Trump 41: Waiting For My Impeachment

[Alisamer]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I think he must have considered his wife more of a live-in maid with benefits. What else could explain his attitude?

It didn't really come across that way, in the article. He takes his son and visits her in Mexico as often as they can, and after seeing how poor her hometown was, he moved her to a much nicer place in Mexico. I think it's more a case of "exception". My dad is getting much much better all the time, but he used to be like that too - he'd say something prejudiced about Mexicans, but then say something like "Except the ones that work where I work, they're all real nice guys and hard workers." Or he'd repeat some racist stereotype about black people, but follow it with "but so and so I worked with, and the family at church, they're good people, not like the others." 

I think this guy is probably the way my dad used to be. All "illegals" are criminals, rapists, bad hombres, etc. Except the ones he knows personally, of course. They all somehow happen to be good people working hard trying to make a living and raise their families. And of course his beautiful wife who he loves very much, she's not like all those others. She's sweet and kind, a great wife, a great mom. She just came here the wrong way, but she's been here so long and is just wonderful. She's not a bad hombre, so why would they deport her?

Some people don't stop to think - "hey, if my wife, the guys at work, that family I go to church with, the guy that runs the gas station, etc. are all good people... maybe most others who are black/Mexican/"illegal"/whatever are good people too?"

They somehow believe that all the people they've known personally are exceptions to what they believe about the "others".

With my parents, they are getting better. My mom's high school didn't have black students until her junior or senior year, and then only 3 or 4 in the whole school. My sisters and I always had black students in class with us, and black teachers as well. It seems even more balanced now. 

But still, some people are determined to believe they are better than "the other", and that the people of color they personally know are all unique exceptions.

 

Also, Trump is not only selfish and narcissistic, he's also dangerous, IMO. 

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, Dandruff said:

Are we sure this isn't a farce?  No one can possibly be this tacky.

This whole presiduncy is a farce.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Is it time to talk about Donald Trump’s draft dodging?"

Spoiler

During the 2004 presidential election, the disinformation campaign to discredit Democratic nominee John F. Kerry’s war service reached its vulgar nadir. Delegates to that year’s Republican convention showed up wearing band-aids with purple hearts drawn on them, to charge that the three Purple Hearts that Kerry was awarded during his service in Vietnam were for insufficiently serious injuries. Kerry’s experience showed that it wasn’t only those presidential contenders who avoided the draft by obtaining student deferments, as Bill Clinton did, who could expect their opponents and the media to make Vietnam an issue.

It was as well for George W. Bush, who avoided Vietnam as a congressman’s son by receiving a coveted spot in the so-called Champagne Unit of the Texas Air National Guard, along with other sons of prominent politicians and several members of the Dallas Cowboys.

So why have we barely ever talked about Donald Trump’s draft avoidance?

The simplest answer is that there was so much that was shocking about Trump when he ran for president in 2016 — both in his past and in the way he was acting as a candidate — that it seemed too trivial to worry about. Or perhaps the cultural wounds of the 1960s had faded a bit. But I’m pretty sure that had Trump been a Democrat, it would have been a huge issue because Republicans would have made it so.

Regardless of why it wasn’t a more prominent issue, some Democrats — especially the veterans running for president — are now calling President Trump out.

Before we get to what they’re saying and whether it’s justified — and whether we should care at all — let’s remind ourselves of how Trump avoided serving. As a college student, he had deferments until he graduated in 1968. Shortly afterward, he obtained a felicitous doctor’s note testifying to his burden of debilitating bone spurs in his heel, though later he could not remember which foot was so afflicted. “I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels,” he said in 2016.

Yet we know that Trump was an enthusiastic athlete as a young man, pursuits that did not seem to be impeded by his supposedly tender heels. And, at the time, obtaining a dubious medical deferment was not at all uncommon for the sons of wealthy men such as Fred Trump. Given that the elder Trump would later engineer a tax scheme defrauding the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars, it isn’t difficult to imagine him believing that the rules didn’t apply to him, and no son of his was going to go halfway around the world to trudge through the jungle and risk getting shot.

So someone else served in Donald Trump’s place, and now Democrats have decided this is worth talking about. First out of the gate was South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a veteran of the Afghanistan war, who has framed this issue not just as one of duty to country but also in terms of disability. Here’s what he said on ABC’s "This Week" on Sunday:

There is no question, I think, to any reasonable observer that the president found a way to falsify a disabled status, taking advantage of his privileged status in order to avoid serving. You have somebody who thinks it’s all right to let somebody go in his place into a deadly war and is willing to pretend to be disabled in order to do it. That is an assault on the honor of this country.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who is also a veteran (Buttigieg served as a naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan; Moulton had substantial combat experience as a Marine in Iraq and was awarded a Bronze Star) has criticized the president in a similar fashion:

I don’t think that lying to get out of serving your country is patriotic. It’s not like there was just some empty seat in Vietnam. Someone had to go in his place. I’d like to meet the American hero who went in Donald Trump’s place to Vietnam. I hope he’s still alive.

