Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 23

[Andy_Ross]

Trump: “The European Union was formed in order to take advantage of the United States. Formed to take advantage of the United States. I know that. They know I know that but other presidents had no idea.”

 

[Blue Mountain]

Trump
"As an example, we’ve done 45 million tests. If we did half that number, you’d have half the cases, probably around that number. If we did another half of that, you’d have half the numbers. Everyone would be saying we’re doing well on cases"

Do you have a source for this?

 

[Blue Mountain]

Trump: “The European Union was formed in order to take advantage of the United States. Formed to take advantage of the United States. I know that. They know I know that but other presidents had no idea.”

Once again Trump is blaming others for his own failures.

In my mind, the phrase "to take advantage of" means to exploit another's weakness in some area. For example, my room-mate is Thai and is a great supporter of the Thai monarchy. However, I can take advantage of his inability to read English to read very unfavourable articles about the previous and current king of Thailand in plain sight, knowing he won't call me on it due to his poor English. Likewise, he can say really nasty things about me to his friends when I'm in the same room as they are because he can take advantage of the fact I don't speak Thai.

If the EU is "taking advantage" of the US, it's because they're exploiting a weakness the US has. Wouldn't it be nice if the US had some sort of body that could identify weaknesses and come up with the strategies and money to improve the situation?

 

[Armitage72]

Yeah, I read the story online.

It falls into that category of advice which can be useful if it comes from your favorite uncle and can be annoying if it comes from a cow-orker you don’t respect.
And it can be downright infuriating if it comes from someone who has never actually had to work, to construct a household budget, or to go into debt for education.

I once read a science fiction novel in which a character stated that "the shrillest cries of social injustice usually come from those whose only contribution to society could be done just as well by a trained chimpanzee." Their argument was that the key to success is to find a skill or talent that you have and which most people don't have. Society will need that skill/talent and will treat you well in return. It ignores the fact that a lot of people won't have the ability to develop their life-changing talent. A single mother who's working three jobs to support herself and her two children may have the potential to become a world class botanist or cellist, but when is she supposed to do it?

 

[Darat]

Once again Trump is blaming others for his own failures.



In my mind, the phrase "to take advantage of" means to exploit another's weakness in some area. For example, my room-mate is Thai and is a great supporter of the Thai monarchy. However, I can take advantage of his inability to read English to read very unfavourable articles about the previous and current king of Thailand in plain sight, knowing he won't call me on it due to his poor English. Likewise, he can say really nasty things about me to his friends when I'm in the same room as they are because he can take advantage of the fact I don't speak Thai.



If the EU is "taking advantage" of the US, it's because they're exploiting a weakness the US has. Wouldn't it be nice if the US had some sort of body that could identify weaknesses and come up with the strategies and money to improve the situation?

Once again you are (like we all do when listening to Trump) experiencing apophenia, it's quite common when listening to Trump speak because we are so used to what people say at the start of a sentence being connected to end of the sentence our brains say "there has to be a connection between all these words"!

 

[Belz...]

Once again you are (like we all do when listening to Trump) experiencing apophenia, it's quite common when listening to Trump speak because we are so used to what people say at the start of a sentence being connected to end of the sentence our brains say "there has to be a connection between all these words"!

Ooh, ooh. Is that like the two clauses of the second amendment?

 

[Segnosaur]

There is a Trump press conference going on right now that was billed as remarks on the nations response to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, it's just Trump rambling about things Biden has said recently or things that Biden/Obama did or didn't do in the past.

This is a mind boggling presser, even by Trump standards.

Supposedly several cable networks deliberately cut away from Trump's press conference when it started becoming a "campaign event".

Sent from my LM-X320 using Tapatalk

 

[alfaniner]

Supposedly several cable networks deliberately cut away from Trump's press conference when it started becoming a "campaign event".

Sent from my LM-X320 using Tapatalk

I know CNN did. And they're calling out outright lies right away as what they are. No more euphemisms.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Joe Biden claims to be prioritizing ‘safety of kids’ by keeping schools closed this Fall. Yet he remains silent about children being slaughtered by violence on the streets of Democrat run cities. You & your children won’t be SAFE in Biden’s America, and neither will anyone else!

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Retweeted
Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022)
@TeamTrump

President @realDonaldTrump: Joe Biden never did anything except make very bad decisions for his 47 years in Washington

President @realDonaldTrump on Joe Biden's deep love for China and Biden's many gifts to the Chinese Communist Party

President @realDonaldTrump: “Make no mistake, we hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world."

 

[SezMe]

President Trump's approval rating is 40% because 40% of people really do approve of what he's doing and how he's doing it.

If they didn't, his approval numbers would be down (even if those people still end up voting GOP). After all anonymously disapproving in a poll is a different thing than casting your ballot for another party.

His numbers are down. Based on this chart, his numbers have been trending down since April 1, the longest decline since his initial drop in poling at the start of his term. That's 3.5 months of steady loss; there's 3.5 months to the election. I don't see how he can recover.

 

[Segnosaur]

His numbers are down. Based on this chart, his numbers have been trending down since April 1, the longest decline since his initial drop in poling at the start of his term. That's 3.5 months of steady loss; there's 3.5 months to the election. I don't see how he can recover.

