Jump to content
IGNORED

Trump 29: Divider In Chief or Liar In Chief? WHY NOT BOTH?


Destiny

Recommended Posts

His ego is so fragile. I just can't... 

That fool tweeted the photo to him, and below is him quoting and thanking him in front of the world. I don't know why I'm shocked anymore... Why isn't he embarrassed? 

Don't answer that :(

20180220_194111.png

20180220_194057.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 494
  • Created
  • Last Reply
19 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

His ego is so fragile. I just can't... 

That fool tweeted the photo to him, and below is him quoting and thanking him in front of the world. I don't know why I'm shocked anymore... Why isn't he embarrassed? 

Don't answer that :(

20180220_194111.png

20180220_194057.png

He does know it was an iceberg which brought down the Titanic right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, iweartanktops said:

His ego is so fragile. I just can't... 

That fool tweeted the photo to him, and below is him quoting and thanking him in front of the world. I don't know why I'm shocked anymore... Why isn't he embarrassed? 

Don't answer that :(

20180220_194111.png

20180220_194057.png

Here Donny, I fixed it for you....

 

iceberg.thumb.jpg.36fabbf5fcecf139e7752d8ce8a131ed.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Trump’s ‘tougher on Russia’ claim fits a pattern of striving to one-up Obama"

Spoiler

To hear President Trump tell it, he is tougher than former president Barack Obama. He is smarter than Obama — more shrewd, more effective, more respected. The 45th president is, by his own accounting, superlative to the 44th in almost every way.

In private and in public, while devising policies and while crafting messages, Trump frequently draws flattering comparisons with his predecessor — and he does not let the truth intrude, as was the case Tuesday.

“I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts,” Trump tweeted.

The facts suggest the opposite, as Trump has repeatedly doubted the conclusions of his own U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election and has sought to undermine the FBI’s investigation of the matter.

On Russia and a host of other issues, aides and advisers say, Trump’s near-compulsion with measuring himself against Obama reflects an innate need to be judged superior to his peers and to have a singular opponent to target.

“For the president, it’s all about performance, and when you look at performances, it’s about comparison to other players, other competitors,” said Christopher Ruddy, a Trump friend and chief executive of Newsmax. “Who’s the guy everybody’s going to compare him to? His predecessor. He just gets that intuitively, as a business guy and a bottom-line guy.”

Trump has used Obama as a foil since stepping onto the political scene in 2011, when the New York developer-reality television star became the public face of birtherism by advancing a racially tinged falsehood about Obama’s birthplace. Trump’s birther crusade helped fuel his own presidential rise as he surfed the populist wave that distrusted Obama.

The strategy also puts him back into campaign mode, a place where the self-described “counterpuncher” is most comfortable, echoing lines of attack that moved his most fervent supporters to cheers.

“If you watch Trump, he understands that there are two ways to be really tall, and one is to have your opponent be really short,” said Newt Gingrich, former House speaker and a Trump ally. “He spends a fair amount of his time shrinking his opponents.”

With some exceptions, presidents generally are deferential to their predecessors and loathe to attack them or even to draw unkind comparisons. Obama has largely refrained from hitting back at Trump, though he has made his difference known, sometimes sharply, at moments he views as consequential for the nation and its character.

But, Gingrich added, Trump views Obama through a different, more competitive lens.

“He sees Obama as still one of the people around whom the other side organizes,” Gingrich said. “I don’t think he sees him as a former president. He sees him as a powerful symbol of the left-wing opposition to Trump.”

Trump’s self-comparisons to Obama come in nearly every realm, and range from the substantive to the superficial. He often exaggerates the truth, brushes over nuance, and engineers his own reality.

“He realizes the power of the hatred of Obama,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide who co-hosts the “Pod Save America” podcast. “I do think Trump just started showing up to rallies and riffing, and the things people liked the most became his policies. The go-to move became to attack Obama. That’s his greatest hit.”

Trump seizes upon every piece of economic data that he can find to try to portray his presidency as more financially enriching for voters, even though the U.S. economy has been growing for more than nine years and many experts — and voters — credit Obama for playing a role in that trend.

