Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

I could quote the article, but there's no need.

Gov. Greg Abbott will skip Republican National Convention to deal with coronavirus

I'm just going to assume he's got company. There will be no crowds, no media, no Trump (this is the NC thing, Trump was never going), and therefore, no point. Just some old white guys all saying "my state votes for Trump because there is no alternative" to a camera on a tripod, basically.

[Ursus]

I could quote the article, but there's no need.

Gov. Greg Abbott will skip Republican National Convention to deal with coronavirus

I'm just going to assume he's got company. There will be no crowds, no media, no Trump (this is the NC thing, Trump was never going), and therefore, no point. Just some old white guys all saying "my state votes for Trump because there is no alternative" to a camera on a tripod, basically.

I wonder if they will be deploying cardboard people at the convention and piping in fake crowd noise, like MLB is doing, to make the livestream look/sound better. Maybe that's why no media will be allowed?

[Breccia]

I wonder if they will be deploying cardboard people at the convention and piping in fake crowd noise, like MLB is doing

Without Trump, either
a) yes, or
b) boring as C-SPAN

Trump can't do this -- he needs LOCK HER UP chants.

[Acidbaron]

I wonder if they will be deploying cardboard people at the convention and piping in fake crowd noise, like MLB is doing, to make the livestream look/sound better. Maybe that's why no media will be allowed?

Would need to do something like that, their latest photoshop attempt was fairly horrible.

With merely copy and pasting the same people for several rows.

[Belize]

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonal...58246541553664

To think we could have had a 3rd term of Obama.


Trump is legitimately mentally ill.

[Breccia]

Some quick bites to start your day.

(glances at clock)

Continue your day. Who drank all my fucking coffee?

1) This tweet:

So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!

Yes, that's the first time Trump has attacked Birx, but now she goes in the same drawer as Fauci labeled "People doing their job competently and therefore Trump attacks them"

2) The National Governors Association are asking Trump to keep the National Guard active to help with the lethal outbreak. Without Trump's explicit approval, the National Guard will end their lethal outbreak deployment Aug 21.

3) Trump's campaign announced on Fox and Friends demanding more debates against Biden, and sooner.

"Why the hell would they ever want to do that? Trump sucks at debates and he has no record to run on!"

Actually, it's worse. The reason given was for people to make up their mind and early vote. Which means Trump has given up fighting mailed ballots. This is just the stupidest possible way to do so.

As a reminder, the Trump campaign cannot change the date or number of debates. A separate commission does that, and Biden has no reason to change the rules. He's winning.

3a) Related: Biden is extending his nationwide lead through the devastating strategy of "sit back and watch Trump fuck it up" Biden now leads in Ohio and North Carolina.

4) That same Fed Guy that I just quoted from FOX News earlier said a bunch of other stuff here, but I just now found the transcript. Yes, FOX News was cherry-picking.

I mean if we were to lock down really hard, I know I hate to even suggest it. People will be frustrated by it. But if we were to lock down hard for a month or six weeks, we could get the case count down so that our testing and our contact tracing was actually enough to control it the way that it's happening in the Northeast right now. They had a rocky start, but they're doing a pretty good job right now. Now, if we don't do that and we just have this raging virus spreading throughout the country with flare-ups and local lockdowns for the next year or two, which is entirely possible, we're going to see many, many more business bankruptcies, small businesses, big businesses, and that's going to take a lot of time to recover from to rebuild those businesses and then to bring workers back in and re-engage them in the workforce. That's going to be a much slower recovery for all of us.

5) High-profile bankruptcies continue. We lost Men's Wearhouse and Lord and Taylor in the last 24 hours.

6) And say goodbye to coal.

The global amount of coal-fired power generating capacity fell slightly in the first half of 2020 as plant closures outpaced additions, per new data Monday from the group Global Energy Monitor.

It's the first half-year decline on record, Christine Shearer, the group's coal program director, writes in Carbon Brief. Coal-fired power plants are a huge source of global CO2 emissions.

The net amount of global capacity fell by 2.9 gigawatts to 2,047 GW, the group reports.

