The Former Trump Presidency Thread

Kurth · Post by **Kurth** » Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:02 pm

Remus West wrote:
Holman wrote:They know they can't really control information. This is about de-legitimizing the mainstream press, making it look weak or unnecessary.

It's dominance politics. It's all Trump knows.
I don't believe this. I think it is absolutely about controlling the narrative.if the information gets out the way they want it out it becomes much easier to control their sheeples. At first I only jokingly thought of him as the end of America as a nation of the free. More and more I view his government to be the end of freedom and equality. Controlling how the steps forward get presented to the public eases their path to step on.

Couldn't agree more. Meanwhile, even if it wasn't adopted in direct response to Trump, the Washington Post's new slogan, Democracy Dies in Darkness could not be better timed.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:35 pm

Enough wrote:
Holman wrote:
tgb wrote:
malchior wrote:Sebastian Gorka (one of Steve Bannon's band of merry men) calls up a critic and berates him for 20 minutes about some twitter comments. These are the people who work in the White House. FFS.
For some reason this isn't loading for me, so I'll have to listen to it another time.

That said, Sebastian Gorka still sounds like the name of a Bond villain.
Bond villains had style. Gorka is just a common gutter fascist.

The Forward on Friday detailed Gorka's time in Hungarian politics in the aughts, which included trying to get a new political party off the ground alongside former members of the Jobbik party, whose leaders have been accused of stoking anti-Semitism, as well as publishing articles in a newspaper the U.S. State Department says "published anti-Semitic articles and featured articles by authors who have denied the Holocaust.”
I used to data a Hungarian woman I met there and am still good friends with her. I am appalled at how far right she and the rest of the country is these days. I don't think many realize just how icky it's getting. A lot of the reason why is that those that threw the communists out were an odd coalition of environmentalists and righties. Now many of the leaders of that time are leading Hungarian government and it reflects that bias.

I just learned something new. John Schindler is a cantankerous NSA veteran whose Twitter feed is as much snark as analysis, but this is his bailiwick, and I would guess that he knows what he's talking about:

https://twitter.com/20committee/status/ ... 6713387008

I think I first heard Gorka's name a couple of years back as part of a discussion of the War-on-Islam fringe. That he has made it to the highest levels of an American administration is just appalling.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:01 am

I have zero respect for anyone buying into this crap. You have to be completely blind to not see how f'n wrong all of this is. Less than an hour ago the "president" attacked the media again. This isn't normal. I pray this is him trying to distract from what will eventually come, but I don't hold much hope anymore. I see perfectly normal people that are eating this insane crap up. SAD!

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:07 am

Trump administration sought to enlist intelligence officials, key lawmakers to counter Russia stories

The Trump administration has enlisted senior members of the intelligence community and Congress in efforts to counter news stories about Trump associates’ ties to Russia, a politically charged issue that has been under investigation by the FBI as well as lawmakers now defending the White House.

Acting at the behest of the White House, the officials made calls to news organizations last week in attempts to challenge stories about alleged contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, U.S. officials said.

The calls were orchestrated by the White House after unsuccessful attempts by the administration to get senior FBI officials to speak with news organizations and dispute the accuracy of stories on the alleged contacts with Russia.

The White House on Friday acknowledged those interactions with the FBI but did not disclose that it then turned to other officials who agreed to do what the FBI would not — participate in White House-arranged calls with news organizations, including The Washington Post.

Two of those officials spoke on the condition of anonymity — a practice President Trump has condemned.

The officials broadly dismissed Trump associates’ contacts with Russia as infrequent and inconsequential. But the officials would not answer substantive questions about the issue, and their comments were not published by The Post and do not appear to have been reported elsewhere.

Lagom Lite · Post by **Lagom Lite** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 3:33 am

I usually come into OO political threads with sarcasm and humor (and maybe a little bit of ire) but today I tell you: Your government is highjacked by a fascist.

