You've Been Trumped!

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 19th October 2016
"The one thing you have over me is experience, but its bad experience. For 30 years you've been in a position to help. You talk, but you don't get anything done, Hillary!"

Donald Trump 5th November 2016
“Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States, and if she were to win it would create a constitutional crisis like no other. She’s under multiple federal investigations, has committed many crimes, including perjury, and she’s now facing the prospect of a federal indictment".

Donald Trump 9th November 2016
"Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country, and I mean that very sincerely."

More to follow...

[trish]

Please don't make me laugh. It hurts when I laugh.

[Jericho]

I have nothing! :shrug


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jz5A51ttTQ

[Paladin]

Well, she IS a congenital liar...

[Stavros]

Well, she IS a congenital liar...

I could give you a long list of things that Hillary Clinton has said which are true, and can be verified as true, and given that you have known her since she was born I assume you also believed her when she said her name is Hillary and that she has been a wife and a mother, a grandmother and a politician. Or it could just be that the truth no longer has any meaning.

[sukumvit boy]

Time to drain the swamp.
978515978516978517978518

[sukumvit boy]

Every cloud has a silver lining. I went to sleep last night comforted by the fact that at least I wouldn't have to listen to Hillary's annoying screeching for the next 4 years.
978524

[nitron]

Who do you think the working classes voted for?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj7NfrrnaKE
Clue...Alot of people here who are lefty's , you got taken by the establishment!
Read Orwell's opinions on flaky lefty's.
Congratulations on a smooth Transition, Great Democracy.
I hope he releases, Snowden, Asange, Chelsea Manning.

[Paladin]

Every cloud has a silver lining. I went to sleep last night comforted by the fact that at least I wouldn't have to listen to Hillary's annoying screeching for the next 4 years.
978524
Amen to that!

[Paladin]

I could give you a long list of things that Hillary Clinton has said which are true, and can be verified as true, and given that you have known her since she was born I assume you also believed her when she said her name is Hillary and that she has been a wife and a mother, a grandmother and a politician. Or it could just be that the truth no longer has any meaning.

Nope, she's older than me.

I can give you a longer list of her lies.

You need to get your head out of your 4th point of contact.

[trish]

Still in the sandbox I see.


Nope, she's older than me.
That means she's smarter than you.

I can give you a longer list of her lies.
Wrong.

You need to get your head out of your 4th point of contact.
Not a puppet! You're the puppet! You're the puppet!!

[Stavros]

Nope, she's older than me.
I can give you a longer list of her lies.
You need to get your head out of your 4th point of contact.

Politicians lie, but have they done so since birth? I do wonder if you know what 'congenital liar' means. I never suggested Hillary Clinton is perfect, but a reasonable degree of balance is all that is required to trump assumptions about biology we do not know.

[broncofan]

I do wonder if you know what 'congenital liar' means.
He just wanted to say genitals is my guess. It's titillating. Maybe not, but I really wanted to say tit.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 25th September 2016 on the Affordable Health Care Act:
Obamacare’s going to be repealed and replaced. Obamacare is a disaster if you look at what’s going on with premiums where they’re up 40, 50, 55 percent.

Donald Trump 11 November 2016 on the Affordable Health Care Act:
President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider leaving in place certain parts of the Affordable Care Act, an indication of possible compromise after a campaign in which he pledged repeatedly to repeal the 2010 health-care law.....Mr. Trump also showed a willingness to preserve at least two provisions of the law after Mr. Obama asked him to reconsider repealing it during their meeting at the White House on Thursday. Mr. Trump said he favors keeping the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children on their insurance policies.

“I like those very much,” Mr. Trump said.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-willing-to-keep-parts-of-health-law-1478895339

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 18 October 2016
Decades of failure in Washington, and decades of special interest dealing, must come to an end. We have to break the cycle of corruption, and we have to give new voices a chance to go into government service.
It is time to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.

That is why I am proposing a package of ethics reforms to make our government honest once again.

First: I am going to institute a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government after they leave government service.
Second: I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs.
Third: I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists.
Fourth: I am going to issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.

Fifth: I am going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-pledges-to-drain-the-swamp

Donald Trump 12 November 2016 -the Transition Team:

Leader of Transition Team: Jeffrey Eisenach, address: K Street, The Swamp.
Energy Transition: Michael Catanzaro, address: K Street, The Swamp.
Energy Transition: Michael McKenna, address: K Street, The Swamp.
Edwin Meese, Heritage Foundation, address: K Street, The Swamp.
Michael Torrey, Agriculture, address: K Street, The Swamp.
David Bernhardt, dept of the Interior, address: K Street, The Swamp.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-transition-team-members-presidential-advisors-washington-swamp-a7412226.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/politics/lobbyists-trump.html?_r=0

[chupapau]

He'll end up outsourcing the presidency. Plain and simple.

[Ben in LA]

He'll end up outsourcing the presidency. Plain and simple.

It's already started

[fred41]

Since we are speculating on all these threads so much before the new President actually takes office in January..
In a comedic vein, not to be taken seriously ...assuming for a moment that the Trump Presidency goes, at least, well...
you could actually see this matchup (in a Disney universe at least):
Ivanka Trump vs. Chelsea Clinton

[sukumvit boy]

He'll end up outsourcing the presidency. Plain and simple.
Let's hope so.

[Stavros]

Since we are speculating on all these threads so much before the new President actually takes office in January..
In a comedic vein, not to be taken seriously ...assuming for a moment that the Trump Presidency goes, at least, well...
you could actually see this matchup (in a Disney universe at least):
Ivanka Trump vs. Chelsea Clinton

What is not so amusing is that if he is prepared to dump or 'amend' some of the things he said in the campaign and appear pragmatic in the process, he will have to deliver on some of the other items- but which ones? Also a lot depends on how Trump is manipulated by the party in Congress, which may, for example, continue to harass the Clinton family and foundation. This could be the first Presidential veto, if he has the power to stop it. At the moment, the Paris Climate Change Agreement could get the red pencil, ditto the Trans Pacific Partnership. But agreed, a lot of this has a comedic vein, if a darker one than late night tv.

[hippifried]

Looks like he drained the swamp straight into the transition team. From there, the Whitehouse? Putting the Washington cesspool @ 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

[sukumvit boy]

Now I'm betting on how many weeks or days after he's sworn in before he makes us all realize what a terrible mistake we have made.
980536

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 12 November 2015 on Dr Ben Carson:
..he wrote a book. And in the book he said terrible things about himself. He said that he’s pathological and that he’s got basically a pathological disease. Now he wrote this I guess before he was running for office or thought that he was running for office. And I don’t want a person that’s got pathological disease. I don’t want it. I’m not saying he’s got it, he said it....
...Then he [Trump] vacillated between implying that Carson is an unstable thug who can’t be trusted in office because of violent things that he wrote about in his memoir, and declaring that his memoir is obvious bullshit that only dupes would believe.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/donald-trumps-extraordinary-attack-on-ben-carson/415791/

Donald Trump 5th December 2016 on Dr Ben Carson:
“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities,”.

[sukumvit boy]

983422

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 17th October 2016-

Donald trump on Monday night proposed a stricter lobbying ban to restrict current and former lawmakers from lobbying the government for several years after leaving office.
At a rally in Green Bay, Wis., the GOP presidential nominee outlined a five-step plan that will reinstate a ban on executive branch officials from lobbying the government five years after leaving office, as well as asking Congress to pass a similar five-year ban on former congressional lawmakers and staff.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/301464-trump-proposes-new-lobbying-ban-time-to-drain-the-swamp

from The Guardian 7th December 2016
...former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole may have played a role in setting up the controversial 10-minute conversation (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/12/us-china-relations) between Trump and Tsai that has so angered Beijing. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/us/politics/bob-dole-taiwan-lobby-trump.html?_r=0) that in the lead-up to that call Dole, now a Washington lobbyist, had spent six months working behind the scenes to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and Trump staff.

“It’s fair to say that we may have had some influence,” Dole was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-message-sparks-anger-in-china-1480989202).



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/07/china-us-taiwan-president-donald-trump-meeting

[flabbybody]

Farage made a brief appearance on my favorite financial market news show this evening. He was asked to compare BREXIT with the American election result. His response: "Trump is BREXIT times three"

[Stavros]

Farage made a brief appearance on my favorite financial market news show this evening. He was asked to compare BREXIT with the American election result. His response: "Trump is BREXIT times three"

I am not sure what that means, but Farage is only good at calculations when they concern his income; not so good when it concerns immigrants or the cost of the UK's membership of the EU, or the (alleged) financial benefits should it leave.
Add another four to the above and you get the total number of attempts, ie seven, when Farage tried and failed to be elected to the House of Commons. As he is no longer leader of UKIP and is about to lose his €93,000 a year salary as a member of the European Parliament (though he will get a severance payment and a pension when he leaves), he is in need of a job. Will Trump give him a job or just enjoy the company of a fawning political nymph who yearns to live in the shadow of greatness?

[martin48]

Will Trump give him a job or just enjoy the company of a fawning political nymph who yearns to live in the shadow of greatness?

