Trump 48: Nobody Likes Me

[smittykins]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:19 PM, AmazonGrace said:

 

I asked about this on another thread, but I’ve since confirmed that yes, Vicente Fox was the one who said that Mexico wasn’t going to pay for “the fucking wall.”

And I love John’s reaction that “he took the extra effort to swear in English!”

Edited August 23, 2020 by smittykins

[fraurosena]

Hmm. But you didn't ban travel from China, now did you?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump obliterates lines between governing and campaigning in service of his reelection"

Spoiler

Trailing in the polls and struggling to find a message, President Trump is leveraging one of the most powerful assets he has left — his White House office — in service of his reelection bid, obliterating the lines between governing and campaigning and testing legal boundaries in ways that go well beyond his predecessors.

In recent weeks, Trump has acknowledged he was opposed to funding for the U.S. Postal Service because he does not want the money used for universal mail-in voting. He sent Homeland Security authorities to quell social justice protests in what he termed “Democrat cities.” He signed a stream of executive orders that circumvented Congress and delivered overtly partisan speeches at official White House functions, including a 54-minute Rose Garden monologue blasting Democratic rival Joe Biden last month.

Trump also has used federal resources and personnel to re-create the enthusiasm of his campaign rallies that were curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic. He invited patrons at his private golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., to attend news conferences there, with many of them heckling reporters. And he held a campaign rally in Yuma, Ariz., last week with 200 off-duty Border Patrol union members, many wearing masks emblazoned with “TRUMP” and “MAGA.”

This week, he is set to cap his renomination at the Republican National Convention with an acceptance speech at the White House. First lady Melania Trump will make her own address from the Rose Garden, which she recently renovated. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and Ja’Ron Smith, both White House aides, are also featured convention speakers, as is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, violating longstanding tradition that the nation’s top diplomat remain removed from partisan politics.

Presidents of both parties, including Trump’s recent predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, have mixed a measure of campaigning with official White House business, especially in election years. But Trump has trampled over norms once respected by both parties and challenged legal boundaries that limit political activity by federal officials, ethics lawyers said.

Beyond the legal questions, Trump’s speech at the White House this week would send “a very strong message to the federal workforce that if you are in a high-level position, the government is there to serve you,” said Walter Shaub, who served as the director of the Office of Government Ethics in the Obama administration. “It turns the idea of public service on its head.”

Shaub pointed to Trump’s decision not to divest control of his sprawling real estate business upon becoming president as establishing a framework for a presidency that has been defined by “self-dealing.”

Trump, he said, “makes clear he sees no distinction between the government and himself.”

Democrats have raised objections to Trump’s use of the White House as an overt political backdrop. In response to congressional inquiries, the Office of Special Counsel stated in a letter this month that Trump and Vice President Pence are exempt from civil regulations under the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from taking part in some forms of political activity. That office later clarified it had made no ruling on the criminal provisions in the law.

In a statement, White House spokesman Judd Deere said, “The President, like all of those who served before him, has every right to address the American people on any subject at any time from any location.”

Trump has defended his choice to speak from the White House as a cost-saving measure for taxpayers. Republicans had planned to gather in Charlotte before, like Democrats, canceling the public portions of their convention.

Using the White House, Trump suggested, would save public funds by making security more manageable, although most of the other expenses of an off-site event would presumably have been borne by his campaign or the Republican National Committee.

The president said he also considered speaking at a historical site in Gettysburg, Pa., but he told the New York Post last week that he chose the White House because it “makes me feel good. It makes the country feel good.”

Trump already has turned many of his remarks at official events into political attacks. On Friday, he delivered a sustained assault on Biden during lengthy remarks to the consersvative Council for National Policy.

“I’m the only thing standing between the American Dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos,” Trump said. A White House official said presidents of both parties routinely point out the contrasts with the opposition, especially in an election year.

Critics point to Trump’s use of his private resorts for summits with foreign leaders and other government business, his appointment of Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner as senior White House advisers and his use of a personal Twitter account to both attack rivals and announce policy, as examples of his willingness to tangle up his public and personal interests.

“His entire world is like his Twitter feed,” said Simon Rosenberg, founder of the liberal NDN think tank. “The official is subsumed by the political.”

In a tweet last week, Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear over the company’s decision to prohibit employees from wearing political paraphernalia, including “Make America Great Again” hats. He later said he would support removing Goodyear tires from the presidential limousine, prompting a reporter to ask whether he was making a political statement or a policy directive for the government.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Goodyear was employing a double standard by allowing expressions of support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump’s MAGA campaign slogan, she asserted, has become synonymous with “blue lives matter” support for law enforcement agencies.

“I will stand at this podium and say ‘blue lives matter’ is an equity issue, and Goodyear needs to acknowledge it,” McEnany said at the White House.