I'm not using hyperbole. Trump is a fascist. He's lying about foreign countries (e.g. mine), sacrificing credibility and diplomacy for cheap points towards divisive domestic policy, sorting people into "us" and "them". Inciting violence. Building walls.

And now, he's trying to control the media. Fortunately for you, we live in the era of Internet so state propaganda is much harder to implement. But he is trying. He began by accusing some channels of being fake news, now he's trying to control the narrative by not inviting certain networks.

As Octavious said above, don't accept any of this. None of you. Not even Rip. This isn't healthy. It's not about left and right. Deposing Trump means installing Mike Pence who seems as conservative as you can get.

For the sake of your country, get out there and protest.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:14 am

Lagom Lite wrote:I usually come into OO political threads with sarcasm and humor (and maybe a little bit of ire) but today I tell you: Your government is highjacked by a fascist.

I'm not using hyperbole. Trump is a fascist. He's lying about foreign countries (e.g. mine), sacrificing credibility and diplomacy for cheap points towards divisive domestic policy, sorting people into "us" and "them". Inciting violence. Building walls.

And now, he's trying to control the media. Fortunately for you, we live in the era of Internet so state propaganda is much harder to implement. But he is trying. He began by accusing some channels of being fake news, now he's trying to control the narrative by not inviting certain networks.

As Octavious said above, don't accept any of this. None of you. Not even Rip. This isn't healthy. It's not about left and right. Deposing Trump means installing Mike Pence who seems as conservative as you can get.

For the sake of your country, get out there and protest.

You are correct, and it's terrifying.

I'd just add that we weren't taken over by a fascist but by fascism. Trump didn't come up with it. He simply declared himself in the space prepared for him by decades of right-wing media and conspiracy theory and by a GOP that was always happy to exploit bigotry and ignorance even when it declined to give them a prime slot on the agenda.

Protests continue. The next big national wave will probably be the protests that appear to be scheduling for April 15.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:35 am

And LL, here is more Swedish flavor for you:

Fox News gives airtime to fake Sweden expert.

Fox News continues to focus on the debate about how immigration is breaking Sweden. One guest last night, described as a ”Swedish defense and national security advisor”, spoke about the problems caused by criminality in Swedish cities and suburbs. But neither the Swedish Defense Ministry nor Foreign Office have heard of the expert. Nils Bildt, who called for an “open and honest” debate on crime, has previously been convicted of a violent offence in the United States.

Fox has a long history of promoting and inflating pseudo-experts to bolster their narrative line. (Sebastian Gorka got his start in the U.S. the same way.) They were doing this sort of Fake News before anyone was using the term, and this kind of behavior (from Fox and many others) is why we have Trump now.

Lagom Lite · Post by **Lagom Lite** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:53 am

Holman wrote:And LL, here is more Swedish flavor for you:

Fox News gives airtime to fake Sweden expert.

Fox News continues to focus on the debate about how immigration is breaking Sweden. One guest last night, described as a ”Swedish defense and national security advisor”, spoke about the problems caused by criminality in Swedish cities and suburbs. But neither the Swedish Defense Ministry nor Foreign Office have heard of the expert. Nils Bildt, who called for an “open and honest” debate on crime, has previously been convicted of a violent offence in the United States.
Fox has a long history of promoting and inflating pseudo-experts to bolster their narrative line. (Sebastian Gorka got his start in the U.S. the same way.) They were doing this sort of Fake News before anyone was using the term, and this kind of behavior (from Fox and many others) is why we have Trump now.

I know. Our media won't shut up about it. If it's of any interest to you, the real Bildt wrote a piece on his experiences of immigration to Sweden during his period in office.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:22 pm

Holman wrote:
I'd just add that we weren't taken over by a fascist but by fascism. Trump didn't come up with it. He simply declared himself in the space prepared for him by decades of right-wing media and conspiracy theory and by a GOP that was always happy to exploit bigotry and ignorance even when it declined to give them a prime slot on the agenda.

