Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III

MarinersBlues

pixelburp wrote: »

I'm curious how Trump supporters square his noted inconsistency of opinion (most recently his conflicting stories about Cohen's relationship with him), his rambling sensibilities (see the recent Fox and Friends ... brainfart, I can politely call it), and this supposed genius of diplomacy that's heralding a shiny new dawn in Korea?

Where was this genius when the Republican healthcare bill nearly died on the floor, with many reports pointing towards Trump's open refusal to negotiate or even take part in the horse-trading during discussion with holdouts? He was the quintessential hurler on the ditch then, cribbing from the sidelines at Ryan & co. without actually taking part. Is this suddenly different because it's seen as a 'win'??

If genuine peace breaks out in Korea, that'd be a truly outstanding achievement, one for the history books. But to IMMEDIATELY presume Trump as primary source, given all the open, reported evidence of the man's temperament and refusal to engage in even the basic structures of governance, it's not asking much to cast a questioning eye on whether a.) these talks will lead anywhere, and b.) how much of a hand Trump has.

Or the fact that on the FOX and Friends interview Trump said he might not even got to the talks. He hasn't made his mind up yet.

If he didn't go, that would leave Trump's personal involvement in the Korean peace talks at a string of tweets that were comprised of name calling and willy waving.

Thepoet85

RobertKK wrote:

So the Korean War formally ends during the Trump presidency. The extremists were crying we were going to have a nuclear war instead.

So anyone who doesn't fall in line with your political beliefs is now an extremist.

Modern life summed up perfectly.

Chips Lovell

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Everyone else, please take a minute now to read the charter.

This is a place for discussion. Jokes, one liners, links dumps and copy/pastes of Twitter posts don't belong here.

More posts deleted. Seriously folks, if you're just here to make cracks about the president being a nutter or on drugs, this isn't the place.

pixelburp

MarinersBlues wrote: »

Or the fact that on the FOX and Friends interview Trump said he might not even got to the talks. He hasn't made his mind up yet.

If he didn't go, that would leave Trump's personal involvement in the Korean peace talks at a string of tweets that were comprised of name calling and willy waving.

That in of itself is proof that the man possesses no consistency of opinion, to the point where it now may cause him actual legal trouble. Right from the start, declaring that 'Mexico will pay!' only lo & behold, of course they won't because Trump speaks without calculating the cost of anything.

He refuses, utterly refuses to do the bare minimum of the governance his office demands (hell he apparently only starts his day at 11am), yet suddenly we're to believe he's the spearhead of a genuinely exciting prospect of Korean peace?

Support Trump's administration if you want, but don't look people squarely in the eye and claim he's a tactical, nuanced genius. He has one tactic - 1980s, alpha-male corporate posturing and it barely works half the time with actual, seasoned politicians anymore. He tried that schtick with Macron, only to then capitulate to the French President's Iranian suggestions. Macron just had to stand there, let Trump do his little preening thing, then Macron played him like a fool.

If the North Koreans know what they're doing, they'll perform the exact same trick; and given Trump can barely contain himself at displays of military or political power (again see France and the military parade he attended, only to return and DEMAND his own), I suspect the Koreans will have a conveniently timely parade around the period Trump appears.

Oh of course, if he even bothers.

Zubeneschamali

Let me rephrase my deleted post.

I strongly recommend anyone who has not watched it check out Trumps 20 minute morning call to Fox and Friends.

It is the stuff of legends.

ECO_Mental

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Let me rephrase my deleted post.

I strongly recommend anyone who has not watched it check out Trumps 20 minute morning call to Fox and Friends.

It is the stuff of legends.

It was so bad His best buddies in Fox and Friends had to cut him off:eek: Now what TV station would cut short an interview with the president of the united states....that's how bad it was.


It makes me wonder when all his followers listen to this stuff and then go on praising him like he's some messiah do they actually believe he's some genius....I mean no rational human being would think after listening to 20 30 minutes of drivel would think that Trump is anyway sane or is having a melt down. In that phone call alone he just admitted to riding Storm Daniels and staying a night or two in Moscow thus asking the question are the Pee Pee tapes now real? was there anybody else in the room with him to take the phone off him, a grown up person.



really scary stuff that this man is president of the untied states:eek:

amandstu

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Let me rephrase my deleted post.

I strongly recommend anyone who has not watched it check out Trumps 20 minute morning call to Fox and Friends.

It is the stuff of legends.

