Trump 39: The Return of the Wall

[formergothardite]

10 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Insurance fraud is not a crime if the president does it 

 

Does this mean he bribed an insurance adjuster to claim there was millions of dollars of damage when there wasn't? 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Jaamillion said:

She has to hold “daddy’s” hand or other things ? 

Sorry ?

1) She has to keep an eye on him when he gets to doddering and starts to ‘sundown’.  

2) I’m starting to really believe she is one of the people pulling the strings wields more power than we know. 

3) She probably doles out his Uppers and downers as necessary. 

[AmazonGrace]

First modern humans appeared about 200 000 years ago.

 

[AmazonGrace]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

All that hairspray has damaged his memory functions. 

 

Just like Donald Trump, Tim Apple inherited his family empire from his dad Steve Apple

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

First modern humans appeared about 200 000 years ago.

Or, the first humans appeared about 6,000 years ago, according to much of Trump's Evangelical base.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

The Pro Life party did this: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Boy, this is a dream scenario:

 

[47of74]

 

 

16. Spanking the toadstool.

17. Finding new Reich wingers to retweet.

18. Paint himself with orange tan.

19. More porn.

20. Spanking the toadstool again.

21. Call Hannity again.

22. Miniature cross and book burnings in the Rose Garden.

23. Plan his next Nazi rally.

24. Porn nightcap.

25. Look at pictures of Ivanka.

[fraurosena]

Aww, look who's afraid of debating democratic candidates?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Not my fault’: Trump struggles to defend his record amid setbacks on immigration, trade, North Korea"

Spoiler

President Trump proclaimed in a freewheeling speech to a conference of conservatives last weekend that “America is winning again.” But his administration has been on a pronounced losing streak over the past week.

Trump is losing ground on top priorities to curb illegal immigration, cut the trade deficit and blunt North Korea’s nuclear threat — setbacks that complicate his planned reelection message as a can-do president who is making historic progress.

Late last week, Trump flew home empty-handed from a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi — and, within days, new satellite images appeared to show that the North was secretly rebuilding a rocket-launching site.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that unauthorized border crossings have spiked to the highest pace in 12 years — despite Trump’s hard-line rhetoric and new policies aimed at deterring migrants.

And on Wednesday, the Commerce Department said that the nation’s trade deficit is at a record high — in part due to punitive tariffs Trump imposed on allies and adversaries. Trump vowed throughout his 2016 campaign and during his presidency to shrink the trade deficit, which he views as a measure of other nations taking advantage of the United States.

“The president hasn’t shown much of an ability to cut good deals with Congress or anyone else,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), who is mulling a Senate run in 2020. “Almost the only time he has been successful at one of his goals is when he can set the terms unilaterally. That’s why he’s done a lot of executive orders, executive actions, like the travel ban, deregulations, emergency declaration. Those are things that don’t require any negotiation at all.”

Trump took office on a pledge to buck conventional wisdom, sideline Washington’s political class and tackle long-standing problems with a mix of outside-the-box improvisation and dealmaking skills honed during his real estate career. “I alone can fix it,” he declared at the Republican National Convention in 2016.

Yet as he has struggled to fulfill some of his signature campaign promises, Trump has consistently blamed others for his woes.

He has criticized the administrations of President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush for not reforming the immigration system or reining in North Korea. He has railed at Democrats for failing to support his proposed border wall and implored them to ratify new trade deals. And he has even attacked fellow Republicans, obliquely slamming former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) during a Rose Garden news conference last month for not having pushed faster to get a deal on the wall.

White House officials argued that rather than being a setback, the immigration trends could bolster Trump’s argument that he is justified in taking unilateral action on the border. Federal authorities detained 76,103 migrants at the southern border in February, up from 58,207 a month earlier.

Press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that the numbers were clear evidence that Trump was right to declare a national emergency last month.

“If that doesn’t define crisis, I don’t know what does,” she said. “Congress should have fixed this problem. The president tried multiple times to get Congress to work with him to address the crisis. They failed to do so, and now the president has to do what is absolutely necessary.”

Republican allies praised the president for eliminating business regulations, helping pass a major tax cut in 2017, appointing two conservative Supreme Court justices and scores of lower-level judges, and nurturing an economy with low unemployment.

They emphasized that challenges such as North Korea will take time and chided Democrats for blocking Trump’s agenda.

