I'm getting rather tired of the tRump appellation. <snip>
We have asked that people don’t deliberately mis-name persons they dislike or do not respect (which in this case includes mid-capitalising their names). It is not conducive to serious discussion.
Thank you
BroJames, Purgatory Host
And, yet, it's a consistent feature. If the Hosts are serious, they will wield their stick. If it's a policy, enforce it. And, NP, as a fellow traveller, I expect better of you. Yes, we know that Trump is loathsome. We do ourselves no honour by indulging in locker room 'humour'. If we on the left are better, we have to rise to our claim.
Trump saying what he said is only relevant because he was running for President. Obviously, it is an example of a poisonous male culture, but the problem wasn't that Trump said it as a citizen. I knew he was a loathesome individual well before then, as did, I thought, everyone one the planet. The point was that this bloke running for President was so loathesome.
I don't think that we on the "middle to centre-left but maybe a bit rightish about foreign policy, inter alia" have to rise to our claim unless we ourselves are running for office. We are allowed to fart in public, although maybe not in Singapore. We should be allowed to be hypocrites, Jimmy Swaggart style. Our behavior should not be held up by erstwhile allies as damaging the message.
One of my emerging gripes is holding everyone to account for bloody everything. The English doctor caught screwing around is a prime example. So he's 'do as I say not as I do'. If he's the guy for the job, he's still the guy for the job. We lose his expertise for a moral failing??? (I mean being a hypocrite).
I'm getting rather tired of the tRump appellation. <snip>
We have asked that people don’t deliberately mis-name persons they dislike or do not respect (which in this case includes mid-capitalising their names). It is not conducive to serious discussion.
Thank you
BroJames, Purgatory Host
And, yet, it's a consistent feature. If the Hosts are serious, they will wield their stick. If it's a policy, enforce it. And, NP, as a fellow traveller, I expect better of you. Yes, we know that Trump is loathsome. We do ourselves no honour by indulging in locker room 'humour'. If we on the left are better, we have to rise to our claim.
I’m happy to discuss hosting in Styx, but not here.
With all due respect, the approach you mention, and the seeming attitude with which you suggested it, seem a bit much. People are scared, frustrated, and disgusted about T.
I have my own rules about this. I call him "T", and rarely anything else. I can't stand to see his name over and over. In fact, I eventually broke down and downloaded a Trump blocker (DeTrumpify), because of that. It can block his name online, and those of many others. You can choose insults, if you want them, clean language or not, etc. I currently have it set to "clean names only" to replace T's name. In the Mock-o-matic, I have "Bard Mode". It produces Shakespearean insults. They're pretty clean by modern standards; but in the Bard's day...
Plus you can block pics of him in various ways, including animal pics. I have it set for kittens. And they're really cute--and relaxing, 'cause I don't have to look at T.
I've been trying to see him as a person since at least early 2016. I've tried hard to understand his brokenness. I've commented when people made fun of his "small" hands, because that's not something that he can help.
T should be respected, however loathed, as a fellow human being. But he's endangering the US and the world in increasingly dangerous ways. And there's little, if anything, I can do about it. My Congress critters (Pelosi, Feinstein, and Harris) are all on the good side of this, so no need to plague them with pleas to stop him or rein him in.
I usually don't like insults of individual people, and I try to avoid them. So, at first, I was iffy about some features of the blocker. But this whole things is going on and on and on, and I needed a way to vent. So the blocker is it, and it makes me laugh, and is probably good for my mental health and blood pressure.
The advantage of the blocker is that only I see it, and I don't run afoul of the reg that BroJames mentioned.
Beyond the reg, maybe we could all cut each other a little slack?
I can’t bring myself to type his name. So I’ll just call him the potus in future.
We’ve got about a week to find out if he caught Covid19 from his valet. I am living in hope. I’d very much like him to get a good, scary dose - in the way our PM did. Let all his crazy supporters see that no-one is immune.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
How does Pence define "self isolating"?
Here is a current report. "He plans to be at the White House". "An administration official said Mr Pence was voluntarily limiting his exposure to other people."
That does not sound much like self isolation to me.
