Trump 44: Finally on Trial

[fraurosena]

54 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I personally think having such a powerful position for life is always a bad idea but now we are seeing how bad it really is. A corrupt government can fill the court system with corrupt judges to spend decades doing their bidding

Ideally, when the next Congress is majority Democrat, a bill will be introduced and passed into law that limits the time a judge is allowed to hold that office. That law should take effect immediately and be applicable to every single judge instated at that time. That will SEVERELY limit the damage the trumplican appointees can do. Further, a bill should be introduced and passed into law that changes who can appoint judges into the Judiciary themselves. Let the current judges be the judge of who can become one. Put the power of the judiciary with the Judiciary. That way, partisan politics and political appointments will become a thing of the past. The power of Congress over the Judiciary will be ended. That way there will be a true separation of powers between the Trias Politica. (I am aware that I'm simplifying how it would actually work!)

It must be said though, in defence of the appointees who came into office during MoscowMitch's tenure, that although they were political appointees, it doesn't have to mean that all of them are necessarily bad people or bad judges. They don't all have to be enthralled to the trumplicans. They just might (and some already have) take(n) the side of the law against trumplican interests.

[WiseGirl]

[fraurosena]

The cray-cray is more pronounced than ever before. How can anybody with more than half a brain cell think he is fit for office?

 

[apple1]

40 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The cray-cray is more pronounced than ever before. How can anybody with more than half a brain cell think he is fit for office?

 

Sounded like an example of dementia filmed for healthcare professionals' education.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "A Trump Christmas, with ill will to all"

Spoiler

What has he done to us?

During the past two weeks of impeachment, my stocking has been stuffed with good cheer from President Trump’s supporters. They describe me variously as a woman, unprintable epithets for a gay person, a Democrat, a “f---ing clown” and an “intel mouthpiece,” a hack and a fraud, a “scumbag” and a “s---head,” a hater who is insufficiently grateful to “white people” and who performs certain unmentionable sexual acts.

But this year I had a ready rejoinder. Thanks to Trump (or so he informs us), “everybody is saying Merry Christmas again” — even a non-Christian like me. So I replied to each abusive impeachment email I received over the past two weeks with two words: Merry Christmas.

The replies show that, in the Trump era, even gestures of peace and goodwill have become sources of bitterness and insult.

“May this Christmas be your last,” a fellow named Ron from Missouri replied. He had previously called me a “partisan hack,” dispatched me to my “favorite queer bar” and offered to give my “sorry ass a good kicking.”

“You people do not know Merry Christmas,” replied Dennis, who had earlier informed me that “God sees your hate” and those of my Post colleagues.

“You liberals ruined Christmas,” responded somebody named Wyatt, who had previously said he has no pity for my fraudulence and wrote: “May the fleas is [sic] a thousand camels descend on your sorry ass.”

And on and on.

Only a couple of them apologized after receiving the “Merry Christmas” wishes. Explained one, James: “The current political climate has me frazzled.”

How could he not be, listening to Trump? Even since the president’s mockery last week of a late congressman and his widow, Trump’s Twitter stream has poured venom: “crooked,” “corrupt,” “dirty,” “CRAZY EXTREME,” “phony,” “fake,” “spied,” “disgrace,” “sham,” “contorted,” “charade,” “shameful, “unethical,” “horrendous,” “witch hunt,” “hoax,” “socialist/communist.”

At a speech Saturday night, Trump imagined political violence, saying “we have the toughest people,” but “hopefully” it won’t come to that. He continued the invective: “whack job,” “crazed lunatic,” “vicious,” “oppressive,” “raging left-wing mob,” “deep state,” “sabotage,” “dumbest human beings.”

“We have reason to be angry, folks,” he said.

And, while stoking rage in his supporters, he celebrated his opponents suffering such “derangement” that “people actually go see psychiatrists.”

The evangelical magazine Christianity Today referred to similar behavior in calling for Trump’s removal. In addition to his “profoundly immoral” attempt to “use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” the editorial said: “His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”

And Trump responded with more of the same, calling the conservative, pro-life magazine “far left.”

With a president who exults in violence, name-calling and human misery, how could we not be at each other’s throats? As I type these words, a new tweet shared by Trump celebrates a CNN host being “destroyed.”

It’s infectious. During the impeachment debate, Trump’s defenders could have argued that his behavior was wrong but did not rise to the level of impeachment; instead, they compared the other side to Pontius Pilate, Jesus killers and the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor, questioned the patriotism of combat veterans, mocked Hunter Biden’s drug addiction and, with overtones of anti-Semitism, disparaged the “New York lawyer” working for Democrats.