Not certain about the last bit

[flabbybody]

Why Nigel Farage should become British ambassador to the United State:
UK ambassador earns €184,999 so it would be a step up from Farage's Parlaiment gig. As ambassador his main function would be attending DC cocktail parties. He'd also be on permanent call to hang out with POTUS in the White House and New York.
Of course he'd need to be confirmed by Buckingham Palace but Trump has a history of returning favors, so a Farage appointment should be looked at in terms of your best national interest. A few favorable trade deals with the States will make BREXIT look like a stroke of genius. (I wouldn't mind Beefeater gin coming down in price at my local liquor store)
And as I've stated before, you guys would be rid of him with a move across the pond.

[broncofan]

http://unflatteringfarage.tumblr.com/

This doesn't add anything substantive...but I enjoyed it and thought I'd pass it on. :_)

[Stavros]

A few favorable trade deals with the States will make BREXIT look like a stroke of genius. (I wouldn't mind Beefeater gin coming down in price at my local liquor store)

Beefeater Gin? Either you are being sarcastic or that is one of the saddest things you have written when Ye Olde Englande has moved on to such finer things...

To be or not to be served with tonic? Surely that is the question
http://www.shakespearedistillery.com/stratford-gin/

[sukumvit boy]

I'm a gin drinker ,dry Martinis usually , and gin & tonic occasionally. I use Martini & Rossi or Noilly Pratt vermouth and Bombay Original Gin , not the Bombay Sapphire which I find too high in alcohol (94 proof here in the US vs 80 proof for the Bombay Original ) .
I've tried many other gins and also enjoy Dutch genever , like Boomsma.
The problem I am finding with some of these new 'artisanal' gins is that they have lost all subtlety , they are way over the top and too 'medicinal'.
The same thing is happening here in the States with hops in beer , IMHO. I always enjoyed a bitter ale , but in the 30-60 range IBU scale . I also appreciate 'hoppiness' in a beer such as citrus and pine notes from hops . But too much hops leads to bitterness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_(cocktail)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_measurement#Bitterness

And the more I think about Trump the more I crave a drink !

[sukumvit boy]

983666983667

[Stavros]

I'm a gin drinker ,dry Martinis usually , and gin & tonic occasionally. I use Martini & Rossi or Noilly Pratt vermouth and Bombay Original Gin , not the Bombay Sapphire which I find too high in alcohol (94 proof here in the US vs 80 proof for the Bombay Original ) .
I've tried many other gins and also enjoy Dutch genever , like Boomsma.
The problem I am finding with some of these new 'artisanal' gins is that they have lost all subtlety , they are way over the top and too 'medicinal'.
The same thing is happening here in the States with hops in beer , IMHO. I always enjoyed a bitter ale , but in the 30-60 range IBU scale . I also appreciate 'hoppiness' in a beer such as citrus and pine notes from hops . But too much hops leads to bitterness.
And the more I think about Trump the more I crave a drink !

By coincidence, this week's episode of the UK version of The Apprentice that aired last night tasked the remaining candidates to produce a new Gin, brand it and sell it to major retail outlets. The losing gin was coloured orange and called Colony Gin -hard to believe that two of the three people in the team are by family origin from the Raj but there you go just as the intention to reference India produced a label dominated by a map of Africa...(standard incompetence from the 'business leaders' you find on this comical show). The colour of the Gin was a big loser, as was the decision to use black pepper to make it spicy although there are spicy gins out there. The winning gin was called, please don' laugh Giin the two 'i's' representing the concept of sharing...
I think this mania for artisanal this and that may produce some outstanding products, but one of the two formidable shops in my town specialising in wine, beer and spirits now lists more than 65 artisanal Gins on its website.

I note that Donald J Trump remains a 50:50 shareholder in the profits of The Apprentice in the USA and that he will be listed as Executive Producer when Schwarzenegger adjudicates the new series that begins on January the 2nd. The lines between the Presidency and commercial profit are still not clear. Maybe he just doesn't care.

[Stavros]

Incoming Secretary of State for Energy Rick Perry makes a speech:
As Secretary of State for Energy I will do three things in my first 100 days. First, I shall rescind the USA's endorsement of the Paris Agreement. Second, I shall begin to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. Third, I shall....I shall...er...Ooops!

ps. I made that up.

[sukumvit boy]

Professor Allan Lichtmann of The American University in Washington DC, who has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1984 , predicts that Trump will be impeached by a Republican Congress, probably within the first year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/prediction-professor-who-called-trumps-big-win-also-made-another-forecast-trump-will-be-impeached/?utm_term=.58b6a7f94df3

[broncofan]

Professor Allan Lichtmann of The American University in Washington DC, who has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1984 , predicts that Trump will be impeached by a Republican Congress, probably within the first year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/prediction-professor-who-called-trumps-big-win-also-made-another-forecast-trump-will-be-impeached/?utm_term=.58b6a7f94df3
Political elections involve the prediction of behavior in a complex and dynamic system. I think there are some people who are better than chance at making predictions, but nobody who is even close to infallible. A lot of people claimed that Silver lost credibility in this last election but his model was closer to predicting a Trump win than anybody else. If he gave Trump a 30% chance of winning a Trump win is not an anomaly.

So Lichtman has predicted elections, but his underlying reasons why are dubious and his track record in a two party system since 1984 is not long enough to show unusual skill (compare this to Warren Buffett's 30% average annual returns over a 50 year period that some economists dubiously claim might be the result of chance). And if he's gotten everything right, that means he predicted a Bush win in 2000, which without caveats, does not show special powers of foresight.

I think Trump will commit impeachable acts within the first year of his presidency, but I'd be surprised if a Republican Congress impeaches him and the senate convicts him, which is required to remove him from power. Of course, I don't have the track record of Lichtman so take it with a grain of salt:).

[trish]

He's already committing impeachable offenses, but there's no pressure to stop coming from the Republican Party.

Nevertheless...

Happy Holidays everyone.

[sukumvit boy]

Some presidential humor from The Capital Steps.
Happy holidays everyone !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRNA8Qj5EM

[holzz]

people still bitching need to get over it.....or emigrate.

[trish]

Bitching is protected by the First Amendment- for now anyway.

[hippifried]

Interesting being told to "Get over it!" by the same yokels who've done nothing, & I mean literally nothing, but piss & moan for the last 8 years.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter in 2015:
“Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others...Meryl Streep is excellent; she’s a fine person, too."

Donald Trump 9th January 2017
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/donald-trump-said-meryl-streep-was-one-of-his-favorite-actresses-a7518551.html

[Stavros]

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, January 11 2017
The intelligence community has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.”

Donald Trump, January 12 2017
“James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-james-clapper-denounced-russia-dossier-fake-news-official-statement-phone-call-latest-a7523801.html

[sukumvit boy]

I can't believe that this crazy fucker (Trump) will make it beyond one year without the Republicans themselves calling for his impeachment.

[sukumvit boy]

Also , I see that Trump played the 'Hitler Card' during his news conference yesterday , thus confirming Godwin's law . lol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 22 December 2016
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes'
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/us/politics/trump-nuclear-arms-race-russia-united-states.html?_r=0

Donald Trump 15 January 2017
I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/15/trumps-first-uk-post-election-interview-brexit-a-great-thing

[sukumvit boy]

990078

[Stavros]

From the White House website, January 9 2017
Press Statement John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
January 9, 2017
Throughout my career, including as Secretary of State, I have stood strongly in support of the LGBTI community, recognizing that respect for human rights must include respect for all individuals. LGBTI employees serve as proud members of the State Department and valued colleagues dedicated to the service of our country. For the past several years, the Department has pressed for the families of LGBTI officers to have the same protections overseas as families of other officers. In 2015, to further promote LGBTI rights throughout the world, I appointed the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons.
In the past – as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades – the Department of State was among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire certain applicants in the first place. These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong today.
On behalf of the Department, I apologize to those who were impacted by the practices of the past and reaffirm the Department’s steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion for all our employees, including members of the LGBTI community.


From the same link on White House website, January 25 2017
We're Sorry, that page can't be found.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-administration-website-apology-lgbt-gay-mass-discrimination-state-department-a7544551.html

[trish]

Sad, scary, slimy and foreboding of the ignorance to come.

[hippifried]

There's all kinds of stupid shit happening right now. As entertaining as it is, it's just a smoke screen. While you're fixated on the White House antics, Paul Ryan is in a big hurry to hand Social Security & Medicare over to the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us the panic of 2008. Gotta set priorities.

[Stavros]

There's all kinds of stupid shit happening right now. As entertaining as it is, it's just a smoke screen. While you're fixated on the White House antics, Paul Ryan is in a big hurry to hand Social Security & Medicare over to the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us the panic of 2008. Gotta set priorities.

I understand your point, and agree with it, but I also think it is wrong for people to dismiss what Trump says because it is all for show, and that the real deal is the way in which Congress and the Supreme Court will examine and filter his policy proposals. Indeed, the New York Times today argues that a legal judgement by Justice Scalia may prevent Trump from building the wall he wants. The article is here-
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/opinion/how-antonin-scalias-ghost-could-block-donald-trumps-wall.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

However, words do matter, for two reasons. The first is the practical one, such as Trump trashing the reputation of a company whose value on the stock market plummets, while vultures eagerly buy up valuable stock at bargain prices.

