Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread II

JRant

Leroy42 wrote: »

I do think that the 'Russian thing' goes deeper than just Trump. Trump, appears, to have been the perfect weapon though.

I still think that Russia wasn't particularly interested in Trump winning, mainly because it seemed so unlikely, but rather to put HC off kilter from the start. Just think how HC would be being treated by the GOP controlled houses had she won. Russian was trying, IMO, to destroy American democracy. Who won was not really important. Trump winning was merely the icing on the cake but my thoughts is that they were playing on the long game.

Russia may not have got the sanctions lifted, but in essence they have succeeded in not only widening and entrenching the divide within America, but also that neither side is capable of either believing the other or in many cases themselves. The FBI, CIA have been openly questioned. The very fabric of the US has been thrown open. Russia cannot compete directly against the combined might of the USA but if they can rip it apart then then certainly can.

What I HOPE the Mueller investigation uncovers, primarily Trump, but also that money has taken over any semblance of representation for both the GOP and DNC and that the natural path for that is that foreign money will eventually start to have an impact. It appears that it is the GOP, but I don't think for a second that the DNC would do the same (probably have).

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Regardless of who won, the Russians appeared to be playing all sides. If Clinton won you could easily imagine a similar type of investigation taking place. All with the goal of undermining democracy in the USA.

Money has completely corrupted both parties but how do you put that genie back in the bottle?

eire4

JRant wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Regardless of who won, the Russians appeared to be playing all sides. If Clinton won you could easily imagine a similar type of investigation taking place. All with the goal of undermining democracy in the USA.

Money has completely corrupted both parties but how do you put that genie back in the bottle?

They need a constitutional amendment to overturn the shameful corruption that was and is the citizens united supreme court fiasco.

spacecoyote

Trump will not be a happy camper

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/27/most-admired-man-woman-gallup-319367

Beaten out by Obama to be the most admired man in America. Think he is only the second president ever to not win it

*edit - fixed link

eire4

spacecoyote wrote: »

Trump will not be a happy camper

http://news.gallup.com/poll/1678/most-admired-man-woman.aspx

Beaten out by Obama to be the most admires man in America. Think he is only the second president ever to not win it

I am sure he will have some excuse because to lose to Obama sure would not do for the narcissist in chiefs ego.

Inquitus

spacecoyote wrote: »

Trump will not be a happy camper

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/27/most-admired-man-woman-gallup-319367

Beaten out by Obama to be the most admired man in America. Think he is only the second president ever to not win it

*edit - fixed link

You can imagine how much this gets under his skin lol, would love to be a fly on the wall when he found out, its testament to the pettiness of the man that we know this sort of thing would drive him mad.

spacecoyote

Inquitus wrote: »

You can imagine how much this gets under his skin lol, would love to be a fly on the wall when he found out, its testament to the pettiness of the man that we know this sort of them would drive him mad.

Agreed, add to it the fact that HRC won the most admired American woman. I don't know if his petty ego can handle it

Billy86

JRant wrote: »

I think we are crossing wires here. You said the fact that I wasn't refuting any of your points was interesting. Hence the "not that interesting" comment.

I do think the investigation itself is extremely interesting. Looking at Meuller slowly untangle all these strings is fascinating stuff.

I don't think the GOP/Trump will allow him get to Nov 2018. They will ramp up their attacks on his team until they feel the time is right to just shut him down completely.

Apologies, I had misread your initial post also - a reason it would make a lot of sense of Putin to have targeted both sides is due to what Surkov is often credited with, playing both sides against each other to extreme levels which basically eradicates the middle/chance for discussion (though the US system really was set up perfectly for that anyway).

I'd also agree re the GOP/Trump, though I'd have a feeling that could only make matters worse on their end. A lot would depend on how effectively they've been filling the FBI with cronies too, which they've been successfully managing in the judiciary quite alarmingly.

