A new US Republican thread 2016

[fohat]

It is turning out far worse than any of us could have imagined in our nightmares.

Jimmy Carter's assessment a year ago that Trump might be less dangerous because he is "malleable" since he lacks any preconceived ideology turned out to be conceptually accurate but unfortunately it went the other way.

True, he has no moral or intellectual compass, but his malleability, in the hands of his horrific inner circle of hateful evil robber barons, makes him a true global terrorist in the most profound sense of the word. I fear that when the dust settles, Donald Trump may be proven to have done more damage to the US than any other single person in its entire history.

[seebart]

It is turning out far worse than any of us could have imagined in our nightmares.

Jimmy Carter's assessment a year ago that Trump might be less dangerous because he is "malleable" since he lacks any preconceived ideology turned out to be conceptually accurate but unfortunately it went the other way.

True, he has no moral or intellectual compass, but his malleability, in the hands of his horrific inner circle of hateful evil robber barons, makes him a true global terrorist in the most profound sense of the word. I fear that when the dust settles, Donald Trump may be proven to have done more damage to the US than any other single person in its entire history.

Yes the longer he is in office the more I will agree with this, remember we only just had his real first on sight presentation here in the EU which was quite a embarrassing / disturbing show. He seems unworldly and very stubborn but of course this man is not a politician but rather an abnormal businessman. There was some remote hope before this G7 summit which has now vanished completely promting Merkel for these direct words which she usually minds and won't make any difference anyway. On a fun side note I'm quite impressed with his wife, refusing to hold his hands on three occasions in front of the cameras and physically kissing (!) sick children in some hospital. Of course she's European herself, I wonder how comprehensive her premarital legal agreements are and if those state anything about holding his hands in public. Trumps next visit to the EU will be to my hometown for the G20 in July, bound to be another fun show.

[jacobolus]

The White House is giving up on even pretending to “drain the swamp” anymore. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/3 ... ics-239011

[vivalarevolución]

Y'all ain't taking the right attitude. Ride the bomb as the world ends, just like Maj. T.J. 'King' Kong!

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[Lord_Molvin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_LpaThE9Rs&t=247s

[seebart]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_LpaThE9Rs&t=247s

I think you have a fun new participant here jacobolus.

Seems the Mexicans are getting creative:

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consume ... nt-n766846

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[jacobolus]

Krugman pretty much has it right here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opin ... ccord.html

...Why, then, are so many people on the right determined to block climate action, and even trying to sabotage the progress we’ve been making on new energy sources?

... As I said, however, these days the fight against climate action is largely driven by sheer spite.

Pay any attention to modern right-wing discourse — including op-ed articles by top Trump officials — and you find deep hostility to any notion that some problems require collective action beyond shooting people and blowing things up.

Beyond this, much of today’s right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they’re against it. If liberals hate it, it’s good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with extra bonus points for undermining anything associated with President Barack Obama.

And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. Need I say more?

In short: Modern US Republicans – elected representatives, party leaders, pundits, think tankers, voters – pick their policy preferences like uncontrollable spoiled children. They don’t have the attention span, basic knowledge, or critical thinking skill to come to their own considered opinions, and so have chosen to just do the opposite of whatever experts tell them on every issue, out of spite.

When their parents say to eat their vegetables, they throw the plate at the wall and piss on the rug.

[fohat]

Elimination of financial regulation and taxation on wealth are the sole operative components driving all of this mess.

Ensuring the election of a cadre of legislators who would deliver a state of affairs conducive to this aspiration has been the prime directive of a concerted and focused effort by that small group who stand to profit from it for decades, and they have finally found themselves in a perfect storm of power and corruption where they can make it happen.

Since no rational and honorable person could accept such a perverse and destructive environment if he saw it clearly, the only way that it could have been accomplished was through obfuscation, redirection, and emotion. Whatever else happened along the way was collateral damage and is insignificant.

Free energy coming out of the sky, waiting to be harvested? Don't believe it. God doesn't work like that.

Stay focused on which bathroom gay people are using and ensuring that college students can bring their guns to class.

[davkol]

Jared Kushner 'admitted Donald Trump lies to his base because he thinks they're stupid'

“When I was the editor of the New York Observer, Kushner and I were going back and forth about how the paper should cover him,” Elizabeth Spiers wrote in a post on Twitter.

