Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • Nice intervention there Harry. I was just turning my mind to that very question.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    HarryCH wrote: »
    A quick web search indicates that Ms. Daniels has a net worth of roughly $4 million. She is outstandingly successful in her field.
    According to what, "The Totally Believable Authoritative Catalog of the Net Worth of Porn Stars"?
    No, $130,000 is not an amount that would necessarily impress her.
    That she signed the agreement and accepted the money suggests that it did.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Not necessarily. Maybe she wanted T to go away. (I don't think they've been involved for some time.) Or noticed T hadn't signed, and thought it might be useful later. Or maybe she just thought it was funny.

    If someone accepts money, it isn't necessarily just to get the money.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Oh I can see her taking the $130K even if she is worth $4 million. Particularly if she and her lawyer figured it wouldn't stick.

    Meanwhile I am guessing that any Trump/Kim meeting will take place in Panmunjom, for symbolic reasons. Provided they agree mutually assured security. Then they may be able to agree to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction.

    Personally, while I'd like to see some kind of constructive settlement, I think the preconditions are wrong.

  • BeatmenaceBeatmenace Shipmate Posts: 10
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Bernie Sanders, being interviewed by Anderson Cooper recently, said something like this. "This county is facing enormous challenges. Gun control, health care, our trading and political relationships around the world, the struggles with terrorism. Why the hell is the news dominated by Trump and a porn star?"

    Because that's entirely the Trump modus operandi. That's how he got the job.

    Weird to say of a man who cant order words into a coherent sentence, but Trump understood both the American Media and US Psychology to such to realise that brand recognition is 80% of the job. If you're a household name (unless that name is Manson although I'm not even sure of that now) you get votes.

    While people are talking about you, about anything you say - porn stars , tax returns, Mexicans , women, the previous presidents birth certificate etc ad infinitum when its Trump, they are not giving (Crooked) Hilary any air time at all, and anything at all from the opponent begins to look boring, compared to the latest 'unacceptable' statement from Trump.

    Trump won because he controlled the Media agenda in a way no other political candidate has EVER done, and to be fair , in a way which would have, in normal times, have ended any other candidates run.

    Its a bit like the Trump strategy was inspired by 'The Producers', with a similar outcome.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited March 2018
    If it's like "The Producers", should we expect T to break into song? And will there be a musical within the musical?

    And will T and his minions wind up in prison?
  • BeatmenaceBeatmenace Shipmate Posts: 10
    edited March 2018
    Golden Key wrote: »
    If it's like "The Producers", should we expect T to break into song? And will there be a musical within the musical?

    And will T and his minions wind up in prison?

    Both of these are possible outcomes.

    Should 'Fire and Fury' be made into a film , 'Primary Colors' style, I'm sure there would be room for a song or two. Since Hollywood have blatantly made up historical stuff recently about both Stalin and Churchill, a bit of creative licence with a singing Trump would be perfectly acceptable. Indeed, considering Michael Woolf's journalistic reputation , i'm surprised its not in the book already.

    That said there have been several occasions in the Trump presidency so far, where communal singing of 'Springtime for Hitler' might have been expected , but now Steve Bannon has departed, it becomes a bit less likely.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    I will communally sing "Springtime for Hitler" any day of the week. :love:
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    :mrgreen: Godwin's Law, set to music!
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    Dave W wrote: »
    HarryCH wrote: »
    A quick web search indicates that Ms. Daniels has a net worth of roughly $4 million. She is outstandingly successful in her field.
    According to what, "The Totally Believable Authoritative Catalog of the Net Worth of Porn Stars"?

    Probably this page from the Celebrity Net Worth website. Even assuming the estimate is correct (and it is not unreasonable), if Ms. Daniels/Clifford is typical it's likely a good chunk of that wealth is in illiquid assets. (e.g. a personal home or other real estate) $130,000 in liquid assets is still a considerable sum for a typical person with a $4M net worth.

    At any rate, the same provisos apply even more to Donald Trump. He's been very cagey about his exact wealth. What most observers have concluded is that he's not as wealthy as he pretends and that what he does own is leveraged to the hilt. Even so, a one time expense of $130k is something he could probably easily absorb. But how many of us believe an affair is a one time thing for Donald Trump? The fact that he seems to have an established system in place for silencing former sex partners argues against this conclusion. Can the highly leveraged Trump fortune sustain an extra $130k per month? How about $130k per week?

