Topic: Typhoid Trump: the not-smart, corrupt, coward, loser, thread

[Zeb]

There's very probably a good reason why Hersh's story is appearing in a German paper rather than a US one. He's had some sketchy grand conspiracy stories over recent years so, as said, add plenty of salt. He also accused Obama of making up tall tales about chemical weapons in Syria. The same chemical weapons the US and Russia agreed to get out of the country and then destroyed.

[DivisiveNewSigning]

I'll take Hersh's article with a pinch of salt, but his train of thought seems right me.

The US's continued failure to provide evidence of the sarin attack (still referred to as a "sarin-like substance") says it all. The fact that Trump gave the green light for the attacks without the full facts is not even a surprise.

[jambutty]

/ THE NATIONAL INTEREST
June 25, 2017
9:06 pm
Social Darwinism Is What Truly Guides Trump
By Jonathan Chait

Trump appeared before a rally in Iowa, where he regaled a crowd of supporters with stories of the great wealth of his inner circle of advisers. “When you get the president — this is the president of Goldman Sachs — smart! — having him represent us, he went from massive paydays to peanuts!” he boasted. The crow

But the thing about Trump’s core supporters is that Trump doesn’t have enough of them. To win the election, he had to pry away some former Obama voters in the Midwest, and he did it by positioning himself to his opponent’s left on economics. “Hillary will never reform Wall Street. She is owned by Wall Street!” he warned. “I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder,” he promised. His closing ad quoted Trump insisting, “The Establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election,” while images of a stock ticker and the street sign for Wall Street appeared onscreen.

Trump lies and reverses himself about all kinds of things, but usually this behavior is a flailing attempt at self-preservation. The curious thing about these particular reversals is that this hypocrisy comes at large cost to himself. Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg recently interviewed white working-class Obama voters who’d turned to Trump and found that news of the president’s Wall Street advisers was the fact most likely to shake their faith in his administration. Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to 40 percent or lower. Why is he making so little effort to conceal his bait-and-switch? Why forfeit his most precious political asset? The best explanation for this grand act of self-sabotage (beyond his simply not understanding the policies he endorses) is that Trump, like much of the Republican Party, is an instinctive social Darwinist.

Social Darwinism is a philosophy that treats the market as a perfectly efficient and moral mechanism for allocating wealth. Just as natural selection favors those species best adapted for survival, the theory goes, capitalism rewards the smartest and most deserving among us. It is the intellectual scaffolding, constructed by writers like Ayn Rand and various Austrian economists, behind the vision of conservatives like Paul Ryan and David Koch. Trump may not have read up on the theory, but he understands it viscerally. His father, Fred, inculcated his son with the unshakable belief that his own greatness would lead to enormous wealth.

Trump’s boast in Iowa about the “great, brilliant business minds” in his administration communicates a great deal about his innermost beliefs. “I love all people, rich or poor,” he explained, “but, in those particular positions, I just don’t want a poor person, does that make sense?” The richest people in the country are, by definition, the most brilliant and well qualified. Trump rejects the notion that circumstance, luck, or social advantage might play a role. In a 1990 interview, a more candid time, Trump expressed his belief that being born into poverty would not have arrested his rise. “The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son,” he told an interviewer. “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination — or whatever — to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it’ … You’re either born with it or you’re not.”

Conservative intellectuals make a sharp distinction, at least in theory, between good wealth amassed through pure capitalism and bad wealth obtained by government favoritism. Trump has never observed any boundary between the two. (On the contrary: During the campaign, he presented his experience buying government influence as a qualification for office.) And in practice, few Republicans bother themselves too much over how a person got rich, either. The Bush administration was a boom time for grifters — Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, and Duke Cunningham were among the party eminences who used Republican control of government to fatten their wallets.

After the Bush presidency collapsed, conservatives made a show of remorse and vowed not to succumb again to the temptations of corruption. Abramoff, the crooked conservative activist and lobbyist, refashioned himself after returning from prison as a chastened reformer. In 2012, he appeared at a Public Citizen event, denouncing the evils of the system.

