Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 23

[Segnosaur]

Has Russia benefited enough out of Trump to make risking tampering in the election as worth it in 2020?

Umm... they already have.

From Wikipedia
According to Christopher A. Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Russia is attempting to interfere with the 2020 United States elections...Various disinformation campaigns on social media have targeted the Democratic Party candidates running in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries... Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company has detected a "highly sophisticated" set of campaigns to interfere with the 2020 elections. These campaigns originated from Russia and from Iran. Fake accounts based in Russia posed as Americans of varied political backgrounds and worked to undermine the campaign of Joe Biden...American intelligence officials advised members of the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to get Trump re-elected.... On February 21, 2020, The Washington Post reported that, according to unnamed US officials, Russia was interfering in the Democratic primary in an effort to support the nomination of Senator Bernie Sander.

Is it worth it? If you're Putin, of course it is.

In the best case scenario, Trump gets re-elected. America continues to lose prestige and alienate allies, giving Russia the chance to increase its sphere of influence. (And any attempts to investigate Russian interference is curtailed.)

Worst case scenario? Biden wins... but you still have a large portion of the electorate who continue to follow Trump (and believe things like 'election fraud'.) Democrats may impose sanctions and take other measures against Russia, but they were never going to be 'friends' with Russia anyways (between the whole 'annex crimea' thing, and their interference in 2016.)

All that, for a relatively minor investment in a few hackers, perhaps a bot-net or 2.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

MANY people in custody, with many others being sought for Vandalization of Federal Property in Lafayette Park. 10 year prison sentences!
@FBIWFO

 

[slyjoe]

Trump Tweets

MANY people in custody, with many others being sought for Vandalization of Federal Property in Lafayette Park. 10 year prison sentences!
@FBIWFO

TAINT THE JURORS!

 

[blutoski]

TAINT THE JURORS!

I'd be curious to see whether this ends up like marijuana possession convictions.

People sitting in jail confused about why they're still here when the statues were taken down through popular vote years ago.

 

[lomiller]

The Week It Went South for Trump

Peggy Noonan

He hasn’t been equal to the crises. He never makes anything better. And everyone kind of knows.

His long-term political malpractice has been his failure—with a rising economy roughly 40% of the country. He failed because he obsesses on his base and thinks it has to be fed and greased with the entertainments that alienate everyone else. But his base, which always understood he was a showman, wanted steadiness and seriousness in these crises, because they have a sense of the implications of things.

He doesn’t understand his own base. I’ve never seen that in national politics.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-we...33?redirect=amp#click=https://t.co/XINd3Ywz83

Trump understands the Republican base better than Noonan does.

 

[Trebuchet]

Trump understands the Republican base better than Noonan does.

He understands the thinking of his base (which is not entirely the same as the Republican base), but I don't think he understands how small it is.

 

[Stacyhs]

Trump Tweets

If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News Media would come down on me with a vengeance. This is beyond a normal mistake. Why isn’t the media reporting it?

Trump Retweeted
Steve Guest
@SteveGuest
Biden slammed after wrongly saying ‘we have over 120 million dead from COVID’

This is the kind of crap I hate so much. Yes, Biden accidentally said "million" instead of "thousand"....but he immediately corrected himself by saying "I mean 120 thousand dead" which is not mentioned and the videos all cut off just before that correction.

This lie by omission has been reported by numerous media but mediaite has the audio of Biden correcting himself.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/audio...million-covid-dead-was-corrected-immediately/

 

[Stacyhs]

I'm sure he will, but after four years of not locking her up, will 'LOCK HER UP!' get them dancing in the aisles in quite the same way?

Remember when Trump was going to launch an investigation into her? Well, he did in Nov. 2017 and absolutely nothing came out of it. Just more hot air coming out of the bloviating Orange Turd.

A Department of Justice inquiry into Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation has effectively concluded without producing tangible results, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The investigation has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or lawmakers, but the the U.S. attorney tapped in November 2017 to look into the concerns raised by President Trump and allies has largely finished his investigation, according to current and former law enforcement officials that spoke to the Post.

The investigation started after Trump and GOP allies in Congress raised concerns over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ties to a Russian nuclear agency and the Clinton Foundation. Huber was tapped by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to look into the matters.


