The Trump Presidency: Part 20

[slyjoe]

There's got to be something there that's still not nailed down. At this point, it's just about counting coup. A crumbling bridge perhaps? That'd be both embarrassing as hell, and annoyingly polite and useful.

Heh.

 

[lomiller]

Just in case anyone, like me, was wondering what this was about:


Coronavirus: Trump asks medical supply firm 3M to stop selling N95 respirators to Canada





Dear Trump and Everyone Who Voted for Him:

**** you all right in the ear.

Signed, Your Former Most Reliable Allies And Friends, The Canadians.​

It's not just exports, he's also trying to redirect masks and ventilators produced elsewhere and needed elsewhere into the US.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/3m-says...op-sending-u-s-made-masks-to-canada-1.1416965

It's clear at this point that the US is no longer a reliable partner for anything. You still need to work with unreliable countries on many things but Western Democracies should probabaly start dealing with the US along the lines of how they do with China. IOW, you still need to work with them, but they are ultimately an aggressive hostile county that can't be trusted and significant oversight and security is needed in any dealings.

 

[Aridas]

In the UK the Army has been helping to build emergency hospitals for the NHS, one would hope General Milley has something similar in mind rather than just making asinine comments to boost Trump's ego.

At the moment, here in the US... it looks like the military assistance - hospital ships and tent hospitals - are being limited to helping people who do not have coronavirus. That means that only those who test negative might be transferred to them.

In practice, that means that, as of last check, they were helping about 15 people total for the NYC situation. That number should grow a bit as testing continues to ramp up, but... *sigh*

 

[Stacyhs]

No it doesn't make sense. It isn't happening anywhere else in the Western world certainly. Only in the USA because of its (to me) weird gun fetish. Everything is safer and better with a six gun on your hip apparently. It isn't the way people feel in the civilized world, and while we (the UK) have been screwing up handling the Covid outbreak almost as badly as Trump. I think the number of people in this and most other countries who think having a new gun would help is comfortably less than 0.5%.

I've never understood the gun fetish of this country either. Running out and buying a gun never entered my mind.

 

[Aridas]

It's not just exports, he's also trying to redirect masks and ventilators produced elsewhere and needed elsewhere into the US.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/3m-says...op-sending-u-s-made-masks-to-canada-1.1416965

It's clear at this point that the US is no longer a reliable partner for anything. You still need to work with unreliable countries on many things but Western Democracies should probabaly start dealing with the US along the lines of how they do with China. IOW, you still need to work with them, but they are ultimately an aggressive hostile county that can't be trusted and significant oversight and security is needed in any dealings.

Half correct, at least. The Republicans are fundamentally untrustworthy, especially over the last decade, though, and that's just been getting worse and worse. Democrats are generally still fairly reliable, at least, at least on par with the rest of the developed world.

 

[Stacyhs]

Don't think you are alone in this. Here in Oz we have a wishy-washy PM who has committed our souls to his god in order to get through this thing. Gee, thanks. As though that would make up for the bumbles, slip-ups, shortages and delays his government have perpetrated. But in the last little while they have been getting better. Hard lessons learned, I guess.

But through all this, with our isolating and distancing and constant worry, etc, nobody has even hinted that we need more guns for any reason at all. For a start, they're (usually) not edible. So what IS it with the USA that this is the FIRST option? Something in the water?

?

But how have you survived without guns and bullets during this when they're essential?

 

[newyorkguy]

Wonder if that means that Canada will stop the 1500 nurses who come into Detroit from Canada each day.

(Answer is no - Canada said that wouldn't be moral.)

What an odd choice of word when discussing the United States (in our current configuration). A crummy time to be an American. Sad!

Is Trump still planning on deploying U.S. military to the northern border? I don't see anything in the news more recent then last week when this 'plan' first came to light. With Trump, you never know. Since he doesn't seem to know what's he going to do from moment-to-moment, how can anyone else?

 

[lomiller]

Half correct, at least. The Republicans are fundamentally untrustworthy, especially over the last decade, though, and that's just been getting worse and worse. Democrats are generally still fairly reliable, at least, at least on par with the rest of the developed world.

That just makes the US erratic, which is yet another reason it’s not a reliable partner.

 

[Stacyhs]

As for that excerpt, I read it and, well... based on that, I get the feeling that Trump would look at Kushner and pretty much see himself there, which means that he'll either trust Kushner or act like he trusts Kushner rather too hard to cover up the insecurities that would be exposed were he not to trust Kushner, because Trump is inseparable from his pathological narcissism.

