Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Edge-]

Also, that every single president has tried since Reagan, with NK always going back on their word. Trump ignored all that history, to pretty much hand NK a blank peace of paper as a deal... then whine he didn’t get a peace prize...

He did salute their general though, I bet no US president has ever had the balls to do that.

[Breccia]

A Russian double header.

Not Trump's campaign but a pro-Trump group launched an ad that accused Biden of wanting to raise taxes on everyone, and also to ban fracking. Standard lies, the same he's told before, but the ad featured Russian actors in stock footage.

Also, a few days ago I posted

If Russia wants to help Trump, they have a prime opportunity to do so openly and legally. Trump wants a nuclear treaty before the election and of course, Putin could just agree to weapons control or reduction and then, you know, not do it.

UPDATE: Russia says nyet.

Russia dismissed claims from the Trump administration that Moscow and Washington had reached an agreement on extending a top arms control agreement, saying it was unlikely any deal would be reached prior to the November election.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov specifically pushed back on claims from administration officials that the U.S. would extend the New START Treaty for an undetermined period of time if Russia froze its nuclear arsenal.

"The US position in favor of putting a freeze [on the nuclear arsenal] has long been known to us, it is unacceptable to us. Not because we are against freezing, but because we need to deal with the problems of strategic stability as a complex," Rybakov told state run news agency RIA Novosti

Russia could have just pretended to play along and handed Trump a win. They didn't. They're hanging him out to dry. There's a сука born every minute.

- - - Updated - - -

51,534, about 7k more than last Tuesday. It's not getting any better.

At least deaths aren't tied as strictly to cases as they were back in spring. It'll be great if we stand under 1,000.

- - - Updated - - -

Ahhhhhh..

So let's talk about Trump's ability to be taken seriously.

It's fucked.

I'm not talking about his dropping poll numbers, nor am I talking about McConnell handwaving Trump's relief bill ideas. I could, but I'm not right now.

On Oct 6

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!

Immediately Buzzfeed sued to get them through FOIA and cited this tweet as evidence. In court. Because Trump.

"That is kind of--"

Oh, I'm not done. The DOJ argued in court that Trump ordering declassifying, in public, did not count as Trump ordering declassifying.

DOJ attorneys told District Judge Reggie Walton, who demanded that the DOJ clarify its standing on the tweets, that they conferred with the White House counsel's office "and were informed that there was no order requiring declassification or disclosure of any document at issue in this case."

"The Department was further informed that the President’s statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification of any particular documents," the attorneys wrote in a filing.

"Although in May 2019, the President did delegate declassification authority to the Attorney General, to date, the Attorney General has not exercised that declassification authority to release any of the redacted material in this case based on the President’s Twitter statements."

Not even Trump's closest allies are taking Trump seriously. And they're using "we don't take him seriously" in court like he's Sean Hannity or something.

[Benggaul]

At least deaths aren't tied as strictly to cases as they were back in spring. It'll be great if we stand under 1,000.

Ehhhh they kinda are. More cases will, inevitably, mean more deaths. And if too many extreme cases are happening at once it's going to overload hospitals...this happened in Texas and Arizona and it's already on the cusp of happening in Wisconsin. This is what I meant by hoping governors were prepared.

[Breccia]

Ehhhh they kinda are.

I meant, the ratio isn't as high. I'm pretty sure the ratio of cases -> deaths is better now.

We did see multiple estimates calling for another 200,000 dead by Dec 31. We're not on pace for that to happen. An increase of cases could point us in that direction, but at least so far, we're hanging out on the good end of 1,000 deaths/day. If that's really a thing, because 800 deaths a day isn't really worth celebrating, just a sigh of relief it wasn't worse.

[Thepersona]

Ehhhh they kinda are. More cases will, inevitably, mean more deaths. And if too many extreme cases are happening at once it's going to overload hospitals...this happened in Texas and Arizona and it's already on the cusp of happening in Wisconsin. This is what I meant by hoping governors were prepared.