    What gives this political significance is what happens if someone doesn't want money in exchange for silence? What if the payoff is something like a list of American intelligence assets active in Russia? Or sensitive intelligence generated by a key ally? Is anyone certain that Donald Trump wouldn't regard buying silence with the public assets of the United States instead of with his own private fortune to be a remarkable bargain? I'm not.
  • Crœsos wrote: »

    What gives this political significance is what happens if someone doesn't want money in exchange for silence? What if the payoff is something like a list of American intelligence assets active in Russia? Or sensitive intelligence generated by a key ally? Is anyone certain that Donald Trump wouldn't regard buying silence with the public assets of the United States instead of with his own private fortune to be a remarkable bargain? I'm not.

    Oh dear. Does the name "Profumo" come to mind? Not quite the same and I don't think anyone is dead (yet) but there are common factors.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    Although it is a side issue, I will add: it is easy to search for a celebrity's net worth. Type in "net worth Mitt Romney" and you get an estimate of $250 million, while the same query for David Letterman comes up with $400 million.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    sionisais wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    What gives this political significance is what happens if someone doesn't want money in exchange for silence? What if the payoff is something like a list of American intelligence assets active in Russia? Or sensitive intelligence generated by a key ally? Is anyone certain that Donald Trump wouldn't regard buying silence with the public assets of the United States instead of with his own private fortune to be a remarkable bargain? I'm not.
    Oh dear. Does the name "Profumo" come to mind? Not quite the same and I don't think anyone is dead (yet) but there are common factors.

    Well, no one is dead in connection with Donald Trump's sex life yet, but we have Congressional testimony by Clint Watts about how we should "follow the trail of dead Russians". This testimony was given at a hearing into Russian election interference and the associated disinformation campaign.
  • edited March 2018
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Well, no one is dead in connection with Donald Trump's sex life yet.

    As opposed to no thing.

    [Miss Amanda will get her wrap.]
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    rofl

    Amanda the whiskey in your glass is far too diluted. Unless it is the water of life?
  • Mr SmiffMr Smiff Shipmate
    Breaking news: Rex Tillerson's been sacked as Secretary Of State: no reason given so far.
  • Another one bites the dust.

    I'm sure Trump's idea of "a fantastic job" is as a part of the fantasy world he lives in.
  • A bit early to say, perhaps, but how does this latest execution affect (a) the meeting between POTUS and Mr. Kim, and (b) the question of Russian involvement in the POTUS' election?

    IJ
  • Tillerson did call out Russia for the nerve agent attack in the UK yesterday. There is plenty of speculation that the firing was suggested through a Russian back-channel.

    I’m not so sure that it’s quite that neat. There has long been speculation that Trump wanted him out. I’m more of the opinion that Russia sowed chaos in the election, with or without Trump’s knowledge, for the sake of chaos, rather than to have a puppet in the White House. That said, you never know what kind of flattery Trump is susceptible to.

    How much cabinet level turnover is too much? I’ll be interested to see if DeVos, who embarrassed herself on 60 minuets, survives the week. And not a week goes by without a suggestion that Sessions is next out (we should be so lucky...)

    Big special election in Western Pennsylvania today, in a congressional district which Trump won handily. Polling is showing a tight race. Speculation is that a D win would be a good sign that the long-predicted blue wave in November is still on track.
  • More on Tillerson: the State Department has confirmed that he learned he had been fired through Trump’s tweet.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Tillerson did call out Russia for the nerve agent attack in the UK yesterday. There is plenty of speculation that the firing was suggested through a Russian back-channel.

    I’m not so sure that it’s quite that neat. There has long been speculation that Trump wanted him out. I’m more of the opinion that Russia sowed chaos in the election, with or without Trump’s knowledge, for the sake of chaos, rather than to have a puppet in the White House.

    But it is consistent with the rumor that Romney's Secretary of State chances were spiked the Russians.
    How much cabinet level turnover is too much?

    I've created a game over in the Circus around that question.
  • You really couldn't make it up, could you?

    Why would anyone with a grain of common-sense, or sense of self-preservation, want to work in such a toxic swamp as the US Administration appears to be?

    IJ
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    Tillerson did call out Russia for the nerve agent attack in the UK yesterday. There is plenty of speculation that the firing was suggested through a Russian back-channel.

