Trump II

[Schewe]

And that his wide executive experience is important in a president especially following a weak one. And they felt and still feel that he's trying to do right by them.

His "wide executive experience"? Are you kidding me? He has almost zero executive experience outside of running a privately owned corporate kingdom. He has no idea how to deal with consensus building–which if you want to govern is required. You can't use a take it or leave it with people's lives...and he has given zero indication he's willing to learn.

As far as the voters feeling that he's still "trying to do right by them"? Yep, his voting base–which amounted about 27% of the eligible voters still seems to be holding out hope that he will help them...has Trump giving any clue that he cares? Not by actions, only by his words and actions speak louder than words.

He nominated a GOP approved Supreme...and he's taken a hacksaw and axe to a lot of regulations (which we'll pay for in the future) and pulled out of the Paris Accords (which we've already starting to pay for). But what else? Sent 59 million dollar cruise missiles to Syria and hit a air field that was operating the next day...and yes, his generals decided to drop a MOAB in Afghanistan that Obama put into theater so the general could use...

He's gone to Europe three and screwed up the trips because he didn't have a clue how to be a president. He went Saudi Arabia and created a spate between Qatar and the other Middle-east countries that Tillerson had to try to fix and he sent Jarad to meet with Israel and the Palestinians and got both of them angry with each other and the US.

So, what's he done other than stagger from crisis to crisis in the FBI investigation, yelled at the TV when the MSM displeased him, got to sit in a firetruck, put on a cowboy hat and swing an American made baseball bat and declare the coal industry has added 45,000 new jobs–which of course was a lie.

He's signed 42 "things" primarily trying to undo what Obama did because why? Just to get even for Obama making fun of him regarding the Birther campaign during the White House Press Association's Dinner? You know that what Trump has told friends that was Trump's motive to run for president...and he really didn't expect to or want to win.

6 months in and America is a disaster. Repeal and Replace? Uh, no...Muslin Ban? Uh no... How about that Wall? Not so much...yes he pulled out of the Paris deal and TTP–both of which handed supreme power to China...

Yeah, the Stock Market is doing pretty good...not thanks to Trump but inspire of him. Yes, big business is hope Trump will get around to tax breaks–but his proposed budget would be an unmitigated disaster for the economy and ultimately dangerous.

Trump is a fraud and a con man...that's all he ever was and it's all he'll ever be and his supporters have been had–they just don't know it yet.

Although the democrats that cross party lines and the independents are getting anxious and Trump's approval ratings keep going down and he does nothing except to pander to his base. He's not my president...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

When I was growing up, in Tito's era, we used to sing (loosely translated):

"The more libels and lies,
Our President is dearer to us."

Who would have thought the song is going to be popular again, across the ocean

[DeanChriss]

Jeff, people didn't vote for Trump because he was a monk. They understood that he was a businessman who finagled a lot. But they voted for him because he cared about them. Something Hillary didn't.  And that his wide executive experience is important in a president especially following a weak one. And they felt and still feel that he's trying to do right by them.

"A new Senate bill to repeal Obamacare would leave 32 million more people uninsured by 2026 than under current law, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Wednesday."

I guess these are the 32 million Trump is not trying to do right by.

But that's not all. Three-quarters of the nation would live in areas with no insurers participating in the individual market by 2026, leaving many without an option if they do not have employer-provided or government health insurance, such as Medicare or Medicaid. Premiums would about double by 2026, compared to current law.

It would be better to have Putin looking out for us than Trump, but maybe that was the plan all along. 

[Schewe]

"The more libels and lies,
Our President is dearer to us."

Point me to the lies and libels...lots of inconvenient truths but I really don't see the lies.

Oh, wait, you weren't talking about Tito's Vodka huh?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

When I was growing up, in Tito's era, we used to sing (loosely translated):

"The more libels and lies,
Our President is dearer to us."