"The fall — including a decline in India — was due to a combination of slowed commissioning due to the Covid-19 pandemic and record retirements in the EU from strengthened pollution regulations."

New plant additions were concentrated largely in China, the world's biggest CO2 emitter.

The net decline is a stark contrast from the average of 25GW of growth each half year for the past two decades.

[Ursus]

1) This tweet:

Yes, that's the first time Trump has attacked Birx, but now she goes in the same drawer as Fauci labeled "People doing their job competently and therefore Trump attacks them"

Birx has gone out of her way to not say anything that could remotely be construed as negative about Trump, but he's still so triggered he goes after her. What a fucking snowflake.

[Kathandira]

Ya know. I am really hoping we see virtual debates for this election. This could present an opportunity to do something that has been needed for quite some time.

Mr Trump, your response to the question?
Trump speaks for his allotted time, and gets muted.
Mr Biden, your reply?
Biden speaks for his allotted time and gets muted.

We may actually have candidates be forced to get to the point, and then shut the hell up.

[Benggaul]

Ya know. I am really hoping we see virtual debates for this election. This could present an opportunity to do something that has been needed for quite some time.

Mr Trump, your response to the question?
Trump speaks for his allotted time, and gets muted.
Mr Biden, your reply?
Biden speaks for his allotted time and gets muted.

We may actually have candidates be forced to get to the point, and then shut the hell up.

They could have done that at any time by turning off their mics during live debates. Don't expect it to change if they go virtual.

[Kathandira]

They could have done that at any time by turning off their mics during live debates. Don't expect it to change if they go virtual.

Good point. Then I guess this will only further prove that the debates are in fact run by monkeys who can't control the candidates.

[Paranoid Android]

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonal...58246541553664

To think we could have had a 3rd term of Obama.


Trump is legitimately mentally ill.

We truly have a problem were we will prop up a person who is obviously not there mentally. Reagan had onset dementia in his 2nd term and I have not researched any others. The "Madness of King George" you would say. That they feel it is more important to keep a person in power then the well being of a nation.

[Ursus]

They could have done that at any time by turning off their mics during live debates. Don't expect it to change if they go virtual.

One thing that will be changing (thankfully) is no audience. The cheering/booing from shills is something I can do without.

[Breccia]

One thing that will be changing (thankfully) is no audience. The cheering/booing from shills is something I can do without.

Agreed. Debates should not be graded on booing or cheering. Debates should be about the merits of the candidates and their stances on the issues.

If Trump can't stock the audience with set of Jerry Springer and Clinton's sexual partners, he's even more crippled than 2016.

[Thekri]

Which thread are we talking about the Kodak Eastman deal in? I haven't seen it yet, but I am sure it came up somewhere, it could be here, the Corona-virus thread, or the economy thread.

I did some looking at it this morning, and it has the earmarks of one of the most spectacularly corrupt actions in US history, at least on the scale of the Teapot dome scandal.
-The loan is for $765 million dollars, to a company that had a market cap of around $100 million.
-It was for producing drug ingredients, but it went to a camera and imaging company.
-It went to a company with an atrocious track record of delivering on its major products, and has infamously poor management.
-It was supposed to be used for "Advanced Manufacturing Techniques" but went to a company that stands out in the market for being backwards, old fashioned, and left behind in the tech race.
-It is touted as stabilizing the pharmaceutical supply chain, but it is objectively not a supply chain company.
-One of its top executives got an extremely suspicious Stock offering off the books one day before the news went public (And shares skyrocketed 2000%)

Nothing about this deal makes any sort of logical sense. There are hundreds of companies that have better management, actual experience with pharmaceuticals/supply chains/advanced manufacturing. There are dozens that have experience in all three, while being similar size or larger to Kodak. All of these would be logical choices. Why the hell was this deal signed? Who considered Kodak in the first place? What sort of vetting or selection process was there?

This has every appearance of being a Russian style oligarch move. Trump's Kleptocracy at its finest.

