Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

If he's participating through a letter, wouldn't he have to be sworn in, and how is allowed to elude cross examination?

That's the point. He doesn't want to be cross-examined. He wants his lawyers to write answers that protect him, and then not answer followups.

Because @Felya is correct.

[Antiganon]

He is trying to pull a Bush, from the 9/11 commission:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_C...led_to_testify

Little different there, in that the 9/11 commission was actually discussing highly classified intelligence (who knew what when and how?), while Trump incited insurrection.

[Ripster42]

Little different there, in that the 9/11 commission was actually discussing highly classified intelligence (who knew what when and how?), while Trump incited insurrection.

Bush was also still in office.

[Antiganon]

Bush was also still in office.

To be fair, so was Trump when he was impeached.

McConnell could have called the Senate for an emergency session and had him convicted/removed or acquitted by the 19th, but that would have required scruples.

[Kaleredar]

DHS issues domestic terror alert



"Okay but why post here?"

Guess whose friends they are.

I know asking intelligence or consistency of these morons is foolish, but... why now? What "last ditch hope" could they possibly be trying to coerce out of... uh... whoever... to keep Trump president?

I'd also think that them seeing the FBI rounding up the capitol terrorists in droves should spook them out of any further action. Especially now that Biden is actually at the helm and wont have Trump's malignant neglect protecting them.

[Felya]

Little different there, in that the 9/11 commission was actually discussing highly classified intelligence (who knew what when and how?), while Trump incited insurrection.

Yeah, I am not arguing specifics, just that this is the sort of deal he wants. Especially if you consider how Bush’s untranscribed response plays into conspiracy theories. I think it is fair to assume that Trump likely will believe the conspiracy theory of how Bush avoided the stand, over the difference in specifics.

[Paranoid Android]

Cotton calls for removal of National Guard from DC https://t.co/urM6MqIewA https://t.co/waAmAfqAZE

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1...154315271?s=19

I love these people. No effin scruples. Cotton had an op-ed where he wanted the military on peaceful protests.

[Breccia]

why now?

This isn't about making something change. This is purely revenge. They are looking to Biden (such as this guy maybe) or the people who elected Biden to die, for electing Biden or scorning Trump.

Who killed 4,000 people a day last month.

[gondrin]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1...154315271?s=19

I love these people. No effin scruples. Cotton had an op-ed where he wanted the military on peaceful protests.

I say we have a call to remove Tom Cotton from DC, along with the rest of the crazy Brady Bunch.

[Benggaul]

162,574 new cases, about 33k fewer than last Thursday, but a few states still haven't reported. That might bring it to 165-166k or so.

Top 5:

Texas: 20,347 new cases; 413 deaths
California: 19,970 new cases; 614 deaths
New York: 13,579 new cases; 237 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Georgia: 7,352 new cases; 184 deaths

It should be noted that a huge chunk of the decline in new cases is thanks to California coming down from 40-45k+ days to 15-20k. The numbers are down in most areas (though some states, like Texas, keep fluctuating near their high points), but CA in particular has seen a precipitous drop in the past week or so. Nationally testing is dipping a bit (which it shouldn't be, but there you have it) but positivity is also declining on the whole to around 9%. Still too high (the recommended maximum for remaining "open" is 5%), but way down from the 13-14% it was the first week of the year. For comparison, California is currently at 7.7% and dropping, New York is at 5.6% and dropping, Texas is at about 17% and fluctuating and Florida is just north of 10% and hard to gauge because they're not reporting accurately. Fuck Florida.

3,908 deaths is over 450 fewer than last Thursday and brings the total to 443,769. This will go up a bit as the few states that have not reported do so, but it should still come out as less than last week. However the total I reported for yesterday ended up increasing by about 300 or so to 4,256 which, while still fewer than the previous Wednesday, is still depressingly high. I still believe we're past the peak on daily death totals so we should continue to see this go down over the next few weeks, but we'll probably still be in the 3k range for a while. I don't anticipate too many more 4k days unless there's a crisis--okay another crisis in healthcare.

Related news:

U.S. is in a 'race against time' with new coronavirus variants, scientists warn--Basically, Trump hamstrung us and now we have to try to vaccinate as many people as possible before worse variants of the virus emerge.