Who would have thought the song is going to be popular again, across the ocean

Hi,

This is not uncommon, in fact, it is very (predictably) usual. Atack anybody and the reaction will be defense or offense (rarely retreat). So the attacked party will either anchor itself (and/or its supporters will) into position, even more unwilling to move, or it will retaliate (as in offense is the 'best' defense). This totally ignores that conceding to a loss in the short term, may be a better strategy in the longer term ..., but that requires intelligence and a slightly longer term perspective, not short term myopia.

The current administration seems to be totally out of control. This is a situation that the Democrats will want to endure, until new (maybe even Presidential) elections. So impeachment is out of the question, more damage can be done by keeping Trump in place. It will suck for the nation in the short term but, it will be beneficial in the longer term.

In my corporate career, I've experienced/learned that certain people create and thrive from enduring problems, it justifies their function. Problem solvers are among the first to become expendable after they caused things run smoothly. So inefficiency is rewarded.

Cheers,
Bart

[Chris Kern]

When I was growing up, in Tito's era, we used to sing (loosely translated):

"The more libels and lies,
Our President is dearer to us."

Who would have thought the song is going to be popular again, across the ocean

But at least Tito had distinguished himself as a wartime leader against Nazi Germany and by standing up to Stalin's USSR.  And his economic policies were arguably less bonkers that those of his contemporary communist comrades.

[LesPalenik]

Tito was elected president for life, so he didn't have to worry about the next quarter or year. Or media.

[scyth]

meanwhile McCain has a ~1.5 years to live ...

[Chairman Bill]

Bill, How are the idiot Brits doing with Brexit?

It will be a disaster. Brits have been lied to & fed anti-EU propaganda for decades and idiot Brits have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker

[Otto Phocus]

meanwhile McCain has a ~1.5 years to live ...

That is sad news indeed.

I did not always agree with McCain, but I always thought he was a good person.

I hope that he does not suffer much and can die with some dignity.

Who knows, he may be one of the 10% that can survive 5 years.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Do-over: 1 in 8 people who voted for Trump want to change their vote - Reuters/Ipsos poll
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-poll-idUSKBN1A5127

QUOTE: July 20, 2017 / 12:03 PM " NEW YORK (Reuters) - About one in eight people who voted for President Donald Trump said they would not do so again after witnessing Trump's tumultuous first six months in office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2016 voters.

While most of the people who voted for Trump on Nov. 8 said they would back him again, the erosion of support within his winning coalition of older, disaffected, mostly white voters poses a potential challenge for the president. Trump, who won the White House with the slimmest of margins, needs every last supporter behind him to push his agenda through a divided Congress and potentially win a second term in 2020.

The poll surveyed voters who had told Reuters/Ipsos on Election Day how they had cast their ballots. While other surveys have measured varying levels of disillusionment among Trump supporters, the Reuters/Ipsos poll shows how many would go as far as changing the way they voted. The survey was carried out first in May and then again in July. "



Well, better late than never, but we'll have to see what happens in the three and a half years ahead.

Cheers,
Bart

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

That is sad news indeed.

I did not always agree with McCain, but I always thought he was a good person.

I hope that he does not suffer much and can die with some dignity.

Who knows, he may be one of the 10% that can survive 5 years.

Agree. Not my kind of political preference either, but he is a decent person and a relatively straight shooter (for a politician).

Hope he can enjoy his remaining time without too much discomfort.

Cheers,
Bart

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

For all opera lovers, check out these two YouTube videos ("Real Fake News - Opera vs. Trump" [Rossini Edition and  Gilbert and Sullivan Edition].

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Hz7SfkhJe74

 

[Schewe]

Donald Trump: L’état, C’est Moi


Our Louis XIV. Photo-Illustration: Daily Intelligencer; Photos: Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV, Louvre Museum;
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images (Trump)

In his bizarre New York Times interview, Donald Trump expresses his characteristic assortment of fever-dream assertions. The president believes Hillary Clinton “was totally opposed to any sanctions for Russia,” that a properly amortized health-insurance plan would cost “$12 a year,” that Napoleon’s “one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities,” and that Trump has somehow either carried out or reversed sweeping land reforms (“I’ve given the farmers back their farms. I’ve given the builders back their land to build houses and to build other things”). Yet a consistent idea manages to poke through the delirious rambling. Trump repeatedly affirmed his conviction that the entire federal government ought to be operated for his personal benefit.

