Trump 37: Tweeting instead of Leading

[fraurosena]

This makes me sad, disgusted and downright furious all at once.  

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Patti Davis (Reagan's daughter): "A child occupies the White House — and the world knows it"

Spoiler

Lately, I’ve been looking at home movies and photographs of my childhood years; I’m working on a documentary about my family’s life before politics claimed us. A time before the world moved in. There is something transformative about looking back at your parents when they were younger than you are now and seeing yourself as a small child gazing up at them, reaching for their hands. It resonates in some deep part of us — they were the first adults we knew, and we relied on them to lead us into a big unfamiliar world. We didn’t know that generations whispered behind us. We didn’t know the pull of ancestry or the fears and doubts that may have trailed our parents throughout their lives. We only knew we were supposed to hold their hands and trust them to keep us from falling.

There is an inherently parental role to being president of the United States. The person holding that office is supposed to know more than we do about dangers facing the country and the world, and is entrusted with making the appropriate decisions to keep us safe and secure. The president is supposed to keep us from falling. What happens when the president is the biggest child in the room — any room? It upends the natural order of things as surely as if a child’s parents started throwing tantrums and talking like a second-grader.

 I’m not sure the country has fully comprehended the damage being done by a president who misbehaves so frequently, it’s a news story when he doesn’t. Globally, the United States has lost its power, its aura of seriousness and decisiveness that once made autocrats hesitate before crossing us. Now we are a country that can’t seem to stand up to a ruler who orders the murder and dismemberment of a dissident who was a legal U.S. resident or call out Russia’s intrusion into America’s democratic process. Children know how to scream and sulk; they don’t know how to take control and restore order. They don’t know how to plot out a responsible position and then act on it. A child occupies the White House, and the world knows it.

A friend’s young son thought it was really funny when the president called someone “Horseface.” He giggled when he saw the president on TV telling a reporter that her question was “stupid” and that all her questions are stupid. Nine-year-olds should be able to look up to the president of the United States, not feel that the president is one of them.

Immaturity in adults has serious consequences. My friend, the author Marianne Williamson, once said, “Adults who behave like children do adult damage.” We’re starting to see some of that damage, most recently at the southern border. This president has slammed shut America’s door as loudly as a petulant child slams his bedroom door and shouts, “Go away.” The result is that thousands of migrants are living in squalid conditions just beyond the U.S. border, trying to keep babies from getting sick. This is adult damage, and there will be more.

What will happen if the country faces serious danger? I was 10 years old in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. I remember sitting on the floor in my parents’ bedroom watching him on television. I remember asking my father if we would go to war. He replied, “I hope not. But the president is doing the right thing.” Kennedy’s somber confidence did make me a little less afraid. At the end of the speech, he said: “The cost of freedom is always high — but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right.”

Who would speak to the nation like that if global turmoil turned into a crisis that threatens America’s future?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The signs are mounting: Trump has been badly weakened. It will get worse for him."

Spoiler

Stephen Miller, the Trump kingdom’s Immigration Iago, wants you to believe that his boss retains great leverage in the ongoing government shutdown fight — so much so that he will, repeat will, get his great border wall. Miller, a top White House adviser, said Sunday that President Trump will “do whatever is necessary” to force Democrats to cough up the $5 billion he wants for the wall and will “absolutely” shut down the government to get it.

In reality, it’s not even clear that Trump has sufficient Republican support to get his wall money out of Congress. The New York Times now reports that Republicans aren’t even sure that this funding would pass the House, because many Republicans who were defeated in the midterms might not bother showing up to vote for it.

Wait, this cannot be! Miller spent much of his “Face the Nation” appearance excoriating Democrats over the wall. Democrats have instead offered far less in border security funding, with restrictions against spending it for that purpose. Miller suggested Democrats have the weaker position, claiming they must “choose to fight for America’s working class, or to promote illegal immigration.”

