President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

Itssoeasy

I'd love to know what the trump administration would consider a successful first trip ?

I'd say they'd take him not any big diplomatic gaffs but I can't see that happens.

Professor Moriarty

Itssoeasy wrote: »

I'd love to know what the trump administration would consider a successful first trip ?

I'd say they'd take him not any big diplomatic gaffs but I can't see that happens.

If he sticks to scripted answers he won't make any gaffes and the trip will be spun as a great success and a vindication of Trump's presidency. However, his narcissistic personality disorder will probably see him flagrantly disregard his advisers leading to the usual stupid and uninformed brainfarts. Or at least I hope so.

Really Interested

Water John wrote: »

If he resigns, Pence will pardon him. No jail.

The President...shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 1

I still think the Nixon pardon may not have stood challenge but a deal was done to put it behind them. The problem will be if it comes to it will trump fight or resign.

26000 Elephants

Really Interested wrote: »

The President...shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 1

I still think the Nixon pardon may not have stood challenge but a deal was done to put it behind them. The problem will be if it comes to it will trump fight or resign.

At this stage I want that pathetic excuse for a president behind bars at some point - Trump has just handed over $110Bn worth of precision weaponry to radical Islam.

The sooner he is stopped, the better.

aloyisious

I'm not sure who is still able to respond to questions here now, this one is for GOP voters only.... If you were to turn back the clock [with the benefit of hindsight of the past four months of incumbent President Trump in mind] which other GOP candidate would your vote have gone to?

Please just write down the chosen candidate's name, no reasons, reasoning or explanations necessary or we'll be back to going in perpetual party squabbling.

aloyisious

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

If he sticks to scripted answers he won't make any gaffes and the trip will be spun as a great success and a vindication of Trump's presidency. However, his narcissistic personality disorder will probably see him flagrantly disregard his advisers leading to the usual stupid and uninformed brainfarts. Or at least I hope so.

That'd be a scary scenario [even ultimate] him pissing off a fundamentalist in either Saudi Arabia or Israel or in the West Bank region.

Professor Moriarty

aloyisious wrote: »

That'd be a scary scenario [even ultimate] him pissing off a fundamentalist in either Saudi Arabia or Israel or in the West Bank region.

I'd say they see him for what he is. A loudmouth whose days are numbered. His childish utterances aren't going to sway fundamentalists either way.

aloyisious

Umm on James Comey publicly testifying before a committee, if he chooses the item carefully he can avoid any legal sanctions if he mentions things Don has talked or written about publicly, he'd be in the clear as Don's actions would have removed them from security classification; Don being President. Don, after the fact, stated publicly he has that right.

Billy86

ECO_Mental wrote: »

And don't forget the wholesale gerrymandering the GOP were at as well at state leve.......

There's a mosh mash of things there. Gerrymandering, voter suppression (only earlier this week an appeal was turned down by the SC because voter id laws were "targeting black people with surgical precision" I think in Tennessee), the fact Obama came in in 2008 when the reps had a fianna fail type collapse on the back of the 2008 financial crisis, the backlash when that was yet to be fixed in 2010, 2012 and to an extent 2014, the continued backlash from areas slower to see/still waiting on recovery (who coal execs have since said will not be coming back under Trump either - those and manufacturing jobs are simply becoming obsolete), the divisive us-and-them nature nurtured for the last 8 years by the republicans via the tea party movement being highly effective particularly among the less educated classes, democrat politicians often lacking charisma (perhaps even more damning an indictment of the voting populace than the point before this one but also true in most democracies), and on and on.

The US in recent years has maybe been the most shining example of the last 70+ years about how democracy is not the best system we have but rather the 'least worst'.

Billy86

aloyisious wrote: »

I'm not sure who is still able to respond to questions here now, this one is for GOP voters only.... If you were to turn back the clock [with the benefit of hindsight of the past four months of incumbent President Trump in mind] which other GOP candidate would your vote have gone to?