--

On a lighter note I saw earlier that Trump has spent 33.5% of his presidency at his own resorts (at the taxpayers expense, must be into the tens of millions already?) and 25.6% of his days as president playing golf. The same people on the right who moaned about Obama spending far, far less time doing so have seen these numbers and completely lost their minds... just not the way you might think - https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/right-cnn-catching-trump-golfing/

This one is probably my personal favourite from Mike Flynn Jr: "Idiots like this (who probably don’t play golf) have no clue how much business can be conducted on a golf course. That 25.6% is misleading if you think all his golfing is done for leisure."
https://twitter.com/mflynnJR?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Flayer8%2Fright-cnn-catching-trump-golfing%2F

And on the Flynn's, Mike's brother is now calling for Trump to pardon him: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/flynn%E2%80%99s-brother-calls-for-pardon-from-trump/ar-BBHp8ZZ

PopePalpatine

spacecoyote wrote: »

Agreed, add to it the fact that HRC won the most admired American woman. I don't know if his petty ego can handle it

Meh, he'll just shriek "FAKE NOOOOOOZ" and his cultists will lap it up as usual.

aloyisious

Captain Obvious wrote: »

Such a ridiculous situation. The voter obviously intended to vote republican but he spoiled his vote. That's just tough luck. It's a pretty dangerous precedent to set for judges to be interpreting particular voters intentions.

It's simple to solve from the start, a mark in the preferred candidate box alone, leaving all else unfilled. The need to fill in all the boxes as in some countries is stupid, the result obvious - confusion. It's not if the voter doesn't know how to read. If needed, put candidate photo images in the box and mark off the chosen one. The oddball suggestion of picking a name from a hat to decide the winner seems so ridiculous in this age and time.

HivemindXX

Billy86 wrote: »

This one is probably my personal favourite from Mike Flynn Jr: "Idiots like this (who probably don’t play golf) have no clue how much business can be conducted on a golf course. That 25.6% is misleading if you think all his golfing is done for leisure."

That's kind of a weird position to take when you consider that Trump (who I think everyone will acknowledge has played plenty of golf) used to complain about how much time Obama was wasting on the golf course.


Here's one of the first links I found when searching for "trump complains about obama golfing".
https://www.sbnation.com/golf/2017/3/27/15073086/donald-trump-tweets-barack-obama-golf

RobertKK

3 years for Trump not to make such a mess of the world that Obama did with Libya, which even Obama admits was a massive mistake:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36013703
Yet he claims it was the right thing, it wasn't...

Trump when speaking to children on the phone along with Melania before Christmas was asking children what was Santa bringing them etc, then one child asked Trump what he wanted, and he said he wanted peace.

The Obama presidency was very destructive with the US and other western nations supporting unknown people in the Arab spring, got rid of Gaddafi and gave the country over to terrorists, the irony being Gaddafi said he was goign to take back Benghazi from terrorists, Hillary and co convinced Obama to intervene, the biggest irony ever is getting rid of Gaddafi and then having terrorists in Benghazi killing those embassy staff. Should never have been an intervention in the first place.
Then supporting God knows who against Assad...

Trump has not made things worse in Syria, the alternative to Trump was still talking about her failed regime change policy as if it worked.

One could argue the failed policies of Bush and Obama combined with the support of successive government in the UK and France in some cases, led to Brexit happening by making things far worse in North Africa and the Middle East and creating a migrant crisis the world hadn't seen for many decades.
The rise of terrorism in western Europe and the images of people flooding into Europe. Merkel seeing it as an opportunity since the Germans are not producing enough children, saying they were all welcome.

One could also argue that on an international stage, that Trump has done less harm so far than Obama did during his presidency.
Plenty of time to be as destructive as Obama's presidency...

RobertKK

spacecoyote wrote: »

Agreed, add to it the fact that HRC won the most admired American woman. I don't know if his petty ego can handle it

Hillary got 9% for most admired woman in the US
Trump got 14% for most admired man in the US.

Tell me how

RobertKK wrote:

One could also argue that on an international stage, that Trump has done less harm so far than Obama did during his presidency. Plenty of time to be as destructive as Obama's presidency...

Swing and a miss

Manic Moran

eire4 wrote: »

They need a constitutional amendment to overturn the shameful corruption that was and is the citizens united supreme court fiasco.