    I’m not so sure that it’s quite that neat. There has long been speculation that Trump wanted him out. I’m more of the opinion that Russia sowed chaos in the election, with or without Trump’s knowledge, for the sake of chaos, rather than to have a puppet in the White House.

    But it is consistent with the rumor that Romney's Secretary of State chances were spiked the Russians.
    True. We also know that both men had insulted Trump in the past. I guess I would rank the possibility of Russia directly ordering these moves slightly below "Trump just didn't like the guy and wanted to publicly humiliate him" and "Someone with Russian connections, thinking it would be in the best interest of Moscow, made Trump believe that it was in his best interest to have these guys fired."

    It is kind of terrifying seeing the way that people have figured out how to play Trump's impulsiveness. There are reports that advocacy groups are now doing huge ad buys during Fox and Friends, because they know he will be watching, and that his Twitter impulsiveness seems to peak early in the morning.

    What a time to be alive.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    And then there's this:
    President Donald Trump's longtime personal aide John McEntee was fired because he is currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes, a source familiar with his firing told CNN.

    The charges are not related to the President, the source said.

    "Only the best people" will never not be an appropriate punchline for any news story dealing with the Trump administration.

    And then there's the chaser:
    Minutes after news of his departure broke, the Trump campaign announced McEntee would be joining the reelection effort as a senior adviser for campaign operations.

    When you're a made man, a place will be found for you.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Looks like Lamb(D) for Western Pennsylvania.

    Pompeo was a decent choice for CIA, but SecState not so much.

    Trump plays random musical chairs and makes things even worse.

  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Wow.
    JUST IN: Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein is being fired for contradicting the account of Rex Tillerson’s dismissal, White House official tells @PeterAlexander

    How many upper-level dismissals from the same department before it qualifies as a "purge"? Is it three?

    For the record, Under Secretary of State is the level right below Deputy Secretary of State (the one currently running the Department) and there are supposed to be six of them. Steve Goldstein was the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. The only other spot currently filled at the Under Secretary level at the State Department is the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    It's like the chaos towards the end of That Hideous Strength in the chapter entitled “They have pulled down deep heaven on their heads.”
  • Tillerson out? That's numberwang!
  • If you were unable to watch, the special election in Western Pennsylvania is still too close to call, but the Democrat has declared victory, and it is possible (even likely) that the margin (641 votes) is higher than the number of uncounted absentee and provisional ballots. So it's looking good for Lamb.

    (It was about as compelling as election watching via Twitter and the New York Times online gets- at one point, with only three precincts left to report, Lamb, the Democrat, was up by 77 votes. The remaining votes were coming from the heaviest Republican county, which was the only one not voluntarily reporting which precincts were in, so it was impossible to tell if those last votes were going to come from a part of the county that was likely to split close, or one that was going to go heavily for the Republican.)

    This was engineered to be a safe Republican seat, which bunched swing precincts in Pittsburgh with heavily red rural districts outside of the city. It will no longer exist in November, under the de-gerrymandered map that is being imposed on the state. So there is a good possibility that, in 8 months, Lamb will end up being the congressman for the swing district made up of Pittsburgh suburbs, and the Republican will be the congressman for the rural coal mining counties.

    Trump won this congressional district by 20% in 2016. So for it to turn into a dead heat 16 months later says something about the Democrats' hopes for a blue waive in November. To compare, Paul Ryan's district was won by Trump by 4%. Trump won Texas, where Ted Cruz is facing a formidable Senate challenger, by 8%. Democrats are tasting blood in the water, and I suspect a number of checks will be written in the coming week.

    For more analysis about what the special elections can possibly tell us about probable results in 2018, see FiveThirtyEight.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    If you were unable to watch, the special election in Western Pennsylvania is still too close to call, but the Democrat has declared victory, and it is possible (even likely) that the margin (641 votes) is higher than the number of uncounted absentee and provisional ballots. So it's looking good for Lamb.

    According to Some Guy on Twitter's screen capture of CNN there are nearly 7,000 absentee and provisional ballots to be counted. Things still look good for Lamb though, since more than half those ballots come from Allegheny County, which Lamb carried 57% to 42% of the election day votes.
    This was engineered to be a safe Republican seat, which bunched swing precincts in Pittsburgh with heavily red rural districts outside of the city. It will no longer exist in November, under the de-gerrymandered map that is being imposed on the state. So there is a good possibility that, in 8 months, Lamb will end up being the congressman for the swing district made up of Pittsburgh suburbs, and the Republican will be the congressman for the rural coal mining counties.