Wow, what a powerful message! That must be the same message that carried Trump and House Republicans to a great midterms victory! Oh wait, the opposite happened. This has gone down the memory hole, but last summer, Miller vowed that precisely that same contrast on immigration would prove potent for Republicans. They ran the most virulently xenophobic nationalist campaign in memory — and lost the House by the largest raw-vote margin in midterm elections history.

The meta-message that Miller hoped to convey is that Trump retains formidable strength in the shutdown battle over the wall, but the real story right now is that Trump is weakened. He lacks leverage in the shutdown fight, and it’s plausible that he’s losing influence over congressional Republicans.

The rage-tweets look increasingly pathetic

Trump’s rage-tweets about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation are looking increasingly pathetic and impotent. On Sunday night, Trump blustered that “people are starting to see and understand what this Witch Hunt is all about,” as if he’s winning the argument over the investigation through sheer force of tweet.

Yet a new NBC News poll demonstrates with remarkable clarity that Trump is decisively losing that argument. It finds that 62 percent of Americans think Trump has not told the truth about the Mueller investigation, while a meager 34 percent think he has — in other words, a huge majority understands that Trump’s been lying his head off about it. Half say Mueller’s investigation has given them more doubts about the Trump presidency. And 55 percent support Democrats opening “a number of investigations” into the administration -- and, crucially, into Trump himself.

Meanwhile, The Post offers a striking overview of the totality of the investigations Trump currently faces. They include civil suits and investigations digging into Trump’s business holdings, his charity, his inaugural committee, and, of course, into his campaign’s possible conspiracy with Russia. The upshot: “Nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation.”

Or, as Wired’s Garrett Graff puts it, as we head into 2019, Trump “faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president.”

Giuliani’s new and very weak defense of Trump

The legal defenses on Trump’s behalf are looking increasingly hapless as well. Trump’s TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” and responded to the news that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has asserted that Trump directed criminal hush money payments to women who alleged affairs during the campaign.

Giuliani referred back to that now-infamous recording that Cohen made of his conversation with Trump, in which they discussed setting up a vehicle to make one of the payments. Giuliani noted that Trump had directed Cohen to pay by check (which is unclear, but put that aside for now), and then claimed this shows Trump did not want to “hide something.” Giuliani added that this “exonerates” Trump.

I ran this by Bob Bauer, the White House counsel under former president Barack Obama. He noted that the establishment of the shell company and the fact that Cohen and Trump himself both lied about the payments already show an attempt to conceal. “It is hard to understand the basis for Mr. Giuliani’s claim that there is no evidence that the president wanted to hide anything,” Bauer told me.

Bottom line: Trump has now been directly implicated in a crime, and likely faces indictment for it. We don’t yet know if Trump will actually end up being criminally liable. But we absolutely do know, thanks to the latest Cohen revelations, that Trump is not in any way “exonerated” from wrongdoing. He defrauded the voters with the hush-money payments, as he also did by concealing his financial dealings with Russia during the campaign -- and lied to cover up both these things.

Incentives for Republicans supporting Trump are weakening

On still another front, seven Senate Republicans joined with Democrats last week to vote to end the U.S. involvement in the Saudi war in Yemen, a resounding rebuke of Trump. While there’s still a long slog ahead on this, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein notes that this sort of cracking is an important signal. Trump’s mounting legal travails raise bigger question marks for Republicans about how much worse this could get, leaving them with fewer reasons to stick with him:

The incentives for supporting Trump that have held since his election have suddenly become a lot weaker. In mid-July of 1974, President Richard Nixon could still count on virtually every conservative Republican in Congress to oppose his impeachment and removal, even if they weren’t exactly thrilled with him. By early August, he had only a handful of supporters remaining. That’s not to say that Trump’s support will necessarily evaporate — just that if it does, it could happen extremely quickly, perhaps in days.

Which brings us back to the shutdown fight. House Democrats have already begun working on legislation that will reopen the government in the new year -- minus wall money -- should Trump force a shutdown. The idea is that Trump would own the shutdown, and then Democrats would be the ones to push the solution reopening it once in the majority -- and challenge Senate Republicans and Trump to oppose it.