But can other people voluntarily limit their exposure to him ?
If everyone who has to do with him were to approach him cautiously, wearing PPE, and keeping at least 2 metres away, might he not eventually get the idea?
Well, he didn't use PPE at a recent visit to...either a hospital or a mask-making place, I think. That might be T; but P skipped PPE on some visit, and his wife said he didn't know any better, basically.
While Trump was touring the mask factory sans mask, "Live and let die" blasted out over the tannoy system. It is unclear who is responsible or whether it was deliberate (but Lord I hope so).
I'm getting rather tired of the tRump appellation. <snip>
We have asked that people don’t deliberately mis-name persons they dislike or do not respect (which in this case includes mid-capitalising their names). It is not conducive to serious discussion.
Thank you
BroJames, Purgatory Host
And, yet, it's a consistent feature. If the Hosts are serious, they will wield their stick. If it's a policy, enforce it. And, NP, as a fellow traveller, I expect better of you. Yes, we know that Trump is loathsome. We do ourselves no honour by indulging in locker room 'humour'. If we on the left are better, we have to rise to our claim.
Ah yes, I posted as the man speaks. This isn't about being on the left or anywhere politically. It's also not about honour. I'm frankly annoyed that people present when he speaks don't violate convention and contradict him, call him out. But the mythology and respect to the office of a temporary king prevent it. The emperor has no clothes.
Nor can I. I will politely refer to him as "the current occupant of the White House" as I do not accept him as the legitimately elected President. The White House is sede vacante so far as I am concerned.
Impolitely, I refer to him as the "fartletter-in-chief" since of his actions stemming from the many titles he holds, that seems to be what he does best.
Steve Herman, the White House bureau chief for Voice of America, told The Washington Post that Pence's staff banned him from traveling on Air Force Two after Herman's reporting contradicted Pence's narrative about the mask policy.
Regards the Laughing in Disbelief reference I posted. I had seen it in several social media posts, but I could not find the direct quote other than what was cited on Laughing in Disbelief. After checking with Snopes, I now see it has been labeled as fake, though it does reflect snippets of quotes 45 has uttered or tweeted.
Regards Pence self-isolating: it had been reported that he was self-isolating on Sunday, but this morning, lo and behold, we see he is not self-isolating.
However, there is no doubt that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500 (The White House) has now become a hot spot for the virus.
Pence knows all that stuff. I have him down as a potentially very smart politician with the moral compass of a TV evangelist. He knows that the way to riches is to ape Trump in everything he does, and he along with Lindsay Graham probably has his eyes on the prize - absolute loyalty from the Christian Nationalists once Trump finishes his stint. He'll never get it, because Trump will have to be actually dead before he gives them up. He will be tweeting at them for the rest of his life. But hell, it's gotta be worth a shot. Its a hell of a voting bloc.
(CNN) In an interview on Monday with the New York Post, President [Craven, Onion-eyed Dewberry] was asked about his contentious relationship with the media -- particularly CBS News' Paula Reid. Here's how he responded:
"It wasn't Donna Reed, I can tell you that. ... Paula Reid, she's sitting there and I say, 'How angry. I mean, What's the purpose?' They're not even tough questions, but you see the attitude of these people, it's like incredible."
For large swaths of Americans -- aka anyone who wasn't watching movies and TV between 1940 and 1965 -- the reference simply flew over their collective head. Reed, who most famously played Mary Bailey in the 1946 Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," and then went on to star in her own black-and-white TV sitcom through the mid-1960s, died in 1986. Which was 34 years ago.
The article goes on to detail how much he's stuck in the past. I've thought for some time that T is trying to recreate the world of his youth (e.g., strong-man leaders, nationalism, racism--which still exist today of course). This is more of the same.
Yeah, but what strongman leaders did America have? Dwight Eisenhower? Harry Truman? Where are the strongmen of his youth? Is he a Maoist?
Funny thing is, the one POTUS of Trump's lifetime who actually did cultivate a strongman image was Ronald Reagan, and Trump has gone on the record as saying he dislikes Reagan.