The second is a matter of tone, for Trump is not just Chief Executive with all that implies with regard to policy making, he is the Head of State and represents the USA in the world. For years we have had Presidents who had a degree of gravitas and poise, but never a man who was so rude and indifferent to the world around him. For all the ridicule he received when he entered office, Ronald Reagan had experience of public office and knew how to deliver a stinging speech that made its points, but also had a sense of humour, something Trump lacks. George W. Bush was similarly mocked for his mangled English when he entered office, but was visibly crushed by 9/11 and deserved the sympathy of the world, whatever happened after that in Iraq. One thinks of the way other Presidents have held themselves, for example both Mary Robinson and Michael Higgins have presented Ireland on the world stage with a balance of humility and grace unthinkable in a man like Trump, and in Robinson's case when Ireland's reputation was sullied by outrageous acts of violence committed in the cause of a 'United Ireland'.

So yes, let us wait and see how the deals pan out, but we cannot ignore the man with a mission, urged on by some seriously nasty people who are unaccountable to the public.

[hippifried]

I never said "dismiss" anything. But the President's unilateral actions are reversible. Congress has the ability to cause real & permanent damage. Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand crazy. Let that sink in for a few minutes or years. He's the second most powerful person in the US.
He's working his way through the circus crowd, picking pockets, while everyone laughs at the clown car.

[martin48]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc)

The Netherlands welcomes Trump

[martin48]

My contribution

[Stavros]

A century ago the Ottoman provinces of Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus took in Christian Armenian refugees from the genocidal massacres that were taking place in Anatolia; they gave them food and shelter, they gave them a new chance in life. Today Syria is creating refugees in their millions, but the USA has decided only some Christians will be allowed entry into the US. And, as has been pointed out, Trump signed the order on Holocaust Memorial Day:

In 1939, the German oceanliner St Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees, were turned away from the port of Miami and sent back to Europe. Of those passengers, 254 were murdered in the Holocaust. The US government turned away those refugees, so heartbreakingly close to safety – and also restricted Jewish immigration and instituted new vetting procedures – because of rampant overblown fears that the Nazis might smuggle spies and saboteurs in among the Jewish refugees.

On Friday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day, The White House put out a statement that failed to mention the 6 million Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. Hours later, President Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee resettlement for 120 days and indefinitely suspending the resettlement of refugees from Syria.

Full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/28/donald-trump-ban-refugees-holocaust-remembrance-day

[Laphroaig]

The executive order is already having an effect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38781420

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38783512

[hippifried]

The executive order has been enjoined.

[flabbybody]

The executive order has been enjoined.
.....by some Brooklyn Federal judge. They can't be deported but they're still being detained. very confusing.
Guess this is how it will be for the next 4 years. POTUS signs an order and a court overturnes it.

[Stavros]

Having said nothing on the issue, and facing damnation by association, Mrs May yesterday declared the government 'does not agree' with the Executive Order imposing the ban, and instructed Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to clarify the issue with their US counterparts (Homeland Security and State respectively), which in practice, as the counterparts do not yet exist, meant Johnson talking to Steven Bannon and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner -and appear to have proved the 'Special Relationship' exists as UK citizens with dual citizenship will not be banned from entering the US unless they arrive directly from one of the countries on the list.
The Foreign Office has issued the clarification in the link below via the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821

[Stavros]

Further to my post above, I should add that I see this as an example of Trump proving to his voters that he is delivering on his promises. That the policy is incoherent and doesn't actually work is irrelevant to Trump and his team who presumably take the view that the most important thing is to broadcast the decision first, then worry about the details later, and condemn anyone who opposes it by twitter, which is how most US policy seems to be delivered these days. In any case, they must believe their voters are not interested in the details which will as Flabbybody argues above, drag on through Congress and the Courts for the next year or so. For this reason Trump has not pointed out to his voters his administration has already modified the policy -on Green Card holders and UK citizens with dual nationality- but declared the policy is a success and should have been made years ago. One wonders what failure will look like when it is finally acknowledged, if it ever is.

[Stavros]

Since my post 6 hours ago, the US Embassy in London has issued an 'urgent notice' contradicting the change in policy announced by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, it states-

“Per U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on January 27, 2017, visa issuance to aliens from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been suspended effective immediately until further notification,” the US embassy’s statement said.

“If you are a national, or dual national, of one of these countries, please do not schedule a visa appointment or pay any visa fees at this time.
“If you already have an appointment scheduled, please DO NOT ATTEND your appointment as we will not be able to proceed with your visa interview.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-uk-dual-nationals-apply-embassy-us-contradicts-a7552911.html

We have been Trumped. What is true at 8am is not true at 2pm. Thus will it continue.

[Laphroaig]

Further to my post above, I should add that I see this as an example of Trump proving to his voters that he is delivering on his promises. That the policy is incoherent and doesn't actually work is irrelevant to Trump and his team who presumably take the view that the most important thing is to broadcast the decision first, then worry about the details later, and condemn anyone who opposes it by twitter, which is how most US policy seems to be delivered these days. In any case, they must believe their voters are not interested in the details which will as Flabbybody argues above, drag on through Congress and the Courts for the next year or so. For this reason Trump has not pointed out to his voters his administration has already modified the policy -on Green Card holders and UK citizens with dual nationality- but declared the policy is a success and should have been made years ago. One wonders what failure will look like when it is finally acknowledged, if it ever is.

I agree that this is Trump showing his supporters that he's prepared to deliver on his ideals. However, I wonder if Trump and his team actually believe that they will get their policies through? In one sense, Trump can't lose. If he delivers, great (for him), if he fails, he can cite it as yet another example of being opposed by "the system, the establishment" and all those he claims to be against him and his supporters.

[Stavros]

I agree that this is Trump showing his supporters that he's prepared to deliver on his ideals. However, I wonder if Trump and his team actually believe that they will get their policies through? In one sense, Trump can't lose. If he delivers, great (for him), if he fails, he can cite it as yet another example of being opposed by "the system, the establishment" and all those he claims to be against him and his supporters.

You are right, because Trump has deduced that his core support pays no attention to 'the media' -which must surely also include Murdoch's various outlets as well as Breitbart- with an opinion poll claiming 56% of US citizens polled agree with the policy. You are also possibly right that as the policy is filtered through Congress and the Judiciary it may unravel, but the additional damage tha has been done is to the reputation of the USA. Banning refugees in the manner it has been done runs counter to the spirit if not the letter of those international agreements the US has been party to since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it takes away hope from those people who might have seen the US as their last place of refuge, it does nothing to address the origin of the problem in a refugee crisis in Syria created by the government and it external backers, and thus presents the USA as a mean and unfriendly country, and, contrary to the almost constant reference to the Ministry of Christ and the Bible as a guide to living, smears Christianity with an indifference to distress it does not deserve.
But this time next week something else will grab the headlines. I guess the first 100 days will be going like this at 100mph, no brakes needed.

[flabbybody]

Acting Attorney General instructed her DOJ staff to forgo enforcement of Executive Action banning Muslim immigrants due to constitutions conflicts. Trump promptly sacked her....took him about 2 hours.
But don't get too comfortable with that story. We'll be getting a new Supreme Court appointee today @ 8:00 PM EST.
He'll likely make Clarence Thomas look like Ralph Nadir. (we know it's a he)
Buy gold, sell dollars, and make sure there's at least a year's supply of spirits in the basement. My choice is Canadian Rye.

[Stavros]

What is emerging is the shambolic nature of the new administration but also the determination of Trump's advisers, notably Steven Bannon, to use this transitional period to press forward with controversial 'change' before an established Washington network of officials and lawyers can delay decision making while checking for legal and moral issues in policy.
Obama made a point of inviting Trump to the White House and committing himself to the same smooth transition that he received from George W. Bush, yet the Trump approach has been to disregard the norms that used to prevail, as was evident in the State Department. There, senior officials -many of them women, incidentally- handed in their formal resignations expecting to be asked to remain in post while the White House replaced them -no, they were all told to leave immediately, just as Ambassadors around the world were, in effect, sacked on Day One and told to return home, even if there was no replacement.

The Bannon approach, to make swift, bold decisions means that the Department of Homeland Security had no idea the Executive Order on immigration had been issued, even though it is their primary responsibility. In addition, this meant that the precise legal force of the EO was not subjected to a critique before it was issued, setting up the confrontation with acting Attorney General Yates who is accused of 'betrayal' even though her position was quite precisely a legal not a political one, as her letter has shown. Moreover, the replacement, Dana Boente has not, unlike Yates, received confirmation from the Senate which makes one wonder if he has the right let alone the competence to make legal decisions before the nominated Attorney General takes office. Bizarrely, it was Jeff Sessions in her confirmation hearings who asked her if she would be prepared to stand up to a President and tell him a decisions was legally unacceptable. She said yes. The rest is history.

The focus is thus on Bannon and Stephen Miller -co-writers of Trump's inauguration speech- and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the key agents of power, with Trump appearing in the role of TV host to make the speeches and sign the documents while the real work goes on behind him. Today's New York Times is particularly harsh on Bannon, whose role now extends to the National Security Council where the useless, know-nothing Generals are told only turn up when there is something important to discuss, while Bannon and the rest do the daily work of absorbing political and military intelligence in which they have zero experience at the top level.

