Trump 46: Chief Fuckopotamus And #BunkerBitch

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm guessing we're going to be treated to a series of meltdowns this week: "Bolton’s new book blows apart one of Trump’s biggest reelection arguments"

Spoiler

Even after impeachment, even after his disastrous mishandling of coronavirus, even after over 19,000 false and misleading claims and thousands of appalling tweets, President Trump still retains the capacity to shock us with the depth of his corruption.

That’s the immediate takeaway from the revelations that are contained in “The Room Where It Happened,” the new memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton.

But, in addition to revealing new dimensions of corruption that are remarkable — even for Trump — the book also deals a huge blow to one of Trump’s leading arguments for reelection: the idea that opponent Joe Biden is soft on China, while Trump is bristling with toughness toward that country.

The Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have obtained Bolton’s book. It reveals that Trump directly asked President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection, telling Xi that if China increased agricultural imports from the United States, it would aid his electoral prospects.

Bolton’s book, which is excerpted in the Journal, recounts what happened this way:

In their meeting in Osaka on June 29, Xi told Trump that the U.S.-China relationship was the most important in the world. He said that some (unnamed) American political figures were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war with China.

Whether Xi meant to finger the Democrats or some of us sitting on the U.S. side of the table, I don’t know, but Trump immediately assumed that Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility to China among the Democrats. Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.

If true, Trump basically pleaded with Xi for help in winning reelection by buying up U.S. agricultural products. This comes after Trump spent weeks downplaying China’s assurances that it had coronavirus under control, to sustain his monstrous lie that we didn’t have to worry about it here.

That downplaying on China’s behalf was also meant to preserve Trump’s trade deal with China. That’s not necessarily an objectionable goal, but now we see Trump explicitly tried to shape these dealings around his naked political needs as much as around what’s in the national interest, if not more so.

If reality mattered, this would make it extremely hard for Trump to now argue that he’s tough on China and that Biden is soft. Trump has been making this claim in absurdly lurid ads that laughably rip Biden’s words out of context.

There have also been other Trump TV spots that tell a convoluted story about Hunter Biden and China that is based on falsehoods and surely comes across as white noise to everyone except the hardest-core Trump supporters. Trump’s campaign manager floated the hashtag #BeijingBiden.

On top of all that, vulnerable GOP senators are highlighting Trump’s supposed toughness on China over coronavirus (which, again, is the opposite of what happened) in order to deflect blame for Trump’s own catastrophic botching of it.

Now we’ve learned that he pleaded with China for their help in defeating “Beijing Biden.”

None of this is to suggest that Biden should try to be “tougher” on China than Trump. As we’ve suggested, Biden should argue for renewed U.S. international leadership and a revitalized multinationalism on global health issues as a better alternative to Trump’s blustery nationalism.

Rather, it’s to say that, at this point, whenever Trump claims to be “tough” on China, and cites his trade dealings as evidence of it, then the proper response is to laugh in his face.

The other revelations in the book further undermine Trump’s case for reelection:

• In a meeting, Xi explained to Trump “why he was basically building concentration camps” to imprison Uighurs, an ethnic minority group, Bolton writes, adding: “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
• Bolton confirms the essence of the charges made by Democrats in Trump’s impeachment: that he deliberately used frozen military aid as a tool to extort Ukraine to discredit Biden.
• Even many senior staffers are regularly gobsmacked by how erratic, ignorant and incapable Trump is. “He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House,” Bolton writes.
• Foreign leaders found Trump easy to manipulate. Vladimir Putin once convinced Trump to hedge his support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó by comparing Guaidó to Hillary Clinton.
• Trump wanted to jail journalists who don’t reveal their sources. “These people should be executed,” the president said. “They are scumbags.”
• In 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave Trump a memo defending a Turkish firm being prosecuted by the Justice Department. “Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things,” Bolton writes, concluding that, for Trump, “obstruction of justice” is a “way of life.”
• Sanctions against North Korea had to be waived because Trump was so eager to give gifts to Kim Jong Un. He became consumed with having an autographed copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” hand-delivered to the dictator. Bolton observes another pattern in which Trump would “in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked.”

Some of these stories may be comical, but the deeply serious charge is that Trump was eager to make U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic, a servant of his own interests — many tied directly to his reelection — to a far greater extent than we knew.

