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Purgatory: Oops - your Trump presidency discussion thread.

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  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    This from the Anderson Cooper interview, and from memory.

    1. She was really cheesed off by the holdout and felt Manfort had got away with something.
    2. She and her family had been subject to social media grief because somehow the truth got out that she was a Trump supporter. She and her family had been subject to some social media grief, because she might be a holdout, I think.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    She said she'd like to see the wide distribution of a baseball cap which says "Make America Kind Again".

    How's about "Give America a real President again."
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    And yet more sleaze.

    This story is significant, because it looks as though a part of the fruit of AMI Chairman David Pecker's immunity deal is to release the gag control on storytellers contractually silenced by selling their stories to AMI. Apparently AMI has a safe full of Trump stories.

    Carl Bernstein talked recently about the "stench of sewage emanating from the White House". Looks like the stench level may be rising even further.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    All this hush money going backwards and forwards. I thought the US prized free speech above all things?
  • I thought a good measure of trumpist support was racism and fear of those with accents and brown skin. They need to ask in these interviews with supports what they think of race relations.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Yeah. But. And.
  • Have you noticed that Mueller is allowing cases to be tried in state courts based on the information he has dug up? That's because the Presidental Power of Pardon does not extend to state cases, only federal cases. He will likely turn over evidence to the New York City Prosecutor's office regarding Trump Enterprises, Trump Trust, and the Trump Charitable foundation because all of them were chartered in New York state. Mueller is playing a very shrewd game of chess because Trump cannot stop them from indicting his sons who I think are next in the line of dominos. Ivanka may be implicated too.

    Now there is talk about the fake president being indicted in state court since they are not under the constraints of the federal system regarding the inability to impeach a president while in office.

    Mere speculation on my part but it seems to me that if the fake president becomes mired in a state case, look for the majority of his cabinet to declare him unable to carry out the duties of his office. A Coup d' Etat, if you will.
  • From your keyboard to God's judicial bench.
  • Vale John McCain. People who read this thread would know that I held him in high regard. He was flawed, he was arrogant, he was a player. But he also knew he was flawed and acknowledged it. May he now be perfected in Christ.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Apparently Barack Obama and George W will be speaking at John McCain's funeral. McCain had asked both to speak, that VP Pence attend and that Trump stay away.

    After draft-avoider Trump's dreadful insult about McCain's awful POW experience, I'm not surprised. That insult was replaying on the news. Even though I'd seen it before, it was hard to watch without wanting to hit the man.
  • Apparently Trump kiboshed an idea by his staff to make an official announcement praising McCain's service, instead sending a simple tweet expressing condolences for the family.

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/26/politics/wapo-trump-mccain-tweet/index.html

    What a slap in the face to the recently deceased.
  • The contrast between the two men is stark.
  • Like between a man and a pig.
  • LeoLeo Shipmate
    Don't insult pigs!
  • Wesley JWesley J Circus Host
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    The contrast between the two men is stark.

    One was alive, and is dead. And one was dead-hearted, and remains dead from the neck up, and dead from the neck down.
  • Not only did Trump refuse to release the White House statement regarding McCain. He refused to lower the flag over the White House. Flag protocol says at the death of a Congressperson all federal flags are to go to half-staff until the interment is completed or funeral if there will be no internment. When Trump refused to allow the flag to be lowered he raised the ire of the Congress, the governors, many of his internal staffers and the various Veterans Organizations.

    For the last year and a half, he has been harping about football players showing disrespect to the servicemen who served under the flag when the take a knee during the national anthem.

    Then he goes and pulls this stunt. All federal flags other than the White House had been lowered across the country.

    What is the work I am looking for to describe this? Hypocrite comes to mind.
  • Despicable slug.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Like between a man and a pig.
    Leo wrote: »
    Don't insult pigs!
    My thoughts exactly! :mrgreen:

    I think "scumbag" is the word Miss Amanda's looking for.

    I wonder if part of Trump's pettiness over Mr. McCain's death is because he just can't stand anyone else being the centre of attention.
  • Just about everyone who visits this page knows Trump is unfit to be President, and congenitally so. Personally, I hated his guts the moment I first heard about him, and his election has simply allowed me to discover new instances as to why my initial judgement was right.

    Now we must all wait as patiently as we can for him to be utterly and completely humiliated.

