POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Huh.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

So you're saying that the Senate is incapable of considering a nominee for one position until they have finished considering another? Maybe your issue is that Mitch needs to learn to multi-task...



Dems walked out on one occasion, then the rules were changed and they voted the next day with no Dems present. So no, they can't choose to do it more.

Sure, Mitch could just schedule all the nominees for votes. All you need in the Senate is Unanimous Consent to schedule a vote. Without it there's debate until it's given or cloture is passed, and then you can vote 3 days later.


Going back to when I first commented on this issue, I more or less said the minority party can't stop nominees, but they can slow the process to a snail's pace. Of course they can do it more and if they think it's politically expedient, they will.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

First Republican comes out saying the revelations against Dump are serious. He's Zeldin (NY-1: Eastern L.I.) and he ran as a Dumpy and only Monday was saying it was a "nothingburger." Evidently the email chain (1) *****ed his conscience, (2) changed his mind, (3) freaked him out because now his constituents can see what a sh-t Dump is and he wants off the sinking ship.

It's only one, but hey, somebody must have been first with Nixon, too.

At this point, we all know Donnie's not going to start acting maturely. You have to think some of these Republican Reps in blue and purple states are starting to get nervous about 2018. As soon as their internal polling looks substantially unfavorable, they're going to start running away from Dump.

 

[leswp1]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

This is one of the best criticisms I've read of Trump, and its much more constructive than just calling him an idiot or making fun of his hands or whatever. To be honest, I've got a lot of mixed feelings on him. When he first signed up I wasn't a huge fan, and thought it was nothing more than a publicity stunt, but it was such a sad field of candidates I came around a bit and hoped for the best. As far as the general election, I think a lot of people were between a rock and a hard place. Despite all Trump's character flaws I strongly(maybe even irrationally) disliked Hillary and never would have wanted to see her as president.

As far as how he's done so far, its a mixed bag. I disagree completely on the health care approach, am somewhat in the middle on immigration, but am very happy with the tone of some of his speeches. His speech in Poland last week was a good one and a breath of fresh air. The west does face some huge issues right now and at some point we are going to have to front up to them. It's valid to criticize how he has done administratively, and hopefully as time goes on he improves.

Not to deflect, but I think the Obama presidency was a lot bigger disaster than we realize right now. We ran massive, massive deficits(not all his fault but he was the commander in chief, and I realize Bush was responsible for this as well), he took a bad situation in the middle east and made it much worse, and I think his decision to let the Chinese take over the South China Sea and build bases there could be his biggest blunder, which doesn't get a whole lot of attention.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron. We need to get away from the left-right stuff if the country is ever going to move forward.

As far as the Obama Presidency goes- no matter who was elected was screwed. Bush had mucked up so many things that who ever went in after him was doomed to look bad. Compound that with a GOP with the stated goal of making O fail rather than governing or trying to fix things. If we look at it as a block of time- yes it was a failure. Not particularly keen on some of what he did but he restored our cache on the international front and started to deal with healthcare (obviously my impact subject)

As far as the Poland speech- if you were looking at it as an American citizen who wants an opinion voiced I guess it was Ok. If you wanted it to get a point across to the rest of the world- good luck. The rest of the world has little regard for him and don't take him seriously as a leader at all. Basically they have dismissed him. They find him unpredictable (not in a helpful way- more like a kid taking a tantrum), don't trust him to keep his word, and generally views him as a person who has little understanding of what he is dealing with. He is in no position to lecture the world when he has routinely dismissed them and then said they misconstrued, he didn't. Any point he makes his spokespeople routinely say something else or try to translate what he meant if there is backlash. He could be saying something that is the absolute truth and it still will be like the grownups in Charlie Brown- background noise.

In this country if he says something multiple spokespeople come out to give various 'translations/versions. Internationally they ignore those (well, they make fun of them sometimes) and go with what he said, contradictions and all. The media that likes him can criticize how he is covered all they want perception is reality and in most of the world they do not like him.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron.

Read a really beautiful explanation of this somewhere. Basically Trump has broken every rule of civility, has encouraged others to do the same. He has said some truly outrageous things- you know the list. Some supporters defend him, dismissing things that would get others shunned or worse. They consider it loyalty, necessary support to forward his agenda. Folks like Evangelicals, Senators, etc. who should be calling him out are feeding the fire or are conspicuously silent.

