Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[RobertoCarlos]

LOL so trump undoes a trade war truce the morning after in a tweet.

America you literally have peter griffin/homer simpson as president.

Grats, hope you actually think about your reality when driving to work and get that weird shudder down your spine.

[Breccia]

"Didn't Trump say he would bring back coal?"'

Addendum.

The EPA weakened the regulation that coal power plants use CO2 emissions reduction technology, on the grounds that they can't afford to.

Hey remember when Trump said he loved "clean coal"? Anyone even a little surprised he was just making shit up? No? Okay then.

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It kills me that he puts himself in quotes. "President Trump." Like he himself doubts this guy is president.

I also like how, immediately after this was done, Stone proved he wouldn't cave to a "rogue and out of control" GOP-led Senate, either. I think the gap between the two was 24 hours.

[Benggaul]

It wasn't completely secret and he did publicly acknowledge his disability before his death, but yeah. He knowingly and intentionally suffered in public to hide his disability as best he could and appear healthy. One can argue the merits of why he did it and whether or not it was right/good, but he still wanted to present himself strongly.

And I don't hold it against Trump for being old - that's not actually the issue here. Bernie Sanders is no spring chicken and he can still move if he has to. I do hold it against Trump for being fat and lazy as fuck. Those are personal decisions that he has definite control over. Less fast food and getting on a treadmill every once in a while during his "executive time" isn't asking too much.

I have no real love lost for HW Bush or Bob Dole, but seeing Bob Dole accept help from his wheelchair so that he could stand and salute the casket of HW...how could Trump even HOPE to compare to a real candidate for President, let alone a real President? I completely take issue with him being a fucking fatass, but only because he's constantly spouting off about the physical appearance of others.

[Masark]

I tough it would make a bitching t shirt. Then I googled "Mueller Investigation Shirt" .....

I really shouldn't be surprised it returned so many right-wing versions of the shirts. Fox News has basically been merchandising conservative paranoia for 20+ years.


But I went to art school, so i'm whipping up a silk screen this weekend! Time for some post-modernist Pop Art!

Maybe add some stars to it.

[Breccia]

Don't forget he was brought on as a cybersecurity expert by the Trump team.

What, was his 12 year old son busy?

On topic: already, the GOP is in damage control over the stock market plunging. Some are even trying to say it was not a result of Trump's tweet.

*ahem*

The tweet in question was 7AM Dec 4.



"So what was the given excuse?"

That the markets were taking Trump seriously instead of literally.

"...wait, so, it's still Trump's fault?"

And she also said there was a panic because the markets would be closed today, so the selloff was extra frantic due to the time constraints.

"That doesn't make sense."

Well, consider the task she was given. Anyhow, I can name one person who thinks the market dropped because of Trump's tweet: Trump. In the last 24 hours, Trump has tweeted 12 times. Of those 12 tweets, one was begging OPEC to keep oil prices down, one was lying about the Paris Accord, one was the stupid stupid STUPID fucking lie that illegal immigrants cost $250 billion per year, and eight were about how the trade deal with China was the best bestiest best and everything is fine and everything is very legal and very cool.

"That's eleven. What's the last one?"

Oh, it was about Bush. Can't really fault him for spending almost nine percent of his public platform to talk about the leader laying in state in the nation's capital.

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Pompeo threatens Russia with 60 days to comply with the treaty they violated by making a new illegal weapon then lying about it. If Russia fails to comply, the US will also leave the treaty and make much, much better formerly-illegal weapons.

Yo dawg, I heard you like updates.

Putin responds. It went exactly as expected.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States that if it walks out of a key arms treaty and starts developing the type of missiles banned by it, Russia will do the same.

Putin’s remarks to Russian news agencies on Wednesday came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced at a NATO meeting that Washington will suspend its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 60 days, citing Russian “cheating.” Russia has denied that it has been violating the treaty.

President Donald Trump earlier this year announced his decision to withdraw from the INF, which has been described as a cornerstone of global security, accusing Russia and China — which is not a signatory to the treaty — of violating it.

Putin said on Wednesday that the U.S. decision to ditch the INF means that U.S. authorities have decided that the U.S. “has to have these weapons.” Russia’s response, according to Putin, will be: “We will do the same.”

