US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Highbury]

Originally Posted by August

Conrad Black makes some great points as usual:

Conrad Black is a convicted felon and fraudster. I am sure he and Trump would get along famously.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

There ya go again arguing over things I never said. I wasn't arguing for or against Trump or anyone for that matter. Just demonstrating in my own way how I've heard the same words you present about Trump when Obama was in office. I just happen to see it as the same ol' song and dance, same music, same moves, just a different dancer. Its so old and boring. And after all the media hype, hysteria, accusations and finger pointing are over. Nothing ever really changed.

...and, still, you really haven't addressed the actual issues you critcized or decry...

There ya go again, deflecting and distracting...

...same old song and dance...











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[vienna]

Originally Posted by Highbury

Conrad Black is a convicted felon and fraudster. I am sure he and Trump would get along famously.

...and, IIRC, wasn't The Post brought to task for some scurrilous bit of their own "fake news' and had to publicly apologize for the transgression?...










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[Bilge_Rat]

those who hate Trump are so blinded by their rage that they have lost all objectivity. The fact is most voters are happy with the job he is doing. You look at most polls and you see his approval rating is holding steady despite the increasingly desperate coverage from the loony left media.

If you dig down into the poll numbers, you see why. Look at the last Reuters poll, hardly a conservative one by the way:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/do...05_09_2018.pdf

approval rating on specific issues:

-handling US economy: 59%
-employment and jobs: 59%
-dealing with ISIS: 57%
-immigration: 50%

on the other hand:

-the way he treats people like me: 36%

everyone knows Trump is a SOB/bastard/bull****ter/etc. At the end of the day, what do voters really want in a President, a tough SOB like Reagan or a genuinely nice man like Carter....

[u crank]

Pretty interesting and somewhat scathing article in The Federalist about Special Counsel Robert Mueller. When this whole thing started I, like a lot of people had a fairly high opinion of Mueller but that is long gone. Even a half hearted look into Mueller's past is a head shaking experience. And he seems to be keeping up with his past performances.

What if Mueller were not some sort of avenging angel, but rather just a bumbling bureaucrat? To put it somewhat differently, why assume that the same folks who brought us Amtrak, the U.S. Post Office, and Healthcare.gov somehow knocked it out of the park with the Office of Special Counsel?

Whatever else one might say about Washington DC, it has never been accused of being a meritocracy. Rather, it has always been a place where people trade on connections.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/14/...w-enforcement/

....in 2001, he landed the job of a lifetime: director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His ascendancy did not come without words of warning. Time magazine quoted one former prosecutor, anonymously: “The cynics are saying, let him take over the FBI, it’ll be great theater, and he’ll run it into the ground in six months.” The former prosecutor was wrong. It only took Mueller one week.

Three days after 9/11, he claimed: “There were no warning signs that I’m aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.”

That was untrue. Indeed, the final House-Senate Joint Intelligence Committee report concluded that 9/11 might have been prevented had the FBI been on alert.

Are we to believe that Robert Mueller is going to be any better as a Special Counsel than he was as a DOJ lawyer or the head of the FBI. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[vienna]

Wasn't there some one posting earlier about public servants enriching themselves and how evil it is when a DEM engages in such conduct? Wasn't that person or persons morally outraged with much huffery and puffery and righteous indignation? The funny thing was, there was no such indignant reaction when presented with Trump actually billing the Secret Service for the use of Trump properties while performing their duties protecting POTUS; one would think a self-proclaimed billionaire like Trump would be grateful enough for the SS guys being there to cover his cheeseburger eating behind that he'd part with a small portion of his self-lauded 'vast wealth' and cut the taxpayers a break by picking up the meager tab. Hey, maybe Trump really is hurting financially...

If so, maybe his latest deal may give him sufficient funds to pry open his coin purse:

A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump announced on Twitter Sunday morning. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

Trump did not mention in that tweet or its follow-ups that on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks, according to Agence France-Presse. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels.

Trump, despite his campaign promises to turn over his businesses and have no involvement with them, has still not fully divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them.

“You do a good deal for him, he does a good deal for you. Quid pro quo,” said Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush and now a Democratic candidate for Senate in Minnesota.

“This appears to be yet another violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” Painter said, referring to the prohibition against the president receiving payments from foreign governments.

How nice Trump works so diligently for workers' jobs -- Chinese workers' jobs...

..and how nice he is working so diligently on behalf of a ZTe, a telecom company the intelligence community has assessed as a likely threat to US national security...

May we presume the announcement of "Trump Tower Beijing" is shortly to come?


Imagine what the GOP-Right reaction if this sort of deal was committed under a DEM administration; the cries of "Corruption!!", "Lock them up!!", and more would resound throughout the nation...

I wait patiently for some sort of responsible moral indignation from the Trumpers...

...its gonna be a very long wait...










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[vienna]

This is link to a podcast of a Los Angeles news radio program featuring former White Counsel John Dean and his views on the differences and similarities between Nixon/Watergate and Trump/Russia. Since Dean was a very key figure in the Watergate scandal that resulted in Nixon resigning, he has a rather unique experiential viewpoint. The news radio program is quite good since the two hosts are known for being very probing in their reportage and interviews and put politicians of all stripes to task; they are not very kind to those politicians who give platitudes as answers or try to dodge their questions:


KNX Indepth (May 17, 2018) --

https://knx1070.radio.com/media/audi...th-may-17-2018

Note: although the show is stated as being an hour in length, the podcast does not include any of the ads, etc., aired during the show, so the actual length is about 33 minutes...