    Incidentally, I turned on the new show from Sasha Baron Cohen, something about America. Cohen is an arsehole, really a complete turd. Its one thing to mislead and attempt to humiliate public figures, but it is quite another to do it to people who invite you to share a meal with them in their home. In the part of the first episode I watched, Bernie Sanders obviously twigged that he was getting set up and played a straight bat. Cohen had nowhere to go. Then a Republican office bearer and her husband invited him to dinner thinking they were hosting a Democrat for an exercise in political reconciliation. Cohen tells a story intended to disgust and offend his hosts. The husband starts to express his horror, the office bearer restrains him and reminds him of his manners. My television turns off.

  • Piglet wrote: »
    I wonder if part of Trump's pettiness over Mr. McCain's death is because he just can't stand anyone else being the centre of attention.

    It's characteristic of his narcissism. Not only must he be the centre of attention, he takes everything absolutely personally. He is incapable, I believe, of drawing a difference between himself as a private individual and the office he holds, or of drawing similar differences with respect to others.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    He’ll be jealous too, I imagine, as he’ll never be hailed a hero.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate

    Simon Toad wrote: »

    Incidentally, I turned on the new show from Sasha Baron Cohen, something about America. Cohen is an arsehole, really a complete turd. Its one thing to mislead and attempt to humiliate public figures, but it is quite another to do it to people who invite you to share a meal with them in their home. In the part of the first episode I watched, Bernie Sanders obviously twigged that he was getting set up and played a straight bat. Cohen had nowhere to go. Then a Republican office bearer and her husband invited him to dinner thinking they were hosting a Democrat for an exercise in political reconciliation. Cohen tells a story intended to disgust and offend his hosts. The husband starts to express his horror, the office bearer restrains him and reminds him of his manners. My television turns off.

    You should see his movie Borat. There are scenes where he keeps provoking people, obviously in order to get them to start yelling offensive things at him, but they don't take the bait, so he keeps upping the ante until he gets the result he wants.

    Like in one, Borat gets himself invited to a dinner party with a bunch of evangelical Christians, and emerges from the washroom with a plastic bag supposedly containing his own feces. The hosts respond by politely telling him that's not the way theu dispose of waste. So there's no real punch line.

    Eventually he calls up a woman and invites her over, and when she arrives, she's African American and clearly meant to be understood as a prostitute. That's when the hosts snap, but even then, they don't start yelling racial slurs at him, they just tell him to get out of the house.

    I guess it wasn't the most tolerant attitude toward sex workers, but if we're being honest, a lot of left-leaning liberals wouldn't care for a dressed-for-work prostitute being invited to their dinner party unannounced either.

  • I watched Borat while feeding a guy with CP who wanted company with his film. He was brilliant to laugh with - one of the best shifts I've worked as a support worker, and I've also been dacked by a client playing chess. I honestly don't remember those scenes. I probably didn't see the whole movie. But that is certainly his MO you describe Stetson. It's using people. I don't like it :angry:

    I was watching a gabfest show called The Drum just now. They were talking about impeachment and the powers of the Presidency, and a couple of them made the point that its not the President who's been acting out of constitutional character over the last few decades, but Congress. Congress hasn't been jealous of its role, they argue, and hasn't kept the Presidency in check. Whaddaya reckon?

  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I've seen several articles, some by Republicans, suggesting that the party as a whole seems to have changed, and not for the better. Misdemeanours - whether sexual, financial or whatever - which would have caused outrage 20 years ago are not only being tolerated in Trump, but defended.

    They seem to have given up their role as keepers of the nation's morals, and assume that if Trump does/says something, it must be right.

    The sooner the electorate get wise to the folly of that, the better.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    I've seen several articles, some by Republicans, suggesting that the party as a whole seems to have changed, and not for the better. Misdemeanours - whether sexual, financial or whatever - which would have caused outrage 20 years ago are not only being tolerated in Trump, but defended.

    They seem to have given up their role as keepers of the nation's morals, and assume that if Trump does/says something, it must be right.

    "Their role as keepers of the nation's morals"? Have to say, I can't recall any time in my adulthood when I thought the Republican Party fit that description. These are the guys who defended the Abu Ghraib atrocities as "college fraternity pranks". (And, yes, I'm sure some Democrats defended them as well, but I'd say that GOP, as a whole, has a more consistent history of pleading for the inexcusable).

    Maybe you mean "their self-announced role as keepers of the nation's morals"? But they probably still have that going. "God is using sinful Donald Trump to restore moral order to America, just as he used sinful King David to restore moral order to Israel" is, I believe, the current talking point.

  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    I've seen several articles, some by Republicans, suggesting that the party as a whole seems to have changed, and not for the better. Misdemeanours - whether sexual, financial or whatever - which would have caused outrage 20 years ago are not only being tolerated in Trump, but defended.

    They seem to have given up their role as keepers of the nation's morals, and assume that if Trump does/says something, it must be right.

