Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • Does anyone think that if the findings from the Mueller investigation, assuming that they are made public, are so damning that his family (or he himself whenever he leaves office) are likely to face criminal charges, that Pence would offer the assurance of whatever pardons are necessary to remove that threat if Trump would resign?

    It didn't work out so well for the last GOP president who made that particular deal with his predeccesor. So I think, if it got serious enough, the Republicans would do everything short of that to get Trump to quit, but if the guy was stubborn enough, they might not have much choice but to offer pardons.

    All that said, my own prediction is that this question will remain an academic one, since I don't think Mueller will find anything technically actionable about what Trump and his family did. (Which would actually good news for the Dems, since if Trump is forced to quit, it allows the incoming admin to portray themselves a "new broom", hoping the public will forget the role the overall GOP played in enabling Trump.)

  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    I couldn't even begin to guess, but it's a possibility I raised several pages ago.

    The problem is that T. Wrecks will never resign, with or without promise of pardon. To resign, he'd have to acknowledge to himself that there was no way forward, when there's always a way forward if you're simply willing to go on causing confusion, outrage, and mayhem; or that he'd have to admit that he'd royally stuffed things up (for The Donald? Inconceivable!); or that there was some infinitely more attractive option on the table to replace the presidency (Emperor of All Russias? Trump Tower in Moscow and a dacha in the Crimea?).
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Re governer's wife reining him in at the press conference:

    From what I saw, it was specifically when a reporter asked him if he could still do the Moon Walk dance that he did when he portrayed MJ. He looked like he was thinking about trying it. His wife told him it was inappropriate, and he repeated that to the crowd.
  • Finally, what was going on at this medical school that such photos were allowed to be published in the yearbook? Even if it was solely controlled by student editors, shouldn’t they have known better? This was the 80’s not the 50’s.

    And the controversial photos continued on long after the 80s, too. "Northam’s medical school banned yearbooks in 2013 — after students posed in Confederate garb"
  • So the State Of the Union speech is tonight. Presumably, it will start with the traditional invocation ("The state of the Union is strong!"), but after that? I am already irritated that the Media are jumping all over the info release that one of the subjects will be "unity"--as if that signaled anything important. We already know Trump's idea of "unity"--he will call on the Democrats to get in line and do everything he orders them to do or else be branded as being against "unity." It is similar to his idea of "negotiation"--do what I propose or I'll say nasty things about you.
  • Does anyone think that if the findings from the Mueller investigation, assuming that they are made public, are so damning that his family (or he himself whenever he leaves office) are likely to face criminal charges, that Pence would offer the assurance of whatever pardons are necessary to remove that threat if Trump would resign?

    Oh yes. I think the report will be dynamite. I also think Trump will never resign so it's an open question of what the hell happens next...
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Re governer's wife reining him in at the press conference:

    From what I saw, it was specifically when a reporter asked him if he could still do the Moon Walk dance that he did when he portrayed MJ. He looked like he was thinking about trying it. His wife told him it was inappropriate, and he repeated that to the crowd.

    He also joked about how hard it is to get shoe polish off your face. Tone. Deaf.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Re governer's wife reining him in at the press conference:

    From what I saw, it was specifically when a reporter asked him if he could still do the Moon Walk dance that he did when he portrayed MJ. He looked like he was thinking about trying it. His wife told him it was inappropriate, and he repeated that to the crowd.

    He also joked about how hard it is to get shoe polish off your face. Tone. Deaf.

    No. Judgment. A guy who's being questioned about his racism seriously considers trying the moonwalk? Maybe the wife was going to be the actual governor from behind the scenes? WTF?



  • Now, Virginia's Attorney General Mark Herring admits to wearing black face to a party in 1980. WTF? It astounds me when comments about all this say, "Well it was the 80's, it was, "different times." I looked up the history of, "black face" the other day and while it seemed acceptable in entertainers, like Al Jolson, through the 1920's, it was out of fashion by the early 30's because people had began to figure out it was offensive. There's absolutely no excuse for this in the 1980's.

    Just as the "Me Too," movement adopted a zero tolerance stance, I hope these latest events impress on everyone a similar attitude about this sort of thing and there's a clean sweep of people in office with racist pasts. If we have to have a cut off age for the "youthful indiscretion" excuse I would suggest 21.
  • What do you say we start a separate thread for the Virginia mess, and leave this thread to the shenanigans of the Fartletter-in-Chief?
  • Twilight wrote: »
    Now, Virginia's Attorney General Mark Herring admits to wearing black face to a party in 1980. WTF? It astounds me when comments about all this say, "Well it was the 80's, it was, "different times." I looked up the history of, "black face" the other day and while it seemed acceptable in entertainers, like Al Jolson, through the 1920's, it was out of fashion by the early 30's because people had began to figure out it was offensive. There's absolutely no excuse for this in the 1980's.

