What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[NoXion]

Yup, someone needs to do one of those "who said it?" things and you have to guess whether it was someone from the left or the right.

It's funny that you come out with shit like this when bitter liberal types routinely spout anti-democratic rhetoric whenever they don't get their way. Don't try to tell us that there wasn't a rash of people proposing tests in order to vote following Trump and Brexit.

 

[CRI]

On The Hill Poll: 73 percent of Democrats would give up drinking for Trump impeachment

This is going too far.

Ha ha - my guess is there are more Republican than Democrat tee totallers, given so many fundie Christian churches frown on alcohol.

*But, Jesus didn't REALLY turn the water into wine. It was grape juice.*

 

[Nylock]

Yup, someone needs to do one of those "who said it?" things and you have to guess whether it was someone from the left or the right.

Yeah, right, because 'what do they stand for?' is too obvious a test...

 

[CRI]

Yeah, right, because 'what do they stand for?' is too obvious a test...

In the rarefied world of people who head wank over political ideology till the cows come home, sure.

But, do you really think folks being deported by ICE, losing health cover, facing famine due to climate change, etc. really feel so much better about their plight knowing some who refused to vote for Democrats, even as the "lesser of two evils", did so because they just couldn't bear to compromise their precious ideology?

Not a God botherer, but I think this bit from Matthew 7:16 applies. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

 

[Combustible]

Not a God botherer, but I think this bit from Matthew 7:16 applies. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

You are right, look at what fruits the Democrats have borne.

 

[CrabbedOne]

There were so many layers of "wrong " in that exchange, it's hard to know where to start.

Yet Trump fans and apologists are taking to social media with the, "Why can't women just take a compliment" garbage. Of course they are.

He seemed to be enjoying himself (literally) in Paris. I'd cut him some slack, he's a typical 71 year old putz dealing with a much younger women and probably ineptly fishing for complements from younger people.

This is the unfiltered Trump trying to be courtly. He's just not good at choosing his words and habitually overuses superlatives. Trump's big mouth runs ahead of his brain. He's prone to blurt things out. It's not put on. He's just not as articulate and calculating as he was at Macron's age. Trump's not senile but a genuinely very bright man with slowing faculties as often happens.

He did a gentler version of one of his awkward handshake with her later after the usual French faire la bise while Macron was all over the his beaming Missus. I'm not sure what that means. Trump appears to be treating her as has male foreign leaders. He may be more comfortable dealing with touchy feely Arab Princes than the French.

 

[DotCommunist]

feel so much better about their plight knowing some who refused to vote for Democrats, even as the "lesser of two evils", did so because they just couldn't bear to compromise their precious ideology?

so abstainers, people who previously voted obama but then turned racist somehow, in conjuntion with the political purists. Wait no, political purist recent-converts to racism stayed home while the russians and voter suppression did the rest. Oh wait, the new racist political purists- they didn't vote hillary cos they hate women as well.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

This is oddly great

 

[CRI]

He seemed to be enjoying himself (literally) in Paris. I'd cut him some slack, he's a typical 71 year old putz dealing with a much younger women and probably ineptly fishing for complements from younger people.

This is the unfiltered Trump trying to be courtly. He's just not good at choosing his words and habitually overuses superlatives. Trump's big mouth runs ahead of his brain. He's prone to blurt things out. It's not put on. He's just not as articulate and calculating as he was at Macron's age. Trump's not senile but a genuinely very bright man with slowing faculties as often happens.

He did a gentler version of one of his awkward handshake with her later after the usual French faire la bise while Macron was all over the his beaming Missus. I'm not sure what that means. Trump appears to be treating her as has male foreign leaders. He may be more comfortable dealing with touchy feely Arab Princes than the French.

I can't cut the guy any slack. If he were just a Parish councillor wheeled out for a ribbon cutting, I might. I find it frightening just how much slack he gets cut, even by those who oppose his policies, let alone the media and his fans. He didn't know how hard the job would be. He's new at this. He didn't mean any harm. He's from a different generation. Whatever the baloney, it's still baloney.

 

[Supine]

Excerpts From Trump’s Conversation With Journalists on Air Force One

I suspect repeated examples of Trump's utter lack of ability or capacity to even vaguely do the job have numbed many into resigned acceptance, though plenty still searching desperately for tiny nuggets that might just signal normality. However, this piece is something to behold - so crap the journalists assumed it was off the record, but published when the President chided them for not doing so.

That really is special. The Mexican wall will be solar panelled AND see through! Healthcare is the only thing in the world more complicated than the issue of Israel/Palestine.

