Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[47of74]

2 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

I'm at my parent's house for the holiday. Nothing is warming my heart more than hearing my 84 year old father yelling at the t.v. about what a dumb ass and embarrassment (among other choice words) TT is. Wonder where I get it from?

The main reason we don't watch much news is that I'd be the one yelling at the TV what a dumb fuck sack of shit the White House Squatter is. 

[GrumpyGran]

12 hours ago, Rachel333 said:

TIME disagrees with Trump's version of events.

 

When I saw his tweet about this yesterday in this thread I really thought it was a joke. He's now predicting that people, publications, probably countries will applaud and worship him. He is living in a complete fantasy world now. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to him in his bubble life because he has to face the fact that in reality, most people don't adore him. So he will just make up a fake world for himself now.

It is beyond me how a human being can continue to live in such denial in the face overwhelming negative reactions on a global level. If there were a Nobel prize for ego, he would win, hands down. I think that might be where he actually excels over his bud Vlad. 

[fraurosena]

27 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

When I saw his tweet about this yesterday in this thread I really thought it was a joke. He's now predicting that people, publications, probably countries will applaud and worship him. He is living in a complete fantasy world now. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to him in his bubble life because he has to face the fact that in reality, most people don't adore him. So he will just make up a fake world for himself now.

It is beyond me how a human being can continue to live in such denial in the face overwhelming negative reactions on a global level. If there were a Nobel prize for ego, he would win, hands down. I think that might be where he actually excels over his bud Vlad. 

There's another nefarious reason he tweeted what he did: he's made his base aware of the Time poll for 'person of the year' and that they can vote for him. He's just gained quite a lot of voters simply by tweeting.

However, the reverse is also true, my fellow FJ'ers! 

So if you don't want him to be 'person of the year', you can cast your vote for anyone but him by going to this link.

 

Oh, and by the way...

 

[GrumpyGran]

34 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

So if you don't want him to be 'person of the year', you can cast your vote for anyone but him by going to this link.

Need to come up with someone who will be able to beat his base for this, I need a win. I can think of lots of choices that, if they won, would cause him to twitter-explode but I really want to find someone who is a legitimate choice. Would love to have it be Obama, lol!

[GreyhoundFan]

"How Trump is really changing things"

Spoiler

It has been a long and unproductive year for President Trump. Repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act cratered. The wall on the U.S.-Mexican border hasn’t been built or even funded. Tax reform, though moving forward, is still well short of a Rose Garden signing ceremony. Despite unified Republican control of government, he’s got little to show for it.

Yet it has also been a long and quite productive year for the president. He has dramatically changed the direction of federal policy toward the environment, the energy industries, immigration, education, civil rights, trade and the federal workforce, and he is rapidly remaking the federal court system. What former president Barack Obama started in many of these areas, Trump has started to reverse.

The president’s tweets draw outsized attention to his grievances and his petty feuds. The absence of notable legislative successes focuses criticism on his style of leadership. Those realities overshadow what he has and is doing unilaterally, to the extent of his executive powers. In other ways, his presidency seems unique. In the arena of executive action, he is pursuing a model established by his recent past predecessors, with worrisome consequences to constitutional governance.

That’s the conclusion of an essay in the most recent issue of the Forum, a nonpartisan journal of ideas and political analysis. Sidney M. Milkis and Nicholas Jacobs, both of the University of Virginia, argue that Trump’s deployment of what they call “executive-centered partisanship” is both in keeping with the modern presidency and a potentially damaging shift in our politics.

The authors take note of Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, where he said that he, an outsider, knew better than anyone how to solve the problems of broken government. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he said. “Which is why I alone can fix it.”

The first year of his presidency appears to make a mockery of that statement, given the problems he’s had in Congress and the fact that his approval ratings are the lowest of any president at this point in his term as far back as there was polling.

Yet, as the authors note, “Often overlooked among the disappointments and recriminations of Trump’s frenzied beginning is his administration’s aggressive and deliberate assault on the Liberal state… Since day one, Trump has forcefully — and sometimes successfully — taken aim at the programmatic achievements of his predecessor.”

Milkis and Jacobs contend that this approach to governing has its roots in presidencies dating back decades. The consequence is the evolution of a “presidency-centered and rancorous contest between liberals and conservatives” with all kinds of collateral damage to Congress, the states and public trust and confidence in government overall.

They argue that this has produced a politics that is “no longer a struggle over the size of the state” but instead is a contest between liberals and conservatives “to seize and deploy the state and its resources.”

Former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush used these powers to advance conservative objectives. Obama, the authors note, campaigned as someone who would move the nation past mindless bickering to a post-partisan presidency, but in office, particularly as his frustrations with a Republican-controlled Congress intensified, fully embraced the use of vigorous executive action for political and partisan ends.