“The House is just involved in investigations and really not concerned about legislation,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) said Trump is “very frustrated right now with all of us. He wants to get results and we’re looking at a two-year period where it’s pretty obvious the other side doesn’t want to do anything.”

But Trump’s critics said his policies have made things worse.

On immigration, the administration has sought to block asylum seekers at legal ports of entry along the border, prompting them to try to find alternative pathways into the country. The president shut down parts of the federal government for 35 days — the longest such closure in U.S. history — in an ill-fated fight for border wall funding, even though experts said the surge of migrant families is not a threat to national security and that a wall would do little to curb it.

On trade, Trump’s tariff war with China has harmed U.S. farmers as Beijing slashed agricultural imports. Although the president has signaled that a trade deal is close, analysts said an accord would not fundamentally alter the U.S. trade relationship with the world’s second-largest economy.

And on North Korea, officials have said, the president’s decision to rush forward with bilateral summits with Kim have led to difficulties for U.S. negotiators engaging with their counterparts over technical and complicated nuclear matters, as Kim has preferred to deal directly with Trump.

Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a liberal think tank, noted that the tax cut has not met GOP projections for economic growth and could add significantly to the ballooning federal deficit.

“The reality is he can’t point to a single thing that’s better today than when he came to office,” Rosenberg said.

Although he has projected confidence, Trump has fretted in private over his difficulties. During the government shutdown, the president’s approval ratings dipped to 37 percent in a Washington Post/ABC News poll, one of the lowest marks of his tenure.

Since then, his numbers have fluctuated. This week, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll put his approval at 46 percent, while a Quinnipiac University survey pegged it at 38 percent.

During a marathon speech Saturday to the Conservative Political Action Committee, Trump veered off script, spending much of the time attacking his rivals, including congressional Democrats, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and news organizations. Trump spent less time on his governing record.

On trade, he defended his use of tariffs and suggested the United States had accrued large trade deficits because past administrations were afraid to use that tool as leverage. On North Korea, he blamed the Obama administration for allowing the Kim regime to send “rockets flying all over the place” and said his team was “making a lot of progress.” On immigration, Trump called current U.S. laws “crazy” and said he felt empowered to declare a national emergency “because our Congress can’t act.”

“Not my fault I inherited this mess, but we’re fixing it,” he said during the speech.

Trump at times also appears determined to prove that he is making progress. He publicly contradicted his own intelligence chiefs, who testified to Congress in January that there is no evidence that North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear program.

Asked by a reporter Wednesday about the satellite images that showed construction work at the ­Sohae Satellite Launching Station, Trump said he would be “very disappointed” if the news is confirmed, but he added that it was “a very early report.”

Senior White House aides have sought to cast the Hanoi summit as a sign of Trump’s negotiating fortitude and unwillingness to settle for a bad deal. Yet Trump has grown frustrated by the largely negative coverage of the summit, a senior White House official said, and his aides briefed lawmakers this week to explain his goals. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to characterize internal discussions.

“He thought they closed the gap on some issues,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said. “He just said, ‘North Korea isn’t ready to make a deal.’ ”

Last year, Trump berated Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over the rising border crossings. Though he no longer blames Nielsen, aides said, Trump told his staff that the shutdown dispute sent an important message to his conservative base that he is fighting for them.

On trade, Trump postponed a March 1 deadline to impose another round of tariffs on China in hopes of a deal. White House aides are planning events for Trump and Vice President Pence in the Midwest this spring to tout an updated trade deal reached last year with Canada and Mexico that Congress has yet to ratify.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in an interview that farmers support Trump but are growing antsy.

“These folks are with you, they want to see you be successful,” Rounds said, speaking as if he was sending a message to Trump. “But you’re going to have to deliver some results.”

 

[47of74]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump hires only the worst people"

Spoiler

It’s hard to find good help these days.

During his campaign, President Trump boasted that he would “surround myself only with the best. ” But by his own account, his administration attracts rather the opposite.

On Saturday, Trump publicly mocked former attorney general Jeff Sessions, imitating his Southern accent: “The attorney general says, ‘I’m gonna recuse mah-self.’ ”

In the same speech, Trump discredited departing Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein by saying the Trump-appointed official, whom the president accused last month of “planning a very illegal act,” had “never received a single vote.”