10/10 dumbass points

 

[ViolentPanda]

If in doubt play the 'fascism is on the way' card.

To be scrupulously fair, one should ALWAYS assume, in the time of neoliberalism, that fascism could be on the way.

 

[8den]

Proposal: we're going to need a "what stupid shit has Trump Jnr done today" thread.


Forgot to mention that the other person in his meeting was a former soviet counter intelligence agent with ties to Putin.

Former Soviet counter intelligence officer at meeting With Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer

 

[chandlerp]

Who knew being a bellend could be so easy?

 

[CRI]

That really is special. The Mexican wall will be solar panelled AND see through! Healthcare is the only thing in the world more complicated than the issue of Israel/Palestine.

10/10 dumbass points

Woe betide anyone getting hit on the head by a 60 pound bag of drugs thrown over the wall from Mexico. Need to see it coming!

 

[CRI]

Proposal: we're going to need a "what stupid shit has Trump Jnr done today" thread.


Forgot to mention that the other person in his meeting was a former soviet counter intelligence agent with ties to Putin.

Former Soviet counter intelligence officer at meeting With Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer

Oh, I'm sure they were only there for the free tea and biscuits.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Bloomberg Here’s the White House’s Transcript of What Trump Told Reporters Off the Record

...
THE PRESIDENT: Don is -- as many of you know Don -- he’s a good boy. He’s a good kid. And he had a meeting, nothing happened with the meeting. It was a short meeting as he told me -- because I only heard about it two or three days ago.

As he told me, the meeting went -- and it was attended by a couple of other people who -- one of them left after a few minutes -- which is Jared. The other one was playing with his iPhone. Don listened, out of politeness, and realized it wasn’t . . . .

Honestly, in a world of politics, most people are going to take that meeting. If somebody called and said, hey -- and you’re a Democrat -- and by the way, they have taken them -- hey, I have really some information on Donald Trump. You’re running against Donald Trump. Can I see you? I mean, how many people are not going to take the meeting?
...

Each of those pauses may well be a tell that he's lying. That would be a pretty low rate of falsehood by Trump's standards but let's take him at his word.

Now assuming no prior brush past and something isn't already going on anyone with their wits about them would suspect a hostile foreign power might have been engaged in fishing here. Judging if it's worth running a scam against some mugs that are easily lured into meeting them. That first sniff at the marks. It could even have been an elaborate FBI national security sting directed by Obama. Attending this meeting is unwise to start with but Team Trump does not seem to get that. They're less suspicious of what claims to be a Russian government contact than they would be of someone working for Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush. Trump still doesn't even see the difference.

They come out of the water like a fat brown trout after a shiny thing. Poppy claims, probably unwisely covering his arse, not to have been consulted. Team Trump then sends three key guys only one of whom pays attention. Of these three Manafort is the one who probably best understands how pervasive and tricksy Russian intelligence can be. If they wanted to risk it Manafort and some disposable underling alone would do. Kushner has to duck out and Manafort plays with his iPhone his guard is down. Was it quickly obvious the goods were not there? We don't really know if ended there as team Trump has sat on things unwisely in the past. Then the three amigos don't even tell poppy who subsequently blurts out that Russian intelligence should hack away. He acts rather like a disappointed man. He tends to bluster defensively about Putin. Then someone subsequently leaks this seemingly interested in damaging Don Jnr or spinning away blame from Kushner. They don't suspect 3rd parties and are staging a West Wing witch hunt.

If this meeting wasn't commissioned by Putin but by part of his wealthy circle he likely got wind of it long ago. This is a bunch of eager to collude rubes demonstrating the fact. Up until his election Trump was perceived as having a slim chance of capturing the Whitehouse but a good one of being part of a destabilising opposition to an expected Clinton Presidency. Wanting to immobilise a hostile US executive is far more likely to have the basis for any Russian interest in Team Trump than them implausibly swinging the US election in which he was a long shot. That idea might be more bait of course. What we have here is the old KGB's favourite foreign demographic: useful idiots. That in itself is valuable input for future operations and would buy favour.

Now this reckons the leak was sourced from West Wing "advisors". Were they trying to get ahead of something? Funny bit of timing this leaking out just after Trump offers Putin tribute in Hamburg and not from "Deep State" sources. Is somebody turning the screws? Even if not Putin will be laughing his tiny silken socks off.

 

[CRI]

Yup.




Link to article.

 

[Nylock]

In the rarefied world of people who head wank over political ideology till the cows come home, sure.