Historians compared Trump’s approach with that of autocrats who focus on maintaining power and enriching themselves. Author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has written about authoritarians, said Trump has pursued “discrediting democratic institutions” and “making it hard for Americans to exert their rights, which is what his war on mail-in voting and the Post Office is about.”

Trump’s attack on Goodyear, she added, was about “prevailing against his enemies and silencing any contest to his election.”

Since embarking on his first campaign, Trump has transgressed guardrails in the election system, potentially putting national security at risk, according to members of both parties.

An exhaustive report from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee released last week portrayed his 2016 campaign as posing counterintelligence risks through numerous contacts with Russia, eager to exploit assistance from the Kremlin.

The Democratic-led House impeached Trump this year over a private phone call in July 2019 during which he pressured Ukraine’s leader to open an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter.

“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama warned during a lacerating critique of Trump’s presidency during the Democratic National Convention last week.

As Biden has taken a lead in national polling, Trump has fanned a culture war over the racial justice protests in American cities. During a July 4 celebration at the White House, the president decried the “radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators” in a heavily partisan address on the South Lawn.

Since then, his administration has dispatched federal authorities — including a tactical Border Patrol division and secret police from the Department of Homeland Security — to Portland, Seattle and other cities to tamp down protests and make arrests. Trump has blamed Democratic mayors and governors for failing to quell the mostly peaceful demonstrations, which have included some violence, looting and arson.

Last week, Trump once again took aim at a favorite political target — California. He threatened to withhold wildfire aid from the state because its Democratic leaders did not take his advice to “clean your forests” of leaves and other debris even though much of that land is controlled by the federal government.

“Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he said during an event in Pennsylvania.

In Yuma, Trump held a rally in an airport hangar with 200 off-duty union members of the National Border Patrol Council and hundreds of family members. The union’s president, Brandon Judd, a Trump ally and frequent Fox News guest, warmed up the crowd by echoing Trump’s warnings of the “lawlessness that will happen” if Biden is elected.

“Right from the beginning, we had that chemistry,” Trump told Judd, gushing that the Border Patrol are “great friends of mine.”

Last week, Trump raised the possibility of dispatching law enforcement authorities to monitor polling places, raising alarms that the move echoed tactics historically used to intimidate voters of color.

Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, said in an interview that Trump has viewed the sprawling 250,000-person agency as “a political prop.” He recalled a visit with Trump to the Texas border with Mexico during the partial government shutdown in January 2019 when the president told aides he wanted the event, during which he posed with tactical vehicles and packages of seized narcotics, to look like a “Hollywood setup.”

Morale in parts of DHS fell because “the rank and file of the department think their job is to prevent another 9/11, not to reelect the president,” said Taylor, who recently endorsed Biden after leaving the Trump administration last year.

The National Border Patrol Council had never endorsed a presidential candidate before backing Trump in 2016, Judd said. Yet he refuted the suggestion that the union’s close political ties to Trump could color public perception that it would not enforce policies under a Biden administration.

“We performed at the highest level under Obama,” Judd said.

“Unions endorse candidates all the time,” said Lawrence Noble, former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission. “The problem is when a law enforcement agency endorses a candidate strongly and talks about which candidate is better. They are on the front lines, and you don’t want to feel when you come up against a federal law enforcement agency that politics come into play. And if they’re also being used to control protests against the president, that’s really problematic.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Cue the whining tweet about twitter being mean to him: "Twitter flags ‘misleading’ tweet in which Trump suggested voters could contract coronavirus from ballot drop boxes"

Spoiler

Twitter on Sunday flagged a tweet in which President Trump suggested voters could contract the coronavirus by placing their mail-in ballots in drop boxes, calling his message misleading and in violation of the platform’s rules.

“We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting,” the company said in a tweet Sunday afternoon.

It added that Trump’s tweet “will remain on the service given its relevance to ongoing public conversation” and that users “will be able to Retweet with Comment, but not Like, Reply, or Retweet it.”

The move came after Trump kicked off his Sunday morning by tweeting two familiar lines of attack — one against mail-in voting and another against some Democrats at last week’s convention who omitted the word “God” when saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

“So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times,” Trump tweeted. “Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!”

Despite the claim, states and localities check ballots against voter rolls, making it difficult for one person to “vote multiple times.” Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, can be spread by exposure to surfaces but is more often spread by person-to-person contact, according to experts.

George Conway, a conservative lawyer and frequent critic of the president, responded to Trump’s tweet by noting his own recent experience dropping off a ballot for his wife, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

“Recently I dropped my wife’s primary ballot off in a dropbox in front of the Bergen County, NJ municipal building,” he tweeted. “There were security officers there. The dropbox was clean, but I didn’t have to touch it because there was a narrow, clearly marked slot to put the ballot in!”