“Most of his executive actions were directed to strengthening a widely scattered but potentially powerful coalition that had been forming since the Great Society: minorities, youth, the LGBTQ community and educated white voters, especially single women,” according to the authors.

Though the goals of Obama’s and Trump’s uses of executive action are diametrically opposed politically, the authors contend that the two presidents share two things in common: “a detachment from party organization and a vision of the White House as the vanguard of a movement.”

Trump has lacked a clear legislative strategy from the start of his presidency. He had no well-developed policy proposals to offer the Congress, he lacked interest in learning the details of key legislation such as health care, he has shown limited interest in using the bully pulpit to advocate for the GOP’s legislative priorities and, though he has spent considerable time talking with legislators, he has not demonstrated that he is the kind of dealmaker he claimed he would be.

In the area of executive action, however, he has pursued goals consistent with his campaign rhetoric — and like Obama, priorities designed to appeal directly to his own political coalition.

Some actions hue closely to conventional conservative Republican doctrine. Others reflect his “America First” perspective and a suspicion of what former adviser Stephen K. Bannon called the “deep state” of the federal bureaucracy. At times, he has pursued actions that concern some elements of the traditional Republican coalition. At other times, he is acting in pursuit of the goals of that coalition.

There can be no final accounting of success or failure in this arena, given the short time Trump has been in office and the obstacles that exist in the face of a president attempting to act unilaterally.

So far the record is mixed. Trump has moved policy in a different direction, but Milkis and Jacobs write that, in the immediate term, his actions seem to have “fostered a destructive working arrangement in the White House Office, the hollowing out of regular departments and agencies and limited his support to conservative Republicans who represent roughly 40 percent of the electorate.”

The authors close with a note of warning. What began in other presidencies has become “a glaring alarm during Trump’s presidency.” That is the “false illusion” that the executive “can truly function as a representative democratic institution.” Instead, they say, executive partisanship exposes the public to leaders who scorn institutional restraints that are a vital ingredient of constitutional government” as well as the collaboration that long has been at the core of party politics.

The president and Congress face and busy and potentially fateful month of legislative conflict, which will legitimately be the focus of attention through the end of the year. But no one should lose sight of the unilateral action at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that has been every bit as defining in the record of Trump’s presidency.

To me, the change is that the creature inhabiting the White House is doing things out of spite, not out of a sense of what is right. Even when I have disagreed with past presidents, I usually believed they were doing what they thought was right for the country, not just what was right for themselves.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

Need to come up with someone who will be able to beat his base for this, I need a win. I can think of lots of choices that, if they won, would cause him to twitter-explode but I really want to find someone who is a legitimate choice. Would love to have it be Obama, lol!

Well, have at it then! By all means, vote for Obama. What's to stop you? 

Or... or... or we could all vote for Hillary. 

If she were to be crowned 'person of the year' I believe his head would swell to enormous proportions and then splatter all over the oval office. 

[fraurosena]

Hmmm. Interesting article:

Why Trump Stands by Roy Moore, Even as It Fractures His Party

And it's most interesting because of this bit:

"...But something deeper has been consuming Mr. Trump. He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. (In the hours after it was revealed in October 2016, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.)..."

 I thought it was 'just lockerroom talk'? But now he claims it was not authentic? So it was fake lockerroom talk?

I'm confused...

[fraurosena]

It turns out that the presidunce has a long history of really, really, really wanting to be on the cover of TIME.

 

Could it be because...

 

[JMarie]

It's a fun article -- I promise!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/25/opinions/trump-deserves-time-person-of-the-year-obeidallah-opinion/index.html

[Londish]

This may not be exactly the right place but I have a question regarding the 2020 elections.

Is the incumbent always the party’s candidate? For example, Trump ran as a Republican. Assuming he runs again (would be awesome if he didn’t), would he automatically  be the candidate for the Republican Party? Or could they select a different candidate? If so, would Trump have to run as a different party - independent or libertarian, for example?

Expanding on it, could the Repubs select Pence as their candidate?

All hypothetical and disgusting - I would love to see a flaming liberal sworn in next - but i have been wondering about this.

[fraurosena]

The presidunce tweeted this...

to which CNN replied..

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

@fraurosena I think you meant to link to this tweet 

 He's so stupid.

[Destiny]

I’m running out of ways to express how appalling he is.

[Ali]

7 hours ago, Londish said:

This may not be exactly the right place but I have a question regarding the 2020 elections.

Is the incumbent always the party’s candidate? For example, Trump ran as a Republican. Assuming he runs again (would be awesome if he didn’t), would he automatically  be the candidate for the Republican Party? Or could they select a different candidate? If so, would Trump have to run as a different party - independent or libertarian, for example?

