Good King Trump

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Trump Throws Mike Pence Under the Bus: ‘I Think You Should Ask for VP Pence's Conversations’

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Hold my beer. I forgot about this.

Projection, projection, projection.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you have on occasion joined in the davidm chorus of "Hillary lost because she was a shitty choice".

No, I did not say she was a "shitty choice." I said she was a shitty candidate. Are you really unable to discern the important difference between the two statements? Or, like erimir, are you just congenitally dishonest?

Oh, there were dirty tricks against her? There were Russian trolls besmirching her on social media? People made a big deal out of her emails?

Cry me a river.

Every election in U.S. history has been known for dirty tricks. JFK was besmirched as a puppet for the pope, as was Al Smith before him, in ’28. Abe Lincoln was rumored to be partly black, a death knell for a candidate in 1860, if thought to be true. Barry Goldwater was slandered as a psycho who wanted to nuke young girls picking daisies. Nixon traitorously intervened to block a Vietnam peace deal in ’68, to deter Humphrey. The examples are legion. There is nothing different about social media, except it makes spreading lies more efficient.

The media was against Hillary? Oh, boo-hoo. The majority of papers, including the much-maligned NY Times, endorsed her candidacy. It is to laugh.

But it turns out poor Hillary had no coherent message.

It turns out poor Hillary did not even seem to be cognizant of the fact that her New Democrats, starting with her hubby Bubba, had conspired with the GOP to sell out the interests of the working class to the one-percenters.

It turns out that poor Hillary could not even be arsed to campaign in the Rust Belt states that, predictably, turned on her in favor of Trump.

Who is to blame for all of that? The Russian trolls? Steve Bannon? The New York Times? Trump? Me?

Poor Hillary!

Speaking of lies, has erimir retracted his lie that the New York Times only allows anti-Trump messaging to be published in its op-ed section, whereas in fact I gave him and TheMan, who hides behind putting me on Ignore, dozens of links to investigative news pieces by the Times that have simply shredded Trump?

Has he retracted his lie that I predicted Trump would do this or that, rather than merely offered the possibility that IF Trump meant some of the things he said, he could create a realignment of national politics?

Interestingly enough, a few of my speculations (not predictions) have proven to be apposite. China IS a trade cheater, and Trump, however maladroitly, is waging a trade war against them — not so different from the sort of action Bernie advocated. But at the same time, as I discussed as a distinct possibility, Trump HAS kept the United States out of a shooting war — where is John Bolton now?

Not that I think Trump would refrain from going to war if he thought doing so would benefit him politically — but this is true of most presidents. Let’s look at the record:

JFK famously complained that unless he presided over a war, he would not be regarded as a great president, because presidents traditionally thought of as great, preside over wars. In his very first press conference in 1961, he beat the drums for possible military action against commie guerrillas in Laos, which was then seen as more vulnerable to an insurgency than South Vietnam.

When that effort petered out, he greatly increased the flow of troops and advisers into South Vietnam, over what Eisenhower had done. On the morning of his death, he bragged in a speech in Fort Worth about the increasing American military presence in South Vietnam.

His successor, Lyin’ Baines Johnson, famously said, during the 1964 election, that American boys would not do, in Southeast Asia, what Vietnamese boys ought to be doing for themselves. How did that turn out?

Or look at Woodrow Wilson, who in the 1916 election, vowed that the U.S. would stay out of the European war, if only he were elected. How did that turn out?

Or look at FDR, who, during the election of 1940, famously vowed that the U.S. would stay out of the second European war, unless the United States were attacked — an attack that came in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, but which many historians persuasively argue FDR engineered by imposing an oil embargo on Japan.

It is quite obvious, in retrospect, that FDR was angling to get the U.S. into World War II by hook or by crook, which he practically admitted to his advisers. In short, he lied, repeatedly, to the American public.

Trump, by contrast, has, so far, stuck to his word to avoid any further idiotic war.

My only regret is that Trump did not follow through on his instincts to pull all U.S. forces out of the Mideast and Afghan quagmires, but these quagmires are backed by both parties.

Now — behold! — Trumps stands revealed as pressuring the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on a potential opponent, Biden, with the implicit threat of withholding military aid unless Ukraine complied with his wishes. Oh, the crocodile tears! How could the Orange Oaf have done something so vile! He must be impeached immediately! This is The Worst Thing That Any President Has Ever Done!