I think that either the CFR right now is lower than it was in april (as the standard of care is better) or that the current CFR is more in line with the real IFR (and that was not the case 6 months ago). Or a mix of both. Either way, this is still orders of magnitude worse than the flu.

It also could mean that the virus is mutating to be a tad less lethal than it was when it just hit Italy and subsequently, NYC.

[Breccia]

WaPo reports that--

"Paywall."

Um...hold on...yeah. CNN reports that WaPo reports that Trump's DOJ investigation into "Obama spied on my campaign" has...hold on.

The DOJ argued in court that Trump ordering declassifying, in public, did not count as Trump ordering declassifying.

Right, in that article, by an amazing coincidence:

In March 2017, Trump tweeted that former President Barack Obama had his "wires tapped" during the 2016 presidential election. DOJ later confirmed in court that the agency "has no records that support his statement."

In November 2017, Trump tweeted that the House of Representatives was refusing to release documents that covered up misconduct by the FBI and the DOJ, and they needed to be released immediately. DOJ attorneys said in a filing that despite Trump's tweets, there were no official disclosure orders.

Yes, that was two other times Trump tweeted orders and the DoJ said "we're not following those orders".

Okay back to the story. Barr was appointed and immediately dove into the "Obama spied on my campaign" story. And it went exactly as everyone expected.

The quiet end to the probe caps a months-long effort that added the weight of a senior federal prosecutor behind an issue that President Donald Trump had seized on to underpin unfounded allegations about former President Barack Obama.

The investigation was announced in May after then-acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified a list of names of former Obama administration officials who allegedly had requested the "unmasking" of the identify of Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

At the time, Trump hyped the list as "a massive thing" to reporters and Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, even told Fox News it amounted to the "biggest thing since Watergate."

The Trump campaign also quickly issued a statement attacking former Vice President Joe Biden for being listed in the memo, though Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said that the declassified documents "simply indicate the breadth and depth of concern" about Flynn's conduct.

On its own, the list of names does not prove any wrongdoing. Unmasking requests are a routine part of intelligence work, and there's no evidence that the requests were made for political purposes. The NSA said in its declassified memo disclosing the names that all of the officials had the authority to view the reports and the agency's standard procedures had been followed.

"Well I guess that's over. But at least Team Trump handled the situation without being massive douchebag hypocrites."

Despite Trump's repeated efforts to cite unmasking as evidence of wrongdoing by Obama and his administration, the level of unmasking has increased under the Trump administration.

There were more than 10,000 unmaskings last year and nearly 17,000 in 2018, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Statistical Transparency reports. There were 9,529 in 2017, Trump's first year in office.

Under the Obama administration, there were about 9,217 unmaskings in 2016 and only 654 in 2015.

"Of course."

Yep.

So once again, everything Trump touches dies.

[Benggaul]

I meant, the ratio isn't as high. I'm pretty sure the ratio of cases -> deaths is better now.

I think that either the CFR right now is lower than it was in april (as the standard of care is better) or that the current CFR is more in line with the real IFR (and that was not the case 6 months ago). Or a mix of both. Either way, this is still orders of magnitude worse than the flu.

Absolutely, but what I meant was that by the nature of sheer volume of daily new cases, daily deaths will go up. I never paid heed to the "200k more deaths by Christmas" models because they never seemed realistic to me. But we'll absolutely be past 250k heading on to 300k by the end of the year.

I do also fully expect deaths per day to go back over 1k as the second wave washes over and possibly get us close to 2k--but I don't expect to see the 3k numbers I've read on some models.

Either way, it's going to suck.

[Breccia]

Absolutely, but what I meant was that by the nature of sheer volume of daily new cases, daily deaths will go up. \

Sadly, we are agreed on that point.

[beanman12345]

Another October Surprise bombshell finally hit!

