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Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    tRump is now considering dumping undocumented South Americans in sanctuary cities. A little vindictive shall we say?

    I suppose that's one way to describe weaponizing tired and scared people as a form of political retribution.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Another thing tRump does is praise someone or something when they are helping him, but when it all crashes down he claims he knows nothing about what he previously praised.

    For example, Wikileaks. During the campaign he praised Wikileaks for giving a boost to his campaign by releasing Prebius' and Clinton's emails. But now that Assauge has been evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy and will likely be extradited to the US-if not Sweden--first, tRump is saying he knows nothing about Assauge or Wikileaks. He is dropping it like a hot potato.

    What does that suggest?
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Hey, speaking of (alleged) abuses of power:
    President Donald Trump told Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan he would grant McAleenan a pardon if he were sent to jail for having border agents block asylum seekers from entering the US in defiance of US law, senior administration officials tell CNN.

    Trump reportedly made the comment during a visit to the border at Calexico, California, a week ago. It was not clear if the comment was a joke.

    Two officials briefed on the exchange say the President told McAleenan, since named the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that he "would pardon him if he ever went to jail for denying US entry to migrants," as one of the officials paraphrased.

    In previous times this sort of thing would be a huge scandal, indicating (if confirmed) that not only did the president* not feel bound by the law, but that he didn't think anyone working under him should have to follow the law either. In the Trump administration* it's simply Friday.
  • Apparently Fat Nixon has taken politician's words and paired then with a September 11 attack video. A woman. A Muslim. Brown. Someone is getting hurt. Killed. The revolution will be streamed live. With ads for Viagra, bump stocks, dildoes.
  • Could you stop calling him Fat anything? I rather dislike being associated with him.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Regarding his disowning of Assange and Wikileaks, isn't it just par for the course for the Liar-in-Chief? The same as he did when Paul Manafort (his campaign manager, whom he suddenly claimed not to know) was found to be a villain?

    What I can't understand is why ordinary Republicans (elected or otherwise) keep letting him off with lies that can so easily be verified as lies.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Another thing tRump does is praise someone or something when they are helping him, but when it all crashes down he claims he knows nothing about what he previously praised.

    For example, Wikileaks. During the campaign he praised Wikileaks for giving a boost to his campaign by releasing Prebius' and Clinton's emails. But now that Assauge has been evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy and will likely be extradited to the US-if not Sweden--first, tRump is saying he knows nothing about Assauge or Wikileaks. He is dropping it like a hot potato.

    What does that suggest?

    To quote my own self, there is now a report that Roger Stone, who was one of tRump's closest friends for over 40 years, now says he has not heard from tRump since he has been indicted. Stone also claims he is now broke. Too bad, so sad.
  • Could you stop calling him Fat anything? I rather dislike being associated with him.

    I know where you are coming from, but Lamb Chopped there is nothing about the person you show us through your posts that could in any way be associated with Trump.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    We've probably got a bit lax in our Hosting of Trump name calling outside Hell, where you can rant away to your heart's content.. Let criticism of policies and conduct be as critical as you like, but messing around with his name doesn't belong in Purgatory.

    Barnabas62
    Purgatory Host
  • edited April 2019
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Could you stop calling him Fat anything? I rather dislike being associated with him.

    I know where you are coming from, but Lamb Chopped there is nothing about the person you show us through your posts that could in any way be associated with Trump.

    Indeed. Quite the opposite. I think the only thing in common with him is being human. Which is open to argument.

    I'll simply not name him in the future. Per the direction.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    We've probably got a bit lax in our Hosting of Trump name calling outside Hell, where you can rant away to your heart's content.. Let criticism of policies and conduct be as critical as you like, but messing around with his name doesn't belong in Purgatory.

    Barnabas62
    Purgatory Host

    Now this is going to be a problem. The president has already been established. You have let this thread go to 75 pages with no objection. There is no way I can call the man by his formal name. He is constantly calling people by names other than their own. If it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander.
  • I refer to him as the current occupant of the White House. I will not debauch my fingers by typing his name. And he is not the President; rather he is someone who usurped the title for himself. The office is currently sede vacante.
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    This is not a new policy, though as Barnabas62 says, we have been lax on it. Re the president messing with names, if he registers on these boards, we can all have great fun giving him an earful. Until then if you want to argue, go to the Styx.

    Gwaihir,
    Purgatory Host
  • I'm not sure where to post the following, as it has nothing really to do with the hostly ruling, so hope I may be forgiven for the following.