Last week, Trump said that soon-to-be-jailed Michael Cohen, once a “good person” and Trump’s personal attorney, had not only turned out to be a “failed lawyer” and a liar but was, by testifying to Congress about Trump, also partially to blame for the breakdown of nuclear talks with North Korea.

Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats may soon be replaced because he caused Trump “disappointment” by expressing (accurate) doubts that North Korea would cooperate with overtures to denuclearize, Trump confidant Christopher Ruddy told CNN . Coats may find himself in the unemployment line with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has at times incurred Trump’s dissatisfaction over her work on the border.

The result of so much unhappiness with so many hires? After two years in the White House, Trump appears to be running not a country but a temp service.

He has found himself, for example, filling and refilling the roles of White House communications director six times, deputy national security adviser five times, national security adviser and health and human services secretary four times each, attorney general and White House chief of staff three times each and secretary of state, defense secretary and press secretary twice — among many other such moves, including the staffing of a rotating cast of defense lawyers.

Even “The Apprentice” didn’t cycle through contestants this fast. The only constant: With few exceptions — chiefly daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner — everybody disappoints Trump.

Those vying to add “former” to their titles include U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer (he contradicted Trump’s view that a “memorandum of understanding” doesn’t “mean anything”) and national security adviser John Bolton (who declined to embrace Trump’s view that Kim Jong Un is trustworthy and that the North Korea summit was fruitful).

Now comes Ty Cobb, a former Trump lawyer, telling ABC News that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is an “American hero” and “I don’t feel the investigation is a witch hunt.” PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!

If only Trump could hire a thousand Stephen Millers. Instead, he has suffered a turnover rate in senior jobs of 65 percent, according to the Brookings Institution. Twenty-nine percent of those positions have turned over multiple times. Then there are the six former Trump advisers either indicted or convicted.

It’s a personnel problem of incalculable dimensions, but with a common denominator: Trump. Either he’s a bad judge of talent, or nobody with talent wants to work for him, or he’s a terrible boss — or all three.

“He is fundamentally disloyal,” Cohen testified last week.

Trump, at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, interpreted his HR struggles differently: “Unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple positions, and they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there, and all of a sudden they’re trying to take you out with bulls---.”

If only his appointees could be loyal and capable. Like Kim. Or Mohammed bin Salman. Or Vladimir Putin.

Instead, they leak his schedule to Axios, place anonymous quotes or an op-ed, and disparage him publicly before taking the job (acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney called him “a terrible human being”), on the job (Gary Cohn), on their way out (Jim Mattis, Nikki Haley) or after departing (Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Rex Tillerson, Omarosa Manigault Newman). At least 10 (including “gofer” Cliff Sims, “sick” James B. Comey and “deranged” Andrew McCabe) have written books.

Et tu, Mike Pompeo? The loyal secretary of state hired editorialist Mary Kissel, who had criticized Trump’s “frightening ignorance.”

Just about everybody lets down the boss. Trump complained that Mulvaney botched border-wall negotiations, Mattis botched Afghanistan, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell botched the bull market — and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin screwed up by suggesting Powell for the job.

Trump blamed the Mueller probe on former White House counsel Donald McGahn, and he faulted acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker for failing to rein in the Cohen prosecution. But it doesn’t end there.

During confirmation hearings for Whitaker’s replacement, William P. Barr, Trump was reportedly startled to learn of Barr’s close friendship with Mueller. Trump’s third attorney general had better finish decorating his new office soon — before Trump’s fourth attorney general inevitably shows up.

 

[Ozlsn]

On 3/7/2019 at 2:36 AM, AmazonGrace said:

 

I'm surprised it was that low actually.

Also every time I see that photo it looks like he's pole dancing with the US flag.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘The silence is deafening’: Major brands avoid Trump even as he promotes them from the White House"

Spoiler

In a scene probably worth millions of dollars in free advertising, President Trump displayed a spread of burgers from some of the country’s biggest fast-food chains inside the State Dining Room of the White House on Monday as hungry football players looked on.

With cameras rolling, he offered a presidential endorsement of “all-American” restaurants including McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s.

“We like American companies, okay?” Trump said, standing before hundreds of Big Macs and chicken sandwiches alongside the North Dakota State football team. “Go eat up. Enjoy yourselves, everybody.”

