Trump 44: Finally on Trial

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

And eech, couldn't they have picked a more flattering expression? Couldn't he have smiled? Oh, wait, of course not. He's in a scary war place, forced to give food to scary black people. So of course he looks terrified. Silly me.

He looks completely and totally miserable. He has been very vocal about not wanting to go see the troops overseas. I have a strong feeling he was forced to spend his Thanksgiving there in hopes it would give him some good press and give Fox news something to go on about for weeks. 

[Dandruff]

58 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

He looks completely and totally miserable. He has been very vocal about not wanting to go see the troops overseas. I have a strong feeling he was forced to spend his Thanksgiving there in hopes it would give him some good press and give Fox news something to go on about for weeks. 

I also think he was there for the optics, but am wondering what else he might be up to.  He only spent a few hours with the troops.  Vlad?  Perhaps a bit of banking?  It was business as usual in most of the world today.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Does he actually have any flattering expressions? I haven't seen any in the last several years. And, remember, he's a tough guy, tough guys don't smile.

Still, when Trump purses his lips like he loves to do, I think of one of the childhood insults- "Is that your real face or did your butthole grow teeth? "

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

He looks completely and totally miserable. He has been very vocal about not wanting to go see the troops overseas. I have a strong feeling he was forced to spend his Thanksgiving there in hopes it would give him some good press and give Fox news something to go on about for weeks. 

Of course he was totally miserable! It cut into his golfing time and Twitter time!

[47of74]

Cool

 

3 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Still, when Trump purses his lips like he loves to do, I think of one of the childhood insults- "Is that your real face or did your butthole grow teeth? "

Yeah I'm filing that away for future use with either fuck face or his branch trumpvidian groupies.

[fraurosena]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

To limit suspicions about Trump’s whereabouts, White House staff sent tweets from the president’s Twitter account during the time he was flying.

This part of the article had me thinking that one of the staff tweeted out that wanna be Rocky pic. Just to take the piss. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief:

 

[SilverBeach]

23 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

I have an aversion to using insulting nicknames for people in elected office.

No problem with this when it comes to Trump. He's special. I also recall the insults slung at President Obama and his family. I don't consider Dump a real president and he is not now and will never be my president. He's a traitor.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief:

 

Well, George W. Bush taught us that even C students can grow up to be President. Trump is showing that even lower grades don't matter, if Daddy has enough money. Without the money and power that Trump grew up with, I would hate to see what his real report card would have looked like.

(There is a difference between a C in a difficult course that someone was really interested in the material and wanted to take it just to learn as much as they possibly could even if they were less successful and a C or lower in acourse where one chose not to work hard or learn much. I put Bush and Trump in the second group.)

[smittykins]

16 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

“Is that your real face or did your butthole grow teeth? "

That’s a new one on me. 

[Dandruff]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief:

 

How about the space between his ears?  I think whatever's floating around in there could use some further investigation.

[Audrey2]

19 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

How about the space between his ears?  I think whatever's floating around in there could use some further investigation.

Well I've heard of small discoveries in black hole research...

[Dandruff]

1 minute ago, Audrey2 said:

Well I've heard of small discoveries in black hole research...

This seems to be an opposite effect.  Nothing gets in.  Much is spewed out.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s photo op play: Facing impeachment, the president strives to look hard at work"

Spoiler

PALM BEACH, Fla. — As Democrats in Congress push to impeach him, President Trump has toured a manufacturing plant in Texas, boasted about economic gains and signed numerous bills. He served turkey to U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving and grieved with the families of fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

And next week, Trump is scheduled to jet to London to meet with European allies and be received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II.

Sure, Trump has been consumed by the impeachment proceedings, popping off daily, if not hourly, about what he dubs a “hoax.” But he and his aides also have staged photo opportunities and public events designed to showcase the president on the job — a strategy one year out from the election to convince the American people that he is hard at work for them at the same time that Democrats are trying to remove him from office.

“I’m working my ass off,” Trump told a thunderous rally crowd of roughly 20,000 on Tuesday night in Sunrise, Fla. He added: “The failed Washington establishment is trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you and because we’re winning. It’s very simple.”