But now the lessons have been discarded, and the stench of self-dealing is everywhere. The only low-income-housing program spared by Trump’s budget is one his business profits from, and he picked a comically underqualified family loyalist, an event planner by trade, to oversee federal housing in New York, where his business has its largest interest. Trump has handed control of every major regulatory agency to the industries they oversee — a Wall Street lawyer runs the Securities and Exchange Commission, fossil-fuel surrogates run the Environmental Protection Agency, the CEO of a for-profit lender will oversee the student-loan system, and on and on. Lobbyists are already shuffling between the White House and K Street. Even Abramoff has been lured out of retirement—registering as a foreign lobbyist, in which capacity he prevailed upon one member of Congress to write a letter requesting a presidential meeting with a client of Abramoff’s, a foreign dictator.

Congress has indulged Trump’s flagrant profiteering in part because he is letting them dip their beaks too. That Trump is holding his inaugural reelection fund-raiser in the Trump International Hotel, where party elites will join in an event that lines the president’s pockets, is one of the perfectly symbolic moments of the young administration. Any theoretical distinction between the Trumpian ethos of self-entitlement and the conservative doctrine of rewarding “job creators” has long since washed away.

Social Darwinism is the tissue connecting this shady conduct with the Republican Party’s highest policy priorities. Conservatives believe programs that tax the rich and benefit the poor illegitimately meddle with the natural and correct distribution of wealth produced by the marketplace. The Republican health-care bill — both what passed in the House and what Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has brought to the Senate — confers a nearly trillion-dollar tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy. That appears to be its sponsors’ primary consideration. Secondarily, it strips away an equal amount in Medicaid and middle-class insurance tax credits.

Conservatives have little difficulty applying the logic of social Darwinism to justify punishing the sick. Vice-President Mike Pence explains that the administration’s health-care plan supports the promotion of “personal responsibility.” Kellyanne Conway implies that only an unwillingness to work would cause an able-bodied adult to have trouble affording health care: “If they are able-bodied and they want to work, then they’ll have employer-sponsored benefits like you and I do.” The Republican plan, explained Alabama congressman Mo Brooks, will reduce “the cost to those people who lead good lives. They’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy.” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, allowed that while people who “get cancer” should have a “safety net,” “that doesn’t mean we should take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly, and gets diabetes.”

After passing a health-care bill built around a regressive tax cut, Republicans plan to proceed quickly to a second tax cut, which is expected to also benefit the rich disproportionately. The two bills, which are the entire focus of the party’s current legislative ambitions, would constitute the most sweeping upward redistribution of resources in American history.
Washington in the summer of Trump’s first year is an atmosphere of organized looting. The precariousness of Trump’s position, given his anemic polling, a riled-up opposition, and Robert Mueller lurking in the background, has only heightened the urgency to get while the getting is good.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/social-darwinism-is-what-truly-guides-trump.html

[jambutty]

/ POLITICS
June 25, 2017
9:03 pm
13 Predictions on How Long Trump’s Presidency Will Last
By Alex Carp

How long will President Trump survive? Nobody knows, but everyone’s guessing.

It’s a basic principle of psychology that the defenses we erect to defend our value always end up producing exactly what we are trying to avoid. In Trump’s case, the relentless insistence that he didn’t do it feeds the case that he did do it. I don’t know what the “it” will turn out to be, but I know Trump well enough to know that there are countless potential “its.”

I believe the end for Trump is much closer than most people imagine. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, and I recognize I’m not particularly trustworthy. I always feared Trump could win the presidency, but I never truly believed he would. I do believe Trump will self-immolate. The more convinced Trump becomes that he will be caught, the more desperately he will deny what will turn out to be indisputably true. Is there anyone rational who doesn’t believe he has already obstructed justice several times over? In the end, I don’t believe Trump will be impeached, or found guilty of a crime. My gut tells me that when the fire gets hot enough, he will make a deal to save himself, resign the presidency, and declare victory. —Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Art of the Deal

After the Democrats went zero for four in special elections, the delusions and fantasies continue. Trump will be reelected in 2020, and Pence will probably follow him in 2024. The analogue for Trump is Andrew Jackson, not Richard Nixon. —Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House


The likeliest outcome is a very weakened presidency that goes a full term, but discredits much of the angry rhetoric and sentiment that got Trump elected — that the problems of average people are a consequence of government overreach. And that will be a continuing dilemma for Republican members of Congress, who will be caught between the unhappiness with Trump of the electorate at large and the enthusiasm of Republican voters. —Barney Frank, former congressman

I will say this: Trump will survive as long as congressional Republicans lack a conscience. They are too afraid of the right-wing base to speak up for decency, as Howard Baker, Barry Goldwater, and others did during Watergate. —Jill Abramson, senior lecturer, Harvard

It is perhaps naïve to underestimate Donald Trump’s capacity for self-inflicted wounds. But, even so, Trump is likely to weather his scandals because he has advantages that Richard Nixon could never have imagined: (1) He has an alternative-reality media infrastructure that will provide him air cover and attack his critics, regardless of the facts that emerge. (2) The Republican base remains solidly behind him, regardless of his erratic behavior and reckless rhetoric. Until that base cracks, GOP politicians will be loath to distance themselves from Trump. And, finally, (3) conservatives have allowed themselves to be corrupted by Trumpism, as they jettison long-held principles in the service of what has become a cult of personality on the right.