Trump on Sunday also noted that a few participants in breakout caucus meetings during last week’s Democratic National Convention removed the word “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Two Democrat Caucus Meetings removed ‘UNDER GOD’ from the Pledge of Allegiance,” he tweeted. “It sounded not only strange, but terrible. That’s where they’re coming from!”

On Saturday, Trump falsely claimed “The Democrats” had removed the line from the pledge. During the prime-time, televised events, DNC attendees recited the full Pledge of Allegiance, including the phrase “one nation under God.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He's such a man of God... /sarcasm

[fraurosena]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He's such a man of God... /sarcasm

GOD is an acronym for Golf Ol Day...

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is back to his worst"

Spoiler

This time, the false hope started with the president’s press secretary.

In a tweet Saturday night, Kayleigh McEnany told the world that Trump would announce “a major therapeutic breakthrough” on the novel coronavirus at a Sunday evening news conference. As the president took the podium, he echoed McEnany, promising a “very historic breakthrough … that will save countless lives.”

The truth — not surprisingly — was different: Trump did not announce any breakthrough vaccine or miracle cure, but merely an emergency-use authorization for convalescent plasma, which, while promising, is neither a sure thing nor a breakthrough. Contrary to Trump’s assurances, the treatment, which uses antibody-rich plasma donated by covid-19 survivors, has not been proven to reduce mortality. Just a few weeks ago, according to the New York Times, “top federal health officials including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci intervened” to delay the emergency authorization because of concerns that the data on plasma’s effectiveness was too weak. Even if it does work, the treatment is already widely available, so any gains from Trump’s emergency authorization will be “incremental,” according to former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

These facts didn’t stop Trump from taking credit, nor from congratulating the FDA, which “really stepped up,” according to the president. It was a far cry from Saturday morning, when Trump accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” of deliberately delaying vaccines and therapeutics until after Election Day — making clear, as if there were any doubt, that the president had been wielding this latest conspiracy theory only for his own political reasons.

That’s par for the course for this president, of course, who loves few things more than playing games with conspiracy theories. On Thursday, Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that “we’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement” at polling places to combat voter fraud. When critics pointed out that federal law enforcement at the polls would intimidate voters and would be likely to violate the law, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pretended that “what the president was really addressing was to make sure that if you want to show up and vote in person, we’re going to make sure that that is safe.” Sure. But it’s all empty posturing anyway: Even acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf — who had no qualms about sending federal law enforcement in unmarked vehicles to Portland — agreed Sunday that the department doesn’t have the authority to deploy officers to polling places.

Another wink to conspiracy theories came Wednesday, when Trump was asked about the QAnon movement, which believes Trump is fighting a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshippers, sex traffickers, pedophiles and/or cannibals. Rather than debunk the movement, as any normal president would do, Trump claimed, “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much.” It’s nigh impossible that the cable-news-obsessed Trump is actually ignorant of QAnon. Worse, his refusal to disavow it has only bolstered adherents, who have been linked to arson, assault and even murder. But they vote for Trump, and in the president’s mind that, well, trumps all.

Still, as scary as these indulgences of conspiracy theories are, nothing is more dangerous in this moment than false hope. Convalescent plasma is just the latest case of Trump promising breakthroughs or downplaying the threat. First came weeks of promises that “it’s going to work out fine” and “the coronavirus is very much under control.” Then came months of touting so-called cures such as hydroxycholoroquine. And then came claim after claim that conditions were safe for states and businesses to reopen.

The costs of stoking these false hopes are most obvious in the millions who have become sick or died after foolish reopenings. On top of that, though, must be added the confusion wrought by the president’s repeated misstatements, the loss of confidence in experts whose advice the president rejects and the demoralization of millions who thought, based on the president’s word, that happier times were just around the corner, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

In offering more false hope on the eve of the convention renominating him for president, Trump gave us the best reminder why doing so is such a grave mistake.

 

[fraurosena]

Projecting again. 

I just love it that the DeJoy hearing is getting more attention than the TNC. And that Trump is taking the bait,  tweeting about it and taking even more attention away from the convention.. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Get ready for a major meltdown: "New York attorney general sues Trump Organization, revealing state investigation into the company’s financial dealings"

Spoiler

The New York Attorney General is investigating President Trump’s private business for a allegedly misleading lenders by inflating the value of its assets, the attorney general’s office said Monday in a legal filing.

In the filing, signed by a deputy to Attorney General Letitia James, the attorney general’s office said it is investigating Trump’s use of “Statements of Financial Condition” — documents Trump sent to lenders, summarizing his assets and debts.

The filing asks a New York state judge to compel the Trump Organization to provide information it has been withholding from investigators — including a subpoena seeking an interview with the president’s son Eric.