So should we care? The simplest answer is that we should because this is about character. But to be honest, I find that justification less than satisfying. First, millions of Americans found ways to avoid serving in Vietnam, because they believed the war was wrong and because they didn’t want to die in a misbegotten disaster. However we view the decision they made as young men, we probably wouldn’t want to exclude all of them from high office or say that it’s proof of a deficient character even now, half a century later.

Perhaps more to the point, by now it’s clear that when it comes to character deficiencies, Trump has so many that this incident tells us nothing we didn’t already know. What’s so disturbing about the president isn’t the thing he did that millions of others also did, but the things he does that make him unique. He is corrupt, dishonest, cruel, petty, vindictive, childish and narcissistic; the man is a walking collection of character flaws without a single identifiable virtue to balance them out. So it’s difficult to get too worked up over the fact that he dodged the draft. Of course he did — if you didn’t know it already, would you have expected anything else?

Finally, though I’m sometimes hesitant to treat Republicans by standards they aren’t willing to live up in their treatment of others, I would argue that even when it comes to Donald Trump, questioning anyone’s patriotism seldom does any of us any good. Elections shouldn’t be a contest of “Who loves America more?”, because it’s a question that doesn’t get anyone closer to a good decision. It’s just a bludgeon, usually used with bad evidence and bad intentions — and it will always be used more against liberals. Far better to argue that it shouldn’t be wielded against anyone, even Donald Trump.

To be clear, I’m not saying no one should criticize Trump for what he did to avoid the draft. If you want to, go right ahead. It’s a story that illustrates his privileged upbringing, the unfair advantages he was granted throughout his life, his dishonesty, and his willingness to take advantage of others for his own ends. But then again, we already knew all that.

"...walking collection of character flaws without a single identifiable virtue to balance them out." Yeah, that describes Dumpy to a T.

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, Dandruff said:

Are we sure this isn't a farce?  No one can possibly be this tacky.

I think he said, "Happy Memorial Day" last year as well, although it may have been David Waller.

And tacky- even though they don't personally know each other, I think Donnie and Jill Rodrigues are in an unofficial contest to out tacky each other.

[countressrascal]

Before everyone call for impeachment remember who will take over-Half Pence the man who wants everyone to be a christian.  So just vote the A$$HOLE out in 2020- so vote and support whoever the Dem put up no third party candidates or protest votes.

[fraurosena]

At first I thought this was from a parody account. But no. It’s actually his own account. 

Gaslighting, much?

[Howl]

9 hours ago, countressrascal said:

Before everyone call for impeachment remember who will take over-Half Pence the man who wants everyone to be a christian.

Pence is a scary guy;  who knows what evil is hiding behind that permanent rictus of adoration.  

[AnywhereButHere]

20 hours ago, Alisamer said:

It didn't really come across that way, in the article. He takes his son and visits her in Mexico as often as they can, and after seeing how poor her hometown was, he moved her to a much nicer place in Mexico. I think it's more a case of "exception". My dad is getting much much better all the time, but he used to be like that too - he'd say something prejudiced about Mexicans, but then say something like "Except the ones that work where I work, they're all real nice guys and hard workers." Or he'd repeat some racist stereotype about black people, but follow it with "but so and so I worked with, and the family at church, they're good people, not like the others."

...

I had an aunt like this. I called her "The Queen of the Except Fors". It never got through her head that she'd never actually met anyone who fulfilled the negative stereotypes.

And in other news - apparently the guy from the crackpot Go Fund Me has started trying to build his wall. Illegally, without building permits, without adhering to zoning laws. So, so American of them. Very law abiding and patriotic.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-mexico-mayor-orders-group-building-border-wall-to-stop-construction/ar-AAC4vkm?ocid=ientp

Spoiler

The mayor of Sunland Park, New Mexico, has issued a cease-and-desist order to a private group that raised millions to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The wall is being constructed by We Build The Wall, a private organization which began a GoFundMe fundraiser in December 2018 when President Donald Trump faced opposition from Congress in receiving a proposed $5 billion to construct the barrier.

To date, the group has raised over $22 million of a $1 billion goal, something which the group's leader, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, said has been established only because that is the highest monetary allotment that GoFundMe allows for a fundraiser.

The cease-and-desist order was issued on Tuesday after it was determined that the group did not have the proper permits for construction, city spokesperson Peter Ibardo told The Texas Tribune.

“The city has not provided any permits, it has not approved of the construction that has gone up already. They built the structure without authority or any building permits from the city," Ibardo said.

Speaking to KTMS, Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea added that the wall is also in violation of city ordinances that regulate how tall a structure can be. Perea said that the application for construction were never returned to the city by American Eagle Brick.

The company owns the land where the wall was partially constructed over the Memorial Day weekend, the Tribune said.

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who sits on the advisory board for We Build The wall, told the Tribune that the land owner obtained the proper permits needed for construction and that inspectors were present at the build site prior to the start of the build.

© We Build The Wall Facebook

However, Ibardo disputed the statement, telling the newspaper that while an application form was filed, it was incomplete and no permit was issued for construction. Inspectors who attempted to visit the site last week were not allowed to do so, he added.

Kobach told the Tribune that construction for the half-mile length of wall a few miles from El Paso, Texas, cost between $6 and $8 million. The section of wall marks the first construction project from the group which previously faced controversy as donors questioned if the promised project would ever materialize after months passed with no updates on the progress of the wall.