All of this could change, of course, but until Republicans show even a modest willingness to stand up to the president, it’s hard to see how they would be complicit in bringing him down. —Charlie Sykes, former talk-show host

The great conundrum of the Trump era is that it is almost impossible to imagine this level of public agitation, chaos, lawbreaking, and unpopularity sustaining itself for four years. Yet it is equally difficult to imagine any credible way it ends, at least before 2019. Clearly one of these premises must be wrong. I’ve struggled to figure out which one it is. My best guess is that Trump is more likely than not to leave office before January 2021. The number to watch is approval from self-identified Republicans. That number now stands at over 80 percent. It likely needs to fall to 50 percent or below before removal from office becomes credible. —Josh Marshall, editor and publisher, Talking Points Memo

Whether Trump survives — and I think he will — has nothing to do with the professional pundits and prognosticators who write for this magazine. The media has less credibility and influence today over politics than at any time in modern times. Instead, his survival is based on maintaining the support he has from the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him. And from what I see and hear — and I have spent more time with Trump voters than just about anyone in America — they’re behind him 100 percent.

These alienated Americans don’t support him because of his economic policies, though they do believe the American workforce has been used and abused by the international economic community. They don’t support him for his foreign policy, though they eagerly embrace his America First clarion call. They support Trump because of his persona, the in-your-face bravado that is so often condemned because it is so often misunderstood. His base, about 35 percent of the American electorate, has waited a lifetime for a president to stand up, speak out, and reorder the world order. It’s been chaotic and messy, but to the average Trump voter, it’s exactly what they wanted — and they are grateful. —Frank Luntz, Republican pollster

One thing I learned during my time in Obama’s White House: Never underestimate the cravenness of Mitch McConnell. If all you care about is cutting taxes for the rich and repealing Obamacare in secret, a Watergate-size distraction is a feature rather than a bug. As long as Trump’s base (and Fox News allies) punish Republicans who push for impeachment, I just don’t see McConnell and his party cutting the president loose. Until he becomes toxic in the brightest-red states and districts, they’ll be more than happy to use the chaos as cover while they ram through as much regressive policy as possible. —David Litt, former Obama speechwriter

Trump himself hasn’t proved predictions wrong — he is exactly what his critics expected — but the American people and the Republican Party did, by not standing up to Trump’s nationalist demagoguery in time. The people and other elements of government and civil society are rising to the challenge, but unless the GOP starts putting principles over party, America is headed for more chaos, more division, and a constitutional crisis. Trump cares only for his “brand,” so he’ll look for a way out before impeachment. —Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Human Rights Foundation

Because of the administration’s exhaustive attack on the media, accusing them of constantly reporting fake news, when Trump mysteriously abandons the presidency in August of 2019, no one will know why. All eyes will then turn to Woodward and Bernstein, the only trusted reporters left, for the answer. As they begin to share with us the brilliant Machiavellian coup d’état just staged by the deep state, we all wake up, it’s November 7, 2016, and this was all a horrible dream. Who are we kidding? Trump’s a two-term president. Enjoy! —Larry Wilmore, host of Black on the Air podcast

Today’s guess: I would say he is more likely to be felled by fast food than anything else but, on his current path, is no more than a one-termer. —Norm Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Assume that Trump manages to avoid stumbling into a major war. (Should that assumption prove false, then all bets are off.) But if our current situation persists — lesser wars that drag on indefinitely — then the current obsession with Trumpian scandals, real or alleged, is likely to intensify. Trump has shown himself to be astonishingly thin-skinned. He will grow weary of being pursued. Before his enemies close in for the kill, he will leave the field. —Andrew J. Bacevich, historian, Boston University

Although beset and besieged at every turn — and gaining an average of ten pounds a year — Trump indeed will make it through his first term. He’ll choose not to run again in 2020. Mike Pence will run and lose to New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who thus becomes the first female president. (I offer this prediction having been wrong about every bit of political prognosticating I’ve ever been foolish enough to make.) —Margaret Sullivan, media columnist, Washington Post

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/13-predictions-on-how-long-trumps-presidency-will-last.html

[Ray K]

It's small beer compared to taking 23 million off health insurance to give a tax cut to billionaires, but hanging in Trump's golf clubs is a Time magazine cover. Which is fake.