Trump expressed this idea by returning several times to the phrase “conflict of interest.” Trump himself is of course the most personally conflicted president in modern American history. He has maintained a vast, undisclosed business empire and openly used his powers in office to enrich himself. But he does not mention this conflict of interest. Instead he applies the phrase to any law-enforcement official who might potentially get in his way.

The headline of the story was Trump’s anger that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from an investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. The cause of the recusal flows self-evidently from basic legal principles. Sessions played a key role in the Trump campaign, so obviously he can’t conduct an investigation into it. In Trump’s mind, though, it is obvious that managing the investigation into the Trump campaign is the very thing his handpicked Attorney General ought to do:

Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have — which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.”

It is not as if the job of overseeing the Russia investigation is not being done. What Trump objects to is the fact that he was deprived of the chance to choose the official who is overseeing it.

So, Trump thinks everybody should work for him...that the Attorney General is supposed to be his personal lawyer and that the Justice Department is his to dictate to...after all, all Trump knows how to do is dictate...he's alway and only been a dictator of his own personal empire.

If you read the NYT article, it comes across as some sort of whiny bitch complaining that everything is so unfair...the last paragraph says it all:

Six months into his presidency, foundational republican concepts remain as foreign as ever to Trump. He believes the entire federal government owes its personal loyalty to him, and that the office of the presidency is properly a vehicle for personal and familial enrichment. If the rule of law survives this era intact, it will only be because the president is too inept to undermine it.

This really sucks...

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

For all opera lovers, check out these two YouTube videos ("Real Fake News - Opera vs. Trump" [Rossini Edition and  Gilbert and Sullivan Edition].

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Hz7SfkhJe74

 

Brilliant!

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Klein]

Looks like the Clintons were the real colluders with the Russians.  After helping them, Bill Clinton got paid $500,000 for a speech in Russia and was personally thanked by Putin.  What's ironic is that the same players then seem to be some of the same players involved with Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russians. 
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/18/hillary-clinton-sided-with-russia-on-sanctions-as-bill-made-500g-on-moscow-speech.html

[Schewe]

Excerpts From The Times’s Interview With Trump



And this is really weird...

TRUMP: I have had the best reviews on foreign land. So I go to Poland and make a speech. Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a president. I’m saying, man, they cover [garbled]. You saw the reviews I got on that speech. Poland was beautiful and wonderful, and the reception was incredible.

And then, went to France the following week, because it was the 100th year. [inaudible] The Paris Accord — I wasn’t going to get along with France for a little while, because people forget, because it is a very unfair agreement to us. China doesn’t get [garbled] until 2030. Russia goes back to 1994 as a standard — a much, much lower standard. India has things that are [garbled]. I want to do the same thing as everyone else. We can’t do that? We can’t do that? That’s O.K. Let me get out. Frankly, the people that like me, love that I got out.

After that, it was fairly surprising. He [President Emmanuel Macron of France] called me and said, “I’d love to have you there and honor you in France,” having to do with Bastille Day. Plus, it’s the 100th year of the First World War. That’s big. And I said yes. I mean, I have a great relationship with him. He’s a great guy.

HABERMAN: He was very deferential to you. Very.

TRUMP: He’s a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand.

HABERMAN: I’ve noticed.

TRUMP: People don’t realize he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes.

TRUMP: I mean, really. He’s a very good person. And a tough guy, but look, he has to be. I think he is going to be a terrific president of France. But he does love holding my hand.

See the video of "the hand shake" HERE

[Schewe]

And this from across the pond: The Economist

How Donald Trump is monetising his presidency

“PRETTY close to a laughing stock.” That is Walter Shaub’s verdict on America’s standing in the world, at least from an ethics point of view, under President Donald Trump. Mr Shaub’s view counts: he stepped down this week as head of the Office of Government Ethics, a federal watchdog.