But the companies haven’t been quick to return the affection or attempt to cash in on the presidential product placement, with McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s all remaining silent about Trump’s endorsements. When Trump held a similar event in January, Burger King was the only company to reference it on social media — by mocking Trump for misspelling the word hamburger in a tweet.

“[D]ue to a large order placed yesterday, we’re all out of hamberders,” Burger King tweeted on Jan. 15, a day after Trump honored the Clemson football team with Whoppers and Big Macs, adding that it was “just serving hamburgers today.”

The corporate reticence underscores the tense relationship between a polarizing president and top U.S. consumer brands. The companies behind some of the president’s favorite products, including Sharpies, Big Macs and Diet Cokes, have kept him at arm’s length, even as he has lavished them with public praise and highlighted their products in the White House.

“It used to be that brands would love to get an endorsement from the president,” said Tim Calkins, who teaches marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Now, if anything, I think these companies probably squirm a bit.”

Trump’s own divisive brand makes him a less-than-ideal endorser for companies seeking to avoid the partisan fray, Calkins said.

Representatives of McDonald’s, Burger King and Chick-fil-A did not respond to multiple requests asking if they welcomed Trump’s endorsement. Newell Brands, which produces the Sharpie pens Trump has praised while signing executive orders, also did not respond to multiple requests. White House officials also did not respond to requests for comment.

In the past, consumer brands have been eager to highlight their proximity to presidents, whose endorsements are especially significant because they are presumed to have access to the best products, said Nick Powills, CEO and chief brand strategist of Chicago-based No Limit Agency.

When President Obama visited restaurants in Washington and abroad, the companies regularly highlighted the visits on social media and some still have menu items named after him.

“It was almost like winning a Michelin star,” Powills said of the presidential visits.

During a White House visit by the Boston Red Sox in 2014, slugger David Ortiz took a selfie with Obama on a Samsung smartphone. Samsung, which had an endorsement deal with Ortiz, tweeted out a photo of the “historic” moment, noting that it was “captured with his Galaxy Note 3.”

Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Carter each invited instructors from Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics to give speed-reading courses to staff in the White House, a marketing coup for the company.

Today, even businesses that once sought out the Trump brand have acted to distance themselves from a president who is opposed by more than half the country in opinion polls.

Since the 2016 campaign, six New York residential buildings have moved to strip the “Trump Place” logos from their facades, and several retailers have stopped selling Trump-branded apparel.

Nike, which last year moved out of a Trump-owned New York location, started an ad campaign in September featuring NFL quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick. The ads put Nike squarely at odds with Trump, who had attacked Kaepernick and other NFL players for kneeling in protest during the national anthem.

The company said its sales increased 10 percent in the quarter after the ad was released, despite public criticism from Trump.

“For companies whose consumers are more progressive, more Democratic, being called out by the president isn’t a bad thing,” said Julie Hootkin, a partner at Global Strategy Group, a public affairs firm. “It might be a really good thing.”

Consumers increasingly want companies to take action on political and social issues, according to a study published last week by Global Strategy Group. The survey found that 8 in 10 consumers want companies to take a stand, and almost half said it would be appropriate for corporations to take a position against Trump.

On the other hand, there are a number of brands that have actively played up their closeness with Trump, including U.S. Steel, Boeing, Fox News and Foxconn. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell said Trump was “chosen by God.”

And Trump is certainly not toxic to the thousands of supporters who have purchased his “Make America Great Again” hats and other campaign merchandise. Writers of pro-Trump books have lobbied White House aides to secure a presidential tweet, and the president’s shout-outs have helped propel several tomes to bestseller status.

But companies have also discovered the dangers of associating with a mercurial president.

In early 2017, Harley-Davidson’s top executives visited the White House and showed off several motorcycles to Trump, who praised the company for making products in America.

By 2018, Trump was publicly advocating for a boycott against Harley after the company announced it was shifting some of its production to Asia. The company blamed tariffs resulting from Trump’s trade war with China and Europe. In January, John Olin, Harley’s chief financial officer, told investors the tariffs would cost the company as much as $120 million in 2019.

“Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas,” Trump tweeted in August. “Great!”

A company spokeswoman declined to comment beyond saying “there was no boycott.”

Trump has also publicly attacked other private corporations, including Ford, General Motors and the NFL. The president regularly attacks Amazon and its CEO, Jeffrey P. Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

Some companies, including outdoor retailer Patagonia, have taken aggressive stances against Trump’s policies. Patagonia sued Trump in 2017 over his move to reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah, and used its retail website to deliver a stark message to shoppers: “The President Stole Your Land.”