Given how deeply unpopular the wall is -- and given that it doesn’t even have sufficient Republican support -- the incentives all align with Democrats holding the line. Especially with Trump’s weaknesses mounting on so many other fronts.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

I'm not a crook! (Parody tweet, unless Cher wasn't a giveaway)

17 investigations sounds like somebody gotta find something tho. Why do I want JR to go to jail so bad? I've never met him

[AmazonGrace]

It's so obvious even to his sycophants 

 

[fraurosena]

How to show you have absolutely no idea whatsoever how the money-world works, exhibit  #87931

 

[Drala]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I'm not a crook! (Parody tweet, unless Cher wasn't a giveaway)

17 investigations sounds like somebody gotta find something tho. Why do I want JR to go to jail so bad? I've never met him

#Muppets????!!  The orange toddler is denouncing the #Muppets now?

Doh!  I missed the parody tweet comment.  Well, it seemed plausible to me that the deranged orange idiot would denounce the Muppets.

[fraurosena]

48 minutes ago, Drala said:

#Muppets????!!  The orange toddler is denouncing the #Muppets now?

Doh!  I missed the parody tweet comment.  Well, it seemed plausible to me that the deranged orange idiot would denounce the Muppets.

I don't blame you. I mean, can you imagine Statler and Waldorf's takedown of the tangerine toddler?

 

[AmazonGrace]

57 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

How to show you have absolutely no idea whatsoever how the money-world works, exhibit  #87931

 

I tried the feel the market, don't go with meaningless numbers approach at the Christmas shopping but it didn't work, they wanted the meaningless numbers on the bill matched on the money and f*ck my feelings.

[AmazonGrace]

Your president is in panic. Even if the pee tape is false the collusion still fits. 

[fraurosena]

After being felt by the presidunce, it looks like the stock market went 'Me too' and lost 1000 points.

 

[AmazonGrace]

The President of the United States is mad that he's lost bot followers 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Why do you want to post stories about Hillary being a cyborg and not, like, real scandals. 

i

[fraurosena]

Owwww, deer, sweet Rufus! That's gotta hurt. Butt-clenchingly badly. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy Giuliani tomorrow on some morning show, probably: " A shocking pattern of illegality is not a crime." 

[onekidanddone]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Why do you want to post stories about Hillary being a cyborg and not, like, real scandals. 

i

All the  money that family has and they can't get a well fitted suit?

[fraurosena]

Two paintings of the presidunce? Good luck trying to sell those!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

10 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Two paintings of the presidunce? Good luck trying to sell those!

 

So, the Tebow helmet is worth $974.50 and the two Dumpy paintings are worth 25 cents each? Never fear, Hannity will probably buy them.

[fraurosena]

I believe the presidunce is fixating on getting his wall because he can't face those 17 investigations into him and his businesses. The wall was what got him elected. It's the only 'positive' in his life right now. It's become his precious. So by hook or by crook, he needs funding for his precious wall. 

 

[onekidanddone]

25 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Two paintings of the presidunce? Good luck trying to sell those!

 

Who the bloody hell would buy them? Well I know who, Sean Spam-a-tee, Fucker Carlson, or Sarah-fuck-a-bee Sanders

I took a second look at the photo.  Looks like from his campaign and it looks as if he is trying to buy votes

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

I believe the presidunce is fixating on getting his wall because he can't face those 17 investigations into him and his businesses. The wall was what got him elected. It's the only 'positive' in his life right now. It's become his precious. So by hook or by crook, he needs funding for his precious wall. 

 

The "very smart" man with a business degree from an Ivy League school doesn't understand that it's against the law to reallocate funds without agreement by congress.

[fraurosena]

You mean you want 5 billion to build a fence? I thought this was a satirical account, but no, you really do want an artistically designed fence along the border. And you need 5 billion dollars for it? What it made of? Garish gold plate?

 

[AmazonGrace]

Did the Dems mean concrete, as in, made of concrete, or concrete, as in, exists?