“We didn’t expect much of it, and neither did he,” one person familiar with the matter told the Post. “And as time went on, a lot of people just forgot about it.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...linton-and-touted-by-trump-winds-down-with-no

 

[Blue Mountain]

You forgot Nambia and other ****holes.

I'm stealing that for the name of my next garage death metal punk band.

 

[Armitage72]

This is the kind of crap I hate so much. Yes, Biden accidentally said "million" instead of "thousand"....but he immediately corrected himself by saying "I mean 120 thousand dead" which is not mentioned and the videos all cut off just before that correction.

While Trump would never admit he made a mistake and correct himself. He would either deny that he ever said it or come up with some rambling excuse why million was actually correct.

 

[blutoski]

While Trump would never admit he made a mistake and correct himself. He would either deny that he ever said it or come up with some rambling excuse why million was actually correct.

I thought the go-to was that he was joking or being sarcastic.

"Apparently you don't have a sense of humour, so y'see, the deficiency is on your end for taking what I said at face value."

 

[Steve]

I thought the go-to was that he was joking or being sarcastic.

"Apparently you don't have a sense of humour, so y'see, the deficiency is on your end for taking what I said at face value."

Well, Trump himself recently said “I don’t kid”. In fact, he doesn’t know how.

 

[lomiller]

He understands the thinking of his base (which is not entirely the same as the Republican base), but I don't think he understands how small it is.

The difference between his base and the Republican base is negligible and IMO it's larger that you think. People who claim they only vote for Trump reluctantly, are still part of his base because there is clearly nothing he can do to loose those votes at this point.

 

[Stacyhs]

While Trump would never admit he made a mistake and correct himself. He would either deny that he ever said it or come up with some rambling excuse why million was actually correct.

I think what is so disgusting is that they knew he immediately corrected himself and deliberately are misrepresenting what he said. And just guess where the cut off video and misleading claim originated? FOX News. And Trump has the audacity to talk about 'fake news'.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The difference between his base and the Republican base is negligible and IMO it's larger that you think. People who claim they only vote for Trump reluctantly, are still part of his base because there is clearly nothing he can do to loose those votes at this point.

This. We have to stop treating Trumpers as some weird fringe group we can quarantine/ignore.

We're talking 40% percent of the electorate and ~50% of the electorate power due to the imbalances of the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, and voter suppression.

 

[pgwenthold]

This is the kind of crap I hate so much. Yes, Biden accidentally said "million" instead of "thousand"....but he immediately corrected himself by saying "I mean 120 thousand dead" which is not mentioned and the videos all cut off just before that correction.

This lie by omission has been reported by numerous media but mediaite has the audio of Biden correcting himself.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/audio...million-covid-dead-was-corrected-immediately/

Old, I saw this trending on twitter last night and looked briefly. Not a single person mentioned the correction. I figured as much.

Talk about lying media.

 

[Stacyhs]

Old, I saw this trending on twitter last night and looked briefly. Not a single person mentioned the correction. I figured as much.

Talk about lying media.

I remembered watching Biden live and noted the mistake but seemed to remember him also correcting himself. So when I read Trump's tweet, I googled it. Almost no one noted the correction; they were overwhelmingly just reprints of the misleading video. It took me several minutes to actually find an article that had the quote with the correction. No one who supports Trump would take the time to fact check it and I suspect neither would a lot of those who like to present Biden as a doddering old fool.

 

[blutoski]

Well, Trump himself recently said “I don’t kid”. In fact, he doesn’t know how.

Yeah, but c'mon... obviously he was kidding when he said that.

The humour is layered. Four dimensional chess humour. Sorry you can't keep up but it is what it is.

 

[blutoski]

The difference between his base and the Republican base is negligible and IMO it's larger that you think. People who claim they only vote for Trump reluctantly, are still part of his base because there is clearly nothing he can do to loose those votes at this point.

The overlap is approaching unity.

Last poll I read a couple of days ago had him at a 'low' of 90% 'would reelect' among Republicans. Down from about 96% in Feb.

 

[Segnosaur]

He understands the thinking of his base (which is not entirely the same as the Republican base), but I don't think he understands how small it is.

Actually I don't think he "understands" anything. He does have an ability to con them but I doubt there is much thought involved. He is like a microbe... mindlessly reacting to stimulus. ("They are cheering when I say lock her up and drain the swamp... Better keep doing that.")

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