Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VI

mcmoustache

Water John wrote: »

Some of the defence of Trump here and other fora, is Comical Ali grade stuff.
The evidence is clear, slam dunk case.

This to me has been the craziest part of this presidency - the ability of his supporters to make ridiculous claims that are so easily debunked. And when the claims are debunked, out comes another easily debunked claim that might completely contradict the earlier claim.

It's clear that there's no attempt to get to the truth but instead, the intent is simply to throw out whatever claim they saw on crazy-twitter without even checking to see if it makes sense. It's done for no other reason than to deceive.

It's not debate. It's blatant dishonesty which in another time would be considered trolling but today, it's just a political position.

Gwen Cooper

Slightly OT - When I woke up this morning, I checked Twitter and saw that Jacob Wohl is trending. There's a warrant for his arrest, so I thought that they finally got him. But no, this was so much better.

Jacob and his buddy Jack Burkman, who previously tried to accuse Mueller and Mayor Pete of sexual harassment using paid witnesses (and failed epically ever time), now came up with a new "scandal". They called in a press conference in Burkman's driveway, had a sign "Elizabeth Warren: Cougar?" outside his house, called the event a "momentous day in history" and had a box of complimentary donuts available for all who attended.

https://twitter.com/Jack_Burkman/status/1179517422879084544

I didn't have much time to look at details, but apparently the "press conference" involved them saying that Warren has been having wild, consensual sex with a hot marine, their evidence of this was a scratch on the marine's back, saying that it came from Liz. Someone dug up a picture from the marine's Instagram where he is showing the same scratch and saying that he was injured when taking down a swing from a tree. When someone brought it up at the conference, the marine just shrugged his shoulders. He also has an XXX tattoo on his back, which resulted in Vin Diesel trending. Then there was a moment when Jacob was describing Warren's "lime-green dildo".

Today is going to be a good day.

---

Edit: Here is a nice thread summing the whole thing up: https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1179861001744928769

Zubeneschamali

Linking these texts into the bigger timeline:

July 19th: Trump suspends vital military aid

also 19th, a week before the call: Taylor texts say Zelenskyy is sensitive to Ukraine being seen as merely an instrument in Washington domestic re-election politics.

July 25th: Volker texts, using air quotes, that if Z convinces Trump he will "get to the bottom of what happened" in 2016, Zelenskyy will get a White House meeting with Trump.

July 25th: Zelenskyy call with Trump, Pompeo listening.

Later texts show the participants deciding on elements they want Zelenskyy to include in a statement, including Burisma and 2016. The immediate ask was not a real investigation, just a statement of an investigation into Biden, his son and the 2016 election.

So the arm-twisting started well before the call, and continued after it.

But Zelenskyy apparently held out, he never did make the bullsh!t statement they concocted, and Trump never released the aid until all of this came out in the open.

Zubeneschamali

Gwen Cooper wrote: »

I didn't have much time to look at details, but apparently the "press conference" involved them saying that Warren has been having wild, consensual sex with a hot marine

Warren did not address Wohl's stupid bullsh!t directly, instead she posted this wonderful tweet:

It's always a good day to be reminded that I got where I am because a great education was available for $50 a semester at the University of Houston (go Cougars!). We need to cancel student debt and make college free for everyone who wants it.

https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1179851099978846209

one armed dwarf

It's like a kind of cognitive dissonance I think. It's not often you see people walk back their support of Trump. In my own circle I know only one person who has, and that was very soon after inauguration.

I don't think that Trump supporters are all stupid people, but it does feel like some of them have chosen stupidity as a way to deal with having invested so much into him and not wanting to back out now. So hence the strategy of deflect, distract and (self-) delude.

It's tough to admit when you are wrong about something.

Of course there are also those who worship him cause he's a big man who tells it like it is, or cause of the border wall or whatever, and don't care about these problems and scandals.

hetuzozaho

I can't believe the President of the US is tweeting such rubbish. What I am watching?

How on earth that video is some kind of slight on AOC, I do not know. Thought she handled it well.
What are Trump and his son harping on about?

Why do the White House allow him access to this Twitter account, surely they can see how silly it all looks?

everlast75

hetuzozaho wrote: »

I can't believe the President of the US is tweeting such rubbish. What I am watching?

How on earth that video is some kind of slight on AOC, I do not know. Thought she handled it well.
What are Trump and his son harping on about?

Why do the White House allow him access to this Twitter account, surely they can see how silly it all looks?