Russian officials have also received official word (not a Trump tweet) backing what Team Trump has already been saying.


"Can you tell which world leader is more confident? I'll give you a hint: it's the one lighter by 80 pounds."

The official Russian policy, based on their statements in the last...oh, I don't know, but let's say fifteen years as well as 48 hours....is "we don't have any illegal weapons, even the ones you saw, but the second you leave the treaty we'll start making billions of them because we somehow already have the blueprints despite not researching them because they're illegal."

So, in addition to everything else on Trump's plate --

"An overcooked fast-food burger with ketchup?"

-- now, he gets to be responsible for escalating a new Cold War-style arms race. I'll let @Skroe handle why this is necessary, but let's be honest: necessary or not, this is something Trump really doesn't have time for right now.

Oh...and, I think we can guess he's not going to have a ton of help in 2020. Just a thought.

[Flarelaine]

You consider South America the US's lawn? Weird shit... It's also hilarious you're calling European nations the young punks in comparison to the US... Seriously, just stop posting about this stuff. You're clearly not even remotely familiar with the topics being discussed.

Look through all the times the US intervened in Latin America whenever another power looked like gaining influence there or even when some country thought they could do with less American influence. Look at all the coups, invasions and assassinations and then tell me I do not know what I'm talking about.

[Breccia]

Seems like Trump is a fan of Duterte.

(long, drawn-in breath)

(long, slow exhale)

Trump saying he wanted to fight the country's opioid/overdose/drug issue is, as some of you are aware, basically the only thing I've cheered him on about. The fact that he's personally done nearly nothing -- nor has Conway, just so we're clear -- was yet another failure for Trump. Trump talking to China about drugs, and getting them to do something about it, was actually good news. I even personally cited it as such.

Then, this.

Yes, this is Trump specifically asking China to start going after drug dealers with the death penalty.

No, there is no other way to interpret that.

The one thing, the ONE thing everyone agrees needs to be fixed, and Trump can't even get that right.

[Endus]

(long, drawn-in breath)

(long, slow exhale)

Trump saying he wanted to fight the country's opioid/overdose/drug issue is, as some of you are aware, basically the only thing I've cheered him on about. The fact that he's personally done nearly nothing -- nor has Conway, just so we're clear -- was yet another failure for Trump. Trump talking to China about drugs, and getting them to do something about it, was actually good news. I even personally cited it as such.

Then, this.

Yes, this is Trump specifically asking China to start going after drug dealers with the death penalty.

No, there is no other way to interpret that.

The one thing, the ONE thing everyone agrees needs to be fixed, and Trump can't even get that right.

The trick is that Trump and friends have exactly zero interest in fighting the opioid epidemic. They want everyone to freak the fuck about about marijuana while at the same time patting their pharmacorp CEO buddies on their backs and helping them push more life-destroying pills onto the populace. It's never been about fighting drugs, in the USA. It's been about protecting the trapped and addicted user base of the pharmacorps. Making sure the right drug-pushers make billions, while the wrong ones go to jail.

You can tell the difference because the former are white dudes who wear suits, and the latter generally aren't.

[Breccia]

The trick is that Trump and friends have exactly zero interest in fighting the opioid epidemic.

The only exception I've made in the "everything Trump does is illegal, immoral or fattening" situation is opioids, and I do so because addiction killed Trump's brother. We know Trump has family loyalty, and in this case, and only this case, that I extend him the benefit of the doubt.

And I still do, despite his objective failure in every aspect until that tweet 24 hours ago.

But that's it, and also, only Trump. For everyone else, I'm either worried your right or lalalalala I can't hear you.

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@Skroe has company.

A former RNC head explained the difference between being a Trump supporter, and being an actual conservative.

"It's big-government Trumpism," said Steele, who has been an outspoken critic of the president, on MSNBC, when discussing how high the debt has risen under the GOP president.

"And that's the buy in: I will turn a blind eye to debts and deficits as long as I get a Supreme Court nominee," he said. "I will turn a blind eye to the way we engage on immigration as long as get a tax cut."

The former RNC head said the president as "made the party more transactional."

"There is a difference between Republicanism and conservatism as it is formed in the land of Trump," he said.