Trump is a narcissist first and foremost, and totalitarianism follows from his need to be the center of the universe. I see little evidence that he devotes any abstract thought to governing beyond what will be popular with his tribe and keep him permanently in the spotlight.

It's the fascists in his tribe that we need to worry about, especially Bannon.

Andrew Wonser · Post by **Andrew Wonser** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:47 pm

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:55 pm

He does realize he hasn't put a budget in yet right? Oh wait no he doesn't.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:18 pm

To be fair, the absolute value of the gross national debt did go down by $12B in the past month.

Unfortunately it did so because of accounting magic moving around intergovernmental debt, and not because of the impact from the budget that Trump didn't propose or get passed through Congress.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:49 pm

Context is meaningless:

Trump's tweet about the debt appears to reference the U.S. Treasury's daily history of the national debt. The debt presently sits at nearly $20 trillion, of which the $12 billion for which Trump takes credit is 0.06 percent.

As The Hill notes, the national debt spiked in February of 2009 mostly because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill, which cost $831 billion and remains controversial eight years later. Both President George W. Bush and President Obama doubled the national debt during their time in office, from about $5.6 to $9.9 trillion and $9.9 to $19.9 trillion, respectively.

Damn those presidents for spending all that money.

...

Oh, wait:

History, Art & Archives | United States House of Representatives wrote:Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the “power of the purse,” the ability to tax and spend public money for the national government.

Massachusetts’ Elbridge Gerry said at the Federal Constitutional Convention that the House “was more immediately the representatives of the people, and it was a maxim that the people ought to hold the purse-strings.”

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:13 pm

Low-information voters have found their low-information POTUS.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:00 pm

Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?

Andrew Wonser · Post by **Andrew Wonser** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:10 pm

Did he ever say in a row? Could we put a few minutes here and there in between twitter rants, vacations and getting his news from tv?

Andrew Wonser · Post by **Andrew Wonser** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:13 pm

https://gop.com/trump-first-month-approval-survey/
Went ahead and filled in the survey. What I wrote in the optional:

Become the Republican party of old and not this extremist version. Care more about the country than the party. Don't be afraid to call out members of your own party who are only there for wealth and power. Help those that do not have the means to help themselves. Stop peddling hate and fear and shift to love and compassion. Realize science and education are not out to get you but rather improve and enrich us all.

I suppose I'm hoping for too much though.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:14 pm

RunningMn9 wrote:Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?

Donald wrote:Wait, you meant in a row?

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:50 pm

RunningMn9 wrote:Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?

Turns out it's a lot easier to go after the media.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 8:17 pm

Alefroth wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?
Turns out it's a lot easier to go after the media.

or hide from them. He's not going to the WHC dinner. Poor little snowflake.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 8:47 pm

tjg_marantz wrote:
Alefroth wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?
Turns out it's a lot easier to go after the media.
or hide from them. He's not going to the WHC dinner. Poor little snowflake.

So wait, does that mean he *is* going? I'm just wondering because there's about a 50/50 chance that he's lying.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 8:53 pm

NickAragua wrote:
tjg_marantz wrote:
Alefroth wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Twitter reminded me that Trump crowed about his secret 30-day plan to defeat ISIS. Today is day 31, so I assume problem solved?
Turns out it's a lot easier to go after the media.
or hide from them. He's not going to the WHC dinner. Poor little snowflake.
So wait, does that mean he *is* going? I'm just wondering because there's about a 50/50 chance that he's lying.

No worries, he did tack on the obligatory lie when he made the announcement.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 8625836032

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:29 pm

Reagan only missed the dinner because he was recovering from an assassination.

Trump is a frightened snowflake. How can you lead America when you're afraid of it?

