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Trump 39: The Return of the Wall


Destiny

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This is just disgusting and gross. :puke-right:

 

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"Trump will call for ‘unity’ tonight. It’s a scam, and here’s the proof."

Spoiler

It’s one of the most dispiriting rituals that attend State of the Union addresses in the Trump era: White House advisers piously promise us that President Trump will issue new calls for unity and bipartisan comity, and for reasons that remain baffling, far too many observers then feel obliged to pretend that these soothing exhortations are real.

But this time around, there’s just no excuse for playing along. That’s because we’ve already seen what happens in the real world after Trump stands before Congress and carries out his unity routine — not once, but twice.

The New York Times reports that White House officials are previewing a speech that will supposedly “lean into a bipartisan and optimistic vision for the country.” White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway vows that it will call for “comity” and “compromise.” Former White House spokesman Raj Shah gushes that Trump can “turn the page” with “unifying, patriotic, and optimistic themes that have worked well for him in previous addresses.”

So let’s talk about those “previous addresses,” and about what happened in their wake.

Idea of ‘presidential’ Trump takes root, and becomes stock joke

In his 2017 joint address to Congress, delivered just after he took office, Trump claimed to be delivering a “message of unity,” exhorted the country to be “united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms,” called for “healing and hope,” vowed to “work with members in both parties,” and directed the two parties to “unite for the good of our country.”

Headlines proclaimed Trump’s speech “surprisingly presidential.” Speaking about Trump’s staged moment honoring a slain Navy SEAL’s widow, one commentator enthused that “he became president of the United States in that moment.”

That line quickly became a stock joke. And for good reason.

Barely a month before Trump issued those soothing words, nationwide mass protests had already erupted over the travel ban he signed upon taking office, a measure haphazardly thrown together in naked malevolence to fulfill a campaign promise premised squarely on openly advertised anti-Muslim bigotry and lies, in defiance of internal administration analyses undercutting its fake national security rationale. In the weeks after his speech, as his administration rewrote the ban to get around the courts, Trump blithely conceded that the new one was merely a “watered down” version, again confirming the bad faith and malevolent intent saturating this whole process.

Only a few months later, in August 2017, Trump refused to unambiguously condemn white supremacist violence and murder in Charlottesville, instead blaming “many sides.” Trump only made more conciliatory remarks after aides pushed him into it, whereupon he privately exploded that this made him look “weak,” and reverted to the “many sides” formulation. Importantly, Trump had concluded his base would thrill to the “many sides” approach, which means he deliberately placed the goal of keeping his base enthralled before the presidential obligation of unifying the country at moments of searing national tension.

Also in mid-2017, Trump pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had abused and violated the rights of untold numbers of Latino immigrants. Trump had become “sold on the pardon as a way of pleasing his political base,” again actively placing the desire to thrill his rally crowds before any institutional obligation to consider the impact of his conduct on the rule of law and the rest of the country.

Anyone else notice a pattern here?

In his State of the Union speech in January 2018, Trump called upon the two parties to “set aside our differences,” to “seek out common ground,” and to “summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.”

Only a couple weeks earlier in 2018, we had learned that Trump privately derided people coming here from places like Haiti, El Salvador and Africa as immigrants from “s---hole countries.” Crucially, this ugly impulse drove administration policy, in that Trump rejected immigration compromises precisely because in his view they allowed too many people from those countries to remain here. Those prejudices actively trumped “common ground” and “unity.”

Only a few months later, Trump’s horrific family separations hit. Planning for the policy was slapdash, surprising officials who struggled to implement it. But Trump had pulled the trigger while claiming “my people love it,” again confirming the malevolence, bad faith and prioritization of the base’s prejudices festering at the core of such decisions. Similarly, as the Associated Press reported, Trump privately resolved to revive his attacks on African American football players because so doing “revs up his political base."

What followed throughout 2018 was the most virulently xenophobic and anti-immigrant campaign in modern memory. It was girded by an extraordinary campaign of agitprop and lies about desperate asylum-seeking migrants, and painted Democrats as a party enabling hordes of violent invaders and even cop-killers to breach our border.

Trump’s two-tiered speeches

A smart Democratic strategist recently remarked to me that he believes Trump and his political operation are carrying on a conversation with his voters that is 24/7 and is heavily laden with cultural and emotional signaling in a manner that Democrats have not quite reckoned with yet. The last two speeches to Congress took a two-tiered approach: Trump throws out a few nuggets of superficially unifying rhetoric designed to garner approval from elite centrist commentators, while also keeping a conveyor belt laden with bloody meat running to his supporters.

It’s all but certain that we’ll hear the same in his third installment. But, given all that has followed after the last two, can we stop pretending that the unifying tones are anything other than a scam?

