Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Edge-]

Here it is. Fox News admits Trump dismantled train regulations — after being lobbied by Norfolk Southern — that included requiring trains to update braking standards

Vid embedded.

Well here it is. The hit job by Fox News on Trump. Possibly gunning for him. I mean if this gets into the sheep's brains, then idc.

If only it mattered. I hate people like the idiots in the replies going, "IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS WHY HAVEN'T THEY REVERSED IT YET?!" as if you can undo 4 years of ratfucking while handling current crisis and governance in around 2 years.

I get it, it's frustrating and all of it always seems so easy. "Just undo it!", but the sad reality is, as we saw under Trump, there are processes for a lot of this stuff that needs to be followed. That's a lot of time, and there are only so many people who work in the government and so many hours in the day.

It's shitty, but it's an unfortunate practical reality of trying to clean up a mess after someone spent 4 years smearing shit all over every wall.

- - - Updated - - -

Nah they'll probably just start ditching Fox for Newsmax and even shittier outlets.

Their addiction isn't to Fox specifically, it's to sensationalist fearmongering garbage that plays to their insecurities.

No, they won't. We've already seen that. They'll complain about it and they'll stop watching the shows that trigger them, but they won't tune out of Hannity or Carlson or the other nutjobs.

Newsmax is too hard to find now that it's not on their cable plan anymore. Because at the end of the day these people are lazy as fuck, if nothing else.

[Breccia]

Team Biden hits Trump where he lives. Buttigieg calls on Trump to back reversing deregulation in wake of train derailment.

One thing he can do is express support for reversing the deregulation that happened on his watch. I heard him say he had nothing to do with it, even though it was in his administration. So, if he had nothing to do with it and they did it in his administration against his will, maybe he can come out and say that he supports us moving in a different direction.

I’ve got to think that him indicating that this is something that everybody, no matter how much you disagree on politics and presidential campaigns, can get behind — higher fines, tougher regulations on safety, Congress untying our hands on breaking rules, all the other things that go with that — that would be a nice thing for him to do.

Holy shit, that's an epic troll move right there.

[Paranoid Android]

Nah they'll probably just start ditching Fox for Newsmax and even shittier outlets.

Their addiction isn't to Fox specifically, it's to sensationalist fearmongering garbage that plays to their insecurities.

If only it mattered. I hate people like the idiots in the replies going, "IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS WHY HAVEN'T THEY REVERSED IT YET?!" as if you can undo 4 years of ratfucking while handling current crisis and governance in around 2 years.

I get it, it's frustrating and all of it always seems so easy. "Just undo it!", but the sad reality is, as we saw under Trump, there are processes for a lot of this stuff that needs to be followed. That's a lot of time, and there are only so many people who work in the government and so many hours in the day.

It's shitty, but it's an unfortunate practical reality of trying to clean up a mess after someone spent 4 years smearing shit all over every wall.

I'm with both of you. Whichever post I stated I'm a cynic and pessimist on changing people's mind when being influenced by toxic politics. So both correct on not changing those people.

Perhaps the public as general for overall regulations and just hiring people to actually cover the damn rail. Oh yeah the pure profit incentive of corporations.

[postman1782]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/12HdCz88ofU

Even 15 years ago it was shit. They literally discontinued it for sale, but Trump supposedly still produces it for his restaurants. You cannot actually buy this garbage, it only gets used on Trump property.

But hey, he took some folks to fucking McDonald's, because that'll help them all out, right? Fat fuck only knows fast food, who'd have guessed. People are so gullible. Or playing a game. Trump gives no shits about these people, its all self-serving. But Biden is the one busy with photo ops? Jesus...


Meanwhile, Hannity is once again trying to show his support of Trump by going incredibly orange on TV.

Sylvester Stallone wouldn't even wash his socks in that shitty water.

[Breccia]

Just because I think McCarthy is right, doesn't mean I won't mock him for the position he put himself in.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is privately telling big-dollar donors that bad candidates for governor were a top reason the GOP didn't win more House seats in 2022, emphasizing that quality candidates matter up and down the ticket.