You will notice that what this person so trusted by the Republican party that he literally ran it for two years is saying, matches what many of us have been saying. Especially the red text.

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So Russia definitely attacked the election...of the Net Neutrality "vote", intentionally distorting the results.

"We all knew that."

Yes, but the FCC just admitted it in a court document under oath. That's admission the results are tainted.

Wouldn't it be great if we were friends with that 400 pound guy in New Jersey? I hear he's good with "the cyber".

[Edge-]

Don't forget he was brought on as a cybersecurity expert by the Trump team.

And he's a partner at a cybersecurity firm.

Let it never be said that you need to be an expert in a field to be hired as an expert in said field.

[Edge-]

Just ask Seb Gorka! Only the best...

I would, but I could only ask him if he's in Hungry. You know, where there's an outstanding warrant out for his arrest on firearms related charges.

[Paranoid Android]

NEW: Trump has told aides he doesn’t care about the national debt in part because when it becomes truly untenable he will be out of office. https://t.co/tMJ5k5hiTl

Via @swin24 and @lachlan

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/...695727616?s=19

Totally believe this.

Which also means he is at most serving one term.

[some guy]

Party of fiscal responsibility indeed.

[Breccia]

Which also means he is at most serving one term.

He might be dead. The man can barely walk. How bad is it you're only the second least healthy guy at a funeral because Bob Dole showed up?

EDIT: In fact, I've been saving this for a while, but it's time to break it out. In 2016 WaPo actually consulted experts because Trump's doctor said he was six-three, 236 pounds. The experts' consensus was "fat chance" har har. But let's hear from the cardiologist:

Ornish would not speculate on Trump's exact weight. But as he noted by email, “Even more important than Donald Trump’s weight is how unhealthy he looks. I was at the debate last week at Hofstra [University] and had the chance to see him in person. He has said on many occasions that he is on a fast-food diet of burgers and fried chicken and French fries, and he looked like it — unhealthy complexion, puffy, pasty skin, sweating a lot. He looked like Morgan Spurlock at the end of 'Super Size Me.'”

And that was before the election. We saw what being President did to Reagan (okay, maybe he would have had Alzheimers anyhow), Clinton, and Obama. The Bush family actually did okay, but to be fair, W was barely President. Trump is facing increasing crises and was obese before they even started. This job is killing him.

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Hey Nebraska, did you vote for Trump?

All but two or three counties.

And are you tired of winning yet?

To put a $1.2 billion loss into perspective, every person in the state of Nebraska would need to contribute $632 to cover that volume of lost dollars. That’s a significant hit to our state’s economy

I'm going to count that as a "yes".

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And increasingly concerned Russia shakes its fist at Cyprus and warns them of consequences if they let the US deploy there.

Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Moscow had become aware of what she called “anti-Russian plans” involving Cyprus and the U.S. military which she said was eyeing setting up forward operating bases for its troops there.

“We’re getting information from various sources that the United States is actively studying options to build up its military presence on Cyprus,” Zakharova told a news briefing in Moscow.

“The aim is not being hidden - to counter growing Russian influence in the region in the light of the successful operation by the Russian military in Syria.”

When the US was asked to respond, they said "Kimin Aqenbpuu Covfefe smileyface smileyface fistbump rainbow."

Okay no seriously, they didn't respond, maybe because there's no dignifying a murderer with an answer to "why are you opposing us?" But it sounds like Russia is actually getting worried here. Maybe when they bought Trump they should have kept the receipt.

Or, maybe WikiLeaks has it, and we'll see it in 2020.

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Oh man...I really...really don't want to be the guy that politicizes George H. W. Bush's funeral.

So I'll let FOX News do it.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said he was "struck" by the reception of President Trump and first lady Melania Trump upon their arrival at the funeral for George H.W. Bush on Wednesday, saying "a chill had descended" on the front row that included the Clintons, Obamas and Carters.

“I have to say I was struck when President Trump and Melania Trump came to the front row, that it was as if a chill had descended on that front row," Wallace said on Fox's "America's Newsroom" during live coverage of the Bush state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

"You had seen a lot of chatty talk between the Clintons and the Obamas, the Carters. But when Donald Trump sat down, the greeting that he was given by Barack Obama and Michelle Obama was about as cool as it could have been.”