The attorney general’s office said began investigating after Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, told Congress in February 2019 that Trump had used these statements to inflate his net worth to lenders.

The filing said that Eric Trump had been scheduled to be interviewed in the investigation in late July, but abruptly canceled that interview. The filing says that Eric Trump is now refusing to be interviewed, with Eric Trump’s lawyers saying “we cannot allow the requested interview to go forward … pursuant to those rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution.”

Many of the details of the investigation were redacted or left out of the filing. But it mentioned valuations of three Trump properties: a Los Angeles golf course, an office building at 40 Wall Street and a country estate called “Seven Springs” in Westchester County, N.Y.

Last year, The Washington Post reported that Trump had inflated the potential sale value of the Seven Springs property in a “Statement of Financial Condition” — a type of document he sent to potential lenders to demonstrate his wealth.

In 2011, Trump’s statement claimed that the property had been “zoned for nine luxurious homes,” and that the value of those home lots raised the value of the overall property to $261 million — far more than the $20 million assessed by local authorities. Local officials said Trump had received preliminary conceptual approval for those homes, but never completed the process or obtained final zoning permission. The homes were never built.

The court filing also mentions a question about a loan on Trump’s Chicago Hotel, which one of Trump’s lenders forgave in 2010. The filing does not say why that forgiven loan is of interest to investigators.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment on Monday morning. Trump still owns his businesses, though he says he has given day-to-day control over to his sons.

This is not Trump’s first fight with the New York Attorney General. A previous attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, sued Trump for defrauding students at his “Trump University,” in a case that led Trump’s school to pay $25 million to settle in 2016.

Later, the Attorney General’s office sued Trump for misusing donations in his nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to buy art for his clubs, pay off legal obligations for his businesses and to help his own political campaign. That suit ended last November, with a state judge ordering Trump to pay $2 million in damages.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D) is also leading an investigation into the Trump Organization.

Vance has subpoenaed the Trump Organization’s longtime accountants, Mazars USA, for eight years of the president’s tax returns and other tax preparation documents. Trump sought to block that subpoena, on the grounds that he was immune to criminal investigation as president. He lost at the Supreme Court, and now his lawyers are fighting an effort to block the subpoena on other grounds.

The scope of Vance’s investigation remains unclear. It began with an inquiry into payoffs made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels — who said she had an affair with Trump — before the 2016 election. But in recent court filings, Vance has suggested that he may be looking into financial practices at the Trump Organization as well.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Pretty much...

[fraurosena]

59 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Get ready for a major meltdown: "New York attorney general sues Trump Organization, revealing state investigation into the company’s financial dealings"

  Reveal hidden contents

The New York Attorney General is investigating President Trump’s private business for a allegedly misleading lenders by inflating the value of its assets, the attorney general’s office said Monday in a legal filing.

In the filing, signed by a deputy to Attorney General Letitia James, the attorney general’s office said it is investigating Trump’s use of “Statements of Financial Condition” — documents Trump sent to lenders, summarizing his assets and debts.

The filing asks a New York state judge to compel the Trump Organization to provide information it has been withholding from investigators — including a subpoena seeking an interview with the president’s son Eric.

The attorney general’s office said began investigating after Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, told Congress in February 2019 that Trump had used these statements to inflate his net worth to lenders.

The filing said that Eric Trump had been scheduled to be interviewed in the investigation in late July, but abruptly canceled that interview. The filing says that Eric Trump is now refusing to be interviewed, with Eric Trump’s lawyers saying “we cannot allow the requested interview to go forward … pursuant to those rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution.”

Many of the details of the investigation were redacted or left out of the filing. But it mentioned valuations of three Trump properties: a Los Angeles golf course, an office building at 40 Wall Street and a country estate called “Seven Springs” in Westchester County, N.Y.

Last year, The Washington Post reported that Trump had inflated the potential sale value of the Seven Springs property in a “Statement of Financial Condition” — a type of document he sent to potential lenders to demonstrate his wealth.

In 2011, Trump’s statement claimed that the property had been “zoned for nine luxurious homes,” and that the value of those home lots raised the value of the overall property to $261 million — far more than the $20 million assessed by local authorities. Local officials said Trump had received preliminary conceptual approval for those homes, but never completed the process or obtained final zoning permission. The homes were never built.

The court filing also mentions a question about a loan on Trump’s Chicago Hotel, which one of Trump’s lenders forgave in 2010. The filing does not say why that forgiven loan is of interest to investigators.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment on Monday morning. Trump still owns his businesses, though he says he has given day-to-day control over to his sons.

This is not Trump’s first fight with the New York Attorney General. A previous attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, sued Trump for defrauding students at his “Trump University,” in a case that led Trump’s school to pay $25 million to settle in 2016.

