Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread II

Zubeneschamali

Igotadose wrote: »

It's why he'll be so hard to defeat in 2020.

Can he actually run from behind bars?

Professor Moriarty

Interesting fact: Nearly 1 in 3 people in Mitch McConnell's homes state of Kentucky are covered by Medicaid.

Billy86

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Interesting fact: Nearly 1 in 3 people in Mitch McConnell's homes state of Kentucky are covered by Medicaid.

Another interesting fact: Mitch McConnell relied on charity for treatment for polio as a child. The other day, he refused to meet with that charity to regarding the AHCA.

As for people saying senators might change their minds after listening to their constituents, there are 52 Republicans in the Senate, only 2 (3.8%) of them have scheduled town hall meetings ahead of the break.

That's the beauty of cultivating a following of fundamentalists, you don't even have to pretend to give a sh** about them and they'll keep on worshiping all the same.

wonderfullife

At what point do decent people in his administration start to walk away from this guy and condemn him?


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411

wes

wonderfullife wrote: »

At what point do decent people in his administration start to walk away from this guy and condemn him?

Your mistake is thinking there is anything decent about his admin. There is 0 evidence of that so far.

Professor Moriarty

wonderfullife wrote: »

At what point do decent people in his administration start to walk away from this guy and condemn him?


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411

Who was that tweet about?

Edit: Google is my friend -

"I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me," Trump tweeted. "She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

wonderfullife

I'm being genuine here, if you were working in any private or public sector job in this country and did this, you'd be disciplined or fired immediately.

The worst part is, what are the odds it's even true? He's not known for his honesty.

Professor Moriarty

wonderfullife wrote: »

I'm being genuine here, if you were working in any private or public sector job in this country and did this, you'd be disciplined or fired immediately.

The worst part is, what are the odds it's even true? He's not known for his honesty.

At the very least, it demonstrates Trump's lack of character and class.

wonderfullife

Not a bad comeback from Mika to be fair. By the way for anyone who doesn't know, Mika is the daughter of universally respected diplomat Zbig Brzeninski who died recently. He served under Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and was so respected he was invited by Ronald Reagan to stay on.

Zbig also = Big fan of Obama before he died.

https://twitter.com/morningmika/status/880415526371176448

wonderfullife

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

At the very least, it demonstrates Trump's lack of character and class.

I don't think it's a lack of class issue (though it's clearly classless).

Imagine being employed as a teacher or accountant and tweeting out "So this woman I deal with in a professional capacity asked to come to my party but she just had botox, absolute state of her, I said no!"

You'd have to imagine in any workplace that type of thing would get you fired. Certainly in the private sector where a tweet like that can have hugely negative pushback on the company.

There honestly appears no red line he can't cross.

wes

It honestly becoming harder and harder to not see the US in a negative light due to Trump. This isn't your normal shady politician, whose ideology I may disagree with. The guy is a straight up Troll and a bully, with a deep hatred of Women.

Christy42

wonderfullife wrote: »

Not a bad comeback from Mika to be fair. By the way for anyone who doesn't know, Mika is the daughter of universally respected diplomat Zbig Brzeninski who died recently. He served under Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and was so respected he was invited by Ronald Reagan to stay on.

Zbig also = Big fan of Obama before he died.

https://twitter.com/morningmika/status/880415526371176448

Always amusing to see Trump do twitter battles against people with some actual intellegence and wit. Also amusing that we now have reached the point were the POTUS has twitter battles (well we reached when he was sworn in but it bears highlighting again).

Professor Moriarty

wes wrote: »

It honestly becoming harder and harder to not see the US in a negative light due to Trump. This isn't your normal shady politician, whose ideology I may disagree with. The guy is a straight up Troll and a bully, with a deep hatred of Women.

Interesting poll from three days ago. Globally, the percentage of people having a favourable view of the US has dropped from 65% to 49% since the end of Obama's presidency. Unsurprisingly, Trump gets far lower approval ratings than Obama across the world except for Russia and Israel.

Peregrinus

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Who was that tweet about?

Come with me to the world of petty bitchiness and fragile egos.

The tweet is the second part of a two-part tweet. In full, they read as follows:

"I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came . . .