Except — no one impeached FDR for deviously shepherding America into World War II. No one impeached Wilson for lying about American plans for involvement in World War I. No one impeached Johnson for lying about his plans for Vietnam. No one impeached Ike for using the CIA to engineer the overthrow of the legitimate governments of Guatemala and Iran. No one impeached Nixon for overthrowing Allende in Chile. No one impeached Reagan for illegally selling arms to Iran and funneling the money to the contras. The list of American foreign policy crimes and malfeasance goes on, abysmally, heart-wrenchingly.

But Trump, you see, is designated to be the bad apple in the American presidential bushel — even though his stupid phone call to the Ukrainian premier has cost zero American lives.

The late and lamented Gore Vidal talked about this very tendency — American amnesia, he called it — in essays on the American presidency that he published in the 1980s. Nixon, he wrote, was designated to be the “bad apple” in the presidential lot — a convenient way to find a scapegoat for America’s multitudinous sins, while whitewashing our past and making plaster saints out of others who do not deserve sainthood. Now, it seems, Trump has taken Nixon’s place as the bad apple in the bushel, but American amnesia goes on.

The questions I have raised in this post are rhetorical. I won’t be reading any replies.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

From the file of snitches get stitches:

Trump: "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now." https://t.co/8OLSxoRbzD

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) September 26, 2019

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Whistleblower complaint here.

https://intelligence.house.gov/uploa...nt_unclass.pdf

[erimir]

Wow, that was a lot of words and fury on the basis of whether you say "candidate" or "choice", a pretty damn narrow distinction in the context of a primary nomination and general election. She was the Democrats' choice which, if you think she was obviously a shitty candidate, means she was a shitty choice.

Meanwhile, here's something the hard-hitting New York Times was doing in the past couple days: telling us that Trump's base is unmoved by these Ukraine revelations! Well, except that while they told us that they were swing voters, many of them are quite dedicated Trump fans.

This tweet was deleted pic.twitter.com/UTvImZll0G

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) September 26, 2019

But, the following thread shows that these voters have been interviewed multiple times by the NYT, and were still strongly supporting Trump and Republicans in 2018. One of them has gone to 23 Trump rallies and written a book about Trump! One has Confederate memorabilia in his house! The same reporter has previously interviewed a Trump RNC delegate and portrayed her as if she might've abandoned Trump over the latest controversy - without ever mentioning she had been a Trump delegate.

No, the New York Times did not talk to six “swing voters” about impeachment. The article quotes a handful of devout GOP voters who the NYT has repeatedly interviewed multiple times. A thread.... https://t.co/QYKCWB9V5I

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) September 26, 2019

These reporters knew before talking to these voters, yet again, that they would still support Trump. But they portrayed it as if they were random voters, as if it was an open question of how they would respond. They make it sound like they went out and found undecided voters or soft Trump voters. If you get one of these people randomly, you find out they voted for Obama once, it's fine - they swung. It does not follow that they are forever swing voters. And when you're going back to the same handful of people (6 voters in this story) multiple times, and you know how dedicated you are, you weren't looking for swing voters anymore.

That is, I would say, outright dishonest reporting, to further a narrative they decided before they talked to those voters. The honest version of this story would talk to a new group of voters, found in some sort of random fashion. Instead it's to further the narrative they wanted before they went to talk to voters they knew would give them the quotes they wanted: "The kind of Trump voters Democrats might win back don't care." And that leads to a couple other conclusions "impeachment is pointless" and "people don't care about Trump's crimes."

The latter one, in fact, could help Trump retain support, because some people who might be on the fence will feel more inclined to say it doesn't really matter, if they see that other people don't care. Maybe those narratives and conclusions are true. But you won't find out by talking to a Trump groupie for a fourth time.

And what a surprise, given that a NYT editor thinks that Trump blackmailing foreign countries into ratfucking a Democratic candidate doesn't matter because Reagan and LBJ weren't punished for what he considers impeachable crimes. Well I guess that makes it ok.

The fact that davidm works there only makes me more concerned about this type of thing, because he admits things here that NYT's more savvy journalists and editors would never admit publicly. Like davidm, they're dedicated to defending NYT's editorial choices, but they would never come right out and tweet that even if Trump is basing US foreign policy on trying to fuck Joe Biden with smears, rather than US interests and values, it's par for the course so who cares.