Kamilla Harris has written to Twitter, saying that he is violating the terms of service. She is 100% right, but nothing will be done about it.

hetuzozaho

everlast75 wrote: »

Kamilla Harris has written to Twitter, saying that he is violating the terms of service. She is 100% right, but nothing will be done about it.

Not even getting to violation of TOS etc...

But if one of my team in work started tweeting a member of another team in work and calling them a "WACK JOB", I'd have to ask them to stop
It's surely common decency not to speak to people like that I would have thought.

And surely a presidential role is a role that we would like to go above and beyond common decency. It's just so odd that this is being accepted by us all now.

Gwen Cooper

Gwen Cooper wrote: »

Slightly OT - When I woke up this morning, I checked Twitter and saw that Jacob Wohl is trending. There's a warrant for his arrest, so I thought that they finally got him. But no, this was so much better.

Jacob and his buddy Jack Burkman, who previously tried to accuse Mueller and Mayor Pete of sexual harassment using paid witnesses (and failed epically ever time), now came up with a new "scandal". They called in a press conference in Burkman's driveway, had a sign "Elizabeth Warren: Cougar?" outside his house, called the event a "momentous day in history" and had a box of complimentary donuts available for all who attended.

https://twitter.com/Jack_Burkman/status/1179517422879084544

I didn't have much time to look at details, but apparently the "press conference" involved them saying that Warren has been having wild, consensual sex with a hot marine, their evidence of this was a scratch on the marine's back, saying that it came from Liz. Someone dug up a picture from the marine's Instagram where he is showing the same scratch and saying that he was injured when taking down a swing from a tree. When someone brought it up at the conference, the marine just shrugged his shoulders. He also has an XXX tattoo on his back, which resulted in Vin Diesel trending. Then there was a moment when Jacob was describing Warren's "lime-green dildo".

Today is going to be a good day.

---

Edit: Here is a nice thread summing the whole thing up: https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1179861001744928769

On mobile so I can't easily find the post now but one of the Trump fans was using this clown as a reference a few days ago! Crazy stuff altogether.

amandstu

Anyone know how all this is being viewed in Ukraine?

Is this affecting their internal politics?

Zubeneschamali

hetuzozaho wrote: »

But if one of my team in work started tweeting a member of another team in work and calling them a "WACK JOB", I'd have to ask them to stop

But Trump isn't on their team, he's their boss.

And there's a very high turnover in staff. Do you really want to be the one who tries to take his phone away?

hetuzozaho

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

But Trump isn't on their team, he's their boss.

And there's a very high turnover in staff. Do you really want to be the one who tries to take his phone away?

Yeah sorry I get you - my comparison was backwards.

everlast75

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180094411323117568?s=20

Complete, unadulterated, 100%, refined, Grade "A" Bull$hit.

There is not one poster on here that could defend that, and today they are having a hard time finding a republican in Washington who could either.

mcmoustache

everlast75 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180094411323117568?s=20

Complete, unadulterated, 100%, refined, Grade "A" Bull$hit.

There is not one poster on here that could defend that, and today they are having a hard time finding a republican in Washington who could either.

They might not try to defend it but they'll still try all sorts of dishonesty to muddy the waters.

one armed dwarf

People have tried to defend it though, on here.

circadian

everlast75 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180094411323117568?s=20

Complete, unadulterated, 100%, refined, Grade "A" Bull$hit.

There is not one poster on here that could defend that, and today they are having a hard time finding a republican in Washington who could either.

Not to mention his new pinned tweet. A flashy "Swamp is trying to take down Donald" guff.

everlast75

hetuzozaho wrote: »

Not even getting to violation of TOS etc...

But if one of my team in work started tweeting a member of another team in work and calling them a "WACK JOB", I'd have to ask them to stop
It's surely common decency not to speak to people like that I would have thought.

And surely a presidential role is a role that we would like to go above and beyond common decency. It's just so odd that this is being accepted by us all now.

https://twitter.com/JesseFFerguson/status/1180094494441693185?s=19

Probably organised by Jacob Wohl..

Overheal

everlast75 wrote: »

Kamilla Harris has written to Twitter, saying that he is violating the terms of service. She is 100% right, but nothing will be done about it.

Facebook edited their own ad policy to let trump ads run: they put in a new exception for political ads that they don’t have to be truthful or honest.

These companies just want to take in GOP warchest money.

check_six

Overheal wrote: »

Facebook edited their own ad policy to let trump ads run: they put in a new exception for political ads that they don’t have to be truthful or honest.