    Well, FWIW, Joni Mitchell posed in blackface for an album cover two years before the 1980s got started. I'm sure there was some sort of artistic rationale there, though I don't think we'd buy that argument from a square politician.

  • stetson wrote: »
    Twilight wrote: »
    Now, Virginia's Attorney General Mark Herring admits to wearing black face to a party in 1980. WTF? It astounds me when comments about all this say, "Well it was the 80's, it was, "different times." I looked up the history of, "black face" the other day and while it seemed acceptable in entertainers, like Al Jolson, through the 1920's, it was out of fashion by the early 30's because people had began to figure out it was offensive. There's absolutely no excuse for this in the 1980's.

    Well, FWIW, Joni Mitchell posed in blackface for an album cover two years before the 1980s got started. I'm sure there was some sort of artistic rationale there, though I don't think we'd buy that argument from a square politician.

    As @Amanda B Reckondwyth said above, there is now a thread in Hell about the the trifecta of scandals (two of which involve blackface) in Virginia.

    Here are examples of how blackface (and other forms of racial impersonation) were used in Hollywood well after the 30's.
  • stonespringstonespring Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Trump's nominee to replace now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of alleged sexual assault fame on the appeals court he formerly served on (the DC circuit, which is the most influential appeals court in the country) wrote her own choice comments about sexual assault in student newspapers at university. You can't make this stuff up!
  • LadyleftfieldloverLadyleftfieldlover Shipmate Posts: 17
    Trump's nominee to replace now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of alleged sexual assault fame on the appeals court he formerly served on (the DC circuit, which is the most influential appeals court in the country) wrote her own choice comments about sexual assault in student newspapers at university. You can't make this stuff up!

    When all these trump shenanigans are over, I can’t wait for the film(s)!
  • Meanwhile, back at the border, The Trump Admin Says It Won’t Return All Separated Children.

    There never any intent of giving these families due process. They chose to kidnap and abuse and torture vulnerable children and knew that nobody would care because they were brown "illegal" children.

    One of my best friend's parents were both orphaned in Poland in WWII. They survived Nazi child labour camps and came to Canada as refugees. I don't think it's unwarranted Godwinism to say Trump has reached Nazi-level evil.
  • At the Prayer Breakfast today:
    "Since the founding of our nation, many of our greatest strides – from gaining our independence to abolition of civil rights to extending the vote for women – have been led by people of faith," Trump said.
    Paging Dr. Freud! Paging Dr. Freud! 
  • I wonder if speechwriters are planting these Freudian slips in his speeches, safe in the knowledge that he won't notice but the public and the media will.
  • I would so want to do that. It's probably just as well that I'm not a speech writer.
  • The White House is claiming now that "abolition" and "civil rights" were separated by a comma, not by the preposition "of", and that he misread the phrase. Still a Freudian slip, though.
  • An interesting development, Jeff Bazos who owns Amazon and the Washington Post, has been Trump;a nemesis even before Trump announced for Presidency. Turns out Trump would love to knock Bazo's down a notch. So he gets his friends from National Enquirer to publish some personal emails from Bazos showing he has been having an affair. Bazos wonders where the National Enquirer got the emails--was it a government source, or a foreign intelligence source? Bazos hires private investigators to find out the source. National Enquirer gets wind of investigation and threatens to expose Bazos more. Bazos comes out and claims he is being blackmailed by NE.

    Why is this important? The owners of NE had signed a non prosecution agreement with Mueller saying they would provide Mueller with information about how they paid off the two women who claimed Trump had affairs with them and not face prosecution. But the kicker is the owners also agreed not to violate any federal or state law for the next three years or they will be prosecuted to the full force of the law.

    This is getting weirder and weirder.
  • Precipitated by an act of marital infidelity. St. Augustine would have said that sin and justice make interesting bedfellows.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    From the headlines I've seen in the National Enquirer at supermarket checkouts, if they said that Tuesday followed Monday, I'd check the calendar.

    Not that I'm flying the flag for Mr. Bezos - he doesn't need my support - but if it helped to bring down Trump ... :naughty:
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    They have occasionally broken real news stories.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Another issues even Trump voters are feeling they have been had has to do with taxes. Trump's three biggest issues were 1) The Wall. 2) Lowering the Federal Income Tax, and 3) Right to Life.

