US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[Nola]

It's also just bizarre timing if that is the case(which makes sense that is the angle). Like pick any other week besides the one after Trump made a fool of himself looking subservient to Russia, which caused most news stations to break the dance and begin openly discussing that Trump has the appearance of someone that is compromised. Even Fox News was grumbling for a bit.

[Joe Molotov]

Like pick any other week besides the one after Trump made a fool of himself

[Nola]

Since the obstruction aspect was mentioned, this just broke:

WASHINGTON — For years, President Trump has used Twitter as his go-to public relations weapon, mounting a barrage of attacks on celebrities and then political rivals even after advisers warned he could be creating legal problems for himself.

Those concerns now turn out to be well founded. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter.

Several of the remarks came as Mr. Trump was also privately pressuring the men — both key witnesses in the inquiry — about the investigation, and Mr. Mueller is examining whether the actions add up to attempts to obstruct the investigation by both intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior law enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry.

Mr. Mueller wants to question the president about the tweets. His interest in them is the latest addition to a range of presidential actions he is investigating as a possible obstruction case: private interactions with Mr. Comey, Mr. Sessions and other senior administration officials about the Russia inquiry; misleading White House statements; public attacks; and possible pardon offers to potential witnesses.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/us/politics/trump-tweets-mueller-obstruction.html

I would guess the leakers are on the Trump side again, since Mueller's side rarely leaks.

Still, lots of interesting tidbits in the story I had missed about what Mueller is seemingly looking at and why.

Similarly, Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Comey was strained from the start by the president’s encroachment on the typically independent Justice Department. In late March of 2017, the president asked Mr. Comey to put out word that he was not under investigation. Mr. Comey demurred, and when the president called about two weeks later to ask again, Mr. Comey responded that he had passed along the proposal to the Justice Department, he later testified.

That request having gone nowhere, Mr. Trump issued an indirect threat the next day about Mr. Comey’s job. “It’s not too late” to ask him to step down as F.B.I. director, he said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network. The special counsel wants to ask the president what he meant by that remark.

A few weeks later, in early May, an aide to Mr. Sessions sought derogatory information about the F.B.I. director. Mr. Sessions, his aide told a Capitol Hill staff member, wanted one negative article a day in the news media about Mr. Comey, a person familiar with the meeting has said.

Four days later, Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, citing at first his management of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to handle classified information.

[Trurl]

It's also just bizarre timing if that is the case(which makes sense that is the angle). Like pick any other week besides the one after Trump made a fool of himself looking subservient to Russia, which caused most news stations to break the dance and begin openly discussing that Trump has the appearance of someone that is compromised. Even Fox News was grumbling for a bit.

That's because Jim Jordan got this ball rolling to distract his district from his sanctioning of molesting athletes.

[Kara]

Farm handouts

Worth contrasting this with what's happened to Puerto Rico.

[Trurl]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/26/why-jim-jordan-is-surviving-and-thriving-despite-ohio-state-sexual-abuse-scrutiny/?sw_bypass=true

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/1022527045274882049

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/1022559963883823104

[close]

[benjipwns]

https://taxcutswork.com/

 

[Nintex]

https://taxcutswork.com/

 

Sophie & Chad

[kingv]

No collusion

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/SamSeder/status/1021561904513380353

Sam Seder 

agrajag, you feel bad yet?

https://twitter.com/joyceturiskylie/status/1022021818566238213

[thisismyusername]

Thanks, RuPaul

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html?smid=tw-share

Now the next time people tell me I don't know what I'm talking about when I tell them a candidate is hated in areas that are not in their goddamn bubble/city, I can point to this map. Welcome to US politics, democrats. You need to convince the rurals to vote for you, not "fall in lie."

[benjipwns]

I clicked "random one sided place" and it gave me a place in Kansas that had 36 votes for Trump, 1 for Gary Johnson and zero for Killary.

[benjipwns]

huge if true

[Dickie Dee]

https://twitter.com/SamSeder/status/1021561904513380353

Sam Seder 

agrajag, you feel bad yet?

I'm lost here...Does Shostasandwich not understand sarcasm?

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/SamSeder/status/1021561904513380353

Sam Seder 

agrajag, you feel bad yet?

 

edit: not sure, maybe he was trying to tease me because Sam uses the word gross, which annoys me? He's a big AOC supporter.

[benjipwns]

i don't think their monitors are all that special to become a big supporter or anything

[agrajag]

I give that a 3/10

[benjipwns]

like their monitors?