Really? I could never see him as a strongman, but Reagan's way of speaking makes him sound slow and dull-witted to me. I suspect it is his slow drawl that many American men cultivate, not realising or caring that it sounds that way. I think it was a factor in the rest of the world's astonishment at his election, another being that we just didn't know enough about each other before the internet. I remember his as being painted as just a dumb actor, ignoring his extensive political experience.
Trump identifies with the strong-man leaders of other countries (e.g., Putin, Duterte, Kim Jong Un), wants to be one of them and accepted by them, and/but he wants to be first among equals--except he wouldn't really accept them as equals.
Not sure we've had any other presidents that would fit in that group.
Others have courted and flattered people that bad - I'm particularly thinking of The Philippines' Marcos and many other petty dictators leading brutal regimes come to mind. The Saudi Arabians fit into that category. I reckon the Texans treated them as personal friends. But none have had the lack of grace or the uncaring ignorance to do so repeatedly, with such warmth or with so little reason. I square bracket the Texans and the Saudis, as I reckon there was allot more going on there than met the eye.
If you're interested in such things, the Supreme Court is now hearing arguments about whether Congress can subpœna Trump's financial records from third parties. Because of social distancing the case is being argued remotely, which gives us a rare chance to hear such a case livestreamed (audio only).
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
From Hedgehog's link.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
That quote has been attributed to Goebbels, but cannot be verified. But this one can.
The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.
It's odd to think that the first might have some power in a Western democracy, but it's where you end up if sufficient people believe the claim "Fake News". So far as the second is concerned, leadership looks less ridiculous of course if any real Fake News outlet consistently reinforces the assertion that mainstream news is Fake News.
Hope you all saw de Niro on Newsnight last night, absolutely slaughtering Trump. Bit of a shock to see him on late night BBC. It must be available online.
Hope you all saw de Niro on Newsnight last night, absolutely slaughtering Trump. Bit of a shock to see him on late night BBC. It must be available online.
Fair enough, I think but the kind of culture that sits up and takes notice when a film star criticises government policy is exactly the kind of culture that elects populists.
Now that November is less than six months away, I am beginning to see a number of memes on Facebook pushing for term limits of all Congresspersons and Senators, but I posted the following concerning presidential term limits.
If there is anything that proves presidential term limits was a mistake, it is this current administration. The previous president had dealt with three epidemics during his terms: the Swine Flu, Ebola, and Zika. He even developed a detailed playbook on how to deal with any future pandemics. I cannot help but wonder if he were allowed to run for a third term--and won, how much of a difference there would have been in controlling the current pandemic.
Instead, we are saddled with the most incompetent administration in the history of the United States which threw out the playbook and is flying blind.
----
There is an interesting situation where the DOJ under Barr has moved to drop all charges against Micheal Flynn, but the district judge who is handling the case has not agreed to the new motion.
I cannot remember any other time with a federal or state judge not agreeing to a motion to drop a case when the motion comes from the prosecuting side.
There is an interesting situation where the DOJ under Barr has moved to drop all charges against Micheal Flynn, but the district judge who is handling the case has not agreed to the new motion.
I cannot remember any other time with a federal or state judge not agreeing to a motion to drop a case when the motion comes from the prosecuting side.
The Flynn case is a bit different than a typical prosecution in that Flynn has already plead guilty so the prosecution's work is theoretically done. All that's left is the sentencing.
In other words, Flynn isn't charged with anything right now. He's been convicted.
Presumably the Flynn affairis what Trump is referring to as 'Obamagate'?
The hypothesis I've seen is that Trump doesn't even know what he's referring to - he's just hoping that by repeating it he can either get someone to dig around and find something or that just the word itself will associate Obama with scandal in people's minds without anything even attached to it. Fuck knows why he's targeting Obama but presumably Biden's happy about it.
The hypothesis I've seen is that Trump doesn't even know what he's referring to - he's just hoping that by repeating it he can either get someone to dig around and find something or that just the word itself will associate Obama with scandal in people's minds without anything even attached to it. Fuck knows why he's targeting Obama but presumably Biden's happy about it.
Hey, it worked before. Remember how the biggest issue of the 2016 election was e-mail server best management practices? Trump is trying to make "But Obama!" the new "But her e-mails!"