"There is no update because we are remaining silent for a very good reason. You all will have the best present very soon. Remember powerful people want to stop our progress, so to not tip anyone off we are radio silent!," Kolfage wrote on his Facebook page in response to the questions from donors. "The (American Civil Liberties Union) would file a lawsuit to impede our wall success if they knew where and when. But when I guaranteed we'd build the wall I meant it, and we are working with many congressman and senators to help us mitigate these issues from the left-wing attack groups. We are in the homestretch and it's on a need to know basis."

Kolfage said in another Facebook post on Monday that the group is currently working on plans for a second wall, though he did not give a location or a time period when donors could expect to see construction begin.

Speaking to KTMS, Kobach said that the organization plans to turn the wall over to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol once construction is complete.

"They can use it how they see fit," Kobach said, adding that the wall is equipped with lights and underground sensors.

It is unclear if construction has halted on the wall, KTMS reported that contractors expected to complete installation of the

 

 

[smittykins]

On 5/28/2019 at 1:21 PM, Dandruff said:

Are we sure this isn't a farce?  No one can possibly be this tacky.

[Tweety voice]You don’t know him vewy well, do you?[/Tweety voice]

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good op-ed: "Trump has a new VP in mind"

Spoiler

As the 2020 election gears up, it seems apparent that Mike Pence’s days as vice president are numbered. Trump’s preference is obvious: Kim Jong Un.

The vice-presidential candidate often plays the attack dog in a campaign — hurling invectives, slinging mud and taking the heat for expressing the id of the candidate, who can remain more statesmanlike. Not that Trump has ever shied from exercising his terrible tongue, but this go-round, as it increasingly appears that former vice president Joe Biden could whup him in the general election, Trump has resorted to quoting other reckless idiots.

In Kim, the erstwhile “Little Rocket Man,” Trump has found a loyal pup to yip for him. Recently, when North Korea’s state media referred to Biden as a “fool of low IQ,” Trump first gave cover to his pet, dismissing Pyongyang’s recent missile tests, then expressed his appreciation for Kim’s loyalty and his legendary wit:

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” he tweeted. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse.”

He added: “Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”

To the question, yes. He’s probably signaling something along the lines of I’ll cover yours if you’ll cover mine.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I reckon, from which we may infer that Trump is running scared. But, gee, “small weapons”?

Not only did John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, cite the missile tests as contra U.N. resolutions, but so did Trump’s host in Japan over the Memorial Day weekend. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that because of his country’s proximity to North Korea, Japan feels threatened.

While the president of the United States shrugs and says the “small weapons” don’t bother him personally, older Americans back home may have recalled how threatened they felt in 1962, when Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida. Then-President John F. Kennedy deployed a naval blockade to prevent Russian ships from bringing any more military supplies to the island and ultimately forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to remove the missiles already there.

Funny, but Kennedy never mentioned his artfulness, even though the 13-day negotiation between the two countries was a great, big deal. A nuclear confrontation was avoided — and the world exhaled.

Trump’s cavalier attitude toward Kim and his suggestion that the dictator was simply seeking attention were most certainly the president’s attempt to scratch his loyal hound behind his well-exposed ears, thus keeping channels open for his own fantasy nuclear deal, not to mention future North Korean appraisals of his opponents.

But why would Kim chuck his nuclear arsenal, sacrificing his only leverage for relevance in exchange for the removal of a few sanctions? So what if his people are starving? Kim has suffered no more distress over the misery of his people than he did over the execution of his uncle, per his command.

How reassuring that the president of the United States finds solace in Kim’s company, wisdom in his commentary and faith in his promises.

Trump’s reelection strategy, meanwhile, is abundantly clear and annoyingly consistent. He seeks to “shock the conscience,” as Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg so aptly put it. With a simple branding label — “Sleepy Joe Biden” — Trump essentially choreographs a 24-hour news cycle of condemnation. But the damage has been done. The brand sticks, he gets airtime, and precious few notice that he’s furthering his alliances with dictators for personal gain.

Whatever he seems to be doing — talking trade with Abe, trading compliments with Kim — Trump finds a way to fold in campaign messages. In Japan, standing at a lectern alongside the prime minister, he rebuked fellow American Biden and praised a dictator. To reporters’ questions, he said: “Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.”

On a positive note, some in the Washington press corps are wearying of Trump’s game and may begin denying him the attention that he, like Kim, so dearly covets. It would be a challenge to ignore his taunts. Say what you will, but the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamlined Trump makes good copy. He knows it and counts on media folk to salivate with Pavlovian predictability.

But, his jig is by now well understood — and, one hopes, nearly up.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Why the presidunce shouldn't spend so much time in an un-securable place. "‘I wanted to see how far I could get’: Teen sneaked past Secret Service into Mar-a-Lago while Trump was there, court documents say"

Spoiler

To get inside Mar-a-Lago, where President Trump was staying last Thanksgiving, 18-year-old Mark Lindblom walked along the beach until he reached an underground tunnel, leading straight to the luxury club.