 

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Oh my sweet Rufus! That would be death by a thousand buzzes... 

 

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Things I'd rather be doing instead of watching the State of the Cluster fuck Union tonight

  • Root Canal without Novocaine 
  • Binge watching Small Wonder
  • Eating a Pixy Stix flavored pizza
  • Eating said pizza at Chucky Cheese
  • Sit though a cross country plane ride with Ann Coulter (actually between her and the State of Confusion it would be a toss up)
  • Sleep with an open can of cat food under my pillow
  • Eat Jim Bob's BBQ tuna
  • Eat Anna's Chickennetti
  • Eat anything Jill Dillard cooked
  • Spend a week with JRod
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I'd rather take a car ride with Rick Arndt and listen to one of his incoherent ramblings sermons.

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"President Trump’s election set off a birth control boom"

Spoiler

Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers have documented a trend in women’s health that had previously been reported mostly anecdotally: President Trump’s election set off a birth control boom.

In the immediate aftermath of the Nov. 8, 2016, upset election, women rushed to secure long-acting, reversible contraception — the kind that could feasibly last through the duration of a Trump presidency. Compared to the same monthlong period in the previous year, demand for IUDs and other implants spiked 21.6 percent, according to the study, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine online Monday.

Dr. Lydia E. W. Pace, director of the Women’s Health Policy and Advocacy Program at the Brigham, set out to quantify a trend that seemed to emerge in the days and weeks following the election.

Trump campaigned on repealing the Affordable Care Act, which made birth control coverage standard under private employers’ insurance plans, as well as in subsidized care. Since 2013, women have been able to get birth control without copayments.

After the election, with the imminent threat of repeal, reports began surfacing that women were rushing to doctors and clinics seeking IUDs and other implants known as long-acting reversible contraception. Such methods, which have steep up-front costs, provide birth control for years and are considered the most effective method on the market.

Most of the reports were isolated or anecdotal, said Pace, though she pointed to an analysis released in early 2017 by athenahealth, the Massachusetts-based developer of electronic health record systems, comparing data from October 2016 to January 2017 to data from the previous year. That analysis found a similar 21 percent increase in visits for management or insertion of an IUD around the election.

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts also reported seeing a spike in inquiries about birth control and appointments for IUDs and implants.

In the six days after the election, Planned Parenthood scheduled 265 IUD insertions, compared to just 52 in the six days leading up to the election, the office reported then.

But since IUD and implant insertion rates fluctuate throughout the year — and have risen over the past decade — the Brigham and Women’s researchers wanted to isolate the specific effects of the election.

Of the prior reports, Pace said, “None to my knowledge had used statistical methods to control for preexisting or seasonal trends, which was what we hoped to contribute.”

To pinpoint the scope of the changing demand relative to the election timing, the Brigham researchers examined a commercial insurance database and studied more than 3 million women of reproductive age, between 18 and 45. Then, they compared the rates of long-acting contraception insertions in the 30 business days before and after Nov. 8, 2015, with the same time span before and after Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016.

While the rate changed little before and after Nov. 8 in 2015, the 2016 rate changed from 13.4 per 100,000 women before the election to 16.3 per 100,000 women afterward — a 21.6 percent increase. That means an additional 2.1 insertions per 100,000 women per day after the election or, if extrapolated to the 33 million women of reproductive age who have employer-sponsored health insurance, an additional 700 insertions per day — or 21,000 in a month.

“I was and am quite impressed by those numbers,” said Pace. “That’s 21,000 additional IUDs or implants that we can associate with the election.”

And while her data can’t determine exactly why those decisions were made, she does conclude there was a link.

“Political events do or can influence women’s contraceptive decision-making,” Pace said. “It suggests to me that many women really valued that coverage that they do continue to have under the ACA, and I think that’s an important message for the public and for policy makers. There continue to be efforts to reduce women’s access to comprehensive contraception and reproductive health care more broadly..”

Though Congress did not repeal the ACA outright, lawmakers and the Trump administration have taken steps to disable some of its provisions, including the birth control mandate.

The administration has expanded the range of employers who can be exempted from providing contraceptive coverage beyond those with firm religious objections to include those with moral reservations.

The new rule was due to take effect last month but has been blocked by the courts while it is being legally challenged by various states, including Massachusetts.

Massachusetts also enacted a law requiring birth control coverage in anticipation of the Trump administration undoing the mandate.

Jacey Taft, 27, of Dorchester was among those who got an IUD “because of Trump’s rhetoric,” as she put it. She had taken birth control pills in the past. But in the aftermath of Trump’s election, she was one of the many who contacted gynecologists’ offices, hoping to secure a longer term solution.

