What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[CRI]

http://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1194a1GovtShutdown.pdf

 

[Cloo]

Trump actually managed to say to an anti abortion rally that it's 'wrong' that in some states children are allowed to be born until the 9th month

 

[coley]

I'm not saying you have any ill will, but you do have to admit that those stores exist to cater to people who are less well off. Selling products in smaller sizes and/or cheaply made stuff serves a need.

I've noticed a trend in shopping. The stores that cater to the poorer consumer are busy. The stores that cater to the well off consumer are busy, but if you go to a middle-market store, its empty. That does have political consequences. Perhaps that's a topic for another thread.

Apropos of nowt, notice how many 'up market' cars can be found in the 'discounters' car parks, Aldo's and Lidls stuffed with BMWs and Range rovers, bastards still use the disabled bays.
Yet, the 'needful' all have keys, hopefully people will restrain themselves, a sarky note left under the (£57, cost of replacement wiper blades) should suffice, bent to accommodate the note, obviously.

 

[mather]

Trump actually managed to say to an anti abortion rally that it's 'wrong' that in some states children are allowed to be born until the 9th month

WTF!?

His mind is definitely in decline and that health report of his was total bullshit.

 

[krtek a houby]

Trump actually managed to say to an anti abortion rally that it's 'wrong' that in some states children are allowed to be born until the 9th month

He's very highly educated. He knows words. He has the best words.

 

[Cloo]

WTF!?

His mind is definitely in decline and that health report of his was total bullshit.

I think that's pushing it a bit far, it was a one word slip, but it shows what an idiot and crap orator he is. Also,I presume he meant to say they can abort into the 9th month, which is totally bollocks, I'm sure. And the 9th month is after the baby is fucking due anyway.

 

[mather]

I think that's pushing it a bit far, it was a one word slip, but it shows what an idiot and crap orator he is. Also,I presume he meant to say they can abort into the 9th month, which is totally bollocks, I'm sure. And the 9th month is after the baby is fucking due anyway.

This isn't a one off, nearly every speech he has done, he has fucked it one way or the other. He even does it when reading from a teleprompter.

 

[Cloo]

His whole attitude to abortion is one of the best indicators of his utter contempt for women. He doesn't give a shit whether women have abortions or not, and I find it hard to believe he hasn't paid off a number of women to make a potential Trump baby go away in his time, but he knows being against it is a winner with the Christian right, so when it suits him he's anti-abortion. And each time he does that women are terrified that their bodily autonomy (or that of their daughters) is going to be taken away. But he doesn't care, it makes him popular with certain groups.

But then when faced with the media, he also remembers quite a lot of people, even GOP people, *don't* like him being anti-abortion, so when he's asked a direct question about it, he flipflops and starts saying no it's OK. Presumably if pressed on why he seems to change his mind he will claim he is just being open to everyone's opinion and then sit back convinced this has made him sound wise and fair.

 

[NoXion]

Speaking of which, remember that article I posted from a year ago about my white, rural, working class home town? It was one of the legion of articles featuring the views of Trump supporters that have appeared in the past year.

Steinberg: Wayne County is glad it voted 84 percent for Trump

Well, they only went back recently to talk with them again and guess what? They still all think Trump is the bees knees!

'Enthusiasm for Trump hasn't diminished one bit' downstate



And yes, I know all the fuckers interviewed bar one, and he's the kid brother of someone I went to school with. These are all among lovely members of the community who've ostracised my family for not being enthusiastic about Trump.

No doubt someone who's never been there will come along and insist I just don't understand their situation, they're clearly "economically and culturally anxious" and felt forced to vote Trump. It's the Democratic Party's fault for not listening to them and responding to their plight. Yada yada yada.

Nope, they're bastards every one, and I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.

Indeed, why even let these derelicts have the vote? Surely it would be better all round if the franchise was denied to them, because after all as you have repeatedly pointed out, those slack-jawed yokels only ever abuse the privilege to vote in bigots. The fact that Trump achieved office in the first place means we certainly can't rely on the changing demographics saving the US from becoming Banjo-Banjo land.