I find myself getting sucked into the name-calling, identifying Lindsey Graham as a “lickspittle” and calling a Rudy Giuliani-run foreign policy a “quid pro schmoe.” My columns routinely contain Trump-uttered obscenities that never would have been allowed in print before him.

There has always been anger in politics. A decade ago, I observed that the left was more “vitriolic.” But Trump has dispensed with what John Dingell — the late lawmaker Trump attacked last week — called “modicums of respect.” How can we get beyond this mess?

I put the question last month to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of Trump’s fiercest defenders during impeachment. “I think we can get beyond it,” he told me. That was hopeful: Though a fierce ideologue, he is well-liked across the aisle. He struck up an unlikely friendship with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and ended a dispute with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) with a hug.

For five weeks, Meadows declined my entreaties to explain his hopefulness. Now he’s retiring from Congress, reportedly to work for Trump and perhaps become Trump’s next chief of staff. Maybe he can restore a modicum of respect in the post-impeachment White House.

I’m not optimistic. But one can always hope for a Christmas miracle.

 

[47of74]

On 12/22/2019 at 2:56 PM, fraurosena said:

Ideally, when the next Congress is majority Democrat, a bill will be introduced and passed into law that limits the time a judge is allowed to hold that office. That law should take effect immediately and be applicable to every single judge instated at that time. That will SEVERELY limit the damage the trumplican appointees can do. Further, a bill should be introduced and passed into law that changes who can appoint judges into the Judiciary themselves. Let the current judges be the judge of who can become one. Put the power of the judiciary with the Judiciary. That way, partisan politics and political appointments will become a thing of the past. The power of Congress over the Judiciary will be ended. That way there will be a true separation of powers between the Trias Politica. (I am aware that I'm simplifying how it would actually work!)

It must be said though, in defence of the appointees who came into office during MoscowMitch's tenure, that although they were political appointees, it doesn't have to mean that all of them are necessarily bad people or bad judges. They don't all have to be enthralled to the trumplicans. They just might (and some already have) take(n) the side of the law against trumplican interests.

I think there should be no lifetime appointments anywhere in government.  I think lifetime appointments are not democratic in any event.   

That said I'm not sure if the tenure and how judges are selected could be changed through a law since the term for judges is "during good behavior" in the Constitution.  I think it would probably take an amendment to change the term of judges and how they're selected. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Team Trump wants you to own the ‘liberal snowflakes’ at your family Christmas party"

Spoiler

Ahead of Christmas Day, President Trump’s reelection campaign launched a website featuring videos of talking points it said supporters can use to “win an argument with liberal friends, relatives, and snowflakes” over the holidays.

As Republicans and Democrats have become more divided in recent years, plenty of attention has been paid to navigating political talk over the holiday season — and the question of whether it should be avoided outright. That’s only intensified this year, amid Trump’s impeachment largely along party lines.

Publicized on Christmas Eve, the Trump campaign’s contribution to the conversation is distinctly Trumpian, with its domain name of snowflakevictory.com and its references to the “Russian hoax,” the “fake news media” and the “Democrats’ radical agenda.” And, as with Trump’s rhetoric, it contains statements that fact-checkers have characterized as false or misleading.

The website includes sections titled, “There was no quid pro quo, Democrats always obsessed with impeachment” and “BIG GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM.” Each contains a video of a campaign official delivering pro-Trump arguments in front of an American flag graphic. Triumphant music plays in the background.

“Family holidays,” a smiling woman says in one of the clips. “Full of love. Full of laughter. And full of the inevitable conversations with the family liberal who just does not want to believe how great America is doing with President Trump in office.”

The Internet is rife with stories of people who say their families have been fractured by political disagreements in the age of Trump. Also prevalent: guides to deciding whether to discuss politics, lists of other conversation topics and advice columns on remaining kind and civil in response to political button-pushing.

It was news stories about that sense of trepidation that led the Trump campaign to create the new website. But the campaign advises a confrontational approach.

“We’ve all seen the news articles about liberal snowflakes being afraid to see their MAGA relatives at Christmas or holiday gatherings, so the Trump campaign wants people to be ready,” campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. “We’re not helping snowflakes avoid arguments — we’re helping Trump supporters win them!

“As 2019 draws to a close and 2020 approaches, President Trump and Americans are going to be winning, winning, and winning, and then winning some more!”

The website includes a section devoted to impeachment, which declares that “impeaching President Trump has always been an election tactic. Democrats have never accepted the results of the last election, so they’re trying to interfere with the next one.”