. . . to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

OK. "Morning Joe" is Joe Scarborough, a former member of the House of Representatives. (He was a Republican. Sat for Florida.) He now hosts Morning Joe, a weekday news and talk show which runs on MSNBC five days a week. "Crazy Mika" has to be Mika Brzezinzski, co-host of the show. Her father was Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser under Carter, and she grew up as a Washington insider. Both are regarded as extremely well-connected politically in Congress, in the State Department and (until lately) in the White House, and many of their stories are highly informed. For that reason the show is generally very well regarded. Scarborough and Brzezinski are also conjugal partners.

Right. Trump says he has heard that Scarborough has been lately speaking badly of him, Trump, on the show. No idea what that's about. Given that, Trump does not understand why Brzezinski, six months ago, while a guest a Mar-a-Lago, sought to approach Trump. Why Trump thinks these two things should be in any way connected is utterly beyond me but, then, Trump's thoughts on many things are incomprehensible to many people, so I feel the fault here is not entirely mine.

Ever the gentlemen, Trump adds the gratuitous information that, when she visited Mar-a-Lago, Brzezinski was bleeding as a result of a recent facelift and explains that, for this reason, he sent her away. It's good to know that, as a hotelier, Trump set an example to all his staff of how to treat his guests' personal business with appropriate discretion and respect. And it's handy to know, ladies, that if you don't want your genitals grabbed by a pair of extremely small hands, the trick is to be visibly recovering from recent surgery.

PropJoe10

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Interesting poll from three days ago. Globally, the percentage of people having a favourable view of the US has dropped from 65% to 49% since the end of Obama's presidency. Unsurprisingly, Trump gets far lower approval ratings than Obama across the world except for Russia and Israel.

Don't expect him to care about that. He has his base of idiots and that's pretty much all he seems to care about.

Professor Moriarty

Peregrinus wrote: »

Come with me to the world of petty bitchiness and fragile egos.

The tweet is the second part of a two-part tweet. In full, they read as follows:

"I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came . . .

. . . to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

OK. "Morning Joe" is Joe Scarborough, a former member of the House of Representatives. (He was a Republican. Sat for Florida.) He now hosts Morning Joe, a weekday news and talk show which runs on MSNBC five days a week. "Crazy Mika" has to be Mika Brzezinzski, co-host of the show. Her father was Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser under Carter, and she grew up as a Washington insider. Both are regarded as extremely well-connected politically in Congress, in the State Department and (until lately) in the White House, and many of their stories are highly informed. For that reason the show is generally very well regarded. Scarborough and Brzezinski are also conjugal partners.

Right. Trump says he has heard that Scarborough has been lately speaking badly of him, Trump, on the show. No idea what that's about. Given that, Trump does not understand why Brzezinski, six months ago, while a guest a Mar-a-Lago, sought to approach Trump. Why Trump thinks these two things should be in any way connected is utterly beyond me but, then, Trump's thoughts on many things are incomprehensible to many people, so I feel the fault here is not entirely mine.

Ever the gentlemen, Trump adds the gratuitous information that, when she visited Mar-a-Lago, Brzezinski was bleeding as a result of a recent facelift and explains that, for this reason, he sent her away. It's good to know that, as a hotelier, Trump set an example to all his staff of how to treat his guests' personal business with appropriate discretion and respect. And it's handy to know, ladies, that if you don't want your genitals grabbed by a pair of extremely small hands, the trick is to be visibly recovering from recent surgery.

This should be tweeted to Brzezinski for re-tweeting.

Overheal

red ears wrote: »

"This Russia thing is just a big nothing burger".


Why is CNN constantly Russia this Russia that?

"Because its ratings, our ratings are incredible right now".

That's the same reason they don't have 24/7 news coverage about every cat in America that happens to be stuck up a tree.

That's how free market capitalist media works. That doesn't mean the news is fake. They don't need to make **** up to produce a show, just look at Hannity, he's been spending all his nights since he got browbeat about the Seth Rich Conspiracy going after CNN pundits because he doesn't like them personally.

http://www.mediaite.com/?s=hannity

Calina

The correct question to ask is what is he trying to distract from. And Friday tends to be the day on which bad news breaks for Trump.

So...is he trying to bury something?

Point is every big story so far should have destroyed him. When does his luck run out? How often can Paul Ryan keep saying well obviously he doesn't agree with or approve of something or other Trump has done, said or tweeted.

