Trump 12: Nevertheless, She Persisted (Let's do the same!)

[RoseWilder]

35 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

 

Can his base support not see the danger of muzzling criticism? That this is the road to fascism and autocracy? Every government should be called upon to explain their policies by a free press - and if they cannot, be called to account.

All the Trumps supporters I know want criticism to be muffled. They truly don't believe that anyone has a right to opinion that is different from theirs. 

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, JMarie said:

Are there any FJers working in insurance?  Will being able to buy insurance across state lines really be cheaper than how things are done now?  Because I keep hearing how coverage for pre-existing conditions and kids being able to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26 will be part of the new and improved health plan.  The crossing state line thing seems to be the only original idea.

I too would like to hear from someone who works in the insurance field.

What if the insurance companies do like the credit card companies did and cluster their headquarters in states where the laws are most favorable to them? 

For instance, what happens if California law says all policies sold in their state must offer comprehensive reproductive coverage including abortion, but the insurance companies are based in states where their laws say that health insurance doesn't cover abortion for any reason, only certain forms of birth control are covered, and maternity care is a separate policy?

[RoseWilder]

1 hour ago, Mecca said:

Wow. Trump blocked CNN, NY Times, LA Times and Politico from White House Media Briefing. 

So much for those conservatives clinging to the Constitution.  

So let's see, he just banned the news organizations that are reporting on his ties to Russia. He knows the walls are closing in on him with the Russian scandal. But banning the press is only going to give them more time to investigate. 

[Childless]

2 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

I want to meet the person who thought this was a good idea: 

 

I'm sorry, but what a bunch of dumbfucks.  Do they seriously not know what the Russian flag looks like? 

[Destiny]

1 minute ago, Cartmann99 said:

I too would like to hear from someone who works in the insurance field.

What if the insurance companies do like the credit card companies did and cluster their headquarters in states where the laws are most favorable to them? 

For what it's worth, one of the links I posted above was from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. They say that is exactly what would happen. 

[Cartmann99]

11 minutes ago, Destiny said:

For what it's worth, one of the links I posted above was from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. They say that is exactly what would happen. 

Sorry Destiny, I replied before I read the entire thread!

[Destiny]

Just now, Cartmann99 said:

Sorry Destiny, I replied before I read the entire thread!

I figured that was the case, but they seem to think you are exactly right. The whole insurance industry in this country is so fucked up. Were I queen of America, we would be going NHS style shenanigans immediately, if not sooner. 

[AlwaysExcited]

15 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

So let's see, he just banned the news organizations that are reporting on his ties to Russia. He knows the walls are closing in on him with the Russian scandal. But banning the press is only going to give them more time to investigate. 

In that case he should have kept them in White House and throw Spicer, Conway and Miller to them till the press drowns in bullshit, nonsense quotes, false claims, exaggerations and references to random shit that never happened. Till they are lost in mental maze, trying to figure out the meaning of everything and forgetting to pay attention to actual works. 
Kinda "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" thing. 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, sawasdee said:

Any news tRump does not like - true or not = fake news.

Anyone who does not agree with him = fake opposition - the libtards!

Any news media that dares to criticise - ban them. (See above).

Any opposition from established govmt = the swamp!

Make no mistake. we are moving towards fascism.

I wrote my Uni thesis on Hitler's rise - pre 1933 - and the parallels are there, and terrifying. Discredit genuine criticism, blacken the names of those who oppose you, and get your agenda through when people are distracted by balloons you fly that mean nothing.

I don't live in the US, but what he does affects the world. I can't protest - I am not a US voter - but those of you who can - PLEASE protest, scream, shout, attend town halls, everything you can - for your sake, and for the rest of the world.

I have never, in my more than 60 years on this planet, seen a more self interested government in  what is supposed to be a democracy.

And, unfortunately, this is the most powerful and influential 'democracy' in the world, and affects us all.

Shit. We are moving to a fascist autocracy - these are not outlier media, they are CENTRAL media  - and the present WH bans them?

The first step to an autocracy is gagging the media. He's doing it.

Any reaction from The House? Does Ryan think this is OK? Does McConnell think this acceptable?

There has to be pushback if the checks and balances are to work - but the Founding Fathers never envisaged such an entitled, self interested House.

tRump is censoring the information that the average joe receives - only if it has his spin is it acceptable. He bans CNN? That would be like banning the BBC in the UK - and should be greeted with massive anger and demonstrations. He IS a fascist , and controlling the media is just step one.....