By explaining why his party underperformed in the last election, McCarthy and the National Republican Congressional Committee are also setting expectations for the next one.

With the right candidates up and down the ticket and plenty of cash in their accounts, McCarthy and his team are trying to convince the donors how they can keep the majority — how they can expand it.

The emerging GOP plan is to go on offense in order to avoid playing too much defense.

So, the same, then? Got it.

McCarthy and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the new NRCC chairman, gave their theory of the case in slick slide presentations to top donors and lobbyists at a retreat at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, Florida, last weekend.

Hudson explored the "myths vs. facts" of the 2022 election, according to slides shared with Axios by an attendee.

One slide bluntly explained why the "top of the ticket mattered," pointing out that three Republican House candidates in Pennsylvania outperformed far-right gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano by six to 20 points. But all three House nominees still lost their races.

In Michigan, the drag from Republican Tudor Dixon in the governor's race meant that the GOP won only one out of three close House contests.

McCarthy told donors that bad gubernatorial candidates cost his party some eight seats, according to people in the room.

Now, I read into this that McCarthy is trying to distance the party from Trump. After all, right now, the Republicans would be hard pressed to put forth a candidate worse than Trump, due--

"Santos."

I said hard pressed, not impossible. McCarthy seems to be saying quality at the top of the ticket matters in an attempt to let donors come to their own conclusion that Trump is not quality. Blaming crazy candidates draws that parallel.

But so does this:

Hudson told the donors that "hard dollars" — meaning direct contributions to campaigns, rather than outside super PAC money — are crucially important for winning tight races, according to Punchbowl News.

The implication was clear: Massive outside spending from GOP super PACs can't be relied upon to defeat well-funded Democratic incumbents.

Oh, wait, doesn't Trump have a Super PAC that got a lot of 2022 donations that weren't spent?

Of course, I will mock McCarthy, Hudson, and their like-minded Republicans who want to pretend they didn't sell out to Trump for the price of a bottle of water and some Goya beans. I will also mock them for being pansy-ass coward crybaby pussies for doing this in private. Oh, I know if Trump gets wind of this he'll turn on them, but (a) I'm fairly sure he's already taken shots at McCarthy at least, anyone else remember how that election went? and (b) did they really think that info wouldn't get out?

Apparently, McCarthy also tried the line "hey, the House GOP grew and the Senate GOP fell" forgetting that the House GOP severely underperformed expectations.

- - - Updated - - -

Mike Lindell says he will sue Rep. McCarthy for only giving Jan 6 footage to Tucker Carlson, and not him.

I feel there's no need to add to this statement. But I will: he said it on Steve Bannon's show.

Hey @Edge- what do you think Gooden will think of this issue?

- - - Updated - - -

Speaking of Steve Bannon: Bannon's lawyers are suing him for unpaid legal fees.

The law firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, represented Bannon between November 2020 and November 2022 for criminal cases in Manhattan and Washington, DC. The firm employs Robert Costello, an attorney who represented Bannon in two federal cases.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, says the firm billed Bannon $855,487.87 but was paid only $375,000, leaving an outstanding balance of $480,487.87.

"Defendant never raised any objection regarding the correctness of the invoices," the lawsuit says.

Bannon was represented by Costello while fighting a subpoena from the House of Representatives select committee investigating January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. A jury convicted Bannon on contempt of Congress charges brought by federal prosecutors in Washington, DC. The judge sentenced him to four months in prison but allowed him to remain free while he appeals the case.

Costello also represented Bannon after federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York brought fraud charges against him in August 2020, alleging he misused funds from a nonprofit meant to build a US-Mexico border wall after Donald Trump's administration failed to get funds from Congress to build it.

I can't think of many things dumber than refusing to pay the people who are keeping you out of prison. The job's not over, asshole. You think your second legal team won't find out that you didn't pay the first?