The framed copy of Time Magazine was hung up in at least four of President Trump’s golf clubs, from South Florida to Scotland. Filling the entire cover was a photo of Donald Drumpf.

“Donald Drumpf: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!” the big headline said. Above the Time nameplate, there was another headline in all caps: “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS . . . EVEN TV!”

This cover — dated March 1, 2009 — looks like an impressive memento from Trump’s pre-presidential career. To club members eating lunch, or golfers waiting for a pro-shop purchase, it seemed to be a signal that Trump had always been a man who mattered. Even when he was just a reality-TV star, Trump was the kind of star who got a cover story in Time.

But that wasn’t true.

The Time cover is a fake.

There was no March 1, 2009, issue of Time Magazine. And there was no issue at all in 2009 that had Trump on the cover.

In fact,the cover on display at Trump’s clubs, observed recently by a reporter visiting one of the properties, contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The Trump cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-time-magazine-with-trump-on-the-cover-hangs-in-his-golf-clubs-its-fake/2017/06/27/0adf96de-5850-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.871846c467a5

[Chakan]

Helathcare bill voting postponed.

[KillieRed]

Helathcare bill voting postponed.

Time to wind up the whips...

Watching Frost/Nixon. Many salient points, especially on the definition of obstruction.

I doubt Trump has an iota of Nixon's intelligence and will never admit his failings.

(I am not a Nixon fan)

[Chakan]

Time to wind up the whips...

Watching Frost/Nixon. Many salient points, especially on the definition of obstruction.

I doubt Trump has an iota of Nixon's intelligence and will never admit his failings.

(I am not a Nixon fan)

Mark Knoller @markknoller

"This will be great if we get it done." says @POTUS of passing health care bill. If not, "that's okay and I understand that very well."

Throw random words together, hope they make a sentence. Anyone can be President.

[jambutty]

"I really didn't want it."

"It was a mean bill."

Fake Time 

Parody or not, he might not live this one down.

[Giono]

/ POLITICS
June 25, 2017
9:03 pm
13 Predictions on How Long Trump’s Presidency Will Last
By Alex Carp


It’s a basic principle of psychology that the defenses we erect to defend our value always end up producing exactly what we are trying to avoid. In Trump’s case, the relentless insistence that he didn’t do it feeds the case that he did do it. I don’t know what the “it” will turn out to be, but I know Trump well enough to know that there are countless potential “its.”

I believe the end for Trump is much closer than most people imagine. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, and I recognize I’m not particularly trustworthy. I always feared Trump could win the presidency, but I never truly believed he would. I do believe Trump will self-immolate. The more convinced Trump becomes that he will be caught, the more desperately he will deny what will turn out to be indisputably true. Is there anyone rational who doesn’t believe he has already obstructed justice several times over? In the end, I don’t believe Trump will be impeached, or found guilty of a crime. My gut tells me that when the fire gets hot enough, he will make a deal to save himself, resign the presidency, and declare victory. —Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Art of the Deal

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/13-predictions-on-how-long-trumps-presidency-will-last.html

This is the quote I found most interesting because it is by someone that knows the orange excrement well.

[GreatEx]

Interesting that the fake Trump Time cover seems to validate the existence of global warming (and, less ironically, suggest that Obamacare costs were out of control).

[Red Beret]

Helathcare bill voting postponed.

According to O'Donnell there were only five confirmed votes in favour of the bill and nine definitely opposed.  Reckons Mitch's arse got twitchy because so few GOP senators refused to publicly back it.

[RedBootsTommySmith]

Smoke and mirrors...

You reckon?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-great-muslim-civil-war--and-us/2017/06/22/80a32be6-56c1-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html?utm_term=.e2882e041abd

[Ray K]

@realDonaldTrump

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!


Jesus tittyfucking Christ.

[Rush 82]

@realDonaldTrump

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!


Jesus tittyfucking Christ.

Ladies and Gents, the 'leader' of the Free World 

[Red Beret]

@realDonaldTrump

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!