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:42 pm

Wait for it... He'll schedule a rally or counter-event like he tried during the debates.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:15 pm

Maybe he could bar them from their own thing?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:21 pm

Cards Against Humanity creators send newest board game, Secret Hitler, to all 100 U.S. senators.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:35 pm

Andrew Wonser wrote:https://gop.com/trump-first-month-approval-survey/
Went ahead and filled in the survey. What I wrote in the optional:
Become the Republican party of old and not this extremist version. Care more about the country than the party. Don't be afraid to call out members of your own party who are only there for wealth and power. Help those that do not have the means to help themselves. Stop peddling hate and fear and shift to love and compassion. Realize science and education are not out to get you but rather improve and enrich us all.
I suppose I'm hoping for too much though.

You have earned a spot on somebody's enemies list.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:47 pm

Kraken wrote:
Andrew Wonser wrote:https://gop.com/trump-first-month-approval-survey/
Went ahead and filled in the survey. What I wrote in the optional:
Become the Republican party of old and not this extremist version. Care more about the country than the party. Don't be afraid to call out members of your own party who are only there for wealth and power. Help those that do not have the means to help themselves. Stop peddling hate and fear and shift to love and compassion. Realize science and education are not out to get you but rather improve and enrich us all.
I suppose I'm hoping for too much though.
You have earned a spot on somebody's enemies list.

Not me, I put in stevie@whitehouse.gov for the email address.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:56 pm

Max Peck wrote:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 8625836032

Maybe he's just joining the boycott against the Dinner cause of the administration's treatment of the press?

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:44 am

I filled out the survey and put my real email address on it. Laid into them with everything I had. Fuck 'em.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:53 am

I gave them my spam address. They are going to have to compete with canadianpetvet.com for my attention.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:12 am

El Guapo wrote:Cards Against Humanity creators send newest board game, Secret Hitler, to all 100 U.S. senators.

I can't wait to see the look on the faces of security when 100 packages arrive simultaneously, all with the same return address.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:43 am

You know half of them will just keep the Fascist policy cards and throw out the rest.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:55 am

Has this already been posted? I'm sure you all know about it.

raydude · Post by **raydude** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:12 pm

Andrew Wonser wrote:https://gop.com/trump-first-month-approval-survey/
Went ahead and filled in the survey. What I wrote in the optional:
Become the Republican party of old and not this extremist version. Care more about the country than the party. Don't be afraid to call out members of your own party who are only there for wealth and power. Help those that do not have the means to help themselves. Stop peddling hate and fear and shift to love and compassion. Realize science and education are not out to get you but rather improve and enrich us all.
I suppose I'm hoping for too much though.

Which of the following do you think are top priorities for President Trump to accomplish next? Select as many that apply.
Other please specify:

release his tax returns

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:32 pm

Trump's immigrant dragnet seized a renowned historian visiting the U.S. and held him for 10 hours because he had been born in Egypt 62 years ago.

Henry Rousso is Jewish and a French citizen. His research specialty is France under the Nazis.

And, oh hey, tomorrow is the anniversary of the Reichstag fire.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:52 pm

raydude wrote:
Which of the following do you think are top priorities for President Trump to accomplish next? Select as many that apply.
Other please specify:
release his tax returns

I piggy backed on yours a bit.
Release tax returns, denounce white supremacy and stop undermining the institutions of Democracy.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:51 am

Another day, another anti-Semitic attack.

I emailed tlr's brothers (she's in training for a new position) and her family is buried somewhere else, thankfully.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:59 am

FAKE NEWS! Trump is bringing people together!

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:01 am

Archinerd wrote:
raydude wrote:
Which of the following do you think are top priorities for President Trump to accomplish next? Select as many that apply.
Other please specify:
release his tax returns
I piggy backed on yours a bit.
Release tax returns, denounce white supremacy and stop undermining the institutions of Democracy.

Tax returns, Denounce evangelical white supremacy where ever it rears up, Give up family holdings to a blind trust. We'll figure out the rest as we go.