 

[DexterTCN]

Ben Dreyfuss‏Verified account @bendreyfuss
Stormy Daniels claimed that Trump asked her to spank him with a Forbes magazine that had him on the cover and made her watch hours of Shark Week

how could it be worse?

 

[Chilli.s]

Loath him or loath him he has elevated politics to a new level of hilarity.

 

[gosub]

 

[J Ed]

If Democrats think Trump is an authoritarian, why don’t they treat him like one? | Corey Robin

You’d think that Democrats in Congress would jump at the opportunity to impose a constraint on Donald Trump’s presidency – one that liberals and Democrats alike have characterized as authoritarian. Apparently, that’s not the case.

Despite being in the minority, Democrats last week had enough Republican votes on their side to curb the president’s ability, enhanced since 9/11, to spy on citizens and non-citizens alike.

In the House, a majority of Democrats were willing to join a small minority of Republicans to do just that. But 55 Democrats – including the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi; the minority whip, Steny Hoyer; and other Democratic leaders of the opposition to Trump – refused.

After the House voted for an extension of the president’s power to spy, a group of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans attempted to filibuster the bill. The critical 60th vote to shut down the filibuster was a Democrat.

With the exception of Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept, a press that normally expresses great alarm over Trump’s amassing and abuse of power has had relatively little to say about this vote (or this vote or this vote).

This is despite the fact that the surveillance bill gives precisely the sorts of powers viewers of an Academy Award-winning film about the Stasi from not long so ago would instantly recognize … to a president whose view of the media a leading Republican recently compared to Stalin

 

[J Ed]

The bizarre rise and dramatic fall of Louise Mensch and her ‘Blue Detectives’

A year ago, as Donald Trump prepared to take office, a new crop of self-proclaimed investigators burst forth to unspool the Russian conspiracy they claim launched Trump into the White House. Leaning on Twitter as their preferred platform, these voices worked to unwind the Kremlin ties that, in their mind, cost Hillary Clinton the election.

Led by British gadfly Louise Mensch (269,000 followers on Twitter currently) and going by a handful of names and hashtags — including #TeamPatriot — this coterie largely avoided any kind of original reportage, instead opting to try piece together open-source information that they believed journalists elsewhere had overlooked. In the early days of the Trump administration, they were, as BuzzFeed’s Charlie Warzel wrote, a “mooring force” for the anti-Trump “Resistance.” With Mensch’s 2017 op-ed in the New York Times on Russian hacking, this group — which Warzel termed the “Blue Detectives” — appeared ascendant.

A year on, though, the group is in tatters, roundly mocked by experts on Russian-American relations, ignored by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his staff, and barreling quickly toward irrelevance. Where these “Blue Detectives” once looked like they may unearth some kind of smoking gun linking Trump and the Kremlin — or could at least help fill in certain missing pieces of the puzzle — they are now as derided, and derisive, as their earliest critics pegged them. They have become, as Deadspin noted, “the InfoWars of the left.”

At the outset of the Trump presidency, this crew looked like it might have something to add to the conversation: on national security, on America’s degraded democracy. But one year later, they look little better than their target in the White House — especially when it come to peddling the conspiracy theories that provide comfort to both ends of the political spectrum.

“There is always a market for conspiracy theories, and social media reduces the barrier to entry for people who want to peddle them to near zero,” Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and author of The Death of Expertise, told ThinkProgress. “Twitter, especially, is amenable to this, because you can mimic expertise in short bursts, and pretend to know things you could not possibly know, in a way you would never be able to sustain — or that would reveal the utter ludicrousness of your argument — if you had to make your points at greater lengths in a coherent, single article.”

 

[Dogsauce]

It says something about the fuckedupness of the American political spectrum that Mensch can be considered as being 'on the left'.

 

[coley]

He's very highly educated. He knows words. He has the best words.