But, do you really think folks being deported by ICE, losing health cover, facing famine due to climate change, etc. really feel so much better about their plight knowing some who refused to vote for Democrats, even as the "lesser of two evils", did so because they just couldn't bear to compromise their precious ideology?

Not a God botherer, but I think this bit from Matthew 7:16 applies. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

Your apparent support of horseshoe theory by stating "Yup, someone needs to do one of those "who said it?" things and you have to guess whether it was someone from the left or the right" is counterproductive. I don't have time to address this in full right now but that's what I was objecting to.

Whether you like it or not, you also have an ideology so all this guff about "people who headwank over political ideology" is somewhat disingenuous. Demonising people who could not bring themselves to vote for either candidate for reasons that go beyond mere ideology (and the overwhelming majority likely refused to vote on more than just ideology) is a pretty illiberal stance for an apparent liberal.

Damning voters who did not vote solely on the supposition of their perceived ideological purity is to deny them any agency and is a pretty simplistic and supercilious view of a much more complex picture.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Woe betide anyone getting hit on the head by a 60 pound bag of drugs thrown over the wall from Mexico. Need to see it coming!

I was thinking that's either some strong Mexican or some low wall but:

On Wired LET’S TALK ABOUT TRUMP, BORDER WALLS, AND FLYING HEROIN

...
Death From Above

The scenario seems unlikely.

Again, chainlink fences typically already make up parts of the wall centered in more heavily patrolled urban areas—not ideal locales for chucking illicit cargo.

“Whenever cartels try to move drugs across the border, they’re going to try to do that in as remote an area as they possibly can,” says Eddington.

Would a transparent wall, then, help avoid plummeting heroin bags further afield, should someone be walking the unpopulated stretches of the US-Mexico border?

“When you’re talking about remote locations, cartels utilize other technologies. They utilize drug catapults and trebuchets,” says Behlendorf. (In case you haven't taken French combat history in a while, trebuchets are big swinging "siege engines" that usually lob firearms.) "They’re launching drugs not five feet from the wall, or 10 feet from the wall, where a transparent wall would help. They’re launching it 100 feet over the all, 150 feet over the wall. No amount of transparency is going to help you in that context.”

Trump pledged a border wall throughout his campaign; that he has pursued it aggressively comes as no surprise. One would think, though, that he would at least understand what he considers its marquee features–as crazy as that sounds.

Turns out a transparent wall is good for border surveillance but as usual Trump has got the wrong end of the stick why.

Wired points out Trump's concept seems to owe something to a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Trump's policies choices are rather reminiscent of ACME's greatest customer devilishly self harming ingenuity.

 

[CRI]

Your apparent support of horseshoe theory by stating "Yup, someone needs to do one of those "who said it?" things and you have to guess whether it was someone from the left or the right" is counterproductive. I don't have time to address this in full right now but that's what I was objecting to.

Whether you like it or not, you also have an ideology so all this guff about "people who headwank over political ideology" is somewhat disingenuous. Demonising people who could not bring themselves to vote for either candidate for reasons that go beyond mere ideology (and the overwhelming majority likely refused to vote on more than just ideology) is a pretty illiberal stance for an apparent liberal.

Damning voters who did not vote solely on the supposition of their perceived ideological purity is to deny them any agency and is a pretty simplistic and supercilious view of a much more complex picture.

Well, it's quite a privilege to be able to vote "with your conscience," without the worry that if the wrong people get in, your relatives will be deported, you'll lose the health care that keeps you alive, your child won't get enough to eat, the cops will be even more empowered to harass or even kill you with impunity, etc.

 

[camouflage]

Your apparent support of horseshoe theory by stating "Yup, someone needs to do one of those "who said it?" things and you have to guess whether it was someone from the left or the right" is counterproductive. I don't have time to address this in full right now but that's what I was objecting to.

Whether you like it or not, you also have an ideology so all this guff about "people who headwank over political ideology" is somewhat disingenuous. Demonising people who could not bring themselves to vote for either candidate for reasons that go beyond mere ideology (and the overwhelming majority likely refused to vote on more than just ideology) is a pretty illiberal stance for an apparent liberal.

Damning voters who did not vote solely on the supposition of their perceived ideological purity is to deny them any agency and is a pretty simplistic and supercilious view of a much more complex picture.

Pretty much sums up CRI and the NYT faction in a nutshell in my humble opinion. ill liberal.

