Trump 42: Racist In Chief

[Curious]

4 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

The GOP won't let that happen. They know that despite his cult following, there are still lots of republicans who would like someone else. If there was another good republican candidate running there is a good chance Trump would lose the primary. Can you imagine who Trump would react if he lost the primary? His last months in office would be nothing but a giant temper tantrum. I doubt he would even stay in the White House. 

I do wonder what caused the Mooch to say this. Is something going on that hasn't been made public yet? 

I just caught the very end of the segment, but he was using words like evil and off the rails.  John Berman told him he better turn his phone off today.

[Curious]

21 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I do wonder what caused the Mooch to say this. Is something going on that hasn't been made public yet?

I did a little googling and something happened, I assume on Twitter, over the weekend, but I haven't had a chance to dig further yet.

[Curious]

I just caught another part of the segment when they replayed it and Mooch tweeted some quote over the weekend about "evil" and there was some kind of twitter battle between him and Trump.

Berman asked him if he was saying Trump was a threat to our security and he said if he keeps going in the same direction in the next 3-4 weeks we might need to call in a relief pitcher.

I wish I was paying enough attention to catch the full segment.

[formergothardite]

The rats just seem to be abandoning the ship at a faster rate right now. He has lost the Mooch who seemed to have been willing to do anything for Trump. 

e. 

[Curious]

I'm not too good at twitter so I hope this is the right link

 

This seems to be where the twitter fight started.

this is the thread starting with Trump's response (some good replies here based on my super quick perusal)

 

[formergothardite]

Pence and all those people who keep propping Trump up needs to remember the line "eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you."

[fraurosena]

Scaramucci is still an ass though. He's neutral on Trump. Really? How can you be neutral if you condemn what he does? Makes no sense. And then to say he's dissembling a little bit. Sweet Rufus, the man is an out an out racist, white supremacist, hateful rhetoric spouting lying liar who lies, who constantly gets caught and called out on his racism, white supremacism, hateful rhetoric and lies. And he calls it dissembling a little bit.... that's got to be the understatement of the century.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Scaramucci is still an ass though.

Agreed. On Bill Maher's show, WaPo reporter Catherine Rampell was seated next to him. Several times, she looked at him like he was a jerk. I think I would have had to smack him a couple of times if I was that close.

[GreyhoundFan]

This article is definitely worth a read:

 

[fraurosena]

You would need to be blind, deaf, dumb, and without a working brain not to see that this administration's ultimate goal is a fascist, authoritarian state.

The White House wants to regulate social-media moderation

Quote

If enacted, the executive order would vastly expand the Federal Communications Commission’s responsibilities.

The news: A draft executive order would give the FCC oversight over how social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter moderate their sites, according to CNN, which obtained a copy. Dubbed "Protecting Americans from Online Censorship,” the order calls for the FCC to develop new rules to define when the law protects tech firms’ decisions to take down content—and when it doesn’t. It also demands that the Federal Trade Commission take those new rules into account when investigating potential malpractice by companies.

The politics: This represents a major escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against social- media firms, which he claims are biased against conservatives (despite a lack of evidence), and would be a vast expansion of the FCC’s responsibilities.

Specifically: Social-media companies have enjoyed blanket legal protections for content moderation decisions under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This would end that, both making the companies more liable for content that users post on their platforms and forbidding social-media sites from removing content without notifying the user who posted it, for example.

A caveat: The order is still in the early stages, and could change significantly, or be completely abandoned.

 

[Curious]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

You would need to be blind, deaf, dumb, and without a working brain not to see that this administration's ultimate goal is a fascist, authoritarian state.

The White House wants to regulate social-media moderation

 

Surely this would be challenged in court....right?

[fraurosena]

21 minutes ago, Curious said:

Surely this would be challenged in court....right?

It can be overturned by Congress (if willing, which is doubtful with the Repugliklans in charge)

Mr. Google says...

Congress has the power to overturn an executive order by passing legislation that invalidates it. Congress can also refuse to provide funding necessary to carry out certain policy measures contained with the order or to legitimize policy mechanisms. In the case of the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order.

However...

While the courts do have the power to declare an executive order illegal or unconstitutional, they do not regularly overturn presidential actions. ... Still, it takes only one judge in one district court to block an executive order made by the President of the United States.

[Curious]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

It can be overturned by Congress (if willing, which is doubtful with the Repugliklans in charge)

Mr. Google says...

Congress has the power to overturn an executive order by passing legislation that invalidates it. Congress can also refuse to provide funding necessary to carry out certain policy measures contained with the order or to legitimize policy mechanisms. In the case of the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order.

However...

While the courts do have the power to declare an executive order illegal or unconstitutional, they do not regularly overturn presidential actions. ... Still, it takes only one judge in one district court to block an executive order made by the President of the United States.

Well the 9th Circut will have a job to do then

[fraurosena]

How many times is it now, that he has referred to a third term? 

If -- deer Rufus forbid! -- he gains a second term (I will refuse to call it 'win' because of Russian and domestic hacking) then I am completely and utterly convinced he will go for a third term.. and a fourth... and then for life. 

[WiseGirl]

Dear 45 take this as an excuse to drop out of the presidential race.  Please.  It is the perfect excuse because we know you are all about the money.  I won't be offended if you want to leave the presidency to make sure you keep making $$$$.

The article doesn't say much, but it has me wishing it was the start of dropping reasons of why he wouldn't seek reelection in 2020.  I know wishful thinking, but I need something...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-being-president-it-s-probably-costing-me-3-5-n1042016

[formergothardite]

I can easily see him trying to call off the election rather than risk losing. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"What Trump doesn’t understand about culture war politics"

Spoiler

Will the United States, a country that has endured for centuries and survived a brutal civil war, now be torn asunder by the terrifying specter of paper straws? The president of the United States is brave enough to test whether it can.

