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2017 Trump Presidency Thread

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Cduggles who do you think you are that you feel you can tell people to stay out of a thread or forum?
Everyone can post here as long as they're not breaking any rules so get used to it.
 
She gently suggested a person uninterested in politics might be more entertained elsewhere.

(I'm not disagreeing with anyone on anything (except on "food", just wanting to move along).)
 
LiquidMethod said:
Wow who f**king cares?
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trump cares. he got real butthurt over the suggestion that his inauguration crowd wasn't the biglyest. trump cares.

Soso78 said:
...you feel you can tell people to stay out of a thread or forum?
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you were not told to stay out. you were invited to leave :) words have specific meanings...

today: Trump’s Team of Rivals? President taps past critics, as loyalists get tough treatment

this is some heavy, heavy spin:

that article said:
Nine months ago, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman called on Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race over the bombshell “Access Hollywood” video.

Fast-forward to this week and Trump, now president, has nominated Huntsman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Back in 2015, one Anthony Scaramucci called Trump a “hack politician.” On Friday, he was hired to lead the White House communications team.

For a president often caricatured in the media as someone who surrounds himself with sycophants and yes-men, Trump has not shied away from tapping former critics.

Trump unquestionably values loyalty – and can be ruthless to those, like Attorney General Jeff Sessions with his Russia probe recusal, seen as undercutting his authority.

But appointments like Huntsman's and Scaramucci's show a willingness to set aside past feuds. Even if done out of necessity – the pool of candidates who did not at one point criticize his candidacy or presidency is more like a puddle – the result is a team that includes former rivals as well as longtime loyalists, even in this turbulent time.

“President Trump's goals today are identical to the promises he made while on the campaign trail,” Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney, told Fox News. “Priority one is to make America great again, even if that means choosing an individual who was critical of him early on. This is what leaders do.”

Scaramucci and Trump clearly have made amends since 2015, with the Wall Street financier acting as a forceful surrogate during the 2016 campaign and transition. Addressing the press from the briefing room podium on Friday, he made sure to say he's sorry -- again -- over his "hack" jab.

"Mr. President, if you’re listening, I apologize for the 50th time for saying that,” Scaramucci said.

“One of the biggest mistakes that I made, because I was an inexperienced person in the world of politics," he said. "I was supporting another candidate. I should have never said that about him.”

There’s also Rick Perry, who famously referred to Trump during the campaign as a “cancer on conservatism.” Perry is now Trump’s secretary of Energy.

There’s Nikki Haley, who endorsed Marco Rubio for president and warned Republicans during the campaign not to “follow the siren call of the angriest voices." She’s ambassador to the United Nations, and in that role has been an unflinching advocate for the administration's positions.

And there’s Huntsman, who called for then-vice presidential nominee Mike Pence to replace Trump on the ticket after lamenting how the contest had become a “race to the bottom.” Should the Senate confirm him, Huntsman will become the president’s representative in Russia, whose meddling in the 2016 election and contacts with Trump’s associates are at the root of the political and legal crisis facing the administration.

There was nearly another name added to this list: 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who delivered a major speech calling Trump a “phony, a fraud” and vowed not to vote for him in the general election. After the election, Trump publicly flirted with tapping Romney for secretary of state, trotting the former Massachusetts governor in front of journalists for interviews at his New Jersey golf course and over dinner at a fancy New York restaurant.

Romney later said he would have accepted the job if it had been offered. It went to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson instead.

Trump has not always been complimentary of these people. During the 2012 presidential race, when Huntsman was a candidate, Trump tweeted about the former ambassador to China: “Jon Huntsman called to see me. I said no, he gave away our country to China!”

During the Republican primary in 2015, Trump tweeted that Perry “should be forced to take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate.”

After Haley’s “angriest voices” comment, Trump fired back at the South Carolina governor in January 2016, calling her “weak on illegal immigration.”

For all the talk after the election that Trump would reward his most loyal campaign surrogates with high-profile gigs, not everyone got big jobs. Neither former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani nor New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ended up with major administration posts.

And things haven’t gone swimmingly for some of the Trump campaign loyalists who ended up inside the administration.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was fired for misleading Pence and is now under federal investigation.

Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump during the campaign, was publicly rebuked by the president in a New York Times interview this week. The president said he regretted making Sessions attorney general because of his decision to recuse himself from the Russian investigation.

On Thursday, Sessions, facing questions about whether he should resign after the president's comments, said he had no plan to step down.

“We love this job, and we love this department and I plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate,” he said.

And on Friday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who played the loyal soldier before the cameras for months, resigned in apparent protest over the hiring of Scaramucci.
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maybe you read the whole thing. maybe you didn't. no matter - there are just 4 words in that whole article that matter: "...done out of necessity..."

he's not doing this because he wants to. he's not doing this because he believes in doing what's right. what is best for america.

he's doing it purely and simply because he has to.

it's political expediency at its absolute finest.

and it's a tragedy.

alasdair
 
Can't handle someone else getting told, needs to . . .

