Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III

Fr Tod Umptious

listermint wrote: »

I've drawn a conclusion.

Nothing anyone can say will make America less 'awesome' to you.


Clearly duped by sucking up all those 80s movies.

Go figure.

Wrong actually

Spent 6 years, living, working and traveling in the US.

Loved it, and still do even though I don't live there anymore.

Since I've been home iv noticed that those that are the most vocal about how bad American is as a nation are the ones who have never even set foot in it, nevermind lived there.

Inquitus

dudara wrote: »

It used to hold a lot of appeal for me, and I got a lot of opportunity to travel to the US for work with my company.

After a while, I began to see the deep inherent racism and class structures that pervade US society. On road trips through different parts of the US, I saw privilege, gated communities and golf course. I also saw towns where the church was the best-maintained building and everything else had fallen into decrepitude. I learned that it’s not advisable to come off the freeway at certain parts of some major cities. If you’re white & rich, the US is great. Otherwise....

The US lost its allure for me. There are still many positive aspects, but the Rose-tinted glasses came off.

I spent a lot of 2016 travelling to the US for work, about 20 weeks in total that year, I was in North Carolina (NC), Memphis (TN) and LaCrosse (WI), spent a good few weekends in these places and travelled around a bit to take advantage of the opportunity and saw Asheville (NC), Chicago (IL) and Nashville (TN) as well. To be perfectly honest I saw nothing in America that would make me want to live there rather than here in Ireland. I did really like Chicago, and I went to NYC with my wife for 5 nights with all the hotel and frequent flyer points I had accumulated.

Again, much like you any rose tinted glasses I had were taken well and truly off. I saw a lot of abject poverty, especially in the south, Mississippi and Tennessee leave a lot to be desired. It is most definitely a country of the haves and the have nots, and at some point the people are going to wake up and smell the coffee on this, and start voting according to what's in their best interests instead of whats in the wealthiest 1%'s best interests.

I honestly didn't see anything in the country that would make me want to move out of Europe and over to the US.

Most of my US colleagues were going to hold their nose and vote for Trump, there is no concept of social welfare being a good thing in their minds. They do not understand why they should pay more taxes to help those who are worse off than themselves, or understand that that would actually create a more equitable society with less crime, drugs etc. When I explained what was available on Irish social welfare they were disgusted, why should lazy poor people have the government put a roof over their heads and pay for it out of their hard earned money? They just see things completely differently to how we in Europe do, and its hard to see that changing any time soon, unless the poor people in society wake up one day and start voting for the politicians who'll improve their lot instead of voting for the GOP on religious grounds or on the off chance that they happen to "make it" during their lifespans.

listermint

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Wrong actually

Spent 6 years, living, working and traveling in the US.

Loved it, and still do even though I don't live there anymore.

Since I've been home iv noticed that those that are the most vocal about how bad American is as a nation are the ones who have never even set foot in it, nevermind lived there.

Strange that as I've been all over it multiple times and across the world too.

I can see the place without rose tinted glasses and it's not somewhere I would choose to settle

Water John

Have family connections in America that had one or two accident/health problems. Not nice, even with ins.

Fr Tod Umptious

Inquitus wrote: »

I spent a lot of 2016 travelling to the US for work, about 20 weeks in total that year, I was in North Carolina (NC), Memphis (TN) and LaCrosse (WI), spent a good few weekends in these places and travelled around a bit to take advantage of the opportunity and saw Asheville (NC), Chicago (IL) and Nashville (TN) as well. To be perfectly honest I saw nothing in America that would make me want to live there rather than here in Ireland. I did really like Chicago, and I went to NYC with my wife for 5 nights with all the hotel and frequent flyer points I had accumulated.

Again, much like you any rose tinted glasses I had were taken well and truly off. I saw a lot of abject poverty, especially in the south, Mississippi and Tennessee leave a lot to be desired. It is most definitely a country of the haves and the have nots, and at some point the people are going to wake up and smell the coffee on this, and start voting according to what's in their best interests instead of whats in the wealthiest 1%'s best interests.

I honestly didn't see anything in the country that would make me want to move out of Europe and over to the US.