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[Mr Quatro]

vienna posted Wasn't there some one posting earlier about public servants enriching themselves and how evil it is when a DEM engages in such conduct? Wasn't that person or persons morally outraged with much huffery and puffery and righteous indignation? The funny thing was, there was no such indignant reaction when presented with Trump actually billing the Secret Service for the use of Trump properties while performing their duties protecting POTUS; one would think a self-proclaimed billionaire like Trump would be grateful enough for the SS guys being there to cover his cheeseburger eating behind that he'd part with a small portion of his self-lauded 'vast wealth' and cut the taxpayers a break by picking up the meager tab. Hey, maybe Trump really is hurting financially...

If so, maybe his latest deal may give him sufficient funds to pry open his coin purse:

How nice Trump works so diligently for workers' jobs -- Chinese workers' jobs...

..and how nice he is working so diligently on behalf of a ZTe, a telecom company the intelligence community has assessed as a likely threat to US national security...

May we presume the announcement of "Trump Tower Beijing" is shortly to come?


Imagine what the GOP-Right reaction if this sort of deal was committed under a DEM administration; the cries of "Corruption!!", "Lock them up!!", and more would resound throughout the nation...

I wait patiently for some sort of responsible moral indignation from the Trumpers...

...its gonna be a very long wait...

If what you posted is verified as true don't you think the democrats will pounce on it and cry foul, after all they are looking for a way to impeach Mr Trump they just don't have the numbers in the House or the Senate.

Just five (5) more months till they can at least try to over throw trump and that would be a very bad thing to do ... Do it legally ... do it the American voters way. All things have an ending including eating a cheese burger every night while locked in his room at the white house and drinking diet cokes all the time.

[August]

[Onkel Neal]

[QUOTE=vienna;2553024]...and, IIRC, wasn't The Post brought to task for some scurrilous bit of their own "fake news' and had to publicly apologize for the transgression?...



At least they apologized

[vienna]

[QUOTE=Onkel Neal;2553765]

Originally Posted by vienna

...and, IIRC, wasn't The Post brought to task for some scurrilous bit of their own "fake news' and had to publicly apologize for the transgression?...



At least they apologized

Yeah, five days later and after they had precipitated a diplomatic flap that had the Iranian government calling in the Canadian ambassador to Iran to give an explanation for the false article; the original offending fake article was printed on Page 1 of The National Post; The Post published the retraction on page 2...

Almost all of the reputable news outlets and publications will willingly give clarifications, amendations, or, in the case of finding an article has been found to be false, a full retraction. If you ever look at news sites, very often a revised article is so noted, usually at the bottom of the article and the really reputable news outlets will give the details of what was amended or retracted. Even celeb gossip/news sites like TMZ will acknowledge prior erroneous reportage with detail. Some of the outlets, most notably Fox News, if they even acknowledge an error in reportage, just put some thing like "Edited 05/21/18" at the bottom of the revised article without explanation of what was edited...










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[vienna]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

If what you posted is verified as true don't you think the democrats will pounce on it and cry foul, after all they are looking for a way to impeach Mr Trump they just don't have the numbers in the House or the Senate.

Just five (5) more months till they can at least try to over throw trump and that would be a very bad thing to do ... Do it legally ... do it the American voters way. All things have an ending including eating a cheese burger every night while locked in his room at the white house and drinking diet cokes all the time.

The billing of the Secret Service by Trump entities for the use of Trump properties in the course of providing protection for Trump is well known and the fact the fees charged to the SS are quite high is attested to by the fact the SS had to go back to the Congress to seek additional funding to cover the cost overruns caused by the fees; in New York, the fees incurred in using facilities in Trump Tower were so high the SS had to move into trailers parked outside the building as a cast saving measure, causing an even bigger headache for local LEOs and NY citizens who had to go through the area. There is no coincidence Trump exclusively uses his own property holdings as much as possible when away from the White House; every time he uses Trump Tower or Mar-A-Lago, he hears a very healthy "Cha-Ching!" in his till...

The ZTE deal will, most likely, be an area the Special Counsel may want to pursue in the course of his investigations...











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[Mr Quatro]

What if Trump made a deal with the president of China about trade if he would broker a peace treaty deal with NK? Think about it!

Trump is a wheeler dealer and he can't afford to take the credit till the meeting with Kim in June is over, but if he did wheel and deal with China to soft sale NK we will certainly hear about it on Trumps trumpet when the deal is over.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasur...ffs-1526908176

Treasury Secretary Says U.S., China Have Suspended Tariffs
‘President can always put tariffs back on,’ Mnuchin says of threat against $150 billion in imports as negotiations continue

[vienna]

Trump may be a "wheeler dealer", but he is out of his depth when it comes to international diplomacy; dealing with foreign powers, and their leaders, is way, way different than putting a piece of real estate through to escrow. In an odd way, he is reminiscent of Jimmy Carter: a President who lacked sufficient diplomatic experience to deal with the realities of foreign policy and the diplomatic baggage left by the Nixon/Ford administrations; and that was even with counsel from his advisers and the State Dept.; that said, he was able to be the conduit for the Egypt-Israel Peace Agreement, but it can be argued that was more due to his personality than any diplomatic acumen. Trump, unfortunately since he believes himself to be the final arbiter and 'smartest guy in the room', does not take counsel, is, in fact, prone to do the exact opposite of wise counsel, and, so far, is seemingly being played by China, Russia, the Arab States, etc. The truly sad part of this is not only will Trump's image suffer even more than it has, so will the image and strength of the US on the world stage...














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[Falkirion]

I hope he's a one term president. I've seen nothing but news sensationalism since he took office, some warranted but most not. I don't think he's right for the job and I do believe he's hurting the USA's overseas interests more than he's helping them.

Barring something impeachable I think the world is stuck with him for the better part of the next 3 years because we all know he's going to run for reelection.