    I thank you for the kind words about my (er) nature, but what I was too-delicately hinting at is that using "fat" as a word to shame anybody, even Trump, is ... not cool, bro. It doesn't matter whether you think he "earned" his fat-shaming or not, through diet or lack of self-control or what you will. As long as the term "fat" is used as a pejorative for anybody, so long will the rest of us fatties, like me, have to deal with the general shitty behavior of the public toward us on account of our appearance.

    And none of those people are going to inquire whether we have legitimate reasons for looking the way we do, before they shame us. Such as disability, certain medications, and thyroid issues--or all three.

    Though truthfully, I am probably wrong in even allowing that there might be illegitimate reasons out there. Because even if someone is downing a dozen doughnuts for breakfast every morning, that doesn't excuse the haters.

    Again, my apologies, and I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.


  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Lamb Chopped: I appreciate where you are coming from. At the beginning of the year, I was at 354 lbs. I am now at 315 lbs. According to the BMI scale I am still morbidly obese. I would have to get to 250 before I would be considered normal. I hope to do that by November the way I am going. I apologize for any hurt I caused you.
  • It wasn't specifically aimed at you, but I do appreciate the apology! Just hoping we can keep to his, uh, other characteristics when we reference him. In accordance with hostly rule, of course.
  • I for one had picked up on a comparative to a prior badly behaving presidente of your's who was almost impeached, with the descriptive meant for that comparison alone to that person. No thought of shaming crossed my mind. understand the sensitivity and shall respect it.
  • muchas gracias!
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    And now the man who claims to be president has stated that if he were the fire chief in Paris he would have ordered water drops on Our Lady Cathedral. If he were the president of Boeing he would have rebranded the 737 Max.

    In other news the new Interior Secretary who was just confirmed four days ago is now under investigation for showing favoritism for he former clients in California. I mean, the man has yet to put up his family pictures in his office and he is already being investigated for a land scandal,

    Without a doubt this administration makes the Ulysses S Grant administration look like angels.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    In Terry Pratchett's novel "Last Continent", there's a place where they automatically put politicians in jail, on the grounds that it saves time.
    ;)

    I'll have to look up Grant's administration. One difference: Grant has a rep as a very heavy drinker, whereas T does what he does stone cold sober. (He promised his alcoholic brother that he'd never drink.)
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    T does what he does stone cold sober.
    But full of junk food and doubtless experiencing its effects. Remember the Twinkies Defense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie_defense)?
  • LadyleftfieldloverLadyleftfieldlover Shipmate Posts: 17
    I am probably being naive here, but why is this man trump still in the White House and why aren’t the Republican Party standing up to him? Surely trump can’t have something on all of them. He seems to be playing one massive game and I am not sure the USA can ever recover from the opprobrium which has been directed at them since 2016. I have read that he is likely to be re-elected! Why oh why? I am in my 60s and cannot remember a previous POTUS being so vilified.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Trump is still the White House because he is getting the Republican machine a great deal of what they want. Conservative justices, lower taxes for the rich…
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    From the outside it seem that as the election is next year it is not worth chucking him out now. The Democrats have kept him somewhat at bay. He also does have a decent amount of support. The BBC had a series where former Labour Party minister Ed Balls went round the Southern states talking to Trump supporters. It was interesting to see it he range of people. I don’t know if he be let run again let alone win. He lost the popular vote last time. He is not untouchable
  • Hugal wrote: »
    Former Labour Party minister Ed Balls went round the Southern states talking to Trump supporters. It was interesting to see it he range of people.

    The Confederacy should never have been readmitted back into the Union.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Well it is not for me to comment
  • Hugal wrote: »
    Former Labour Party minister Ed Balls went round the Southern states talking to Trump supporters. It was interesting to see it he range of people.

    The Confederacy should never have been readmitted back into the Union.

    Can you guess which state had the highest number of lynchings during the Jim Crow era? It was... Indiana.

    What are the most racially segregated school systems in the United States today? Boston, New York City, and Chicago.

    The racism is coming from inside the house.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    I am probably being naive here, but why is this man trump still in the White House and why aren’t the Republican Party standing up to him?

    It's comments like this that make me tear my hair out, metaphorically. The reason the Republican Party doesn't stand up to Trump is that he is the apotheosis of the racism, sexism, dishonesty, and corruption that the Republican Party has wholeheartedly embraced since the days when Richard Nixon first embarked on the Southern Strategy. Why doesn't the party of Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Dick Cheney, and Roy Moore "stand up" to Donald Trump? To ask the question is to answer it.