[benjipwns]

like their monitors?

this is why there are no female libertarians

[agrajag]

I have no clue what kind of monitors they use, or who they actually are in this instance

[benjipwns]

ah, i see you actually mean something else now:

The appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC; French pronunciation: ​[a.pɛ.la.sjɔ̃ dɔ.ʁi.ʒin kɔ̃.tʁo.le]; "protected designation of origin") is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut national des appellations d'origine, now called Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO). It is based on the concept of terroir.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[agrajag]

They being Sam Seder?

He's Jewish so he's probably not that into cheese.

[benjipwns]

 

[agrajag]

yikes

[benjipwns]

Hannity: "Let me ask you this, what do you understand?"

Roseanne: "Well, I don't understand a lot, to tell you the truth."

 

[benjipwns]

https://www.theroot.com/evidence-shows-hackers-changed-votes-in-the-2016-electi-1827871206

As absurd as these facts may seem, it is more absurd to believe that Russians hackers didn’t specifically change votes in the 2016 election.

We know, from Vladimir Putin’s own words, that he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. We know that Russian agents interfered. The entire intelligence community agrees that Russia targeted the election systems in at least 21 states and breached the barriers in at least 8 states.

Every single source agrees that Russian could have changed votes. We know it is not a difficult task. We know it is so easy, even a 16-year-old could do it. Every single shred of publicly available evidence says Russian hackers would have altered voter rolls and votes.

Yet, we are supposed to believe that Vladimir Putin concocted this vast, Soviet-sponsored effort that included propaganda, computer experts, spies and an international ring of hackers, but when he was actually successful at breaking into voting systems, all they did was look around and change nothing?

We are supposed to believe the circumstantial evidence that shows Russians interfered but not the circumstantial evidence that shows they changed votes? There will never be any direct evidence. The only other alternative is to believe that the entire plot was an exercise.

We know that hackers attempted to change voter rolls and hack voting machines at least once, but we are supposed to believe that it wasn’t widespread. The people who tell us this, the individual states, had no idea they were hacked until they were told. And the people who told the states, lied at first, but we are supposed to trust them now.

If you believe that, I have some warm, sunny beachfront property in Siberia for sale. I’m also willing to throw in Hillary’s sex-trafficking Paypal receipts, Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate and Bush’s bomb-making blueprints.

Because you’d have to be a fool to believe that.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/mecantyping/status/1022522342558392328
https://twitter.com/TheSleepyRebel/status/1022586253609500672

[Mandark]

I'm consistently surprised that @ComfortablySmug is as accepted as he is, given his only claim to fame.

[benjipwns]

when you're good that's all you need, not both being a coward AND milk humor

[benjipwns]

I assume that Jim Jordan started this to impress Trump while Jordan is in the middle of a diddling scandal.

That's because Jim Jordan got this ball rolling to distract his district from his sanctioning of molesting athletes.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/26/jim-jordan-speaker-announcement/

House Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan formally announced his campaign for speaker of the House Thursday.

The Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed the announcement with two sources with direct knowledge of Jordan’s plans.

Jordan has received an onslaught of support from conservative groups and his colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus to run for speaker.

Jordan’s team did not respond for immediate request for comment, but the congressman gave a formal statement after TheDCNF was the first to report his announcement.

“Should the American people entrust us with the majority again in the 116th Congress, I plan to run for Speaker of the House to bring real change to the House of Representatives,” Jordan said in a statement Thursday. “President Trump has taken bold action on behalf of the American people. Congress has not held up its end of the deal, but we can change that. It’s time to do what we said.”

[agrajag]

 

[VomKriege]

Jim Jordan : he'll always cover for you !

[benjipwns]

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-gives-infowars-alex-jones-a-30-day-timeout/

Alex Jones, the founder and star of conspiracy site Infowars, has been suspended by Facebook -- and may face harsher consequences.

The social networking giant said late Thursday it had banned the right-wing conspiracy theorist from using his account for the next 30 days after removing four videos from the network it said violated its community standards. A Facebook spokesperson also said if Jones or his fellow admins continue to break its rules, his page faces a permanent ban from the site.

The 30-day ban affects Alex Jones personally, not his fellow Infowars page admins, meaning his "The Alex Jones Channel" will stay on Facebook for now and his colleagues can continue to post unless they break the rules as well. A Facebook spokesperson said the entire channel is close to the threshold that would justify his page being permanently removed, though.

The move comes a day after YouTube removed some of Jones' videos and suspended his ability to broadcast live on YouTube for 90 days.