On Russia, Trump has repeatedly claimed toughness in comparison with Obama. His insistence on that score Tuesday was echoed a few hours later by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told reporters, “He has been tougher on Russia in the first year than Obama was in eight years combined.”

To be sure, experts have criticized aspects of Obama’s Russia record, and veterans of the last administration have said they regretted not doing more to combat the Kremlin’s influence campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump’s reaction has been to attack intelligence officials for their conclusions, to fire the FBI director and to block Washington’s efforts to punish Moscow. After Russian President Vladi­mir Putin denied that his country had tried to influence the campaign, Trump initially said he took him at his word.

Then there are some of Trump’s previous proclamations, including that he has better “chemistry” with Putin than Obama, and that he hopes he and Putin forge a mutually beneficial partnership.

On issues of national security and foreign affairs in general, Trump has a consistent theme: He is stronger and more resolute than Obama, and therefore Americans are safer. He has boasted that the nation’s borders are more secure than under Obama, that the U.S. strategy with North Korea is more effective and that the reach of Islamic State terrorists is diminished.

“We’ve done more against ISIS in nine months than the previous administration has done during its whole administration — by far, by far,” Trump said last October at a gathering of conservative activists.

On some level, Trump’s disdain for Obama is visceral, said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant and former political adviser. “He sees himself as being strong, decisive and bold, and he sees Obama as being weak and vacillating and tentative,” Stone said.

Even on more trivial matters, Trump draws unflattering comparisons between himself and his predecessor. Indeed, foreign leaders have become so attuned to Trump’s desire to best Obama that they have literally rolled out red carpets — and planned elaborate state visits — to try to curry favor with his administration.

During a trip to Asia last fall, leaders in Japan, South Korea, China and Vietnam all feted and pampered Trump. Chinese President Xi Jinping treated him to an opulent welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of People in Beijing, which included cannon fire and a military honor guard. Trump later boasted about his reception at a private meeting of House Republicans, saying only emperors had received the lavish treatment he’d received, according to one person familiar with his comments.

As a candidate, Trump attacked Obama for arriving in China and descending from Air Force One on metal steps that folded down from the belly of the aircraft, rather than from a grander staircase at the upper level of the plane and onto a red carpet.

“Terrible!” Trump tweeted, summarizing the incident.

On Tuesday, Trump also tried to argue that this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington was shaping up to be more “exciting” than during Obama’s presidency. “Big difference from those days when President Obama held the White House,” the president wrote.

In fact, CPAC generated major news coverage during the Obama years because it was an influential gathering spot for Republican presidential contenders and a showcase for the Obama resistance.

On the policy front, Trump has made undoing Obama-era achievements something of a North Star. His aides often couch legislative and regulatory ideas in terms of Obama, recognizing the president’s eagerness to undo his predecessor’s legacy.

Trump took office promising to repeal and replace the health-care law known as Obamacare, a goal he has not accomplished. He has stripped scores of environmental, financial and other federal regulations established by the Obama administration. And he rescinded Obama-era protections for young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, thrusting his own party into a moral quandary that could help shape this fall’s midterm elections.

“It does seem to be the organizing principle of his presidency,” Vietor said. “Did Obama oppose this? Yes. Then I support it. Or the reverse.”

Two days after the 2016 election, Trump and Obama seemed to have reached a detente, when Trump and his wife, Melania, visited the Obamas at the White House. “A fantastic day in D.C.,” Trump tweeted, adding that he and Obama enjoyed a “great chemistry.”

But the armistice was short-lived.

Upon becoming president, Trump started to show off the trappings of his job, taking visitors into the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room. He quickly alighted upon a favorite last stop, ushering guests into the Oval Office.

“Obama never used the Oval, but Trump is different,” the president would say, referring to himself in the third person as he often does, according to people who have witnessed the tours.

As his guests marveled at the space, Trump would press them, asking if Obama had ever shown them the West Wing’s inner sanctum.

When he was invariably told no, Trump appeared to beam with pride.

