Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Dontrike]

Hey look, Republicans are only interested in protecting themselves!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...e-of-collusion

Gotta love the amount of spinelessness the GOP has. At this point any GOP member better be the best philanthropist around else I wouldn't trust them a bit.

[Antiganon]

This is the nonsense that happens when you have an administration that doesn't take information security seriously

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...ial-stationery

Holy shit.

The comments on that article make Tijuana look like Skroe.

[Spectral]

Hey remember when Trump said he'd balance the budget?

Good times...good times...

It's incredibly charitable that they called that "stalled" rather than "fucking ridiculous". Not too temporally far from his claim there, he said this shit:

Donald Trump: “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.”

Bob Woodward: “How long would that take?”

Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers…”

Woodward: “What’s fairly quickly?”

Trump: “Well, I would say over a period of eight years. And I’ll tell you why.”

Woodward: “Would you ever be open to tax increases as part of that, to solve the problem?”

Trump: “I don’t think I’ll need to. The power is trade. Our deals are so bad.”

Woodward: “That would be $2 trillion a year.”

Trump: “No, but I’m renegotiating all of our deals, Bob. The big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on. With China, $505 billion this year in trade. We’re losing with everybody.”

I really don't know if he actually believed trade deals could shift yearly budget outcomes by ~$3 trillion per year or if he just bullshits everything and never even considered whether it's true or not. The claim is so implausible that it suggests complete inumeracy though.

[Skroe]

The illegitimate orange moron-in-chief has spent all morning ranting about Mueller.

Who knows... maybe he got served on Friday.

[Thekri]

It's incredibly charitable that they called that "stalled" rather than "fucking ridiculous". Not too temporally far from his claim there, he said this shit:

I really don't know if he actually believed trade deals could shift yearly budget outcomes by ~$3 trillion per year or if he just bullshits everything and never even considered whether it's true or not. The claim is so implausible that it suggests complete inumeracy though.

For one thing, Trump apparently believes that a trade deficit is the same thing as a federal expenditure. He has demonstrated this repeatedly, and it is hilariously wrong. We are getting that much in goods and services from China, in order to prevent spending that money we would have to get that from somewhere else. Even if we did, that doesn't give the government a penny it doesn't already have, because it isn't the government spending that money.

If Trump eliminated all trade deficits with every country in the world, the federal debt would not shrink at all. Of course, Trump apparently believes we have a trade deficit with Canada, so he is clearly not playing with the full set of facts here. This is the worst informed President in our history.

[Bullettime]

The illegitimate orange moron-in-chief has spent all morning ranting about Mueller.

Who knows... maybe he got served on Friday.

The report is that he's seen the questions Mueller wanted to ask since Mueller's team was apparently talking with Dowd on Thursday to discuss a possible interview.

[Togashii]

The illegitimate orange moron-in-chief has spent all morning ranting about Mueller.

Who knows... maybe he got served on Friday.

But.... your not banned!!

[zorkuus]

The illegitimate orange moron-in-chief has spent all morning ranting about Mueller.

Who knows... maybe he got served on Friday.

#witchhunt!

[Belize]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.a2b0d27bd938

I wonder if this shit is even legal...

[Stormspark]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.a2b0d27bd938

I wonder if this shit is even legal...

I seriously doubt it. I just wish Mueller would hurry up. I want to see him do the perp walk as he's dragged out of white house in cuffs. I want him and his family to lose absolutely everything, and I want him to die miserable in prison.

The issue is, Trump himself is a glorified puppet. He's not the one behind any of it, and JUST getting rid of him without getting rid of the people who put him there will not fix the problem.

[Templar 331]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.a2b0d27bd938

I wonder if this shit is even legal...

Trump: “I think they should. . . . And I don’t know, there could be some kind of a law that you can’t do this. But when people are chosen by a man to go into government at high levels and then they leave government and they write a book about a man and say a lot of things that were really guarded and personal, I don’t like that. I mean, I’ll be honest. And people would say, oh, that’s terrible, you’re taking away his right to free speech. Well, he’s going in.”

It seems Trump doesn't know or care, to no one's surprise.

I hope once this shithead gets kicked out that every single one of those people who worked in the White House write a long and detailed book about how ridiculous this administration is. And when anyone says how great Trump was I'll throw it at them. Or catapult depending on how in-depth they get.

[Orbitus]

I seriously doubt it. I just wish Mueller would hurry up. I want to see him do the perp walk as he's dragged out of white house in cuffs. I want him and his family to lose absolutely everything, and I want him to die miserable in prison.

The issue is, Trump himself is a glorified puppet. He's not the one behind any of it, and JUST getting rid of him without getting rid of the people who put him there will not fix the problem.

