing this whole thing has shown is that you can't buy an election... Sometimes you just don’t have what it takes."

@realdonaldTrump Donates His Quarterly Salary to Help Fight Coronavirus, Find Vaccine

The White House
@WhiteHouse
President @realDonaldTrump signed the $8.3 billion funding bill to combat Coronavirus and defend the health and safety of the American people.
 
Trump tweets

We have now learned for sure that the Democrats don’t want anything to do with Crazy Bernie. Rigged? First @amyklobuchar & @PeteButtigieg quit the race & come out for Sleepy Joe BEFORE Super Tuesday. Pocahontas says NO & quits race AFTER ELECTION, thereby depriving Bernie of at..

.....least 5 States & the Nomination. Did the DNC & Dems tell Elizabeth Warren to wait? If so, they were deadly, the race would have been over, & Bernie would have won. Dirty double dealing? Nobody knows for sure, & history will be the judge. But I say, here we go AGAIN, Bernie!
 
Trump Tweets

We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!
 
A minor flare up over Melania's tennis pavilion. Some compared her, somewhat jokingly, to Marie Antoinette. Despite her professed concern for children's health issues. Mrs. Trump has remained silent about the spread of the virus. From the Independent in the UK:
Melania Trump has hit back after she was criticised for tweeting about the progress of a White House tennis complex as coronavirus spread across America. She posted about the tennis pavilion on Thursday, which many found tone deaf given the recent deadly Tennessee tornadoes and ongoing coronavirus worries. On Saturday Melania followed up with a tweet saying: “I encourage everyone who chooses to be negative and question my work at the to take time and contribute something good & productive in their own communities.” Link
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Mia Farrow tweeted back:
“Sorry if we were ‘negative & questioned’ your ‘good & productive work’ making a tennis pavilion (whatever that is) for the WH with our money. We are dealing with a negative thing or two. Love the hard-hat.”
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Melania does look darling in that white hard hat, don't she? What a gal!
 

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newyorkguy said:
A minor flare up over Melania's tennis pavilion. Some compared her, somewhat jokingly, to Marie Antoinette. Despite her professed concern for children's health issues. Mrs. Trump has remained silent about the spread of the virus. From the Independent in the UK:





Mia Farrow tweeted back:



Melania does look darling in that white hard hat, don't she? What a gal!
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Marie Antoinette wasn't even the "Marie Antoinette" of popular myth.

So unless they are saying she is a tragic victim of small-minded bigotry and ignorant rumors (which is kinda meta in this instance), I wish people would stop using that comparison.

ETA: no, I'm not arguing Marie Antoinette was a paragon, either. Just in case anyone was planning to make a false dichotomy.
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
Marie Antoinette wasn't even the "Marie Antoinette" of popular myth.

So unless they are saying she is a tragic victim of small-minded bigotry and ignorant rumors (which is kinda meta in this instance), I wish people would stop using that comparison.

ETA: no, I'm not arguing Marie Antoinette was a paragon, either. Just in case anyone was planning to make a false dichotomy.
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There are some similarities, though. Not in the matter of tone deaf aristocracy (because that's part of the nature of an aristocracy) but in the root cause of some of the unpopularity: being a foreigner. Historically, when a ruler marries a foreigner it's an uphill battle for the public's affection.
 
Trump Tweets

The New York Times is an embarrassment to journalism. They were a dead paper before I went into politics, and they will be a dead paper after I leave, which will be in 5 years. Fake News is the Enemy of the people!
 
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