Fair enough, I think but the kind of culture that sits up and takes notice when a film star criticises government policy is exactly the kind of culture that elects populists.
I'm not following that argument. What am I missing? What does "exactly" mean?
The hypothesis I've seen is that Trump doesn't even know what he's referring to - he's just hoping that by repeating it he can either get someone to dig around and find something or that just the word itself will associate Obama with scandal in people's minds without anything even attached to it. Fuck knows why he's targeting Obama but presumably Biden's happy about it.
Hey, it worked before. Remember how the biggest issue of the 2016 election was e-mail server best management practices? Trump is trying to make "But Obama!" the new "But her e-mails!"
At least in that instance Trump was running against Hilary. He's not running against Obama and I don't really understand the point.
Trump is the King of the Birthers. He's always been running against Obama.
Right on. He wants to wipe out every trace of Obama from the record. Cleanse the Presidency of the "aberration". All fellow travellers must go. Anyone he appointed must go. It's his idea of a deep clean.
Comments
And, yet, it's a consistent feature. If the Hosts are serious, they will wield their stick. If it's a policy, enforce it. And, NP, as a fellow traveller, I expect better of you. Yes, we know that Trump is loathsome. We do ourselves no honour by indulging in locker room 'humour'. If we on the left are better, we have to rise to our claim.
I don't think that we on the "middle to centre-left but maybe a bit rightish about foreign policy, inter alia" have to rise to our claim unless we ourselves are running for office. We are allowed to fart in public, although maybe not in Singapore. We should be allowed to be hypocrites, Jimmy Swaggart style. Our behavior should not be held up by erstwhile allies as damaging the message.
One of my emerging gripes is holding everyone to account for bloody everything. The English doctor caught screwing around is a prime example. So he's 'do as I say not as I do'. If he's the guy for the job, he's still the guy for the job. We lose his expertise for a moral failing??? (I mean being a hypocrite).
Parody or not, someone should remind him that he *is* one.
With all due respect, the approach you mention, and the seeming attitude with which you suggested it, seem a bit much. People are scared, frustrated, and disgusted about T.
I have my own rules about this. I call him "T", and rarely anything else. I can't stand to see his name over and over. In fact, I eventually broke down and downloaded a Trump blocker (DeTrumpify), because of that. It can block his name online, and those of many others. You can choose insults, if you want them, clean language or not, etc. I currently have it set to "clean names only" to replace T's name. In the Mock-o-matic, I have "Bard Mode". It produces Shakespearean insults. They're pretty clean by modern standards; but in the Bard's day...
Plus you can block pics of him in various ways, including animal pics. I have it set for kittens. And they're really cute--and relaxing, 'cause I don't have to look at T.
I've been trying to see him as a person since at least early 2016. I've tried hard to understand his brokenness. I've commented when people made fun of his "small" hands, because that's not something that he can help.
T should be respected, however loathed, as a fellow human being. But he's endangering the US and the world in increasingly dangerous ways. And there's little, if anything, I can do about it. My Congress critters (Pelosi, Feinstein, and Harris) are all on the good side of this, so no need to plague them with pleas to stop him or rein him in.
I usually don't like insults of individual people, and I try to avoid them. So, at first, I was iffy about some features of the blocker. But this whole things is going on and on and on, and I needed a way to vent. So the blocker is it, and it makes me laugh, and is probably good for my mental health and blood pressure.
The advantage of the blocker is that only I see it, and I don't run afoul of the reg that BroJames mentioned.
Beyond the reg, maybe we could all cut each other a little slack?
We’ve got about a week to find out if he caught Covid19 from his valet. I am living in hope. I’d very much like him to get a good, scary dose - in the way our PM did. Let all his crazy supporters see that no-one is immune.
Here is a current report. "He plans to be at the White House". "An administration official said Mr Pence was voluntarily limiting his exposure to other people."
That does not sound much like self isolation to me.
If everyone who has to do with him were to approach him cautiously, wearing PPE, and keeping at least 2 metres away, might he not eventually get the idea?
...which is OK for them, but not for the poor sods who might be infected by them.