Then we have a portion of the 'civilian' supporters following suit calling people derogatory names and questioning patriotism if the person disagrees. There is a ridiculous amount of outrage on both sides. This is not normal and in the past certainly would never have been tolerated. Now we have an avenue to perpetuate this and Social media has amplified those who are the most virulent. The president and his spokespeople have done nothing to stop this and seem to think it is OK. The regular people haven't seemed to object either. Not calling out this behaviour implies tacit acceptance. If supporters routinely acknowledged when there was fault and said they still wish X policy would be enacted then the supposition would be less. When people defending things that would never have even been considered defensible and no one from their side calls them out it looks like they agree with it.

I am old enough to have lived at the end of the cold war/ detente. If you would ever tell me I would see the GOP defending any person going to a meeting with a Russian, pretending that there was nothing to investigate I would have laughed right out loud. I would have peed my pants, laughing hysterically, if you told me I would be called names or told I was unpatriotic for saying I wanted the person held accountable.

 

[Drew S.]

As far as the Obama Presidency goes- no matter who was elected was screwed. Bush had mucked up so many things that who ever went in after him was doomed to look bad. Compound that with a GOP with the stated goal of making O fail rather than governing or trying to fix things. If we look at it as a block of time- yes it was a failure. Not particularly keen on some of what he did but he restored our cache on the international front and started to deal with healthcare (obviously my impact subject)

As far as the Poland speech- if you were looking at it as an American citizen who wants an opinion voiced I guess it was Ok. If you wanted it to get a point across to the rest of the world- good luck. The rest of the world has little regard for him and don't take him seriously as a leader at all. Basically they have dismissed him. They find him unpredictable (not in a helpful way- more like a kid taking a tantrum), don't trust him to keep his word, and generally views him as a person who has little understanding of what he is dealing with. He is in no position to lecture the world when he has routinely dismissed them and then said they misconstrued, he didn't. Any point he makes his spokespeople routinely say something else or try to translate what he meant if there is backlash. He could be saying something that is the absolute truth and it still will be like the grownups in Charlie Brown- background noise.

In this country if he says something multiple spokespeople come out to give various 'translations/versions. Internationally they ignore those (well, they make fun of them sometimes) and go with what he said, contradictions and all. The media that likes him can criticize how he is covered all they want perception is reality and in most of the world they do not like him.



Read a really beautiful explanation of this somewhere. Basically Trump has broken every rule of civility, has encouraged others to do the same. He has said some truly outrageous things- you know the list. Some supporters defend him, dismissing things that would get others shunned or worse. They consider it loyalty, necessary support to forward his agenda. Folks like Evangelicals, Senators, etc. who should be calling him out are feeding the fire or are conspicuously silent.

Then we have a portion of the 'civilian' supporters following suit calling people derogatory names and questioning patriotism if the person disagrees. There is a ridiculous amount of outrage on both sides. This is not normal and in the past certainly would never have been tolerated. Now we have an avenue to perpetuate this and Social media has amplified those who are the most virulent. The president and his spokespeople have done nothing to stop this and seem to think it is OK. The regular people haven't seemed to object either. Not calling out this behaviour implies tacit acceptance. If supporters routinely acknowledged when there was fault and said they still wish X policy would be enacted then the supposition would be less. When people defending things that would never have even been considered defensible and no one from their side calls them out it looks like they agree with it.

I am old enough to have lived at the end of the cold war/ detente. If you would ever tell me I would see the GOP defending any person going to a meeting with a Russian, pretending that there was nothing to investigate I would have laughed right out loud. I would have peed my pants, laughing hysterically, if you told me I would be called names or told I was unpatriotic for saying I wanted the person held accountable.

There's no doubt Obama inherited a tough situation, and he wasnt all bad, but he really dropped the ball on some very important things. We've run deficits for so long at so many different levels that it is going to be hard to ever reverse those. And maybe more importantly he let China really have their way with us. For me, they will wind up being the great challenge of this century and he left them in a lot stronger position than when he was elected.