Most of my US colleagues were going to hold their nose and vote for Trump, there is no concept of social welfare being a good thing in their minds. They do not understand why they should pay more taxes to help those who are worse off than themselves, or understand that that would actually create a more equitable society with less crime, drugs etc. When I explained what was available on Irish social welfare they were disgusted, why should lazy poor people have the government put a roof over their heads and pay for it out of their hard earned money? They just see things completely differently to how we in Europe do, and its hard to see that changing any time soon, unless the poor people in society wake up one day and start voting for the politicians who'll improve their lot instead of voting for the GOP on religious grounds or on the off chance that they happen to "make it" during their lifespans.

Claiming that more social welfare reduces crime, drug use etc is a bit of a stretch.

Water John

Well, there is plenty of research on the effects of disparity between rich and poor in countries and the effects that has. Social cohesion being one. Less differential, higher social cohesion and better society.

Thargor

So Trumps medical report includes a note from the White House physician including suspicious Trump-style language like that it was an "exceptional exam" and Trumps health was excellent etc except the doctor appears to have misspelled his own name on the note hes supposed to have signed...

https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/952002742968516609

I see he's still denying making the sh1thole comments aswell despite the multiple witnesses and his own parties statements on the comments, bizarre how he still gets such a free pass for lying like that.

Pelvis

It looks like that WH statement is quoting what the doctor allegedly said, and stuck his name on it. It's not like the doctor typed out the statement himself. Seems pretty poor on Maddow's part tbh.

Thargor

Yes Im sure its all Rachel Maddows fault.

PopePalpatine

Thargor wrote: »

So Trumps medical report includes a note from the White House physician including suspicious Trump-style language like that it was an "exceptional exam" and Trumps health was excellent etc except the doctor appears to have misspelled his own name on the note hes supposed to have signed...

https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/952002742968516609

I see he's still denying making the sh1thole comments aswell despite the multiple witnesses and his own parties statements on the comments, bizarre how he still gets such a free pass for lying like that.

But most importantly, it distracts from this medical report.

Pelvis

Thargor wrote: »

Yes Im sure its all Rachel Maddows fault.

She shows an email from someone who is presumably a WH staffer who quotes a statement and adds in the doctors name. It's clear as day the doctor didn't write the email and didn't spell his own name wrong, the staffer did.

The statement itself may or may not have come from the doctor, but that misspelling is literally meaningless. It's poor journalism that you fell for considering you've posted it here telling us all the doctor spelled his name wrong, using it as the basis for discrediting the statement, when he didn't spell his name wrong at all.

Leroy42

as is the statement then.  its clearly trying to be presented as directly from the doctor, as opposed to sourced from and therefore open to interpretation as selective quoting.
its a sly trick that fell on its face but yet another piece of sloppy work from the WH.  the have literally been caught in fake news

Pelvis

How have they been caught in fake news? How does a misspelling have any affect on the legitimacy of the statement? A staffer is given a statement to pass on, types it out and accidentally misspells the name of the person who supposedly said it. I'm really struggling to see how this is in anyway meaningful??

Leroy42

if they cannot get the name correct then why would you place any credibility on the statement as a whole? the WH is very quick to point out if even one detail on a story is wrong and use that to dismiss the entire story.  why should we use different rules for them.
secondly, the WH shouldnt be making these types of mistakes.  inattention to detail is a worrying trend of this WH

Pelvis

One person spelled Ronnie instead of Ronny, seems like an incredibly easy mistake to make.

Sorry, but you guys are clutching at straws here. They're are so many reasons to criticise this administration, but this isn't one of them.

Leroy42

on its own I would agree with you.  But this isn't an isolated incident.  We had Noway  spelt Normay, Trump thinks there is a place called Nambia, the biggest crowds ever etc etc.
The WH knows that it is under pressure from a hostile press but they don't seem to even try to get better.  They keep making the same mistakes.  There is a worrying lack of attention to the detail, a clear lack of focus on making sure things are correct.  And that clearly comes from the boss who is not concerned about accuracy or being right.  As SHS said, truth isn't important once the message gets out.
You seem to want to look at this as a once off, a simple typo.  That is the excuse rolled out for Trump all the time which fails to take into account the clear trend in this WH.  After a while you simply stop believing anything they say.  Not because of some MSM bias, or left wing conspiracy but because the WH have proven time after time that they are not worried about facts or accuracy.
Why are so so willing to give this the benefit of the doubt?  Why are so willing to accept that the rest of the press release must be correct whilst giving them a pass on such a crucial detail?
This isn't some txt between friends, its a press release from the WH.  Who is checking these before they are released?  Is SHS not managing her team?  It really is not that hard to copy something from one page to another, especially knowing that the press were waiting for this and would be paying attention.