Patagonia spokeswoman Corley Kenna said the move was not driven by profit motives or politics.

“Our community expects us to take bold positions,” she said.

Other brands have been reluctant to take on the president, who has been willing to use the power of his office to pursue vendettas against corporate foes.

“The silence is deafening,” said Calkins, the Northwestern professor. “Everybody is very nervous about how the administration might respond.”

Some brands have found other politicians more palatable than Trump, even in today’s polarized climate. After Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced his presidential bid last month, the Twitter account for Hot Pockets posted a picture of the senator holding one of its snacks.

“@CoryBooker don’t forget about us when you get elected,” the company tweeted.

A company spokeswoman, Kate Shaw, said there is no formula for deciding when to engage with politicians and noted the company’s previous interaction with Booker about 2012 Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

Apparel brand Rag & Bone posted a tweet of Obama sporting a customized version of the brand’s bomber jacket last month.

During his presidency, Obama’s impromptu stops at local establishments would often spark celebratory tweets from the businesses: “#presidentialswag,” Taylor Gourmet tweeted in 2012; “delighted,” said Politics & Prose in 2014; “Super honored!” Shake Shack said in 2014;

Trump has largely avoided Washington’s restaurants and small businesses, opting instead for restaurants inside the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Powills said the lack of response from the fast-food companies highlighted by Trump in recent weeks is striking.

“It’s unfortunate that that’s what we’ve come to,” Powills said. “No matter what, you’re at a celebration at the White House, and it should be something you [promote]. It’s too bad that silence is the answer.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

Stealing from veterans to own the libs

[AmazonGrace]

Because of course he did

 

[Howl]

13 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Also every time I see that photo it looks like he's pole dancing with the US flag.

Many people have noted that that US flag is now part of the "#Me Too" movement -- groped without consent. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump thinks his supporters are the most gullible people on earth. Are they really?"

Spoiler

I’ve got the perfect slogan for President Trump’s reelection campaign: “Promises Made, Promises Not Kept, But I’m Betting My Voters Are Too Stupid to Notice.”

Let’s take stock:

Trump promised to build a wall along the 2,000-mile southern border, with the cost of the “big, beautiful” barrier to be borne by Mexico. Trump made this pledge dozens of times in a call-and-response ritual at his campaign rallies. “Who’s going to pay for the wall?” he would demand, and the cheering crowds would yell the answer: “Mexico!”

Result: Not a single mile of Trump’s wall has been built. When Mexican officials made clear they would never pay a cent toward construction, Trump asked Congress for the money. Even with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate for two full years, Congress declined to waste taxpayer dollars on the project. When Democrats took the House, Trump declared a “national emergency” in an attempt to steal funds from other projects. Still, despite what he claims, Trump has built no new wall.

Trump promised to reverse trade policies that he said allowed the rest of the world to play Americans for suckers. He pointed to the U.S. balance-of-trade deficit as a yardstick measuring the “stupidity” of prior administrations that permitted trading partners such as China, Mexico, Germany and even Canada to walk all over them. Tariffs were the solution, Trump said, as he launched a series of trade wars. “I love tariffs,” he crowed.

Result: The Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the overall U.S. trade deficit in goods last year soared to an all-time high of $891 billion. The deficit with China, Trump’s principal target — the amount by which the value of imported goods exceeded the value of exported goods — reached a record $419 billion. Many economists believe this is actually a sign of the U.S. economy’s relative good health. But according to Trump’s understanding, or misunderstanding, it is an abject failure.

Trump promised on Twitter that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” He made that boast last year following his summit in Singapore with Kim Jong Un, with whom Trump said he had fallen “in love.” Most experts on North Korea warned that Kim’s vague promises to work toward “denuclearization” were worthless, but Trump insisted he had made a breakthrough and mused about possibly winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Result: Following months of little or no progress, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told Congress in January that North Korea is “unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons.” A second Trump-Kim summit, held last month in Hanoi, ended abruptly without an agreement. Around the same time, according to news reports, the North Koreans restarted work on a ballistic missile site. While Pyongyang has refrained from further tests of its nukes and missiles, Kim’s stockpile likely continues to grow. The threat remains.

Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, claiming he would put in place a new health insurance system that would deliver better results and lower costs. He made the assault on Obamacare the main thrust of his first year in office.