Seriously, how many people have resigned now? I still can't stomach media right now. It's why I'm here asking kids not to drink hand sanitizer.
 
cduggles said:
Enjoy watching Trump get torn apart no matter what he does, because "he dared to speak truth to power" or because he's an incompetent idiot with equally idiotic family members. Either way. :D
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*President Trump.

Enjoy watching the evil, corrupt Democratic Party scramble to come up with another losing candidate.
 
zephyr said:
Hillary does seem to bring out the worst in people.
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*fixed

cduggles said:
LiquidMethod: Thank you for that summary of Trump talking points, Mr. Sean Hannity.
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Also I don't really watch Sean Hannity. I just look at the situation objectively without the need to bullshit or subvert democracy. Since you cannot refute the points with facts you resort to ad homs which means you have no argument.
 
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LiquidMethod said:
I just look at the situation objectively without the need to bullshit or subvert democracy. Since you cannot refute the points with facts you resort to ad homs which means you have no argument.
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You say this over and over again, then ignore the arguments people actually present.
You're not Trump, but behaving as childishly as he does makes you look just as foolish.
 
I must admit I was thinking of asking subotai why they were bothering to post here if they are apathetic to politics 8) no offense man, just don't get why you would come in here to argue with us arguers about things you don't like to argue about :?

You guys, I do feel like things have become more personal and hawkish in here. I don't like it, I'm trying to maintain what civility I can. Name calling and the like will get us nowhere we want to be...

It's clear that a great many, if not all of us in here, are set in our opinions on the Trump vs. America fight. Let's try and be more objective. I'll try to be at least. We're all still just internet druggies in the end right? Common ground! :)
 
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Hey, I'm not too sure about this Trump fellow yet. I mean, is six months in office after a campaign that lasted longer than most of us have been alive, really enough time to judge him by his actions?

I mean, maybe we should wait until he actually tries to accomplish something first, like resign in disgrace?
 
As a student of history, I'm keen to see how we talk about him in schools in 20 years time. Nixon certainly left quite an impact on the office of the president... Mr. Trump has gone above and beyond already though. The Trump Tapes will be a goldmine of humor and horror me-thinks.
 
He could always be another James Buchanan - someone who doesn't have a war that starts in their term, but screws up badly enough that the war starts soon after. It looks hard though - US isn't at a civil war point right now (despite the bickering), but he could always empower China or Russia to assume the US isn't going to interfere with their games abroad, eventually leading to a war.

He's already looking like more of a Warren Harding though. Pro-business, anti-immigration, lots and lots of scandals. But no war.
 
But not good for business. As for letting Russia know we're not going to interfere, Syria is still a flaming hell hole.
 
Scrofula said:
But not good for business. As for letting Russia know we're not going to interfere, Syria is still a flaming hell hole.
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Syria was always screwed up, and is unlikely to lead to a widespread war.

Think of a scenario instead like:

  1. Trump being Trump, convinces the West that the US is an unreliable ally.
  2. The US becomes increasingly isolationist (hey, if the rest of the world thinks we're nuts, then screw them, the US is the bestest!)
  3. With NATO now being ineffective, the EU creates a stronger standing army, but with spending a more traditional percentage of the GDP (leaving the EU army smaller)
  4. Unrest develops among ethnic Russians in a Baltic state
  5. Russia media plays up the story (why should Russian media let a good story go to waste when they pull the media equivalent of 2 minute hate?)
  6. The ethnic Russians in the Baltic state, hearing the news in Russia, decide to pull a Crimea and an independence referendum is held, one that decides to split off from the Baltic. They ask for help from the Russians to enforce it.
  7. Whoopsie, the situation has escalated, putting Russia in conflict with the EU. But Russia decides that without the US, the EU won't act. Russia sends in "peacekeepers".
  8. EU decides that if this stands, it'll destroy the EU. EU responds with force.
  9. Crap. Now we have a major war.
 
You realize I was trying to keep things bite-sized for the Trump fans.

I meant that Syria is the current signal to Russia and the world that we're way too distracted to meet any sudden challenges, much less calmly play geopolitical chess with all the secret things Claire Danes normally handles between psychoses. With Syria comes Turkey, where we park a lot of explosives on the way to Moscow (How we manage to keep a coup leader in like Pennsylvania I don't know).

But really, I think I wouldn't mind seeing the EU go to war with Russia. Tom Clancy never wrote any books about that. Then when it's almost over, we can actually test an ICBM from relative comfort.
 
I thought Clancy had a book where NATO went against Russia. That's roughly the same thing.

I'm not a big Tom Clancy fan though. I find his books are like Stephen King's later stuff - if you're curious, you can more or less read the Wikipedia summary of the plot and save yourself a ton of time.
 
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