Jesus tittyfucking Christ.

Everything is about ratings with him, isn't it?  The man should be a critic, not a President.

On a side note, up until recently both Joe and Mika considered Trump to be a friend of theirs (of sorts).  They considered him a charming man, but one who was clearly struggling and unfit for the office of President; they were concerned that it had "changed" him.

I hope they now both realise that his charming and friendly routine was just that, and what they are seeing now is the real Donald Trump.

[Big Red Richie]

 

He's so fucking stupid, I can't help but laugh.

If he was written as a character in  a story, no one would believe it could be true. it's so ridiculously preposterous.

[DrTobiasFunke]

@realDonaldTrump

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!


Jesus tittyfucking Christ.

This one stood out as more ridiculous than usual. Didn't think that was even possible.

This is the sort of thing he spends time thinking about. Mind boggling how anyone could support someone like this in any governmental position, never mind President.

[Red Beret]

This one stood out as more ridiculous than usual. Didn't think that was even possible.

This is the sort of thing he spends time thinking about. Mind boggling how anyone could support someone like this in any governmental position, never mind President.

It stands out because it's really personally offensive.  You call somebody's wife "low IQ crazy" you're likely to lose your teeth.

[BabuYagu]

This one stood out as more ridiculous than usual. Didn't think that was even possible.

This is the sort of thing he spends time thinking about. Mind boggling how anyone could support someone like this in any governmental position, never mind President.

It sounds like the sort of shite you would read in the diary of a teenage girl with self confidence issues.

I heard Joe speaks badly of me (don't like him anymore). Then how stupid crazy Mika, along with Ugly Joe, came to sit at my lunch table 3 days in a row, and insisted on speaking to me. She was bleeding badly from her nose job. I said no!

[Chakan]

Dunno why everyone is now disgusted and surprised, it's not like it's the first time he's done this.

[Corkboy]

Dunno why everyone is now disgusted and surprised, it's not like it's the first time he's done this.

True. It's still hard to believe each time it happens, though.

[Chakan]

True. It's still hard to believe each time it happens, though.

Really? I find it totally expected. Nothing he does is shocking or beyond him.

Collude with Russians? Sure.
Make sexists disparaging remarks to a woman? Sure why not.
Leak secrets to Russians? Yup.
Lie all the time? Definitely.
Make fake news stories about yourself? Absolutely
Never work a day as President? Check
Golf all the time and blame Obama for everything? Done and repeated.

He's still on the campaign trail, flogging his ego to the masses. They'll eat it up as well, because he can do no wrong.

[classycarra]

Really? I find it totally expected. Nothing he does is shocking or beyond him.

Collude with Russians? Sure.
Make sexists disparaging remarks to a woman? Sure why not.
Leak secrets to Russians? Yup.
Lie all the time? Definitely.
Make fake news stories about yourself? Absolutely
Never work a day as President? Check
Golf all the time and blame Obama for everything? Done and repeated.

He's still on the campaign trail, flogging his ego to the masses. They'll eat it up as well, because he can do no wrong.

Yep none of the behaviour is shocking behaviour for general mollycoddled petulant narcissistic spoilt c*nts around the world. It's only shocking because millions voted for him as a representative, believing some of his behaviours to be virtuous

[Chakan]

Plus there's no reason for him to change his behavior.

[Ray K]

[Red Beret]

Dunno why everyone is now disgusted and surprised, it's not like it's the first time he's done this.

I think he is sounding increasingly hysterical, bitter, angry, aggressive and spiteful in his tweets, and they paint a fascinating picture of what is going through his mind.  More and more desperate and unhinged every day.  I think it's less disgust and surprised and more a morbid fascination of how low and vile he can and will ultimately stoop.

He's been insulting before, but the outright venom in this particular tweet is very bad.  It's only one step down from saying, "Mika has saggy t!ts, a 5 at best. SAD!"

[Chakan]

I think he is sounding increasingly hysterical, bitter, angry, aggressive and spiteful in his tweets, and they paint a fascinating picture of what is going through his mind.  More and more desperate and unhinged every day.  I think it's less disgust and surprised and more a morbid fascination of how low and vile he can and will ultimately stoop.

He's been insulting before, but the outright venom in this particular tweet is very bad.  It's only one step down from saying, "Mika has saggy t!ts, a 5 at best. SAD!"

I don't think he's sounding any less hysterical than what he's been doing since 2016.

