Trump II

[Schewe]

Trump elevates Cyber Command.

Good, maybe Trump will listen to them about the risk of continued Russian interference in our elections :~)

[James Clark]

Trump elevates Cyber Command.  Something important for US security.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/18/trump-us-cyber-command-elevated-unified-combatant-command-241783

Ok, this is a good call.

[Schewe]

It begins...

The Week When President Trump Resigned
Frank Bruni AUG. 18, 2017


Credit Ben Wiseman

As the worst week in a cursed presidency wound down, I spotted more and more forecasts that Donald Trump would resign, including from Tony Schwartz, who wrote “The Art of the Deal” for Trump and presumably understands his tortured psyche.

They struck me not as wishful or fantastical.

They struck me as late.

Trump resigned the presidency already — if we regard the job as one of moral stewardship, if we assume that an iota of civic concern must joust with self-regard, if we expect a president’s interest in legislation to rise above vacuous theatrics, if we consider a certain baseline of diplomatic etiquette to be part of the equation.

By those measures, it’s arguable that Trump’s presidency never really began. By those measures, it’s indisputable that his presidency ended in the lobby of Trump Tower on Tuesday afternoon, when he chose — yes, chose — to litigate rather than lead, to attend to his wounded pride instead of his wounded nation and to debate the supposed fine points of white supremacy.

He abdicated his responsibilities so thoroughly and recklessly that it amounted to a letter of resignation. Then he whored for his Virginia winery on the way out the door.

Trump knew full well what he should have done, because he’d done it — grudgingly and badly — only a day earlier. But it left him feeling countermanded, corrected, submissive and weak, and those emotions just won’t do for an ego as needy and skin as thin as his. So he put id before country and lashed out, in a manner so patently wrong and transcendently ruinous that TV news shows had to go begging for Republican lawmakers to defend or even try to explain what he’d said.

--snipp--

Trump hasn’t been exercising the duties of his office. He’s been excising them, one by one. The moral forfeiture of the past week was the capper.

And as I watched the Bushes and the generals and Trump’s former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination step into the public square to enunciate their own principles about murderous bigots and domestic terrorists, I realized that they weren’t going through any typical this-is-what-makes-us-Americans motions. They weren’t preening.

They were, in the words of The Washington Post’s James Hohmann, “filling the void.” If Trump wasn’t going to do his job, others had to.

I kept coming across variations on the verdict that he had “failed to lead,” and that phraseology is off. “Fail” and “failure” imply that there was an effort, albeit unsuccessful.

Trump made none. He consciously decided that he didn’t care about comforting or inspiring those Americans — a majority of them — who weren’t quick and generous enough with their clapping. He was more interested in justifying himself.

So he picked division over unity, war over peace. And make no mistake: He didn’t merely shortchange the presidency. He left it vacant.

Think the article is wrong?

The chance of Donald Trump resigning is at its highest yet, say bookies

The odds on President Trump resigning are now the shortest they've been since betting opened.

Paddy Power said it's reporting a stream of bets on the President calling it a day, piling into the 6/4 on offer for Trump to resign, which has made the bookmaker cut the odds into Evs. That is the shortest price it has been since betting opened just after Trump's inauguration in January.

he news comes after the ghostwriter of Donald Trump's book The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, predicted that Trump will resign before the end of the year.

Paddy Power said:

Tony Schwartz spent 18 months with Trump when helping ghost-write his memoir and while that must have been totally unbearable – it also means he knows The Donald pretty well.

After an awful week for the President that has seen other issues like North Korea pushed into the shadows it’s no surprise punters are latching onto the fact Trump might call it a day.

It is offering odds of 2/1 for Trump to be impeached in 2017.

[Schewe]

Watch Fox News Host Report That They Are Unable To Book Any Republicans To Defend Trump

Shepard Smith reports that Fox News is unable to book any Republicans to defend Trump’s latest comments on Charlottesville and white supremacy.