    What I'm more interested in is why so many people refuse to accept that the Republican Party backs Donald Trump because it likes him and everything he does? That there is no such thing as "Trumpism", just Republican politics?
  • The racism is coming from inside the house.
    But if there were still a Confederate States of America, espousing all the "values" (wrong word) of the original Confederacy, then all the gun-toting, coal-burning, gas-guzzling, racism-espousing yahoos would have a place to move to that they could comfortably call their home, and leave the rest of the continent to the more sensible of us.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    The racism is coming from inside the house.
    But if there were still a Confederate States of America, espousing all the "values" (wrong word) of the original Confederacy, then all the gun-toting, coal-burning, gas-guzzling, racism-espousing yahoos would have a place to move to that they could comfortably call their home, and leave the rest of the continent to the more sensible of us.

    Nah - they’d just start another war, because that’s their mentality.

  • I saw the film Vice about Dick Cheney on the plane coming over to France. It made it perfectly clear that the Trump Administration is a reflection of the Republican Party, not a more extreme version of it. The thesis is that the generation of Republicans that were just getting involved in Washington politics saw the downfall of Nixon as a tragedy. They felt that the only thing he did wrong was get caught. 'He forgot the microphone was on'. said the character Chaney in the film. The immediate response to a tragedy they saw as driven by the media was to kick off Fox News, and their political response continued through the Republican presidencies of the 80's and 90's, culminating in the Bush Administration. At the end of the film, there is a montage of horror, suitably edited for airline flight detailing the impact of Chaney's decisions following 9/11, including invasion, terrorist attacks, torture, rendition, kidnapping and then you see Chaney at a social function turn to camera and say something like, "I know you want to hate me, to judge me. But I did all of those things for you. I did them to protect you. You put me here, and I did what had to be done." Total bullshit of course, but powerful bullshit.

    I think Trump changed to fit the Republican Party, not the other way around.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I suppose a part of the GOP thinking might be, "if Trump's out on his ear, then so are we". They want to hang on to power, and if that means being led by a vulgar, corrupt, misogynistic racist, then so be it.

    It's not very noble, but few things in politics are.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    AIUI, T wasn't really Republican until running for president. Not sure if he was exactly Democratic, either; but he did support Hillary in the past.

    I suspect he isn't truly a part of anything. He does what he feels he needs to do in the moment to get what he wants/needs, and to protect himself. He's also massively lonely.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Miss Amanda--
    Golden Key wrote: »
    T does what he does stone cold sober.
    But full of junk food and doubtless experiencing its effects. Remember the Twinkies Defense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie_defense)?

    Oh, yes, I'm not saying he's anywhere near functional. I don't know much about Grant; but it's possible he was more functional as a heavy drinker than T is as a tee-totaler.

    Personally, I thought eating junk food *could* have contributed to the actions in the Twinkie defense case. *especially* with Twinkies. (Look up "twinkies experiments". Those things are seriously weird.)

    So yeah, T's food and habits most likely have bad effects on him. IMHO, his body often looks sort of...congested. He's also used Rogaine/Minoxodil for a very long time, as confirmed by his NY doctor. And it's known to cause mental problems.

    I don't defend anything T's done; but the media often spins his personal damage as funny/ridiculous. That infamous time he couldn't manage an umbrella? He'd just trudged up the stairs to the plane, looking in bad shape, and I think the umbrella was just more than he could deal with at the time. When people are exhausted, sick, tired, angry, distracted, sometimes they just can't figure out how to do very normal things that they usually could do. It indicated some kind of problem, but wasn't laugh-worthy.

    Same thing when he used both hands to pick up a glass of water. Lots of people do that, especially if they're unsure they can pick it up with one hand at that time.

    It's like the media (and many others) are focused on ridiculing his personal damage, rather focusing on the damage *he's* doing.



  • Golden Key wrote: »
    So yeah, T's food and habits most likely have bad effects on him. IMHO, his body often looks sort of...congested.
    I love the way he sits in a chair, leaning forward with his legs spread apart, as if sitting on the toilet. He looks as though his hemorrhoids must be killing him!
  • The British shouldn't have won the Seven Years War, which had the French and Indian War in north eastern America. The French would have been confirmed as masters of the Mississippi. A likely Iroquois and allies country in the Great Lakes country. English speaking people isolated to a coastal strip. A larger Mexico which kept California and Colorado.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    For those who are interested the censored redacted version of the Mueller Barr Report is now available on the internet. It is a scanned (i.e. non-searchable, non-cut-and-pastable) PDF document. The censored redacted bits are indeed color-coded.
  • A link from Twitter here. On learning the Mueller was investigating him said "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."