The narrow corridor dipped beneath South Ocean Boulevard, a shortcut so Mar-a-Lago Club members didn’t have to cross the street on their way to and from the beach. There was a sign posted right outside the tunnel, warning, “UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE RESTRICTED AREA,” according to federal court documents. But Lindblom, who was not a member of the club, was undeterred.

“I wanted to see how far I could get,” the college freshman told a federal magistrate on Tuesday, the Palm Beach Post reported.

As it turns out, he got pretty far: past Secret Service and all the way inside.

For sneaking onto the property, Lindblom pleaded guilty Tuesday to entering or remaining in a restricted building where the president was visiting during the Thanksgiving holiday. Lindblom, reportedly a business student at the University of Wisconsin, was sentenced to a year of probation and $25 fine after prosecutors acknowledged he had no ill intent, that he only intended to take pictures on his cellphone.

“We have no reason to believe he had a political, criminal or terroristic purpose,” assistant U.S. attorney John McMillan told the court, according to the Palm Beach Post. “It was a foolish decision he did on a lark.”

The security breach is the latest incident at Trump’s private “Winter White House” in recent months, provoking concerns that inadequate security measures at the club could leave it vulnerable to more serious threats.

In Lindblom’s case, his defense attorney, Marcos Beaton Jr., told the court his client had an easy time getting through at least the first layer of Secret Service agents, as the Palm Beach Post reported. The Washington native was spending the holiday with family at nearby beachfront property, though his family also were not members of Mar-a-Lago.

Upon entering the tunnel on Nov. 23, Lindblom squeezed in line with the other club members awaiting a security check by the Secret Service. Once he reached the checkpoint, he surpassed a screening for weapons or other dangerous items, the Secret Service said in a statement to The Washington Post. Then, he simply “walked on through,” Beaton said — lingering on the grounds for 20 minutes before the Secret Service found him near the club pool, the Palm Beach Post reported.

The Secret Service said in its statement that Lindblom did not come into contact with the president or first lady “because of the layered security system in place at the club.” He was arrested after appearing out of place among other club members, the Secret Service said.

“[H]is actions appeared inconsistent with that of a member or a guest,” the service said. “At that time, Secret Service personnel approached him and he was detained without further incident.”

Security concerns at Mar-a-Lago accelerated last month, when a Chinese national carrying a thumb drive containing malicious software was arrested after gaining access to Mar-a-Lago despite not being a member. The woman, Yujing Zhang, approached the first security checkpoint and told officials she was there to go swimming, according to the criminal complaint. She raised some concern when asked if she was a relative of another “Zhang” on the member list — but the security official thought her hesitation was because of a language barrier and decided to let her through.

She was not stopped until a receptionist grew suspicious, asking why Zhang was there. Zhang claimed she was there for an event that did not exist, and the receptionist promptly called Secret Service. A search of her belongings turned up no swimsuit, but rather four cellphones, a laptop, a hard drive and a thumb drive containing “malicious software,” plus other suspicious electronics in her hotel room.

The Secret Service said in a statement at the time that the agency “does not determine who is invited or welcome at Mar-a-Lago; this is the responsibility of the host entity,” referring to Mar-a-Lago management.

Zhang’s arrest on charges of lying to Secret Service agents and entering a restricted building alarmed Democratic congressional leadership, who promptly asked FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to launch a review of Mar-a-Lago’s security. As their April letter noted, the president sometimes handles classified information while staying at the club, and sometimes invites heads of state to meet there. In February 2017, for example, Trump was blasted by Democrats after reviewing national security matters with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a dinner table on the Mar-a-Lago terrace in full view of casual diners.

"These potential vulnerabilities have serious national security implications,” Democratic leadership wrote to Wray in April.

It was the second letter in as many weeks that Democrats wrote to Wray requesting an investigation connected to Mar-a-Lago. In March, a frequent club guest and Republican donor, Li “Cindy” Yang, was accused of selling access to Trump to Chinese nationals who attended events where Trump was present. The FBI has since opened a public corruption investigation into Yang, examining whether she illegally funneled money from Chinese nationals into the president’s reelection campaign, the Miami Herald reported. Yang has denied any wrongdoing, and her attorneys say she has no personal connection to the president.

On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Matthewman said it appeared “pretty clear” to him that Lindblom’s offense was rather a “youthful indiscretion more out of misplaced curiosity," the Palm Beach Post reported from the courtroom.

A remorseful Lindblom said he understood the seriousness of his offense given the high-stakes nature of the Secret Service agents’ jobs. “I’m sorry for wasting their time,” he said.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by GreyhoundFan

[47of74]

Jesus Fucking Christ what a fucking infant.

Now you'll excuse me while I go cram a half dozen c notes in the fucking swear jar.

[Dandruff]

12 hours ago, Howl said:

Pence is a scary guy;  who knows what evil is hiding behind that permanent rictus of adoration.  

I think he's a man who knows he's damned.  I don't doubt there's evil, but I'd still (temporarily) take him over the Dumpster.  By the time the dust settled over whatever circumstances got him in, it would likely be close to election time, and I suspect he wouldn't have much of a chance.

[apple1]

11 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Jesus Fucking Christ what a fucking infant.