Fox News' Shepard Smith Reporting:
:44

SHEPARD SMITH (HOST): Our booking team -- and they're good -- reached out to Republicans of all stripes, across the country today. Let's be honest, Republicans often don't really mind coming on Fox News Channel. We couldn't get anyone to come and defend him here, because we thought, in balance, someone should do that. We worked very hard at it throughout the day, and we were unsuccessful. And of those that are condemning the president's condemnable actions, I've not heard any prominent leaders, former presidents, members of the House or the Senate use his name while speaking in generalities.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I am not a Republican, but have them call me.

[Alan Klein]

It begins...

The Week When President Trump Resigned
Frank Bruni AUG. 18, 2017


Credit Ben Wiseman

Think the article is wrong?

The chance of Donald Trump resigning is at its highest yet, say bookies

If Trump leaves, this thread will shut down; CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and all the others will lose half their viewers.  Pence is a big yawn.  No one's going to care.  We will be able to shoot more pictures. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

It continues:

[BernardLanguillier]

I am not a Republican, but have them call me.

Out of curiosity, are you defending him (multiple answers possible)?
- because you think his action is good for the country?
- because you feel represented well by the values he has been putting forward?
- because you are sick of non Americans commenting about US politics?
- because you think there is no better alternative?
- because you are afraid about the consequences for the US bipartisan system if he were to be impreached?
- because of the valuable intellectual challenge of defending the in-defendable?
- because of others reasons? Then what are these?

Cheers,
Bernard

[BobShaw]

Bannon opened his big mouth regarding NK saying war is out of the picture

War is out of the picture hopefully. If it happened it would be the shortest war in history, but there would be no winners.
Remember Vietnam? They had no navy, no air force, 8 million tons of bombs dropped on them and none came back.... Result?
Watch the movie "On The Beach".
As for Trump saying "Your Fired" to himself, not likely.

[Alan Klein]

It continues:

Madness.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/18/new-york-subway-tiles-look-like-confederate-flags-altered/

[Alan Klein]

War is out of the picture hopefully. If it happened it would be the shortest war in history, but there would be no winners.
Remember Vietnam? They had no navy, no air force, 8 million tons of bombs dropped on them and none came back.... Result?
Watch the movie "On The Beach".
As for Trump saying "Your Fired" to himself, not likely.

Bannon's comment made war more likely.  Bannon, a subordinate, undermined the president's military posturing. Trump was trying to effect NK to stop making nuclear weapons and missiles and worry China enough that they would help by pressuring NK. Now, NK and China know Trump was bluffing because of Bannon's comment.   This makes war more not less likely. 

[texshooter]

The killers in Barcelona aimed to copycat the racist terrorism attack in Charlottesville, says CNN

Radical Islam Is not to blame, xenophobia and racism are.  Could Trump be partly responsible, too, since he refuses to disavow racism?

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/cnn-msnbc-wonder-if-barcelona-terror-attack-inspired-charlottesville

[Schewe]

Trump doesn’t seem to like being president. So why not quit?

Evidence is piling up that Donald Trump does not really want to be president of the United States.

He certainly doesn’t look happy in the job. In his previous life, Trump met whomever he wanted to meet and said whatever he wanted to say. But like all presidents, he finds himself ever more isolated, and his displeasure shows on his face. The loneliness of the job — which so many of his predecessors have ruefully reported — is wearing on him.

And it’s more than that. Past presidents also tell us that no one can fully appreciate the dimensions of the job in advance. With no previous political experience, Trump’s learning curve has been even steeper than usual, and the more he sees of the job, the less he wants to do it. He balks at the briefings, the talking points, the follow-through.

He was drawn to the fame of it, as he once told me aboard his private jet. “It’s the ratings . . . that gives you power,” then-candidate Trump explained. “It’s not the polls. It’s the ratings.” He loves being the most talked-about man on Earth.

But unlike reality TV stars, presidents aren’t famous for being famous. They command the world’s attention because they are the temporary embodiments of America’s strength, aspirations and responsibilities.

It is a paradoxically self-effacing fame. The job demands that hugely competitive, driven, ambitious individuals — for that’s what it takes to win the job — inhabit a role that requires them to be something other than nakedly themselves.

