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Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.

    That's what Office of Management and Budget associate manager Michael Duffey said via e-mail. Click through to read the whole thing, but the tl;dr version is that we now have documented evidence various Trump officials somehow got the idea that he (illegally) wanted to withhold Congressionally appropriated funds from Ukraine.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    I'd love to believe that this evidence might persuade a few more Republican senators to cut us all loose from the 45 Express before he drives us into Yet. Another. Mid-East. War. All the Repugs have left as a defense is "Yeah, he did it, and yeah, it's illegal unless it's committed by a president since no laws apply to him and anyway, even if the office didn't render the office-holder immune to all laws, this isn't an impeachable offense.

    Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a raft in mid-ocean, don't they care how fucking dangerous this lunatic is? He's leading us into apocalypse.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I suspect that the only apocalypse most of them are worried about is the Congressional Republicans losing power. And losing their own power, and their jobs.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a raft in mid-ocean, don't they care how fucking dangerous this lunatic is? He's leading us into apocalypse.

    Expect people to argue that the impeachment cannot continue at a time of war.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    People with loved ones in the military should consider very carefully whether or not such an erratic, dysfunctional Commander-In-Chief is really the person they want deciding to send their loved ones into war.
  • Expect people to argue that the impeachment cannot continue at a time of war.
    Oh, yes. Most certainly. I am sure Mitch McConnell is preparing that speech even as we speak. Or Moscow is preparing it for him.
  • Hey, remember Lev Parnas? He was the Florida-residing Ukrainian/Soviet immigrant who was allegedly helping Giuliani shake down the Ukrainian government and also allegedly funneling campaign contributions from a Russian oligarch to various Republican politicians. He was arrested with his alleged confederate Igor Fruman at Dulles International Airport with a one-way ticket to Vienna.

    Anyway, Mr. Parnas has been offering to share files from his iPhone and other sources with the House Intelligence Committee. Unfortunately he had been instructed by prosecutors not to share this information anybody since they were still building a case. His plea has been moving through the courts and today he was granted approval to share the information with Adam Schiff's merry band. We'll see if any of this becomes public.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    People with loved ones in the military should consider very carefully whether or not such an erratic, dysfunctional Commander-In-Chief is really the person they want deciding to send their loved ones into war.

    Oh, they are. I do not think anyone in the special forces community is supporting 45 him getting involved in the Gallagher case. Moreover, many were upset that we left allies on the field when we pulled back from the Turkish/Syrian border. People who have been to South Korea also report our personnel is unsettled about PRNK's increasing threats and 45's minimalization of them. Half of the military is unhappy with 45 now.

  • Thanks very much for that info Croesus. I wait with hope in my heart.
  • Xax50Xax50 Shipmate Posts: 4
    Trump is the worst president the US has ever had by far, even Richard Nixon was a saint in comparison with him. He is making his country look stupid. I hope he is got rid of sooner rather than later, as he is a danger not only to the US but the rest of the planet.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    And there is always this possibility.

    At any rate, he's certainly moved the news cycle away from impeachment.
  • yeah... on the possibility. On impeachment, it's a game of chicken in slow motion now.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Recently I saw something on Facebook (so it must be true) that stated no member of the Trump family had served in the military for the last 150 years. Can this be right? And how big a deal would it be if it were?
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    I dunno if the claim is true (wouldn't surprise me a bit to see it confirmed). But the predictable response will be that Obama didn't serve in the military either.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Is Obama up for reelection?
  • Recently I saw something on Facebook (so it must be true) that stated no member of the Trump family had served in the military for the last 150 years. Can this be right? And how big a deal would it be if it were?

    I do know Fredrick Trump immigrated from Bavaria to the US to avoid military service. That would have been Trump's grandfather. Trump's father avoided service because he built military housing on bases during WWII

    But, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, many German immigrants were in effect draft dodgers, so I would not hold that against him.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Recently I saw something on Facebook (so it must be true) that stated no member of the Trump family had served in the military for the last 150 years. Can this be right? And how big a deal would it be if it were?

    I do know Fredrick Trump immigrated from Bavaria to the US to avoid military service. That would have been Trump's grandfather. Trump's father avoided service because he built military housing on bases during WWII

    But, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, many German immigrants were in effect draft dodgers, so I would not hold that against him.