Later, the Attorney General’s office sued Trump for misusing donations in his nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to buy art for his clubs, pay off legal obligations for his businesses and to help his own political campaign. That suit ended last November, with a state judge ordering Trump to pay $2 million in damages.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D) is also leading an investigation into the Trump Organization.

Vance has subpoenaed the Trump Organization’s longtime accountants, Mazars USA, for eight years of the president’s tax returns and other tax preparation documents. Trump sought to block that subpoena, on the grounds that he was immune to criminal investigation as president. He lost at the Supreme Court, and now his lawyers are fighting an effort to block the subpoena on other grounds.

The scope of Vance’s investigation remains unclear. It began with an inquiry into payoffs made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels — who said she had an affair with Trump — before the 2016 election. But in recent court filings, Vance has suggested that he may be looking into financial practices at the Trump Organization as well.

 

Jennifer Rubin's suggestion is awesome. Rufus grant her wish.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

302 SCOTUS justices? Good grief.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He's the bigliest:

 

[AmericanRose]

So in case anyone was on the fence (hahahaha) I found Trump's list of... um, "policy". I bolded those I have thoughts on.
 

Spoiler

 

JOBS

Create 10 Million New Jobs in 10 Months - so really COVID-19 was perfect for Trump, because you know he's going to take credit for any businesses that re-open!

Create 1 Million New Small Businesses - eh? How does that work? Isn't it up to people to create small businesses, not the government...?

Cut Taxes to Boost Take-Home Pay and Keep Jobs in America - didn't he already do that? Cut taxes, at least; I don't think it kept any jobs in the US.

Enact Fair Trade Deals that Protect American Jobs

"Made in America" Tax Credits

Expand Opportunity Zones

Continue Deregulatory Agenda for Energy Independence - so in short, the only way we can have "energy independence" is if we pollute our air and water with no regard for the future.

ERADICATE COVID-19

Develop a Vaccine by The End Of 2020 - I don't think that's up to the POTUS... though it's kind of funny, since Q's are very suspicious of vaccines.

Return to Normal in 2021 - This reads like it was written by an elementary student.

Make All Critical Medicines and Supplies for Healthcare Workers in The United States

Refill Stockpiles and Prepare for Future Pandemics - shouldn't you have done that before this pandemic?

END OUR RELIANCE ON CHINA

Bring Back 1 Million Manufacturing Jobs from China - wasn't this a 2017 promise? And yet it still hasn't happened....

Tax Credits for Companies that Bring Back Jobs from China - at this point, companies won't be paying any tax at all. But unless we adopt an "anything goes" attitude and lower our wages dramatically, I don't think any companies will be returning.

Allow 100% Expensing Deductions for Essential Industries like Pharmaceuticals and Robotics who Bring Back their Manufacturing to the United States

No Federal Contracts for Companies who Outsource to China

Hold China Fully Accountable for Allowing the Virus to Spread around the World - so... if someone catches a new illness in the US and leaves before realising, should we be held accountable to that? Should Australia? Should England? How does this work?

HEALTHCARE

Cut Prescription Drug Prices - wasn't this a promise for 2017?

Put Patients and Doctors Back in Charge of our Healthcare System - so you're expanding the ACA?

Lower Healthcare Insurance Premiums - uh, didn't the ACA do that with its subsidies? Couldn't you have done that in the past 3 years? Also, if patients and doctors are put back in charge, why do we need insurance companies?

End Surprise Billing

Cover All Pre-Existing Conditions - doesn't the ACA already do this?

Protect Social Security and Medicare - well, to my understanding, the payroll cut was a deferral, not permanent, so it will be paid back at some point.

Protect Our Veterans and Provide World-Class Healthcare and Services

EDUCATION

Provide School Choice to Every Child in America - wonderful. So the good schools can be over-crowded, and the poor schools will get even less funding.

Teach American Exceptionalism - believe it or not, it's actually NOT a good idea to teach that your country is wonderful and above all others. Also: only 2 items for education??

DRAIN THE SWAMP

Pass Congressional Term Limits - are you aware you're not a dictator? Best of luck getting that through Congress... also, note the irony as he floats the idea of ending presidential term limits.

End Bureaucratic Government Bullying of U.S. Citizens and Small Businesses - WTF?

Expose Washington’s Money Trail and Delegate Powers Back to People and States - So now we're in favour of states rights again? I can't keep track. I doubt this will happen though, since Washington's "money trail" undoubtedly has him in it.

Drain the Globalist Swamp by Taking on International Organizations That Hurt American Citizens - wut. 

DEFEND OUR POLICE

Fully Fund and Hire More Police and Law Enforcement Officers - read the room.