Is that some kind of a soft focus program that was looking for something a bit chummier? More of an emphasis on what is nice than awkward (never saw it before)

Zubeneschamali

ECO_Mental wrote: »

It was so bad His best buddies in Fox and Friends had to cut him off:

They actually cut him off after 25 minutes of ranting and raving about Comey and Hillary, his election win (yes, that again), boasting and giving himself an A+ as President, ranting that he never watches CNN, complaining about what was on CNN last night, etc. etc. on and on while the 3 hosts satt on their couch in horror...

they cut him off by reminding him he has a job to go to and hanging up on him.

Professor Moriarty

So anyway, back to Cohen's clients cronies, The Donald, Hannity and Broidy.

Hannity released this statement after it was shown that he had received 17 million in loans underwritten by the Dept of Housing and Development to buy property:

"It is ironic that I am being attacked for investing my personal money in communities that badly need such investment and in which, I am sure, those attacking me have not invested their money. The fact is, there are investments that I do not individually select, control or know the details about; except that obviously I believe in putting my money to work in communities that otherwise struggle to receive such support."

In an unfortunate twist of fate that obviously has nothing to do with Seán, there has been a 400% rise in evictions since Seán bought a large complex in Georgia in 2014. But look, it's probably fake news or he didn't mean it or look over there at the Clintons.

aloyisious

On the lawyerly side of Don's conflict with the Russian collusion investigation, Ms Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya has re-entered the scene. It seem's, during an interview with NBC News to be broadcast today, she say's that “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”.

However, according to a report in the NYT, she apparently wrote to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in Nov 2017 that “I operate independently of any governmental bodies, I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer.”. Her explanation about the talks she had with Don Jnr also tie in with what is said to be in a memorandum circulated by the Russian Proscutor's [Mr Chaika] office.

An opponent to Mr Putin, Mr Khodorkovsky, who set up an organization named Dossier, is reported to have obtained a set of Ms Veselnitskaya's Emails. Copies of the emails in the possession of NBC were shown to her. She seem's to have told NBC that many things here were from her personal documents. She told the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednsday that her Email accounts were hacked earlier this year and she would report this to the Russian Proscutor's office. It's worth noting here while assessing the parts referring to the emails - and noting the NYT report does NOT identify the sourc of the mails in NBC's possession - that Mr Khodorkovsky ran afoul of the Russian authorities some years ago, was stripped of his wealth and exiled from Russia so he would have no love for the Russian authorities or their boss.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on Ms Natalia Veselnitskaya and her lawyer-interests history. It lists her as representing the FSS's interests from 2005 to 2013.

Cheerful Spring

Merkel and Macron are showing how much of a joke they are, they want to make a new deal with Iran? What is the point of making a deal if one side decides they want to scrap it to a make a new one? This kind of crap only makes the world more unstable.

amandstu

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Merkel and Macron are showing how much of a joke they are, they want to make a new deal with Iran? What is the point of making a deal if one side decides they want to scrap it to a make a new one? This kind of crap only makes the world more unstable.

A way of presenting Trump with a fig life for his public parts?

Iran can say **it will only accept a new deal that it judges better or the same and Trump can insist he wants something different.

Play for time if nothing else.(jaw,jaw....)

When Trump unilaterally scraps previous agreements he devalues the currency of American credibility and that will take a long time to repair.



Macron has already shown how he is willing to humiliate himself personally for "raison d'etat" so a little further humiliation is within his reach (I admire him for that,almost Jesus like)

** if they have sense ,which they may not.

mcmoustache

aloyisious wrote: »

On the lawyerly side of Don's conflict with the Russian collusion investigation, Ms Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya has re-entered the scene. It seem's, during an interview with NBC News to be broadcast today, she say's that “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”.

However, according to a report in the NYT, she apparently wrote to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in Nov 2017 that “I operate independently of any governmental bodies, I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer.”. Her explanation about the talks she had with Don Jnr also tie in with what is said to be in a memorandum circulated by the Russian Proscutor's [Mr Chaika] office.

An apponent to Mr Putin, Mr Khodorkovsky, who set up an organization named Dossier, is reported to have obtained a set of Ms Veselnitskaya's Emails. Copies of the emails in the possession of NBC were shown to her. She seem's to have told NBC that many things here were from her personal documents. She told the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednsday that her Email accounts were hacked earlier this year and she would report this to the Russian Proscutor's office. It's worth noting here while assessing the parts referring to the emails - and noting the NYT report does NOT identify the sourc of the mails in NBC's possession - that Mr Khodorkovsky ran afoul of the Russian authorities some years ago, was stripped of his wealth and exiled from Russia so he would have no love for the Russian authorities or their boss.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on Ms Natalia Veselnitskaya and her lawyer-interests history. It lists her as representing the FSS's interests from 2005 to 2013.