What a manbaby.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The presidunce is a little upset about that Cyber-Digital Task Force that Sessions announced yesterday, that's supposedly looking into foreign interference in the elections.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce is a little upset about that Cyber-Digital Task Force that Sessions announced yesterday, that's supposedly looking into foreign interference in the elections.

 

Okay, by that logic, how many school shootings have taken place this year alone? While you were President? Why didn't you stop them? Why aren't we arresting you for being an accomplice? Your understanding of the law is frighteningly deficient and contorted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Okay, by that logic, how many school shootings have taken place this year alone? While you were President? Why didn't you stop them? Why aren't we arresting you for being an accomplice? Your understanding of the law is frighteningly deficient and contorted.

@GrumpyGran, stop being so infuriatingly logical, you're hurting the presidunce's single grey cell. It's already bruised enough as it is because it's rattling around in that empty pate of his all the time!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

@GrumpyGran, stop being so infuriatingly logical, you're hurting the presidunce's single grey cell. It's already bruised enough as it is because it's rattling around in that empty pate of his all the time!

I imagine the interior of his head is like a pinball machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think I've seen this one. I completely agree with this, especially the bolded (mine). Why can't the citizens of the US bring suit (or something) against the drumpfy?

What Trump is hiding is hurting all of us now

Spoiler

Our democracy is in serious danger.

President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.

That is, either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump’s own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.

In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history. Russia is not our friend. It has acted in a hostile manner. And Trump keeps ignoring it all.

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump’s behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here’s an imperfect but close analogy: It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.”

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation’s defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

Continue reading the main story

RECENT COMMENTS

TM

 1 day ago

All of this is true, Mr. Friedman, but you left out a significant part of the story. Was Russia responsible for Citizen's United? Did Russia...

Pdg

 1 day ago

For several years, I was a public defender in a large eastern city - among the hundreds of stone guilty dudes (and dudettes) with whom I've...

Bob israel

 1 day ago

The great Russian plot to sow distrust among the American people started in 2013,under the Obama administration, and was apparently ignored....

SEE ALL COMMENTS

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

What we have instead is a president vulgarly tweeting that the Russians are “laughing their asses off in Moscow” for how we’ve been investigating their interventions — and exploiting the terrible school shooting in Florida — and the failure of the F.B.I. to properly forward to its Miami field office a tip on the killer — to throw the entire F.B.I. under the bus and create a new excuse to shut down the Mueller investigation.

Newsletter Sign Up

Continue reading the main story

Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter

Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.

Sign Up

You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.

SEE SAMPLE

 

PRIVACY POLICY

 

OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME

Think for a moment how demented was Trump’s Saturday night tweet: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

To the contrary. Our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A., working with the special counsel, have done us amazingly proud. They’ve uncovered a Russian program to divide Americans and tilt our last election toward Trump — i.e., to undermine the very core of our democracy — and Trump is telling them to get back to important things like tracking would-be school shooters. Yes, the F.B.I. made a mistake in Florida. But it acted heroically on Russia. What is more basic than protecting American democracy?

It is so obvious what Trump is up to: Again, he is either a total sucker for Putin or, more likely, he is hiding something that he knows the Russians have on him, and he knows that the longer Mueller’s investigation goes on, the more likely he will be to find and expose it.

Donald, if you are so innocent, why do you go to such extraordinary lengths to try to shut Mueller down? And if you are really the president — not still head of the Trump Organization, who moonlights as president, which is how you so often behave — why don’t you actually lead — lead not only a proper cyberdefense of our elections, but also an offense against Putin.

Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin —just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, LeftCoastLurker said:

Why can't the citizens of the US bring suit (or something) against the drumpfy?

If politics worked the way it was supposed to according to the Constitution, Congress could impeach him for not doing his job. Alas, Congress is infested with a majority of Repugliklans, and they themselves are in dereliction of duty. 

The only way for Amercian citizens to do something about it, is to go out and VOTE, and ensure there is a veritable blue tsunami come November. That way, Congress will be able to finally do their sworn duty.

It's my firm belief that once the Dems take over the majority in Congress, impeachment will soon follow. With or without a Mueller report.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"The president needs a better hobby"

Spoiler

The president did not enjoy Presidents’ Day weekend. As the White House would put it, the tweets speak for themselves.