    The last Congress gave him the tax bill he wanted almost without objection from the Republicans. It purportedly would raise the standard deduction for a married couple from $12,500 to $24,000, but, in so doing, it also eliminated a number of itemized deductions. All of a sudden, people who had gotten tax refunds in the past are finding they have to pay this year! Last year, the average tax return was around $2400. This year, those who are receiving refunds are getting around $1800, about a 25% reduction.

    Last year, after the tax bill was passed, one of my MAGA cousins was gloating about how much more he was seeing in his paycheck. Now, not so much. He has to pay more income tax.

    My wife and I tried to figure this all out. We determined that if we eliminated the dependents we claimed on our W4 (tells the employers how much to withhold in taxes) and pay taxes on our Social Security we might just do okay. We have yet to sit down and do the figuring. I will let you know how it came out for us later.

    In the meantime, quite a few Trumpians are crying in their beers this tax reporting season.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Last year, after the tax bill was passed, one of my MAGA cousins was gloating about how much more he was seeing in his paycheck. Now, not so much. He has to pay more income tax.
    Which pretty much sums up the ability (or lack thereof) of MAGArooties to think through things.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Last year, after the tax bill was passed, one of my MAGA cousins was gloating about how much more he was seeing in his paycheck. Now, not so much. He has to pay more income tax.

    My wife and I tried to figure this all out. We determined that if we eliminated the dependents we claimed on our W4 (tells the employers how much to withhold in taxes) and pay taxes on our Social Security we might just do okay. We have yet to sit down and do the figuring. I will let you know how it came out for us later.

    In the meantime, quite a few Trumpians are crying in their beers this tax reporting season.

    Part of the reason for this is that the Trump Tax Bill included alterations to the way withholding is calculated. This was done with an eye towards November's elections, the idea being that Americans would notice their (slightly) larger take-home pay and vote Republican, like @Gramps49's MAGA cousin. The downside is that it kills many tax refunds, some of which actually turn into money owed. This is bound to be incredibly unpopular. An income tax refund is the largest lump-sum most American households get in any given year. A lot of Americans couldn't tell you exactly how much they paid in federal income tax last year, but most could tell you to the dollar how much they got as an income tax withholding refund (and what they did with that money).
  • Sales of new TVs went through the roof in Australia when the coalition introduced a baby bonus.
  • Stepping a few posts back, could some shipmate take time to explain to a puzzled Brit what a prayer breakfast is and what Trump was doing there? (He certainly made a meal of that speech . . . .Sorry.)
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I think that one might be the National Prayer Breakfast, but there are many kinds. Usually involves a gathering of gov't and/or business people. Generally, they have an extended breakfast together, with religious speakers and prayers. Cynically, the purposes are probably influence, networking, and adding a halo to your reputation, as much as anything spiritual.

    Can happen at any level of gov't. Business organizations (e.g., the Rotary) sometimes have them.
  • It's kind of like the North Melbourne Grand Final Breakfast in Aussie Rules. :tongue:
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    A lot of local churches have prayer breakfast here in the UK. They tend to be mostly men’s prayer breakfasts
  • Our church has one every month. Anyone can come and we pray for the church and its activities and - most importantly - the people then we have a simple breakfast of cereal and toast and socialise.
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Stepping a few posts back, could some shipmate take time to explain to a puzzled Brit what a prayer breakfast is and what Trump was doing there? (He certainly made a meal of that speech . . . .Sorry.)

    Fred Clark has a decent description of the National Prayer Breakfast (typically held on the first Thursday in February) and what's wrong with it here. Some ask if Jesus would attend the National Prayer Breakfast. I suspect he would. After all, there are a lot of tables there to turn over.
  • One of our local evangelical churches hosts the sort of event you have described - for women. My wife has been invited, though they don't consider our church's congregation 'real Christians'. But what makes a 'Prayer Breakfast' 'National\/' I'm jst curious!
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    But what makes a 'Prayer Breakfast' 'National' I'm jst curious!

