Trump 42: Racist In Chief

[Dandruff]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Riiiiiiight...

 

I'm the bestest and I have the mostest?

[fraurosena]

He is not kidding. He is very, very serious about this. He believes that if he keeps repeating this, it will happen. And, honestly, if he is not overwhelmingly voted out next year, it will. He’s been wiping his ass with the constitution ever since he took office, so why not go one step further and install himself for life?

 

[fraurosena]

And this is the base everybody is afraid of. Elephant, meet mouse...

 

[Jana814]

I’m not surprised at all that he wants to change the law & try to run for a 3rd term. 

[AmericanRose]

I imagine by his 70th-something year, he figures he's unstoppable. And why not? The law has never come at him before.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump accidentally tweeted an insult at a pastor. Here’s how the pastor responded."

Spoiler

The Rev. Jonathan Carl glanced at Twitter and laughed out loud in disbelief.

The president of the United States had just tweeted at him, a Baptist pastor in Kentucky who up until now hadn’t had any reason to be the subject of national attention. And President Trump was, online, in public, out of the blue, insulting him.

The president had mixed up Jonathan Carl, the Kentucky minister with fewer than 375 Twitter followers, with Jonathan Karl, the ABC News reporter whose journalism had ruffled the feathers of the commander in chief.

Carl’s laughter soon turned into concern. Trump had called Carl a “lightweight reporter.” And some of Trump’s ardent fans weren’t happy with Jonathan Carl — not realizing that he wasn’t Jonathan Karl.

The “drive-by tweet” brought on “intense vitriol and hatred,” Carl said. He was suddenly experiencing what many of Trump’s intended Twitter targets go through almost daily: a barrage of infuriated tweets from Trump’s followers.

The pastor stopped laughing. And on Monday, a week after his evening as a sudden Twitter target, he published an open letter to Trump.

“Although I was an accidental casualty caught in the cross-fire of your ‘lightweight’ tweet, your attack was very purposeful and hurtful. Many others, whether American citizens or global citizens, feel wounded and hurt by the shrapnel and side-effects of your ongoing Twitter attacks,” Carl wrote in his letter.

He hurled the same insult back at Trump that Trump had mistakenly leveled at him — but then turned it into a theological point. “Let’s be honest, you are a lightweight too,” Carl wrote. “We all are. God is the only heavyweight who knows it all and gets it right all the time.”

He pleaded with the president: “Please don’t make the Twitter-universe such a dark and depressing place. It shouldn’t be a place to argue, fight, or jockey for position. We can disagree and debate without childish name-calling. You can make Twitter a better place.”

Carl, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post, is the lead pastor at South Fork Baptist Church in Hodgenville, Ky. According to an online biography, he is an Iraq War veteran, holds a PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is raising three daughters with his wife.

His church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, and one of its most Republican-leaning. Sixty-four percent of Southern Baptists described themselves as “conservative” to Pew Research Center, and 9 percent described themselves as “liberal.” Last year, Vice President Pence showed up as a surprise guest at the denomination’s annual convention, where he thanked more than 9,000 attendees from churches “to the Southern Baptist Convention for the essential and irreplaceable role you play in America.”

But Carl didn’t mince words for the president. “Your heart must be in a dangerous place to have such a consistent flow of defamation and disrespect towards so many,” he said.

He interspersed his own comments throughout the letter with quotes from Abraham Lincoln, a president who never got to use Twitter but still came up with plenty of bon mots. Carl said that he passes Lincoln’s birthplace, which is now a National Park Service site, in his church’s town of Hodgenville, almost every day on his commute.

Perhaps Lincoln would not have been overly fond of Twitter, based on one 1861 quotation that Carl selected from the great emancipator: “I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”

 

[AnywhereButHere]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/politics/john-bolton-national-security-adviser-trump.html

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Trump fired John R. Bolton, his third national security adviser, on Tuesday amid fundamental disagreements over how to handle major foreign policy challenges like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump announced the decision on Twitter. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

His departure comes as Mr. Trump is pursuing diplomatic openings with two of the United States’ most intractable enemies, efforts that have troubled hard-liners in the administration, like Mr. Bolton, who view North Korea and Iran as profoundly untrustworthy.

The president has continued to court Kim Jong-un, the repressive leader of North Korea, despite Mr. Kim’s refusal to surrender his nuclear program and despite repeated short-range missile tests by the North that have rattled its neighbors. In recent days, Mr. Trump has expressed a willingness to meet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran under the right circumstances, and even to extend short-term financing to Tehran, although the offer has so far been rebuffed.

And another one bites the dust. I can't imagine who (if anyone) he has in mind to replace Bolton. Bolton was already a hard line crazy pants, but at least he's predictable in his crazy.  So god only knows what fresh hell we're about to descend into. Again...

Edited September 10, 2019 by AnywhereButHere

[Curious]

14 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

And another one bites the dust.