Wanna see the video?

It must be such a burden to...well, the Internet Never Forgets.

I'll be honest, whoever made that seating chart was genius. It enforced a no-politics polite civil situation, chilled or otherwise.

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While this is an opinion piece, it's still well-cited. The overall idea is "Trump tried to make a kind of anti-Iran team with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Now it's falling apart and he has nobody left to ask for help."

[Shadowferal]

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/...695727616?s=19 Totally believe this. Which also means he is at most serving one term.

...and when democrats try to make every economic corrective measure it'll be "treacherous socialism."

[Edge-]

Oh man...I really...really don't want to be the guy that politicizes George H. W. Bush's funeral.

So I'll let FOX News do it.

Who would have ever thought that folks that Trump constantly whines about and insults wouldn't be thrilled to see him. What a novel concept.

[mvaliz]

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/...695727616?s=19

Totally believe this.

Which also means he is at most serving one term.

I believe it as well. Notice most of his policies, particularly the tax relief and Obamacare funding, ends 1 year when he's out of a job. Just long enough for the stupids to forget about this, but just enough time for them to blame the Democrats when they take power shouting "Look! they're raising taxes!!!" when they set it up to happen that way. He'll shout "LOOK! There's no more funding! I TOLD you this would happen!" when it was he, himself, who ended the funding. >_<

The stupids wont care. The stupids only care about their anger being validated and fed.

[Paranoid Android]

I believe it as well. Notice most of his policies, particularly the tax relief and Obamacare funding, ends 1 year when he's out of a job. Just long enough for the stupids to forget about this, but just enough time for them to blame the Democrats when they take power shouting "Look! they're raising taxes!!!" when they set it up to happen that way. He'll shout "LOOK! There's no more funding! I TOLD you this would happen!" when it was he, himself, who ended the funding. >_<

The stupids wont care. The stupids only care about their anger being validated and fed.

It's not really Trump. It is common for an outgoing government to issue 5 year debt on the second year, to have it mature during the election year of the next government. Economists have long said that the election cycle is one of the most detrimental effects to the economy.

Well the tax plan ends in 2028.Oh look an election year! The playbook is obvious that Republicans will run on Democrats are raising taxes since they will not support renewing it. Republicans were hoping the middle class tax cuts would protect the 1%. The tax cuts haven't been popular, so maybe getting a 10 year tax cut for the rich is enough.

I forget if it's the corporate tax rates end in 2029? Which of course is designed in the Republicans hoping to have won in 2028 and extending the cuts.

All very far down the road and if you believe in them or not, always give Republicans credit in their strategy and ruthlessness.

I never give trump credit for being tactical and having a strategy. The Republican leadership told him he would save a lot money and he could brag to his rich friends on how much money he saved him. As much a I don't have a high opinion of him, never underestimate even an idiot.

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...s-creed-during

At the Bush funeral, Trump can't even pretend to give a fuck and be decent. Every other president and first lady sitting in the front row read the Apostles' Creed along with everyone else at the service. Trump stood there looking like he was just pissed off he couldn't enjoy "executive time".

And remember, he's supposedly the savior of the US according to religious conservatives. It'll be interesting seeing how they justify this, if they don't just completely ignore it.

The man is a nonstop disgrace to decency and dignity.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.97bc0584378a

Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump’s D.C. hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington — then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers.

At first, Saudi lobbyists put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more $270,000 to house six groups of visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns.

Fancy seeing you here, emoluments issue.

[D Luniz]

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...s-creed-during

At the Bush funeral, Trump can't even pretend to give a fuck and be decent. Every other president and first lady sitting in the front row read the Apostles' Creed along with everyone else at the service. Trump stood there looking like he was just pissed off he couldn't enjoy "executive time".

And remember, he's supposedly the savior of the US according to religious conservatives. It'll be interesting seeing how they justify this, if they don't just completely ignore it.

The man is a nonstop disgrace to decency and dignity.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.97bc0584378a



Fancy seeing you here, emoluments issue.

and sad part is
that he at the least stayed still and quiet is probly the best anyone could have hoped for