    Also, you can't really blame Fred Trump for taking advantage of an exemption policy that the government itself had put on offer. (Unless he had somehow lied about his qualification.)

  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Is Obama up for reelection?

    Of course not. But Obama and Clinton are 45's go-to exemplars for behavior he's accused of getting away with.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Did Obama dodge the draft in the way Clinton and Trump did?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    I think Obama May have been too young for the draft. He wasn’t 18 until 1979.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    edited January 2020
    Xax50 wrote: »
    Trump is the worst president the US has ever had by far, even Richard Nixon was a saint in comparison with him. He is making his country look stupid. I hope he is got rid of sooner rather than later, as he is a danger not only to the US but the rest of the planet.

    He is not yet responsible for hundreds of thousands and millions of utterly unjustifiable deaths unlike Bush Jnr., Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Roosevelt, Hayes, Grant on back, that's all the slaver presidents, or even the thousands of Obama.
  • Why is that the measure of a good President Martin? Or are there other measures too?
  • So yesterday the House Intelligence Committee made public a lot of documents formerly in the possession of Lev Parnas, the former associate/client/henchman of Rudy Giuliani. Vox has a decent explainer on the details, but here a few of the more salient bits:
    • There's a letter from Giuliani requesting a meeting with president-elect Zelensky where Giuliani says he's acting on Trump's behalf
    • Ukrainian prosecutor Lutsenko made a deal to investigate "B" (could be "Burisma" or "Biden") in exchange for removing American Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Quid pro quo.
    • Speaking of Yovanovitch, apparently a Trump donor and Congressional candidate named Robert Hyde was tracking her movements, phone/computer use, security detail and texting things to Parnas like "Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money … what I was told". Sounds an awful lot like a plan for kidnapping or assassination and might explain why Yovanovitch was abruptly told to come home on the next plane.
    • There's a handwritten (but undated) note by Parnas on hotel stationary saying "Get Zalensky to annonce that the Biden case will be investigated". It would be interesting to know when that note was written, but even more interesting to know who he was talking to when he made that note. Calling it "the Biden case" really gives away the game.

    There's more for those who are interested, but that was yesterday.

    Today Pelosi announced the selection of House Managers for the Senate trial of Donald Trump. For those unfamiliar with the term House Managers are equivalent to prosecutors in a criminal trial. They present the evidence that Donald Trump has committed abuses of his office sufficient to warrant his removal.
  • Holding my breath again...

    I'm trying to remember whether Trump pulled in first time voters in 2016, or whether he just flipped enough people where it mattered.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Holding my breath again...

    I'm trying to remember whether Trump pulled in first time voters in 2016, or whether he just flipped enough people where it mattered.

    Dunno about the first-timers, Simon Toad, but if you're holding your breath, let it be because of the air quality 'round your way due, alas, to fires rather than impeachment outcomes in our neighborhood . . .
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Holding my breath again...

    I'm trying to remember whether Trump pulled in first time voters in 2016, or whether he just flipped enough people where it mattered.

    Most analyses suggest it was the latter rather than the former. Trump lost ground (percentagewise) among white voters overall when compared to Mitt Romney, but he did this by gaining the votes of non-college-educated whites while losing the votes of college-educated whites. Combined with Russian ratfucking and a last minute assist from the FBI it was enough for him to eke out a very narrow electoral college win.

    Working the percentages, Trump got 62,984,825 votes compared to Romney's 60,933,500, an increase of ~3.4%. That seems pretty good, until you note that the total number of votes cast in 2016 increased by 5.9% over the 2012 totals and the number of voting age citizens in the U.S. increased by 4.4% over the same time period.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Holding my breath again...

    I'm trying to remember whether Trump pulled in first time voters in 2016, or whether he just flipped enough people where it mattered.

    Dunno about the first-timers, Simon Toad, but if you're holding your breath, let it be because of the air quality 'round your way due, alas, to fires rather than impeachment outcomes in our neighborhood . . .

    Yeah, I had a chest cold and the cough is hanging around...

    Cheers to both of you. The comparison with Sanders fails again. If he can really pull in newbies, maybe just maybe there will be a blowout.

