Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Ah well, if everything can be ascribed to God's will, that would include God being willing to see a large number of people who contributed to Trump's presidency pleading guilty to crimes, God pushing Trump's approval rating down to record lows, and God being willing to prevent funding for The Wall.
  • My brother, known for his wit, has summed her up perfectly:

    Q. How does Sarah Sanders sleep at night?
    A. Hanging upside down in a cave.
  • My brother, known for his wit, has summed her up perfectly:

    Q. How does Sarah Sanders sleep at night?
    A. Hanging upside down in a cave.

    I think that might be an insult to bats!
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Not defending Sarah, but I notice she was being interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network when she said that.

    Oh yes, I get it now. These are people who believe that one 4th day God created the pump shotgun and AK-47 so Christians can fight dinosaurs and Mexican rapists.
  • stonespringstonespring Shipmate
    edited January 2019
    trumpy's ridculous spokeswoman says God wanted her trumpy boss to be president. Someone's an idiot here. Such ridiculousness.

    No. She's not an idiot. She's simply an example of depths to which the "Christian" right has descended. And sadly she - and those like her - are dragging the Christian faith into a state of complete ignominy.

    The American religious right and even some from the religious left speak a different language than secular and other Christian folk in the US regarding religion and politics. They see God's hand in everything - and they see policies that align with their teachings (and leaders supporting those policies) as put in place by God - both in government and in their churches. This kind of thinking can go down a dangerous path but I think part of it has been central to a large strain of evangelicalism since long before the rise of the US religious right in the 70's-80's. I think it's part of the religious diversity of this country and something that needs to be engaged rather than derided. Of course, when it is used to excuse bigotry, greed, corruption, and sheer incompetence, that is a big problem.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Crœsos wrote: »
    ... The divine right of kings was a threadbare philosophy by 1649 ....
    And look how that turned out ... :naughty:
  • Surely to goodness the god Sarah was talking about was Loki.
  • Trump's god is Moloch.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Not defending Sarah, but I notice she was being interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network when she said that.

    Oh yes, I get it now. These are people who believe that one 4th day God created the pump shotgun and AK-47 so Christians can fight dinosaurs and Mexican rapists.

    Something like that, though not all those beliefs apply to all viewers of CBN--or to all fund/con-evo folks.

    What I meant was more along the lines of "if you're with people who have strongly-held beliefs about anything and they ask you related questions, sometimes it's wisest to fake it until you can get out of there".

    BTW, I don't think I've ever come across any fund. folks who espouse Christians hunting dinosaurs--for the simple reason that even strictly literal 7-day Creationists believe dinos have been gone a long, long time. They just quibble about *how long*. ;)
  • Trump is getting really insistent. I got 5 requests for money in the last two days.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Surely to goodness the god Sarah was talking about was Loki.

    I don't think Loki can be blamed for this. If you look closely at the original stuff, Loki, who some think came in from the Celts and is cognate with Lugh/Llew, who arrived in a similar way as an outsider to the existing pantheon. His function in the recorded Norse myths is to get rid of the Aesir under Odin, in order to establish a new and better Midgard under Balder. Odin should not have been the leader of the gods, who should have been Thor (who had the central position in temples), or the god of war (Tyr, god of just wars and justice). Presumable his base took over and being the warrior berserkers, were able to impose their will on the devotees of the other gods. If you read the poem in which Odin describes himself as a thief, and a stirrer of strife you may think that Trump's god is more like him, and needs the attentions of Loki - the myth, not the comic.

    I shall build a wall round Asgard, and the giants will pay for it.....
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Penny--

    Thanks for that! But if Loki was supposed to help Balder, why did he trick Hod into killing Balder? Or is that not in the thread of stories you're using?

    And your last line is great. (:notworthy:)

    Jehovah, as recorded, and Gilgamesh could also make that kind of pronouncement. Of course, if this is the Gilgamesh story, that means T may get well one day.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Of course, if this is the Gilgamesh story, that means T may get well one day.

    In a prison infirmary.
  • The Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has admitted that he is one of the two people photographed, one in blackface and one in a KKK robe and hood (he has not indicated which one), in a photo (on his own personal page in the yearbook, indicating that he chose it to be there) in his medical school yearbook from 1984. He was born in 1959. Northam has spoken out against Confederate monuments and attends a church with a black pastor, and this was a long time ago, but he should resign. It does not matter if he has changed since then, or if the relatively anti-racist nature of his policies distinguish him from Republicans involved in similar scandals. The Republican Secretary of State of Florida, who oversees elections (!), resigned recently after a more recent photograph of him in blackface (from before he was in elected office) emerged in which he was dressed as a victim (a living one) of hurricane Katrina (I think it was a Halloween or costume party photo?). In order to not be hypocrites when they call on Republicans to resign for similar things, Democrats need to have their own officials resign for this.