 

[CRI]

House to vote on controversial study of Islam

The House is set to vote Friday on a controversial GOP proposal identifying “Islamic religious doctrines, concepts or schools of thought” that could be used by terrorist groups — something opponents say is unconstitutional and will lead to the targeting of Muslims. The amendment, drafted by conservative Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), also calls for the Pentagon to identify Islamic leaders who preach peaceful beliefs versus those who espouse extremist views.

Appears it's been rejected, but the fact it came up at all is worrying.

 

[camouflage]

House to vote on controversial study of Islam



Appears it's been rejected, but the fact it came up at all is worrying.

Pretty rich considering Wahhab-Central remains the staunch billion-dollar arms ally of the United States. I've as much respect for Islam as I have for the religions of Christianity and Judaism (none) but to be fair to Islam it's Wahhabiism specifically that's the problem really. Even "7th Century was best Century" Salafiism is said to be a lot less dangerously nuts.

As Goebbels said of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia even before 1971 (the year the petro-dollar got invented) "The Third Reich Wahhab style".

 

[ohmyliver]

Daily Beast are reporting that Akhmetshin who revealed today that he was also at the meeting, despite Donald Jr's seemingly forgetting to mention this, was accused of organising Russian hackers to breach IMR's systems a couple of years ago.

"A New York law firm paid Akhmetshin $140,000, including expenses, to organize a public-relations campaign targeting IMR. Shortly after he began that work, IMR suffered a sophisticated and systematic breach of its computers, and gigabytes of data allegedly stolen in the breach wound up the hands of journalists and human-rights groups critical of the mining company. IMR accused Akhmetshin of paying Russian hackers to carry out the attack.

IMR went so far as to hire a private investigator to follow Akhmetshin on a trip to London. That private eye, Akis Phanartzis, wrote in a sworn declaration to the court that he eavesdropped on Akhmetshin in a London coffee shop and heard Akhmetshin boast that “he organized the hacking of IMR’s computer systems” on behalf of Melinchenko’s fertilizer producer Eurochem. “Mr. Akhmetshin [noted] that he was hired because there were certain things that the law firm could not do,” Phanartzis said."

Interesting because the meeting happened just before Trump's calling for Russia to get the missing 30,000 emails.

Trump Team Met Russian Accused of International Hacking Conspiracy

 

[maomao]

Well, it's quite a privilege to be able to vote "with your conscience," without the worry that if the wrong people get in, your relatives will be deported, you'll lose the health care that keeps you alive, your child won't get enough to eat, the cops will be even more empowered to harass or even kill you with impunity, etc.

I'm sure all the dead children murdered by Hillary's bombs are devastated.

 

[TomUS]

And TomUS there have been plenty of explanations on this board, including entire threads, on what the word liberal has meant to the British left for the past century or two. If you're going to try and converse with people from another country I'd suggest you familiarise yourself with their language before suggesting that they're all nazis.

I didn't call anyone a Nazi. This thread is about a right wing American president and his party and thus about American politics. So, perhaps you could understand my confusion when I hear leftists going into a hate frenzy at the word liberal, just like the American right does.

I don't recall any explanations on this board on what the word liberal has meant to the British left. Care to summarize?

 

[maomao]

I didn't call anyone a Nazi. This thread is about a right wing American president and his party and thus about American politics. So, perhaps you could understand my confusion when I hear leftists going into a hate frenzy at the word liberal, just like the American right does.

I don't recall any explanations on this board on what the word liberal has meant to the British left. Care to summarize?

Sneering references to horseshoe theory is exactly the same as calling people nazis. There's no difference at all.

Search for a thread started by bimble with the word liberal in the title. I'm too much of an old codger to copy and paste a url from my phone on a train.

 

[RD2003]

I didn't call anyone a Nazi. This thread is about a right wing American president and his party and thus about American politics. So, perhaps you could understand my confusion when I hear leftists going into a hate frenzy at the word liberal, just like the American right does.

I don't recall any explanations on this board on what the word liberal has meant to the British left. Care to summarize?

Right and left can sometimes see the same problems, but so what? Doesn't mean they propose the same answers.

 

[RD2003]

Yup.

View attachment 111325


Link to article.

Trump's base only began to shrug when it began to seem that Putin favoured their chosen candidate, and only then did they look at what he stands for (in reality whatever serves his project of reconstructing a strong, stable and somehow unique Russia-there is no substantial ideology behind any of this, only what serves, however temporarily, the project.)

Before that it seems they had him down as just another communist, either because he was former KGB, or because every portrayed enemy of the US is, in the eyes of the thinkers they listen to, somehow a communist.