Meanwhile in the UK, more than 1,653,000 people have signed a petition calling on the government to downgrade Trump's visit, so it will have to be debated in Parliament. Yesterday it was receiving more than 30,000 signatures an hour, this has slowed, but the text and result can be viewed here-
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928

[filghy2]

Since my post 6 hours ago, the US Embassy in London has issued an 'urgent notice' contradicting the change in policy announced by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, it states-

“Per U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on January 27, 2017, visa issuance to aliens from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been suspended effective immediately until further notification,” the US embassy’s statement said.

“If you are a national, or dual national, of one of these countries, please do not schedule a visa appointment or pay any visa fees at this time.
“If you already have an appointment scheduled, please DO NOT ATTEND your appointment as we will not be able to proceed with your visa interview.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-uk-dual-nationals-apply-embassy-us-contradicts-a7552911.html

We have been Trumped. What is true at 8am is not true at 2pm. Thus will it continue.

There's a somewhat similar story in relation to Australia. Our government made a deal with the Obama administration for the US to take a number of refugees who were detained en route to Australia, many of them from the 7 designated countries. Our Prime Minister claimed that he had obtained Trump's agreement to proceed with this, but now it seems unclear http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/white-house-backtracks-on-australia-refugee-deal/8228336

The background is that under Australia's hard-line policy unauthorised asylum seekers are not allowed to enter the country - instead they are sent to detention camps in a couple of Pacific Island countries who we've bribed to take these people. However, the high court of Papua New Guinea (the largest destination) has declared this arrangement to be illegal, so if the government can't find other countries to take them the whole policy may unravel.

Unfortunately, our government has decided that craven appeasement is the best way to deal with Trump. Unlike the UK and many other countries, our PM has refused to make any criticism of Trump's executive order.

[Stavros]

But filghy2 among those there could be five year old boys. A 5 year old boy was handcuffed and detained at Dulles Airport in the US for four hours and this is what Calamity Sean had to say about it:

“To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”

So it is official, the USA is terrified of 5 year old boys.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/white-house-five-year-old-boy-detained-dulles-international-airport-hours-sean-spicer-pose-security-a7554521.html

[filghy2]

Further developments on the above story http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/trump-slams-dumb-refugee-deal/8235820

So our PM did Trump the favour of not publicly criticizing him, and in return Trump publicly dumped on him. Australia has probably been the US's most loyal ally over recent decades (we even went to Vietnam when the Brits refused). By the time this idiot is through the US may not have too many friends in the world.

[Stavros]

From The Guardian:
Kellyanne Conway, Senior Advisor to President Trump, 2nd February 2017
“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalised and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”

The Guardian, 3rd February 2017

It didn’t get covered, many are now pointing out, because there was no such massacre.
The two Iraqi men arrested in 2011 did live in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and are currently serving life sentences for federal terrorism offences (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-iraqi-terrorists-living-kentucky-sentenced-terrorist-activities). But there was no massacre, nor were they accused of planning one. The US department of justice, announcing their convictions in 2012, said: “Neither was charged with plotting attacks within the United States.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/kellyanne-conway-refugees-bowling-green-massacre-never-happened

[natina]

federal-judge-grants-temporary-restraining order on-immigration-ban-on-nationwide-basis

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/03/seattle-federal-judge-grants-temporary-restraining-order-on-immigration-ban-on-nationwide-basis.html

[Laphroaig]

Buy gold, sell dollars, and make sure there's at least a year's supply of spirits in the basement. My choice is Canadian Rye.

Surely it has to be Trump vodka, who can resist that grin?...:hide-1:

992732992733

[Stavros]

The Executive Order issued from the White House may have been a deliberate hand grenade designed to blow off for Trump's voters, implying he had complied with a campaign promise. That Trump can insult James Robart as a 'so-called judge' is merely par for this particular hole, as we know by know that anyone who disagrees with him is in some way deficient. The point is Trump doesn't care, and the claim that the EO deliberately intended to target both Green Card holders and Muslims appears to underline that the EO was never about either protecting the US from potential terrorists or tightening up the law on immigration, it was just a publicity stunt. The reactions thus show Republicans contradicting each other in a mad scramble to defend a policy that has

violated the guarantee of equal protection and the first amendment’s establishment clause, infringed the constitutional right to due process and contravened the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/04/donald-trump-travel-ban-constitutional-crisis

In addition, just as Calamity Sean denied it, and Paul Ryan claimed that had the EO been a 'Muslim ban' he would not have supported it, Rudolph Giuliani claims it is not only precisely a Muslim ban, but that is what Trump told him, thus:

“I’ll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani told Fox News last week. “When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban’. He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/04/democrats-react-trump-travel-ban-judge-ruling

That this 'Muslim ban' does not cover either Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where Trump has business interests is of course just one of those things. The effect has been to imply incompetence in the White House, but it could just be one of Steven Bannon's infernal tricks to flush out the 'enemies' who can then be paraded in front of the 'voters' as the people responsible for preventing Trump from 'Making America Great Again'. Trump can lose the argument in law, but he wins the politics, for as long as the Trump voters support him.

[chupapau]

Masks are off, facism took over. A bully threw the chess board in the air, fucked his own pawns dry in the ass. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Bannon Goebels wakes up, reads a few pages from the Art of War, some CIA reports on how they succesfully killed democracy and installed some generals for the benefit of a few businessmen.

Then he broods over how he can use the protest as an excuse to advance the grip on power. Having the left AND center defending the devil's incarnate "Muslim" is gold for them.

America is being grated indeed, it's allies will have to scramble to save their furniture.

[martin48]

This is what you got - you were warned

[filghy2]

The latest is the claim that the media is downplaying reporting of terrorist attacks, with a list of 78 supposed examples. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/06/here-are-the-78-terrorist-attacks-the-white-house-says-were-largely-under-reported/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.0afbfb3d5342

This is laughable as it includes a number of attacks that received widespread media coverage. It has also emerged that Kellyanne Conway's fictional Bowling Green massacre claim was not a slip, but has been made twice before. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/06/kellyanne-conway-fake-bowling-green-massacre-three-times

They are certainly following Dr Goebbels' advice: "If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie the better".

[martin48]

Trump needs to destroy the free press. Lügenpresse translates to “lying press,” was employed by the Third Reich in Nazi propaganda targeting Jews, communists, and the foreign press who dared report on Hitler’s mania and monstrous atrocities.

Donald Trump used it at his rallies to heckle members of the press. The underlying aim of lügenpresse is to sow distrust and disbelief in the Fourth Estate in the service of a competing agenda, and no American figure in modern history has sought to delegitimize the press quite like Trump.

Trump consistently characterizes the press as “liars” and “among the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met.”

Trump delivered an address at CIA headquarters where he attacked the media again, claiming that numerous reports of inauguration crowds in the 200,000 range—backed by photos of a not-so-packed National Mall—were false, with the President ginning up an attendance number of 1.5 million, while falsely claiming that crowds “went all the way back to the Washington monument.”

Even more disturbing, however, was Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s warning to journalists during a press conference: “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I’m here to tell you it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well.” Lügenpresse.

Here’s another view:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/06/lenin-white-house-steve-bannon

[Stavros]

The latest is the claim that the media is downplaying reporting of terrorist attacks, with a list of 78 supposed examples. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/06/here-are-the-78-terrorist-attacks-the-white-house-says-were-largely-under-reported/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.0afbfb3d5342

This is laughable as it includes a number of attacks that received widespread media coverage. It has also emerged that Kellyanne Conway's fictional Bowling Green massacre claim was not a slip, but has been made twice before. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/06/kellyanne-conway-fake-bowling-green-massacre-three-times

They are certainly following Dr Goebbels' advice: "If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie the better".

On the one hand one has to ask if Americans really are so ignorant they cannot spell Denmark or even San Bernardino, but on the other hand I think the simple truth is that the people who prepared this document don't care. Somewhere in that statement should be a shocking reaction, but as this aspect of the Trump Presidency now seems standard, it will be regarded as normal for official documents on the United States of America to look like they were written by an 11-year old. And my apologies to those 11-year old Americans who can spell.

[martin48]

Mein Kampf sums up an approach to propaganda - I think this, in part, answers the above

Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.

[Stavros]

“They are right. We expect a return on investment.”
-Betsy DeVos in the ’90s about being accused of buying influence with campaign donations

DeVos gave substantial sums of money to the Senators who voted to confirm her new position as Secretary of State for Education, which she sees as her opportunity to 'advance God's kingdom' across the USA (which is, nevertheless, a Republic). Marco Rubio received over $90,000 -there is a list in this link.
http://www.business2community.com/government-politics/betsy-devos-campaign-contributions-republican-senators-revealed-charts-01774485

[trish]

God's going to be so happy with us folks. So happy. I promise you. Ninety-grand to get DeVos confirmed - such a bargain. Such a bargain. Dems are such losers. Sad.

[hippifried]

God's going to be so happy with us folks. So happy. I promise you. Ninety-grand to get DeVos confirmed - such a bargain. Such a bargain. Dems are such losers. Sad.

Oh my Dog!!! You really have been "Trumped"! I guess anybody can get infected. Don't worry. Hang tight. I found my old Acid Cookbooks, & should have a new batch of "Liberal Pills" any day now. I'm coming to rescue ya Baby.