This is literally exactly what I was just coming to post about Bolton.

[AmazonGrace]

I totally get it, he has no use for intelligence in general

[JMarie]

4 hours ago, Jana814 said:

I’m not surprised at all that he wants to change the law & try to run for a 3rd term. 

Or get an additional two years, to make up for the two years of awful investigation Trump has had to endure ?

[AmazonGrace]

What would you need it for when you can  president without any

[Alisamer]

Quote

President Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources, including overseas spies who provide the US government with crucial information about hostile countries...

Unintelligent man objects to intelligence, doesn't understand a word can mean multiple things. News at 11.

I suspect if they played the Mission Impossible theme song and were all "wink, nudge, hush-hush" about their briefings with the Trumpster fire, making him feel included and "in the know", he would have little objection. I also suspect calling it "intelligence" reminds him that he doesn't have much of that at all, and is a sore spot for him. Call it "espionage" or "top secret information for your eyes only" and have Daniel Craig deliver it dramatically 007 style, and suddenly the CIA will be Trump's favorite part of government. 

Trump would almost certainly rather play the part of president in a movie than actually BE president, and I'd bet he's peeved that it's not all secret war rooms, rushing here and there on Air Force One to exotic locales, and having secrets slipped to him by suave spies. I'm sure he came into office expecting James Bond to rush in to warn him about that sultry redhead with the Russian accent trying to seduce him, and instead got a briefing book full of more words than he'd read at one go since high school, including lots of big words that made him feel dumb. He wanted glamour and prestige (beyond his own gaudy gold-plated attempts at it), and got an old creaky house and a bunch of paperwork. He wanted to be even more famous than before, and ended up actually having to WORK for a change. He wanted adulation, and got increased scrutiny and criticism. 

Unfortunately we're not living in a movie. I'm not sure what happened to throw our world into this craziness, but I want to switch universes at this point. 

Maybe Trump will be referred to in history books as the "no intelligence" president. Combining his opposition to covert intelligence with his base's disdain for higher education, with a dash of his own lack of intellect thrown in. 

[AmazonGrace]

That and he's afraid that spies reveal that he's an asset of hostile powers.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good op-ed from Dana Milbank: "Trump’s Taliban plans leave us wondering: What else is unbeknownst to us?"

Spoiler

There are many things to fear about the Trump presidency. Scariest of all may be those things we don’t even know we have to worry about — such as President Trump preparing to surrender to the Taliban at Camp David on the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Few could have dreamed that such an outrage to American pride was even possible before seeing Trump’s Saturday tweet. “Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight,” he wrote, but because of recent violence, “I immediately canceled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.”

While it’s a relief to learn that Trump isn’t planning to insult the 9/11 victims on the anniversary of their deaths, it raises the question: What else could he be planning?

“Unbeknownst to almost everyone, I was going to award the presidential medal of freedom posthumously to Jeffrey Epstein on Sunday, but I immediately canceled the ceremony.”

“Unbeknownst to almost everyone, I was going to name Kanye West as White House spokesman and Alex Jones as head of the National Weather Service on Sunday, but I immediately called off the announcement.”

“Unbeknownst to almost everyone, I was going to attack Denmark and annex Greenland on Sunday, but I immediately canceled the invasion and called off the bombers.”

Trump seems to enjoy the theatrics of canceling things he had (supposedly) planned to do. He canceled a retaliatory attack on Iran after ordering one up. He canceled, then reinstated, a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He stormed into a meeting with Democrats for the sole purpose of canceling it. He canceled his Denmark trip after the prime minister panned his Greenland scheme. He said he canceled the Air Force One contract with Boeing because of high costs (then wound up paying even more). He cancels meetings with reporters as punishment. He’s constantly scheduling and canceling his talks with China. He has canceled dozens of proposed nominations.

But why did he cancel the Taliban sleepover party at Camp David? The stated reason — another Taliban attack in Afghanistan — doesn’t make much sense, because Taliban violence in Afghanistan happens all the time. I suspect it’s because he read a draft of the proposed peace agreement, and it went something like this:

CAMP DAVID, Sept. 11, 2019: Taliban Peace Treaty (Great Deal!)

Section A: Background

The Taliban sheltered and coddled the terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11; has never renounced the attack or its role in it; continues to have an alliance with al-Qaeda; was the main enemy in an 18-year war that killed 2,400 Americans; has killed countless thousands of Afghan civilians, many children, women and the elderly; has targeted schools, hospitals and aid workers in attacks; has closed girls’ schools, denied health care and employment to women and subjected thousands of women to beatings, killings, acid attacks, gang rapes, public lashings and stoning for suspected infidelity or failure to cover themselves from head to toe; has banned television, movies, nonreligious music, non-Islamic holidays; has assassinated government officials, threatened journalists with death and targeted voters and election rallies; has conscripted young boys as suicide bombers, bans polio vaccines and blocks food aid.