Biden to expand Affordable Care Act enrollment amid COVID-19 in new executive order--The night-and-day difference between the past week and the past 4 years of the TRUMP SHITSHOW is a much-needed shot of serotonin for me, I can tell you.

White House releases 'previously hidden' state COVID-19 data--While "the most transparent administration ever" was hiding this information from the public. Fuck Trump and fuck his cowardly supporters.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

While "the most transparent administration ever" was hiding this information from the public.

We were all waiting for the other bone spur to drop.

Nobody should be surprised by this, except along the lines of "I thought we were done with this shit". Trump could not dismiss this as a Chinese Hoax without hiding the facts of the cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

- - - Updated - - -

Further proof we are in the worst timeline.

QAnon shaman wants to testify at Trump's impeachment.

[Shadowferal]

Further proof we are in the worst timeline.
QAnon shaman wants to testify at Trump's impeachment.

Let him speak! Lets hear how the GOP treats him. Should be funny if nothing else.

[Polyxo]

Let him speak! Lets hear how the GOP treats him. Should be funny if nothing else.

[Paranoid Android]

NEW: One of Trump’s impeachment trial attorneys, South Carolina’s Supreme Court found, used racial stereotypes to kick Black citizens off of a jury.

He told the trial judge he struck one potential juror because they "shucked and jived.”

https://t.co/pYnuUtIeEF

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/stat...481132550?s=19

Just shocked that a Trump attorney is a racist. Of course suppressing minority votes is right in his wheel house.

[some guy]

Only the best racists.

[Zan15]

@Breccia oh another one to add to the list of accomplishments


While everyone has been focused on game stop in the "economy"

Just another recovery that will be slow and democrats and the democratic president will be blamed for, after being caused by (failures to respond to covid and trade wars) republicans/trump/bush/et all.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...omy-recession/

2020 was the worst year for economic growth since World War II
New federal data offers a comprehensive snapshot of a year marred by staggering job losses, waves of small-business closures and mounting inequality


The U.S. economy shrank by 3.5 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged factories, businesses and households, pushing U.S. economic growth to a low not seen since the United States wound down wartime spending in 1946.

Overall, the economy was surprisingly resilient in the second half of the year, given the falloff at the start of the public health crisis, according to data released Thursday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Yet, the 1 percent growth in the fourth quarter signaled a faltering recovery and a long road ahead, with 9.8 million jobs still missing and 23.8 million adults struggling to feed their families.

“2020 has no precedent in modern economic history,” said David Wilcox, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former director of the domestic economics division at the Federal Reserve. “The influenza of 1918 and 1919 predates our modern system of economic statistics, and since World War II, there’s never been a contraction that even remotely approached the severity and the breadth of the initial collapse in 2020.”



It’s the first time the economy has contracted for the year since 2009, when gross domestic product shrank by 2.5 percent during the depths of the Great Recession. The next-worst plunge was 1946, when the economy shrank by 11.6 percent as the nation demobilized from its wartime footing.

[Breccia]

2020 was the worst year for economic growth since World War II

Yep. The only time Trump broke 3% was when it was negative. Honestly, it should have been worse, but Trump bought a less bad decline with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans by pushing to keep the economy open, downplaying the virus, refusing to do anything about it until it was far too late, and taking victory laps for things he had nothing to do with.

The important thing, of course, is Trump never broke 3% GDP growth in any year. His record was 2.9% and he had the full House and Senate backing him.

[Kaleredar]

Yep. The only time Trump broke 3% was when it was negative. Honestly, it should have been worse, but Trump bought a less bad decline with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans by pushing to keep the economy open, downplaying the virus, refusing to do anything about it until it was far too late, and taking victory laps for things he had nothing to do with.

The important thing, of course, is Trump never broke 3% GDP growth in any year. His record was 2.9% and he had the full House and Senate backing him.

I think eating that gdp loss early on and potentially having the country return back to some modicum of normalcy by now might have resulted in a far better growth in GDP than what he got.

[Benggaul]

169,033 new cases; about 26k fewer than last Friday. Missouri and Nebraska haven't reported in yet so as usual that will go up a bit.