[Stavros]

You have to wonder. A week or so after the Government of the USA produced a document which could not correctly spell Attack, Attacker and Denmark, the Library of Congress was selling an Inauguration Poster of Donald Trump with another basic spelling mistake, apparently because Americans can't spell, don't know how to use a spell-check tool on their software, do not know how to proof-read a document, or just don't care. The poster has now been withdrawn.
For a country that has given us some of the finest literature in the English language, this is not comical- it is sloppy and disgraceful. But like I say, who cares?

994533

[AshlynCreamher]

God's going to be so happy with us folks. So happy. I promise you. Ninety-grand to get DeVos confirmed - such a bargain. Such a bargain. Dems are such losers. Sad.

Thats right!

[Stavros]

Those of you who recall the intensity with which Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton's creation of a private email server, threatening the security of the USA may wonder how it compares to a President holding an impromptu briefing on a security issue involving North Korea and the USA's Asian ally, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, with staff who may or may not have been vetted and members of the public who, even if they have paid $100,000 to be members of Mar-a-Lago Palace (decor -gold lead in the ceiling, gold sinks in the Ladies- by Saddam Hussein)- were nevertheless allowed to stand next to and photo and tweet themselves with the guy with the 'football' containing the codes for a nuclear strike. The mind boggles.

But here is the serious issue: the creation in the White House of the Strategic Initiatives Group [SIG] comprised of Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, Steven Bannon, and Stephen Miller. It is not clear if the Dirty Digger, Rupert Murdoch will also join though he is a regular caller on Trump by phone and was in the office when Trump was interviewed for the first time in January by two European journalists Michael Gove (reporting for Murdoch's paper The Times) and Kai Diekmann of the German paper Bild who also sits on the Board of The Times.

The point about the SIG is that it has already sidelined the National Security Council and it may be the case that it was the members of the SIG who offered Michael Flynn the option of resigning or being sacked. Just as important is the claim that Bannon has ordered no record of SIG meetings be kept. In any case, it appears that when in the future historians order Presidential files from the National Archive in Washington, most of Trump's files will consist of one sheet of A4 with a few bullet points, some maps and photos, for the simple reason that Trump doesn't read.

Ok, so the NSC is a bloated organisation formed in 1947 as part of the USA's containment strategy at the start of the Cold War, but maybe this should be a matter of public debate-? Or maybe the security of the USA is now to become a public spectacle in whichever restaurant Trump happens to be in at the time, sort of like bringing the people closer to the heart of government?

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/01/bannons-strategic-initiatives-cabal-inside-the-nsc-is-dangerous-hypocrisy/

[sukumvit boy]

Oh my Dog!!! You really have been "Trumped"! I guess anybody can get infected. Don't worry. Hang tight. I found my old Acid Cookbooks, & should have a new batch of "Liberal Pills" any day now. I'm coming to rescue ya Baby.
Yeah,you nailed it Trish!:banana:

[sukumvit boy]

On the Charlie Rose Show last night I noticed "impeachment" and the "I don't believe he's sane" issue finally entered the discussion. Also some good discussion.
http://charlierose.com/videos/29828
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn4TsCnN7wY

[Stavros]

Calamity Sean, 14th February 2016
"Yesterday the President held an incredibly productive set of meetings and discussions with Prime Minister Joe Trudeau..."

How do you spell it, is it Joe or is it Jo?

[AshlynCreamher]

Calamity Sean, 14th February 2016
"Yesterday the President held an incredibly productive set of meetings and discussions with Prime Minister Joe Trudeau..."

How do you spell it, is it Joe or is it Jo?

Did you get that off the whitehouse.gov?

[Budweiser]

I love what Trump is doing so far. I really like Sessions as his attorney general pick. Also he will get the shut down of the Islamic Muslim "refugee" resettlement program that is needed. No matter how many road blocks the anti-American activist judges try to throw up. Can't wait for the wall to be built, and for the deportations of illegal alien criminals to continue to be ramped up. Finally things are going the way they ought to be going in America! But there is a lot more to do. Hopefully the ugly old hook-nosed bag Ginsburg will move to New Zealand (like she threatened to do during the campaign if Trump won), and he can get another Supreme Court justice through while he still has a majority in both the House and Senate (in addition to Gorsuch). Trump will have the leeway to pick a more Scalia-like nominee if he has those majorities in both houses. (He will probably lose the Senate in the 2018 mid-term election.) Hated to see Michael Flynn go, that guy was great!

[Stavros]

Did you get that off the whitehouse.gov?

Calamity Sean can be seen and heard on a video of the press conference, it is not my fault if he doesn't know the name of the Canadian Prime Minister, any more than it is my fault officials of the Government of the USA cannot spell Denmark, Attack, or Theresa.

[Stavros]

Hopefully the ugly old hook-nosed bag Ginsburg will move to New Zealand

I find this segment of your post one of the most offensive phrases I have read on Hungangels in the past 9 years, to think a fellow human being would sink so low. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Budweiser]

Somehow I doubt she was ever particularly easy on the eyes, even when she was young.

994869

[trish]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[broncofan]

I don't think Ruth looks all that bad in either photo. In the first one she looks like a woman in her eighties who has spent a lifetime in distinguished service as a jurist. It reminds me of Donald's attack on Justice Curiel, an intelligent and dignified man dedicated to the rule of law and civil rights whose background simply doesn't jibe with what he thinks an American should be. He has Mexican heritage or in Donald's parlance, "He's a Mexican!".

Here's a video of Donald attacking a Jewish reporter who asked him the most benign question with a preface intended to reassure him he does not think he is anti-semitic. Ironically, I don't think Donald is anti-semitic, but appears to dislike Mexican-Americans, Muslims, and African-Americans. His indifference to antisemitism, which has spiked with 50 bomb threats on Jewish Community centers taking place in three waves (one of them my niece's center) as well as the threat of an armed march against a small Montana town's even smaller Jewish community, is troubling. He only seems concerned about crimes committed by people of color and Muslims. A deadly attack on a Mosque in Quebec meets radio silence, but a thwarted attack at the louvre is worth responding to. Guess why?

But Budweiser, do you think he could have responded better to this question?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa1s2rIoefc

[trish]

Here's Trevor Noah's take on today's press conference. Four minutes in you can see the Daily Show's answer to this soft-ball question. The question was essentially: What is your government planning to do about the recent flare up of anti-Semitic activity all around our nation? The easy answer would've been: We're going to stamp it out. There was no animus in the question. But before this guy even stood up you could see Trump wanted to make an example of this yarmulke wearing member of the press core. He didn't even listen to the question. He was rude, he willfully misunderstood the question, was defensive without need, accused the questioner of lying, claimed the questioner charged him with being a racist and never addressed the actual question of what is to be done about the uptake in our nation of anti-Semitic activity. Our president is so pathetic. So little league. Sad.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/mclacz/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-president-trump-s-bats--t-press-conference

[Stavros]

Here's Trevor Noah's take on today's press conference. Four minutes in you can see the Daily Show's answer to this soft-ball question. The question was essentially: What is your government planning to do about the recent flare up of anti-Semitic activity all around our nation? The easy answer would've been: We're going to stamp it out. There was no animus in the question. But before this guy even stood up you could see Trump wanted to make an example of this yarmulke wearing member of the press core. He didn't even listen to the question. He was rude, he willfully misunderstood the question, was defensive without need, accused the questioner of lying, claimed the questioner charged him with being a racist and never addressed the actual question of what is to be done about the uptake in our nation of anti-Semitic activity. Our president is so pathetic. So little league. Sad.

Trump, as also appears to be the case with his supporters, does not engage in debate, but shuts it down. If politics thrives on open debate, it dies when debate is replaced by accusation and abuse, which is what those in power want: power without accountability. This 'Accuse and Abuse' tactic comes straight out of the Rupert Murdoch school of Journalism. Like Trump, Murdoch did not create a business, he inherited a string of newspaper titles across Australia from his father and used it to expand his interests abroad. It is no accident that The Sunday Times which used to be a newspaper with a reputation for investigative journalism dropped it when Murdoch bought it, just as his journalists are told that if there is no news to report they must create it, and follow the Murdoch line that anyone in the public eye is there to be accused and abused, whether it is the Politician or Footballer (allegedly) cheating on his wife, or the man accused of murder who, whether he is guilty or innocent, is pilloried on the front pages of the paper. Murdoch journalists rarely investigate the 'truth' behind a story, they rarely probe the statements issued by public authorities, but they do echo without criticism whatever the State tells them -the tragedy at Hillsborough could have been exposed by The Sun but they preferred to accuse and abuse the supporters of Liverpool Club, relying on fabricated stories from the very police force they ought to have been investigating.

Thus, Trump's Accuse and Abuse insists the 'Media' is fake and dishonest, and public officials are there to be abused because of their ethnic background or political views or, more worryingly in the case of Judges, abused and dismissed because their interpretation of the law puts a stop to the implementation of policy.

But do not expect an open debate on the basic of evidence, or even opinion, for neither Trump nor his supporters can handle it, as recent posts in this forum confirm.