Tagging @cubby because I think he would find it positive that yet more Team Trump lawyers are getting what they deserve: penalties for being Team Trump lawyers.

[Edge-]

Speaking of Steve Bannon: Bannon's lawyers are suing him for unpaid legal fees.

One of these days you'd think that folks on conservative circles would start catching on that these folks never fuckin pay their bills.

Oh well, I guess there's just a lot of really dumb, incompetent people willing to work for folks like Bannon for free. And it kinda shows.

[Breccia]

Oh well, I guess there's just a lot of really dumb, incompetent people willing to work for folks like Bannon for free. And it kinda shows.

It really is a chicken/egg situation. Did Bannon refuse to pay them because they're incompetent? Or because Bannon wouldn't pay, could he only get incompetent lawyers? Based on Trump's results I assume the second, because again, not paying the people currently arguing your appeal and that appeal is to keep you out of prison seems Trump or Lindell level of stupid, but I didn't take Bannon for being stupid to the point of self-destructive behavior.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/polit...fbi/index.html

The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.

The classified documents contained in the box were discovered in December, after the Justice Department told Trump’s legal team to conduct yet another search for documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, including having its contents uploaded to the cloud, emailed to a Trump employee, and moved to an offsite location before finally ending up back at a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier.

Trump’s legal team has acknowledged in recent weeks they turned over to the special counsel the box and a laptop containing its scanned contents. But prosecutors have continued asking why it wasn’t given to the Justice Department earlier, and what if any role or knowledge Trump may have had about its movements, sources said.

The odyssey of the box has been a recent focus of Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with the line of questioning from federal prosecutors. The haphazard handling of documents that ended up online, on computers and moved around to multiple locations could further complicate Trump’s case in an investigation with criminal implications.

One person who described the box’s movements and the special counsel’s inquiry into it described federal investigators as suspecting a “shell game with classified documents.” The person said Trump’s daily movements and instructions to staff are a core part of prosecutors’ questions as well.

Tim Parlatore, an attorney for Trump, said in an interview with CNN earlier this month that the aide had not seen the classified markings.

“After we did the search in December and found within this box of thousands that there were a couple of pages that had a little marking at the bottom, which we turned over, after that, we found out that she had scanned the box so that it would be digitized,” Parlatore said. “She had no idea that there was any classification markings on anything. And as soon as we found out about that, we called up the DOJ to let them know and immediately provided them access to it.”

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

CNN has more on just how wildly irresponsibly the classified documents Trump stole and then tried to hide were handled. There's more in the article itself, but it's seeming like special counsel Jack Smith is looking into that as pretty clear evidence of the intent behind the rest of this given that it sure seems like it was both extremely poorly secured (hence an aide copying classified information from it onto her phone to copy onto a computer to put on a thumb drive) and that the box was intentionally withheld and hidden from the FBI.

[Breccia]

the box was intentionally withheld and hidden from the FBI.

The term for this is "obstruction". I don't know if the box was hidden because they didn't want the FBI to know they made a copy, or if the box was hidden because they wanted to keep it. Doesn't matter. When the FBI brings a warrant, you provide what it asks for, or it's obstruction of justice. "But I should be allowed to have it" is brought up at trial.

Oh, and just because I'm sure some cultist is thinking about it, "it was just a schedule what's the problem" not only did Trump block visitor logs almost as soon as he moved in, but he fought handing them over to the Jan 6th committee. So either they're so important that Trump shouldn't be handing them out to random aides, or they're so unimportant we should have had them sooner. Neither option is redeeming for Trump, so don't bother.

[Benggaul]

"IT's AlL aBOuT tEH opTIcs!"

East Palestine woman rolls eyes at Trump visit as other locals trash political 'publicity stunts'

Bottom line: They don't WANT Presidents and "VIPs" showing up for photo ops. Maybe some people here should stop putting so much stock in what right-wing "news" outlets are saying, playing into their garbage talking points about how awful it is that Biden is busy elsewhere and not in East Palestine.