And what exactly is Macron's plan? That invitation struck me as unexpected.

spacecoyote

Calina wrote: »

And what exactly is Macron's plan? That invitation struck me as unexpected.

Maybe a bit of a dig at the UK. Theyre suppposed to be donalds best pals but pulled his visit. He can show the europeans are better at dealing with differences?

That or just trying to drum up some political interest from the public given the extremely low turnout for the last elections?

Itssoeasy

I'll be interested to see how sarah huckabee sanders answer the issue of trumps tweets. I mean you can disagree with a news anchor or a person on a political position. But you should be able to at least do it in a respectful way. It appears that trump can't be civil.

It just shows a man who has never had to filter what he says.

Leroy42

Itssoeasy wrote: »

I'll be interested to see how sarah huckabee sanders answer the issue of trumps tweets. I mean you can disagree with a news anchor or a person on a political position. But you should be able to at least do it in a respectful way. It appears that trump can't be civil.

It just shows a man who has never had to filter what he says.

She already has, was on Fox News earlier.

Basically, he fights fire with fire. He is fed up with unrelenting attacks against him, his team. Very personal and abusive and he is not going to take it lying down.

Certainly no apology, very much a case of tough, you play hardball expect to get taken out.

THe Fox News anchor even asked if there is something behind this, the implication being that this was personal more than just a rage against what was said. Sarah only said she wasn't aware if it was.

Itssoeasy

Yes we are living in the twilight zone sarah. You're spot on sarah. Jesus Christ she's on another planet. Hollywood elites ? Mika and joe are Washington insiders.

aloyisious

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I just cannot understand this whole thing - Repealing ACA has been the only thing they've talked about for 5 or 6 years at this stage.

How could they be so fundamentally unprepared??

Setting aside whether you think it's a good bill or not , for them not to have all the GOP Senators & House Reps fully onside and voting as one is a shocking indictment of their parliamentary abilities..

Its possibly because most of them thought it would be plain sailing. They don't have to rely on the Health Insurance industry or medicare that the voters do to ensure their illness cover. They are covered by the Congressional Health plan that also covers the President.

Itssoeasy

No sarah he didn't win convincingly. Stop blooding lying please.

Itssoeasy

Oh Jesus Christ she is blaming the dems for the the lack of appointments and being obstructionists. Ah stop it please.

Itssoeasy

You'd think the interwebs in the White House would be a bit better. Shocking connection.

dudara

Calina wrote: »

And what exactly is Macron's plan? That invitation struck me as unexpected.

Im personally hoping for a master episode of trolling from Macron.

Akrasia

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Oh Jesus Christ she is blaming the dems for the the lack of appointments and being obstructionists. Ah stop it please.

Yeah, the lack of appointments are all the dems fault. It's the Democrats fault that Trump cannot be bothered to nominate anyone to these vacant posts

Christy42

Akrasia wrote: »

Yeah, the lack of appointments are all the dems fault. It's the Democrats fault that Trump cannot be bothered to nominate anyone to these vacant posts

Once more the truth is irrelevant. It gives something to his followers to give out about. Everyone heavily involved in this administration is an absolute disgrace for sitting by and actively/passively letting this behaviour continue.

Leroy42

Can Americans not see how demeaning this is to the office of POTUS and by extension how Americans are regarded in the world?

And yet again Trump manages to destroy himself. Just as the narrative had shifted to be all about fake news his tweets have completely turned the tables back onto him.

Itssoeasy

I don't watch the us congress live that much. The last two speakers wished Murica happy birthday and another give a high school baseball team game recap. Now Nancy pelosi is taking about the handover of Hong Kong 20 years ago.

Itssoeasy

Leroy42 wrote: »

Can Americans not see how demeaning this is to the office of POTUS and by extension how Americans are regarded in the world?

And yet again Trump manages to destroy himself. Just as the narrative had shifted to be all about fake news his tweets have completely turned the tables back onto him.

Clearly not Leroy. There are a part of the us population who seem ignorant of world affairs and seem to wear it with pride that they don't know the most basic of things.

Itssoeasy

This sounds like a winning streak episode. It's like everyone is giving everything a shout out on a national basis.

PopePalpatine

Leroy42 wrote: »

Can Americans not see how demeaning this is to the office of POTUS and by extension how Americans are regarded in the world?