[AshlynCreamher]

Calamity Sean can be seen and heard on a video of the press conference, it is not my fault if he doesn't know the name of the Canadian Prime Minister, any more than it is my fault officials of the Government of the USA cannot spell Denmark, Attack, or Theresa.

That's funny because the Obama Administration failed to put together a simple birth certificate. It's funny because I downloaded that birth certificate from a PDF that came from whitehouse.gov and then I loaded it the illustration (birth certificate) into my Adobe fireworks software and lone behold there were layers involved with the graphic and if you don't understand what I'm talking about in simple English this means that I could change the text on the birth certificateand removed items from the birth certificate what this means they failed to flatten the layers before publishing the illustration

As i understand it, adobe wasnt released until 1992 decades after President O was born

[trish]

Gee, and I thought Trump (who claims now never to have been a birther) put an end to birtherism. In Trump's own words about birthism, "I finished it, you know what I mean...President Barrack Obama was born in the United States, period!" Try to catch up - you've just been Trumped!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp6HLx9fDdA

[AshlynCreamher]

Gee, and I thought Trump (who claims now never to have been a birther) put an end to birtherism. In Trump's own words about birthism, "I finished it, you know what I mean...President Barrack Obama was born in the United States, period!" Try to catch up - you've just been Trumped!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp6HLx9fDdA

Hahaha you have no idea what I've been doing for the last 18 months yes I know that quote and yes it's very accurate trackingtrump.Com

[Stavros]

That's funny because the Obama Administration failed to put together a simple birth certificate. It's funny because I downloaded that birth certificate from a PDF that came from whitehouse.gov and then I loaded it the illustration (birth certificate) into my Adobe fireworks software and lone behold there were layers involved with the graphic and if you don't understand what I'm talking about in simple English this means that I could change the text on the birth certificateand removed items from the birth certificate what this means they failed to flatten the layers before publishing the illustration

As i understand it, adobe wasnt released until 1992 decades after President O was born

This is verifiable nonsense as the birth certificate was issued in Hawaii and not amended at any time after registration. The volume of evidence debunking the birth certificate nonsense is so huge I offer only one example-

– The document has been amended: The assertion is that the original birth registration said one thing, but that it was amended later and the computer-printed abstract reflects that amendment. This can be ruled out by a provision of Hawaiian Law that requires amended certificates to be “marked distinctly” with the word “altered.” §338-16 (http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0016.htm) Further evidence that the birth certificate has not been amended is found in the long-form version of the certificate which includes no amendment.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2008/12/not_born_in_hawaii/#amended


These are not only facts, they are verifiable facts, and to pretend otherwise is to live in a world of delusion.

[Stavros]

Ashlyn if you want to engage in a debate in which you defend Donald Trump, and I hope that you do, it will be to your advantage to debate policy decisions or proposals made by President Trump, as that is what we are dealing with now. For example, what is the USA's current position on the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians?

On the 15th February 2017 Donald Trump stated:
“I’m looking at two-state and one-state” formulations...I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-trump.html?_r=0

A day later, on 16th February 2017 the USA's Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley stated:
"First of all, the two-state solution is what we support. Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution - that would be an error".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/us-ambassador-to-un-two-state-solution-france-rex-tillerson

So is it one state or two states? Does anyone in the Trump administration know? And what does a 'one-state' solution actually look like?

[martin48]

In watching Trump's press conference, it wasn't the details that intrigued me, it was the whole show. This was a man out of control, so full of his own importance, so hateful of others, so dismissive of debate and anything approaching logic. So he has a guy with him at all times with the nuclear codes. Stop pissing around with the details and trying to outsmart him. Just stop him

[AshlynCreamher]

This is verifiable nonsense as the birth certificate was issued in Hawaii and not amended at any time after registration. The volume of evidence debunking the birth certificate nonsense is so huge I offer only one example-

– The document has been amended: The assertion is that the original birth registration said one thing, but that it was amended later and the computer-printed abstract reflects that amendment. This can be ruled out by a provision of Hawaiian Law that requires amended certificates to be “marked distinctly” with the word “altered.” §338-16 (http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0016.htm) Further evidence that the birth certificate has not been amended is found in the long-form version of the certificate which includes no amendment.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2008/12/not_born_in_hawaii/#amended


These are not only facts, they are verifiable facts, and to pretend otherwise is to live in a world of delusion.

If that is so then why did they claimed it psych scanned copy? A scanned copy is just pixels how can you possibly explain the layers involved?

[AshlynCreamher]

Ashlyn if you want to engage in a debate in which you defend Donald Trump, and I hope that you do, it will be to your advantage to debate policy decisions or proposals made by President Trump, as that is what we are dealing with now. For example, what is the USA's current position on the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians?

On the 15th February 2017 Donald Trump stated:
“I’m looking at two-state and one-state” formulations...I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-trump.html?_r=0

A day later, on 16th February 2017 the USA's Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley stated:
"First of all, the two-state solution is what we support. Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution - that would be an error".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/us-ambassador-to-un-two-state-solution-france-rex-tillerson

So is it one state or two states? Does anyone in the Trump administration know? And what does a 'one-state' solution actually look like?

I get that you're triggered but that doesn't mean that you're going to be a able to lure me into a debate

[broncofan]

If that is so then why did they claimed it psych scanned copy? A scanned copy is just pixels how can you possibly explain the layers involved?
This is quackery as there is no level of proof you will accept. What is the end game here? To prove that he's a Syrian refugee who became editor of Harvard Law Review and President? That he's an African Chief who sleeps with a copy of Das Kapital under his arm? Maybe he's a Mexican and crossed the Rio Grande, and has done surprising things since he got here. I have pictures of him being birthed with a sign behind him that says welcome to Hawaii.

[AshlynCreamher]

This is quackery as there is no level of proof you will accept. What is the end game here? To prove that he's a Syrian refugee who became editor of Harvard Law Review and President? That he's an African Chief who sleeps with a copy of Das Kapital under his arm? Maybe he's a Mexican and crossed the Rio Grande, and has done surprising things since he got here. I have pictures of him being birthed with a sign behind him that says welcome to Hawaii.

All I did was ask a simple question and now all of a sudden I feel like I'm being disenfranchised by everyone. I mean don't you think it's a little immature?

[broncofan]

Don't take it personally Ashlyn. I'm trying to attack the idea and not you. I just don't understand what Barack Obama the birthers are afraid of. So I'm trying to come up with an origin story that some people on the right would find frightening.

What is it? Did he practice Santeria and ritually slaughter chickens? I am an anxious person and so I'm often told to visualize the worst outcome and realize that it's still tolerable. Maybe he ritually slaughters chickens while chanting what sounds to us like complete gibberish. He obviously didn't do this during the day while he was working because we never caught him in the act, so what's the big deal if he did it after hours in the oval office? The secret service obviously cleaned out all the feathers and chicken blood before Breitbart could document it, so no harm was done. :)

[AshlynCreamher]

... Maybe he ritually slaughters chickens while chanting ...

I like to keep things positive, each morning i visit blogs that feature loving, happy messages!!! ;) I mean like otherwise what's the point? Right??? It is possible to manifest your future all you have to do is Envision it but keep it positive keep it happy and spread love.

[Stavros]

I get that you're triggered but that doesn't mean that you're going to be a able to lure me into a debate
Hardly triggered, as the whole point of this section of Hung Angels is to offer us the opportunity to debate, which is fundamental to politics if it is to mean anything. I don't understand why you are so reluctant to debate real issues that may have lasting consequences, not just for the USA but for the rest of us, for example, in Europe. If you take the time to post, at least post something of substance, rather than some hysterical rubbish about Obama that has no basis in reality. Why not address an issue like immigration, or health care, or education? Surely these are of more importance a conspiracy exposed as rubbish years ago-?

[AshlynCreamher]

Hardly triggered, as the whole point of this section of Hung Angels is to offer us the opportunity to debate, which is fundamental to politics if it is to mean anything. I don't understand why you are so reluctant to debate real issues that may have lasting consequences, not just for the USA but for the rest of us, for example, in Europe. If you take the time to post, at least post something of substance, rather than some hysterical rubbish about Obama that has no basis in reality. Why not address an issue like immigration, or health care, or education? Surely these are of more importance a conspiracy exposed as rubbish years ago-?

Because the election is over and I just don't want to invest the time (especially not with you) im trying to demo a old stinky room right now so im keeping my responses short so deal with it

[AshlynCreamher]

Back to my original question which nobody has answered yet.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?100846-You-ve-Been-Trumped!&p=1749772&viewfull=1#post1749772

[broncofan]

Back to my original question which nobody has answered yet.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?100846-You-ve-Been-Trumped!&p=1749772&viewfull=1#post1749772
I think he said that he saw a video of Spicer calling Justin Trudeau the wrong name. Spicer is the spokesman the President chose.

[broncofan]

Ashlyn, one problem I've had with a lot of Trump fans is that they don't want to discuss his policy proposals. It's always about attacking the other side, or being pleased that others are miserable...I consider this bad faith. Something cannot be right simply because the other side thinks it's wrong.

The election is over yet you want to discuss old discredited claims about Obama's citizenship. What about the future? What is Donald doing except sowing seeds of hatred and stoking fear? Punishing people because they can't afford health care may make the average Trump supporter happy in the short term, but what happens when they get sick?