He is leaving his job six months early, frustrated at the president’s failure to separate himself from his businesses, at White House foot-dragging on disclosing ethics waivers for staff, at its failure to admonish a Trump adviser who plugged the family’s products in an interview, and more. “It’s hard for the United States to pursue international anticorruption and ethics initiatives when we’re not even keeping our own side of the street clean,” Mr Shaub told the New York Times.

No American leader has ever entered office with such wide business interests as Mr Trump. In the context of the country’s corporate landscape, his group is small, mostly domestic and rather mediocre, but encompasses hundreds of firms that run hotels, golf courses, licensing agreements, merchandise deals and more, in over two dozen countries. Keeping tabs on the potential for self-dealing is “a monumental task”, says Kathleen Clark, an ethics expert at Washington University. In some areas, particularly abroad, increased scrutiny appears to be making deals harder to pull off. But in others, such as his American hotels and golf clubs, Mr Trump already appears to be monetising the presidency.

So, is this what Trump voters were expecting when they voted for Trump? Did they honestly think a 70yr old who has NEVER done ANYTHING for the forgotten little people across America (other than refuse to pay their bills) would somehow get elected and go to Washington to look out for them? Didn't they realize Trump really only knows how to do good for Trump and his family and minion.

Here we are 6 months into a 4 year term–YES IT'S ONLY BEEN 6 MONTHS–and what has he done for his voters?

[Schewe]

Trump team seeks to control, block Mueller’s Russia investigation


President Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members
and even himself in connection with the Russia probe, according to a person familiar with
the effort. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’ ” a close adviser said.

With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.

A conflict of interest is one of the possible grounds that can be cited by an attorney general to remove a special counsel from office under Justice Department regulations that set rules for the job.

The president is also irritated by the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his family’s finances, advisers said.

Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. His primary frustration centers on why allegations that his campaign coordinated with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many years of Trump dealmaking. He has told aides he was especially disturbed after learning Mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns.

--snip--

Some note that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit a president from pardoning himself. On the other side, experts say that by definition a pardon is something you can only give to someone else. There is also a common-law canon that prohibits individuals from serving as a judge in their own case. “For example, we would not allow a judge to preside over his or her own trial,” Kalt said.

A president can pardon an individual at any point, including before the person is charged with a crime, and the scope of a presidential pardon can be very broad. President Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard M. Nixon preemptively for offenses he “committed or may have committed” while in office.

Which is interesting since Trump said this in his NYT interview:

SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?

HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?

TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia. They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t, I don’t do that. Over the years, I’ve looked at maybe doing a deal in Russia, but I never did one. Other than I held the Miss Universe pageant there eight, nine years [crosstalk].

SCHMIDT: But if he was outside that lane, would that mean he’d have to go?

[crosstalk]

HABERMAN: Would you consider——

TRUMP: No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia. So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. And actually, when I do my filings, peoples say, “Man.” People have no idea how successful this is. It’s a great company. But I don’t even think about the company anymore. I think about this. ’Cause one thing, when you do this, companies seem very trivial. O.K.? I really mean that. They seem very trivial. But I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia. The gentleman that you mentioned, with his son, two nice people. But basically, they brought the Miss Universe pageant to Russia to open up, you know, one of their jobs. Perhaps the convention center where it was held. It was a nice evening, and I left. I left, you know, I left Moscow. It wasn’t Moscow, it was outside of Moscow.

HABERMAN: Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is? [crosstalk]

SCHMIDT: What would you do?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Except it's already happened...

Can Mueller Do That? Inquiry Now Crosses Trump's ‘Red Line’

Despite what President Donald Trump and his lawyers say, the U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the 2016 campaign and Russia appears to have ample authority to examine a broad range of activities involving Trump’s businesses.

This became newly relevant this morning when Bloomberg News reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation also encompasses dealings such as Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial downtown New York hotel development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008. The source was a person familiar with Mueller’s probe.

Well, it’s happening, and Mueller isn’t exceeding his mandate.
interesting read if you are an attorney, otherwise it's deadly :~(

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Had Trump refused to sell condos to Russians, he would be breaking the law, i.e., discriminating based on national origin 😉