Trump is taking a page out of the Clinton playbook. Then-President Bill Clinton survived his 1998 impeachment in part because the economy was roaring and because he appeared to many voters to be relentlessly focused on doing the business of the American people. When Clinton left office in 2001, Gallup measured his job approval rating at 66 percent.

Clinton had a built-in advantage that Trump does not enjoy: popularity. Throughout his second term, Clinton’s approval rating hovered in the high 50s and 60s, whereas Trump’s has been mired below 50 percent.

Still, Clinton’s experience has been instructive to Trump, who recently met in the Oval Office with former Clinton strategist Mark Penn, who counseled the president to focus on governing and travel frequently.

David Axelrod, who served as senior adviser in the Obama White House, said Trump’s strategy has been “smart politics,” though he noted that it remains to be seen whether the famously undisciplined president will sustain it through a likely Senate impeachment trial.

“The images of the president with cheering troops and performing other magisterial and ministerial functions of the office are a way of signifying that he is still in command, doing the job, rather than on the run,” Axelrod said.

Trump interrupted his Thanksgiving vacation here in Florida with a 36-hour trip to Afghanistan, where he made a surprise visit to Bagram air base and announced that he intended to draw down forces in America’s longest war and had resumed peace negotiations with the Taliban after he had scuttled them in September.

Trump rallied about 1,500 uniformed military personnel packed into a hangar at Bagram, many of them cheering at the presence of the commander in chief, and was joined onstage by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who did not hold back in his praise.

“President Trump, people talked a lot about bin Laden, but what you did to eliminate al-Baghdadi — who was an organizer and not a talker — is a much greater accomplishment. Congratulations,” Ghani said, referring to the killings of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 and of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi earlier this month.

Trump has succeeded in drawing plaudits from other validators as well. Last Wednesday, during a day of blockbuster hearings in Congress — including U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony implicating Trump in a quid pro quo with Ukraine — the president was in Austin visiting a factory where Apple’s Mac Pro desktop computers are manufactured.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook led Trump on the tour and credited the president with helping revive American manufacturing. When Trump asked, “What would you say about our economy compared to everybody else?” Cook replied, “I think we have the strongest economy in the world right now.”

Trump drew some criticism for the visit: He took credit for opening the factory when in fact Apple computers have been assembled there since 2013, three years before Trump’s election.

Regardless, the images of Trump outside of Washington, walking a factory floor and showcasing a tech product, delivered the intended message, in the estimation of Republican public relations professionals.

“This is the right strategy for the president: Show the American people that he is focused on doing his job while Washington Democrats chase the great white whale of impeachment,” said Michael Steel, a former senior aide to former House speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Trump likes to brag about how much he is getting done. “We’re doing things that no president has ever done before, and you’ve got to be very, very happy,” he told supporters at the Sunrise rally.

But other than the strong economy and the successful Baghdadi raid, Trump has had few tangible achievements in recent months. His legislative agenda has all but stalled since Democrats took control of the House at the beginning of the year, and the trade agreement his administration negotiated with Canada and Mexico hangs in the balance as it awaits congressional approval.

“There’s a huge difference between photo ops that are designed to give people the impression that work is getting done and really doing the work and actually demonstrating results,” said Don Baer, a former Clinton White House adviser. “The Trump White House is going to have to figure out how it begins to put real results on the table for the public in terms of things it’s doing instead of just telling people that things are getting done.”

Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign adviser who has been recording a pro-Trump radio show and podcast, “War Room: Impeachment,” said it is critical that the president show voters that he is focused on doing his job — especially as his reelection campaign intensifies.

“President Trump is a born leader, so these events come naturally for him, and looking to 2020, can anyone really imagine Elizabeth Warren opening an Apple factory, Bernie Sanders greeting troops overseas, or Joe Biden negotiating with foreign leaders without Hunter there cutting side deals?” Miller said, taking shots at three of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, including a reference to Biden’s son, that echo the message of the president’s campaign toward Trump’s potential 2020 rivals. Hunter Biden has been criticized for his foreign business dealings but has denied wrongdoing.