[BabuYagu]

I think he is sounding increasingly hysterical, bitter, angry, aggressive and spiteful in his tweets, and they paint a fascinating picture of what is going through his mind.  More and more desperate and unhinged every day.  I think it's less disgust and surprised and more a morbid fascination of how low and vile he can and will ultimately stoop.

He's been insulting before, but the outright venom in this particular tweet is very bad.  It's only one step down from saying, "Mika has saggy t!ts, a 5 at best. SAD!"

This is nowhere near the attacks he made on Rosie O'Donnell or Alicia Machado. He is, always was and always will be a vile, nasty, spiteful human being. His current position will not change the person who is, it merely changes how people expect him to behave and the amount of publicity he gets when he so spectacularly fails to meet those expectations.

[Romeo Sensini]

Melania's anti-cyber bullying campaign seems to be working.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

If a UK prime minister acted like him they wouoldn't last a month.

He is not a man,he is nothing but a childish coward.

Trump ‘will punch back 10 times harder’ if ‘attacked’: Melania Trump defends vicious ‘facelift’ tweets


He couldn't puch his way out of a wet paper bag.

[Mumm-Ra]

Dunno why everyone is now disgusted and surprised, it's not like it's the first time he's done this.

It's tiresome how you keep posting this, over and over again. Every time he does something and people comment on it you say the same thing. It's boring.

He is the president, when he does un-presidential things, people will comment, whether those actions are out of character for him or not.

[Chakan]

It's tiresome how you keep posting this, over and over again. Every time he does something and people comment on it you say the same thing. It's boring.

He is the president, when he does un-presidential things, people will comment, whether those actions are out of character for him or not.

It's the level of surprise that people show though, it's like OMG I can't believe he did that. Why? Why is it so hard for people to believe?

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz faces ethics questions for $296M deal that could fall under Russia probe

The lawyer who’s representing President Donald Trump in the Justice Department investigation into his Russia ties was involved in a property transaction involving Jared Kushner that could potentially be probed under the same inquiry.

Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz’s law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres, represented the owners of the former New York Times building in a 2015 transaction that gave Trump son-in-law Kushner partial ownership of the Times Square property, reported The Guardian.

The real estate company owned by Kushner, now a senior White House adviser, paid $296 million for the ownership stake in 2015 and then then refinanced that debt in October 2016 through a $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank, according to the Washington Post, that could fall under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Deutsche Bank has extended $364 million in loans to Trump — the most of any lender — while gaining a reputation for Russian money laundering, which former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was believed to be investigating in the southern district of New York before the president fired him.

The German bank was ordered by U.S. and British regulators to pay $628 million in fines earlier this year for failing to stop suspicious transfers of more than $10 billion out of Russia.

Kasowitz bragged to friends and colleagues that he urged Trump to fire Bharara, four sources told Pro Publica, although the attorney is known for exaggerating his exploits.

Deutsche Bank officials conducted their own investigation of Trump’s personal account to look for suspicious links to Russia, The Guardian previously reported, although no such evidence was turned up in the internal review.

The bank also examined accounts held by Kushner and his mother, as well as Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and also a White House adviser.

Congressional Democrats have called for an investigation into Trump’s possible conflicts of interest regarding his Deutsche Bank loans, saying the president and his “inner circle” are in position to steer the Department of Justice away from issues involving a lender to which they owe hundreds of millions.

Kushner refinanced his loan for the Times Square property just days ahead of teh 2016 election through Deutsche Bank, which was at the time negotiating a settlement with the government on a mortgage fraud case and charges from New York state regulators involving a possible Russian money-laundering scheme.

Those two cases were settled in December and January, during the presidential transition period, and Kushner failed to disclose the corporate loan and his personal guarantee on his financial disclosure form upon taking a job in the White House.

[Fiasco]

I'm always reminded of something Obama said when I see Trump acting like this. I'm paraphrasing but the interview/quotes will be out there. On discussing Trump or other Republican candidates, Obama said that although he disagrees with most of what the Republicans believe in, he didn't doubt that Romney or others had the capability to at least hold public office. He opined that he couldn't say the same about Trump.

Just because this is how he acts doesn't mean we should become used to it. We shouldn't just accept that he's batshit crazy and let things be. It's dangerous to let it go too far. Then again, it had gone too far a long time ago.