Earlier Thursday, Jones appeared to be trying to sidestep YouTube's 90-day ban by broadcasting his livestreams on another channel. Livestreams were being hosted Thursday afternoon by Ron Gibson, who describes his channel as part of Alex Jones' Free Speech Systems network.

Though YouTube shut down a livestream at Ron Gibson's primary YouTube channel, he merely set up a second YouTube channel and is pointing people there.

R.I.P. In Peace Free Speech, This Is Trump's America

[Nola]

So Trump knew about the Trump tower meeting prior to its occurance(implying he approved of it, all of which I think people suspected) and the blocked number Don Jr. called immediately following the meeting was likely Trump’s.

Seems pretty clear at this point Trump was also in on the solicitation aspect of this....Though from a legal standpoint, considering Cohen doesn’t have anything substantive to back this up besides a willingness for testimony, probably going to be hard to truly tie Trump into it at this point. At least without more direct evidence.


Edit: though it also further exposes Don jr. since he did testify under oath that his father had no prior knowledge of the meeting.

[Mandark]

https://twitter.com/KenCuccinelli/status/1022843725662302208

[Steve Contra]

https://twitter.com/KenCuccinelli/status/1022843725662302208

[Joe Molotov]

Who better to enforce the Hastert Rule?

[Nintex]

I'm consistently surprised that @ComfortablySmug is as accepted as he is, given his only claim to fame.

All his content is high quality and free. It's quite remarkable.

Other Twitter people have dropped or lost their marbles (like John "Russians in my pants" Schindler) but smug just keeps going owning the libs
What I find most crazy is how many 'high profile' people like CNN journalists respond to and read his feed and he's getting further into the mainstream.
However as others who went mainstream he isn't changing what he says.

[Kara]

Everyday homophone errors.

[Mandark]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jackstuef/the-man-behind-comfortablysmug-hurricane-sandys

Dude tweeted out a bunch of fake information in the middle of Hurricane Sandy, for those who aren't caught up on D-list social media personalities.

[zomgee]

If that isn't owning the libs I don't know what is.

Haha fake information during hurricane sandy. Take that liberals.

[Trent Dole]

Spewing utter and complete bullshit is how to get over as a conservative media personality.

[BlueTsunami]

https://twitter.com/KenCuccinelli/status/1022843725662302208

[Nintex]

He just never misses an opportunity to make a great joke.

In fact, his Sandy tweets were announced and sarcastic in nature.
Similar to how every time there is a mass shooting 'Sam Hyde' is behind it. And every time some stupid news org falls for it.
His pinned tweet is literally: "THIS IS A JOKE YOU MORONS".

Smug and others are basically trying to teach news organizations to not take information from the internet at face value while at the same time raising the bar for hot takes.

Twitter’s self-correction mechanism — rebukes and rebuttals from knowledgeable sources — shut down each rumor, but not until at least one, the flood claim, had bled widely into the television media.

But even a guy that has: "THIS IS A JOKE YOU MORONS" as his pinned Tweet and trolls all day every day can become a 'source' of information which is easy verifiable.

So far no luck but we have to keep trying to create better news standards and for the laughs. 

[agrajag]

Sam Hyde isn't funny

[seagrams hotsauce]

"all transit is shut down and the power is out in Manhattan"

haha real knee-slapper there, can really see the Hicks influence

[kingv]

So Trump knew about the Trump tower meeting prior to its occurance(implying he approved of it, all of which I think people suspected) and the blocked number Don Jr. called immediately following the meeting was likely Trump’s.

Seems pretty clear at this point Trump was also in on the solicitation aspect of this....Though from a legal standpoint, considering Cohen doesn’t have anything substantive to back this up besides a willingness for testimony, probably going to be hard to truly tie Trump into it at this point. At least without more direct evidence.


Edit: though it also further exposes Don jr. since he did testify under oath that his father had no prior knowledge of the meeting.

Sam Numberg and Bannon also said Trump knew about it.

[Kara]

https://theintercept.com/2018/07/27/mick-mulvaney-consumer-protection-corporate-fines/

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorry to link The Intercept.

[close]

[Mandark]

The new Supreme Court nominee apparently thinks the CFPB is unconstitutional, so we might not have to worry that much longer about the size of the fines it doles out.

[benjipwns]

 

[Nola]

'It had to be very simple': The EU reportedly used colorful flash cards to explain trade policy to Trump

“European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly used colorful cue cards to explain issues of global-trade policy to President Donald Trump during their meeting earlier this week.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening, Juncker and his team used the cards to simplify complex issues for the president as a means of getting their points across as effectively as possible.