Remember Trump touting "The greatest political crime in the history of the country?" and people crying so much about how this was such a thing? Well his go to guy Barr did everything he could to make it happen by investigating the shit outta this crime, and well, yeah no crime.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ive-wrongdoing

womp womp

[Smitzelplix]

Another October Surprise bombshell finally hit!

Remember Trump touting "The greatest political crime in the history of the country?" and people crying so much about how this was such a thing? Well his go to guy Barr did everything he could to make it happen by investigating the shit outta this crime, and well, yeah no crime.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ive-wrongdoing

womp womp

This isn't the Duuurrrham report though right? I expect that one will go about just as well as this one did for team Trump.

[beanman12345]

This isn't the Duuurrrham report though right? I expect that one will go about just as well as this one did for team Trump.

No that one is about hunter biden, this one is obamagate.

[Breccia]

This isn't the Duuurrrham report though right?.

This is something different, but Trump is running out of potential October surprises. The Durham report is reportedly not going to be out in time. And Trump tried to attack Biden by screaming random shit about his children into the debate mic, nobody even blinked.

[Smitzelplix]

No that one is about hunter biden, this one is obamagate.

This is something different, but Trump is running out of potential October surprises. The Durham report is reportedly not going to be out in time. And Trump tried to attack Biden by screaming random shit about his children into the debate mic, nobody even blinked.

Thank you both for the info.

[Crispin]

Kinda weird watching Trump's tweet about "DEFEND YOUR 2ND AMENDMENT!" and then shortly before he's got a clip of a guy getting shot during the protests.

Contradict much? lol

"Keep your guns! omg look at this poor guy getting shot!"


Also why is there an actual snuff movie on the POTUS twitter, fucking sick.

[Adam Jensen]

Sucks to be you if you claimed you "brought back football" as some grand achievement.

I mean, it's all he has.

The wall? He got like 3 miles, and most of the rest is just repairs. Oh and those three miles are flimsy as shit and were overtaken by tools you can buy at Home Depot.

Healthcare? Been 4 years, no plan and even with full control of Congress he couldn't crush Obamacare.

The economy? Worst job loss in history

COVID? No strategy, no testing, no plan, just fingers in the ear yelling LALALALALAITSJUSTHEFLULALALALALA while Americans die

ISIS? Syria, the Kurds and Iraq pretty much did that for him, ISIS was on the ropes before Trump took office anyways.

What has he accomplished? You ever notice Trumpsters say he "accomplished so much" but never say exactly what he did? He's done nothing, except what, a massive tax cut? Tariffs on China that mostly just backfired?

But he brought football back, so MAGA I guess.

[Benggaul]

Kinda weird watching Trump's tweet about "DEFEND YOUR 2ND AMENDMENT!" and then shortly before he's got a clip of a guy getting shot during the protests.

Contradict much? lol

"Keep your guns! omg look at this poor guy getting shot!"


Also why is there an actual snuff movie on the POTUS twitter, fucking sick.

I'm banned from Twitter at the moment for reminding Ann Coulter that I called her a cunt for cheering about the death of asylum seeker children so I don't feel like searching around for this. Is it the guy who was shot by a Pinkerton private security guy at a MAGA event? Are they still trying to pin that on Antifa?

[Breccia]

Thank you both for the info.

It's possible that Barr was intentionally misleading his own party, just so it'd be a bigger surprise when it came out. And it's possible the plan was to release the info, fraudulent info from blackmail as it is, until after the debates, when Biden has no chance to respond. Or some other bullshit that means the report will still come out.

But tick tock, motherfucker. The election's sooner than later. Waiting until after the debates is no longer realistic, because Trump screwed up, got sick, and pushed the debates back a week. The time between the last debate and the election isn't enough for even a sudden change. Oh, and everyone's voting already. There is no "perfect time" to release damning info, but it's even worse for Trump, because every day that passes he fucks up something else. At this point, he could have borderline proof Hunter Biden has unprotected sex with a llama and within six hours the NYTimes would reveal yet another story that proves Trump is a liar, a cheat, a felon, a rapist, a murderer, or anything else on the Bingo card.