And I have to feel that this is significantly based on the victim being Biden. If Trump were pulling this same tactic on Sanders, davidm would apparently find this fine, based on the reasoning he's given. The same davidm who expressed outrage over how Bernie was treated by the DNC. Yeah, right. The same one who says it's Hillary's fault that the GOP's cheating cost her the election, says it's not Bernie's fault that he lost the Democratic nomination. He doesn't say "every true progressive has to deal with a cheating establishment, boo fucking hoo, Bernie should've just not been a shitty candidate." Weird.

[Sock Puppet]

Originally Posted by davidm

The questions I have raised in this post are rhetorical. I won’t be reading any replies.

Uh huh. This is either a lie or an admission of cowardice.

At least this time you're not saying "I won't be around for the replies" like you did repeatedly, hilariously, at TR. You have to know you'll be back with more butthurt, unless you're completely delusional.

You are once again cordially invited to go fuck your hat.

[erimir]

davidm: I won't be reading any of your replies!

mickthinks: *slightly paraphrases one of davidm's common refrains*

davidm:

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Giuliani losing his shit two days in a row, thrad:

Wow. Rudy Giuliani is on Ingraham's show implicating the State Department in the Ukraine scandal.

"The whistleblower falsely alleges that I was operating on my own. Well, I wasn't operating on my own." pic.twitter.com/4o1feYTZFU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2019

[SR71]

Is anyone else amazed Trumpleoompah released the transcript and the complaint without court fights? Would it have been to plain a case for obstruction if he didn't? Is it resignation? Has he lost his mind (rhetorical)?

A cunning plan? ???:

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by SR71

Is anyone else amazed Trumpleoompah released the transcript and the complaint without court fights? Would it have been to plain a case for obstruction if he didn't? Is it resignation? Has he lost his mind (rhetorical)?

A cunning plan? ???:

I think it was this: House backs release of Trump whistleblower complaint 421-0

So you might be able to delay the release, but it's not going to go away, not with such bipartisan support.

[specious_reasons]

[Sock Puppet]

I see a lot of complaining about the focus on this one issue. And sure, I'll be pissed if the impeachment inquiry never expands to at least some larger subset of the avalanche of corruption and bullshit this asshole has gotten away with so far. I'm already pissed that it's taken this long to get rolling, when as far as I'm concerned, impeachment should've started on inauguration day.

But fuck it, if this is what finally sticks, I'll take it. Al Capone should've been convicted of way more than tax evasion, but at least it got him locked up.

[SR71]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I think it was this: House backs release of Trump whistleblower complaint 421-0

So you might be able to delay the release, but it's not going to go away, not with such bipartisan support.

Yiminy! Thanks, I had no idea. I would never have predicted such a thing.

I'm still surprised he released the transcript. It looks like the vote was on the complaint release following after the transcript was already released. I'd still like to know what impetus bumped the transcript loose. Not that it matters much. Just curious.

While still on the general subject, I tuned in to the Faux inverseiverse and the segment was all about how much trouble Joe Biden is in now.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by SR71

I'm still surprised he released the transcript.

Yet he still hasn't released his taxes.

*armchair shrink hat on* Those might reveal he isn't he Tremendous Success he says he is, and that sort of humiliation is cyanide to a narcissist.

[Ari]

Given his openness around corruption and how often he plays arm chair expert when a specialty is needed, I will not be surprised if there’s items in some of his taxes that say like, “$500,000 bribe to Russian for building permit. So nice. Meeting at Trump, that’s me, Towers, top class, $500,000 lunch and golf lessons, total write off.”

Then someone with half a brain looked at it and went “oh oh, no no, thats, oh, my, um, dude, you gotta hide this! Like no one can ever see this!!”

[SR71]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

If by "communcation" you intend to include stuff like policy choices and also negative coverage from hostile agencies, this is obviously true. But the more narrowly you focus on the role played by people like Frank Luntz, the less true it is, I think.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you have on occasion joined in the davidm chorus of "Hillary lost because she was a shitty choice". Yet here you are saying it's the communications, stupid!

I get that you find politics frustrating, but if your anger is incoherent it is destructive.