I had the exact same thought. Kushner is the son he really wanted. Donnie Jr. and Eric are sad disappointments to him.

 

[Aridas]

That just makes the US erratic, which is yet another reason it’s not a reliable partner.

Rather, it's the main reason for any unreliability, not "yet another reason."

 

[Stacyhs]

But we will ask them to steal as much **** as they can on their way home every day.

I've always said that Canada is, in its heart, a nation of smugglers. Trumpie just might find out how true that is...

So that's where all the masks "going out the back door" are heading! Damn Canadians! Never did trust all that 'niceness'.

"How do you go from 10 to 20, to 300,000? Ten to 20,000 masks to 300,000?" the president asked during a Rose Garden news conference. "Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? And we have that in a lot of different places. So, somebody should probably look into that, because I just don't see, from a practical standpoint, how that's possible to go from that to that."

Trump, 3/29/2020

 

[Horatius]

Half correct, at least. The Republicans are fundamentally untrustworthy, especially over the last decade, though, and that's just been getting worse and worse. Democrats are generally still fairly reliable, at least, at least on par with the rest of the developed world.

But that doesn't matter, because even when the Democrats win an election, they can't seem to do anything. Even when Obama had a Dem congress behind him, not much got done, and what little did get done was immediately castrated as soon as possible by the Reps.

You guys need to turf out the Republican party, on every level of government, and keep them turfed out long enough for new, saner generation of Reps to take over their party.

But the rest of us have very little confidence in your ability to do that.

So that's where all the masks "going out the back door" are heading! Damn Canadians! Never did trust all that 'niceness'.


Trump, 3/29/2020

To paraphrase Churchill, "We have not yet begun to steal!"

 

[Safe-Keeper]

But how have you survived without guns and bullets during this when they're essential?

Here in Norway, there was an uproar when they considered closing the state-run liquor stores. Because alcohol is a neccessity, apparently.

 

[Segnosaur]

Just in case anyone, like me, was wondering what this was about:


Coronavirus: Trump asks medical supply firm 3M to stop selling N95 respirators to Canada

In addition to the questionable morality (and possibly illegality) of stopping shipments to Canada, the article also mentions this;

“If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease. That is the opposite of what we and the administration, on behalf of the American people, both seek,” the company said.

I suspect there is probably a lot of supply chain integration that might be upset with a "sell only to the U.S." order.

 

[Stacyhs]

Here in Norway, there was an uproar when they considered closing the state-run liquor stores. Because alcohol is a neccessity, apparently.

Fixed that for you.

I'm using vodka and tequila to sterilize my stomach. Simply for medical purposes, I swear.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I always thought that Trump was jealous of Jared for his relationship with Ivanka.
I'm starting to think that Ivanka is jealous of Trump for his relationship with her husband.

 

[Horatius]

In addition to the questionable morality (and possibly illegality) of stopping shipments to Canada, the article also mentions this;

“If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease. That is the opposite of what we and the administration, on behalf of the American people, both seek,” the company said.

I suspect there is probably a lot of supply chain integration that might be upset with a "sell only to the U.S." order.

Yeah, I saw that in reading other stories about this plan. You have to wonder how Trumpie would react if the countries he's buying these from decided to hold all their shipments at customs or on the docks. Is he going to send in the SEALs to try to take them by force?

I'm utterly unsurprised that Trumpie hasn't thought this all the way through.

 

[The Atheist]

I had the exact same thought. Kushner is the son he really wanted. Donnie Jr. and Eric are sad disappointments to him.

Well, it would certainly be a case of "like father, like son".

Again and again, she said, people who’d dealt with Kushner told her that whatever he did, he “believed he could do it better than anybody else, and he had supreme confidence in his own abilities and his own judgment even when he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

(quoted from NYGuy's post)

That is a mirror of Trump.

 

[Steve]

Yeah, I saw that in reading other stories about this plan. You have to wonder how Trumpie would react if the countries he's buying these from decided to hold all their shipments at customs or on the docks. Is he going to send in the SEALs to try to take them by force?

I'm utterly unsurprised that Trumpie hasn't thought this all the way through. at all

edited for accuracy

 

[Ladewig]

Seriously folks, has there ever been a face more begging to be punched?

I just watched that episode a couple of days ago

Sherlock Holmes: Punch me in the face.

John Watson: Punch you?

Sherlock Holmes: Yes, punch me, in the face. Didn't you hear me?

John Watson: I always hear "punch me in the face" when you're speaking, but it's usually subtext.

I cannot remember the last time I listened to President Trump and did not hear “punch me in the face.” Ditto on Kushner.