Increase Criminal Penalties for Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers

Prosecute Drive-By Shootings as Acts of Domestic Terrorism

Bring Violent Extremist Groups Like ANTIFA to Justice - does this include the Proud Boys, who actually exist?

End Cashless Bail and Keep Dangerous Criminals Locked Up until Trial - I don't think dangerous criminals are being released before trial. Way to keep poor people in jail, though.

END ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS

Block Illegal Immigrants from Becoming Eligible for Taxpayer-Funded Welfare, Healthcare, and Free College Tuition - this still isn't a thing.

Mandatory Deportation for Non-Citizen Gang Members - I'm pretty sure this is already a thing.

Dismantle Human Trafficking Networks - pretty sure this isn't directly under POTUS control, and it's dangerous because there are too many people who think Trump will be handling it on his own, so they don't have to do anything, and anyone who does is suspect.

End Sanctuary Cities to Restore our Neighborhoods and Protect our Families - I think this is just on the list because it's something cities do, and therefore it's bad.

Prohibit American Companies from Replacing United States Citizens with Lower-Cost Foreign Workers - what does this even mean? In order to hire foreign workers, you already have to prove no American could do the job, and you have to pay them as you would a citizen.

Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially - so are they coming here and leeching off our (pathetic) social systems, or are they stealing our jobs? Make up your mind.

INNOVATE FOR THE FUTURE

Launch Space Force, Establish Permanent Manned Presence on The Moon and Send the First Manned Mission to Mars - why do we need a permanent presence on the moon?

Build the World’s Greatest Infrastructure System - please do tell me the specifics.

Win the Race to 5G and Establish a National High-Speed Wireless Internet Network - ohhh. The Q's aren't going to be happy about this. Though I'm sure they're making up something this is code for. This is also the first I'm hearing about it being a 'race'.

Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air - well of course. If you deregulate, companies will just not pollute out of the goodness of their hearts. Like in the '60s!

Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet’s Oceans

AMERICA FIRST FOREIGN POLICY

Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home

Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share

Maintain and Expand America’s Unrivaled Military Strength - so you're going to stop endless wars and bring troops home... but you're also going to expand our military?

Wipe Out Global Terrorists Who Threaten to Harm Americans - I thought Trump already did that?

Build a Great Cybersecurity Defense System and Missile Defense System

 

Siiiiigh.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, AmericanRose said:

Bring Violent Extremist Groups Like ANTIFA to Justice - does this include the Proud Boys, who actually exist?

So does this mean that they can claim any people who peacefully protest against the government are part of ANTIFA?

 

1 hour ago, AmericanRose said:

Make All Critical Medicines and Supplies for Healthcare Workers in The United States

Yeah, in my opinion we should have been doing this all along.

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump shows us the limits of running the country like a reality TV show"

Spoiler

Donald Trump owes his presidency in part to his reality television career. And, at times, he has run his administration like a cutthroat reality program, pitting staffers against each other, conducting regular eliminations and elevating love-to-hate-them veterans of his actual television shows — such as Omarosa Manigault Newman — to starring roles. But Tuesday night’s Republican National Convention showed that Trump still hasn’t learned that governing is different from entertaining, and that his self-interest is not the same as his country’s.

Just as Trump used “The Apprentice” franchise to burnish his image as a hard-nosed businessman, he and his team used some of the functions and trappings of his office to recast him as a man of compassion, instead of a callous jailer of children or a TV addict who spends all day tossing racist bombs on Twitter. Issuing a full pardon and conducting a naturalization ceremony in the White House might have been effective stunts if Trump was merely playing the president on a television drama. As an effort to spin his record, which ranges from warning White suburban women that Black criminals are coming for them to trying to lie away a pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans, it was grotesque.

If you could look past that, the segments themselves were relatively inoffensive. Jon Ponder, a former bank robber and the founder of Hope for Prisoners, gave a compelling account of his conversion to Christianity and his friendship with the federal agent who put him in jail for the last time, demonstrating more charisma and decency than the man who granted him a clean slate. At the naturalization ceremony, Trump ran through brief biographies of the citizens he was swearing in, an unremarkable moment save for the president’s self-deprecating joke that Rima Gideon, who studied psychology, can “figure me out.”

But there’s a fundamental tension between Trump’s attraction to competitive reality television shows and the message he needs to send in convention segments such as these.

If you want to seem like a champion of criminal justice reform, you can’t stage a contest between former prisoners, eliminating them one by one and giving out a single pardon to the one who most successfully flatters your vanity. That sort of sadism might make for reasonably engaging television when the stakes are a contract with the Trump Organization or a donation to charity. But it’s hard to sell a setup that requires celebrities such as Kim Kardashian West to lobby for individual prisoners’ sentences to be commuted as substantive reform.