... < some of Dumpy's unhinged tweets from this weekend >

As my Washington Post colleagues Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker reported, Trump’s “defiant and error-laden tweetstorm that was remarkable even by his own combative standards” appeared to be a function of his being cooped up in Mar-a-Lago:

After visiting victims of the Parkland shooting and first responders at an area hospital on Friday evening, Trump did not leave Mar-a-Lago until Sunday evening, skipping his usual rounds of golf at his nearby course in what aides described as a decision to show respect for the 17 people killed in the school massacre.

Instead, Trump spent his time watching television, talking with friends and tweeting, aides said.

As of late Sunday, it was still pretty obvious that Trump was doing little but watching television:

... < more unhinged crap from Dumpy >

Most of the president’s weekend tweets were repugnant, but the motivations were not hard to divine. The Oprah Winfrey tweet was genuinely baffling; if he had bothered to listen, Trump could have found much to like in that segment.

The mood is so bad in the West Wing that Trump officials admitted the Florida shooting was a “reprieve” from the political chaos. That official also told The Post’s Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker: “But as we all know, sadly, when the coverage dies down a little bit, we’ll be back through the chaos.”

The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts would like to be able to wake up in the morning and not wade through a dozen error-filled, offensive presidential tweets. Clearly, however, the president’s executive time, combined with a tsunami of bad political news, leads to this kind of reaction.

Rather than have White House staffers yearn for another school shooting, let me suggest an alternative: The president needs to start binge-watching television shows.

This is not my first choice, and it’s not my second, either. But the president seems committed to “executive time,” which means he is going to be watching a lot of television. At the same time, Trump does not like coverage of himself outside the Fox News bubble. Furthermore, on some level, I suspect even Trump knows that he can’t trust what anyone on Fox News says about him, anyway.

Rather than get angry watching more news coverage of himself, maybe Trump needs to do what many Americans do during their own version of executive time: watch something on Netflix that has no commercial interruption. Here are three modest suggestions that might entertain the president and nudge him toward some less-bigoted thinking:

1. “Parks and Recreation.” What better way for Trump to learn about the whole governing thing than by watching a show about local government? I worry that the humor might go over Trump’s head, but I am sure he would love Ron Swanson and his pyramid of greatness.

2. “Star Trek.” The original series is perfect for Trump. He’ll identify with the emotionalism of Leonard McCoy and the virility of Captain Kirk. If the president’s focus starts to wander, the old-style Starfleet miniskirts will likely hold his attention. Without even realizing it, Trump might learn about the values of multilateralism and free trade as practiced by the United Federation of Planets.

3. “Mad Men.” When Trump says he wants to make America great again, I suspect this is the era that comes to his mind. Plus, I am sure that when Donald Trump looks in the mirror, he sees Donald Draper is looking back at him. So let him watch this award-winning series to learn that nostalgia has its limits.

Really, I’m trying to help the president here. It would be better if he actually read the documents he claimed to read. In the absence of diligence, however, I would prefer that the president unwind rather than get wound up.

So for God’s sake, John F. Kelly, show the president of the United States how to use Netflix.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"The president needs a better hobby"

  Reveal hidden contents

The president did not enjoy Presidents’ Day weekend. As the White House would put it, the tweets speak for themselves.

... < some of Dumpy's unhinged tweets from this weekend >

As my Washington Post colleagues Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker reported, Trump’s “defiant and error-laden tweetstorm that was remarkable even by his own combative standards” appeared to be a function of his being cooped up in Mar-a-Lago:

After visiting victims of the Parkland shooting and first responders at an area hospital on Friday evening, Trump did not leave Mar-a-Lago until Sunday evening, skipping his usual rounds of golf at his nearby course in what aides described as a decision to show respect for the 17 people killed in the school massacre.

Instead, Trump spent his time watching television, talking with friends and tweeting, aides said.

As of late Sunday, it was still pretty obvious that Trump was doing little but watching television:

... < more unhinged crap from Dumpy >

Most of the president’s weekend tweets were repugnant, but the motivations were not hard to divine. The Oprah Winfrey tweet was genuinely baffling; if he had bothered to listen, Trump could have found much to like in that segment.