    I volunteered for Northam's campaign. This is very disappointing, helps shield Republicans from the moral scandal of one racist controversy after another they are facing, and provides Trump with a distraction from his own problems. Ugh.
  • The Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has admitted that he is one of the two people photographed, one in blackface and one in a KKK robe and hood (he has not indicated which one), in a photo (on his own personal page in the yearbook, indicating that he chose it to be there) in his medical school yearbook from 1984. He was born in 1959. Northam has spoken out against Confederate monuments and attends a church with a black pastor, and this was a long time ago, but he should resign. It does not matter if he has changed since then, or if the relatively anti-racist nature of his policies distinguish him from Republicans involved in similar scandals. The Republican Secretary of State of Florida, who oversees elections (!), resigned recently after a more recent photograph of him in blackface (from before he was in elected office) emerged in which he was dressed as a victim (a living one) of hurricane Katrina (I think it was a Halloween or costume party photo?). In order to not be hypocrites when they call on Republicans to resign for similar things, Democrats need to have their own officials resign for this.

    I volunteered for Northam's campaign. This is very disappointing, helps shield Republicans from the moral scandal of one racist controversy after another they are facing, and provides Trump with a distraction from his own problems. Ugh.

    I'm really intrigued by this.

    As far as I can see, from what I have read, there's been a lot of right wing idiots accusing Democrats of hypocrisy because they opposed Kavanagh and obviously his year book was a part of that story.

    That charge doesn't stick at all because it seems to be unanimous chorus calling for him to resign.

    What I find myself pondering is whether I agree.

    The photo is deeply offensive. Of that there is no doubt. But he does seem to have fully repented and changed his ways. Should a 30 year old (Non-criminal) act have this kind of reach?

    OTOH, in the current climate, being able to avoid the charge of hypocrisy is really important for the Dems...

    So, yeah still unsure...

    AFZ
  • I, too, am unsure about how I feel. As repugnant as the photo was -- not only because of the desire of Northam and the other person to pose for it, but for the yearbook staff to use it, and for the college to allow it to be used -- I am inclined to believe his confession and that he has repented. I think I am willing for his record as governor -- past, present and to come -- to speak for the merits of his remaining so. But I agree -- it's a difficult issue.
  • It will certainly mean that Northam will not be able to run for president in the Democratic Party and probably not be named as a cabinet member or become a Senator. The other side seems to have a lock on that.

    In the meantime, the world is become less safe under you know who. He does not listen to his intelligence people. He wants to pull out troops without consulting his military advisors. He is about to hand over Afghanistan to the Taliban with little assurance Al Qaeda or ISIS will be able to re-organize there. (Not that we should find some way out). He claims North Korea is reducing its nuclear arms when satellite pictures show new staging areas for nuclear weapons. China is still building more bases on its manmade islands in the Pacific.

    And, now, he is withdrawing from the INF thus creating a new arms race with the Russians.

    The Doomsday Clock advanced 30 seconds yesterday. We are now two minutes to midnight.

  • The photo is deeply offensive. Of that there is no doubt. But he does seem to have fully repented and changed his ways. Should a 30 year old (Non-criminal) act have this kind of reach?

    OTOH, in the current climate, being able to avoid the charge of hypocrisy is really important for the Dems...

    Looked at from a purely political point of view, there's no political downside to the Democrats demanding Northam resign. His replacement would be Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, a Democrat who is a bit to the left of Northam on most issues. The only argument against it is the "principle" of not (metaphorically) defenestrating members over trivial issues. That hinges on how you define "trivial", something that's really a case-by-case decision and therefore not a matter of general principle. The Democrats wanting to be the anti-racist party, however, is a general principle. So from the purely political point of view there's advantage to Northam staying in office and several disadvantages of not calling for his resignation.

    As an illustration of some of the politics at work, here's a tweet from ultra-conservative pundit Erick Erickson starting out mocking Democrats for not calling for the resignation of Northam and later revised to say Erickson actually thinks that blackface and KKK robes aren't that objectionable after all and Northam should stay. So yes, I can seem many ways in which it might be politically advantageous to note that Republicans are willing to come to the defense of Democrats caught doing racist stuff when fellow Democrats consider such things unacceptable.