    @Graven Image's linked summary is a good one. Here's another. It's essentially an event established by Congress as a religious exercise. Can you think of another sentence involving the words "Congress", "establish", and "religion"?
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Crœsos wrote: »
    It's essentially an event established by Congress as a religious exercise. Can you think of another sentence involving the words "Congress", "establish", and "religion"?
    The idea of a national prayer breakfast indeed seems very odd in a country where church and state are so explicitly separate.
  • That's just for the libtards Piglet. Real nationalists post pictures of the flag, the bible and a gun.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Sadly you seem to be right.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Croesos wrote

    [quoteThe downside is that it kills many tax refunds, some of which actually turn into money owed][/quote]

    I think you mean deductions. One deduction that is really hurting teachers is the one they took when the bought supplies to use in the classroom. In the past, if they spent more than three percent of their income for classroom supplies they could deduct it from their income tax. That was eliminated. There were quite a few others. In the past, if you provided more than half of your college students (<25) support for undergraduate studies you could deduct the support--no more. r You can't even claim him as a dependent if he or she is over 17. Most students don't complete high school until after they are 18.

    On the other hand, more wealthy people were given even more deductions. For instance a yacht. In the past, you could depreciate the cost of the yacht over 20 years. Now it is ten years.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Showing my extreme ignorance, I did not realise teachers were spending their own money on classroom supplies (if I read you correctly, Gramps). I would've thought they were given it all back, or it came from petty cash, not income deductions.

    I read this in a (paywalled - Crikey) article, which made me a bit depressed:
    The Americans are well used to [appalling political behaviour] now. The Dubya years, which seemed — and were — horrific at the time (an idiot president, illegal invasions, torture, renditions, financial crisis) now have a faintly benign air in comparison with a toddler currently in the Oval Office. The tone of vicious partisanship that was denounced years ago by all and sundry now looks tepid compared to the rancour, bigotry and hate that pervades US politics. In seven years’ time, will we be looking back and thinking that all this seems, on reflection, pretty anodyne compared to the garbage we’re seeing in the mid-2020s?
    (my bold)

    The comment is directed at our politics (the bulk of the article focussed on how low we have sunk in Australia, the headline being "This parliament doesn't need an election, it needs an exorcism") as much as the US.

    I suppose anything is possible. I really hope, though, for all our sakes, this is the nadir.
  • Climacus, as far as I know, all teachers buy resources out of their own funds. I certainly do, and claim them as a tax deduction. I would hate to find that I could not claim these out of pocket expenses!

    As for the state of Australian politics, I agree with you completely.
  • Oh, thanks Athrawes...I never knew. Even more respect for teachers now -- and hopes they are treated as befits those educating the next generation.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited February 2019
    I do not know if American teachers get any kind of refund or deduction for supplies. From news stories over the years, I know that they often buy supplies for their *students*, too.

    And some buy and prepare breakfast for their students who can't get it elsewhere.

    Some schools do have breakfast programs. I've heard of a (private?) program that gives kids in need enough sandwiches, etc. to get through the weekend.

    There are some lunch programs during the summer. Not sure if those are school-related, federal, or private. IIRC, cutting that out of the budget was proposed in the last few years, and possibly passed. Same, I think, with the Headstart program, which is pre-school and lunch for kids in poor areas.

    We're a sorry excuse for a country.
    :votive:

    ETA: That's the federal budget, and it normally provides some money for those programs.
  • Teachers end up buying resources for their students in the UK too. In theory we should get the money back, and it should be out of pocket totally for work expenses, so not taxable, just a straight refund. In my experience, I haven't always got the money back. In those cases I should have been able to claim those costs against tax, but haven't bothered. We shouldn't have to do this, but there's not enough funding in education.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    It happens even at the junior college level. Normally, I can get my textbooks free by ordering desk copies from the publishers, but this can take several weeks. A couple of years back, I was assigned a course with only 24 hours' notice when the original instructor left abruptly. I spent $240 of my own money (which is roughly 10% of what I'm paid to teach a course) to acquire the assigned books from the bookstore -- no time to order -- and not only was never reimbursed, I couldn't even get the courtesy of a response from the college.

    That same year, the trustees raised their 6-figure salaries, though.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    I've heard of a (private?) program that gives kids in need enough sandwiches, etc. to get through the weekend.
    My church is starting such a project, supporting (financially and as volunteers) our local food bank and a neighborhood school.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    It happens even at the junior college level. Normally, I can get my textbooks free by ordering desk copies from the publishers, but this can take several weeks. A couple of years back, I was assigned a course with only 24 hours' notice when the original instructor left abruptly. I spent $240 of my own money (which is roughly 10% of what I'm paid to teach a course) to acquire the assigned books from the bookstore -- no time to order -- and not only was never reimbursed, I couldn't even get the courtesy of a response from the college.

    That same year, the trustees raised their 6-figure salaries, though.

    I think I might have withheld the students' exam results in these circumstances, which might have got their attention. That's what my institution does, to students who owe it course fees!
  • But that would be punishing the students for something the administration has done.
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