The mood is so bad in the West Wing that Trump officials admitted the Florida shooting was a “reprieve” from the political chaos. That official also told The Post’s Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker: “But as we all know, sadly, when the coverage dies down a little bit, we’ll be back through the chaos.”

The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts would like to be able to wake up in the morning and not wade through a dozen error-filled, offensive presidential tweets. Clearly, however, the president’s executive time, combined with a tsunami of bad political news, leads to this kind of reaction.

Rather than have White House staffers yearn for another school shooting, let me suggest an alternative: The president needs to start binge-watching television shows.

This is not my first choice, and it’s not my second, either. But the president seems committed to “executive time,” which means he is going to be watching a lot of television. At the same time, Trump does not like coverage of himself outside the Fox News bubble. Furthermore, on some level, I suspect even Trump knows that he can’t trust what anyone on Fox News says about him, anyway.

Rather than get angry watching more news coverage of himself, maybe Trump needs to do what many Americans do during their own version of executive time: watch something on Netflix that has no commercial interruption. Here are three modest suggestions that might entertain the president and nudge him toward some less-bigoted thinking:

1. “Parks and Recreation.” What better way for Trump to learn about the whole governing thing than by watching a show about local government? I worry that the humor might go over Trump’s head, but I am sure he would love Ron Swanson and his pyramid of greatness.

2. “Star Trek.” The original series is perfect for Trump. He’ll identify with the emotionalism of Leonard McCoy and the virility of Captain Kirk. If the president’s focus starts to wander, the old-style Starfleet miniskirts will likely hold his attention. Without even realizing it, Trump might learn about the values of multilateralism and free trade as practiced by the United Federation of Planets.

3. “Mad Men.” When Trump says he wants to make America great again, I suspect this is the era that comes to his mind. Plus, I am sure that when Donald Trump looks in the mirror, he sees Donald Draper is looking back at him. So let him watch this award-winning series to learn that nostalgia has its limits.

Really, I’m trying to help the president here. It would be better if he actually read the documents he claimed to read. In the absence of diligence, however, I would prefer that the president unwind rather than get wound up.

So for God’s sake, John F. Kelly, show the president of the United States how to use Netflix.

 

Yeah, but that would lead to the revival of NASA and outer space missions with Gary Busey in charge and I don't want to see Sarah Huckster Slanders in one of those Star Trek skirts. But it would be fun to see him remodel the Oval Office to look like the bridge on Star Trek. And to see him scream "Beam me up!" into his cell phone over and over again while Kelly says "No, you have to use Air Force One!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Knock knock Republicans

Who's there?

Asses out

Asses out who?

This strong and courageous young man and more like him are going to be our new leaders and throw your asses out.

aaaand more

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

@onekidanddone, I'm listening to Alison Moyet singing "Didn't I bring your love down" as I'm typing this! :lol:

 

Ah!  I see the FJ mind meld is working.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just got home from running errands and I had to hear that shit stain's voice on the radio for a quick bit until I screamed and turned it off. He had some kind of "look at me and my ratings" photo op with victims of gun violence. Blah blah 'this has gone on too long'... 'must come together to do something' 

He won't. He will talk for a short time and look into 'doing something' and go right back to the NRA's money. He want's do something? Go back and reinstate Obama's gun laws. Be an example to Congress and give back all the NRA and gun manufactures money. Denounce Fox Spews and all the Reich Wing talking heads who are either blaming the students or, like Ted Nugent, saying it didn't even happen. 

Until then orange Nazi shut the fuck up and stuff your 'thoughts and prayers' up your ass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Article from HuffPost on drumpfy's meeting with the shooting families and survivors.

In a “listening session” at the White House, survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High massacre tell of their fears and grief. Trump suggests more guns in schools and more mental hospitals.

Spoiler

WASHINGTON ― Students and parents affected by mass shootings met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday to plead for meaningful action to curb gun violence. 

The administration billed the event as a listening session in the wake of the Florida mass shooting, but it quickly turned into a powerful and heartbreaking moment in the decades-long debate over gun control as survivors and family members stood up and called on lawmakers to come up with solutions to gun violence.