[Chakan]

I'm always reminded of something Obama said when I see Trump acting like this. I'm paraphrasing but the interview/quotes will be out there. On discussing Trump or other Republican candidates, Obama said that although he disagrees with most of what the Republicans believe in, he didn't doubt that Romney or others had the capability to at least hold public office. He opined that he couldn't say the same about Trump.

Just because this is how he acts doesn't mean we should become used to it. We shouldn't just accept that he's batshit crazy and let things be. It's dangerous to let it go too far. Then again, it had gone too far a long time ago.

That boat sailed ages ago. This is the norm now. Until he does something that gets him removed there's sweet fuck all we can do about it. He's the President. Fuckwits from all over the US voted him in.

This is what we're going to be seeing for the next 4 years until there comes a time when he is impeached, or removed or thrown out, cause he's not quitting. It's time to stop acting surprised whenever he opens his yob and sticks his foot in it. Report on it, show the world what he is, keep covering it, but for fucks sake people stop acting surprised about it!

It's like letting Dahmer out of prison and then acting surprised he murdered more people.

[Fiasco]

That boat sailed ages ago. This is the norm now. Until he does something that gets him removed there's sweet fuck all we can do about it. He's the President. Fuckwits from all over the US voted him in.

This is what we're going to be seeing for the next 4 years until there comes a time when he is impeached, or removed or thrown out, cause he's not quitting. It's time to stop acting surprised whenever he opens his yob and sticks his foot in it. Report on it, show the world what he is, keep covering it, but for fucks sake people stop acting surprised about it!

It's crazy though mate. You're right, this is normal now. But when you stop and think about it you just aren't surprised. As has been said, his standards were so crazily low from the outset that he couldn't sink any lower. He peaked (in a sense of being so fucking awful) so early that anything thereafter was just met with a shrug of the shoulders. This is why we are where we are now.

[Chakan]

It's crazy though mate. You're right, this is normal now. But when you stop and think about it you just aren't surprised. As has been said, his standards were so crazily low from the outset that he couldn't sink any lower. He peaked (in a sense of being so fucking awful) so early that anything thereafter was just met with a shrug of the shoulders. This is why we are where we are now.

It's absolutely crazy how this is the norm now, definitely, not saying it's not. It's shocking how quickly the US has become this , this thing, and he's the leader.

[Red Beret]

This is nowhere near the attacks he made on Rosie O'Donnell or Alicia Machado. He is, always was and always will be a vile, nasty, spiteful human being. His current position will not change the person who is, it merely changes how people expect him to behave and the amount of publicity he gets when he so spectacularly fails to meet those expectations.

I dunno.  In the past he has been snide, his insults thinly veiled.  The way he behaved towards Ghazala Kahn for instance, it was thin and spiteful and egotistical.  This latest tweet is an absolutely out in the open frag grenade.

We know his response to being challenged or put in his place or being humbled is to come out fighting, get right in your face and be aggressive, but he's doing it on so many fronts, making so many enemies; constantly doubling down and riling up everybody.  And nobody has the balls to tell him it's only making things worse for him.

His recent attacks on Obama for instance.  As a CNN article rightly points out, Obama is hamstrung; he's limited in how he can respond, so he becomes an easy target.  Trump knows Obama wont - can't - fight back like for like, so he sees it as a quick and easy way to make himself look strong.

The man's a flat track bully.

[BabuYagu]

I dunno.  In the past he has been snide, his insults thinly veiled.  The way he behaved towards Ghazala Kahn for instance, it was thin and spiteful and egotistical.  This latest tweet is an absolutely out in the open frag grenade.

We know his response to being challenged or put in his place or being humbled is to come out fighting, get right in your face and be aggressive, but he's doing it on so many fronts, making so many enemies; constantly doubling down and riling up everybody.  And nobody has the balls to tell him it's only making things worse for him.

His recent attacks on Obama for instance.  As a CNN article rightly points out, Obama is hamstrung; he's limited in how he can respond, so he becomes an easy target.  Trump knows Obama wont - can't - fight back like for like, so he sees it as a quick and easy way to make himself look strong.

The man's a flat track bully.

I know all this. I was just pointing out that he has said much worse when attacking women specifically in the past. There was nothing snide or thinly veiled about his attacks on Rosie or Alicia. He has outright called Rosie O'Donnell fat and ugly many times and called Alicia "Miss Piggy". Today´s tweet isn´t him escalating, it´s just Trump being Trump. Nothing worse than before. I would actually argue that today he reigned himself in somewhat compared to his comments on women before.