How would it be phrased so that only evil corporations will be affected (and not corporations which people like, such as unions or NAACP or NRA etc), that all the other reasons corporations exist will not be affected, and it will effectively prevent bypass systems such as bundling or superPACs from existing?

C.U. is far from the biggest problem affecting the US political system. Heck, no matter which way the C.U, ruling would have gone, it wouldn’t have stopped the influential actions Russia had, had a US corporation tried the same thing.

StringerBell

Trump said he has signed more legislation then any other President in history, the record being Harry Truman and he broke that, so he is getting a lot done.

Obviously this is not true, the fact is that he has actually signed fewer bills then any President going back to Eisenhower.

Why is he allowed constantly just lie?

He has also spent 87 days so far at one of, his own, golf properties. Which is of course contrary to that campaign statement of not taking time off, not being able to go play golf.......

Why is he allowed to lie all the time though?

Diob95

If Trump kept quiet on Twitter, he'd be doing a lot better in the eyes of the public. Much of his policy success so far has been right up the traditional Republican base's street, yet his demeanour has been toxic. Too many stupid fights with the wrong people and stirring up conflict when there is no need to.

His legacy will be one of deepened division if he doesn't cut out his excessive pompousness.

StringerBell

Oh yeah, sure on Twitter after claiming he was getting back to work he was off golfing again, and so pathetic he had a truck parked outside blocking cameras from picturing him, when the camera men moved the van moved.

Diob95

StringerBell wrote: »

Oh yeah, sure on Twitter after claiming he was getting back to work he was off golfing again, and so pathetic he had a truck parked outside blocking cameras from picturing him, when the camera men moved the van moved.

The Secret Service's time being put to good use! All those years of extensive detailed training to drive a truck slowly up and down a road for a few hours.

aloyisious

Seem's Roy Moore's lawyer [on Roy's behalf] is going to court to stop the Alabama result [Mr Jones winning] being declared by the state canvassing board on the grounds of alleged irregularities, that there should be a fraud investigation and eventually a new election. Mr Jones won by about 20,000 votes.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/roy-moore-files-lawsuit-to-block-alabama-senate-result-820441.html

Now wait and see who support's Roy's case on twitter.

StringerBell

Thought it was in God's hands?

RobertKK

Tell me how wrote: »

Swing and a miss

Not great debating skills there, you could be referring to your own post which lacks substance.

Jamiekelly

RobertKK wrote: »

Not great debating skills there, you could be referring to your own post which lacks substance.

There are some things that kind of go without saying.
Xi Jinping has used Trump as an example of why democracy is not the best system to provide the best outcome for a nation. This isn't even after 1 year of Trump being in office and he hasn't just undermined democracy in his own country ("I will accept the outcome of the election, but only if I win!") but he has undermined democracy globally. Now, that is a foreign policy outcome that Obama would be crucified for, by left and right, on a daily basis had he been responsible for it. Obama was respected the world over, Trump is not.

Christy42

RobertKK wrote: »

Tell me how wrote: »

Swing and a miss

Not great debating skills there, you could be referring to your own post which lacks substance.

I think people are just tired of the but Hillary would worse defense which is largely impossible to prove in either direction.

It is also completely irrelevant. Obama will not be judged on people think Romney will be done. The only reason people are so obsessed with Hillary is because is Trump is so terrible that you can't actually talk about him properly and not him out to he an obviously horrific choice. If Trump gets impeached it won't be Hillary taking over. In 2020 it won't be Hillary going against Trump. She is irrelevant except for trying to move the Trump conversation away from Trump.

RobertKK

When it came to the election it was in Russia’s interest to destroy Hillary more so than help Trump.