Thepoet85

What, that the highest political office in the country either can't spell, or are too lazy to spell check?

It speaks volumes imo.

Igotadose

Some highlights in this week's Trump news from https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind/week-61-experts-in-authoritarianism-advise-to-keep-a-list-of-things-subtly-changing-around-you-so-1691307f33d5

(there's plenty here to read). Basically, as the mechanisms of administration get smoother in the Trump WH, he delivers on his racist pro-corporation promises.

First, there's the usual mental instability he readily exhibits:
"On Monday, at a speech to the American Farm Bureau in Nashville, Trump told the crowd it was a privilege to have voted for him: “Oh, are you happy you voted for me? You are so lucky that I gave you that privilege.”"

Then, the usual pandering to the tGOP:"On Thursday, the Trump regime issued guidelines to states which will require people to work or prepare for jobs in order to receive Medicaid, the first time this requirement would exist in Medicaid’s half-century history." - there's a lot out there about this. Most medicaid recipients work. Trump's new guidelines just are designed to get people off of Medicaid and dead. The Times ran a piece about what's happening in Kentucky, which is a good read on the subject

And, of course, got to do things for the Trump Corp. while still in office: "IBT reported during the Christmas holiday, the Trump regime quietly waived part of the punishment for five megabanks who were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates, including Deutsche Bank."

Trump owes DB somewhere between $130 and $300million


And, as there's a new Trump Tower in India (despite Trump promising not to expand overseas while in office -I'm sure this didn't happen overnight, so I'm willing to give the liar-in-chief a pass on this one, can't blame the company if they couldn't turn back the clock), there's new dirt out there on how TrumpCo launders money:
"BuzzFeed reported that since the 1980s, Trump has sold more than 1,300 condos to shell companies, and that the purchases were made without a mortgage — signals of possible money laundering per the Treasury Department.
BuzzFeed’s analysis revealed 21% of the 6,400 condos sold by Trump in the US, yielding $1.5 billion in sales, fit this pattern. Sales of these type surged in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when Trump was in financial trouble."

HivemindXX

While the spelling mistake indicates shoddy work I don't think this is the main issue and trying to make it the main issue is a mistake (or deliberate misdirection).

As far as I'm concerned there is a big difference between:

"Dr. Doctor has said that Trump is in amazing health - Some WH PR drone"

and

"Trump is in amazing health - Dr. Doctor"

Passing off one as the other is deception. In my opinion Trump and his staff place no real value on honesty or accuracy. Perhaps the doctor really spoke in such glowing terms, although I really doubt it, but I think it is far more likely that he said something like "Trump is in acceptable health for a man of his age" and that got changed to the glowing report that was released. Since nobody believes what the White House PRs have to say they added the doctor's name like it was his actual statement to give it a bit of authority, but they spelled it incorrectly.

Except for this bit of incompetence we'd have people saying that Trump is in amazing health, you can read the doctors own words! Now those same people are forced in to a far weaker position, saying that the gist of the doctors statement is that Trump is in amazing health! Also, look over there, damn libruls have nothing better to do than complain about a simple spelling mistake!

dudara

^^ this Times 100%. By signing the note using the doctors name, they committed forgery. Simple as. It would be entirely different if they had simply said “Dr X says...”

Mr.Micro

HivemindXX wrote: »

While the spelling mistake indicates shoddy work I don't think this is the main issue and trying to make it the main issue is a mistake (or deliberate misdirection).

As far as I'm concerned there is a big difference between:

"Dr. Doctor has said that Trump is in amazing health - Some WH PR drone"

and

"Trump is in amazing health - Dr. Doctor"

Passing off one as the other is deception. In my opinion Trump and his staff place no real value on honesty or accuracy. Perhaps the doctor really spoke in such glowing terms, although I really doubt it, but I think it is far more likely that he said something like "Trump is in acceptable health for a man of his age" and that got changed to the glowing report that was released. Since nobody believes what the White House PRs have to say they added the doctor's name like it was his actual statement to give it a bit of authority, but they spelled it incorrectly.