    In other words a bunch of articles acting shocked that the Republican party is full of Republicans and pining for the days of moral exemplars like Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and Rush Limbaugh or the definitely-not-misplaced hero worship and deference to George W. Bush.

    I can understand why some people, particularly in the Republican party, would like to pretend that history started on June 16, 2015 when Trump descended his golden escalator, but I don't understand why anyone else feels the need to go along with that delusion.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    @stetson, you put it better than me when you said "self-announced" role - haven't they always assumed that they're the "moral majority"?

    It's maybe that perception of them that makes their willingness to tolerate Trump's evil hard to understand.
  • McCain wasn't so good, he just talked nicer. He was the guy who introduced Sarah Palin to the world. Sarah and trumpy = versions of each other.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    On the basis of no evidence whatever, I've always suspected that the Greedy Old Perverts forced Palin on McCain. She doesn't seem like anyone he'd ever have chosen on his own. It was probably a case of, "You want our money, machine, and support? Then you'll run our Veep pick."
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Palin's candidacy as Wiki records it.

    A classic case of poor selection of an inadequate candidate for perceived image reasons. A new face, a woman, a social conservative, and anti-establishment. What wasn't to like?

    Well, lots as it turned out. After the initial enthusiasm and fund raising boost, her unfittedness for high office and her loose cannon tendencies became clear.

    Would McCain have done better with another choice? I still don't think he would have won, but he might.

    Trouble is, many of the characteristics (plus others entirely Trumpish) that made Palin a poor choice also applied to candidate Trump. But he got the job anyway.

    Which goes to show the baleful effects on democracy when perceptions can be so easily manipulated, when shadow becomes more important than substance.

    Dumbed down, easily manipulated, democracy can produce some pretty scary consequences. 'As we here have daily proof' (Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice).
  • Trump's latest pronunciamento Vote for Republicans or there will be violence.

    Is he campigning for the Con-Evo end-times vote?


  • from that BBC link, Trump apparently tells the evos that the midterms were also '... a referendum on your religion...'

    Is he dropping any pretense of him believing in a divine being other than himself? :tongue:
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    You know, this whole "image" issue is something which has concerned me for some time. It seems the Repugs have bought into and are imposing on us the celebrifacation of US culture, and now run people for office who present an attractive appearance, speak in slogans and soundbites which seem superficially / simplistically accurate, moral, and "American" (whatever-the-hell-that's-now-supposed-to-mean -- white and male and rich, I guess). For example, Paul Ryan has been touted as a Republican intellectual. He has all the intellectual depth of the meniscus on a drop of morning dew.
  • It's not okay to excuse McCain re Palin by saying she was foisted on him. Not at all. The guy was a powerful, senior dude, who needed to do things rightly or not do them. Perhaps his supposed moral fortitude was all used up by then? His virtue signalling by being a survivor of capture and mistreatment in a war that shouldn't have been (are there any wars which should have been?) isn't near enough excuse. I think he felt good about himself and made people share that because he occasionally said and did good things. He also looks awfully good compared to people like Bush#2, Reagan and trumpy. Personality-wise, he wins. Which isn't enough.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    McCain wasn't so good, he just talked nicer. He was the guy who introduced Sarah Palin to the world. Sarah and trumpy = versions of each other.

    And Sarah Palin was not invited to any of the funeral ceremonies.

    Point of information: McCain originally wanted to nominate his friend, Democrat Joe Liberman, as Vice President, but Joe declined. So McCain really did not have time to explore other alternatives.
  • Another one bites the dust. White House Lawyer, Donald McGahn, was shown the door by the head man today. McGahn had planned to stay on under Kavanaugh was confirmed, bt the head man announced he will be leaving this fall. McGahn had talked with Mueller for 30 hours.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    For example, Paul Ryan has been touted as a Republican intellectual. He has all the intellectual depth of the meniscus on a drop of morning dew.

    Now that is a champagne insult. Props to you Ohher.

  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    from that BBC link, Trump apparently tells the evos that the midterms were also '... a referendum on your religion...'

    Is he dropping any pretense of him believing in a divine being other than himself? :tongue:
    Good eye on the wording. "YOUR" religion. Not mine.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Point of information: McCain originally wanted to nominate his friend, Democrat Joe Liberman, as Vice President, but Joe declined. So McCain really did not have time to explore other alternatives.

    He only had a list of one name??? (And that of someone of a different party?)


  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    The Wiki article said he would have preferred Lieberman. That puzzled me as well.