On immigration, the Trump administration needs to conceal the fact that it has made access to the United States a brutal competition. The sight of young children caring for each other in detention, isolated from their parents, is sickening, not uplifting. A naturalization ceremony for less than a half-dozen lucky “winners” made something that is virtually impossible look easy. (It is a rather delicious irony that Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security secretary, is only playing a government official on television since the Government Accountability Office has determined that he was appointed to his position illegally.)

But as much as reality shows sometimes thrive on drama and ugliness, at their best, those weeks of challenges serve a higher purpose. As they work through their tests, we get to know the casts, we gauge their strengths and weaknesses, and we understand the ambitions and personal struggles that have led them to pursue this opportunity.

None of that was on the agenda Tuesday. The “contestants” were mere props; they existed only to reflect glory on Trump. Their value was less to the country’s future than to its showrunner’s.

The Tuesday convention programming had other little stylistic touches borrowed from reality television. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began his address by announcing that “I’m speaking to you from beautiful Jerusalem,” with all the pep of “The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison kicking off a travel episode to a romantic location. That President Trump did not, as initially planned, escort first lady Melania Trump to the podium for her speech will inevitably prompt plenty of Wednesday-morning speculation.

But these convention moments mostly revealed that Trump doesn’t understand that when you’re president, there’s only so far you can go to create your own reality.

 

[smittykins]

On 8/25/2020 at 12:27 PM, AmericanRose said:

Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially - so are they coming here and leeching off our (pathetic) social systems, or are they stealing our jobs? Make up your mind.

Leeching off public assistance while getting paid under the table.  Duh!
 

/s

Edited August 26, 2020 by smittykins

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is making unforced errors because he believes the Fox News fantasy world is real"

Spoiler

In 1787, Catherine the Great, ruler of the Russian empire, traveled to newly conquered lands in the south. Her former lover, Grigory Potemkin, worried that she would not be impressed by what she saw — and that it might make her feel a little less great than her title warranted. So, the (perhaps partly apocryphal) story goes, he constructed a series of charming fake villages along the Dnieper River. When Catherine’s boat passed, each village was taken down and reconstructed downstream, providing an endless fantasy for her to enjoy.

Such a stunt would be relatively harmless — unless Catherine started making decisions based on the fantasy rather than reality.

Fox News has now built a comparable fantasy world, created night after night with one particular viewer in mind. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro are the modern-day versions of Potemkin, set on ensuring that their leader sees a world constructed for him and not the grim reality that lies beyond the airwaves. But if President Trump loses in November, as he’s on track to do, Fox News will share in the blame. Like the Potemkin villages designed for Catherine, Fox News World has become real to Trump. And because he believes the fantasy world is reality, he’s making devastating unforced political errors that could cost him the election.

The Republican convention — an event orchestrated in close coordination with the White House — is a four-day-long fun-house mirror, a glimpse into the alternate reality where Trump and the die-hard supporters within his base have lived for years.

In Fox News World, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is a Trojan horse for socialism, a shadowy figure of a Marxist left. Speakers on Night One of the GOP convention repeatedly hinted at the notion that Biden would create a Communist hellscape in America. But in the real world, most Americans see Biden as a moderate Democrat, the opposite of a radical. Because the convention organizers and speakers have chosen to live exclusively in Fox News World, their narratives emanating from it to a broader audience seem unhinged. The lines that are designed for Fox News World accomplish their goal within Fox News World. But outside of it, such off-the-wall claims just further alienate independents and undecided voters.

Speakers at the convention also repeatedly tried to fuse Biden to former president Barack Obama. That makes sense as a strategy in Fox News World, where Obama is cast as a supervillain, a boogeyman, a fever-dream caricature of right-wing fears. But in the real world, Obama is one of the most popular presidents in modern history, a man who left office in January 2017 with the support of nearly 6 in 10 Americans. Every time a Republican speaker attacks the Obama-Biden legacy, that’s one fewer ad the Biden campaign needs to buy with images linking the two men.

And, perhaps most important of all, Trump made the mistakes that likely ended his presidency during the pandemic because he believed the feel-good narratives pushed by Fox News. In Fox News World, the pandemic was first “a hoax.” Then it was erroneously conflated with the flu. Then, during some of the worst weeks of infection, a morning show host told Americans to get on airplanes. Finally, there were the weeks and weeks of endless support for hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug that may actually be deadly for some patients. Because Trump believed Fox News World’s encouraging depictions of the pandemic over the warnings of experts and scientists, he severely misjudged the seriousness of the crisis until it was too late. He reopened the economy prematurely too, after a steady drumbeat of opinion hosts pushed the idea on Fox News prime-time programming.

Yet in the real world, poll after poll has shown that Americans are sincerely worried about a pandemic that has killed more than 174,000 — and they want the president to follow expert medical advice rather than bashing the best infectious disease experts in the United States.