I think Obama's fatal flaw was he thought where he was so much smarter than everyone else they would eventually acquiesce. This proved time and time again not to be the case and it seemed like he caught on. For better or worse, he is no longer in office and I don't need to beat that drum any more.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

I think Obama's fatal flaw was he thought where he was so much smarter than everyone else they would eventually acquiesce. This proved time and time again not to be the case and it seemed like he caught on. For better or worse, he is no longer in office and I don't need to beat that drum any more.

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

Besides Obama winning in 2012, Turtle Boy accomplished everything he set out to do. Including stealing a Supreme Court Seat.

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

It is amazing how all these people are coming around now, eh? It was patriotic to bash obama (people like drew would be mad if he'd cured cancer) but now you have to give the guy in the office respect!!

 

[Drew S.]

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

I wanted them to block Obama on gun control, which luckily they did, but on other issues thought they should have worked with him. I was disgusted with everyone involved as far as the budget went.

The Obama foreign policy blunders had nothing to do with Congress.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

I wanted them to block Obama on gun control, which luckily they did, but on other issues thought they should have worked with him. I was disgusted with everyone involved as far as the budget went.

The Obama foreign policy blunders had nothing to do with Congress.

Yes, it's so wonderful the mentally ill are allowed to exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Bravo.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Yes, it's so wonderful the mentally ill are allowed to exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Bravo.

Forgot about this argument lolololol

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Forgot about this argument lolololol

Sulu was right.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Sulu was right.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

When Dump's lost the WSJ that bodes poorly for him...

U.S. intelligence agencies starting in the spring of 2015 detected conversations in which Russian government officials discussed associates of Donald Trump, several months before he declared his candidacy for president, according to current and former U.S. officials.

In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.

...

The reports on the 2015 conversations weren’t particularly illuminating, the people familiar with them said. Mr. Trump had business connections in Russia—he produced the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow—and had sold properties to Russians.

In that respect, the reports in and of themselves weren’t alarming. But they did have officials asking each other, “What’s going on?” one former official said.

They don't run that story if they're still in the Breitbart / Fox fold. Sounds like they can read the Cyrillic on the wall.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

There's nothing to see here. And, my God, look what Clinton got away with. What is wrong with you people?

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Ross Douthat lowers the boom.

As the hapless Don Jr. — the Gob Bluth or Fredo Corleone of a family conspicuously short on Michaels — protested in his own defense, the Russian rendezvous we know about came before (though only slightly before) the WikiLeaks haul was announced. So the Trump team presumably assumed that it involved some other Hillary-related dirt — some of the missing Clinton server emails that Trump himself jokingly (“jokingly”?) urged Russian hackers to conjure and release, or direct evidence of Clinton Foundation corruption in its Russian relationships.

With that semi-exculpatory explanation in hand, you can grope your way to the current anti-anti-Trump talking point — that Don Jr. and company were just hoping to “gather oppo” to which a foreign government might happen to be privy, much as Democratic operatives looked to Ukraine for evidence of the Trump campaign’s shady ties.

But even if accepting oppo from a foreign government is technically legal — it probably is, but I leave that question to campaign finance lawyers to work out — this talking point takes you only so far. I am not a particularly fierce Russia hawk, but the Russians are still a more-hostile-than-not power these days, with stronger incentives to subvert American democracy than the average foreign government. So taking their oppo has a gravity that should have stopped a more upright and patriotic campaign short.

Second, if the Russians had been dangling some of Hillary’s missing 30,000 emails, those, too, would had to have been hacked — that is, stolen — to end up in Moscow’s hands. So Don Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner should have known going in that if the offer was genuine, the oppo useful, it might involve stolen goods.

But on the basis of the emails, the younger Trump went in not skeptically but eagerly (“if it’s what you say I love it”), ignoring or simply accepting the weird formulation about Russian support for Trump’s campaign. And then of course everybody lied about or “forgot” about the meeting, repeatedly and consistently, right up until the emails themselves made their way to the press.

So while this is not direct evidence that the president of the United States was complicit in a virtual burglary perpetrated against the other party during an election season, it’s strong evidence that we should drop the presumption that such collusion is an extreme or implausible scenario.