Another repeats the oft-debunked claim that former vice president Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor because he was investigating a company, Burisma, that had added his son Hunter Biden to its board.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has repeatedly described the allegation as incorrect, writing in September that “by continuing to claim that Biden ‘did’ something for his son, Trump persists in spreading a false narrative about a diplomatic maneuver hailed at the time as a step toward reducing corruption in Ukraine.”

Yet the new Trump campaign website insists: “No matter what the fake news tells you, nothing about Joe Biden withholding aid from Ukraine — unless the prosecutor who was looking into Burisma was fired — has been ‘debunked.’ ”

It also repeats the president’s false but frequently repeated claim that family separation was in place before he took office. As The Post’s fact-checkers have noted, the Trump administration in April 2018 began systematically separating all families caught crossing the border. The Bush- and Obama-era policy separated children from adults only in limited circumstances, such as when officials suspected human trafficking or other dangers.

Trump campaign officials fired off tweets Tuesday promoting the site as a source for “all the facts you need.”

“We know that at Christmas and holiday time, there’s always that liberal snowflake relative who starts an argument and then runs and hides,” wrote campaign manager Brad Parscale. “This year, don’t let them get away with it. Be like @realDonaldTrump and keep winning!”

 

How disgusting.

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Team Trump wants you to own the ‘liberal snowflakes’ at your family Christmas party"

  Hide contents

Ahead of Christmas Day, President Trump’s reelection campaign launched a website featuring videos of talking points it said supporters can use to “win an argument with liberal friends, relatives, and snowflakes” over the holidays.

As Republicans and Democrats have become more divided in recent years, plenty of attention has been paid to navigating political talk over the holiday season — and the question of whether it should be avoided outright. That’s only intensified this year, amid Trump’s impeachment largely along party lines.

Publicized on Christmas Eve, the Trump campaign’s contribution to the conversation is distinctly Trumpian, with its domain name of snowflakevictory.com and its references to the “Russian hoax,” the “fake news media” and the “Democrats’ radical agenda.” And, as with Trump’s rhetoric, it contains statements that fact-checkers have characterized as false or misleading.

The website includes sections titled, “There was no quid pro quo, Democrats always obsessed with impeachment” and “BIG GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM.” Each contains a video of a campaign official delivering pro-Trump arguments in front of an American flag graphic. Triumphant music plays in the background.

“Family holidays,” a smiling woman says in one of the clips. “Full of love. Full of laughter. And full of the inevitable conversations with the family liberal who just does not want to believe how great America is doing with President Trump in office.”

The Internet is rife with stories of people who say their families have been fractured by political disagreements in the age of Trump. Also prevalent: guides to deciding whether to discuss politics, lists of other conversation topics and advice columns on remaining kind and civil in response to political button-pushing.

It was news stories about that sense of trepidation that led the Trump campaign to create the new website. But the campaign advises a confrontational approach.

“We’ve all seen the news articles about liberal snowflakes being afraid to see their MAGA relatives at Christmas or holiday gatherings, so the Trump campaign wants people to be ready,” campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. “We’re not helping snowflakes avoid arguments — we’re helping Trump supporters win them!

“As 2019 draws to a close and 2020 approaches, President Trump and Americans are going to be winning, winning, and winning, and then winning some more!”

The website includes a section devoted to impeachment, which declares that “impeaching President Trump has always been an election tactic. Democrats have never accepted the results of the last election, so they’re trying to interfere with the next one.”

Another repeats the oft-debunked claim that former vice president Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor because he was investigating a company, Burisma, that had added his son Hunter Biden to its board.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has repeatedly described the allegation as incorrect, writing in September that “by continuing to claim that Biden ‘did’ something for his son, Trump persists in spreading a false narrative about a diplomatic maneuver hailed at the time as a step toward reducing corruption in Ukraine.”

Yet the new Trump campaign website insists: “No matter what the fake news tells you, nothing about Joe Biden withholding aid from Ukraine — unless the prosecutor who was looking into Burisma was fired — has been ‘debunked.’ ”

It also repeats the president’s false but frequently repeated claim that family separation was in place before he took office. As The Post’s fact-checkers have noted, the Trump administration in April 2018 began systematically separating all families caught crossing the border. The Bush- and Obama-era policy separated children from adults only in limited circumstances, such as when officials suspected human trafficking or other dangers.

Trump campaign officials fired off tweets Tuesday promoting the site as a source for “all the facts you need.”