These companies just want to take in GOP warchest money.

I wonder did the traditional media channels ever try to enforce an honesty clause on political ads? I'd guess they just grabbed the cash in the same way too. I'm surprised that FB even had an honesty requirement in the first place. They do like to be seen as different I suppose.

Water John

Trump tells us he's primary aim is to fight corruption. This must rate as, joke of the year.

Rjd2

hetuzozaho wrote: »

I can't believe the President of the US is tweeting such rubbish. What I am watching?

How on earth that video is some kind of slight on AOC, I do not know. Thought she handled it well.
What are Trump and his son harping on about?

It was a LaRouche troll and they most certainly are not on the left in 2019.

I don't think AOC is all that, but she handled it really well.

I doubt she or many others were even familiar with LaRouche before last night ffs.

peddlelies

mcmoustache wrote: »

This got squashed pretty quickly. Here's the dni guidance for whistleblowers where page 4 mentions that they can go to the Intelligence Committee.


https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Whistleblower.PDF


And the whistleblower was sent to the IG instead of the IC listening to it in a SCIF.


The attempt to go after Schiff for this will go about as well as the whole "He only had second-hand info and they changed the forms" nonsense from yesterday.

On the topic of having no prior contact or knowledge of the Whistle-blower, the Washington Post have given Schiff 4 Pinocchio's for lying about it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/04/schiffs-false-claim-his-committee-had-not-spoken-whistleblower/

This is taken from another article because the post article is behind a paywall.

“This is flat-out false,” The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote of Schiff’s claims on MSNBC. “Unlike the quick two-step dance he performed with Anderson Cooper, Schiff simply says the committee had not spoken to the whistleblower. Now we know that’s not true.”

Kessler wrote that Schiff was not simply attempting to dodge a question, but to mislead the American public.

“There’s nothing wrong with dodging a question, as long as you don’t try to mislead,” he wrote. “But Schiff on ‘Morning Joe’ clearly made a statement that was false.”

“He compounded his falsehood by telling reporters a few days later that if not for the IG’s office, the committee would not have known about the complaint,” Kessler continued. “That again suggested there had been no prior communication.”

noel1980

Overheal wrote: »

Facebook edited their own ad policy to let trump ads run: they put in a new exception for political ads that they don’t have to be truthful or honest.

These companies just want to take in GOP warchest money.

That, and they know he's gonna win anyway so why not make some $ from it.

BonnieSituation

peddlelies wrote: »

On the topic of having no prior contact or knowledge of the Whistle-blower, the Washington Post have given Schiff 4 Pinocchio's for lying about it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/04/schiffs-false-claim-his-committee-had-not-spoken-whistleblower/

This is taken from another article because the post article is behind a paywall.

“This is flat-out false,” The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote of Schiff’s claims on MSNBC. “Unlike the quick two-step dance he performed with Anderson Cooper, Schiff simply says the committee had not spoken to the whistleblower. Now we know that’s not true.”

Kessler wrote that Schiff was not simply attempting to dodge a question, but to mislead the American public.

“There’s nothing wrong with dodging a question, as long as you don’t try to mislead,” he wrote. “But Schiff on ‘Morning Joe’ clearly made a statement that was false.”

“He compounded his falsehood by telling reporters a few days later that if not for the IG’s office, the committee would not have known about the complaint,” Kessler continued. “That again suggested there had been no prior communication.”

Schiff makes one "falsehood" and yet 11000 verifiable lies get ignored. Jesus.

peddlelies

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Schiff makes one "falsehood" and yet 11000 verifiable lies get ignored. Jesus.

Oh so because Trump lies then congressmen are beyond Criticism? I'm sure you'd love listening to the likes of Matt Gaetz and Louie Gohmert if that's the case.

Schiff was on cable and network news daily for practically two years hyping the grand Russian conspiracy. He's a Democrat and he's out for his party. "Jesus" my arse, he's not above criticism, just like Trump.

Schiff has given plenty of material for Republicans to attack on this whistleblower complaint, first there was his intentional misleading reading of Trump's phone call in that congressional hearing and now this. If you fail to see that, that's your prerogative but many Trump haters on this thread have said the same, i.e. he's handled this situation badly and given free angles of attack for Republicans in what should be for them, a dire situation.

mcmoustache

Schiff needs to be careful with his language. Whatever about Trump and his cohorts lying their asses off every day, people still expect better from the Dem members of the committees. It's a different set of standards for sure but it is what it is.