Instead, the mix of inexperience, incaution and conspiratorial glee on display in the emails suggests that people in Trump’s immediate family — not just satellites like Roger Stone — would have been delighted to collude if the opportunity presented itself. Indeed, if the Russians didn’t approach the Trump circle about how to handle the D.N.C. email trove, it was probably because they recognized that anyone this naïve, giddy and “Burn After Reading”-level stupid would make a rather poor espionage partner.

Then keep in mind, too, that all of this has come out (relatively) easily, thanks to digging by this newspaper’s reporters and leaks from the various factions in and around the White House, without the subpoenas and immunity deals that the formal investigations have at their disposal. That means there is probably more and worse to come, and the more there is, the worse the president’s dealings with James Comey look. Even if the president himself is innocent of Russian collusion, protecting your family from exposure is a pretty strong motive for obstruction.

In the end, impeachment is political, not legal, and the House G.O.P. probably won’t impeach for anything short of a transcript of a call between Trump and Putin in which the words “yes, I want you to hack their servers big-league, Vladimir” appear in black-and-white. And even then ….

 

[geezer]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

I have many concerns about putting Blackwater and DynCorp directly, openly, and shamelessly in control of United States Military policy.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

I have many concerns about putting Blackwater and DynCorp directly, openly, and shamelessly in control of United States Military policy.

I see these people all the time. You're right, you don't want them setting policy.

The actual ex-jarhead field ops aren't so bad. The ones who saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan typically understand what war is and the horror we have inflicted on civilian populations; if they served in the right units they even learned something about soft power and how to get natives on your side.

But the management types are disgusting human filth. They're the kind of people who run private prisons -- they leech off the public purse, cause untold misery, and walk away from it all with no consequences or accountability. They should be in jail, not running corporations, and certainly not operating as Tin Badge Harkonnens.

 

[leswp1]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

There's no doubt Obama inherited a tough situation, and he wasnt all bad, but he really dropped the ball on some very important things. We've run deficits for so long at so many different levels that it is going to be hard to ever reverse those. And maybe more importantly he let China really have their way with us. For me, they will wind up being the great challenge of this century and he left them in a lot stronger position than when he was elected.

I think Obama's fatal flaw was he thought where he was so much smarter than everyone else they would eventually acquiesce. This proved time and time again not to be the case and it seemed like he caught on. For better or worse, he is no longer in office and I don't need to beat that drum any more.

Unfortunately cemented by Trump declining to participate at all in PTA and Paris Accord. They have happily stepped in to fill the void.

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

IMHO is was definitely smarter but whether you are dealing with people who aren't as smart as you or not if they won't participate in governing bad stuff happens. The way this country was set up to work relied on at least some balance of power. When all sides don't participate equally it falls down.

I wanted them to block Obama on gun control, which luckily they did, but on other issues thought they should have worked with him. I was disgusted with everyone involved as far as the budget went.

The Obama foreign policy blunders had nothing to do with Congress.

I did not agree with everything Obama did internationally but I have to disagree with the last statement. Having Congress block anything he tried included his Foreign Policy initiatives. Tough to negotiate anything when Congress is openly inviting foreign dignitaries giving a message directly opposed to what the President of the country is saying and without trying to engage him in debate. They were frequently and loudly vocal of their disdain for his foreign policy, effective in undermining him. Despite that he did restore a sense of respect that was lost when Bush et al snubbed various countries.

THe difference with this President is he has no clear policy and his Press Secretary has said the Ambassadors are free to tweet what they want.

And to open a can of worms- if we can leave out the paranoia of people stealing your guns (which was a brilliant, well crafted plan from the manufacturers to make people buy more guns) what would you consider reasonable policy. I came from a military family. We had guns in the house my whole childhood. My Dad was a stickler for proper safety and care. Before I could shoot I needed to be able to take a gun down, clean it and put it together. My Dad is a lifelong NRA member (I think). I remember when the focus of the NRA was safety, education and organizing events.

In all the frenzy of 'they might take my gun!!!1!11!1!! we seem to have lost respect for the weapon and the potential danger. How would you address the folks who are clueless, buy a toy with no idea of safety or even how it works? In the craze to 'protect rights' we seem to have lost sight of responsibility. I worked pediatrics and we asked about guns in house to make sure the parents knew basic safety. You can't believe how many of them had never thought about safety- the gun loaded in an accessible place, but never checked on. [ducks- I know you are all going to virtually slap me silly but I really want to know the answer]