Now you'll excuse me while I go cram a half dozen c notes in the fucking swear jar.

OMG I feel like I should join you. The level of my anger about this is - well -- the whole thing falls into, "You can't make this up."

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm guessing he's fixated because his own IQ is lower than the average room temperature: "Trump fixates on IQ as a measure of self-worth"

Spoiler

It was January 2004 and Donald Trump was on the “Today Show” to promote a new reality TV series called “The Apprentice.”

Almost immediately after the interview began, Trump started bragging about the unparalleled intellect of the contestants who would compete for a job at one of his companies.

“These are 16 brilliant people. I mean, they have close to 200 IQs, all of them,” he told Matt Lauer. “And some may be beautiful and some may not be beautiful. But everybody has an incredible brain.”

It wasn’t the first time Trump fixated on IQ as a measure of a person’s worth — or, as is frequently the case, worthlessness. And it wouldn’t be the last. Fifteen years later, Trump, now the president of the United States, still uses IQ as a shorthand for intelligence, dividing the people in his orbit into winners and losers.

In private, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to him, Trump frequently asserts that people he likes have genius-level IQs. At various points during his presidency, he’s told aides that Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and Apple CEO Tim Cook are high-IQ individuals, for example, former White House officials said. Trump has also dubbed himself a “very stable genius” on multiple occasions.

And the president is quick to accuse his political enemies of having low IQs, as he did when he repeated North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s criticism of former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his leading Democratic challengers.

“I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil. Kim Jong Un called him a ‘low IQ idiot,’ and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer ‘low IQ individual,’” Trump said Tuesday after the Biden campaign criticized him for tweeting during his trip to Japan that he smiled when Kim insulted Biden’s intelligence.

While the exact reason for Trump’s IQ obsession is difficult to nail down, people who know him suspect it stems in part from his desire to project an image of success and competence, despite scattered business failings and repeated allegations from critics that he’s incompetent. Trump is also known for being thin-skinned. He often fires back at anyone who criticizes him with a barrage of insults, while simultaneously building himself up.

“I don’t think you have to put him on the couch to see that someone who has such a consistent need to build himself up and belittle everyone else must have some problems with self-esteem,” said Trump biographer Gwenda Blair, who wrote a book about the Trump family. “It’s a lifelong theme for him.”

“Part of it comes from his insecurities about not being perceived as intelligent,” a former White House official added.

In recent years, Trump has accused Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), actor Robert De Niro, Washington Post staffers, former President George W. Bush, comedian Jon Stewart, Republican strategist Rick Wilson, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, and Rick Perry, now his energy secretary, of having low IQs.

He once suggested he’d like to compare his IQ to that of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, adding, “And I can tell you who is going to win.” He privately mocked former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ intelligence, according to a former White House official. All the while, Trump has claimed his Cabinet has the highest IQ of any assembled in history.

“Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault,” Trump tweeted in 2013.

Just last week, the president again referred to himself as an “extremely stable genius,” and he has spent years insisting has a high IQ score, though he has never revealed the exact number. When a Twitter critic challenged him in 2013 to prove his high IQ, Trump responded simply, “The highest, asshole!”

Democrats are increasingly fed up with Trump's name calling, encouraging journalists to ignore it altogether and arguing it's a sign that the president isn't serious about policy or governing.

Trump has been obsessing over IQ and pedigree for decades, long before he moved to the White House. Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization official, recalled that Trump used to brag about one of his executives graduating from Yale Law School at the top of the class, even though Yale Law doesn’t rank its students. Trump later made the same false assertion about Brett Kavanaugh.

“He always used to say that he had a very high IQ,” Res added, recalling her decade-plus working alongside him.

Trump’s black-and-white view of intelligence was formed long before psychologists embraced a more nuanced definition of the term. In 1983, for example, developmental psychologist Howard Gardner put forward his theory of multiple intelligences, which stressed that people learn in many different ways and suggested IQ tests were too narrow.

“Measuring someone’s intelligence is not simply a matter of taking one test with a sharpened No. 2 pencil. Donald Trump came of age before that whole notion, for sure,” Blair said. “He’s still thinking in terms of that No. 2 pencil.”

Recently, however, IQ measurement has found increasing resonance among alt-right and white supremacist groups, who have linked IQ and race to argue for limits on immigration from certain ethnic groups.

Trump, who attended the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania, has an affinity for people who graduated from prestigious universities.

He warmed up to his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, once he learned that Porter attended Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, according to two people familiar with the matter. “This guy is so smart,” he’d sometimes tell other staffers of Porter. “He was a Rhodes Scholar!”

He was similarly impressed with the credentials of his two Supreme Court picks: Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. The president has regularly touted their Ivy League educations in conversations with allies, and White House aides believe attending a top-tier law school is one of Trump’s prerequisites for any future nominee to the high court.

Trump has also frequently mentioned his late uncle, a former physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calling him “a great, brilliant genius,” last year.

But Trump himself has long been reluctant to reveal any details about his own schooling. Trump’s longtime fixer Michael Cohen told lawmakers in February that his boss regularly instructed him to pressure the reality TV star’s alma maters with letters warning of jail time if they released Trump's grades.

“I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores,” Cohen told the House Oversight Committee.