    Even crazier, they both have exactly one week (well, six days now) to gather 1,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot in whichever of the new Pennsylvania districts they decide they want to run in in November. 1,000 valid signatures usually means you've got to gather 2,000 to 3,000 actual signatures to account for duplicates, those ineligible to vote, those from outside the district, and to give yourself a safe margin.

    And it's a semantic quibble, but Pennsylvania's new Congressional district map is not "being imposed on the state", it's being imposed by the state. More specifically the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which is a constitutionally established branch of the Pennsylvania state government.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    My copy of The faith of Donald J. Trump has arrived.

    I didn't get further than the introduction before wanting to throw the book out of the window, but I'll keep ploughing on. Talk about an attempt at rehabilitation.
  • As I understand it, most of those absentee ballots cited in that tweet were counted last night, and reflected in the 641 number.
  • More on Tillerson: the State Department has confirmed that he learned he had been fired through Trump’s tweet.

    A friend happened to be in the same room with Comey when he learned thru a news report airing on TV that he had been fired. Awkward. Again, this is Trump's M.O. Public humiliation is part of the bread & circuses.
  • The special election in Western Pennsylvania is still too close to call, but the Democrat has declared victory, and it is possible (even likely) that the margin (641 votes) is higher than the number of uncounted absentee and provisional ballots. So it's looking good for Lamb.

    Whom the you-know-who, true to form, called "Lamb the sham." I am glad for the results, but I would certainly not call it the "stunning upset" that the news anchors are blabbing about on this morning's TV news.
  • 20 point swing in a district engineered by the Pennsylvania GOP to be safely red? That’s an upset.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Again, this is Trump's M.O. Public humiliation is part of the bread & circuses.

    While I agree that getting fired by Twitter is a humiliating tactic, I suspect the real reason for this behavior is 44.2's fundamental cowardice. We know he favorably repeats whatever he's last heard; he does this because (A) he has so few ideas of his own, and (B) even if he had ideas, he would never have the guts to present these to someone who might disagree with them. He's spent his life using money rather than thinking to defend his notions. In similar vein, he can't bring himself to fire someone face-to-face IRL, because they might object and try to talk him out of this.

  • Eutychus, before you throw your copy of that fictional novel, The Faith of Donald J. Trump out of window, please make sure (a) that the said window is open, and (b) that there is a stationary refuse disposal wagon immediately outside.

    I post this out of a Duty of Care wossname.

    IJ
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Have you read it?

  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus

    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Looks like Lamb(D) for Western Pennsylvania.
    :mrgreen: I sure was hoping so! Close, but enough to withstand bad loser lawyer games I would think.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Again, this is Trump's M.O. Public humiliation is part of the bread & circuses.

    While I agree that getting fired by Twitter is a humiliating tactic, I suspect the real reason for this behavior is 44.2's fundamental cowardice. We know he favorably repeats whatever he's last heard; he does this because (A) he has so few ideas of his own, and (B) even if he had ideas, he would never have the guts to present these to someone who might disagree with them. He's spent his life using money rather than thinking to defend his notions. In similar vein, he can't bring himself to fire someone face-to-face IRL, because they might object and try to talk him out of this.

    You're probably right it's about avoiding the awkward conversation, although I don't see Trump as self-aware enough to realize he's in danger of being talked out of it. It's the equivalent of the infamous breaking up by post-it note. Avoids all that awkward unpleasantness.
  • 20 point swing in a district engineered by the Pennsylvania GOP to be safely red? That’s an upset.

    The New York Times reports that Lamb got 113,813 votes, Saccone got 113,186. In my book that's winning by the skin of your teeth, not a "stunning upset" (and I understand it will be challenged).
  • The New York Times reports that Lamb got 113,813 votes, Saccone got 113,186. In my book that's winning by the skin of your teeth, not a "stunning upset" (and I understand it will be challenged).

    It is both. Yes, it is a narrow margin. The stunning upset is that the result came anywhere close at all. This is a district that Trump won by 20 points in 2016. A 20 point swing is pretty stunning.
  • What's stunning is that there are 113,186 voters who still don't see what a serious blunder they made.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    More on Tillerson: the State Department has confirmed that he learned he had been fired through Trump’s tweet.

    A friend happened to be in the same room with Comey when he learned thru a news report airing on TV that he had been fired. Awkward. Again, this is Trump's M.O. Public humiliation is part of the bread & circuses.