If Ukraine couldn’t be strong-armed into helping his campaign, maybe China could be persuaded. If China helps him win reelection, then that’s all that matters, no matter what their intentions are or what they hope to accomplish through him.

One irony here is that, as Bloomberg News recently reported, Chinese leaders have concluded that however much they might dislike the trade war, having Trump remain would undermine the Western alliance and weaken the United States, thus boosting China’s global ambitions.

All these new details reinforce the broader pattern in which Trump sees government as nothing more than a tool to advance his own interests, and they add specificity in China’s case. That should make it a whole lot harder for Trump to get away with claiming to the tough-on-China candidate. Which is one of his central reelection arguments.

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm guessing we're going to be treated to a series of meltdowns this week: "Bolton’s new book blows apart one of Trump’s biggest reelection arguments"

  Hide contents

Even after impeachment, even after his disastrous mishandling of coronavirus, even after over 19,000 false and misleading claims and thousands of appalling tweets, President Trump still retains the capacity to shock us with the depth of his corruption.

That’s the immediate takeaway from the revelations that are contained in “The Room Where It Happened,” the new memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton.

But, in addition to revealing new dimensions of corruption that are remarkable — even for Trump — the book also deals a huge blow to one of Trump’s leading arguments for reelection: the idea that opponent Joe Biden is soft on China, while Trump is bristling with toughness toward that country.

The Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have obtained Bolton’s book. It reveals that Trump directly asked President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection, telling Xi that if China increased agricultural imports from the United States, it would aid his electoral prospects.

Bolton’s book, which is excerpted in the Journal, recounts what happened this way:

In their meeting in Osaka on June 29, Xi told Trump that the U.S.-China relationship was the most important in the world. He said that some (unnamed) American political figures were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war with China.

Whether Xi meant to finger the Democrats or some of us sitting on the U.S. side of the table, I don’t know, but Trump immediately assumed that Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility to China among the Democrats. Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.

If true, Trump basically pleaded with Xi for help in winning reelection by buying up U.S. agricultural products. This comes after Trump spent weeks downplaying China’s assurances that it had coronavirus under control, to sustain his monstrous lie that we didn’t have to worry about it here.

That downplaying on China’s behalf was also meant to preserve Trump’s trade deal with China. That’s not necessarily an objectionable goal, but now we see Trump explicitly tried to shape these dealings around his naked political needs as much as around what’s in the national interest, if not more so.

If reality mattered, this would make it extremely hard for Trump to now argue that he’s tough on China and that Biden is soft. Trump has been making this claim in absurdly lurid ads that laughably rip Biden’s words out of context.

There have also been other Trump TV spots that tell a convoluted story about Hunter Biden and China that is based on falsehoods and surely comes across as white noise to everyone except the hardest-core Trump supporters. Trump’s campaign manager floated the hashtag #BeijingBiden.

On top of all that, vulnerable GOP senators are highlighting Trump’s supposed toughness on China over coronavirus (which, again, is the opposite of what happened) in order to deflect blame for Trump’s own catastrophic botching of it.

Now we’ve learned that he pleaded with China for their help in defeating “Beijing Biden.”

None of this is to suggest that Biden should try to be “tougher” on China than Trump. As we’ve suggested, Biden should argue for renewed U.S. international leadership and a revitalized multinationalism on global health issues as a better alternative to Trump’s blustery nationalism.

Rather, it’s to say that, at this point, whenever Trump claims to be “tough” on China, and cites his trade dealings as evidence of it, then the proper response is to laugh in his face.

The other revelations in the book further undermine Trump’s case for reelection:

• In a meeting, Xi explained to Trump “why he was basically building concentration camps” to imprison Uighurs, an ethnic minority group, Bolton writes, adding: “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
• Bolton confirms the essence of the charges made by Democrats in Trump’s impeachment: that he deliberately used frozen military aid as a tool to extort Ukraine to discredit Biden.
• Even many senior staffers are regularly gobsmacked by how erratic, ignorant and incapable Trump is. “He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House,” Bolton writes.
• Foreign leaders found Trump easy to manipulate. Vladimir Putin once convinced Trump to hedge his support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó by comparing Guaidó to Hillary Clinton.
• Trump wanted to jail journalists who don’t reveal their sources. “These people should be executed,” the president said. “They are scumbags.”
• In 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave Trump a memo defending a Turkish firm being prosecuted by the Justice Department. “Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things,” Bolton writes, concluding that, for Trump, “obstruction of justice” is a “way of life.”
• Sanctions against North Korea had to be waived because Trump was so eager to give gifts to Kim Jong Un. He became consumed with having an autographed copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” hand-delivered to the dictator. Bolton observes another pattern in which Trump would “in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked.”