    Why must I hope so desperately?
  • For those who are interested the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is livestreaming here.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Thx, Croesos. My own arrangement: audio portion on NPR radio; plus muted TV on PBS, flipping between the impeachment and humorous shows.

    Some of the speakers seem to have gotten a bit sunburned over the weekend.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I have the closed captioning on for the trial, and some of it is accidentally hilarious. When CC is done live for an event (whether by software or a human), there can be errors--especially with software, because it may not "understand" certain words, accents, etc. So there've been errors like "moatings and calls", "corrupt screams", etc.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Question: Do we need/want a separate thread for discussing the trial itself?
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Question: Do we need/want a separate thread for discussing the trial itself?

    There is one I will bump it up.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Prince Charles has just said the opposite to tRump on climate change.

    “Do we want to go down in history as the people who didn’t do anything to bring the world back from the brink?” and advocated green taxes.

    I wonder how tRump will receive that?

    Interesting times.
  • Speaking of Trump at Davos, here he is essentially confessing to Article II of the impeachment, Obstruction of Congress.
    Honestly, we have all the material. They don't have the material.

    I'm sure this would be the kind of thing that would drive his defense team nuts if they weren't so confident the fix was already in.
  • This not exactly a game, but I just had the curiosity to run a web search (DuckDuckGo) of the words "Trump rolls back protections." The number of hits (trying not to list any repeats) include roll backs of existing:
    • Clean Water protection
    • Endangered Species protection
    • EPA protections on coal plants (i.e., the roll back allows for more pollution)
    • Obama-era protections for women workers
    • Protections for trangendered students
    • Health care protections for transgendered patients
    • Flood standards for infrastructure projects
    • Wetlands protections
    • Protections for LGBTQ workers
    And those were just on the first two pages of the search results (most of them listed multiple times).
  • Hedgehog forgot to mention that 45 has just rolled back nutrition guidelines for school food services. Another Obama reg.

    45 is dead set on rolling back anything that has Obama's signature on it.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    edited January 2020
    As someone on Another Internet Forum™ pointed out, if they could make Trump believe that the Second Amendment had been written by Mr. Obama, he'd have it repealed by executive order before you could say "NRA".
  • But that's genius! Pay Fox News to say so.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Definitely.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    edited January 2020
    .
  • School lunch controversy is not new. Remember Ronnie Reagan's dictum that ketchup counts as a vegetable. Look out for an announcement (a tweet) that Big Macs are also a vegetable. The Trump could claim that loading up on Big Macs keeps his physical conditioning at the peak of excellence. And, that it would be great for our economy, too.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    ... Trump could claim that loading up on Big Macs keeps his physical conditioning at the peak of excellence ...
    But his physical condition isn't at ...

    oh, wait a minute ... :confused:
  • Waiting. . . less than a minute- - HAHAHA
  • We've reached the point where simply stating blunt facts sounds like bias. For example, this headline:
    Trump to unveil Mideast peace plan with freshly indicted Netanyahu as Bolton roils Trump's impeachment trial
  • I'm not sure how indicative it is of things, but Trump's campaign ad for the Super Bowl was officially the lowest rated commercial of the night, even charting lower than Bloomberg's campaign ad.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I haven't watched any of the Super Bowl ads yet. I may watch them later online. But if the other SB ads are as creative as they generally are, I can't think of anything he and/or his ad people could do to compare.

    And I don't recall any previous campaign ads at the SB.
  • I am so against the glorification of advertising, which I regard as an evil necessity in a free society with a market economy. I think my feelings stem from having a TV station that only advertises upcoming shows. That said, I still sing songs and catchphrases from my childhood. "Two all beef patties et al."
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    I haven't watched any of the Super Bowl ads yet. I may watch them later online. But if the other SB ads are as creative as they generally are, I can't think of anything he and/or his ad people could do to compare.

    And I don't recall any previous campaign ads at the SB.
    I agree that political ads would be doomed to rate poorly in such an environment, but what I do find interesting is that Bloomberg's campaign ad (which is in a similar niche with Trump's ad) charted distinctly higher. It also is doing much better in terms of YouTube views (Trump's ad is viewed in the thousands while Bloomberg's ad is in the millions).

  • And where is Kansas City, the home of the Chiefs?
  • :) I guess the Chiefs don't get the same grief as the Redskins for their Indian name and symbol?
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