    And yes, it should be noted that Donald Trump has confessed to doing much worse than dressing up in Klan robes or blackface, assuming that we can all agree that sexually assaulting women is worse than wearing a racist outfit, presumably to some kind of costume party. That's because the Republican party has no standards in either of these areas.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Huh. Are you suggesting the GOP has a standard or two in some other areas -- one that applies to them, I mean?
  • The picture that allegedly shows Northam (he now says he isn't sure it's him - but he said before that it was, and people almost always (I can't think of any example when they haven't) choose photos for their yearbook page that show themselves) was taken in 1984, not in the relatively unenlightened times of segregation. He wasn't a teenager when it was taken. He was finishing medical school, meaning he had had about 8 years of university education. I know that the culture of fraternities and fraternity-like partying even today likes to have parties where the theme is to dress as something offensive (this happens even today, although fraternities and sororities are beginning to be punished for it). I also know that Prince Harry managed to recover from his Nazi-costume incident. But he is not an elected official.

    This isn't about being tried in a court of law for a crime. This isn't even about forgiveness following repentance and amends. This is about the dynamics of the politics of racial justice in our era - which are not only about whether a Democrat (good deeds and policies or not) can save their political career from something that would destroy a Republican's, but are also about how, even outside of politics, a white man (especially if he is socioeconomically privileged) can manage to have a successful career following a past mistake that would destroy the career of a person of color - unless (now talking within politics) that person is a politician in a Democratic seat that is so safe that a corpse could be reelected. Keith Ellison with his domestic violence allegation might be an exception, although he was running in the year of an anti-Trump wave.

    It also appears to be more than a one-off incident. He allegedly had a nickname in school that was a racial epithet for African-Americans.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Huh. Are you suggesting the GOP has a standard or two in some other areas -- one that applies to them, I mean?

    Cutting taxes on the wealthy and viciously slashing social programs are a kind of standard, I guess.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    It's possible this story belongs elsewhere, because there's a chance the Tryannosaurus Rumpus administration is not responsible for this. However, we might all be forgiven for assuming the worst, since that's what T. Rumpus generally serves up.

    According to the Los Angeles Times, several journalists and immigration rights lawyers have been denied entry into Mexico. Their passports were flagged and they were detained, but they apparently can't find out by whom. Link:

    https://www.latimes.com/nation/immigration/la-me-immigration-attorneys-detained-20190202-story.html?fbclid=IwAR2w0kAm929h8o_dqFehPq5zNutJWAmHa2e8WhZTBCgW7E5U_uR-b4ZUIE0

  • It'll be great, when 35 years from now, a governor resigns because there's a picture of them in a red maga hat.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Growing up does allow for the possibility of us all becoming more aware of our blind spots, ignorance and prejudices, and changing our minds. The idea that our opinions must be free from error, even gross error, at all stages of our adult life strikes me as wrong on principle.

    In fact, the inability to admit error, repent, and change for the better strikes me as a much greater error. Do skeletons in our cupboard from then define our hypocrisy now?

  • Amen.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    What Northam did was bad. It also seems like some of the bad stuff people do to blow off steam in college; and, given the hours and stress med students endure, they probably need to blow off steam, too.

    If, however, he isn't like that today and hasn't been for a long time. I don't think he should resign or be forced to.

    However, I'm not in the target group of his incident.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Growing up does allow for the possibility of us all becoming more aware of our blind spots, ignorance and prejudices, and changing our minds. The idea that our opinions must be free from error, even gross error, at all stages of our adult life strikes me as wrong on principle.

    In fact, the inability to admit error, repent, and change for the better strikes me as a much greater error. Do skeletons in our cupboard from then define our hypocrisy now?

    Yep. I agree with this.

    There is a key difference in that Kavanagh was credibly accused of a criminal act which had never been investigated.

    Northam appears to have done something crude, deeply offensive and stupid. But not criminal. Also he did (initially) admit it.

    These are important differences. Conversely the calls for his resignation from Democrats is clearly good politics. It is the only way to shut this down as an issue.

    It seems to me to be unfair that he should suffer as an individual for political expediency.

    (All of what I have written is conditional. As more facts become clear, I may change my mind... his shifting explanations make him less credible)

    AFZ
  • There is a key difference in that Kavanagh was credibly accused of a criminal act which had never been investigated.

    And which, instead of repenting of and begging forgiveness, he continues to deny vigorously.
  • It seems to me to be unfair that he should suffer as an individual for political expediency.