I'm not sure what her game is. It's odd to come out now and admit it after the denials. Is this more shít-stirring by Putin?

On the topic of reoccurring characters, it turns out that Flynn and Flynn Junior met with Ambassador Kysliak a month before that infamous photo at the dinner table meeting with Putin and Jill Stein. This puts Junior in FARA violation territory and explains the guilty plea. It was always suspected that Flynn was protecting Junior with his plea and now we know why.

Speaking of Jill Stein, she's refusing to comply with a request from the Senate Intelligence committee for campaign documents.

The Jill Stein campaign is refusing to comply fully with a Senate intelligence committee request for documents and other correspondence, made as part of the committee’s probe into Russian activities in the 2016 election, according to a letter to be delivered Thursday to the panel by an attorney for the campaign.
The Green Party campaign will agree to turn over some documents, but raised constitutional objections to the breadth of the inquiry, which was first made in November 2017, arguing that elements of it infringe on basic political rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

This loony lefty kook has somehow managed to stay under the radar. I'm not sure why - her campaign seemed more about splitting Clinton votes than about helping the Green Party. She needs to be put under the microscope because I wouldn't be surprised if she was as close to the Russians as Trump's people. There are a lot of questions that she needs to answer.

Oh, and Manafort's case that Mueller shouldn't be investigating him was thrown out. That wasn't unexpected.

Does anyone find it interesting that all of the information coming out is all pointing at the same thing? We've had lies, deflections and all sorts of spin but every verifiable fact that comes out is showing that Trump campaign staff had way too many dodgy dealings with the Russians for it to be just a heap of disjointed coincidences.


EDIT: F*ck these times of news by the minute. Schiff has started tweeting some interesting bits:

https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/989968508602736640

This is new to me so I don't have much to say about it yet.

EDIT 2. Read the whole twitter thread. Schiff is being rather candid.

2 Scoops

Schiff, a man of truth. Foreign communication is nothing new or building relationships, Clinton's campaign met with the Chinese ambassador in a back channel way. Adam is a spoofer.

Still waiting for collusion proof, that I've felt since forever, doesn't exist.

mcmoustache

2 Scoops wrote: »

Schiff, a man of truth. Foreign communication is nothing new or building relationships, Clinton's campaign met with the Chinese ambassador in a back channel way. Adam is a spoofer.

Still waiting for collusion proof, that I've felt since forever, doesn't exist.

Was there anything there that was incorrect? What was he spoofing about?

It's all well and good to call someone a spoofer but you came in here 2 accounts ago to tell us that the dossier was a 4chan hoax so your credibility and judgement aren't great.

Mumha

mcmoustache wrote: »

I'm not sure what her game is. It's odd to come out now and admit it after the denials. Is this more shít-stirring by Putin?

On the topic of reoccurring characters, it turns out that Flynn and Flynn Junior met with Ambassador Kysliak a month before that infamous photo at the dinner table meeting with Putin and Jill Stein. This puts Junior in FARA violation territory and explains the guilty plea. It was always suspected that Flynn was protecting Junior with his plea and now we know why.

Speaking of Jill Stein, she's refusing to comply with a request from the Senate Intelligence committee for campaign documents.



This loony lefty kook has somehow managed to stay under the radar. I'm not sure why - her campaign seemed more about splitting Clinton votes than about helping the Green Party. She needs to be put under the microscope because I wouldn't be surprised if she was as close to the Russians as Trump's people. There are a lot of questions that she needs to answer.

Oh, and Manafort's case that Mueller shouldn't be investigating him was thrown out. That wasn't unexpected.

Does anyone find it interesting that all of the information coming out is all pointing at the same thing? We've had lies, deflections and all sorts of spin but every verifiable fact that comes out is showing that Trump campaign staff had way too many dodgy dealings with the Russians for it to be just a heap of disjointed coincidences.


EDIT: F*ck these times of news by the minute. Schiff has started tweeting some interesting bits:

https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/989968508602736640

This is new to me so I don't have much to say about it yet.

EDIT 2. Read the whole twitter thread. Schiff is being rather candid.

Fear not, Mueller isn't done with Stein. It will happen in time.

Adam Schiff is an outstanding politician, and he is ably aided by Eric Swalwell.
He should really be a Senator, such is his stature. California is well served by its Dem politicians.