“We’re here because my daughter has no voice. She was murdered last week and she was taken from us. Shot nine times on the third floor. We as a country failed our children. This shouldn’t happen,” said Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“I’m very angry that this happened, because it keeps happening,” Pollack added, while speaking directly to the camera. “How many schools, how many children have to get shot? It stops here with this administration and me. I’m not going to sleep until it gets fixed.”

Vice President Mike Pence, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Parkland Mayor Christine Hunschofsky joined Trump at the event, as well as dozens of parents and survivors of the Florida shooting and the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting.

Trump listened while survivors spoke during the event, but he later used the school shooting in Florida to make a case for looser laws on concealed carry permits. He proposed that arming 20 percent of teaching staff at schools may be effective at quickly ending attacks.

“If he had a firearm ... he would have shot and that would have ended,” Trump said about Stoneman Douglas coach Aaron Feis, who was slain.

But the effectiveness of more guns on campus is not clear. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters Wednesday that last week’s shooter bypassed the school’s armed officer.

In addition to suggesting ending gun-free school zones, Trump proposed opening more hospitals for the mentally ill and toughening background checks. “We’re going to go very strong into age — age of purchase, and we’re also going to go very strong into the mental health aspect of what’s going on,” he said. 

Some of the participants at the session made the case for stricter gun control laws.

“How is it that easy to buy this type of weapon?” Stoneman Douglas student Sam Zeif asked of the ability to purchase an AR-15, the assault-style weapon used by the Parkland gunman. “How did we not stop this after Columbine? After Sandy Hook? I’m sitting with a mother who lost her son. It’s still happening,” he said, tearfully gesturing to Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.  

“After Sandy Hook, they said we wouldn’t let this happen again, yet it has continued to happen for five years. How many more deaths can we take as a country?” Hockley said.

This is one of many recent media appearances by groups of Parkland students affected by last week’s shooting, which claimed the lives of 17 students and faculty members. It marked the 17th school shooting incident so far in 2018.

Many have made strong calls for Congress to act on gun control legislation, and students and adults plan to participate in the March for Our Lives next month, a protest they’re organizing in Washington, D.C., and several sister cities. 

Several of the students seated around Trump thanked him for his leadership on mass shooting issues but made few remarks about gun access, marking a sharp tone shift from the Parkland students behind next month’s march. 

One of the students, Cameron Kasky, tweeted after the listening session that he, student organizer Emma Gonzalez and the other Parkland students calling for gun control were “not invited” to the White House on Wednesday.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, LeftCoastLurker said:

Article from HuffPost on drumpfy's meeting with the shooting families and survivors.

In a “listening session” at the White House, survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High massacre tell of their fears and grief. Trump suggests more guns in schools and more mental hospitals.

  Hide contents

Trump listened while survivors spoke during the event, but he later used the school shooting in Florida to make a case for looser laws on concealed carry permits. He proposed that arming 20 percent of teaching staff at schools may be effective at quickly ending attacks.

“If he had a firearm ... he would have shot and that would have ended,” Trump said about Stoneman Douglas coach Aaron Feis, who was slain.

 

So, let me go into this alternate, "arm the teachers" universe. If there is a problem, and they're called on to act like Rambo, who will look after those teachers' students, while they are going after the one with the gun? I've heard of at least two teachers in this latest massacre who were pulling students into their classrooms. Without their bravery, how many more would have been shot? I've already raised my concern about a teacher accidently shooting an innocent student.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

So, let me go into this alternate, "arm the teachers" universe. If there is a problem, and they're called on to act like Rambo, who will look after those teachers' students, while they are going after the one with the gun? I've heard of at least two teachers in this latest massacre who were pulling students into their classrooms. Without their bravery, how many more would have been shot? I've already raised my concern about a teacher accidently shooting an innocent student.

My dad is significantly farther right than I am (there's a shocker), but not a Trumpian.
He also had some law-enforcement background before he started working in education (now retired)--and he is gun saavy--taught hunters' safety and used to be quite a crack shot.