“We know that at Christmas and holiday time, there’s always that liberal snowflake relative who starts an argument and then runs and hides,” wrote campaign manager Brad Parscale. “This year, don’t let them get away with it. Be like @realDonaldTrump and keep winning!”

 

How disgusting.

snowflakevictory.com (#11 on the suggested conversation starter list)

Quote

Trump is proving it's possible to have a strong economy and a clean environment at the same time

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/24/5-major-trump-climate-rollbacks-you-might-have-missed-in-2019.html

Quote

Key Points

President Trump has taken historically unprecedented action to roll back a slew of environmental regulations that protect air, water, land and public health from hazards and climate change.

The administration views many of the existing rules as onerous to fossil fuel companies and other major industries.

Major actions in 2019 include loosening regulation on methane emissions, repealing the Obama-era clean water rule, weakening the Endangered Species Act and rolling back offshore drilling safety regulations.

 

[church_of_dog]

I looked at the site and clicked on the first link about the economy, just out of curiosity.

It's chock full of grammatical and punctuation errors -- almost like 45 wrote it himself!

Then one statistic made me see red:  x number of jobs [claimed] added, including "nearly 4 million jobs for women."

Jobs for women?!?!???  What, like secretaries and stewardesses? 

 

(I know, it probably refers to quotas that require x% female hires etc -- if it's even a remotely truthful statistic -- but still...)

 

Edited December 25, 2019 by church_of_dog

[Dandruff]

Hmm, the liberals don't need a remedial course to converse with others about current events.  Trump must not think his followers are very bright...and I tend to agree.

[Ozlsn]

9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

And full of the inevitable conversations with the family liberal who just does not want to believe how great America is doing with President Trump in office.”

"So how's the job hunting going?"

Seriously this how to win arguments video is basically a tactic to make people double down because they feel attacked, and hopefully keep them voting Trump next year.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump Was Just Asked What He Got Melania for Christmas, and His Answer Is Honestly Painful to Watch"

Spoiler

Each year the Commander in Chief of the armed forces has a holiday phone call with the troops.

The call usually consists of remarks by the President as well as a less formal chat with military members on the call.

During this year's call with President Donald Trump, the typical questions were asked. But one appeared to stump Trump.

The question—broadcast on C-SPAN—concerned First Lady Melania Trump.

The questioner—not shown on the screen—asked:

"What did you get Mrs. Trump for Christmas this year?"

The President's immediate response was:

"Ahh... that's a tough question."

The President then paused to collect his thoughts and said:

"Uhhh... well, I really should say a very beautiful card. Ya know, I'm working on a lot of things. I got her a beautiful card that actually I had a number of them picked and I picked the nicest one."

Trump added;

"Uh, a lotta love and we love our family and we love each other and we've had a, uhh... a great relationship like you do hopefully with your spouses."

"We've had a great relationship and uh, I think I'll... I'll add to that by saying I'm still working on the Christmas present. Is that OK?"

"There's a little time left. Not too much, but there's a little time left."

You can watch his response here.

In addition to talking about his FLOTUS gift, Trump also took the opportunity to tell the troops about the greatness of convicted felon Roger Stone who he barely knows and who never worked on his campaign except when he did.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmericanRose]

15 hours ago, JMarie said:

“We’ve all seen the news articles about liberal snowflakes being afraid to see their MAGA relatives at Christmas or holiday gatherings, so the Trump campaign wants people to be ready,” campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. “We’re not helping snowflakes avoid arguments — we’re helping Trump supporters win them!

“As 2019 draws to a close and 2020 approaches, President Trump and Americans are going to be winning, winning, and winning, and then winning some more!”

 

So professional and mature.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm guessing a staffer wrote the tangerine toddler's tweet:

 

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm guessing a staffer wrote the tangerine toddler's tweet:

Probably, but whoever it was remembered to include an ellipsis for no apparent reason, to make it look authentic.

[47of74]

22 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

 

So professional and mature.

Yeah I'd tell Kayleigh that my asshole tolerance is so far down that I would not my holidays in the company of fuck face supporters.  I've got enough on my plate right now and dealing with Branch Trumpvidian bullshit is not something I'd put up with over Christmas. 

[smittykins]

4 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Probably, but whoever it was remembered to include an ellipsis for no apparent reason, to make it look authentic.

Right now I’m reading it in Stephen Colbert’s voice(starting with “Dot dot dot...”’).

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, smittykins said:

Right now I’m reading it in Stephen Colbert’s voice(starting with “Dot dot dot...”’).

So did I! In his Trump voice, it sounds like "dahht dahht dahht."