As some Trump associates tell it, he never intended to be elected. But having won the part, he doesn’t want to play it, a fact irrefutable after Charlottesville. Rather than speak for the nation — the president’s job — he spoke for Trump. Rather than apply shared values, he apportioned blame.

Think this is off base? Remember the Reuter's inteview?

“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier. You’re really into your own little cocoon, because you have such massive protection that you really can’t go anywhere. I like to drive. I can’t drive any more.”

Poor President Snowflake...the #FAKENEWS is so mean to him!
Remember: 'No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly,'

Just resign Donny before you get forced out!

[James Clark]

Bannon's comment made war more likely.  Bannon, a subordinate, undermined the president's military posturing. Trump was trying to effect NK to stop making nuclear weapons and missiles and worry China enough that they would help by pressuring NK. Now, NK and China know Trump was bluffing because of Bannon's comment.   This makes war more not less likely.

Unfortunately I think you're correct here.  Maybe that's what Bannon actually wants though - the guy is a total loon.

[James Clark]

Madness.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/18/new-york-subway-tiles-look-like-confederate-flags-altered/

Eh... this sort of idiocy will pass sooner rather than later I suspect. 

[Schewe]

Bannon: 'The Trump Presidency That We Fought For, and Won, Is Over.'


White House strategist Steve Bannon can be seen through the window of Marine One after it landed with he and President Donald Trump aboard on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC in April 2017.

With the departure from the White House of strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who helped shape the so-called nationalist-populist program embraced by Donald Trump in his unlikely path to election, a new phase of the Trump presidency begins. Given Trump’s nature, what comes next will hardly be conventional, but it may well be less willfully disruptive—which, to Bannon, had been the point of winning the White House.

“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon said Friday, shortly after confirming his departure. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

Bannon says that he will return to the helm of Breitbart, the rambunctious right-wing media enterprise he ran until joining the Trump campaign as chief executive last August. At the time, the campaign was at its nadir, and Trump was trailing Hillary Clinton in the polls by double digits.

Well, I agree that the Trump presidency as we knew it is over...I'm really not sure his presidency can recover...we'll see, but understand it's only been 210 days and counting and so far, everything about Trump has been an unmitigated disaster.

[Schewe]

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/cnn-msnbc-wonder-if-barcelona-terror-attack-inspired-charlottesville

LOL...

So, ya got your image from rushlimbaugh.com and the story from truthrevolt.org? Those are the sorts of media you enjoy? I won't bother to comment on Rush (is he still a drug addict?) but I had to look up truthrevolt.org because it is pretty obscure...here's what Media Bias/Fact Check had to say...

Truth Revolt

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE

A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible information and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the notes section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

Bias: Extreme Right, Propaganda, Some Fake News

Notes: Truth Revolt is a website with extreme right wing bias in reporting and wording.  Often refers to African Americans as thugs and has published false stories. (10/2/2016) Updated (6/20/2017)

[Robert Roaldi]

I'm glad about one thing regarding Bannon. Back at Breitbart, he'll be able to lead investigations like this one: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/08/birth-control-makes-women-unattractive-and-crazy/. He'll be back where he belongs and will be a much happier person.

[Rob C]

I'm glad about one thing regarding Bannon. Back at Breitbart, he'll be able to lead investigations like this one: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/08/birth-control-makes-women-unattractive-and-crazy/. He'll be back where he belongs and will be a much happier person.

An interesting read - if you are sixteen or thereabouts.

The only women I've known well enough to discuss the pill with me (to the extent of do they or do they not use it), if only in an academic interest kind of discussion - have appeared quite normal to me, with an exception where one seemed to develop rather powerful-looking shoulder areas over some time.

Armed with this new informtion from those who obviously know, I shall enjoy my lunchtime people-watchng activities even more, with a greatly enhanced technique for understanding that which I may see... I'm sure my photography will improve by leaps and bounds. No, not bounds - those require a coiled mechanism.

Isn't photography fascinating?

[Robert Roaldi]

Isn't photography fascinating?

At least as interesting as humans.