A new US Republican thread 2016

[fohat]

"Bait and Switch" is pretty much a 3-word synopsis of Trump's entire life.

[fohat]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... 49bbc4e250

And how about this tweet for your Monday morning pick-me-up?


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
7:01 AM - 6 Feb 2017

[jacobolus]

“Any negative polls are fake news” is a pretty good one.

The other big story is that nobody is even bothering to explain the content of the executive orders Trump signs to him (not like he’d read them), and he found out he’d put Bannon onto the Security Council from watching cable news shows http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cass ... -president

He also called the federal judge who ruled against his Muslim ban, a Bush appointee and mainstream conservative, a “so-called judge”, and said it will be the judge’s personal fault if there’s any terrorist attack. Not going to help him out with the judiciary in general, or with establishing credibility of his judicial nominees.

Not to mention, just defended Putin’s record with “There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?"

At the moment the three reasons Republicans keep holding the hot potato is that (a) they think Trump will let them pass a significant portion of their agenda (slashing taxes on the super wealthy, dismantling consumer, environmental and labor protections, etc.), (b) they’re still afraid they’ll lose support from the racists, young-earth creationists, and conspiracy theorists who make up somewhere between a third and half of the party these days, and (c) they’re spineless cowards experiencing extreme cognitive dissonance as they try to rationalize their epic fuckup getting Trump elected.

[XMIT]

My favorite part of this morning's NY Times article was:

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. [...] When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

Sounds really Presidential.

[jacobolus]

My favorite was that nobody in the white house knows how to use the light switches or where the doors lead, so they stumble around in the dark trying doorknobs at random. Pretty good metaphor for their whole governing style.

Edit: “The failing @nytimes writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!”

SNL keeps killing it:

[webwit]

I don't get it. How are those private life minutia in any way interesting or relevant? I couldn't care less how he walks around the house in the evening. Is this about the narrative that he isn't presidential?

[jacobolus]

The point is that he’s a grossly unqualified, entirely incompetent, corrupt old conman with a serious personality disorder, surrounded by a group of aides and advisors most of whom are also either grossly unqualified and/or dangerous people with a scary nihilistic agenda. Their whole organization is flying by the seat of their pants, because they never expected to win, and didn’t do any of the work necessary to prepare. The time since their election has been a steady stream of incompetence and stupidity. Instead of even trying to catch up or learn on the job, he spends his time watching TV, ranting on Twitter, and choosing the decorations for his office.

He’s a man who hasn’t read a book in decades, doesn’t know how anything works, lashes out wildly at anyone who even lightly questions him, has never had a real executive position in a real business without running it into the ground losing tons of money for his creditors, partners, and investors (the last two decades his business has been licensing his name/image and being a reality TV star; basically his competence is self-promotion, branding, intimidating people, refusing to pay money he owes, dodging taxes, and greasing the right palms to escape without consequences), and might have been bribed and/or blackmailed by a hostile foreign government.

“Not presidential” doesn’t even begin to describe the shit we’re all in, collectively, for having elevated this man to leadership.

[jacobolus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... ald-trump/

[jacobolus]

We can also kiss goodbye a fair and open internet. The prospect of further nickel and diming customers and further reducing competition is too for attractive for monopolist telcos. Not to mention the GOP wants to prevent the handful of small telcos with morals from protecting their customers privacy vs. government total surveillance and from targeting by content industries. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/tech ... rules.html

[vivalarevolución]

I was off-the-grid for a week and had a nice break from everything, including politics. Things have certainly have become more interesting in just a week. The Constitution and judiciary have never seemed more important than they do right now.

In the third week of Trumpland, it seems that his idea of being president consists of whining, threatening, lying, and bullying about roadblocks to carry out unconstitutional executive orders (which he doesn't read) and making poorly thought out and lightly researched decisions without concern for the adverse consequences. The intention of these decisions seems to be rallying the more extreme fringes of his supporters, consolidating more executive power, and, as always, gratifying his ego. He's also done a great job of violating the Oath of Office so far, I'll give credit for that ("...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"). Not like any of this should be a surprise if you paid attention to his campaign. What you see is what you get, don't look much further than that when it comes to Trump. The real worry is what trickery the empowered string pullers in the background, like Steve Bannon and the Republican Congress, are trying to pull, because they create the stuff that he just signs without reading.

In lighter news, it appears many are relieved and that Lady Gaga decided to stray away from overtly political messages during the Super Bowl halftime show, because apparently having too deal with a celebrity's or athlete's political opinion is just too difficult for many football fans and Americans. Oh, except that she chose to sing the LGBT anthem "Born This Way" with renown gay-hater Vice President Mike Pence in attendance and sang "This Land is Your Land" right after "God Bless America". Perhaps you might recall that Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land is Your Land" as a protest song to the overly romantic, idealistic, and patriotic "God Bless America". And just for fun, I'm going to suggest that "Bad Romance" is a shout out to Trump's insatiable ego. Intentionally subversive song choice? Maybe. Conspiracy theories come from the top these days in America, so I'll indulge in my own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... 9b25e16acb

[fohat]

Perhaps you might recall that Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land is Your Land" as a protest song

And we must not forget this McCarthy-era ditty:

http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Old_Man_Trump.htm

[vivalarevolución]

Perhaps you might recall that Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land is Your Land" as a protest song

And we must not forget this McCarthy-era ditty:

http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Old_Man_Trump.htm

The artists and musicians need to shut up and listen, just like the media!

[jacobolus]

Confirmation of DeVos tells you everything you need to know about the GOP White House and Senate. Despite historic levels of public opposition in every state, with effectively unanimous disapproval from teachers, school administrators, parents of kids in public schools, etc., the GOP picked the unqualified, incompetent, and corrupt billionaire GOP donor over the future of American children.