    But I think Joe was a kind of GOP/Democract hybrid wasn't he? At a time when more right-leaning Dems and moderate GOPs actually existed. Before the polarisation squeezed the life out of the centre ground.

    It's possible McCain might have thought Lieberman would attract centre voters but it looked as though the GOP grandees wanted someone who would energise the further-right GOP voters. Palin certainly did that, until her unfittedness became obvious.

    On the other tack, the 'your' in 'your religion' really gives the game away. It really shows Trump up for the self-serving and uncaring asshole he is. You have to be truly brainwashed not to see that. Or so compromised you don't care.

    Oh, wait ....

  • You have to bear in mind that while half of the cognitive-dissonant evangelical narrative about Trump is that he's a Christian (The Faith of Donald Trump argues, with a straight face, that Trump had a "family connection" to Billy Graham because his dad used to watch Billy Graham on TV...), the other half is that he's Cyrus, a well-disposed but errant pagan who has arrived in the White House to achieve God's purposes irrespective of his own moral character.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited August 2018
    Absolutely. His lack of moral compass doesn't get in the way of him being an agent of God's purposes. Whether he's a new Christian or a Cyrus. How convenient an umbrella that is.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    the other half is that he's Cyrus, a well-disposed but errant pagan who has arrived in the White House to achieve God's purposes irrespective of his own moral character.

    The key part of this is a surrender at even an intellectual level to pure pragmatism, which on the one hand makes evangelicals exactly the same as every other lobby group, and on the other will increasingly make it hard for them to claim any kind of exceptionalism.

    On the Lieberman thing - I believe at the time Lieberman had won his seat running as an independent (though he remained a member of the Democratic party). In any case, McCain did have some agency in the choice of Palin, and there are plenty of other things to criticise him on (exceptions on legislation against torture, general war mongering and so on).
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    McCain had several options, including other s who had tried for the nomination. The Wiki article Barnabus62 quotes is consistent with my recollection:
    Senator John McCain began a search for a running mate to join the Republican ticket after clinching the Republican nomination. Former candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were mentioned as possibilities, as were many other leaders in the Republican Party and the business world.[1][2][3][4][5] Over Memorial Day weekend, McCain invited Romney, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to his Sedona, Arizona ranch for informal get-togethers intended to assess personal chemistry for possible running mate selection.[6]

    McCain then announced plans to reveal his running mate the day following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, and just a few days before the start of the Republican National Convention. During the running mate deliberations, McCain had favored Joe Lieberman,[7] who shared his romantic sense of righteousness and honor.[8] But the opposition from social conservatives, who objected to Lieberman's pro-choice views, was too strong,[7] and a Lieberman pick might have caused a floor fight at the upcoming convention.[8] McCain wanted someone who would shake up the race and reinforce his image as a maverick, so he decided against more conventional choices on his short list including Romney and Governor Tim Pawlenty.[7]
    He chose Palin instead Lieberman not because Lieberman turned him down, but because he thought she’d give him a better chance at winning.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    But I think Joe was a kind of GOP/Democrat hybrid wasn't he?

    Technically by 2008 Joe Lieberman was the sole member of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, having lost the Democratic primary in 2006 to Ned Lamont. If by "GOP/Democrat hybrid" you mean someone who will claim to be a Democrat but reliably defect to the Republicans on every important vote, then yes, Lieberman was a "GOP/Democrat hybrid".

    McCain wanted Lieberman because Lieberman was a personal friend, but McCain wanted to be President more than he wanted a personal friend as a running mate so he picked Palin, who was being plugged as the hot new face of a younger, edgier Republican party. I'm of the opinion that the selection of running mates doesn't have the potential to positively effect a campaign, but Palin clearly demonstrated that a bad choice can have definite negative consequences.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I reckon McCain did cook his own goose by accepting bad advice. Palin was edgy all right. Edge of a precipice edgy. What I heard was that the prior research re Palin was pretty shallow, and therefore the advice wasn't up to much.

    But it was McCain's call, and his lumps for getting it wrong. Lieberman probably wasn't a good choice either.

    But their badnesses pale into insignificance these days. Maybe not Palin, I suppose. Just a different kind of nightmare.

  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    I remember walking across campus with an arch-Repugnican colleague the morning after Palin's introduction to the convention, and she (colleague) was almost foaming at the mouth in her outrage at McCain's pick.
  • I gather DT has now canceled a pay raise for federal employees. Way to shoot himself in the foot.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I gather DT has now canceled a pay raise for federal employees. Way to shoot himself in the foot.
    He's got to pay for that tax-break for all his squillionaire friends somehow, doesn't he? :rage:
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    His base will love it unless they are federal employees.
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