Hillary was openly talking about removing Russian ally Bashar Al Assad from power in Syria.
Trump was more dovish whether people want to admit it or deny it. Hillary the warmonger was alive and well, very anti-Russian and it could be argued that Russia did get involve as she was a big threat to the geopolitics as she wanted to switch a Russian allied country to being a US/Saudi ally.
Russia had two options, do nothing and then repent at leisure, or at least try and do something to prevent it.
It is very likely Hillary’s warmongering led to her own downfall, and brought Russia into play in the election. She was the biggest danger given she was the person who convinced Obama that attacking Libya was a good idea, she supported the sectarian Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and had set back US relations with Russia to a near Cold War stance.
It could be argued that Europe didn’t try to rub Russia up the wrong way to the extent Hillary did. She played with fire, loathe him or whatever you want but I prefer a world where the two biggest nuclear powers don’t act in a manner that makes relations worse.
Trump has done a good job in this area. He has Russia and China on side over North Korea, to the point that NK said the UN declared war on NK. Think about that, NK basically accused their closest ally in China as declaring war on them giving they backed the UN sanctions.
China had already blocked oil sales to North Korea in November which went beyond the sanctions.
It shows the Trump administration has worked well on the international stage. Things had gotten less friendly between China and the Obama administration, remember that plane incident with the red carpet...

Adam Hills on the last leg said when he was in Kilkenny for Kilkenomics, he was speaking to an American who was taking part (on the serious side of things) and that this person whom I forget their name, said that Mike Pence along with 3 generals are running the country as in doing 90% of the work and that Trump is basically the person put in the spotlight as they go about their business.

RobertKK

Christy42 wrote: »

I think people are just tired of the but Hillary would worse defense which is largely impossible to prove in either direction.

It is also completely irrelevant. Obama will not be judged on people think Romney will be done. The only reason people are so obsessed with Hillary is because is Trump is so terrible that you can't actually talk about him properly and not him out to he an obviously horrific choice. If Trump gets impeached it won't be Hillary taking over. In 2020 it won't be Hillary going against Trump. She is irrelevant except for trying to move the Trump conversation away from Trump.

It is completely relevant if people want to talk about the Mueller investigation.

RobertKK

Jamiekelly wrote: »

There are some things that kind of go without saying.
Xi Jinping has used Trump as an example of why democracy is not the best system to provide the best outcome for a nation. This isn't even after 1 year of Trump being in office and he hasn't just undermined democracy in his own country ("I will accept the outcome of the election, but only if I win!") but he has undermined democracy globally. Now, that is a foreign policy outcome that Obama would be crucified for, by left and right, on a daily basis had he been responsible for it. Obama was respected the world over, Trump is not.

Obama was not respected the world over.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/04/barack-obama-deliberately-snubbed-by-chinese-in-chaotic-arrival-at-g20

Remember the incident in China last year...

Christy42

RobertKK wrote: »

Christy42 wrote: »

I think people are just tired of the but Hillary would worse defense which is largely impossible to prove in either direction.

It is also completely irrelevant. Obama will not be judged on people think Romney will be done. The only reason people are so obsessed with Hillary is because is Trump is so terrible that you can't actually talk about him properly and not him out to he an obviously horrific choice. If Trump gets impeached it won't be Hillary taking over. In 2020 it won't be Hillary going against Trump. She is irrelevant except for trying to move the Trump conversation away from Trump.

It is completely relevant if people want to talk about the Mueller investigation.

Hillary's potential foreign policy choices are not the subject of Mueller's investigation. Neither is Libya.

You are spoofing there to avoid discussing Trump raising the stakes and effectively challenging North Korea keep up their missile program and indeed clashing with Tillerson on this matter as they repeatedly sent out mixed messages. He traded away the US's main leverage with Israel in the middle east crisis for precisely 0 benefit (and it created an increase in violence as was predicted by damn near everyone).

Come on. I get this site is largely anti Trump but if you have something good about him then feel free to share. It is hard for people to change their minds when all there is opposing the Trump is terrible viewpoint is "But Hillary!"

Leroy42

Right, so the world hated HC, nobody liked Obama. And?

You think Trump is respected? The UN just voted overwhelmingly against him, even after the threatened them all.

And why wouldn't China and Russia play along with his ego. Clearly, despite all his talk, Trump is more than happy to let Russia and China do whatever they want. So they welcome him with flowers and parades etc and then do the opposite once he leaves.

China is still selling oil to NK. NK is still carrying out missile launches despite Trump demanding they stop (remember the grief Obama got for drawing red lines in Syria and then not doing anything?).