WinnyThePoo

mcmoustache wrote: »

Was there anything there that was incorrect? What was he spoofing about?

It's all well and good to call someone a spoofer but you came in here 2 accounts ago to tell us that the dossier was a 4chan hoax so your credibility and judgement aren't great.

At every turn screeching nothing burger. Yet to be continually wrong.

mcmoustache

WinnyThePoo wrote: »

At every turn screeching nothing burger. Yet to be continually wrong.

If I kept making a tit of myself and was a dishonest person, I'd probably keep making new accounts too.

2 Scoops

So it was Clapper who set Trump up. He leaked the dossier to Jake Tapper and other journalists. Clapper then pressured Comey to brief Trump on the dossier and that's the hook that was used for CNN to write their story. It was a setup.

Clapper leaks to CNN -> Clapper pressures Comey to brief Trump on the dossier -> Comey briefs Trump because memo quote "Media like CNN wanted a news hook" -> Clapper tells CNN about about the briefing -> CNN under Jake Tapper reports the briefing -> Buzzfeed publishes the dossier

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/385278-gop-report-clapper-told-cnn-host-about-trump-dossier-in-2017

https://twitter.com/RepMarkMeadows/status/989957250507735040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fpolicy%2Fnational-security%2F385278-gop-report-clapper-told-cnn-host-about-trump-dossier-in-2017

mcmoustache

2 Scoops wrote: »

So it was Clapper who set Trump up. He leaked the dossier to Jake Tapper and other journalists. Clapper then pressured Comey to brief Trump on the dossier and that's the hook that was used for CNN to write their story. It was a setup.

Clapper leaks to CNN -> Clapper pressures Comey to brief Trump on the dossier -> Comey briefs Trump because memo quote "Media like CNN wanted a news hook" -> Clapper tells CNN about about the briefing -> CNN under Jake Tapper reports the briefing -> Buzzfeed publishes the dossier

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/385278-gop-report-clapper-told-cnn-host-about-trump-dossier-in-2017

https://twitter.com/RepMarkMeadows/status/989957250507735040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fpolicy%2Fnational-security%2F385278-gop-report-clapper-told-cnn-host-about-trump-dossier-in-2017

Are you saying that Clapper was the guy who set up the meeting between Trump Jr, Manafort, Kushner and the Russians? Because otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean by setting up Trump.

The fact that we know about the dossier that you told us was a 4chan hoax means that it got leaked somewhere along the line. It could have been Clapper but not if it was in January 17 because the Dossier was known about in the media by at least October 16.

Regarding him telling Comey to tell Trump about the dossier that you told us was a 4chan hoax, that seems to me like something Trump should have been told about. The President, whether you like him or not is entitled to know about these things.

If he told CNN that the President was briefed on it, then that's a leak and should get the same sanction that leaks generally do. And if he lied about his contacts with CNN to Congress, I think he should be punished in the same way as the others who lied to Congress.

Outside of that, this sounds like, to borrow a term from your repertoire, a nothingburger.

2 Scoops

mcmoustache wrote: »

Are you saying that Clapper was the guy who set up the meeting between Trump Jr, Manafort, Kushner and the Russians? Because otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean by setting up Trump.

Why are you so disingenuous and rabid? Any statement that may even be slightly negative you hop off seething immediately. You're basically saying agency heads can twist and lie and leak and deceive JUST AS LONG as it hurts Trump. That's very shallow moral ground you have there. I get attacked for saying things which could be deemed even neutral, an absolute echo chamber. You're so hyper partisan you just want to ignore the Director of National Intelligence opening lying and it's not the first time he's done it. I'm sure people like him and John Brennan are such candid role models these days and leaders of the resistance. Brennan the man who led the CIA while it spied on members of congress and Clapper the man who lied through his teeth when questioned about public data collection.

These people at the top of such agencies aren't honest. The facts are there and Clapper has been caught lying. ( again )

Clapper is a serial liar, he's consistently lied going all the way back to Jan 2017.

StringerBell

2 Scoops wrote: »

you just want to ignore the Director of National Intelligence opening lying and it's not the first time he's done it. I'm sure people like him and John Brennan are such candid role models these days and leaders of the resistance. Brennan the man who led the CIA while it spied on members of congress and Clapper the man who lied through his teeth when questioned about public data collection.

These people at the top of such agencies aren't honest. The facts are there and Clapper has been caught lying. ( again )

Clapper is a serial liar, he's consistently lied going all the way back to Jan 2017.