Expanding on it, could the Repubs select Pence as their candidate?

All hypothetical and disgusting - I would love to see a flaming liberal sworn in next - but i have been wondering about this.

A show called Madam Secretary had a story line where someone ran against the incumbent in the primaries and won the nomination. The incumbent president ran as an independent and was able to become president. It is a possible scenario. This last few years have taught us the unexpected is possible.

[SilverBeach]

I love Madam Secretary, on tonight.

[fraurosena]

He's now full on endorsing a pederast. He makes me want to vomit. 

 

[apple1]

I continue to be - as an American - embarrassed by him.

Once again, I promise, we are not all like that. (Actually, I should say very few of us are like that). I hope eventually we have another opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we are not like that.

[WiseGirl]

4 hours ago, Destiny said:

I’m running out of ways to express how appalling he is.

Allow me (and the internet) to help......

Racist, Sexist, Islamaphobic Homophobic, Transphobic, Xenophobic, Misogynistic, Bigoted, Heteronormative, White supremacist, KKK supporting,David Duke endorsing, Nazi, Hitleresque, Fascist, Clownish, Clumsy, Stupid, Chauvinistic, Piggish, Rude, Ignorant, Climate change denying, Hateful, Snake oil selling, Demagogic, Triggering, Insensitive, Brash, Dangerous, Insensitive, Narcissistic,  Cloying, and then all the usual expletives 

[onekidanddone]

7 hours ago, Destiny said:

I’m running out of ways to express how appalling he is.

I call it outrage fatigue 

[apple1]

33 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I call it outrage fatigue 

THAT. So much that. Nobody can remain in a state of outrage constantly for long periods of time and maintain mental health.

[Howl]

13 hours ago, Londish said:

Is the incumbent always the party’s candidate? For example, Trump ran as a Republican. Assuming he runs again (would be awesome if he didn’t), would he automatically  be the candidate for the Republican Party? Or could they select a different candidate? If so, would Trump have to run as a different party - independent or libertarian, for example?

Expanding on it, could the Repubs select Pence as their candidate?

Each of the main parties (Democrats and Republicans) holds a nominating convention.   Others can run as an Independent, separate from that process.  H. Ross Perot did this back in the 1990s.  A strong Independent would be frowned upon by the major parties, because s/he could split the vote for one party's candidate.  And yes, if Pence threw his hat in the ring, he could end up as the Republican candidate.  He could even end up as the Incumbent, if Trump doesn't survive politically (impeachment) or physically (dies!) to the end of his term. 

Others better versed in civics may want to correct this if there are errors, or you may want to add insights. 

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, apple1 said:

I continue to be - as an American - embarrassed by him.

Once again, I promise, we are not all like that. (Actually, I should say very few of us are like that). I hope eventually we have another opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we are not like that.

Don't worry, @apple1, interacting with everyone here on FJ has taken away all of my previous prejudices about Americans. Unthinkingly, I went along with the usual stereotype 'American': xenophobic, fat, arrogant and rather dumb. It turns out that isn't true at all, and I very much enjoy all the intelligent discussions we have here. To say I have learned a lot about Americans would be an understatement. So I know that not all Americans are like that. At all.

I have to say though, that upon reading back that stereotype, I see that it is a rather apt description of the presidunce, isn't it? 

3 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

Allow me (and the internet) to help......

Racist, Sexist, Islamaphobic Homophobic, Transphobic, Xenophobic, Misogynistic, Bigoted, Heteronormative, White supremacist, KKK supporting,David Duke endorsing, Nazi, Hitleresque, Fascist, Clownish, Clumsy, Stupid, Chauvinistic, Piggish, Rude, Ignorant, Climate change denying, Hateful, Snake oil selling, Demagogic, Triggering, Insensitive, Brash, Dangerous, Insensitive, Narcissistic,  Cloying, and then all the usual expletives 

You forgot Putin Puppet...

Oh, and Authoritarian. Mother Jones has a running tally of the presidunce's creeping authoritarianism, starting from January 20. It's rather confronting when you read all the things that have happened since then, and you realize that you have forgotten quite a lot of them already.

Trumpocracy: Tracking the Creeping Authoritarianism of the 45th President

I won't quote it because it's incredibly long and as it's a running tally, the article is constantly being updated anyway.

 

[AmazonGrace]

I am partial to "toupeed f*cktrumpet"

[apple1]

@fraurosena

Thank you!

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, apple1 said:

THAT. So much that. Nobody can remain in a state of outrage constantly for long periods of time and maintain mental health.

Or physical health. My constant state of anxiety can't be doing my over all health any good. I already have high blood pressure and a rapid heartbeat this is just making it worse.  Last night I had to take some ativan after reading an article about neo-Nazis