The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment, nor did it respond to an inquiry about Trump’s IQ score.

The president’s elitism stands in stark contrast to the central messages of his campaign, which promised to upend establishment Washington and sought to appeal to disaffected white working class voters. But Trump’s advisers say the dichotomy works in his favor, arguing that the president’s business experience and lavish lifestyle is one of the things that makes him appealing to his base.

“He’s a populist in a way, but he’s a populist only in terms of his policies,” said another former White House official. “His personal message has always had a real elitist flavor to it.”

 

[47of74]

Oh goody look who is coming to Iowa next month.

Quote

President Donald Trump will attend a fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa next month.

The state party confirmed to the Des Moines Register that Trump will attend the private event June 11 in West Des Moines.

Aaron Britt, a spokesman for the party, said Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Joni Ernst, Sen. Chuck Grassley and U.S. Rep. Steve King will be invited, along with all of Iowa's statewide and legislative elected Republican officials. 

I wonder if the Iowa GOP got a permit for the book and/or cross burning that'll take place?

We here in eastern Iowa will be able to smell the shit from here.

If I owned a building near where this bund meeting would take place I would totally rename it the John McCain Memorial Building just to mess with fuck head.

[fraurosena]

I guess somebody is afraid. Very afraid. Also rather stupid. The word has everything to do with him. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of course he did: "Trump attacks Mueller, says he would have brought charges if he had evidence of a crime"

Spoiler

President Trump on Thursday attacked Robert S. Mueller III as “totally conflicted” and “a true never-Trumper” and claimed that the special counsel would have brought charges against him if he had any evidence — a characterization directly at odds with what Mueller said in a public statement Wednesday.

Trump’s attacks came in morning tweets and later while speaking to reporters at the White House. In one of his tweets, he also seemingly acknowledged for the first time that Russia had helped him get elected in 2016 — but he strongly pushed back against that notion while talking to reporters as he prepared to leave Washington.

Mueller ended his role as special counsel on Wednesday and said his office could not consider whether to charge Trump with a crime because of a long-standing Justice Department opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Mueller repeated a line in his report explaining that his team would have exonerated Trump if it could have.

Mueller’s public remarks were his first since concluding a nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe.

“Robert Mueller should have never been chosen,” Trump said of the special counsel, who was appointed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Republican Trump appointee.

Trump told reporters that he considered Mueller “totally conflicted” because he had discussions about the position of FBI director early in the Trump administration and is friendly with former FBI director James B. Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017.

“He loves Comey,” Trump claimed. “Whether it’s love or a deep like, he was conflicted.”

Associates of the two men have said they had a close professional relationship but did not socialize.

Trump also cited a “business dispute” with Mueller on which he did not elaborate. In the past, White House aides have pointed to an alleged dispute over membership fees at Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia.

Trump caused a kerfuffle earlier in the morning after seeming to acknowledge for the first time that Russia had helped him in 2016.

“Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist.”

Shortly afterward, however, he told reporters at the White House that Russia had not helped him get elected.

“You know who got me elected? I got me elected,” he said. “Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia, if anything, I think, helped the other side.”

In his report, Mueller said Russian efforts were aimed at hurting Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In his comments to reporters, Trump played down the prospect of impeachment. A growing number of Democrats were advocating that course on Wednesday after Mueller’s appearance.

“It’s a dirty, filthy disgusting word, and it has nothing to do with me,” Trump said. “There was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor.”

Speaking at the Justice Department on Wednesday, Mueller said his team found “insufficient evidence” to accuse Trump’s campaign of conspiring with Russia to tilt the 2016 election but emphasized that investigators did not make a similar determination on whether the president obstructed justice.

Mueller said that if his office “had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” And he noted that the Constitution “requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing” — a reference to impeachment by Congress.

Because of the Justice Department opinion, Mueller said that “charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.”

Hundreds of former federal prosecutors have opined that Mueller laid out sufficient evidence in his report to make an obstruction case against Trump.

In other tweets Thursday morning, sent before departing the White House for Colorado, where he is scheduled to address a U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony, Trump defended his aggressive pushback against Mueller’s probe.

“So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media, say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false accusation, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it,” Trump wrote. “Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment!”

Trump returned to Twitter several hours later and continued opining on the Mueller investigation.

He said the Mueller had come to the Oval Office in 2017 with an interest of returning to his previous job as FBI director.

“I told him NO,” Trump wrote. “The next day he was named Special Counsel - A total Conflict of Interest. NICE!”

Trump later tweeted a graphic showing Mueller walking out of the briefing room at the Justice Department on Wednesday and a much large image of himself waving. “CASE CLOSED,” the graphic read.

In tweets late Wednesday and early Thursday, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, also took aim at Mueller.

Giuliani said Mueller’s public statement “was halting and stumbling which demonstrated why he doesn’t want to testify” to Congress about his report.

“But still the same conclusion: no case,” Giuliani wrote. “Mueller proved he was as biased as his staff.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This made me laugh:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wonder if Dumpy will pitch a fit or will he say he didn't want to meet her anyway:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

As much as I desperately want the tangerine toddler impeached (and imprisoned), I read this op-ed with interest. The author makes some great points: "Trump is counting on impeachment"

Spoiler

No matter how bleak things may look for President Trump (and right now, with record-low unemployment and a base of supporters who would drink battery acid if he asked them to, things don’t look all that bleak), he will always have an ace up his sleeve.