Lacking a bevy of big achievements of late, Trump has striven to make a show of whatever he can. On Monday, he invited journalists into the Oval Office to observe him signing the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act.

The law revises criminal penalties for creating or distributing videos or images depicting animal torture. The bill did not require much of a lift — it passed the House by voice vote and the Senate by unanimous consent — but the president celebrated its passage nonetheless.

“This is something that should’ve happened a long time ago and it didn’t,” Trump said. “I ask the same question I asked for another bill that we just signed: Why hasn’t this happened a long time ago? And I give you the same answer: because Trump wasn’t president.”

 

[Dandruff]

Optics.  It makes sense.

[AmericanRose]

Trump is pretty much all show and no substance. Unfortunately, his supporters are willing to believe that whatever he says he's done, has actually been done.

I don't think he'll be able to keep up this show of 'working hard' for long, though.

[fraurosena]

How unexpected. Not.

Pentagon Report Directly Blames Trump for ISIS Resurgence

I’m sure Trump is so proud of singlehandedly achieving such a historic feat. Obama certainly did nothing like it!

[Xan]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed or not but I'm wondering about Trump and the Gallagher mess.  Personally, I think he's pardoning war criminals and now visiting the troops because he's afraid that we're going to kick him out.  I wonder if he thinks the military will keep him in power?  He talks about the impeachment process being a coup.  My feeling is that he is trying to curry favor with the military who he hopes will support and surround him if it looks like he's being ousted.

All Trump knows about politics comes from movies and television programs.  Maybe he watched "Evita"...

[GreyhoundFan]

4 hours ago, Xan said:

All Trump knows about politics comes from movies and television programs.  Maybe he watched "Evita"...

Only if Melania fast forwarded through the musical numbers. I can't picture him sitting still during any singing.

[Dandruff]

6 hours ago, Xan said:

I wonder if he thinks the military will keep him in power?

I suspect he's worried that the higher-ups in the military (and, therefore, the military) will stop supporting him.

[formergothardite]

29 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

I suspect he's worried that the higher-ups in the military (and, therefore, the military) will stop supporting him.

Having the military turn on him would be a very bad thing for his ratings. 

[thoughtful]

8 hours ago, Xan said:

All Trump knows about politics comes from movies and television programs.  Maybe he watched "Evita"..

Or Seven Days in May (although I'm sure he's too stupid to follow that one). It's about a fictional attempt at a military coup in the US -- the president is not part of it, though.

And the old-movie lover in me has to add -- I recommend it!

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, Xan said:

I'm not sure if this has been discussed or not but I'm wondering about Trump and the Gallagher mess.  Personally, I think he's pardoning war criminals and now visiting the troops because he's afraid that we're going to kick him out.  I wonder if he thinks the military will keep him in power?  He talks about the impeachment process being a coup.  My feeling is that he is trying to curry favor with the military who he hopes will support and surround him if it looks like he's being ousted.

All Trump knows about politics comes from movies and television programs.  Maybe he watched "Evita"...

By pardoning Gallager and removing the troops from Syria he most certainly has failed in that objective. Word is the Pentagon is furious about Syria and the resurgence of ISIS, and livid about Trump undermining disciplinary command in the armed forces by pardoning Gallager.

[Audrey2]

Unfortunately, despite what the higher-ups are starting to think, I think Trump still has the love and support of the lower-ranked troops.

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Unfortunately, despite what the higher-ups are starting to think, I think Trump still has the love and support of the lower-ranked troops.

Why do you think this? (Serious question) 

Isn't it rather a moot point what the rank and file think of Trump, if the military command is against Trump? They control the military after all. Their coordination is key to effective military deployment. Also, the chain of command is still ingrained in most troops. Would they really be willing to break ranks to keep Trump in power? And if so, will there be enough of them to really make a difference?

[fraurosena]

Does he think the theory that your ratings go up if you start a war also counts for trade wars?

And he still doesn't understand that raising tariffs will only hurt ones own economy. You'd think he'd have learned something from the trade war with China. 

Also eye-roll worthy is the absolute irony that he's taking Brazil and Argentina to task for devaluating their currencies, whilst admonishing his own Fed to do the very same thing...