Result: Obamacare remains the law of the land. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress failed in an attempt to repeal the ACA and did not even make a serious attempt to design a potential replacement. Republicans have managed to chip away at the health-care law — the individual mandate is gone, for example — and Trump often claims the ACA is “imploding.” But still it stands.

Trump promised to spend up to $1.5 trillion on refurbishing the nation’s infrastructure, building new airports, bridges, tunnels, roads and other gleaming monuments to American greatness. He said he was uniquely able to oversee such a program because of his successful career as a real estate magnate.

Result: “Infrastructure Week” has become a running joke. Every once in a while, the administration announces it is launching the infrastructure campaign — then does nothing meaningful to follow through.

Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington.

Result: Perhaps the most corrupt administration in U.S. history, riddled with nepotism and teeming with swamp creatures.

I could go on. Trump did fulfill some promises he made to far-right ideologues (appointing archconservative judges) and the ultra-rich friends he sups with at Mar-a-Lago (cutting taxes for the wealthy). Overall, though, his administration has been a great big failure.

He apparently believes his loyal supporters are the dumbest, most gullible people on earth. We shall see if he’s right.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Be sure to read the Two Corinthians. What  a great story!

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I thought only Jesus was allowed to autograph the Bible?

[onekidanddone]

49 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Be sure to read the Two Corinthians. What  a great story!

Of course he is signing it he did write it after all.

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Be sure to read the Two Corinthians. What  a great story!

That is just weird. He's autographing bibles and no one's uncomfortable with this apparently? 

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

Of course he is signing it he did write it after all.

Only the BEST parts.

[GreyhoundFan]

"On the 226th try, Trump hopes you’ll simply accept that there was no collusion"

Spoiler

The key to effective branding is repetition. Or so they say, I guess, or so I heard at some point in time. I mean, what do I know about branding?

I can be excused for thinking that repetition is important, though, given how heavily President Trump relies on repeating certain phrases and ideas with an eye toward locking them into our brains. “Make America great again” was a clever slogan, reinforced every time Trump put on his baseball cap. Since the election ended, it’s been replaced with another pithy little saying: “No collusion."

Trump offered it up on Friday morning, as he prepared to board Marine One on his way to tour tornado damage in Alabama.

“This had nothing to do with collusion,” he said, referring to his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday. “There was no collusion. It’s a collusion hoax. It’s a collusion witch hunt. I don’t collude with Russia.” Trump went so far as to attribute the same determination to Manafort’s attorney and the judge who did the sentencing, though that isn’t really true.

In total, he said the phrase “no collusion” five times while waiting to depart for Alabama and added an all-caps mention on Twitter for good measure. According to the database of Trump comments, speeches and interviews at Factba.se, these were the 221st through 226th times that he used the phrase “no collusion” since May 2017.

The first time he used the expression, according to Factba.se’s data, was in his infamous interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, shortly after firing former FBI director James Comey.

“This was set up by the Democrats,” Trump said of the investigation into his campaign that Comey had acknowledged under oath a few months prior. “There is no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians. The other thing is the Russians did not affect the vote. And everybody seems to think that.”

That was the first mention. Here are the other 225, including today.

Notice that they often cluster around significant events in the Russia investigation or in his presidency. After significant new developments linking Trump’s team to Russia, though, he has at times been quiet. We’ve highlighted the revelation of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in July 2017 and the Sept. 2017 Post report that Manafort had offered campaign briefings to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska of examples of unusual quiet.

Two of the busiest times were in August of last year, as Manafort was on trial. (He was convicted on eight felony charges at the same time that Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen was admitting to eight felonies of his own.) Another “no collusion”-heavy period was in the run-up to the midterm elections, when Trump would work it into his patter at campaign rallies.

Bear in mind: Trump could be saying something that is true. America is divided on what “collusion” would actually mean in the context of Trump’s denials, but if you think -- as Trump apparently does -- that it necessitates Trump having deliberately spoken with a Russian to agree to tilt the election, there’s no evidence that happened. No collusion (under that specific definition of what constitutes collusion)!

Trump could also be trying to define collusion as specifically that intimate an interaction in order to wave away the significance of things like the Trump Tower meeting. He could be trying not to brand his behavior as not being collusion but to brand collusion as being not what he did.

If so, we all know what comes next.