The Democrats.

With the next election now in full swing, it appears more than possible — likely, even — that the party is going to wage an internal war over whether to spend precious months on impeachment proceedings.

Proponents of impeachment come from three blocs: progressive pundits who have no idea what it takes to win office; occupants of safe seats in gerrymandered Democratic districts; and the Justin Amash wing of the Republican Party, population: one.

They make a very reasonable moral argument that people who transgress the law should be held accountable. However, Congress is not a seminar in moral philosophy, nor has Donald Trump ever shown any interest in the subject. Congress is a political institution, and the political argument in favor of impeachment boils down to a scene from the classic film “Animal House.”

“This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part,” says the suave and cynical Otter. To which earnest Bluto replies: “And we’re just the guys to do it!”

Morality is much too important to be left to the righteous. They have a tendency to turn it into crusades, jihads, purges and cults. Instead, society’s moral tenor is best maintained by pragmatists who know enough not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

In this case, the perfect outcome for Democrats would be the chastisement of Trump, the cleansing of the White House and the humiliation of complicit Republicans. The good outcome: winning in 2020. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her team are the pragmatists struggling to avoid a fatal collision.

Having heeded Robert S. Mueller III’s advice to read the special counsel’s report (or to have key staff members read it), Pelosi and company understand all of its parts. In Volume I, investigators documented efforts by the Russian government, including computer hacking by the Russian military, intended to undermine the United States by exacerbating internal conflict. However, the investigation did not find that Trump’s campaign conspired with this effort.

In Volume II, the Mueller team traced a series of largely unsuccessful attempts by Trump to undermine and even obstruct the investigation. Because Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be charged with a federal crime, the team never decided whether these attempts added up to a crime.

Thus the question is whether to impeach Trump for trying (but mostly failing) to interfere with an investigation of a non-conspiracy. What’s the high crime here? Buffoonery?

Pelosi is making the political judgment that this is not a winner for her party. Say what you wish about Nancy Pelosi. She is the daughter of a successful machine politician. She learned vote counting at her daddy’s knee. As an adult, she engineered her own machine in an entirely different city on the other side of the continent. She scrapped her way upward and for more than 15 years has reigned as the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history.

She knows a thing or two about politics.

Meanwhile, who is goading the Democrats to impeach with every trick and prod in his arsenal of provocation? Donald Trump. His outrageous tweets and flamboyant defiance of Congress are designed to turn the next six months into all-out war in which Democrats hound him into the U.S. Senate to stand trial—and he prevails. (It’s nuts to think that Democrats could not only rally all of their 47 senators to convict but also pick up the 20 Republicans needed to reach the required two-thirds.)

Claiming exoneration, he can go to the voters as an unbowed victim of, to borrow from one formerly impeached president, the politics of personal destruction.

This is Trump’s best option. He’s heading into his reelection campaign minus the trade deal with China that he promised; minus the big infrastructure program that he promised; minus the Mideast peace that he promised; minus the big, beautiful wall that he promised; minus the money from Mexico that he promised; minus the good, clean government that he promised; minus the balanced budget that he promised; minus the revived coal industry that he promised.

To win, he needs a villain to blame for these unfulfilled promises and he is casting impeachment-mad Democrats for the role. Surely, by now, even his most righteous opponents can see that Trump is a master of this game.

In listening to Mueller’s sober, straightforward statement reviewing his actions and his report, the pro-impeachment crowd took heart from his allusion to constitutional means for holding the president accountable. But are they forgetting the most obvious one?

You know: winning a majority of the electoral votes.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The comparison with Stalin is valid: "What the attempt to hide the USS John S. McCain shows about Trump — and his staff"

Spoiler

On Wednesday night, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that White House staff asked Navy officials to keep a ship bearing the name of the late senator John McCain out of the president’s sight lines during his recent visit to Japan.

While the USS John S. McCain could not be moved, shortly before the visit the ship’s name was covered by a tarp. That was quickly removed. Then a work barge was placed in a position that all but hid the name. That too was quickly moved. Then, according to The Post, senior naval leadership put a stop to the maneuvers. By the time the president would have been in a position to see the ship, the configuration was back to normal. But sailors assigned to the ship — unlike others assigned to other nearby American naval vessels were not invited to hear Trump’s Memorial Day speech on the USS Wasp.

Trump quickly stepped forward on Twitter to deny on knowledge of these events and there is no reason to doubt him. But it’s also worth noting he later characterized the staffer responsible as “well-meaning.” The destroyer was originally named for McCain’s father and grandfather, both Navy admirals; the senator’s name was added shortly before his death in 2018.

The fact that people working for our president went out of their way to try to make sure that Trump saw no reminders of McCain while on his visit to Japan is more than the usual outrage of the day. It’s not a distraction from the results of Mueller report, which all but stated the president of the United States sought to obstruct justice, and the White House’s ongoing defying of congressional subpoenas. Instead, it’s all of a piece — and shows what a dangerous spot our nation is in.