He has stood VERY firm on his opinion that it's nearly impossible for a teacher to properly interact w/ kids and deal with the day and carry a firearm safely out of reach of those same kids (different reasons it'd be hard to deal with, varying on the age of the kid--6 year olds have no boundries and touch things, 17 year olds sometimes are looking for trouble).  And if it could be done, it would also make for a more adversarial relationship and make it harder to reach some of the more challenging kids and/or make some kids scared (or more scared) of teachers.  

If *HE* doesn't think he can do it safely (and while we're not lined up politically and we have drastically different teaching styles,  I have a lot of respect for his knowledge of classrooms and kids), I have to say that I doubt it can be done safely.

But let's not listen to the teachers on these things; I mean, we don't listen to them on things like teaching standards and class sizes, so let's not listen to them on things like forcing them to carry or not carry guns.
(says the person who has sat through armed-shooter-in-school-type-building training 2 or 3 times and who discussed doing it again and really doesn't want to.  But will sign up again, because I'd take a bullet for these kids even on a bad day, but damn I don't want to have to)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/31/2018 at 8:02 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

A good one from the NYT: "Trump’s Birth Control Problems"

  Reveal hidden contents

Does Donald Trump actually believe in contraception?

Today we’re going to talk about how this administration is hacking away at government support for family planning. But in order to get there, we’ll have to spend a minute discussing the president’s sex life, and Stormy Daniels, the porn star.

I know you’d much rather get into the serious issue right away, but bear with me.

Daniels recently became famous when The Wall Street Journal reported that she had been paid $130,000 in hush money shortly before the election to keep quiet about a one-night stand she’d had with Trump. That was back in 2006, right after Melania gave birth to Barron. Lately, Stormy has been signing denials while making TV rounds and winking broadly.

The best evidence that the interlude did occur is an interview she gave In Touch magazine in 2011. Her description of their one-night stand was so boring, it seems impossible she was making it up. The only truly interesting part was Daniels’s report that Trump really hates sharks. (“He was like, ‘I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die.’”) We know people cared about that part because of the flood of donations to pro-shark charities.

The sex, in case you’re interested in that sort of thing, sounded pretty run-of-the-mill. The only unusual part was that she said Trump did not use a condom: “And I was really kind of upset about it because I am so, like, careful.”

Our president spoke highly of condoms back in the day, when he did endless radio guy-talk sessions with his old pal Howard Stern. On the other hand, he volunteered that he had been surprised when his squeeze Marla Maples announced she was pregnant: “She said, ‘I think I’m so happy! We’re about to have a child.’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’ I didn’t know about this.”

The wife Trump ditched for Marla was Ivana, who later claimed she had gotten pregnant on their honeymoon even though she was using an IUD. “Three years later, the same thing happened!” the first former Mrs. Trump reported in her recent biography. And then again. The failure rate for IUDs is currently about 0.8 percent, but Ivana’s were apparently less reliable than a fortune cookie.

This may be way more than you wanted to know. But the point is that Trump seems to have had either terrible luck or stupendous ineptitude when it comes to birth control. Do you think that’s why he’s intent on wrecking things for the rest of the nation?

The administration certainly seems to be going out of its way to make it difficult for women to get help with family planning. Early on, Trump announced that employers who offered moral objections would no longer have to cover contraceptives in their health care plans.

Tough luck, female employees. Alex Azar, the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services, was asked about Trump’s policy during his confirmation hearings and went out of his way to be incoherent: “I do believe we have to balance, of course, a woman’s choice of insurance that she would, that she would want, with the conscience of employers and others in — that’s a balance. That’s sort of an American value, is trying to balance those. …”

People, what do you think he was trying to say?

A) “My main goal here is to demonstrate I can sound like Donald Trump. The whole gang’s doing it!”

B) “Screw you, this administration takes the evangelical side.”

C) “Did I mention I think drug prices are too high?”

Meanwhile, the Title X program, a critical source of federal funding for family planning services, seems to have been dumped in a deep freeze. The more than $250 million in current grants, which support reproductive health services in every state, are going to start expiring soon, and so far the administration hasn’t made a peep about how groups can apply for renewals. “There is an increasing tension and anxiety in the field,” said Jessica Marcella of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

The Trump administration originally put Title X funding under the direction of Teresa Manning, an anti-abortion activist who claimed “contraception doesn’t work.” Good news! Manning left abruptly in January.