Some of these stories may be comical, but the deeply serious charge is that Trump was eager to make U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic, a servant of his own interests — many tied directly to his reelection — to a far greater extent than we knew.

If Ukraine couldn’t be strong-armed into helping his campaign, maybe China could be persuaded. If China helps him win reelection, then that’s all that matters, no matter what their intentions are or what they hope to accomplish through him.

One irony here is that, as Bloomberg News recently reported, Chinese leaders have concluded that however much they might dislike the trade war, having Trump remain would undermine the Western alliance and weaken the United States, thus boosting China’s global ambitions.

All these new details reinforce the broader pattern in which Trump sees government as nothing more than a tool to advance his own interests, and they add specificity in China’s case. That should make it a whole lot harder for Trump to get away with claiming to the tough-on-China candidate. Which is one of his central reelection arguments.

 

Absolutely none of that surprises me, with the exception of Trump knowing Rocket Man is a song.

and again fuck Bolton for refusing to testify and saving this shit for his book.

[Destiny]

1 minute ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

and again fuck Bolton for refusing to testify and saving this shit for his book.

Did he refuse to testify or did the Repubs just refuse to call him? That seems like centuries ago and i honestly don't remember.

[GreyhoundFan]

14 minutes ago, Destiny said:

Did he refuse to testify or did the Repubs just refuse to call him? That seems like centuries ago and i honestly don't remember.

He said he'd testify if subpoenaed, but of course the Rs refused to do so. He wanted to appear to have his arm twisted. That's what sticks in my craw. I've never cared for him, but that made him seem weak. Standing up for the US and testifying would have been much stronger.

[Destiny]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He said he'd testify if subpoenaed, but of course the Rs refused to do so. He wanted to appear to have his arm twisted. That's what sticks in my craw. I've never cared for him, but that made him seem weak. Standing up for the US and testifying would have been much stronger.

Can someone just up and testify at hearings like that though? I'm not sure that's true. I'm pretty sure you have to be called. I wish I could remember the whole set of circumstances now. I may have to google after dinner.

[Destiny]

Found it. He was asked and refused without a subpoena. He can fuck himself then.

[47of74]

On 6/16/2020 at 1:21 PM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

ITA that's why it doesn't bother me with him.

Like when his dentures are clearly slipping and the late night show hosts make fun of him....in most circumstances I'd find it appalling as I remember that happening to my grandma and we'd never call attention to it to embarrass her.  But since he rips everyone for superficial things all the time (whatever one thinks of Bloomberg mocking his height was irrelevant) I feel no sympathy for him.  

Yeah that’s why I have no issue calling Fuck Face von Fuckopotomus von #BunkerBitch out on that stuff. 

I’d have a tiny bit more respect for him if he acknowledged any infirmities.  Former Iowa Governor Harold Hughes did just that when his opponent in the 1964 election tried to make his alcoholism a campaign issue.  He came right out and acknowledged it and the public turned out for him. Oh to have someone like him as our Governor than a fuck face groupie. 

[Cartmann99]

If any other president had been asked why they had gone down to the bunker, that president would have said that the Secret Service felt it was necessary, and as soon as the Secret Service felt the danger had passed, they came back out.  People would have shrugged, and an hour later, everyone would have gone back to posting cat videos and making fun of Ted Cruz's pandemic beard.

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

In their meeting in Osaka on June 29, Xi told Trump that the U.S.-China relationship was the most important in the world. He said that some (unnamed) American political figures were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war with China.

 

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

If true, Trump basically pleaded with Xi for help in winning reelection by buying up U.S. agricultural products. This comes after Trump spent weeks downplaying China’s assurances that it had coronavirus under control, to sustain his monstrous lie that we didn’t have to worry about it here.

In all fairness, this article is wrong to draw this particular conclusion. Bolton is speaking of a meeting with Xi last year, long before the pandemic broke out.  Bolton cannot speak to what happened after he left the White House in September last year.

The egregious acts committed by Trump are bad enough. This faulty conclusion will only aid any claims about fake news.

 

[fraurosena]

Meltdown time!

 

[fraurosena]

The Lincoln Project is rolling them out on a daily basis now.