Please just write down the chosen candidate's name, no reasons, reasoning or explanations necessary or we'll be back to going in perpetual party squabbling.

I'm clearly not a GOP fan so probably shouldn't even be answering, but just to say there is a reasonable argument that John Kasich was the best candidate from either side of the aisle.

Inquitus

Billy86 wrote: »

I'm clearly not a GOP fan so probably shouldn't even be answering, but just to say there is a reasonable argument that John Kasich was the best candidate from either side of the aisle.

I would certainly agree he was the best of the GOP candidates by some margin, just not out there enough for the hardcore GOP base these days, you have to be a slight loony to galvanise those muppets sadly.

wonderfullife

Gotta hand it to the Saudi's they know who they are dealing with.

They have a great photoshopped, filtered picture of Trump hundreds of billboards along the routes Trump is taking.

They hand him a shiny gold medal of honour.

They lavish him with praise.

They did their research fair play to them. The issue I feel will be at the G7 when Trump is surrounded by hugely intelligent people and feels inferior to them and will come away with a "I'll show them" attitude towards NATO/Europe.

MadYaker

They know who pays the bills.

Kitsunegari

wonderfullife wrote: »

Gotta hand it to the Saudi's they know who they are dealing with.

They have a great photoshopped, filtered picture of Trump hundreds of billboards along the routes Trump is taking.

They hand him a shiny gold medal of honour.

They lavish him with praise.

They did their research fair play to them. The issue I feel will be at the G7 when Trump is surrounded by hugely intelligent people and feels inferior to them and will come away with a "I'll show them" attitude towards NATO/Europe.

Well he's desperately looking for allies and the Saudi's will happily offer money to curb any possibility of loosing sanctions and the rhetoric on Iran. The media irresponsibly cheerleaded American intervention in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. They don't like Iran either. Obama did well to remove some sanctions from Iran but it looks like Trump is going to end any diplomacy with Iran with his stupid rhetoric. The Dems and Republicans have a strange relationship with the Islamic countries in the Middle East by supporting one despot regime because they provide intelligence on the terrorists that they don't sponsor while criticising Iran for doing the same thing.

Luckily Iran voted again against extremism but Trump could really push another hardliner back into Government.

Sonics2k

Wikileaks will soon release some kind of document that the Trump camp will attempt to use to their advantage as a distraction from his impending impeachment process and Russia ties.

That will be the final proof that Wikileaks has been fully taken over by some Alt-Right style group.

weisses

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Ye, it's deception, when it's staring you in the face.

Your ideology is flawed brother.

2 mayor things:

Gerrymandering

And the two term presidency effect

Kitsunegari

weisses wrote: »

2 mayor things:

Gerrymandering

And the two term presidency effect

Both parties are prone to gerrymandering. The Democrats have done it Massachusetts and Maryland. The GOP have done it in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan.

Calina

Voter suppression tends not to be a Democrats issue.

B_Wayne

In relation to the Seth Rich conspiracies that were doing the rounds earlier in the week, the claims that Rich was in contact with Wikileaks have been retracted. Missed the retraction as I'm assuming plenty of others have.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/16/media/seth-rich-family-response-claims-of-wikileaks-contact/index.html

Billy86

Eight of the ten most gerrymandered districts in the US are (or as of a year or two ago at least were) held by Democrats, which is the opposite of what it might sound - a gerrymandered district is designed to be won by the opposing party by as high a margin as possible, as it concentrates as many of their voters as possible into a single area, giving them less for the other districts. Nine of those ten districts were drawn by Republicans.

This is why the Republicans wound up with a 241-194 majority in the house despite winning the overall popular vote by less than 2mn. In 2014 they won the popular vote by 4.4mn and had a 247-188 majority and in 2012 they lost the popular vote by 1.4mn and still had a 234-201 majority. I remember reading an estimate leading into the election that due to the amount of Republican gerrymandering, the Democrats would need to win the popular vote in the House by an estimated 8mn to have a majority.