The Journal's report says Juncker "flipped through" more than a dozen cards, which had minimal information on them, and all focused on a single issue. These included the automotive trade, and regulatory standards for medicines, the report added, saying that there were a maximum of three figures per card.

"We knew this wasn't an academic seminar," a senior EU official who was at the meeting told the Wall Street Journal. "It had to be very simple."

Shit like this still gets me.

[Nintex]

'It had to be very simple': The EU reportedly used colorful flash cards to explain trade policy to Trump

“European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly used colorful cue cards to explain issues of global-trade policy to President Donald Trump during their meeting earlier this week.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening, Juncker and his team used the cards to simplify complex issues for the president as a means of getting their points across as effectively as possible.

The Journal's report says Juncker "flipped through" more than a dozen cards, which had minimal information on them, and all focused on a single issue. These included the automotive trade, and regulatory standards for medicines, the report added, saying that there were a maximum of three figures per card.

"We knew this wasn't an academic seminar," a senior EU official who was at the meeting told the Wall Street Journal. "It had to be very simple."

Shit like this still gets me.

So to take Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee:

[...] we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.

“Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:
• Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."

THANK YOU HILLARY CLINTON AND CAMPAIGN TEAM FOR COLLUDING WITH THE MEDIA TO ELECT TRUMP AND MAKING AMERICA GREAT 



(it seems that everyone (Clintonites, Trumpists, Alex Jones, Russians wanted Trump to win... except you know, the man himself  )

The only guy who had this figured out was his impersonator Anthony Atamanuik. Who at some point did a: "Please save me [Trump] from myself because I don't want to win but I can't bear losing either and being made fun of" bit.
However, like with everything Trump touches after he stumbles through it for about a year he starts to get the 'hang of it' and feels like he's actually really good at it.
It doesn't matter if it's making reality TV, golf, building skyscrapers or running casino's.

Now in retrospect people are trying to show with the scandals and his cronies doing illegal shit that he's actually not fit for office.
No shit sherlocks but you elevated him and the Arkham Asylum right into the White House.

All the GOP ever needed was a clown to stuff the courts and someone to appeal to the working classes (which they never could, just look at Romney).
The rest of the party base (CEO's, hedgefunders, armchair generals, religious types, law enforcement etc) all focus on things that Trump also supports anyway.

Honestly is there a reason for Republicans to not vote for Trump in 2020 that didn't bother them during the 2016 election?

[Joe Molotov]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/trumps-white-house-misspells-united-states-embarrassing-official-statement/

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/shame_is/status/1021789498290708480

 

[kingv]

Hillary definitely needs to get dragged more for playing 12 dimensional chess and screwing herself (and America).

Humorously, I think Trump was the only candidate out of the Republican pack that really made a good foil for Hillary. He just really was a perfect complement to her weaknesses. Bush would have been a better opponent for her. Nobody, including the working class, likes the Bushes.

That said, I think that the wheels are coming off the Trump Presidency already. This quarters GDP numbers were deceptive because something like 0.6% of the growth, alone, was forward orders of Soybeans to beat tariffs. This likely showed up across the economy and we will see much weaker numbers in Q3 and Q4. The one thing I think Trump can’t survive is a self-inflicted recession.

I would think that the GOP would realize they are alienating an entire generation of voters for short term gain, and thus Trump is likely the last gasp before like 20 years of underperforming in elections.... but they don’t seem to realize that yet, so I don’t know.

[Optimus]

I've been trying to focus less on liberals lately because obviously they're not the only imbeciles that make the world a worse place but then I read something like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/92l8vw/in_a_divided_us_therapists_are_hearing_the_same/

'Trump Anxiety Disorder' may not be an official diagnosis, but therapists know the symptoms

Oh c'mon, it's not fair, it's like like they're asking me to mock them. And look at that reddit thread

My God, what a bunch of pussies.

[Nintex]

Fight over Trump's hollywood star brehs 

https://twitter.com/fleccas/status/1022715131682160640

[agrajag]

Hey! He's a Marine.

[Kara]

I would think that the GOP would realize they are alienating an entire generation of voters for short term gain, and thus Trump is likely the last gasp before like 20 years of underperforming in elections.... but they don’t seem to realize that yet, so I don’t know.

As more and more people live in fewer and fewer states the power of white minority rule only grows, to say nothing of the breakdown in political accountability that will occur when the balloon payment on anthropogenic climate change comes due.