 

[47of74]

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

If any other president had been asked why they had gone down to the bunker, that president would have said that the Secret Service felt it was necessary, and as soon as the Secret Service felt the danger had passed, they came back out.  People would have shrugged, and an hour later, everyone would have gone back to posting cat videos and making fun of Ted Cruz's pandemic beard.

Awww, poor little baby #BunkerBitch. Any other President wouldn’t have fucked things up so bad that they needed to go to the bunker in the first place and pandemic beards wouldn’t even be a thing because it never would have gotten that far out of hand. 

[GreyhoundFan]

As is often the case, George is correct:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a parody account, but I could see this being true.

 

He's going to wig out...

Edited June 18, 2020 by GreyhoundFan

[GreyhoundFan]

Because the Rs are spineless cowards who don't care about the country.

[fraurosena]

Expect another meltdown soon:

 

[AnywhereButHere]

And the hits just keep on coming!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-trump-cannot-end-daca-big-win-dreamer-n1115116

Quote

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot carry out its plan to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as "Dreamers," to avoid deportation and remain in the U.S.

The decision is a big legal defeat for President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, which has been a major focus of his domestic agenda.

The decision authored mostly by Chief Justice John Roberts said the government failed to give an adequate justification for ending the federal program. The administration could try again to shut it down by offering a more detailed explanation for its action, but the White House might not want to end such a popular program in the heat of a presidential campaign.

Does the bunker come equipped with easy access to McDonalds, because he may want to hide down there to lick his wounds and plan his next Twitter attacks. 

[fraurosena]

LOL!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is disturbing:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The decision was made because twitler and his minions only care about him and his properties; they don't care about monuments or museums that are not in his honor.

[fraurosena]

Right on cue. He is so predictable.

 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is disturbing:

 

The fact that even THIS won't deter his supporters is what makes me want to flee this country.  

This is terrifying.

2 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Does the bunker come equipped with easy access to McDonalds, because he may want to hide down there to lick his wounds and plan his next Twitter attacks. 

Can we all get our own bunkers until he's gone.  I'll come out to vote, I promise.

[JMarie]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-he-made-juneteenth-very-famous/ar-BB15FOWv?ocid=spartanntp

Quote

President Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he made "Juneteenth," the annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery, "very famous" by originally scheduling a campaign rally on the date.

"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous," Trump told the Journal in an interview Wednesday, referencing the news coverage of the planned rally that was moved to a later date. "It's actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."

Trump was widely criticized for scheduling the rally on June 19 in Tulsa, Okla., the site of one of the bloodiest acts of racial violence in 1921, with many critics charging that it was a racially insensitive decision.

Trump eventually postponed the rally, acknowledging "many" of his African American friends and supporters had reached out asking him to change the date.

Juneteenth has been a day to mark the end of slavery in the United States for more than 150 years and is recognized as a holiday in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

Trump told the Journal that a black Secret Service agent informed him of the meaning of Juneteenth. He also claimed he polled those around him and none had heard of the annual holiday. Trump was surprised to learn from an aide during the interview with the Journal that the White House put out a statement marking the occasion last year.

"Oh, really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?" Trump said. "OK, OK. Good."

Trump's Tulsa rally is scheduled to take place on Saturday evening, marking his first campaign rally since March during the coronavirus pandemic. It is expected to draw a substantial crowd to Tulsa's BOK Center, raising concerns about the potential for the event to spread the novel coronavirus. The campaign plans to conduct temperature checks and distribute masks and hand sanitizer to attendees.

The Trump campaign's announcement of the rally coincided with nationwide protests over the police-involved death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man. Trump's handling of and rhetoric on the demonstrations has also come under sustained scrutiny in recent weeks.

Trump, who signed an executive order Tuesday to incentivize police reform, acknowledged in the Journal interview that there is "some" systemic racism in the United States but asserted that the country had made substantial progress in rooting out racism from its institutions.

"I'd like to think there is not" systemic racism, Trump told the Journal. "But unfortunately, there probably is some. I would also say it's very substantially less than it used to be."

 

[fraurosena]

There are lots of reactions to Trump's plaintive tweet about the Supreme Court not liking him. This is one of the most hilarious:

 

[WiseGirl]

Facebook actually did something. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/tech/facebook-trump-ads-triangle-takedown/index.html

Senator Murphy is right. We have a president that is PRO concentration camps.

Think about that.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by WiseGirl
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