Aye, like bigly, and huuugggge, honestly, anybody with a basic education, such as mesel, can read the transcripts of his various meetings and absolutely shudder at his lack of education and basic comprehension skills, at all levels.
The bloke is, without doubt, a total narcissistic arsehole, but a useful arsehole,when it comes to diverting the last remnants of the wealth of the USA into the pockets of the actual 'US aristocracy, the Koch brothers, the Mercers...etc
Stupid sod doesn't realise he and his family will be 'hoyed into the wilderness' now the tea party has its tax cuts put into law.
Once these new tax regimes are 'cemented into law' then look at how, in the coming months the GOP will seek to undermine TTT, he's served his purpose now he's due to be replaced by a more 'Media friendly face'.

 

[teqniq]

It says something about the fuckedupness of the American political spectrum that Mensch can be considered as being 'on the left'.

I had to reread that bit a couple of times just to see if I had misunderstood it.

 

[RD2003]

Once these new tax regimes are 'cemented into law' then look at how, in the coming months the GOP will seek to undermine TTT, he's served his purpose now he's due to be replaced by a more 'Media friendly face'.

Bet this doesn't happen.

 

[RD2003]

I had to reread that bit a couple of times just to see if I had misunderstood it.

It isn't just in America where left and right are now, in mainstream media eyes, and hence those of much of the public, 'poliical correctness'/identity politics etc etc versus some notion of 'plain speaking reality.' In this view, Mensch is indeed part of the left.

And it is the fault of the left-both liberal and radical.

 

[krtek a houby]

Little off tangent but it seems US mainstream politics haven't changed an awful lot. I'm reading another Greil Marcus book and this bit (written after the murder of Lennon) jumped out at me

 

[CRI]

Go Tammy! Senator for Illinois, so something to be proud of about the state. Durbin is the other, so not bad.

Iraq War vet Tammy Duckworth nails Trump: I will not be lectured by a draft dodger

Cadet Bone Spurs

 

[SpookyFrank]

This government shutdown thing is incredibly childish. The poliitical equivalent of taking your ball home.

This isn't a comment on Trump in particular, just the entire American political system which is too stupid to even be funny.

 

[CRI]

Fuckin hell!

Trump administration's immigrant-crime hotline releases victims' personal information

The same week the Trump administration opened a hotline last April to support victims of crimes by immigrants, Elena Maria Lopez called to report a complaint against her ex-husband.

For the next 20 minutes, Lopez provided a detailed account, accusing the Dutch immigrant of marrying her to get a green card and then threatening to harm her if she contacted immigration officials.

Not only did Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that operates the hotline, decline to take action, but immigration authorities also released much of the private information she provided. This includes a confidential internet phone number she fears will now make it easier for anyone to locate her in New Jersey, where she has a protected address set up for domestic-violence victims.

Lopez is one of hundreds of people whose private information was inappropriately released by ICE when the agency posted call logs to the hotline on its website, a clear violation of the agency's own policies against divulging private information, as well as privacy laws intended to protect individuals who provide sensitive information to the government.

 

[CRI]

This government shutdown thing is incredibly childish. The poliitical equivalent of taking your ball home.

This isn't a comment on Trump in particular, just the entire American political system which is too stupid to even be funny.

Want to talk about childish?

White House voicemail accuses Dems of holding funding 'hostage'

"Thank you for calling the White House,” a woman says in the recorded message.

“Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate.

“Due to this obstruction, the government is shut down,” she continues.

“In the meantime, you can leave a comment for the President at www.whitehouse.gov/contact. We look forward to taking your calls as soon as the government re-opens.”

Edit - Although Democrat Senators rejected the poison chalice of a bill they were expected to agree, they tried to push through a bill that would at least pay the military during the shut down. GOP said no.

Congress barrels into shutdown without protecting military pay

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., proposed fast-tracking a bill on the Senate floor after a midnight budget deadline Friday that would have ensured paychecks continued. But the move was opposed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., leaving the military and hundreds of thousands of civilian workers hanging.