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump, whiner in chief"

Spoiler

One of the central challenges that Donald Trump has faced over the course of his presidency is the need to keep supporters in a state of constant agitation. It’s an unending task, because while you can get people angry enough to stomp to the polls to express their outrage, once you’ve won, it becomes hard to maintain that energy. The last thing you want is for them to feel satisfied, which could lead to complacency.

Which is why Trump weaves a narrative of constant victimhood, telling his supporters not only that they are besieged and brutalized, but also that no one is more a victim than him. There has surely never been a president who spent so much time complaining — the media aren’t good enough to me, I’m not getting the credit I deserve, the Democrats don’t give me due process, my toilet isn’t powerful enough, it’s unfair, it’s unfair, it’s unfair.

At times this narrative is absurd and comical, and at times it’s incredibly dangerous. Much of the time it’s both.

So it was that the president’s favorite TV show, the festival of nincompoopery that is “Fox & Friends,” ran a segment Thursday expressing outrage over the fact that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. cut out Trump’s seven-second cameo in the 1992 film “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” for broadcast, a crime plainly worthy of extended discussion on national television. The inevitable response came in condemning tweets from both the president and his firstborn son to their millions of followers, delivering the day’s instruction on what to be angry about.

CNN’s Daniel Dale, who is both an indefatigable fact-checker and openly Canadian, explained that the real story is that starting in 2014, the CBC cut eight minutes out of the two-hour movie to make room for commercials, including many other scenes besides Trump’s cameo. But no matter: It’s just one more example of how snooty, elitist poutine-sucking foreigners treat Trump so terribly unfairly. His ability to take offense, and his devotees’ ability to be offended on his behalf, is without limit.

That is in many ways the tie that binds all the disparate types of people who stand behind Trump, from white Rust Belters to white evangelicals to white billionaires: the sense that they have been victimized and disrespected, and the desire to hit back at those who they believe have mistreated them.

To be clear, many of those people have genuine reason to feel aggrieved (not the billionaires, of course). The system has indeed failed people whose communities were devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs and the decline of labor unions. When conservative Christians lament that modern society is hostile to many of their values, they’re right.

If you’re puzzled about why the former continue to support Trump despite the fact that he seeks to make their economic lives worse by enhancing the power of economic elites, or why the latter continue to support him despite his personal and policy immorality, this is part of the answer. Trump might spin ludicrous fantasies for them of how he’ll turn their world into a paradise, but he also encourages them to cultivate their sense of victimhood.

There are no condescending lectures to Trump supporters about pulling on their bootstraps to solve their problems. The message is simple: You have been wronged, and you should be mad.

And inevitably — as with everything — he turns the attention back toward himself. This is one of the less obvious sources of Trump’s appeal: Though he was handed millions of dollars by his father, he never stops talking about how he’s the victim. It establishes a connection with his voters: I’m just like you, he tells them, because those jerks are trying to keep me down, too.

Sometimes it comes out in juvenile complaints about things like what’s on TV in Toronto this week, but it has a much darker side, one that Trump has eagerly fed. As the United States has grown more diverse in recent years and expanded (ever so slowly) the rights and portion of power granted to women and people of color, white men have felt a profound sense of loss.

That sense is expressed in any number of ways, some more aggressive than others. You can see it on Fox News, where the belief that white men are under siege is the flip side to the constant warnings about criminal immigrants and minorities. You can see it in the “Jews will not replace us!” chants in Charlottesville from those the president called “very fine people.” You can see it in Dylann Roof’s hope to start a race war with an act of mass murder.

Though he may have been privileged from the moment of his birth, Trump understands that sense of loss well, and organized his presidential bid around it. When he said he’d build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, he was writing a story of the white man’s dignity regained through humiliation and domination of the foreign Other.

His failure to deliver on that promise (and many others) makes the task of keeping his supporters angry and aggrieved all the more urgent. So make no mistake: Amidst what is sure to be a campaign of uncommon, perhaps unprecedented brutality directed at his Democratic opponent, Trump will never stop whining, all the way to next November.

 

[Howl]

O. M. G.  Oh My God. OHMYGOD!!!!  new Trump hashtag:    @TweetyAmin. 

(Refresher: Idi Amin was the brutal dictator of Uganda who killed/disappeared tens of thousands of his own citizens)

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because he wanted to build the bigliest swamp ever:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[47of74]

A better version of the serenity prayer....

 

Course it's insulting to Shitfucks to compare them to fuck face or his GOP groupies.

Edited December 29, 2019 by 47of74