    No one is entitled to be governor of a state. It's a position of privilege. If his governorship is viewed as something he's entitled to "as an individual", I think that's the wrong way of approaching the problem.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Another way of looking at this, though, is that those of us being governed may end up depriving ourselves of significant innovation / ideas / abilities when we demand removal from office for past behavior which, while offensive when it was committed, is no longer a factor (if indeed that's the case) in the office-holder's current behavior. Admittedly, that's tough to demonstrate.

    Also, the shifting denials / explanations don't help him at all.

    Can we find better ways of vetting candidates in order to avoid this sort of thing? I mean, is there anybody out there who hasn't said or done something woefully embarrassing, moronic, and ugly at some point in the past?

    I have held (not very competitive) public office in my state. I'd never run for anything higher-up because I KNOW what mincemeat could be made of me by examining aspects of my past with a different spin on it than the one I myself spin it with.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited February 2019
    Crœsos wrote: »
    It seems to me to be unfair that he should suffer as an individual for political expediency.

    No one is entitled to be governor of a state. It's a position of privilege. If his governorship is viewed as something he's entitled to "as an individual", I think that's the wrong way of approaching the problem.

    There is a Sir Humphrey Appleby principle in play here when it comes to politics. "You should always be prepared to acknowledge freely what people can find out independently".

    Positions of power are a privilege, not a right, so I reckon being upfront in advance about youthful stupidities is the way to go. In this goldfish bowl world it is going to come out anyway.
  • He lied about it.
  • He's been kind of all over the map about it: first he's in it and sorry; then he's not in it, and was certain from the start that he wasn't (!), but by the way he did once try blackface on a different occasion (!!)

    It also turns out that Northam isn't the only one with a problematic photo in the 1984 EVMS yearbook.
  • To go in a completely different direction I came across this Sarah Sanders quote:
    President Trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves.

    That is probably the most truthful statement she has ever made as Press Secretary.

    AFZ
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Another way of looking at this, though, is that those of us being governed may end up depriving ourselves of significant innovation / ideas / abilities when we demand removal from office for past behavior which, while offensive when it was committed, is no longer a factor (if indeed that's the case) in the office-holder's current behavior. Admittedly, that's tough to demonstrate.

    Also, the shifting denials / explanations don't help him at all.

    Can we find better ways of vetting candidates in order to avoid this sort of thing? I mean, is there anybody out there who hasn't said or done something woefully embarrassing, moronic, and ugly at some point in the past?

    I have held (not very competitive) public office in my state. I'd never run for anything higher-up because I KNOW what mincemeat could be made of me by examining aspects of my past with a different spin on it than the one I myself spin it with.

    Post of the debate. What sort of people would we get in leadership positions if the standard was that they have never
    said or done something woefully embarrassing, moronic, and ugly at some point in the past?

    My belief is that we would get people like Spiro Agnew, but better at covering their tracks (just listened to Rachael Maddow's podcast so he's on my mind).

    I don't know whether Northam has sufficiently acknowledged his mistake and shown that he has changed. That will be a matter for his electorate to decide in the event that he doesn't resign. Am I right in thinking that Virginia is a place where many of its citizens are or have in the past been the victims of white supremacist behavior or systemic discrimination? I know it used to be a slave state, but I don't know the extent to which Jim Crow was in force. I suppose it doesn't matter. If you're black or liberal, you are not going to be happy with him.

    I instinctively put myself in the position of accused, especially when they are white, male and the accusation relates to University in the mid-1980's. I absolutely come from the class where this sort of thing would be seen as a humorous thing to do, perhaps in part because we grew up in a place that was so British that the 'whiteness' of people with southern European backgrounds was suspect. The KKK, in the Australia of my youth, was something to laugh at - a pack of eejits running around in white sheets. I was exposed to the humor of Woody Allen at a young age, and one of my favorite skits was Woody going to a fancy dress party in Georgia dressed as a ghost.

    But in 1984 I returned from a year in California, a year spent in a multi-racial school where I was mates with all sorts, from the preppy black kid who introduced himself by telling me I had bad breath, to the Vietnamese science whizz who had fled his country as a refugee, to the Chilean radical (also a refugee) who worked at the coolest record shop in Stockton to the Indian and Pakistani kids who I bonded with over cricket.