Bad news! She’s been replaced by Valerie Huber, a longtime advocate of sexual abstinence, which she refers to as “sexual risk avoidance.”

Now it’s not surprising that Trump decided to cuddle up to the anti-abortion movement. True, it’s a complete turnaround from the position he took in his precampaign life. (“Who said I’m pro-choice?” he once demanded, perhaps forgetting it was him, in one of his books.) But dumping your principled positions on abortion is pretty much a requisite for getting the Republican presidential nomination. And in Trump’s case, of course, there wasn’t any principle.

Torpedoing critical programs that help women to avoid unwanted pregnancy in the first place, however, is just cruel and stupid. And an embarrassing reminder that, for a former playboy, our president doesn’t seem to know all that much about birth control.

Too bad Stormy doesn’t take follow-up questions.

He couldn't care less about effective contraception.

Dear @GreyhoundFan,  

We [the Fur-Babies that rule and share our home with ALM7], had to pull her out of a rabbit hole, AGAIN! She has this habit of reading your posts and disappearing for hours. She tells us it's continued research of topic being discussed. This research interferes with our play-time quality time together. The rabbit hole duty falls on us felines, the canine fur-baby is a big baby, and refuses to leave his cushy recliner.  

After further consideration we determined you are providing a valuable service. ALM7 explained you are doing extensive research concerning the disarray of the current administration.  We unanimously voted to continue rabbit hole duty [well the pup didn't, you know him, asleep on his recliner].  We [fur-babies and ALM7] would like to thank you for doing the hard work of sorting through the news/info, you do a great job!

Sincerely, :kitty:  :chi-yes:  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, ALM7 said:

Dear @GreyhoundFan,  

We [the Fur-Babies that rule and share our home with ALM7], had to pull her out of a rabbit hole, AGAIN! She has this habit of reading your posts and disappearing for hours. She tells us it's continued research of topic being discussed. This research interferes with our play-time quality time together. The rabbit hole duty falls on us felines, the canine fur-baby is a big baby, and refuses to leave his cushy recliner.  

After further consideration we determined you are providing a valuable service. ALM7 explained you are doing extensive research concerning the disarray of the current administration.  We unanimously voted to continue rabbit hole duty [well the pup didn't, you know him, asleep on his recliner].  We [fur-babies and ALM7] would like to thank you for doing the hard work of sorting through the news/info, you do a great job!

Sincerely, :kitty:  :chi-yes:  

Dear Benevolent Feline Rulers of @ALM7 -- Thank you for your kind words. I am sorry for taking your servant away from important quality time. I understand about those canine fur kids, since GreyhoundFan has one who seems permanently attached to the couch. Maybe I can dispatch some rescue ferrets (:ferret::ferret::ferret::ferret:) to help with rabbit hole duty in the future. I'll make certain they know you are in charge!

Hopefully this long nightmare we are living will be over soon and we can go back to "normal" politics.

Regards, GreyhoundFan (and lazy Greyhound).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

So, let me go into this alternate, "arm the teachers" universe. If there is a problem, and they're called on to act like Rambo, who will look after those teachers' students, while they are going after the one with the gun? I've heard of at least two teachers in this latest massacre who were pulling students into their classrooms. Without their bravery, how many more would have been shot? I've already raised my concern about a teacher accidently shooting an innocent student.

The classroom that I am student teaching in is on the second floor right next to the stairs. I cannot see who is coming up the stairs. I would need to get many students in the classroom as possible and close the door if something happened.

The fact that I might have to close the door someday to protect the students already in the room has been weighing on me. The fact that I might close the door knowing one of my students are in the bathroom or close it on students in the hall who won't be able to get to the room fast enough is breaking my heart. 

I wonder if these gun nuts would approve of funding for updating schools to make the classrooms more secure and more difficult to get into? Probably not because guns are the only answer. I hate this!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Destiny locked this topic

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.