I do agree that Biden currently has the advantage.

But, the U.S. isn't out of danger yet. There could be unexpected developments in the pandemic (e.g. a vaccine announcement) or economy. (Even if Trump doesn't have anything to do with it, he might still claim credit). The pandemic can cause significant issues with voter turnout and/or contribute to suppression.

And some people have become so desensitized to Trump's corruption and incompetence that even if he half-fails at something, some people will somehow look at that as a success.

With the advantage the republicans have in the electoral college, Trump doesn't need to win a majority of votes.

 

[alfaniner]

Trump Tweets

Joe Biden claims to be prioritizing ‘safety of kids’ by keeping schools closed this Fall. Yet he remains silent about children being slaughtered by violence on the streets of Democrat run cities. You & your children won’t be SAFE in Biden’s America, and neither will anyone else!

Whose America is it right now, you dumb orange ****?

 

[Segnosaur]

Trump Tweets

Joe Biden claims to be prioritizing ‘safety of kids’ by keeping schools closed this Fall. Yet he remains silent about children being slaughtered by violence on the streets of Democrat run cities. You & your children won’t be SAFE in Biden’s America, and neither will anyone else!

I know many people here probably don't need a reason to doubt Trump's sincerity...

But remember that while he's complaining about 'children being slaughtered' because of the Democrats, Trump pardoned "sheriff" Joe Arpaio, (a man who, among many scandals involving racism and mismanagement, failed to investigate cases of sexual assault against children.)

That can be Trump's new slogan... "Trump... he'll keep your children rapingly safe".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Once again you are (like we all do when listening to Trump) experiencing apophenia, it's quite common when listening to Trump speak because we are so used to what people say at the start of a sentence being connected to end of the sentence our brains say "there has to be a connection between all these words"!

 

[Aridas]

What?

What??

WHAT???

Someone needs to get her to provide any evidence of Trump being *aware* of the LGBT community, far less doing anything to actually support and defend it. That is off-the-scale spin. Oh and drag Pence into it as well, he's the VP, he can defend his bigoted, close-minded attitudes alongside his self-obsessed boss.

'Great record' my patootie.

Huh?

Trump is quite aware of the LGBT community. IIRC, part of how he sold himself was that he was the *most* LGBT friendly candidate among the Republican candidates... and, sadly, that is fairly likely to be true. That his administration has generally been quite hostile to LGBT people does not, in any way, negate that things could have been worse. Most of the hostility is reasonably likely to originate from Pence's efforts, rather than Trump, as it is.

I'm also slackjawed at the one eighty on the attitude that Clinton's election plank around huge spending to retrain people in dying industries like coal mining, were described by Trumpies as insensitive and disconnected from reality.

People on this forum, actually.

Hmm? Why would you be slack-jawed about it? Pretty sure that's roughly the normal trend when the party propaganda changes like that. It's especially the case for Republicans, though it's fair to note that Democrats are not immune, even if the effectiveness is dramatically less.

(Even if Trump doesn't have anything to do with it, he will still claim credit).

FTFY.

 

[abaddon]

If the audio is representative then they truly work - the suppressed sounds just sound like machinery/a mechanical switch of some type opening or closing.

From what thingymyjib (sorry can't recall name at the moment) has posted about them in the past I'm doubly surprised, I really thought they didn't make much difference.

Of course they make a difference, else they would not exist.

The mythology about them is purely a movie invention.

 

[Aridas]

Mmm. To poke at a couple things...

This can fit both in this thread and in the US Politics and the Coronavirus thread.

Trump orders hospitals to bypass CDC in reporting Covid data, so his people see the numbers first

Given the Trump Administration, it looks fairly certain that they'll try to manipulate the numbers for political purposes, which would be horrific corruption, aka the norm for the Trump Administration.

Elsewhere...

3 felony criminal charges filed against Steve Watkins

Steve Watkins is a Kansas GOP Representative.

Watkins is charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor that relate to the 2019 local election:

Interference with law enforcement, providing false information
Voting without being qualified
Unlawful advance voting
Failing to notify the DMV of change of address

Republicans talking about voter fraud, as ever, should have an eye kept on them.

 

[quadraginta]

Doesn't he wish he actually controlled FOX News or OANN so he could tell them exactly what to do, and fire whoever he wanted, and even shut them down if they stepped too far out of line.

He'd love to have his own propaganda TV channel.

I thought that was his plan, when he expected to lose in 2016. Start his own TV channel to rival Fox News. TrumpTV! Then things went crazy and he got stuck with a bunch of work instead.

For certain, highly idiosyncratic definitions of "work".

E.g.; rage tweeting, standing on a stage at adulation rallies. eating fast food with sports teams that don't want to be there.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Of course they make a difference, else they would not exist.

The mythology about them is purely a movie invention.

What mythology? They certainly make the firearms much quieter. The movies simply misrepresent the sound as kind of a quite, high-pitched whistle instead of a quiet sound of a mechanical device.
It's about as loud as a 120V breaker closing, which isn't loud at all.