One might be tempted to reverse the words, and sing 'Die, and let [others] live', but that would be unChristian™...
Reporter says he was punished for revealing Pences's office knew about Mayo Clinic's mask policy before his visit,
Is there no end to the sheer numptiness of these so-called 'leaders'?
Why are they not in a secure mental institution? They are obviously completely out of touch with real life, and need urgent therapy.
Ah yes, I posted as the man speaks. This isn't about being on the left or anywhere politically. It's also not about honour. I'm frankly annoyed that people present when he speaks don't violate convention and contradict him, call him out. But the mythology and respect to the office of a temporary king prevent it. The emperor has no clothes.
Nor can I. I will politely refer to him as "the current occupant of the White House" as I do not accept him as the legitimately elected President. The White House is sede vacante so far as I am concerned.
Impolitely, I refer to him as the "fartletter-in-chief" since of his actions stemming from the many titles he holds, that seems to be what he does best.
Punished?
He should thank his lucky stars!
But, here is another opinion piece published in the Washington Post on 45's continual gaslighting.
Regards Pence self-isolating: it had been reported that he was self-isolating on Sunday, but this morning, lo and behold, we see he is not self-isolating.
However, there is no doubt that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500 (The White House) has now become a hot spot for the virus.
OMG!!!
And even more so if they're Asian (or Black or Hispanic...).
The article goes on to detail how much he's stuck in the past. I've thought for some time that T is trying to recreate the world of his youth (e.g., strong-man leaders, nationalism, racism--which still exist today of course). This is more of the same.
Funny thing is, the one POTUS of Trump's lifetime who actually did cultivate a strongman image was Ronald Reagan, and Trump has gone on the record as saying he dislikes Reagan.
Not sure we've had any other presidents that would fit in that group.
As someone else commented, Trump is trying to crowdsource a fake scandal.
Is there no end to this man's lunacy?
That quote has been attributed to Goebbels, but cannot be verified. But this one can.
It's odd to think that the first might have some power in a Western democracy, but it's where you end up if sufficient people believe the claim "Fake News". So far as the second is concerned, leadership looks less ridiculous of course if any real Fake News outlet consistently reinforces the assertion that mainstream news is Fake News.
Here it is - https://tinyurl.com/yazebb5r
Insane is the right word...
If there is anything that proves presidential term limits was a mistake, it is this current administration. The previous president had dealt with three epidemics during his terms: the Swine Flu, Ebola, and Zika. He even developed a detailed playbook on how to deal with any future pandemics. I cannot help but wonder if he were allowed to run for a third term--and won, how much of a difference there would have been in controlling the current pandemic.
Instead, we are saddled with the most incompetent administration in the history of the United States which threw out the playbook and is flying blind.
----
There is an interesting situation where the DOJ under Barr has moved to drop all charges against Micheal Flynn, but the district judge who is handling the case has not agreed to the new motion.
I cannot remember any other time with a federal or state judge not agreeing to a motion to drop a case when the motion comes from the prosecuting side.
The Flynn case is a bit different than a typical prosecution in that Flynn has already plead guilty so the prosecution's work is theoretically done. All that's left is the sentencing.
In other words, Flynn isn't charged with anything right now. He's been convicted.
The hypothesis I've seen is that Trump doesn't even know what he's referring to - he's just hoping that by repeating it he can either get someone to dig around and find something or that just the word itself will associate Obama with scandal in people's minds without anything even attached to it. Fuck knows why he's targeting Obama but presumably Biden's happy about it.
Hey, it worked before. Remember how the biggest issue of the 2016 election was e-mail server best management practices? Trump is trying to make "But Obama!" the new "But her e-mails!"
I'm not following that argument. What am I missing? What does "exactly" mean?
At least in that instance Trump was running against Hilary. He's not running against Obama and I don't really understand the point.
Trump is the King of the Birthers. He's always been running against Obama.
Right on. He wants to wipe out every trace of Obama from the record. Cleanse the Presidency of the "aberration". All fellow travellers must go. Anyone he appointed must go. It's his idea of a deep clean.
(His successor will need a very powerful bleach.)