Ryan and McConnell couldn't give a rat's ass about anything that matters to the country.

 

Just now, Destiny said:

I figured that was the case, but they seem to think you are exactly right. The whole insurance industry in this country is so fucked up. Were I queen of America, we would be going NHS style shenanigans immediately, if not sooner. 

Amen, my sister.

 

The WaPo, as usual, did an annotated transcript of the tangerine toddler's CPAC speech. As usual, the comments are interesting.

[Ali]

Ignorance about what the Russian flag looks like is one thing. Being eager to wave a flag that is not your country's flag because it has Trump written on it is quite disturbing.  These are not American patriots!

[47of74]

Had lunch with the parental units today and Agent Fuck Face came on the radio, spouting off his hate speech again.  I turned the radio off.  Jesus I thought the sound of George W. Bush was irritating, but aforementioned fuck face takes the cake.

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Ryan and McConnell couldn't give a rat's ass about anything that matters to the country.

 

Amen, my sister.

 

The WaPo, as usual, did an annotated transcript of the tangerine toddler's CPAC speech. As usual, the comments are interesting.

Warning, too much cursing for sailor talk ahead.

Ryan and Bitch McFuckstick made their hypocrisy plain.  They would have screaming toddler fits no matter what President Obama did.  Last year when Bitch was bragging about telling the President that he wasn't going to even give Garland a hearing, you know for a goddamn fact that mentally Bitch attached the N word to the end of that conversation.  Bitch is such a goddamn racist I wish he would just be fucking honest and wear his goddamn Klan robes to work instead of trying out all these cute little code words and pretending that he's not a racist.  But now?  Bitch and Ryan don't give a fuck what Trump does, no matter how immoral, evil, or unconstitutional it is.

[fraurosena]

Wow. I just stumbled upon this. This piece was written July 26, 2016. It's rather long, but I heartily reccommend reading it.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/07/26/trump-putin-fallacy-failure-of-imagination/

Masha Gessen starts the article off by comparing Putin and the Tangerine Toddler. He states that people lack the imagination to see that bad and evil things can and do happen to you and to your country and therefore refuse to see what's happening right in front of their very eyes. He then starts theorizing on what would happen should the Tangerine Toddler win the elections. Although not 100% accurate, his predictions are eerily close to what really happened.

Quote

The day after the election, the stock market will crash. Then, there will be a lull. For one thing, Trump will not have taken office yet. But life will seem conspicuously unchanged. The stock market will recover some. On inauguration day, there will be large anti-Trump protests in some American cities. But in some others, including Washington, there will be large celebrations that will make your skin crawl. On the other hand, they will not be wearing black shirts, and that will make what has happened seem a little less real. In some cities, there will be clashes. The police will do their jobs, and this will be reassuring.

After all, you will think, the American presidency is a strangely limited institution. It doesn’t give Trump that many ways to radically alter the everyday lives of Americans. But that is exactly the problem. President Trump will have to begin destroying the institutions of American democracy—not because they get in the way of anything specific he wants to do, like build the wall (though he will probably have moved on to something else by that point), but because they are an obstacle to the way he wants to do them. A fascist leader needs mobilization. The slow and deliberative passage of even the most heinous legislation is unlikely to supply that. Wars do, and there will be wars. These wars will occur both abroad and at home. They will make us wish that Trump really were Putin’s agent: at least then there would be no threat of nuclear war.

There is no way to tell who will be targeted by the wars at home. Muslims and immigrants are, of course, prime candidates, but any group of people will do—including a group that is not currently constituted as a group. Notwithstanding the awkward outreach in Trump’s convention speech last week, my money is actually on the LGBT community because its acceptance is the most clear and drastic social change in America of the last decade, so an antigay campaign would capture the desire to return to a time in which Trump’s constituency felt comfortable. But there are also Jews, bicyclists, people who studied a foreign language in college—the possibilities are limitless.

Trump will pose an impossible dilemma for the institutions of democracy: because they are too slow and complicated for him, he will seek to bypass them. Still, there are many limits the American system imposes on executive power: Congress, regulatory agencies, the Supreme Court. And don’t forget the national news media. But imagine what will happen to it. First, Trump will ban The Washington Post from the White House pool. That will be ridiculous and even invigorating at first, but in a little while, once he has kicked out every media outlet that he perceives as critical, we will learn that there is no good way to cover a presidency that is a black box.