“I was and still am scared of what may happen to health care and especially women’s health care, and figured a 5-year IUD could buy me time until (hopefully) the next president is elected,” Taft wrote in an e-mail. “The ob-gyn I visited also told me they were booked for months because of the fear of Trump, but thankfully someone else rescheduled their appointment, allowing me to get one.”

Under her insurance, Taft was able to get a free IUD that might otherwise have cost $1,000 to get implanted. She hasn’t had to return to the ob-gyn, and she is grateful that Massachusetts enacted its own law.

“This is really a lucky state to be living in at this moment,” Taft said. “I worry for women in other states where clinics are being shut down and access is really limited.”

 

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5 hours ago, Howl said:

Does liking this tweet make me seem cynical about Trump? And certain elements of the MSM?

 

Not only that, FOX (almost typed POX- hey, I like that!) News Entertainment would say, So, the President crapped his pants. It's no big deal. Heck, everyone craps their pants when speaking publicly. Hannity and Ann Coulter crap their pants all the time. Then, they'd cut to a segment of people, wearing MAGA hats, all crapping their pants. Crapping your pants is the coolest thing ever! Next thing you'd no, they'd be selling MAGA pants to poo in, so one could poo like the president.

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1 hour ago, Dandruff said:

Trump is about to speak.  His tie is on sideways.

If he wasn't a complete jackass, I'd feel sorry for him that nobody cares enough to tell him to fix his tie.

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To my surprise, the parental units did not have Fuck Head's speech on tonight.  Probably figured it wasn't worth watching Fuck Head spew.  They're a bit more conservative than I am and even when President Obama was in charge they watched the SOTU then. 

I sure as fuck didn't watch it.  Watching it would be giving Fuck Head exactly what he wants.  Attention.  Let him spin on his back in the fucking parking lot until hell freezes over and I still wouldn't give him the fucking time of fucking day.

(Pardon all the gratuitous uses of Fuck tonight.  I just reached my asshole tolerance). 

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To my surprise, the parental units did not have Fuck Head's speech on tonight.  Probably figured it wasn't worth watching Fuck Head spew.  They're a bit more conservative than I am and even when President Obama was in charge they watched the SOTU then. 
I sure as fuck didn't watch it.  Watching it would be giving Fuck Head exactly what he wants.  Attention.  Let him spin on his back in the fucking parking lot until hell freezes over and I still wouldn't give him the fucking time of fucking day.
(Pardon all the gratuitous uses of Fuck tonight.  I just reached my asshole tolerance). 

All this is exactly why I’ll wait for a transcript. He cares about his ratings and I’m not about to give them to him.
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1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

I call her Nancy.

The context for the already-meme picture

Those two red balls between all the blues around her neck though...

Madam Speaker knows how to throw some serious shade!

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Speaking of shade... how about that Tiffany, wearing white like the Dem ladies!

image.png.dc80a176747f3adb38752d10dbcf2698.png

 

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Historic sentence in SOTU speech: "Please don't investigate me!"

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I see Melanie was enjoying herself too.

 

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1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Historic sentence in SOTU speech: "Please don't investigate me!"

“If he’s unfit we must convict”. 

ETA: I scanned FJ to see if any threads in the political forum were ‘hot’. Seeing none I figured we aren’t in a National emergency. Well we have been in one since January 2017 but just not one for a fucking wall

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1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

I see Melanie was enjoying herself too.

 

 

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Rick Wilson's take on SOTU for The Daily Beast:  Trump’s State of the Union Protection Racket: Either Mueller Gets It, or the American Economy Does     This was a weird, shambling speech but it had one clear moment where the president channeled Nixon to suggest the economy would collapse if Mueller continued to go after him.

I'm dying here, Rick Wilson: As predicted, there were a few crowd-pleasing nuggets excreted from the cloaca of some Kellyanne Conway focus group. 

and this

Quote

Because Trump is bleeding politically, and under rising legal pressure from every quarter, last night’s State of the Union speech contained his usual pastiche of Trumpian paranoia about the border, dick-waving braggadocio, outright lies, and movie-script ideas passed off as intelligence reports. Coyotes! Duct tape! Mad Max caravans!

and "Nice country we have here.  Be a shame if anything happened to it."

Quote

What really mattered tonight was a single line that left the assembled grandees in the House chamber slack-jawed and in a state of near-shock. Even his supporters had a moment of “WTF, bro?” shock.

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous, partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Speaking of shade... how about that Tiffany, wearing white like the Dem ladies!

image.png.dc80a176747f3adb38752d10dbcf2698.png

 

It could be a coincidence but as a picture it's full of symbolism since she put a metal railing between herself and the other Trump ladies as well and looks in the other direction.

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