[Redwyrm]

Which thread are we talking about the Kodak Eastman deal in? I haven't seen it yet, but I am sure it came up somewhere, it could be here, the Corona-virus thread, or the economy thread.

The deal did make Kodak's stock price jump tremendously. So whoever had Kodak stock made a killing. Now let's see who knew ahead of time about the deal and purchased Kodak stock shortly before that.

[beanman12345]

D.A. Is Investigating Trump and His Company Over Fraud, Filing Suggests

Trump not having a good day.

[Thekri]

The deal did make Kodak's stock price jump tremendously. So whoever had Kodak stock made a killing. Now let's see who knew ahead of time about the deal and purchased Kodak stock shortly before that.

Good luck with that. The SEC has been refusing to look into any trades around Trump's comments and decisions. And there are a LOT of them, and they are getting constantly more brazen. There are a few cases the government has been forced to pursue. Richard Burr is still under investigation for insider trading related to early Covid briefings, and Chris Collins pleaded guilty and resigned for insider trading last year. Collins was the one that was insider trading from the White House lawn, and nowhere in the case against him did it say where he got the information. But the call came from the White House lawn, while he was attending an event there.

This is an absolutely massive pattern, and all the oversight for it comes from inside the executive branch. A Branch that appears entirely complicit in it.

[Breccia]

Trump not having a good day.

NYState is going after Trump's taxes and claiming fraud. It's bank and insurance fraud, and as we've heard (I believe from Cohen under oath), Trump has been telling tax assessors one value and insurers another.

[Rasulis]

From Desmog.

On Wednesday, President Trump left Midland, Texas, after arriving in the state’s Permian oilfield region for a $2,800 a plate luncheon and a “roundtable” that required each participant to pony up $100,000.

“Under the last administration, America’s energy industry was under relentless and unceasing attack,” he said. “But the day I took the Oath of Office, we ended the war on American energy and we stopped the far-left assault on American energy workers.”

“I withdrew from the one-sided, energy-destroying Paris Climate Accord,” he said. “We cancelled the Obama administration’s job-crushing Clean Power Plan. You know all about that. I approved the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines immediately upon assuming office.”

Mr. Trump told those gathered inside a white tent that over $1 billion in pandemic aid had flowed to the Texas energy industry’s workers. “Through the Paycheck Protection Program, we provided over $1 billion in emergency aid to keep Texas energy workers on the payroll,” he said. “We kept them all on the payroll.”

“And I want to thank, frankly, Saudi Arabia. I want to thank Russia. I want to thank Mexico,” he said, adding that he wanted to thank OPEC+, in a speech the White House called “Remarks by President Trump on Restoring Energy Dominance in the Permian Basin.”

“We’re Okay Now. We’re Back. We’re Back.”

As for the reality, pictures are worth a thousand words.


Empty worker housing at FTSI in Odessa, Texas.


Laid off workers boots hung on fence posts after their last shift in the oil fields. Eddy County, New Mexico.


Oil tankers sit on a siding outside of Monahans, Texas.


This disconnect is why Red Texas is now a battle ground state.

[cubby]

From Desmog.



As for the reality, pictures are worth a thousand words.


Empty worker housing at FTSI in Odessa, Texas.


Laid off workers boots hung on fence posts after their last shift in the oil fields. Eddy County, New Mexico.


Oil tankers sit on a siding outside of Monahans, Texas.


This disconnect is why Red Texas is now a battle ground state.

Would be fucking amazing if we even got Texas close. Especially if it cost the GOP tens of millions to keep it. Mission accomplished!

- - - Updated - - -
@Breccia - you mentioned, I think last night, that Brix was subtlely digging Trump's COVID response, and you were right. Trump is now attacking his own sycophant, who almost literally sold her medical license up the river to be on board the Trump Titanic.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump still trying to hide his tax returns, after promising to release them, and then having the Supreme Court order them released.
@lockedout - I wonder what your Dear Leader is trying to hide?

It's fucking unbelieveable how many SCOTUS decisions the Trump Crime Family is ignoring (hint to Trumpkins: one is too many).