Dohnjoe

peddlelies wrote: »

Oh so because Trump lies then congressmen are beyond Criticism? I'm sure you'd love listening to the likes of Matt Gaetz and Louie Gohmert if that's the case.

Schiff was on cable and network news daily for practically two years hyping the grand Russian conspiracy. He's a Democrat and he's out for his party. "Jesus" my arse, he's not above criticism, just like Trump.

Schiff has given plenty of material for Republicans to attack on this whistleblower complaint, first there was his intentional misleading reading of Trump's phone call in that congressional hearing and now this. If you fail to see that, that's your prerogative but many Trump haters on this thread have said the same, i.e. he's handled this situation badly and given free angles of attack for Republicans in what should be for them, a dire situation.

It's grossly disproportionate. Politician A making a mistake is not the same as politician B consistently making false claims on a daily basis among a massive raft of other issues including direct racism, sexism, bigotry, bullying, etc, etc, etc

Not excusing Schiff but he's not in the same ballpark/planet/universe as Trump

TomOnBoard

When Schiff presented the substance of the transcript at the hearing, he characterised the thrust and tone of the transcript in a way that covered the call without simply reading out the whole transcript which would have taken 10 to 20 minutes. That is a perfectly reasonable approach for him to take on the interests of clarity and brevity. He changed nothing of substance, but made clearer some of the Mafia Don innuendo that Trump was engaging in with Zelensky. Remember, Zelensky and his ppl had been well primed by Rudy and others before the call as to how Zelensky was to play it if he wanted to have the White House bilateral in September which he clearly wanted. So Zelensky knew well what Trump was looking for when he asked for the favour. And he also had been made very clear that he'd better pony up Trump's demands if he wanted continued aid.

Frankly this attempt at comparing Schiff' words and Trump''s dishonesty is sickening. Trump is a pathological liar (must be up near 13000 since taking office by now) and a crook who cares about nothing but his disgusting corpulent self.

peddlelies

Dohnjoe wrote: »

It's grossly disproportionate. Politician A making a mistake is not the same as politician B consistently making false claims on a daily basis among a massive raft of other issues including direct racism, sexism, bigotry, bullying, etc, etc, etc

Not excusing Schiff but he's not in the same ballpark/planet/universe as Trump

Yet I'm not the one who said he was?

Classic strawman.

peddlelies

TomOnBoard wrote: »

When Schiff presented the substance of the transcript at the hearing, he characterised the thrust and tone of the transcript in a way that covered the call without simply reading out the whole transcript which would have taken 10 to 20 minutes. That is a perfectly reasonable approach for him to take on the interests of clarity and brevity. He changed nothing of substance, but made clearer some of the Mafia Don innuendo that Trump was engaging in with Zelensky.

That is untrue.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/fact-check-adam-schiff-trumps-ukraine-call/index.html

"...Schiff's remarks did make it easy for viewers to get confused. He did not make clear which words he was taking directly from Trump's comments in the rough transcript, which words were his own analysis, and which words were meant to be the comedic "parody" he later said he was intending.
At some points, Schiff's words strayed quite far from what the rough transcript showed Trump saying."

For example

Schiff: "You're going to love him (Giuliani). Trust me. You know what I'm asking? And so I'm only going to say this a few more times in a few more ways. And by the way, don't call me again. I'll call you when you've done what I asked."

Analysis: Trump did not tell Zelensky not to call him again until he had done what Trump asked, nor did he say "you know what I'm asking?" The call ended on a positive note, with Trump saying of Zelensky's request for a visit to Ukraine, "Okay, we can work that out," then adding, "I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time."

Schiff: "This is in sum and character what the president was trying to communicate with the president of Ukraine. It would be funny if it wasn't such a graphic betrayal of the President's oath of office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, there's nothing the president says here that is in America's interest after all."

Analysis: This concluding quote may have further confused viewers. Schiff suggested here that he had just provided listeners with what "the president says," though he had added in things that Trump did not actually say.

Trump said in the call, "I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are." Trump then said of the US-Ukraine relationship: "I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine."

Schiff: "I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though. And I'm going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that."

Analysis: Here's where Schiff veered quite a distance from what the rough transcript says.
Trump did not repeat a demand related to a political opponent "seven times," according to the rough transcript. He told Zelensky three times that he would get his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to call Zelensky.