Section B: United States Concessions

In recognition of the foregoing, the United States proposes immediately to pull 5,000 and eventually all 14,000 troops out of Afghanistan; to give the fledgling Afghan government, which the Taliban calls a “stooge government,” no say in the matter; and to provide no meaningful deterrent to continued Taliban atrocities and oppression.

Section ? Taliban Concessions

In exchange for U.S. withdrawal under Section B, Taliban leaders agree to ask very nicely if the terrorists they work with might please consider refraining from attacking the United States, if it isn’t too much trouble. The Taliban delegation also agrees as part of this treaty to stay at Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland while refueling on the way home from Camp David.

Section ? Enforcement Mechanism

In the event the Taliban does not fulfill its obligations under Section C, the United States reserves the right to issue a sternly worded (written) statement of protest. But it promises to pull all troops out anyway.

Belatedly, Trump evidently realized that he was surrendering to America’s enemies on U.S. soil, desecrating the memory of the most solemn day in modern U.S. history and insulting those who have fought and died in a worthy cause. Should we be relieved? Or terrified as we await the next cockamamie idea, “unbeknownst” to all, to tumble from his disorganized brain?

 

[AnnaSofia]

Did a Roger Stone Filing Just Reveal a Cellphone Number for President Trump? The filing, which was subsequently pulled off of Pacer, included phone numbers and emails listed for the president and several of his former advisers.

Quote

It also featured the phone numbers and other contact information for a number of prominent figures, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, and several phone numbers for Trump, including one listed as his cell.

But on Monday morning, the entry for the memo was missing from the court docket. Shortly afterward, a new filing was made for the document, but several pages that listed the emails and phone numbers now appear to be listed as “restricted.”

Direct link to the .pdf

[fraurosena]

Both these tweets were posted at exactly the same time. Talk about priorities.

 

[apple1]

I miss having a real president.

[Jana814]

1 minute ago, apple1 said:

I miss having a real president.

So do I. 

[Audrey2]

I know we've talked about this a bit, but I just saw this article and wanted to comment.

Wilbur Ross's latest storm: Reports he threatened to fire officials over Dorian forecast

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wilbur-ross-noaa-threat-census-question-controversy-180752051.html

Quote

According to the report, Ross threatened to fire employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration if they didn’t clean up a contradiction between the actual forecast earlier this month and Trump’s assertion that Alabama was in danger. According to the Times story, Ross called Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, demanding a retraction by the National Weather Service, which is overseen by NOAA. When Jacobs initially resisted, Ross told him that political hires at the organization — including Jacobs — would be fired if the contradiction wasn’t cleared up.

Quote

But whether or not Ross specifically threatened to fire anyone, the White House made its point when NOAA released an unsigned statement Friday contradicting its original forecast, saying in effect that Trump was correct. That development is now under examination by the Commerce Department’s Office of the Inspector General. In a statement Tuesday, Jacobs said, “Weather shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

This is terrifying to me. If Trump (and Ross) can force the NOAA to retroactively change the weather forecast, it's a slippery slope to have the USFS change a fire report, saying there was actually no fire in a liberal state, and no need for federal assistance. (I'm thinking of the fire mess in California last year.) It can cause the USGS to deny the huge Cascadia earthquake that, when it hits, will devastate the Pacific Northwest, thus denying crucial money and resources that will be necessary to clean up. I can see it stretched to, retroactively changing forecasts so that weather issues don't hit liberal states and liberal areas, forcing those devastated areas to deal entirely with the clean-up. Trump is even corrupt enough that I can see "hurricanes" hitting Mar-A-Lago whenever he wants to redecorate, since he can now change the weather.

I may be acting like a conspiracy theorist, but it seems like too many of my really wild predictions have come true.

[fraurosena]

Eh... didn't he just admit two days ago that he had invited the Taliban to Camp David?

 

[fraurosena]

I think they've upped the dosage of whatever he's taking before needing to speak from a teleprompter. The slurring and mispronunciations are worse than they've ever been.

 

[fraurosena]

Poor Barron.

 

[Dandruff]

8 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Eh... didn't he just admit two days ago that he had invited the Taliban to Camp David?

 

1.  If not nuclear power then wtf kind of power is talking about?

2.  Would he say "wherever they are" if he knows where they are?

3.  How much would the Taliban have enjoyed the accommodations at Camp David and how much would it have cost us?

4.  What if he suddenly decides that he's really mad at N. Korea (are the love notes arriving in a timely manner)?

[fraurosena]

Wut.

 

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by fraurosena

[FundamentallyShocked]

On 9/10/2019 at 9:14 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump accidentally tweeted an insult at a pastor. Here’s how the pastor responded."

 

That guy just earned a follow on twitter from me ?