Top 5:

California: 19,746 new cases; 630 deaths
Texas: 18,468 new cases; 358 deaths
New York: 12,858 new cases; 188 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Pennsylvania: 9,593 new cases; 162 deaths

It's still a bit too early to tell, but it appears the rate in decrease in cases is slowing. This is expected based off the trends from the outbreaks from last year. Just to put things into perspective, even though we've dropped well over 100k cases since the peak back at the beginning of the month, we're still getting more than twice as many cases as the peak we hit during the Summer and the numbers would have to fall another 130k to reach the "minimum" we were getting daily after that peak.

We're far from out of the woods here and while the pressure may start letting up on hospitals, those healthcare workers aren't going to be getting much of a break. Even if only 1% of cases are severe enough to require hospitalization, that's a lot of people still being admitted daily. I'm hoping we'll continue to see the numbers come down at a good rate next week, but I'm preparing myself to be disappointed if they don't. For the record, if I went back to my old method of posting each state with over 1k cases, I'd still have to list out 34 states.

3,652 deaths is about 250 fewer than last Friday and brings the total to 447,459. This will also increase a little once the straggling numbers come in, but should again still be fewer than last week. This total also continues dipping as expected--but we're still losing over 20k people per week.

Related news:

Biden signals support for Senate Democrats moving on COVID relief without GOP backing--Biden's fine with the Dems playing hardball on this one issue, at least, and it's increasingly looking as if they're going to have to since the GOP suddenly want to talk about budget deficits despite granting Trump his tax cut for the rich. For reasons.

I won't post the link, because it's a Murdoch rag, but OJ Simpson apparently got his vaccination, so I guess murderers are higher on the list than school teachers for vaccine priority.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

I think eating that gdp loss early on and potentially having the country return back to some modicum of normalcy by now might have resulted in a far better growth in GDP than what he got.

Of course it would. Howeve we were up against two major obstacles.

1) It was an election year. Even Bernie would have struggled with that idea.

2) Trump crowed about everything from 42% unemployment magically becoming 5% to GameStop as if it would only happened because he allowed it. There was no chance his potentially insane mind would have allowed this option. No way was he going to allow even the slightest short-term drop for long-term gain -- election year or not. His numbers were dropping and he was livid that the Chinese Demorat Liberal and why not Blacks were doing this to him.

There's an old saying, "leadership is planting trees under whose shade you'll never sit". It is a recent old saying, only 18-years-old, but it is an old saying nonetheless. Trump digs up every inch of ground he sees for shiny rocks, then salts the earth.

- - - Updated - - -

Palm Beach has begun the legal review of their Mar-a-Lago contract, specifically, the part about Trump not being allowed to just live there.

It's Trump, so naturally they're getting all their fucks in a row before moving forwards.

Last we checked, Trump signed a contract saying that nobody, including himself, could stay at Mar-a-Lago more than seven consecutive days nor more than 21 days per year. Trump denies this of course, but considering how little his word is worth that's actually evidence in court that he's about to be evicted.

And considering the place is a hotel and that hotel requires a license, if Trump provably breaks the contract, and Palm Beach can prove it, the license is almost certainly null and void. Trump won't be able to use it as a place of business anymore. He could potentially just make it his house, but he could not charge guests to stay. He'd probably also lose the ability to have restaurants and bars there, too. And the golf course?

Palm Beach County looks to end Trump golf course lease after U.S. Capitol riot

Whoops! That's from Jan 15, so that movement is likely ongoing.

Most business licenses aren't permanent. Palm Beach in particular has liquor licensing fees that are annual. They don't necessarily need to rip up the existing contract, they could just choose not to renew it.

Plus, it's not like the amount of visits Trump made there while in office, with the traffic clogs and other security (which I'm just going to state without evidence Trump never paid Palm Beach for and assume I'm correct based on history) that he probably doesn't have a ton of friends there. If these things are voted on by committee, he's in real trouble.

And as many of you have pointed out, it's going to be hard for Trump to justify that he's not goingt o live at Mar-a-Lago considering he votes there. For him to claim he lives elsewhere would be admission of voter fraud, a highly hilarious felony, and would be yet another reason they could give to end his business licenses.

Obviously this is early in the game, but man, it's Tales from the Crypt level of humor to think about Trump being evicted from his own house.