As everyone knows, President Trump believes that he can win reelection only by dividing Americans, particularly on racial lines. And perhaps not surprisingly for someone who spends hours every day glued to Fox News while tweeting, Trump sees our never-ending culture war as a key element of a successful strategy. And in this version of the culture war, no battle is too small-time to fight:

As cities and coffee chains across the country have adopted policies aimed at limiting environmental damage, the president’s campaign has targeted what it calls “liberal paper straws.” It’s selling a Trump-branded plastic version as a fundraising tool.

Pointing to the “runaway success” of the straws — which have earned the campaign more than $670,000 in a month — communications director Tim Murtaugh said they represent Trump’s ability to make a political point using a cultural issue everyday voters can relate to.

“With the Trump straws, the campaign tapped into widespread disdain for paper straws that simply don’t work,” he said. “People don’t like being told they can’t do simple things, and so the Trump straws were born.”

From straws to wind turbines to socially conservative issues, Trump is deliberately amplifying public tensions by seizing on divisive topics to energize his base, according to campaign aides and White House advisers.

Again, this is what happens when you spend too much time watching Fox News.

When we look back on this era in American politics, we might see it as a time when a true litany of horrors from the government — children ripped from their parents’ arms and put in cages, access to abortion eviscerated, climate change intentionally worsened — was joined to a culture war of mind-boggling silliness.

Paper straws and their ilk are staples of conservative media, little differences from “the way things used to be” blown up for the audience as symbols of profound cultural degradation, brought to you by malevolent liberals. At one point last year, Fox went into a pantomime of outrage over the fact that some hippie somewhere decided to call gingerbread men “gingerbread people,” leading Tucker Carlson to proclaim that he and his fellow conservatives were damn sure not going to “participate in our own spiritual neutering.” To the battlements!

Now it’s straws, which isn’t just a way the Trump campaign is having some fun but is apparently something they think is genuinely potent as a driver of votes.

If you’re going to use culture war divisions as an electoral strategy, you have to keep finding flash points that motivate your voters more than those of the other side. The classic recent case was in 2004, when Republicans used the specter of marriage equality to drive Republicans to the polls. They got constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage on 11 state ballots as a way of encouraging social conservatives to turn out, and every one passed. At the time, many Democrats were unfortunately still sorting through their feelings about the issue, so they weren’t as motivated to get to the polls to oppose the initiatives.

But that was an issue that was hugely controversial, had dominated the news, and on which the Republican position was, for that moment anyway, the more popular one.

Today, “owning the libs” has become the primary organizing principle of a certain portion of the Republican base, the ones who spend their evenings getting mad with Sean and Tucker and Laura, then go on social media to swim in the rushing bloodstream of hate and conspiracy theorizing. No policy issue is as important to them as whether they believe they have ruined a liberal’s day. It just happens that the president is one of them.

The trouble with basing your campaign strategy on what excites those people is that they’re already really excited; anyone who would pay the Trump campaign $15 for 10 straws was almost surely already going to vote. And “To hell with the environment, ha!” is not actually a popular position to take.

The geniuses at Trump headquarters would probably reply that this is all part of a coherent plan: It’s not about straws per se, but a whole set of societal changes that members of Trump’s base find disorienting and maddening, and which they can be mobilized to push back against, from the big and consequential (the United States’ increasing racial diversity) down to the mundane (what you use to sip your Slurpee). So anything that frames the election as a battle between two cultures and two ways of life is good for them.

At certain times in the past, that might have been true. But everything we’ve seen lately suggests that Democratic voters are just as worked up as Republicans, if not more; experts are predicting record turnout in 2020.

What Trump doesn’t seem to understand is that his relentless focus on pleasing his base also mobilizes the opposition against him. We saw it in 2018, when he was sure that fear-mongering about an invasion of immigrant caravans would ensure victory in the midterm elections, and instead Democrats won big amid huge turnout. His campaign can sell all the plastic straws it wants, but it probably won’t be enough to change the dynamics actually driving this election.

 

[smittykins]

I got an ad for Trump straws earlier today.(I noticed it as I was clicking off the page and it was too late to screencap.)

[formergothardite]

I keep getting ads by Trump's campaign to take a survey about how horrible he is treated. 

[fraurosena]

Please deer Rufus, boop your snoot on this and make it happen!

 

[AmericanRose]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-futures-point-to-slightly-lower-open/ar-AAFzdHm?ocid=spartanntp

I never blamed Obama for high gas prices or the economy (of course, I also understood he *inherited* the recession) but if Trump is going to take credit for the good, he has to take credit for the bad... and I believe he's intentionally toying with it anyway. I wonder if this will make him nervous? Or at least, make Republicans nervous? I have no doubt they would try to blame a recession on Democrats, but if it crashes they can't really talk about what a 'strong economy' Trump has! This can't make investors happy.

Of course, his base isn't invested in the stock market anyway (that's just for the elite) so they won't notice/care until job losses happen, and they're personally affected.

[47of74]

I keep getting ads by Trump's campaign to take a survey about how horrible he is treated. 

I got one bitching about how ebil national health care is but had clicked on a link when I noticed it and it was gone before I could screen cap it or send a nasty gram to google telling them to stick tgecad where the sun doesn’t shine.

[fraurosena]

He doesn't understand it's not about making or losing money. The emoluments clause is there to prevent the possibility of bribery and corruption. 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[SilverBeach]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

He doesn't understand

That about sums it up.