The Democrats are not squeaky clean on this by any means, but they're simply not in league with the Republicans who in recent years have quietly made gerrymandering along with voter suppression their main goal as a party.

Billy86

B_Wayne wrote: »

In relation to the Seth Rich conspiracies that were doing the rounds earlier in the week, the claims that Rich was in contact with Wikileaks have been retracted. Missed the retraction as I'm assuming plenty of others have.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/16/media/seth-rich-family-response-claims-of-wikileaks-contact/index.html

Probably had something to do with his own family refuting the story and apparently even threatening legal action.

We'll be hearing how they're either being threatened by 'the deep state' or are in on the conspiracy in the next few weeks, so. And that's not a sarcastic comment.

InTheTrees

There was a supreme court decision in the last few years that upheld a states right to use bipartisan electoral commissions to draw constituency boundaries instead of it being a partisan process.
So hopefully the gerrymandering will go away over time.

spacecoyote

Good video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-4dIImaodQ

Apologies if it's a repost

StringerBell

I think we are a long way from impeachment, but the wheels are really in danger of flying off at this point.

Incredibly, I wouldn't put it past The Donald to weather this and come through it surviving to the end of his term, or perhaps another 12 months at least. If it does come out that the leak from the wording used to the Russians is accurate then it could go toward obstruction of justice, and in turn an article of impeachment but I wouldn't put money on it.

The defence will be quite similar to the pussy grabbing one, you will hear all about oh you know how he talks, don't act surprised when he says crazy things, he doesn't mean them literally etc

I have already heard it floated that he was trying to go buddy buddy with the Russians, and spoke like that to gain favour/trust and get concessions from them, I mean for **** sake how much are people prepared to go through mentally to continue the charade? If you don't have skin in the game at this point its time to head for the hills and if you do you better look to make a deal cause you can be damn sure when the time comes you will be thrown under the bus by Trump.

The Republicans will want to keep him around by and large as long as possible, at least until they get a few more things from him anyway but they are not stupid when it comes to the future. He is seen, correctly, as a RINO which provides them with cover but that only goes so far when they clearly support and defend the indefensible. Being a "good soldier" only gets you so far.

I have no doubt though that they will jettison him as soon as it becomes too hot for them and the man the Fundamentalist's want in the office, who could actually be worse then Trump in terms of the damage he can do long term (imo) Pence will assume the role. He has been relatively quiet and keeping his distance as much as he can from the continual bombshells, this is by design in my eyes to allow him to stay as undamaged as possible with an eye on the future.

The scariest part is the amount of people who would still vote for him, who still defend him and who as Anderson Cooper says would probably defend him if he took a dump on the White House desk. There is clearly a path to the White House for far right zealots and they will be back again, more polished next time.

wonderfullife

The stupidest narrative I see from Trump's base is that the Mainstream Media are out to get him out of office.

MSNBC and CNN are #1 and #2 in ratings. Washington Post and NYT record subscribers.

They are praying this scandal drags on for 4 years with Trump in charge! Hell, 8 years of it!

The very last thing those networks want is President Normal aka Pence, who is just a regular god-awful Christian Conservative who will do regular god-awful Republican things. Pence would be far worse than Trump, of course, because Trump is essentially a Democrat who rented out the GOP.

Mr.Micro

StringerBell wrote: »

I think we are a long way from impeachment, but the wheels are really in danger of flying off at this point.

Incredibly, I wouldn't put it past The Donald to weather this and come through it surviving to the end of his term, or perhaps another 12 months at least. If it does come out that the leak from the wording used to the Russians is accurate then it could go toward obstruction of justice, and in turn an article of impeachment but I wouldn't put money on it.