[Edge-]

"IT's AlL aBOuT tEH opTIcs!"

East Palestine woman rolls eyes at Trump visit as other locals trash political 'publicity stunts'

Bottom line: They don't WANT Presidents and "VIPs" showing up for photo ops. Maybe some people here should stop putting so much stock in what right-wing "news" outlets are saying, playing into their garbage talking points about how awful it is that Biden is busy elsewhere and not in East Palestine.

...they didn't like the pallets of Goya Beans, America's favorite beans, that Trump brought?

Wow, those ungrateful fucks. How dare they.

But man, seeing some of the pictures of Trump from his visit, he's getting flabbier and his skin droopier each time he goes out in public.

[Breccia]

But man, seeing some of the pictures of Trump from his visit, he's getting flabbier and his skin droopier each time he goes out in public.

I just want to remind everyone that
1) Trump is the one who a political opponent would not be voted for, because she was too ugly. Trump deserves every speck of body shaming we feel like throwing, he invited it on himself.
2) Trump also claimed to be the healthiest person to ever run for office. Even at the time, there was a mountain of evidence this wasn't true. This mountain was Trump's fat ass. If Trump thought it was fair to raise health concerns in 2016, or 2020 for that matter, it's fair to raise them in terms of him personally, indefinitely.
2a) As a reminder, not only did Trump almost die from COVID, but the WH had no plans if he did. He was almost put on a respirator because he could barely breathe.
3) Last year, Trump told a crowd he weighed 208 pounds. Because Trump said it, it's probably false. Trump also blamed the WH kitchen for his in-office weight gain, which could be one of the biggest objective falsehoods he's told, because the WH kitchen catered to his demands including the famous "everyone else gets one scoop of ice cream" bit.
4) This picture:

5) This picture:


Just throwing it out there that (a) Trump might have spiked the audience with heavy people and worn baggy clothing to hide (b) that podium says "Trump" not "East Palestine" so yes this was a photo op, people claiming "the optics are bad" are just defending Trump and (c) have you noticed nobody else is wearing a red hat?

[Poopymonster]

One of these days you'd think that folks on conservative circles would start catching on that these folks never fuckin pay their bills.

Oh well, I guess there's just a lot of really dumb, incompetent people willing to work for folks like Bannon for free. And it kinda shows.

Their logic: These people say they have all the money. So of course when they say they'll pay me some of all the money I'll get it. If they have all the money, why wouldn't they pay me? They have all the money. They aren't empty voids of ethics and morals clinging to the last shreds of their lives trying to save their miserable asses, they have all the money so they have to be smart, just and upright people. That's how the system works.

[Mazza]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/polit...fbi/index.html



CNN has more on just how wildly irresponsibly the classified documents Trump stole and then tried to hide were handled. There's more in the article itself, but it's seeming like special counsel Jack Smith is looking into that as pretty clear evidence of the intent behind the rest of this given that it sure seems like it was both extremely poorly secured (hence an aide copying classified information from it onto her phone to copy onto a computer to put on a thumb drive) and that the box was intentionally withheld and hidden from the FBI.

I can't be the only one that thinks it is superbly ironic that one of the things that might end up putting Trump away is a bloody laptop. One that did not pass through the hands of a bunch of political opponents that could have put god knows what on it.

[Edge-]

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/miami/ne...id-19-vaccine/

The "Ban the jab" resolution passed with a majority vote in the Lee County Republican Party and will now head to Governor Ron DeSantis' desk.

This comes after a member of the Lee County Republican Party wrote a resolution for the executive committee to consider. Joe Sansone argued the risks of the COVID vaccine are not worth it.

Sansone so far as to label the vaccine a bioweapon.

"The Lee County Republican Party is going to be on the vanguard of this campaign to stop the genocide because we have foreign non governmental entities that are unleashing biological weapons on the American people," he said.

Because the Republican Party of Lee County has no power per so, DeSantis can just ignore it if he chooses.