It's pretty grim, but if Gessens predictions stay so close to the truth, then there is some hope left:

Quote

Still, it is unlikely (or I simply cannot imagine) that Trump will do enough damage to democracy in the course of four years to secure a second term. After he is defeated, institutions will begin to recover. Culture, however, will sustain much more lasting damage. Our failure to understand this—and our effort to find foreign explanations for Trump’s rise—may be blinding us to the real threat he poses.

Looking at current events, and the speed with which they occur (this presidency is only one month old, remember, just one. single. month.) I am not overly optimistic though. 

[meep]

"The Tangerine Toddler." XD ded. 

[Cartmann99]

22 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Bitch McFuckstick

I'm laughing so hard I'm crying over here.

Thank you for making me laugh for a minute in the middle of this never ending shitstorm. 

[fraurosena]

If they won't listen to your arguments simply because they are yours, use the words of their own against them!

 

[RoseWilder]

Even someone from FoxNews is appalled by Trump's ban on certain media outlets: 

FoxNews better watch out or they'll be next on the banned list. 

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

FoxNews better watch out or they'll be next on the banned list. 

I wonder about that though. Rupert Murdoch is a close buddy of the Tangerine Toddler's. Fox News might suddenly decide to purge certain journalists though.

[JMarie]

10 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Even someone from FoxNews is appalled by Trump's ban on certain media outlets: 

FoxNews better watch out or they'll be next on the banned list. 

But Spicer respects the press!  Or at least he did two months ago.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/watch-sean-spicer-said-in-december-that-only-dictatorships-do-what-the-white-house-did-today/

Quote

At a December event hosted by Politico — one of the news outlets barred from today’s off-camera press gaggle — Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that allowing the press free access to government officials is not just a matter of principle, it’s what separates a democracy from a dictatorship.

“We have respect for the press when it comes to the government — that it is something you can’t ban an entity from,” Spicer said. “Conservative, liberal or otherwise. That makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship. I think there is a vastly different model when it comes to government and what should be expected, and that’s on both sides.”

 

[47of74]

9 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I wonder about that though. Rupert Murdoch is a close buddy of the Tangerine Toddler's. Fox News might suddenly decide to purge certain journalists though.

That would be the absolute height of irony if the Orange Toxic Megacolon decided to declare Faux News persona non grata. 

And to be completely honest, it was something I kind of wish President Obama had done when Faux had gotten really douchetastic towards him would have been to tell Fox News that they weren't welcome at the White House any more, that they could use the goddamn pool feed for information.  As much as I love President Obama and all the good he did for this country, I think that was a big weakness of him, that he was a little too worried about what Fox said about him.  If I could've told President Obama one thing it would have been look, Hannity, Billdo-the-Clown, and the rest of Faux News are going to call you names no matter what, so you might as well stop worrying about them and concentrate on everyone else instead.  

[RoseWilder]

So apparently the Russian flags at the CPAC convention were the result of a liberal activist who tricked the Republicans into holding the flag: 

 

[Destiny]

So apparently the Russian flags at the CPAC convention were the result of a liberal activist who tricked the Republicans into holding the flag: 
 

Holy shit THAT is hilarious. I'm laughing so hard I'm choking.

[onekidanddone]

7 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

So apparently the Russian flags at the CPAC convention were the result of a liberal activist who tricked the Republicans into holding the flag: 

 

So Trumplets got punked.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer seedier punch of fuck sticks.

[RoseWilder]

Well, first of all, I couldn't possibly love this person's twitter handle more. I think it might be my favorite twitter handle of all time. Secondly, it's important to note that Trump isn't just barring news outlets that have printed unfavorable stories (as some news outlets are reporting) - he has specifically banned news outlets that broke stories about his ties to Russia: 

Um sure, Donald, that doesn't look suspicious at all. It doesn't make  you look even the tiniest bit guilty. Oh wait, yes it does. 

[onekidanddone]

12 minutes ago, Destiny said:

Holy shit THAT is hilarious. I'm laughing so hard I'm choking.

Waaaaa the Liberals made me do it.

[Cartmann99]

44 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Even someone from FoxNews is appalled by Trump's ban on certain media outlets: 

FoxNews better watch out or they'll be next on the banned list. 

Shep Smith does say something sane from time to time. It would be interesting know if anyone from Team Trump has contacted Fox to try and get him fired. I'm sure Trump fan Tomi Lahren would love to finally land herself a job at Fox News.