The defence will be quite similar to the pussy grabbing one, you will hear all about oh you know how he talks, don't act surprised when he says crazy things, he doesn't mean them literally etc

I have already heard it floated that he was trying to go buddy buddy with the Russians, and spoke like that to gain favour/trust and get concessions from them, I mean for **** sake how much are people prepared to go through mentally to continue the charade? If you don't have skin in the game at this point its time to head for the hills and if you do you better look to make a deal cause you can be damn sure when the time comes you will be thrown under the bus by Trump.

The Republicans will want to keep him around by and large as long as possible, at least until they get a few more things from him anyway but they are not stupid when it comes to the future. He is seen, correctly, as a RINO which provides them with cover but that only goes so far when they clearly support and defend the indefensible. Being a "good soldier" only gets you so far.

I have no doubt though that they will jettison him as soon as it becomes too hot for them and the man the Fundamentalist's want in the office, who could actually be worse then Trump in terms of the damage he can do long term (imo) Pence will assume the role. He has been relatively quiet and keeping his distance as much as he can from the continual bombshells, this is by design in my eyes to allow him to stay as undamaged as possible with an eye on the future.

The scariest part is the amount of people who would still vote for him, who still defend him and who as Anderson Cooper says would probably defend him if he took a dump on the White House desk. There is clearly a path to the White House for far right zealots and they will be back again, more polished next time.

He will squirm out from under this. The rules were broken with his election. People will say" it's his way, he is crude, rude and shoots from the hip and he just lets things slip". The Republicians will keep him and can still pursue their agenda whilst everyone is looking at Trump.

aloyisious

@Stringerbell.... Ta for the RINO, never heard/saw it before. Don't think the GOP or Don would agree with this definition.... :-)

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjOuN6VjIHUAhUqLcAKHQVsDzIQFggzMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservapedia.com%2FRINO&usg=AFQjCNEvvB9DHMFiAg7ewR0bZ4BgZBfn-w

Billy86

Akrasia wrote: »

There are newspapers of record, the likes of the Washington Post and the New York Times that have some opinion columnists, but their reporting is mostly centrist balanced and rigorous. These are called 'liberal' by people who choose to read the gutter press, like the Washington Times and the New York Post, and Breitbart, news organisations that are naked propaganda and make editorial decisions purely based on political and commercial interests with barely any attention given to truth and accuracy.'

A bit of a silly story but one that sums this up very well from Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia. FOX knowingly lying, continuing on with the lie and doing whatever they can to make sure the truth doesn't get out. As I said a silly story in itself, but when you consider the station and those like it basically have resulted in huge chunks of the population living in an alternate reality due to wall to wall propaganda like this (and often on far more serious matters) taking up their days.

FOX: Trump shakes hands with Saudi leader, doesn't bow as Obama appeared to do

Image used:


One small problem... and check out the FOX hosts finger and what sounds like a "damnit!" after they finally cut the clip. :pac:

Celticfire

Trump welcomed into the heart of the Muslim world.Deals worth hundreds of billions of Dollars, Meeting with numerous head's of Muslim countrys, a speech given to Muslim world leaders on coming together to combat terrorism. What could be considered a good visit by a President by any measure.


Oh look...... if you listen closely you can hear what sounds like "damnit" :rolleyes:

demfad

Celticfire wrote: »

Trump welcomed into the heart of the Muslim world.Deals worth hundreds of billions of Dollars, Meeting with numerous head's of Muslim countrys, a speech given to Muslim world leaders on coming together to combat terrorism. What could be considered a good visit by a President by any measure.


Oh look...... if you listen closely you can hear what sounds like "damnit" :rolleyes:

One problem: what happened is not what you described.

The deal was prepared by Obama NOT Trump but was stalled as potentially illegal.
Trump not only ignored this and claimed it as his own but also gave them a discount and allowed them to donate $110 million to Ivanka's "Charity".
He also ignore completely any potential illegality of the deal.
He implied Iran was the enemy and chief funder of ISIS when in fact it is Saudi Arabia.
He used the words 'Islamic terrorism' instead of 'Islamist terrorism'. He missed the evenings events due to exhaustion. This was day 1 of tour.