“I told Jared that I was particularly appalled by his father-in-law’s birtherism stance, which I viewed as cynical and racist.

“He rolled his eyes and said ‘He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it’”.

[Mr.Nobody]

How could a 70-year-old President act like a 7-year-old boy...

Shove Putin President Trump if you dare, he will beat the shit outta you on the spot I guess, so if you have to bully someone to show the importance and power, pick the one of your own size.

[jacobolus]

Trump apparently used donations to a child cancer charity as a money laundering scheme (or possibly just stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, it’s not exactly clear).

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -for-trump

Luckily the NY AG is on the case, and if there’s any karma these assholes will get nailed sooner or later.

[jacobolus]

House candidate Karen Handel of Georgia: “I do not support a livable wage.”

While we’re at it, Eric Trump: “To me, they’re [Democrats are] not even people. It’s so, so sad. Morality’s just gone, morals have flown out the window and we deserve so much better than this as a country."

[jacobolus]

What an asshole:

“We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times,” Mr. Trump wrote. “We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.”

[davkol]

[jacobolus]

Dana Rohrabacher (R, CA) takes it further, literally saying that the ISIS terror attack killing innocent Iranian civilians in Tehran is a “good thing”:

We have recently seen an attack on Iran, and the Iranian government, the mullahs, believe that Sunni forces have attacked them. This may signal a ratcheting up of certain commitments by the United States of America. As far as I’m concerned, I just want to make this point and see what you think, isn’t it a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us? Isn’t that a good thing? And if so, maybe this is a Trump — maybe it’s a Trump strategy of actually supporting one group against another, considering that you have two terrorist organizations.

Your Republican Party everyone: “we love terrorism as long as the people dying are brown”.

[jacobolus]

GOP: party of waste, graft, and abuse. Now Trump is trying to go after the (independent, non-partisan) inspectors general within executive agencies. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/opin ... ctors.html

[seebart]

While you're posting here somewhat treadmill-style jacobolus and that's fine I do think the main story now is Robert Muellers investigation into obstruction of justice amongst other things. From what I understand this could get very uncomfortable for Trump and act as the one catalyst to possible impeachment. Your thoughts on that please?

[fohat]

I am not Jacobolus, but the problem is that the Republicans have now secured ironclad control of all 3 branches of government.

As long as none of them break ranks, there will be no consequences for anything that any of them do. Nixon's actions were at least 2 orders of magnitude less significant and less damaging to the public than what the current administration is doing, but he did not have the unquestioning loyalty of all his minions. In fact, Nixon's lies and crimes were intrinsically all but meaningless in the larger scheme of things, while the current offenses are staggering in their breadth, depth, and scope.

Our system of government had an array of defenses of the minority against the oppression of the majority, but today they are being swept under the rug or ignored altogether. Since the Justice Department is technically a part of the Executive Branch, the President could conceivably, and legally, fire any and all persons who brought suits or investigations against him or his assistants.

[jacobolus]

We’re hurtling towards a constitutional crisis. There are now 3 emoluments clause lawsuits. The Mueller investigation is looking into everyone in Trump’s orbit. It seems likely that Trump’s organization has been involved for decades in large-scale money laundering schemes, saving his business from bankruptcy when legitimate banks stopped lending him money by helping the Russian mob and various others of Putin’s buddies. State-sponsored Russian hackers are attacking everything they can, including election infrastructure and voter information in every state. Etc. To prevent the investigation, Trump seems poised to fire Mueller and possibly also Rosenstein. Would the House GOP do anything about it? That’s anyone’s guess.

In the Congress, the GOP is working overdrive to figure out a way to strip healthcare from tens of millions of citizens, so they can return a modest rebate to the super-wealthy.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the sadistic and heartless GOP legislature and governor are doing their best to make life as horrible as possible for gay and transgendered children: https://thinkprogress.org/texas-governo ... 9cf6b94ec0

[vivalarevolución]

Everybody just needs to relax and check out Chelsea Manning's twitter feed: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/chel ... e-internet

[fohat]

So, I live in the 6th Congressional District of Georgia, and we are having a special election runoff next Tuesday to elect a replacement for Tom Price, one of Trump's big fluffers.

I received this card in the mail today, and it has me flummoxed.

Is the "Trump Survival Kit" message intended to say that this is a kit to help Trump survive, or a kit to help the people survive Trump? Either option seems equally plausible.