There has been plenty of commentary about how Trump’s insatiable thirst for praise and attention has caused him to watch Fox News at all hours of the day. But that narcissism comes at a cost: He has begun to believe the narrative that has been handcrafted to make him feel better. Like a tinpot despot consuming state news and attending carefully orchestrated displays of fealty, Trump’s steady diet of Fox News (complemented with a side of political rallies designed to make him feel like a political messiah) has warped his thinking. As a result, he continues to preach only to the converted — a much smaller part of the population than he realizes.

Trump’s struggle to get reelected is a simple math problem. He needs to grow his base, not simply pander to it. And yet, because he believes that the Potemkin village of Fox News World is the real world, he is unable to do so. In a twisted way, then, if Trump loses, you can partly blame his biggest cheerleader: Fox News.

 

[WiseGirl]

Fuck 45 and the hate he spews. 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by WiseGirl
Add text

[Audrey2]

As this is done when he is 17 so if he is tried as an adult and convicted, he doesn't know what a world of hurt he is in in our prison system. He won't be able to retaliate with a gun in there, either.

[fraurosena]

12 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

As this is done when he is 17 so if he is tried as an adult and convicted, he doesn't know what a world of hurt he is in in our prison system. He won't be able to retaliate with a gun in there, either.

How remarkable that this violent white dude was arrested after shooting people while holding an AK-15 without getting shot, and yet a black guy gets shot seven times in the back in front of his three young children after having the temerity of breaking up a fight...

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus.

Ugh, just found out the link to the video isn't in this tweet. Here's a link though:

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by fraurosena

[fraurosena]

Here's the article that goes with the video:

New Hot-Mic Video: What Trump Told His Lawyer When He Didn’t Know a Camera Was Rolling

Quote

On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump took time off from campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination to spend hours sitting for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit alleging that he and Trump University had defrauded people who had plunked down thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of his financial success as a developer. During a break in the proceedings, the camera continued to roll. And Trump and his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, apparently unaware they were being recorded, were captured discussing the case.

In this 13-minute hot-mic video—a copy of which was provided to Mother Jones—Trump boasted about how his company threatened the Better Business Bureau to change the D rating it had assigned Trump University to an A. He complained about the federal judge overseeing the suit, Gonzalo Curiel, elliptically talking about how to challenge him and referring to “the Spanish thing.” Trump also griped that he had been sued personally in this case, and Petrocelli had to explain to Trump that he, not just Trump University itself, was in the legal crosshairs because Trump had been accused of making false statements to promote the venture. And Petrocelli pointed out that the case was not a lock for Trump because some of Trump’s “guys” had been “sloppy.”

This tape shows Trump in the wild, trying to figure out how to contend with a judge who he believed was not on his side (perhaps with the use of a racist attack), bragging about pressuring a group that had given his business a low rating, and grousing that he was being held personally responsible for a Trump enterprise accused of scamming people. 

During the 2016 campaign, Trump had to contend with three lawsuits accusing him and Trump University—which was not an accredited as a university—of hoodwinking students who had paid between $1,495 and $34,995 for real estate seminars. Trump, who had personally promoted this endeavor and vouched for the instructors (“handpicked by me”), vowed that he would never settle the cases, and he succeeded in pushing the trial until after Election Day. Shortly after the election, Trump settled the lawsuits, agreeing to pay $25 million without admitting wrongdoing. 

The entire 2015 deposition was videotaped, and Curiel granted Trump’s request to seal the videotape of the deposition; only a written transcript was made public. Trump and Petrocelli seemingly did not realize that a camera was still on while they talked during this break in the question-and-answer session.

Art Cohen, the lead plaintiff in one of two Trump University class-action lawsuits, gave a copy of this recording to Mother Jones. “I wanted to get this out before the election so people better understand how Trump behaves behind the scenes,” Cohen says. “Staying quiet all this time has been frustrating for me, and I wish everybody had gotten the chance to see Trump’s behavior as I did before the 2016 election. With 20/20 vision, we now have the opportunity to better understand his true nature and the gangster persona he shows in this video.” Cohen maintains that Trump’s ability to avoid a trial during the campaign cleared a major political obstacle for him, and he adds, “The Trump University legal saga is a footnote to history, but it helped Trump hone his blueprint for attacking the judiciary by publicly berating judges he deems adversarial.”

Mother Jones sent Petrocelli a list of questions about the conversation, which took place with several other people in the room. In response, Martin Checov, the general counsel of O’Melveny & Myers—the law firm where Petrocelli practices—sent a letter to Mother Jones, “on behalf of Trump University and President Donald J. Trump,” demanding that Mother Jones “not publish the video or any article relating to it and immediately destroy the video.”

 

[fraurosena]

Love this.

(The action, not the reason)