Or, you know, one of his friends could get arrested. Or die.

Before the Trump Tower meeting, the one Trump intentionally set up with Russian government agents from Russia for illegal dirt on Clinton, he held a rally saying "Oh boy, just you wait, it'll be the best, wait and see, just you wait!" He hasn't done that yet. Well, not with Hunter Biden. I recently cited he tried to do that with Obama and it backfired.

If Trump really had politically lethal dirt on anyone named Biden, and thought it would work, what's he waiting for? The gap widens by the day. No really, look at this shit:



I don't know what strategy is being used here. If there is one, it's clearly not working.

Or, there may be no strategy. Trump may simply be out of ammunition and is compensating by pointing his fingers and yelling "Bang, you're dead!"

Neither is a reason for the Democrats to slow down or stop. A gap of 10% is a good asset, but it's not an instant win. The group of Democrats, moderates, liberals, third-party voters, Bernie Bros, former Republicans, and Republicans who still have any sense of honor/dignity/backbone need to unite, as Trump has encouraged them to do by making it all about himself against the world, and figuratively fuck Trump to death on a huge pile of his broken promises, lies, and upcoming indictments.

P.S. We haven't forgotten about his taxes. Again, it seems to me NYState is ready, willing, and able to wait until Trump comes up with whatever October surprise he thinks he has, nod silently, then send hundreds of law enforcement agents into his businesses with subpoenas, figuratively castrating him on live TV.

[Masark]

Can't. It's fucked for the next 10 years.

Actually, I think it would be possible to hold an early census. The constitution only requires censuses to be held within 10 years of the last one.

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct

AFAICT, there's nothing stopping Congress from passing a law telling the Census Bureau to do a new census right now or to have censuses every 5 years or whatever, as long as they're done at least every 10 years.

But that wouldn't by itself fix the apportionment resulting from said census. You'd need another law or provision to fix that.

[beanman12345]

Actually, I think it would be possible to hold an early census. The constitution only requires censuses to be held within 10 years of the last one.



AFAICT, there's nothing stopping Congress from passing a law telling the Census Bureau to do a new census right now or to have censuses every 5 years or whatever, as long as they're done at least every 10 years.

But that wouldn't by itself fix the apportionment resulting from said census. You'd need another law or provision to fix that.

Maybe it could be interpreted like that, I'm no constitutional lawyer, but I imagine the supreme court would have to be greatly expanded in order to get a ruling like that, and even then idk.

[Breccia]

a massive tax cut?

First, I think you forgot an "n".

Second, the "massive" tax cut wasn't even close to what he promised. Remember $4,000 per person? Maybe if you spread the amount billionaires got over everyone who got next to nothing. Oh, and it was wrecking the deficit/debt even before COVID-19 and it's set to expire for most people in 2025.

So even if the rabid fanbase says that, there's still objective evidence they got next to nothing.

Plus as you mentioned, tariffs. This article is from January and it says the total amount Trump taxed US citizens was $46 billion. Considering that low-income people are more, not less, likely to purchase cheaper Chinese imported goods, but they pay less in taxes so the tax cut for the rich had a much lower effect on them, it's pretty easy to see that for the bottom 20-40% of American taxpayers (depending on which model you use) Trump cost them more than he saved them.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm.

It would be my recommendation that Ms. Manigault Newman pays for the corrective ads/corrective statements outlined above to counteract the long-term adverse effects of information that appeared as a result of Ms. Manigault Newman violating her confidentially agreement

A court filing discovered by the NYTimes sees Team Trump trying to sue/arbitration/legally force Omarosa to buy $850,000 in Trump ads because she broke her confidentiality agreement.

I am no @cubby but I see multiple issues here.