Please can we fuckin castrate the flaccid penis of America and let it float into the Gulf?

[The Stormbringer]

I’m agreeing because it’s the President’s job to comfort and get answers for these people. I like Biden but I won’t put blinders on for anyone. He needs to step up.

Is it, though? Is it really? I don't think so, and some other very smart people agree.

[Breccia]

"stop the genocide"

Ukraine? Yeah, that's why Biden was there.

[arandomuser]

i hate hearing the meme " WhY Are We HeLpInG UkrAiNe NoT AmeRiCA!"

total aid to ukraine: around 100 billion
american rescue plan 1.9 trillion
infrastructure 1.2 trillion
inflation reduction act 700 billion
and by the way the trumpist opposed all 3 bills , if people think we really spend more on foreign aid than domestic spending they are delusional, especially if they dont understand its dems who spend more at home not Rs

- - - Updated - - -

I’m agreeing because it’s the President’s job to comfort and get answers for these people. I like Biden but I won’t put blinders on for anyone. He needs to step up.

1. hes doing objectively more for those people than trump ever did or will photo op or not, it dosent matter since those people in east palestine hate him, its a deep red area, ive seen interviews with people their all they will do is shout at biden and call him a pedophile and whatever crazy shit they came up with( along with the much debunked idea we spend more on foreign aid) there is 0 chance of joe biden winning ohio and he gains nothing by going their, In other midwest areas dems margins have improved in for example michigan where we went from losing in 2016 to winning governors race by 10 points, and in part due to robust revival of manufacturing due to joe bidens policies.

[gondrin]

So, on the topic that Trump loves to talk just about as much as himself, the 2020 election.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...b57976fe4&ei=9

Disbarment urged for GOP Arizona AG who hid Trump-debunking election fraud report

Reacting to a Washington Post report that showed that former Arizona Attorney General Attorney General of Arizona Mark Brnovich speaking at the 2019 Inauguration of Governor Doug Ducey (R) misrepresented and then buried a report that affirmed there was no election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, two legal experts asserted that he should face legal sanctions including disbarment.

Writing for the Bulwark, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut and Amherst law professor Austin Sarat stated that Brnovich should be held accountable for misusing his office to keep the election fraud conspiracy alive going into the 2022 midterms when he was running for the GOP Senate nomination.

As the Post reported, "The records show how Brnovich used his office to further claims about voting in Maricopa County that his own staff considered inaccurate. They suggest that his team privately disregarded fact checks provided by state investigators while publicly promoting incomplete accounts of the office’s work. The innuendo and inaccuracies, circulated not just in the far reaches of the internet but with the imprimatur of the state’s attorney general, helped make Arizona an epicenter of distrust in the democratic process, eroding confidence in the 2020 vote as well as in subsequent elections."

According to Aftergut and Sarat, "Brnovich systematically misrepresented what his investigators found. And then he compounded the misrepresentations by hiding their findings. Plainly, he did so because his office’s findings disproved the election denialist claims that he was running on in his (failed) Senate primary campaign against Blake Masters."

For that, they wrote, he should be held investigated and held accountable by Arizona's bar.

"It appears that bar authorities in New York, D.C., and California are moving to bring accountability to Trump lawyers such as Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. State bar rules of professional responsibility expose any lawyer who engages in dishonest conduct to discipline, including suspension or disbarment," they wrote.

They continued, "Brnovich should face the same consequences so that in the future, lawyers whom the people choose to serve them will understand that they do not have the option of serving themselves by hiding politically unpalatable findings," before adding, "The public trust that is invested in our elected officials is democracy’s most sacred asset. An assault upon it ought never be tolerated or ignored."

So, what do you know. Someone got evidence there was no fraud and tried to bury it.

[Breccia]

"The records show how Brnovich used his office to further claims about voting in Maricopa County that his own staff considered inaccurate."

Hopefully that's worthy of disbarrment. We've seen evidence it could be...but the AZ Bar gets to decide.