    Responses seem as they would be by anyone anywhere: were it true.
  • I haven't had time to look properly but from what I'm hearing, it does sound like the report is dynamite. I refuse to get carried away though; even with a literal smoking gun, Trump and his supporters would deny all, play the victim and carry on regardless.

    AFZ
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    Agreed, @alienfromzog. Trump could invite Vlad Putin to move into the White House and Trump and his supporters would just express anger and contempt that his critics thought there was anything improper about it.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    A lesson in redaction:
    The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through the Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinate with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

    That's from the M****** Report. The bit in bold is what was reproduced in the Barr summary letter. The bit in italics was omitted from that letter by Attorney General Barr for some reason. This illustrates why the full, unredacted report needs to be seen by Congress.
  • Well put @Crœsos
    From what I am hearing; there's not quite a smoking gun on conspiracy here - although I think MuellerSheWrote are right that the various investigations that Mueller has spawned will probably show conspiracy. It does seem to provide extensive evidence of attempting to obstruct justice which undoubtedly meets the constitutional definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors specifically because this is a clear abuse of Presidential power... Mueller appears to have deliberately avoided this conclusion as he (presumably) believes that it is only for Congress to make that judgment.

    As I said, (and I still haven't actually read much), the report is dynamite. What Congress does with it will be interesting. I think there are clearly 3 parts to this and they are different.
    1. The House of Representatives has a compelling case for further investigation. I think there will be lots of hearings.
    2. The House of Representative probably have enough evidence, even in the redacted report to impeach on the Obstruction of Justice charge. Impeachment is always a combined legal and political matter. This one is open to question and will probably come down to a combined judgment of three things; 1) whether they believe there is a legal case - as I said, IMV, that's a certainty 2) whether it is politically beneficial or detrimental to the Dems to impeach - that's an open question and 3) what the Dems in the HoR think the Senate would do if they did impeach - which brings me to the third part...
    3. If the HoR impeach then there follows a Senate Trial; the received wisdom thus far has always been that this would follow strict party lines and a Republican Congress would never convict. Now we have the report, this will potentially change - we shall see. FWIW, my thoughts on this is that the Senate will not convict at the moment but it could change...

    Interesting times...

    AFZ
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Blogger digby points out a bit of the M****** Report where Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort met with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik in August 2016 (i.e. during the campaign) to discuss detailed campaign data on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. For those with short memories, razor-thin wins in the first three of those states gave Trump enough electoral votes to support his minority-vote victory.

    I guess it all depends on how you define "collusion".
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Someone named Jared Sexton has a tweet storm covering his reading of the M****** Report. Apparently he reads very fast.
  • apostate630apostate630 Shipmate Posts: 8
    My memory is razor sharp on this matter. The Russians thereafter stepped up their misinformation campaign and got that there razor thin majority for trump.

    I haven’t talked with them about it, and I haven’t talked politics with my fundamentalist folks since December 20, 2000. But I know with crystalline certainty that even incontrovertible proof that Trump was a colonel in the GRU would not cause them to waver in their support of him.
  • Its sad. I reckon my Californian host family are rusted on too. I still love them. But its hard. I had to listen to my host father rave on about Trump. He's in his mid-80's and I reckon it slipped his mind that I loathed Trump. So I just took it. When we previously talked we managed the dispute by having a talk for about an hour on why we all felt the way we did and then agreed to stop talking about it. That is the sort of thing he regarded as important, which is why I saw it as evidence of his decline.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Barr's summary looks pretty sick with what is now "out there". But is anyone in the GOP going to go honest? Don't hold your breath.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I saw a reference to a petition to impeach both T AND Barr. I think it's through CREDO Action.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Barr's summary looks pretty sick with what is now "out there". But is anyone in the GOP going to go honest? Don't hold your breath.

    Something "sick" means "good" the way the word is used these days where I live. I'm glad you mean the opposite. I agree the guy was totally frying bacon in the nude.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Some 90 year olds could see the man was a fraud ever since he burst on the national scene. My 94 year old mother calls him a huckster. Mom and I agree have agreed on very little over the years, but we are in complete agreement about this man.
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