One, I think the law should have some negative things to say about forcing someone to pay for a campaign expense. Omarosa's book came out in 2018 and has not been mentioned by basically anyone during the 2020 campaign.

Two, going after her for breaching the NDA, but not for slander or libel, is admitting what she said was true.

Third, all Omarosa has to do is drag her feet for a few weeks and it's no longer relavent. Considering Team Trump's main strategy is "hold it in the courts until after the election" this is fair game.

Fourth, this is a sign Team Trump is not just out of money, but out of sofa cushions to check under. I don't think "Unhinged" sold 85,000 copies and even if it did, I don't think Omarosa kept $10 per copy. I am biased, howver, my publication experience is more textbook than tell-all.

And fifth, of course, this is yet another incident of Trump screaming NO NO NO and stamping his feet because someone said mean things about him.

"Wait, you said it wasn't about mean things."

If corrective ads are not placed, voters may continue to hold beliefs about the president as a result of Ms. Manigault Newman’s statements

-- the same legal filings

So yes it was about saying mean things. Donald "Snowflake" Trump is stamping his feet and shrilling NO NO NO and expects it to work.

I would love to see the court filings under oath, demonstrating how this book damaged Trump's 2020 campaign, and not, you know, the butchered campaign promises, the lack of plan for anything, the two hundred twenty thousand American deaths or his taxes.

- - - Updated - - -

This is an opinion piece, but it happens to be an opinion that, after reading it, makes sense.

How you know Lindsey Graham is starting to panic

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had a unique opportunity: He got to kick off the questioning Tuesday of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

How did he mark this historic moment? By giving a purely political speech about the Affordable Care Act in a transparent attempt to bolster his flagging reelection campaign in his home state.

"From my point of view, Obamacare has been a disaster for the state of South Carolina." Graham began. "All of you over there want to impose Obamacare on South Carolina. We don't want it. We want something better. We want something different. You know, what we want in South Carolina? South Carolina-care, not Obamacare."

Graham cast the ongoing debate over the ACA, which the Supreme Court will hear on November 10, as a choice between "consolidating all the power in Washington, have some bureaucrat you'll never meet running this program versus having it centered in the state where you live."

And Graham even took time to tout his own health care proposal -- which would block grant federal money to the states and allow them to spend it on health care as they see fit -- noting that if the government adopted his idea, "South Carolina would get almost a billion dollars more."

Like, dude, how much more transparent can you be? The answer, because we're talking about Graham, is WAY more transparent.

"So that's the political debate," he said near the end of his "questioning" of Barrett. "We're involved in a campaign in South Carolina. My fate will be left up to the people of South Carolina."

Indeed it will!

Graham knows he is in a toss-up race against former state Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison in the Palmetto State. He knows that he is being absolutely crushed in fundraising -- Harrison raised $57 million in the last three months alone -- and that has translated into Graham's being buried under an avalanche of Harrison ads. (Graham said in his questions speech that he was newly interested in campaign finance reform because 'there's a lot of money being raised in this campaign. I'd like to know where the hell some of it's coming from.") And he also knows that he continues to underperform among Republicans in the state -- and that these hearings represent his last, best chance to turn that around.

As the Cook Political Report's Jessica Taylor wrote recently:

"There is one remaining Hail Mary for Graham -- the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett that begin next week, in which he'll have the starring role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans certainly hope that heavy coverage can help consolidate Republican votes and remind them why they want to vote for a GOP majority on judges, with Graham being the only way to get that."

That Graham would have no problem in using his position as chairman of the committee that holds confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court to deliver a purely political speech aimed at saving his own bacon back in South Carolina speaks to how desperate he believes his current situation to be. And how few tools he seems to have left at his disposal to change the arc of the contest.

Maybe his speechifying on Tuesday morning did the trick? But if it didn't, it's hard to see what else Graham could possibly hope to do to save his political career at this late date.

I tried getting Graham's wife to comment, but it's tough to ask questions to the back of someone's head when they're breathing heavy.