If they're still on the "Trump train", despite his lies about bringing jobs back (e.g. Carrier) and replacing Obamacare with a better system, chances are that his gaslighting by labeling negative news as "Fake News" has worked on them.

Mardy Bum

PopePalpatine wrote: »

If they're still on the "Trump train", despite his lies about bringing jobs back (e.g. Carrier) and replacing Obamacare with a better system, chances are that his gaslighting by labeling negative news as "Fake News" has worked on them.

Politics is sport for those people. They have a team and they will support it partly because of inculcation and partly because they are ignorant and uneducated or unintelligent.

Celticfire

The New York Times has been forced to retract a popular Democratic talking point that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Russia conducted cyber attacks on the U.S. during the 2016 election.

Correction: June 29, 2017

A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

Christy42

Celticfire wrote: »

The New York Times has been forced to retract a popular Democratic talking point that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Russia conducted cyber attacks on the U.S. during the 2016 election.

Good news for Obama then really and bad for Trump. Takes away from Trunp's current position that Obama should have handed out more sanctions before the election happened.

Seriously though the main message has not been retracted (that there is agreement that Russia attempted to interfere in the election with the intention of helping Trump). I had been curious as the time why the rest of the agencies were doing getting involved in this. I had thought this point had been clarified before now though so I am curious about the late retraction.

aloyisious

List of US Int Agencies in the community [if it's any help].... Some web sites list 17, some 16, that's cos the Int community is headed by the Dir of Nat Int as its overall leader [statutory] through Office of Dir Nat Int. Some sites list him/it as leader separately, some don't and include ODNI as one of 17. I assume the treasury might have a good degree of input as it monitors Russian banking activity vis a vis the $.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiXuN75vuXUAhWIC8AKHWBiAFYQFggpMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUnited_States_Intelligence_Community&usg=AFQjCNGWBZT9Woylt7AI9TtrnCMhwUlw1w

A Little Pony

Itssoeasy wrote: »

No sarah he didn't win convincingly. Stop blooding lying please.

Yes he did win easily. Go look at the electoral map, it's mostly red.

B0jangles

A Little Pony wrote: »

Yes he did win easily. Go look at the electoral map, it's mostly red.

As has been pointed out many times already: Fields Can't Vote.

Leroy42

Trump seems totally incapable of being a leader of the US. As Sarah pointed out he won, but winning isn't like in business. He now has to lead the entire country, not just those that voted for him.

Much like the EC means that the winner takes all, the winner must lead for all. He, and the WH, seem to think that winning the EC gives him the ability to do anything he wants. He has been given the keys to US and can use as he wishes.

But as POTUS, he speaks for every American, whether they or he, likes that or not. POTUS is the symbol of the US.

The role of a politician, and in particular a lead role like PM or POTUS etc, is to try to bring the country together. Whilst they can never hope to get the other side to agree, part of the trick is to not exacerbate the issues. Even more so for little actual benefit.

He is in danger of totally diminishing the role of POTUS. That position normally carries an inbuilt respect and Trump is fast getting rid of that. Since POTUS is the figurehead of the country, losing respect for the position is bad news for everyone

Trump is failing in all these areas.

Christy42

I never understood why Republicans thought that for a few hours. It was at a point were the ec votes from California were being counted in the democrats total (cos duh) but the votes had yet to be actually counted and so where not counted in the popular vote yet. It was mind numbingly obvious that Romney would have needed an incredible result in California to stave off a popular vote loss.

aloyisious

A Little Pony wrote: »

Yes he did win easily. Go look at the electoral map, it's mostly red.

Easily as against convincingly. Don on the electoral college in Nov 2012 when he thought Mitt Romney had lost the election to Barack Obama due to the college system but was wrong [Mitt lost by both EC & popular vote]. Don - the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

I guess after last Nov Don was happy he got it wrong in 2012 and glad it hadn't been changed, though some now think he got it right.

Edit... Sorry, had to delete my original as I hadn't posted it as intended as a response to ALP......

mcmoustache

Maybe it's time to bring up Hillary's emails again. The liberal lefty WSJ published an article last night detailing the work of Peter W Smith in reaching out to whoever was in possetion of the 33,000 missing emails. Here's a link to another more lefty liberal MSM source for those behind a paywall. Also here for the those who can't get enough of that sweet liberal agenda.

Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.

I don't think that this is too massive on its own. At this point he's just requesting the hacked emails. I'd nearly go on to say that the quoted text above could be described as a nothingburger, to use Trumper lingo.

But then...

U.S. officials told the Journal that intelligence agencies have compiled reports “that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary.”

Mike Flynn. Where have I heard that name before? Anyway, this alone doesn't prove collusion but it's more than we knew last week.

ECO_Mental

A Little Pony wrote: »

Yes he did win easily. Go look at the electoral map, it's mostly red.

Thats embarrassing on your part and very frustrating for us trying to get you to comprehend what those maps actually mean......im trying to think here how to explain it as simply as possible but like many others here have tried over the past few months and failed obviously im not going to bother either.

SAD

wes

National Enquirer now attacking on behalf of Trump:

Scarborough, Brzezinski say White House used National Enquirer as threat

Now, there resorting to black mail. There is no depth that Trump and his admin will not sink too. Disgusting.

Also, voter "fraud" (suppression would be more accurate):

State officials refuse to turn over voter roll data to Trump election panel


Looks like some states aren't going to play ball, with the vote "fraud" investigation. Its amazing that this is happening due to Trumps ego and the GOP going for more voter suppression.

Leroy42

I think you are being too harsh on MLP. Trump won, and based on the EC he won easily enough.

Not the biggest win ever, not the majority vote, but he won where it mattered. Of course the map conflates the win as it based on land mass rather than votes cast. But its a simple map for people to see.

No point arguing about how much Trump won by or the exact percentages etc. He won. That is it. The fight is to try to get him to actually be the POTUS rather than the mess he is making of it so far.

The fight is to get people to wake up to the lies they have been told, continue to be told and the fool he is making of each and every one of them.

Yes, people can certainly claim that in a race between Trump and HC many felt no option but to opt for Trump (or stay away) given teh issues with HC. And I get that.

What I do not understand is why anybody is willing to continue to side with him now. There is simply no redeeming features to be argued for. He obviously lacks the skills, temperament, intellectual ability or curiosity, he portrays neither admiration or fear from those around him. GOP are in open revolt against him.

He is a clear danger to the very institutions he has sworn to protect. He has delivered nothing that he promised. He has gone out of his way to profit both himself and his family for the position, sometimes at a direct cost to the US taxpayer. He is increasing the divisions within the country at a time when the US needs to come together to deal with a changing world.

How anyone can stand by when their POTUS attacks members of the press, attacks foreign government officials, demeans judges and the legal system.

The election is over. It is time to hold Trump to the same standards that all previous POTUS have been held to. And at the moment he is falling well short on all counts

robinph

ECO_Mental wrote: »

Thats embarrassing on your part and very frustrating for us trying to get you to comprehend what those maps actually mean......im trying to think here how to explain it as simply as possible but like many others here have tried over the past few months and failed obviously im not going to bother either.

SAD

Donald is holding a single basketball, Hillary is holding a jar containing 100 ball bearings.

Who has the most spherical objects?
Who has the largest volume of spherical objects?

Zubeneschamali

Leroy42 wrote: »

He won. That is it. The fight is to try to get him to actually be the POTUS rather than the mess he is making of it so far.

No, the fight is to get him out of office and into jail.

mcmoustache

wes wrote: »

National Enquirer now attacking on behalf of Trump:

Scarborough, Brzezinski say White House used National Enquirer as threat

Now, there resorting to black mail. There is no depth that Trump and his admin will not sink too. Disgusting.

What's mad here is that Trump responded in a stupid, stupid way. I know that this is his MO but still.

The president himself weighed in via Twitter a few minutes later. He said he heard what Scarborough said on "Morning Joe," but claimed that it's untrue: "He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show."

Scarborough responded quickly to Trump's tweet with one of his own, writing, "Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records. Also, those records show I haven't spoken with you in many months."

There's also something about this tweet from Scarborough that really captures the essence of Trump's communication strategy.

Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?

This is what makes Trump differ from most other politicians. Everybody lies. Politicians do it too. Normally they lie about stuff that isn't publicly known. That makes sense.

Trump on the other hand lies about things that can be verified with publicly available information. That's a bit mad, isn't it?