Trump is a notoriously thin-skinned man, quick to dish out insults, but unable to take anything resembling normal give and take, whether in politics or life. He shows no grace, humility or growth as a human being, never mind a politician. Trump bashes his enemies — either real or perceived — with a third-grader’s wit, coming up with nasty nicknames or other insults for those who he believes are against him. But he can’t abide even the slightest criticism, no matter how light. And when nasty names don’t work, Trump issues threats, urging Americans to consider boycotting everything from CNN (for being “unfair”) to motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson (for contemplating moving manufacturing operations out of the country). He’s demanded investigations of Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James B. Comey.

Trump’s feud with McCain perfectly captured the former’s thin skin. The man who skipped the draft to Vietnam courtesy of “bone spurs” in his foot that mysteriously disappeared routinely raged against the man who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war and was left permanently disabled as a result. McCain’s famous thumbs down on repealing the Affordable Care Act did add to Trump’s rage against him, but it’s no coincidence that the president hated a living, breathing rebuke to his faux patriotism. McCain, agree or disagree with his politics, served his country and did a heroic thing when called to do so. Trump, on the other hand, appears less than concerned he might well be in the White House thanks to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

As for the appearing, disappearing and reappearing USS John S. McCain, the entire episode contains more than a whiff of a reminder of how censors in the Soviet Union made formerly prominent figures who’d fallen out of favor with Joseph Stalin disappear in official photos. If a former high-ranking Communist Party official was executed, assassinated, sent to the gulag or otherwise exiled from government, their literal likeness often also vanished from official photographs. It happened to well-known political rivals such as Leon Trotsky, and as well as to the faces of those only factotums connected to the Kremlin would likely recognize. It was a form of rewriting history by erasing it from existence.

Trump, it is obvious, would like to do the same. He repeatedly exaggerated the size of the crowds at his inauguration, and just last week retweeted a Fox Business montage of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi having trouble speaking. He repeatedly lies about matters large and small, all but willing a not unsubstantial number of Americans to believe his own personal version of reality, which can often best be described with the phrase he so often likes to use — fake news. At the same time, he governs the White House in a stream of invective and chaos, subjecting people who fall out of favor to public humiliation.

No doubt the White House staffer who asked that the USS John S. McCain get temporarily vanished thought it was a good idea. This person no doubt didn’t want to risk a presidential temper tantrum, or Trump saying something vile and inappropriate about McCain on — of all days — Memorial Day. But democracies can’t survive when good governance is downgraded in favor of attempts to satisfy the moods and whims of a small, petty and greedy man at the top. But Trump, it seems, is just fine with that.

 

[fraurosena]

Because he desperately needs a win and he has no fucking idea how economy works:

 

[Howl]

On 5/29/2019 at 7:35 PM, 47of74 said:

Jesus Fucking Christ what a fucking infant.

Now you'll excuse me while I go cram a half dozen c notes in the fucking swear jar.

This is already dropping from the 24-hour news cycle in favor of the Next Big Thing, but behind the scenes there is likely some major shit still hitting the fan.  In the military, this is the kind of thing that can "torpedo" a career.  It was initiated by WH staff...no repercussions there.  Shanahan claims he knows nothing and the Navy did a little damage control by saying the blue tarp covering the name of the ship was just some momentary, incidental thing, nothing to see here move along. 

My larger concern was active duty personnel wearing little MAGA patches on their uniforms and that, apparently, is being tolerated. 

That such a breach of discipline is tolerated, or worse, encouraged, is just shocking.  Because I follow Sarah Kendzior and her writing on authoritarianism and especially the creeping authoritarianism in the Trump admin, these kinds of things make me very, very nervous.  

Edited May 31, 2019 by Howl

[apple1]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

This is already dropping from the 24-hour news cycle in favor of the Next Big Thing, but behind the scenes there is likely some major shit still hitting the fan.  In the military, this is the kind of thing that can "torpedo" a career.  It was initiated by WH staff...no repercussions there.  Shanahan claims he knows nothing and the Navy did a little damage control by saying the blue tarp covering the name of the ship was just some momentary, incidental thing, nothing to see here move along. 

My larger concern was active duty personnel wearing little MAGA patches on their uniforms and that, apparently, is being tolerated. 

That such a breach of discipline is tolerated, or worse, encouraged, is just shocking.  Because I follow Sarah Kendzior and her writing on authoritarianism and especially the creeping authoritarianism in the Trump admin, these kinds of things make me very, very nervous.  

I am still VERY ANGRY about the whole issue of obscuring the ship name of the John McCain. Besides the tarp that was then removed, next there was a paint barge that just "happened" to get parked in front of the ship name. Then there was the fact that sailors assigned to the McCain were given leave so nobody saw them with caps bearing the ship name -- and as much as I cannot imagine anyone choosing to go listen to you-know-who, they were not permitted on the Wasp (as were sailors from other ships) for the POTUS "speech".

My brother served 24 years in the US Navy. Part of it was on the McCain. He says that the McCain was the best ship (out of several) that he served on.

This fiasco has been incredibly disrespectful to the McCain and its crew. Still angry.