She came with some baggage and her message wasn't really piercing the fog of war. She was meh. I was still shocked she lost, but the shock was buffered somewhat by a sinking feeling I was getting whenever Comey opened his big fucking mouth.

I hope the next candidate learned at least one lesson. If you run for president, it's time to clean house. All kinds of people are going to be walking through, looking at everything, snooping around everywhere. Don't leave your happy sock in the desk drawer.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by SR71

Is anyone else amazed Trumpleoompah released the transcript and the complaint without court fights? Would it have been to plain a case for obstruction if he didn't? Is it resignation? Has he lost his mind (rhetorical)?

A cunning plan? ???:

Given the unanimous votes to release the whistleblower complaint, I think it's a combination of:
-him feeling real pressure from GOP members of Congress
-being told it'll probably leak anyway
-and him being stupid enough to think that when someone says "about those military weapons" and you respond with "I want you to do me a favor... go after Biden", nobody can tell that those things are related

Like maybe he thinks it's a secret code in The Godfather and people who aren't criminals can't understand the Don's secret requests.

But the GOP capitulation on the whistleblower complaint almost makes me think they were looking for an excuse to throw him under the bus. Like, the excuse had to be a really good one for them to sell it to their voters, but when it presented itself... Because, yeah, I was a bit surprised at how quickly that stuff was released.

Not saying I expect the Senate to convict him, by any means! But it's making me revise how likely I think it is. You know, from a 4% chance to maybe a 10% chance?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

AP reports that AG William Barr was “surprised and angry” to discover he had been lumped in with Rudy Giuliani by the president. https://t.co/wUiF4LCBVu

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 28, 2019

[The Man]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

AP reports that AG William Barr was “surprised and angry” to discover he had been lumped in with Rudy Giuliani by the president. https://t.co/wUiF4LCBVu

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 28, 2019

'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

— Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn) October 16, 2015

An evergreen tweet.

Re: Clinton’s baggage, at the time most of the primary elections were actually held, her approval rating was fairly high, IIRC. She had something like a 70% approval rating as Secretary of State; even a large number of Republicans liked her. Also, she weathered the Benghazi hearings spectacularly well, and people assumed she was probably scandal-proof after that. It was only after she became the nominee and was subjected to two years of stories about EMAILZ!!!11 that it became clear how vulnerable she actually was.

At the same time I think she was kind of a sui generis case, because the Republicans had some 25+ years to build her into History’s Greatest Monster. Most of our other potential nominees won’t have had decades-long smear campaigns against them whilst in the public eye – it’s unlikely any of the top five will have the same kind of baggage.

The media also seems to have specifically hated Clinton in a way they don’t hate most Democratic politicians; davidm is a telling case study here. I don’t know that they would hate most other Democrats this way. The owners might specifically have reason to fear a Warren candidacy, but she hasn’t been covered in any way seemingly out of the ordinary; the term “Clinton Rules” exists for a reason.

I actually think Sanders is probably the most potentially vulnerable, because I suspect there are aspects of his past that haven’t been vetted too well, but it’s difficult to say. At this point I think he’s an unlikely nominee, anyway; he seems to have a ceiling of support built in amongst the Democratic electorate.

…but this is pretty off-topic here, given there’s a 2020 thrad, so I’ll stop now.

[SR71]

https://youtu.be/fIDcQ4MeLvQ

lol gwar

[erimir]

I do not support Trump (see pinned tweet) but it’s refreshing to see him break with liberal neoconservative orthodoxy. pic.twitter.com/XWKoCjKAwY

— Glem (I Do *NOT* Support Trump) (@GlemGreenwald) September 28, 2019

Trump's view of things sounds strangely familiar

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Legal Experts Say It’s Unlikely The 62,984,825 People Who Voted For Trump Can Also Be Impeached – The Out And Abouter

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

1. Trump retweets an egg account that has posted three tweets in its entire existence to date.
2. An obscure bot account that mocks Trump’s purported shark hatred scoops up that tweet and modifies it w some sharky stuff.
3. Trump, still working his search, RTs the parody tweet. pic.twitter.com/sCcBERIpIC

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 29, 2019

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

You misspelled "Fraud."#GoForceYourself https://t.co/ORY6eeyGgj

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) September 29, 2019

[Kamilah Hauptmann]