    So I've given myself a good working over, and determined that I would have dressed up as Hunter S. Thompson in 1984 but not as a KKK member. I have never done blackface, but I don't think I would have objected to it in 1984. It was still what you did as part of a costume if you dressed as a black person like Diana Ross or Ray Charles. These days, its not acceptable in Australia, and Harry Connick Jr played his part in that when he objected to a skit in blackface on Australian TV in the early 1990's.

    But dressing up as a KKK member in the South, where people who were the victims of racist violence lived out their lives? That is not good. And the character in blackface, that's not a black person of distinction like Sammy Davis Jr or Nina Simone. That looks like a racist caricature. That's not good either.



  • I'm a little older than you ST. I've become persuaded that the younger people would be better running things. Recalling the saying "don't trust anyone over 30" from my youth. No one "establishment". And not "The Man". Time to bow out.
  • Is this a thread about Northram? Or has the Trump thread run its course?
  • Wesley JWesley J Circus Host
    We can only hope.
  • I'm a little older than you ST. I've become persuaded that the younger people would be better running things. Recalling the saying "don't trust anyone over 30" from my youth. No one "establishment". And not "The Man". Time to bow out.

    Hmmm. I'm confused by this response NP. While I am comparing myself to Northram I thought I drew distinctions based on his location in a former slave state and the costumes he might or might not have used.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    He's been kind of all over the map about it: first he's in it and sorry; then he's not in it, and was certain from the start that he wasn't (!), but by the way he did once try blackface on a different occasion (!!)

    It also turns out that Northam isn't the only one with a problematic photo in the 1984 EVMS yearbook.
    All righty, then.

    “I recognize that many people will find this difficult to believe...” Ya think? Personally, although I graduated from college over forty years, no matter how drunk I got at a costume party, I would have distinctly remembered whether or not I had gone there in blackface or in a Klan hood. If as he now claims he had not bought the yearbook or looked at that page before, he should have declared his outrage that the book editors had messed with his page and added a picture of some stinking, racist classmates. That assumes that some of his classmates don't have their own books with his signature and some "all the best in the future!" or "it's been great knowing you!" on his page. :naughty:

  • I found a photo last year. of my 6th form group in fancy dress at the Christmas party, in the early 60s. I have shredded it. I think we won a prize, heaven help us. There were 10 of us in white socks, shorts and shirts and home made wigs, and we had caused a run on the local shop which sold Leichner stage makeup. Black. It never occurred to us that it was wrong. Nor the staff, either, no-one had a word with us. Nor my parents. (We had a much better occasion as Giles' cartoon family the following year. No shame there.)

    (And, harking back a bit, because Balder was sort of dead, he didn't get completely deaded like the rest in Ragnorok, so was available to return and take over the flowery meadows with his wife, and find an odd hnefatafl piece where Asgard had stood. As written up by a monk, of course. Odin's self-promoting tweets can be found in the Lay of Grimnir, or Grimnisal. Death-worker, worker of evil, stirrer of strife, etc.)
  • No, not all of us have racist pictures or nicknames in our yearbooks. Rather than rhetorically asking "Hasn't everyone done something stupid?", perhaps we should be asking why so many of our democratically elected leaders have done incredibly stupid things in the past. I don't know how to put it nicely: we're all still vulnerable to the display of the biggest gorilla pounding his chest, and part of a succesful big gorilla act is being cruel or condescending with impunity. Perhaps their youthful assholery is a predictor of adult assholery channeled into political success.

    I just flipped through my high school yearbook and the most "offensive" things I found were a double spread of photos of people's behinds as the end page ("THE END!" boy, we thought we were funny....) and a photo of one of my English teachers taped to the flagpole.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Penny S wrote: »
    I found a photo last year. of my 6th form group in fancy dress at the Christmas party, in the early 60s.
    I just flipped through my high school yearbook . . .

    It should be remembered that Ralph Northam was approximately 25 years old when his Medical School yearbook was printed. Donald Trump was 62 when he bragged about sexually assaulting women to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush. Pretending either of these are a product of naïve youth is itself fairly naïve. It reminds me of Congressman Henry Hyde trying to pass off an affair he had when he was 41 as a "youthful indiscretion".
  • So someone in the White House has leaked the last three months of presidential schedules to Axios. The findings both troubling and exactly what you'd expect.
    This unusually voluminous leak gives us unprecedented visibility into how this president spends his days. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms, show that Trump has spent around 60% of his scheduled time over the past 3 months in unstructured "Executive Time."

    The complete schedules can be found here, for those who want to read breakdowns of how Trump spends his time.