    Despite his reality TV catchphrase, Donald Trump apparently hates firing people in person and will do so at as many removes as possible. I'm guessing he doesn't like dealing with people who no longer have any reason for sycophancy.
    Whom the you-know-who, true to form, called "Lamb the sham." I am glad for the results, but I would certainly not call it the "stunning upset" that the news anchors are blabbing about on this morning's TV news.

    PA-18 is (was) a Congressional district specifically gerrymandered to elect Republicans. Donald Trump carried the district by a margin of just under 20 percentage points in 2016 and came through the district for a last minute rally to turn out support for Rick Saccone. Saccone also outspent Lamb a margin of about 4:1. A photo finish victory in a 100m dash isn't normally considered a "stunning upset", but if the other guy had what amounts to a 30m head start we're usually pretty stunned.

    So what does this mean going forward? If this is a decent proxy measure of how far the U.S. as a whole has shifted against the Republicans (and that's still a big "if", though not as big as it was a couple months ago) it means a major shift in the November elections. PA-18 was rated by Cook Political Report as having a PVI* of R+11, meaning it leans 11 percentage points more Republican than the nation as a whole. The U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members and therefore 435 Congressional districts. 307 of those districts is rated by Cook as R+10 or lower. If R+11 is the new "balance point" where an election will be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats then the 114 districts rated R+10 or lower with Republican incumbents are very vulnerable to being flipped. Republicans currently control the House of Representatives by a margin of 45 seats (44 if Mr. Lamb ultimately prevails), which means Democrats would only have to flip 23 of those 114 theoretically-vulnerable seats to retake the majority in the House. (There are three other seats currently vacant in the House besides PA-18, so that may alter the math a little around the edges.)

    The usual provisos apply here. The actual candidates running and how they conduct their campaigns actually matter. Even if this is a measure of where the electorate stands now (and it's pretty consistent with the special elections in 2017) it's no guarantee the electorate will still be there in November. Each constituency has its own quirks which makes it tough to generalize. Neither candidate in PA-18 had the advantages of incumbency, which will be a factor elsewhere. Etc. Still, the fact that Trump went out of his way to support Saccone, even more than he did for Roy Moore, may make Congressional Republicans less likely to support him, at least to the degree that their support is predicated on the supposed electoral advantage gained by being associated with Trump.


    *Partisan Voting Index
  • So if Trump sacked Tillerson because their views on critical foreign affairs issues like Iran and Nth Korea were so different, and they weren't on the same wavelength, why did he hire Tillerson last year?
  • I think he hired Tillerson assuming he'd have the same view on Russia, since Tillerson (like many/most Trump appointees) has a vested financial interest in lifting sanctions. Honestly that was my assumption as well. But on several occasions, Tillerson has, surprisingly been able to look beyond that to see the bigger picture-- as in, "gee, even if we are able to sell a lot of tanks, nuclear war with NK would probably be a bad thing...". This is very much counter-cultural for this White House, so he had to go.
  • I reckon its a product of the really disorganised transition period. Surely any competent set of people could have worked out that their views were going to clash. Surely Tillerson (a man for whom I have no time whatsoever) should have known that he and Trump were not going to be on the same page and he should never have accepted the job. I can't think of a Secretary of State who has done a worse job.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    So if Trump sacked Tillerson because their views on critical foreign affairs issues like Iran and Nth Korea were so different, and they weren't on the same wavelength, why did he hire Tillerson last year?

    The rumor was that Trump picked Tillerson because he looked like a Secretary of State is supposed to look.
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    I can't think of a Secretary of State who has done a worse job.

    From blogger Robert Farley:
    18 months ago, Rex Tillerson was a significant figure in American life, but not a terribly memorable one; I doubt very many would have taken note of his passing. Now, he has a strong claim to being the least competent, least effective person ever to serve as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, an honor which will no doubt decorate his obituary. In comments, please offer any alternative candidates for Worst Secretary of State Ever.
  • I'll sing you a song of Rex Tillerson, and all the great things he has done.

    :no_mouth:

    IJ
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Crœsos wrote: »
    From blogger Robert Farley:
    Now, he has a strong claim to being the least competent, least effective person ever to serve as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, an honor which will no doubt decorate his obituary.
    I wouldn't say 'no doubt'. There's still plenty of opportunity for Trump to prove that wrong.

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