[AshlynCreamher]

Ashlyn, one problem I've had with a lot of Trump fans is that they don't want to discuss his policy proposals. It's always about attacking the other side, or being pleased that others are miserable...I consider this bad faith. Something cannot be right simply because the other side thinks it's wrong.

The election is over yet you want to discuss old discredited claims about Obama's citizenship. What about the future? What is Donald doing except sowing seeds of hatred and stoking fear? Punishing people because they can't afford health care may make the average Trump supporter happy in the short term, but what happens when they get sick?

That's just it you don't have to attack the other side I'd be happy to discuss his policy proposals and what I think about it but not in the format of essays. I'm just going to go ahead and tell you but having a discussion with most on the left is a very miserable experience. Only hear from everyone on the past is that Donald Trump is a racist bigot a homophobe islamophobe I mean seriously this is a 5th grade response if you guys could just cut out the racism and the hate that would be great we could talk about his policy and why I think it's right and wrong and why you think it's right and wrong

[AshlynCreamher]

I think he said that he saw a video of Spicer calling Justin Trudeau the wrong name. Spicer is the spokesman the President chose.

Maybe I should rephrase ahem: did whitehouse.gov publish that statement, can you show me the transcript they do publish all of these things on the whitehouse.gov

[broncofan]

Only hear from everyone on the past is that Donald Trump is a racist bigot a homophobe islamophobe I mean seriously this is a 5th grade response if you guys could just cut out the racism
Okay but in fairness, the only Trump supporters we've seen here other than you are Erika and Budweiser. Erika was promoting Trump by shrieking white power messages using a frog mascot and Budweiser only wants to talk about Muslims, Mexicans, and hook-noses. Are you willing to consider that the Trump supporters we've seen here have been fixated on differences, from religion, to national origin, to facial features? I'm sure we are all happy to discuss Trump's policy proposals with you if you want to write about something he supports and tell us why it will be useful. Either here or in a thread called Trump's Policies Pros and Cons or something like it.

[AshlynCreamher]

Okay but in fairness, the only Trump supporters we've seen here other than you are Erika and Budweiser. Erika was promoting Trump by shrieking white power messages using a frog mascot and Budweiser only wants to talk about Muslims, Mexicans, and hook-noses. Are you willing to consider that the Trump supporters we've seen here have been fixated on differences, from religion, to national origin, to facial features? I'm sure we are all happy to discuss Trump's policy proposals with you if you want to write about something he supports and tell us why it will be useful. Either here or in a thread called Trump's Policies Pros and Cons or something like it.

Yes I do acknowledge their existence, they have been a thorn in the thumb of the campaign and a big problem. I do not agree with any of them when they start talking about "white power" or whatever you said it was. And I think I remember something about the KKK endorsing Donald Trump however Donald Trump denounced their endorsement. Please leave my green frog alone, i love him.

#1 building the wall
This is very important to me because I want to feel safe. I think we could all agree that there are people in this world who want to do us great harm having wide open borders does not protect us.

[Stavros]

Back to my original question which nobody has answered yet.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?100846-You-ve-Been-Trumped!&p=1749772&viewfull=1#post1749772

I drew attention to the following in this thread:

Post #78 An indirect reference to the post quoting the document issued by the Govt of the USA listing 78 (alleged) 'terrorist attacks' which according to Donald Trump were not reported by the press, published as received in the Washington Post, complete with basic spelling mistakes.

Post #83 Drawing attention to a basic spelling mistake in the poster of Donald Trump issued by the Library of Congress to commemorate the Inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States of America.

Post #88 Drawing attention to a Press Conference by White House Press Spokesman Sean Spicer in which he forgot the name of the Canadian Prime Minister, widely available across the internet.

I did not post a reference to the fact that prior to her visit to Washington DC at the end of January, a Press Release from the White House dated 27 January 2017 referred to the Prime Minister of the UK as 'Teresa May' three times, when in fact she is Theresa May. Not surprisingly, perhaps, there is a Teresa May, and she is a 'glamour model'. You can read about this farce in the Conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph, here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/white-house-spells-theresa-mays-name-wrong-three-times-memo/

The White House web page is not the only source of news, not least because Donald Trump himself uses other sources and feeds.
I hope that clears up the trail of evidence on the shambolic incompetence of the first month in office of Donald Trump.

[Stavros]

#1 building the wall
This is very important to me because I want to feel safe. I think we could all agree that there are people in this world who want to do us great harm having wide open borders does not protect us.

1) The Wall is a nonsense, as it will not deter anyone not in the USA from entering the country to do harm, because they can tunnel underneath it, arrive on an obscure part of the coast in a small boat, walk across the Canadian border in the Rocky Mountains or simply fly in without question from two countries with whom the USA has such warm relations: Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the same two countries in which the 9/11 Hi-Jackers were born.

2) The worst terrorist attacks in the USA other than 9/11 were committed by Americans, not foreign nationals entering the country, thus:
-Timothy McVeigh, responsible for the bombing of the Alfred P, Murrah building in Oklahoma City, April 1995, killing 168 people and injuring over 600 others. McVeigh was born in Lockport, New York State.
-Syed Rizwan Farook, responsible for the shootings in San Bernardino, December 2015 killing 14, injuring 22 others. Farook was born in Chicago, Illinois.
-Omar Mateen, responsible for the killing in the Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, June 2016 killing 49 and injuring 53. Mateen was born in New Hyde Park, New York State.

[AshlynCreamher]

So everyone on this thread is upset because of a miss spelled word?

[broncofan]

If we spent that same amount of money we would spend on a wall over time on border patrol, it would be more effective in combating illegal immigration. The vast majority of migrants are coming to the United States for economic reasons and are not seeking to harm anyone. I lived in Southern California growing up and there were large numbers of itinerant workers who were undocumented. I never felt the least bit threatened by them but we do have immigration laws and a right to enforce them. I am aware that Trump and others have highlighted some crimes committed by illegal aliens, but these are crimes that are also committed by American citizens, who are justifiably punished when they commit them.

This is an article on crime rates of foreign born v. native born individuals in the U.S. The author says it's difficult to compare directly undocumented immigrant crime rate to american born, but indications are that undocumented individuals may commit less crime on average.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/16/voices-gomez-undocumented-immigrant-crime-san-francisco-shooting/30159479/

The only thing the wall does is symbolize to Mexico that we don't want normal relations with them. We benefit from trade with Mexico every year notwithstanding the fact that we have a trade deficit with them. Trump seems to believe that we only benefit from trade when we export more than we import from a country, but that's not how trade works. Trade allows us to allocate our resources towards those industries that are strongest in our country, even if we source some goods from other countries. Funding the wall with a tariff on Mexican goods would place a tax on American consumers who purchase either finished goods from Mexico or products made with inputs from Mexico.

If the idea is to prevent illegal immigration and not stigmatize Mexico or damage relations with them, border security is the way to go, not a wall.

As far as terrorism is concerned, we have not had any major acts of terrorism from anyone infiltrating our southern border. And if a wall is not any more effective in protecting that border than officers looking for illegal migrants, then why build it?

[broncofan]

https://www.wired.com/2017/01/wall-alone-cant-secure-border-no-matter-pays/

This is an article on cost effectiveness of building a wall v. other technological methods of patrolling the border, with the use of manpower and radar devices to detect movement. A wall is easy to circumvent and does not even defray many human costs. I've read elsewhere that the wall also runs into difficult issues of eminent domain, as it would require the government to confiscate private land to build it. I'm going to start a new thread for Trump policies.

[Stavros]

So everyone on this thread is upset because of a miss spelled word?

Probably just me, but having produced copy for corporate clients I know that spelling the simplest of words is precisely the kind of error that sticks out, and would be ashamed to see it happen if I was responsible, but always took steps to make sure it didn't. This is the Government of the USA we are talking about, which has produced documents that not only contain basic spelling mistakes, the people responsible evidently don't use a spell-check built into their word-processing software, and don't proof read the documents before they are sent to print or publication. At the very least it is unprofessional, and suggests to me that the people concerned are either just no good with English, or don't care.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 5 January 2012
President @BarackObama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Unbelievable!