Except for this bit of incompetence we'd have people saying that Trump is in amazing health, you can read the doctors own words! Now those same people are forced in to a far weaker position, saying that the gist of the doctors statement is that Trump is in amazing health! Also, look over there, damn libruls have nothing better to do than complain about a simple spelling mistake!

A second opinion is warranted.

circadian

In the midst of the ****hole controversy a full transcript of an interview by Wall Street Journal with Trump was released.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-of-donald-trump-interview-with-the-wall-street-journal-1515715481

Here's a snippet;
"Just – and so – so I was successful, successful, successful. I was always the best athlete, people don’t know that. But I was successful at everything I ever did and then I run for president, first time -- first time, not three times, not six times. I ran for President first time and lo and behold, I win. And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I’m smarter than all of them put together, but they can’t admit it. They had a bad year."

The man is detached from reality.

ECO_Mental

More news in from inside the bizarro world that is his mental condition and his inability to distinguish what is reality and what is fairyland. Trump still maintains that he said that he didn't say that he had a relationaship with Kim Jong Un...even though there is a recording of him saying it........

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/952404617261961216

Sarah Sanders even put out a tweet with their own audio which confirms it also??? BUT they are saying he didnt. This is bizzare stuff

https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/952405070955544576

Now its one thing for Trump to say it because we all know he has metal issues with understanding reality, but for Sanders to actually embarrasses her self with that is beyond shame

Leroy42

Sounds to me like he said "and I'd probably" which is what the WH are claiming he said. That is very different to the phrase "and I probably".

THinking about it (almost a mute point when trying to work through Trump) why would he say I probably have, either if does or not, and Trump is not known for hedging his bets when it comes to bigging up his merits.

But as in so much with Trump and this WH, it is such a petty and silly argument. Trump is attacking a single word and quote to try to make out the media as fake, whilst he and his supporters are happy to accept a country being spelt wrong, or a doctors name being wrong.

But again, the WSJ shouldn't allow itself to get drawn into such a petty game as this. You can't win and what are you really achieving. Does it really matter? And this is where Trump is winning every day against the media. They are so scared of being caught out they focus on the stupidest matters and totally allow the other stuff to go unchallenged.

Take the Sh1thole comments. We have two sides of the story. One side, IMO, is adamant that he said what they claimed, the other seems to be trying to say that something was said but not that particularly. The Media should be doorstepping the other senators to get them to call Graham and Durbin liars (because that is what they are saying). Don't let them wiggle out by saying that we just disagree etc. There are facts. Which is right, which is wrong and why are those people that are wrong (on whichever side) lying?

That is the real story. (IMO)

FreudianSlippers

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Wrong actually

Spent 6 years, living, working and traveling in the US.

Loved it, and still do even though I don't live there anymore.

Since I've been home iv noticed that those that are the most vocal about how bad American is as a nation are the ones who have never even set foot in it, nevermind lived there.

It really depends on where you lived for those 6 years tbh.

Pelvis

The WSJ clip is a lot better quality, and listening to it here with headphones it's pretty clear to me that he says "and I probably...".

The WH clip is a lot lower quality, and it's genuinely hard to hear for certain if he said I or I'd. But it's like that because of the lesser quality, no doubt that's not a coincidence.

Water John

ECO, you are right, he has metal issues. The golf clubs in his bag.

ECO_Mental

Water John wrote: »

ECO, you are right, he has metal issues. The golf clubs in his bag.

:rolleyes: That's the one issue he doesn't have he has already dropped a shot off his handicap since taking up the busiest job in the world....SAD

robinph

ECO_Mental wrote: »

:rolleyes: That's the one issue he doesn't have he has already dropped a shot off his handicap since taking up the busiest job in the world....SAD

He's trying to better Kim's world record on a golf course and get a score of 9shots for all 18 holes.

spacecoyote

reading through the Amy Siskind lists you really start to notice just how short the news cycle is around Trump.

Every week we're seeing significant pieces of news or changes to legislation that get completely drowned out by the latest stupid comment Trump has made.

With the way that the media treat things in the US, there are way too many free passes given. They really need to keep pushing like the Dutch media did with the Ambassador guy.

I know that with 24 hour news everyone is chasing a headline & desperate to play to their base, but its ultimately just a race to the bottom.

Though, reading that transcript from the WSJ, I really don't think that I could have a full conversation with Trump without losing my own mind. Its a bit like trying to read Joyce, if Joyce wrote Ulysses whilst suffering from a severe mental impairment.