So what you're saying is, you don't like liars? Serial liars? People caught consistently lying?

Cause buddy......well......I'm sure I don't even have to point the issue with this out.

2 Scoops

StringerBell wrote: »

So what you're saying is, you don't like liars? Serial liars? People caught consistently lying?

Cause buddy......well......I'm sure I don't even have to point the issue with this out.

It's constant straw-mans here, Moustache did the same thing.

I never said Trump isn't a liar, nor any politician. You guys have zero morals.

2 Scoops

For anyone bored enough there's a Trump Michigan rally starting now

mcmoustache

2 Scoops wrote: »

Why are you so disingenuous and rabid? Any statement that may even be slightly negative you hop off seething immediately. You're basically saying agency heads can twist and lie and leak and deceive JUST AS LONG as it hurts Trump. That's very shallow moral ground you have there. I get attacked for saying things which could be deemed even neutral, an absolute echo chamber. You're so hyper partisan you just want to ignore the Director of National Intelligence opening lying and it's not the first time he's done it. I'm sure people like him and John Brennan are such candid role models these days and leaders of the resistance. Brennan the man who led the CIA while it spied on members of congress and Clapper the man who lied through his teeth when questioned about public data collection.

These people at the top of such agencies aren't honest. The facts are there and Clapper has been caught lying. ( again )

Clapper is a serial liar, he's consistently lied going all the way back to Jan 2017.

While it may feed Trump's perpetual victimhood narrative, it doesn't change anything about what happened. This sounds like a "We shouldn't have been exposed because the exposer was unfair" kind of thing. We could compare it to the DNC hack for example - it was shítty but the emails were real.

mcmoustache

2 Scoops wrote: »

For anyone bored enough there's a Trump Michigan rally starting now

I haven't seen it but I can summarise it:

FAKE NEWS Media.
Crooked Hillary.
A+ Presidency
FAKE NEWS Media
Slimey Comey
*spastic contortion*

everlast75

2 Scoops wrote: »

For anyone bored enough there's a Trump Michigan rally starting now

Oh ffs.

Why anyone would want to watch this imbecile prance about spewing BS is beyond me.

If truth and facts bore you, and you want to be entertained by fantastical stories that never happened, then watch someone who is good at it, like stand up comedian.

His routine is tired and old. We get it - he is an immoral a hole who craves attention and tries to say shocking stuff. People are getting tired of it. His jig will be up soon, as will his embarassing chapter in US politics.

mcmoustache

everlast75 wrote: »

Oh ffs.

Why anyone would want to watch this imbecile prance about spewing BS is beyond me.

If truth and facts bore you, and you want to be entertained by fantastical stories that never happened, then watch someone who is good at it, like stand up comedian.

His routine is tired and old. We get it - he is an immoral a hole who craves attention and tries to say shocking stuff. People are getting tired of it. His jig will be up soon, as will his embarassing chapter in US politics.

But to some people, he seems smart. Go figure.

everlast75

2 Scoops wrote: »

He's smarter than you are. That much is obvious.

How can Trump, by any objective means, be deemed smart?

He has zero general knowledge, extraordinarly limited vocabulary, zero social awareness, doesn't read, has zero attention span, regurgitates whatever he saw in the last 10 mins, easily swayed, gullible, generally lacking in cop on and cannot even remember his own lies.

If this is the sort of person someone looks up to, rolemodels in life have been sadly lacking

2 Scoops

everlast75 wrote: »

How can Trump, by any objective means, be deemed smart?

He has zero general knowledge, extraordinarly limited vocabulary, zero social awareness, doesn't read, has zero attention span, regurgitates whatever he saw in the last 10 mins, easily swayed, gullible, generally lacking in cop on and cannot even remember his own lies.

If this is the sort of person someone looks up to, rolemodels in life have been sadly lacking

Because logic. Anyone who is a billionaire and wins the Presidency of the US is far from stupid. He talks like a eejit but he's far from it.

All I can do is look at where I am in life, I think I'm above average intelligence but there's no way in my lifetime I'll achieve 1% of what he has.

I agree with your sentiment for the most part - he's not a good speaker. In the final 2 months or so of his campaign he stuck to the script and it really worked well for him. Off script he's capable of saying anything which is hugely polarizing - that's why people fiercely support him. A lot of it has to do with the media honestly tapping people like Comey and Clapper as saints and Trump as Satin when real people see through it. They're the same as Trump, he's just far worse at hiding it.