 

[CRI]

 

[Archimage]

Seems about right. He plans to shut down the government until he gets his wall.
Make No Mistake, Trump's Government Shutdown Is About Racism | HuffPost

 

[vanya]

Neoliberalism paves the way for demagogues like Trump.

Democracies will fail if they don’t deal with the fallout of globalisation | Editorial

The rich, as F Scott Fitzgerald noted, “are different from you and me”. Their wealth, he wrote, makes them “cynical where we are trustful” and their affluence makes them think they are “better than we are”. These words ring truest among the billionaires and corporate executives flocking to the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week. The highs recorded by stockmarkets, the tremendous monopoly power of tech titans and spikes in commodity prices reassure the rich cosmocratic class that they have weathered the storm of the financial crisis. The moguls can talk safely about inequality and poverty. But they will do little about it because they do not think their best interests are aligned with citizens. This is a mistake of historic proportions.

Since 2015, Oxfam calculates, the richest 1% have owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. The very wealthy think they no longer share a common fate with the poor. Whatever the warm words at Davos, no company bosses will put their hands up to the fact they play one country against another in order to avoid taxes; no firm will be honest about their attempts to stymie trade unions or about how they lobby against government regulation on labour, environment or privacy that tilts the balance of power away from them and towards the public. The largest western corporations and banks now roam the globe freely. As memories of the financial crisis recede, they are going back to the myth that they are no longer dependent on national publics or governments. Lobbyists for the corporate world claim that markets are on autopilot, that government is a nuisance best avoided.

In fact, government provides the investment, infrastructure and investment that private enterprise needs. Government patrols property rights, giving inventors monopoly profits. When a crisis strikes, it is home governments that come to rescue of big business. Sir Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, aptly remarked that “global banks are international in life but national in death”. When governments have stepped in, whether through bailouts or quantitative easing, it has generally further enriched the rich rather than the toiling classes. These matters are determined by policy choices. From afar it seems that the rules have been written to redistribute income upward. Those rules can be re-written, and it’s clear the world needs new progressive ideas. But Donald Trump is not going to provide them. The US president’s first year has been unremittingly disgraceful, demeaning him as well as the dignity of his office. Mr Trump made his fortune as a real estate magnate. He should be at home with the super-elite of Davos. Yet Mr Trump will turn up this week as a bomb-tossing outsider.

It is time to acknowledge that the current mode of trade globalisation opened the door to demagogues like Mr Trump. Globalisers damaged their own cause by failing to understand that competition for jobs from countries with lower labour, environmental and human rights standards was of valid public concern – and hence put no remedies in place. Businesses wanted, and want, to exploit these differences for profit. Politicians should not have obliged them without addressing the distributional consequences of trade with welfare spending, worker engagement and educational support. In the absence of such measures and concerted international action on social dumping, populism will spread – aided by elite selfishness, introspection and its capture of the political process.

As Branko Milan, an expert on inequality, wrote of Davos’ attendees, they “are loath to pay a living wage, but they will fund a philharmonic orchestra. They will ban unions, but they will organise a workshop on transparency in government.” The political and economic crisis requires the balance to be restored between the nation-state and an open global economy. The rich need to drop the idea that they are a class apart and take a broader interest in society. Otherwise, growing inequality will see more people living in fear and fewer in hope. That would be a disaster for democracy and see Trumpism become a permanent feature of the political landscape.

 

[Archimage]

Deutsche Bank is willing to report Jared Kushner’s "suspicious transactions" to Robert Mueller, report says

A German bank reportedly has evidence of “suspicious transactions” related to Jared Kushner’s family accounts and is willing to hand the information over to Russia probe special counsel Robert Mueller.

After spending a hard day laundering money, it's Mueller Time!
As Hunter S. Thompson once said, follow the money.

 

[bemused]

Am I alone in thinking he'll win again in three years? It just seems predictable in the silly shit World we inhabit.

 

[gosub]

Am I alone in thinking he'll win again in three years? It just seems predictable in the silly shit World we inhabit.

Depends on the stock market