What has Trump done about Assad and the chemical bombs? Launched a few pre-announced missiles. And then nothing. Has he demanded they leave Ukraine? Seems to me they respect him because he does what they want him to do.

But what he has undoubtedly done is caused big issues with relationships with allies. Nato, Germany, France. He has thrown Palestine under a bus. He has totally sided with Saudi Arabia.

He has caused a major breakdown in the trust of institutions on the US. FBI, CIA and even the media. He has openly attacked the judicial system.

Billy86

RobertKK wrote: »

Not great debating skills there, you could be referring to your own post which lacks substance.

That's because you're gone beyond a parody of yourself at times, still "but Obama'ing" about things like Libya that Trump also supported getting involved in (just as he supported getting involved in Iraq), while keeping your mouth shut and ramming your fingers in your ears about bombing Syria, increased drone strikes across the middle east, dropping the biggest non nuclear bomb in history in Afghanistan, saber rattling China (and getting played like a fiddle in the process), and of course regularly urging for war with North Korea. Yet you're here trying to tell us how all Trump wants for Christmas is "peace".

Given all your complaining about about US involvement in the middle east, I couldn't help but notice for example that you have not made one single comment on Trump trying to force the UN to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. You've also gone from having a mild obsession with drones a year back to the point of literally dreaming about them, to only three posts in over 10 months now - one of which was calling Obama 'the drone king' and another of which was about Clinton commenting on droning Assange, the most recent of which was over 8 months ago. It's as if something happened at the start of the year that caused you to do a 180 on how much you care about all of that.

Basically, this is the kind of stuff that makes it very difficult to take your posts seriously at this point.

RobertKK

Christy42 wrote: »

Hillary's potential foreign policy choices are not the subject of Mueller's investigation. Neither is Libya.

You are spoofing there to avoid discussing Trump raising the stakes and effectively challenging North Korea keep up their missile program and indeed clashing with Tillerson on this matter as they repeatedly sent out mixed messages. He traded away the US's main leverage with Israel in the middle east crisis for precisely 0 benefit (and it created an increase in violence as was predicted by damn near everyone).

Come on. I get this site is largely anti Trump but if you have something good about him then feel free to share. It is hard for people to change their minds when all there is opposing the Trump is terrible viewpoint is "But Hillary!"

That was not the point.
The point being why Russia got involved, but people want to ignore why and it has far more to do with Hillary than it has to with Trump in my opinion.

Where was the Obama policy, the Bush policy and the Clinton policy going with North Korea?
Under these various US regimes we watched North Korea become a nuclear power even if some are afraid to say it.
You think Trump speeded up their progression, it was helped by the soft policies of previous regimes who did very little in reality to alter the trajectory of where NK was headed.

I think Trump was likely the best of a very bad lot.
Some key relations in the world are less tense than what they were a year ago.

We still live with the messes of the previous regime, but a lot of people are in denial of the destructive policies of the Obama administration.
They are like robots, programmed to be gullible and are unable to argue the good and bad side.
Obama was a PR genius, it allowed him to get away with a lot with the media, the active support of destroying nations by supporting rebels and active military interventions, arming Saudi Arabia for war against Yemen - yes Trump in the case of SA is doing the same disgraceful act of arming them, as the people of Yemen die, starve and suffer illnesses that shouldn’t exist there.
Europe has the migrant crisis which the Obama administration left us as their main legacy, they continued the Bush administration’s regime change policy and it was a very neocon foreign policy by Obama.
Trump so far has not reached the level of destruction that Obama brought.
I will be ready to criticise when he does but will look on in disbelief as people here chose to ignore how bad the Obama presidency really was. The body count in terms of dead people from the Obama administration and the foreign policy they supported is in the hundreds of thousands, supported the destruction of Libya, Syria, Egypt with sectarian extremists before the coup, the war against Yemen.
People are so blind, and Dublin City Council are the epitome of this by awarding the Obamas the freedom of our capital city.
The same blindness is very evident on the politics section too.
But Trump...it is trendy to say he is no good, but let me give my love eyes to Obama...
Maybe they are all simply useless...