[jacobolus]

GOP education department: we should look the other way about campus rape and systemic racism at schools https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/p ... devos.html

[seebart]

We’re hurtling towards a constitutional crisis. There are now 3 emoluments clause lawsuits. The Mueller investigation is looking into everyone in Trump’s orbit. It seems likely that Trump’s organization has been involved for decades in large-scale money laundering schemes, saving his business from bankruptcy when legitimate banks stopped lending him money by helping the Russian mob and various others of Putin’s buddies. State-sponsored Russian hackers are attacking everything they can, including election infrastructure and voter information in every state. Etc. To prevent the investigation, Trump seems poised to fire Mueller and possibly also Rosenstein. Would the House GOP do anything about it? That’s anyone’s guess.

So aside from the unfavourable picture what kind of effect would the firing of current investigator Mueller have if any? The FBI isn't just going to drop this investigation are they?

[fohat]

The FBI isn't just going to drop this investigation are they?

All previous politicians have appreciated checks and balances, and had an innate understanding of what "obstruction of justice" is and why it is unacceptable. Trump has no such filters and cannot comprehend why he does not have the right of self-defense by any means necessary.

The bare fact of the matter is that the Justice Department is a part of the Executive Branch, and it is within Trump's power to remove and/or fire anyone and everyone, Whack-A-Mole style, up and down the line, who causes him grief.

The one and only check on that behavior would be impeachment by the House of Representatives.

[jacobolus]

If Trump fires Mueller it will put incredible pressure on Republicans in Congress to act (for instance, by re-appointing Mueller to a similar role under Congressional jurisdiction). But if they don’t, it’s not clear whether there’s anyone else who has any authority to do anything about Trump throwing the law out the window, up until the 2018 elections when voters again will have some input.

A big part of the problem with modern US politics is that the Republican Party has chased out many if not most of their responsible and serious officials, and are now entirely dominated by crazytown raving and money from billionaire oil executives. Ideas like allowing research on gun violence or climate change have become anathema, and it’s hard to get them to compromise enough to properly fund basic infrastructure and public services, or hold obvious fraudsters accountable. Elected Republicans spent years entertaining weird conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth certificate, religion, and intentions, and condoning hateful angry rhetoric aimed at women, blacks, Muslims, Mexicans, gay people, etc. Beyond that, they’ve been playing every rule to its limit, breaking most government norms in pushing every angle for personal advantage: so we have had wall-to-wall obstruction and gridlock in Congress, blocked executive appointments, a stolen Supreme Court seat, targeted efforts to prevent Democratic-leaning groups from voting, etc.

When Trump pushes all of those same tendencies and rhetorical strategies a bit further and more brazenly, it’s hard for Republicans to say “well we were okay with X, Y, and Z, but now W is just a bridge too far”. In some sense, Trump is just the natural conclusion of 40 years of GOP politics.

[Mr.Nobody]

Besides Duke Nukem, there is another game using Trump as the original character:

[jacobolus]

[vivalarevolución]

Perhaps you all have heard the news, but there is finally a real presidential scandal. Trump drove his golf cart all over the green. I don't care if you own the course, that's just unacceptable.

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/donald- ... thing-ever

[seebart]

Perhaps you all have heard the news, but there is finally a real presidential scandal. Trump drove his golf cart all over the green. I don't care if you own the course, that's just unacceptable.

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/donald- ... thing-ever

Brilliant, I remember how people railed G.W. Bush and even Obama for spending too much time on the golf course. With Trump that does not seem to be a concern...

[jacobolus]

Traitor party:

We learn that, in August, when the Obama administration quietly approached Capitol Hill to seek bipartisan support from congressional leaders about the growing evidence of Russian involvement, CIA Director John Brennan couldn't even get top Republicans to meet with him. We learn that when a caravan of top U.S national security officials finally sat down with members of Congress, the GOP – led by Senator Mitch McConnell – flatly refused to cooperate. We learn that when Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, contacted people in charge of elections in various states whose election data had been possibly compromised, the Republicans in those states blew him off.

And we learn that Denis McDonough, Obama's chief of staff, toyed with the idea of a bipartisan commission to take on the Russia spy effort, the White House concluded that it would be impossible to get the GOP on board.

For the full story, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... n-hacking/