They were just talking about it on MSNBC with lawyers and they are saying it is not enforceable.

[PACOX]

Trump is going to demand Mueller is fired (again). No doubt it. We will see who complies. Its all there in Trump's tweets. He even thinks Mueller is some Democrat fueled conspiracy even it the firing of a Republican that started this. Expect some shit next week...maybe even tomorrow.

Oh and the Stormy interview is set to air. Grab a bag of popcorn or three.

[Stormspark]

Trump is going to demand Mueller is fired (again). No doubt it. We will see who complies. Its all there in Trump's tweets. He even thinks Mueller is some Democrat fueled conspiracy even it the firing of a Republican that started this. Expect some shit next week...maybe even tomorrow.

Oh and the Stormy interview is set to air. Grab a bag of popcorn or three.

Yep...and Mueller is absolutely prepared for that. He's actually working with the NY AG to duplicate all his charges on the state level too just in case someone decides they want to go the pardon route. NY state charges can only be pardoned by the governor, who is a democrat, so that won't happen.

I really wonder, will common sense in the US be able to recover from the Trump presidency? I mean people have gotten so desensitized to absolutely terrifying statements from their government that I wonder if this just snaps back or if the democracy there has just been compromised. It will take a very disciplined Democratic party to not take advantage of this new paradigm and I doubt they have that discipline.

I don't know...our place in the world has been permanently damaged though. The US needs SERIOUS constitutional reform. What we have right now is completely broken.

[Bullettime]

http://thehill.com/policy/technology...-its-practices

Wonder the odds of a gag order for "national security" before that footage airs.

[Ripster42]

I disagree as to the US' place in the world. The critical thing is that the US is doing something to correct this current problem; there is a special investigation and it can reasonably be expected to bring some results. In quite a few OECD countries in the world something like Mueller would NOT have happened because the necessary checks and balances do not exist. It's clear your democracy still has the structures required to censure dangerous situations. At the end of the day when this presidency is over, the next POTUS will just have to be a bit diplomatic with allies. If anything Trump might help Europe (and Japan, and South Korea) realize it has to emancipate itself from the US and that is a good thing for all us allies.

It definitely degrades many peoples' (correct grammar here, plural of people, peoples) opinions of the US when the president compares the type of killings putin has been accused of to what the US is doing and says we're not innocent either. Regardless of the other crap around trump, that's a biggie.

As a secondary: we've now shown the world we have a political environment where this shit weasel can get elected. That doesn't show stability. That shows incredible weakness that extends BEYOND trump's presidency.

[Stormspark]

It definitely degrades many peoples' (correct grammar here, plural of people, peoples) opinions of the US when the president compares the type of killings putin has been accused of to what the US is doing and says we're not innocent either. Regardless of the other crap around trump, that's a biggie.

As a secondary: we've now shown the world we have a political environment where this shit weasel can get elected. That doesn't show stability. That shows incredible weakness that extends BEYOND trump's presidency.

Yep...look at how long it took Germany to recover from Hitler. The only reason Trump hasn't done everything that Hitler did and more is because he doesn't *yet* have the power to do so.

[Ripster42]

Again though, you are also showing you have the structures in place to correct such a mistake. Now if somehow the Mueller investigation is killed, people are silenced and you manage to reelect Trump then yes, the USA's world status will be dead. But until then I think you are doing better than the UK and just somewhat worse than France under Hollande.

I'm not saying this destroys the US' place in the world, but it does damage it. There's nothing related to foreign policy that is where it needs to be. We're trying to start a trade war with china (with everyone else as collateral) instead of doing anything substantive about their build up in the SCS, their increased investment (and the riders attached to the money) in africa, or their intellectual property theft. With respects to russia, we're basically doing nothing. Trump bombed a place in retaliation for a chemical attack, but called putin beforehand and has done nothing regarding the more recent accusations of chemical weapons use in syria. When was the last time you heard anything about ukraine from the executive branch? Anything serious that has been done to address russian interference in our elections?

It's not about ranking vs other countries. It's about our interests being damaged because trump is a fuck up.

[Templar 331]

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare...emic-on-monday

Well, it seems Monday there will be a big push against the opioid epidemic with the possibility of the death penalty.

Law enforcement measures include allowing the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty for some drug dealers “where appropriate under current law,”

So are we going to go back to cutting off people's hands when they steal?

[Dontrike]

I honestly don't care about Trump playing golf so much. Him doing at his resorts and making money off it is another thing altogether. Also the hypocrisy is palpable.

Him golfing so much is still a problem, especially from someone that constantly aid he wouldn't have enough time to golf and would always be working, but he's the first president that could be considered "part-time" since his first year he spent a third of it vacationing/golfing.