    For those who are unfamiliar with the term, "executive time" is a description John Kelly invented so they wouldn't have to put "sitting around watching Fox News and calling his friends" on the presidential schedule. On one hand it's infuriating since Trump always portrayed Obama as being lazy (and no doubt "shiftless" and "uppity", too) and claimed that Hillary Clinton didn't have the "strength and stamina" to be president. On the other hand, maybe it's better he doesn't spend more time exercising the powers of his office*. Thoughts?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Penny S wrote: »
    I found a photo last year. of my 6th form group in fancy dress at the Christmas party, in the early 60s.
    I just flipped through my high school yearbook . . .

    It should be remembered that Ralph Northam was approximately 25 years old when his Medical School yearbook was printed. Donald Trump was 62 when he bragged about sexually assaulting women to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush. Pretending either of these are a product of naïve youth is itself fairly naïve. It reminds me of Congressman Henry Hyde trying to pass off an affair he had when he was 41 as a "youthful indiscretion".

    My own view is that, if you or your party think that someone who is X years old should be legally allowed to run for office, you cannot then turn around and plead youthful indiscretion when it is revealed that you did something inappropriate at the age of X.

    IOW, if your party runs candidates who are 29, and a photo emerges of you wearing blackface when you were 29, you forego the option of saying "Come on, we all know 29 year olds are too stupid to know what they're doing."

    Mind you, it sort of complicates things if a jurisdcition, like the US, has different age limits for different positions.

  • Crœsos wrote: »
    So someone in the White House has leaked the last three months of presidential schedules to Axios. The findings both troubling and exactly what you'd expect.
    This unusually voluminous leak gives us unprecedented visibility into how this president spends his days. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms, show that Trump has spent around 60% of his scheduled time over the past 3 months in unstructured "Executive Time."

    The complete schedules can be found here, for those who want to read breakdowns of how Trump spends his time.

    For those who are unfamiliar with the term, "executive time" is a description John Kelly invented so they wouldn't have to put "sitting around watching Fox News and calling his friends" on the presidential schedule. On one hand it's infuriating since Trump always portrayed Obama as being lazy (and no doubt "shiftless" and "uppity", too) and claimed that Hillary Clinton didn't have the "strength and stamina" to be president. On the other hand, maybe it's better he doesn't spend more time exercising the powers of his office*. Thoughts?

    Yeah, this is particularly galling as well as a relief for exactly the reasons you outlined. The number of golf games and the cost of them (due to security and cost of Presidential transport) are similarly stunning when contrasted with Trump's criticisms of Obama.

    The thing is, I don't think it's even hypocrisy in the classic sense; I think Trump's narcissism is so strong that he has no insight whatsoever - he seems to be completely lacking in any self-reflection capability at all; and hence he cannot conceive that he could be doing anthing wrong here...

    AFZ
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    The work diary of a lazy, stupid, arrogant narcissist. Surprised it's only 60% doing anything other than work. But what he does in 40% really bothers me. He's far more dangerous when doing stuff.
  • Now, if only Congress would get off their lazy, stupid, arrogant asses and do their job in regards to the lazy, stupid, arrogant wastrel who currently occupies the White House . . . what a glorious dawn of a new day we'd see!
  • Maybe the Virginia scandals should move to another thread, but FYI, the Democratic Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax who would replace Northam if he resigned now has his own allegation of sexual assault which has come to light, and at first accused the governor’s allies of trying to smear him before walking back.

    If both of them resigned, the
    New governor would be the Democratic Attorney General would become Governor.

    Right or wrong, Northam is political poison right now. All progress on any political agenda in Virginia is stalled until he resigns. If the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax are credible, he should resign as well. This is a precarious time in the history of the Republic, and salt has been thrown in some very old and deep wounds. If a scandal like this - and one based on true events rather than lies - makes a politician unable to govern, they should resign for the sake of their constituents.

    Northam also helped seal his political fate by making jokes about a separate incident when he dressed as Michael Jackson in blackface in his attempts to defend himself. His own wife had to tell him while he was still speaking at the press conference that it was inappropriate.

    This is not to say that Northam does not have his supporters, among them some African Americans, including the primarily African American church he attends. But those counterexamples do not counter the tide of disgust that has rendered him political toxic waste.

    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. An African-American man had And how have these photos not come to light until now? This seems to show incompetence in Democrat’s who vetted Northam and Republican opposition researchers who researched him. All they needed to do was go to the library of his medical school to look at the yearbook.
  • 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?
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