2012 platform of the Republican Party of Texas:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Now they can take the “keep your children stupid and obedient” plan nationwide.

[vivalarevolución]

DeVos is the perfect choice for an Education Secretary in this cabinet, because Trump and his cronies have a grip on facts as if they were educated in a school run by DeVos.

So apparently the urgent need for the travel ban is because the ban an important national safety matter. A find it odd for the ban to be so urgent, because every time some American citizen nutjob shoots up dozens of people, I don't hear the GOP talk about an urgent need for stricter gun control so we can take measures to make it more difficult for American citizen nutjobs to buy a bunch of guns and ammo.

The strategy of blaming the media, judiciary, Democrats, intelligence community, and whoever else is a setup for when we have another mass shooting or terrorist attack so they can attempt to clamp down on groups and institutions that don't fit the agenda and power grabs of the administration and GOP. Just watch it unfold when it happens.

Last but certainly not least, this recent boggle of a raid in Yemen was entirely unfortunate and predictable. Now Trump has joined the long tradition of US presidents being responsible for the death of soldiers and foreign civilians. And I highly doubt this will be the last boggle. When the military-industrial-intelligence-whatever complex is quite possibly the most powerful and untouchable force in American politics, the same old shit will continue.

Okay, that felt good to blow off some steam, back to doing stuff.

[jacobolus]

Elizabeth Warren started reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Senate from Sessions’ failed 1986 confirmation hearing to a federal judgeship. Read the letter here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... omination/

Mitch McConnell stopped her from speaking, under the rule that you can’t “impugn” a Senator.

How the fuck are you supposed to have a confirmation hearing without being able to say anything negative about the nominee? Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Or advise and consent?

McConnell is one of the biggest hypocrites in the history of the Senate. And that’s a damn high bar.

Lovely celebration of Black History Month: silence the warnings of famous civil rights heros, in the service of installing a racist piece of shit as attorney general. Good work Republican Party. Maybe they can start flying a Confederate flag over the US Capitol.

[002]

Given that she's not allowed to talk now, maybe she could use smoke signals?

[seebart]

Given that she's not allowed to talk now, maybe she could use smoke signals?

I saw part of those DeVos hearings and it reminded me of bad school days...

[vivalarevolución]

Good work Republican Party. Maybe they can start flying a Confederate flag over the US Capitol.

I'm sure Bannnon already put one up in his quarters of the White House.

[andrewjoy]

Lovely celebration of Black History Month: silence the warnings of famous civil rights heros, in the service of installing a racist piece of shit as attorney general. Good work Republican Party. Maybe they can start flying a Confederate flag over the US Capitol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s

Love Morgan freeman , exactly the right attitude towards this silly thing.


Also confederate flag does not = racism

[ohaimark]

The Confederate flag most definitely represents racism. Because the South seceded specifically due to slavery, with state rights being a secondary consideration, it cannot be separated from the institution.

If you doubt me, read the various declarations of secession. Most all of them state that slavery was the primary consideration that led to Southern states leaving the federal government.

[webwit]

So it's like this, eh?

[vivalarevolución]

Okay, let's just say the Battle Flag of the Confederate States of America does not represent racism or slavery. But it does represent rebellion, treason, and a failed state. It was only used upon the outbreak of the Civil War, not before. It never was the official flag of the Confederate States. Wasn't used much afterwards except for veterans events until the mid-20th century when white supremicists and anti-civil rights crowd needed a symbol. So by flying the Confederate flag, you're basically supporting treason, white supremacy, segregation, illegal and armed rebellion against the US government for the right to own slaves.

The representation of non-racist tradition and culture argument is pretty weak. I already explained how the flag had little to do with heritage or culture when it was in use and what led to its revival. So your family is from the South or you currently live in the South? Okay. How about fly the flag of the your home state or maybe develop a family seal, because nobody that fought in Civil War battles is still alive?

I think it is fair for me to conclude that an individual flying the flag today is supporting the heritage and culture of mid-20th century anti-civil rights segregationists like Strom Thrumond and George Wallace, because that's the reason the flag made a comeback. Or you just have a very poor understanding of history.

The only legitimate reason i can think of for flying the flag is you have distant family members that fought or died in the Civil War, and you want to honor them. Even then, there are different ways to honor a family member than fly an extinct flag.

[jacobolus]

[andrewjoy]

Thats funny

[jacobolus]

Republicans help steal money out of consumers’ pockets and give it to the fraudulent prepaid debit card industry: https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin ... ft-charges

Way to go GOP.

Great return on investment for the company. A couple hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions is going to net them almost 100 million in "profit" stolen from their customers.

[webwit]

You mean like Biden did for the copyright industry, and Clinton was going to do for Goldman Sach? Oh wait, those are the corrupt puppets you voted for, don't mention those.

[andrewjoy]

Who was it that was using the Clinton foundation to channel vast sums of corporate money to there campaign? Oh wait yes that was Clinton . SO who is in whos pocket ?

[chuckdee]

You mean like Biden did for the copyright industry, and Clinton was going to do for Goldman Sach? Oh wait, those are the corrupt puppets you voted for, don't mention those.

So you're saying that it's right? On both parts?

[andrewjoy]

His point is , everyone always criticises Trump , much of the time with good reason.

But they talk about the alternative as if she was the second coming of Jesus.

What annoys me is there is plenty , bloody plenty of things to moan about about Trump. So why do people and the media need to make stuff up or bend the truth to throw the dirt , when there is plenty of dirt to throw.

They make me have to defend Trump , and i don't want to defend that muppet but i have to as its only fair to point out when people are talking crap about somone.

They also never point out the few good things he is doing.

[fohat]

Can you provide one example of something that has been made up about Trump?

And one example of something good that he has done?