Average annual cost of President Obama's trips: $12.1.1 million
Cost of President Trump's trips after one month: $11.3 million

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-costs-trips-security-taxpayer-barack-obama-month-year-a7586261.html

[filghy2]

That's funny because the Obama Administration failed to put together a simple birth certificate. It's funny because I downloaded that birth certificate from a PDF that came from whitehouse.gov and then I loaded it the illustration (birth certificate) into my Adobe fireworks software and lone behold there were layers involved with the graphic and if you don't understand what I'm talking about in simple English this means that I could change the text on the birth certificateand removed items from the birth certificate what this means they failed to flatten the layers before publishing the illustration

As i understand it, adobe wasnt released until 1992 decades after President O was born

I'm not technical expert but it seems there is a perfectly reasonable explanation
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265767/pdf-layers-obamas-birth-certificate-nathan-goulding

I've no idea why your last sentence is relevant. Obviously the certificate posted online had to be an electronic copy - not the original document.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 14 October 2014
Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.Worse than Carter
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/13/donald-trump-has-changed-his-mind-about-presidents-golfing/

Donald Trump, first month in office as President, Jan-Feb 2017
Golf—25 hrs
Foreign relations—21 hrs
Tweeting—13 hrs
Intel briefings—6
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-golf-intelligence-briefings-white-house-us-president-mar-a-lago-doral-florida-a7598396.html

[Stavros]

Donald Trump, speech to Congress, 1st March 2017
We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of a U.S. Navy Special Operator, Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens. Ryan died as he lived: a warrior, and a hero --- battling against terrorism and securing our Nation....Ryan's legacy is etched into eternity. For as the Bible teaches us, there is no greater act of love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. Ryan laid down his life for his friends, for his country, and for our freedom --- we will never forget him.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/donald-trump-speech-transcript-full-text/

Words for a dead American, but not one single word of support or sympathy for the Yemen where millions are without food, water and a place to live -Trump could not even find time to mention the word Yemen, or to shower praise and support for 'one's friends' in Saudi Arabia, the GHQ of global Islamist terrorism. Maybe someone should tell Mr Trump that the last time the USA backed Saudi Arabia in a war to decide who forms a government in the Yemen, it began in 1962 and ended in failure in 1970. And maybe he could explain how destroying homes, businesses and lives in the Yemen protects America?
https://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/stop-arming-saudi/yemen

But as the English conservative Edmund Burke once said, Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

[trish]

...as the English conservative Edmund Burke once said, Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.Along with all the rest of the world.

[Stavros]

"Owens didn’t die in a highly successful mission to defeat al-Qaida once and for all. He was part of a firefight that killed 30 civilians (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-missed-target-al-qaeda-leader-yemen-raid-a7566211.html), has yet to produce a shred of useful intelligence and was approved by Trump over a candlelit dinner (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/trump-approved-yemen-raid-five-days-after-inauguration). US military officials said that the operation was approved without sufficient intelligence, ground support or back up preparations."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-congress-speech-navy-seal-william-ryan-owens-say-sorry-a7606266.

[martin48]

Along with all the rest of the world.


Burke also said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

[filghy2]

Donald Trump, speech to Congress, 1st March 2017
We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of a U.S. Navy Special Operator, Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens. Ryan died as he lived: a warrior, and a hero --- battling against terrorism and securing our Nation....Ryan's legacy is etched into eternity. For as the Bible teaches us, there is no greater act of love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. Ryan laid down his life for his friends, for his country, and for our freedom --- we will never forget him.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/donald-trump-speech-transcript-full-text/



But as the English conservative Edmund Burke once said, Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

Fine words from a man who graduated from military college, then avoided the draft for Vietnam through a series of college deferments and then a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heel that magically cleared up afterwards. And then had the temerity to criticise John McCain, who was shot down and spent 5 years in a Hanoi prison, for getting captured.

Actually, that quote about history is generally attributed to George Santayana.

[Stavros]

Actually, that quote about history is generally attributed to George Santayana.

It is one of those quotes that has been embellished as well such as 'those who cannot remember their own history are doomed to repeat its mistakes'. What Santayana actually wrote was “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Life of Reason, Vol 1) and some now claim Burke never wrote the quote in the exact words I cited but did say in Reflections on the Revolution in France: People will not look forward to prosperity who never look backward to their ancestors." A textual analysis of Burke's writing also reveals he never wrote "The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing", but there may be variations on this, the closest appears to be from Thomas Jefferson: All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
I am as guilty as others in poaching quotes on the assumption I know where they come from. And then sometimes it transpires nobody knows, probably because people take something from a book and twist it for their own purposes, but I guess that is the joy of writing and researching the truth...elusive as that can often be.

[Stavros]

Calamity Sean at it again:
2nd March 2017 10.58am:
The Senate confirmed @realDonaldTrump as the next Secretary of @HUDgov

Followed soon after by
The Senate has confirmed @RealBenCarson (https://twitter.com/RealBenCarson) as @realDonaldTrump (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump) 's Secretary of @HUDgov (https://twitter.com/HUDgov)

As one internet wag put it
I think someone handed him the wrong envelope pic.twitter.com/nbJxcAmShT (https://t.co/nbJxcAmShT)

https://www.indy100.com/article/sean-spicer-tweet-donald-trump-housing-and-urban-development-secretary-ben-carson-mistake-7608116

At least we can be sure Ben Carson is real...

[filghy2]

Burke also said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"


The nearest quote that can be found in Burke's writings is "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents) Not quite the same thing, and not nearly as punchy. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/

[Stavros]

Donald Trump, 3rd of March 2017 tweeting on the day he visited St Andrews Catholic School, Orlando Florida
“I hear by demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it."

I hereby declare that Donald Trump is going to take some spelling lessons.— President Bannon (@PRESlDENTBANNON) March 3, 2017 (https://twitter.com/PRESlDENTBANNON/status/837771608391565316)

(https://twitter.com/PRESlDENTBANNON/status/837771608391565316)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/03/donald-trump-runs-twitter-trouble-repeated-spelling-errors-attempt/

[martin48]

Where would we be without .....



The nearest quote that can be found in Burke's writings is "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents) Not quite the same thing, and not nearly as punchy. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/

[broncofan]

I wonder whether Edmund Burke has ever said anything that someone else didn't say better:)

[Stavros]

I wonder whether Edmund Burke has ever said anything that someone else didn't say better:)
I think you are probably right, Burke is recalled as one of the first 'conservative' 'thinkers' which is why he is used as a source. When students do a course in political theory/philosophy they have a 'canon' to get through, from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine and Aquinas to Machiavelli, Bentham, Mill and Marx, and although Burke was not a philosopher he makes it where other conservatives, like Kant do not as they did not concern themselves with government.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump 4 March 2017
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/donald-trump-accuses-obama-of-wire-tapping-his-office-before-election


You have to wonder how people react to a President unable to spell a three letter word. 'That's just Donald' some might say, just as his 'locker-room' talk was just that. But the White House is not a locker-room, and Trump is President of the USA, not the host of a late-night chat show. I don't know how anyone can take him seriously.

But don't worry, help is at hand -Tony Blair has had meetings with Trump -three so far- and Blair may become a 'special envoy'. Blair's position will probably be -the Presidency looks foolish under Trump but I can tutor him and make it look more serious. Curiously this either suggests he has repaired his relations with Trump insider Rupert Murdoch (the Dirty Digger may even have been the facilitator and Blair is godfather to Murdoch's daughter Grace but maybe the two fell out when Tony snuck into Wendi's bed a few years ago). Or, even more perversely, Murdoch may not be behind this at all, and it is Blair competing with Murdoch for influence in the White House.
Maybe this is just a late night tv show...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/05/tony-blair-has-attended-secret-meeting-white-house-amid-claims/

[filghy2]

Why not - it worked so well with Bush and Iraq

[Stavros]

It may be Jared Kushner rather than Murdoch who is behind it. Not sure his record with 'the Quartet' is worthy of their praise but as Trump doesn't read he won't know what isn't told to him in three letter words.

The Quartet today expressed its deep appreciation to Tony Blair as he plans to step aside as the Quartet’s Representative.
As the Quartet’s envoy on the ground during the last eight years, Mr. Blair demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace and made lasting contributions to the effort to promote economic growth and improve daily life in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Quartet thanks Mr. Blair for his remarkable service and reaffirms its commitment to advancing peace and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians.
http://www.quartetrep.org/page.php?id=5ce66ey6088302Y5ce66e

[Stavros]

Blair's London office has issued a statement saying that the report in the posts above is not true.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/05/tony-blair-has-attended-secret-meeting-white-house-amid-claims/

[Stavros]

If you are headed down Cheapside on the way to the Bank of England, and turn left onto Milk Street you will find cartographic evidence of the links between Donald Trump and the Russians...

997863

[martin48]

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Winston Churchill



I think you are probably right, Burke is recalled as one of the first 'conservative' 'thinkers' which is why he is used as a source. When students do a course in political theory/philosophy they have a 'canon' to get through, from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine and Aquinas to Machiavelli, Bentham, Mill and Marx, and although Burke was not a philosopher he makes it where other conservatives, like Kant do not as they did not concern themselves with government.

[Stavros]

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Winston Churchill

You can always rely on a pompous braggart like Churchill to grab learning by the throat and drag it down into the sewer where he wallows in his turds convinced the British Empire will last for a thousand years.

[martin48]

Yeap, I can see this in the Oxford Book of Quotations



You can always rely on a pompous braggart like Churchill to grab learning by the throat and drag it down into the sewer where he wallows in his turds convinced the British Empire will last for a thousand years.

[Stavros]

Donald Trump, 7th March 2017
122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!

Reporter Carol Rosenberg -- who covers Guantanamo Bay for the Miami Herald (http://www.aol.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miamiherald.com%2Fnews%2Fna tion-world%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fguantanamo%2F)-
"Wrong POTUS, @realDonaldTrump (http://www.aol.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FrealDonaldTrump) ," Rosenberg wrote. "Your intel agencies report shows Bush released 113 of the 122 re-engagers from Gitmo."
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/07/president-trump-tweets-inaccurately-that-barack-obama-released-122-guantanamo-bay-reengagers/21875207/

Trump did not read the whole of the intel report. One is surprised he read it at all.

[martin48]

Parallel Universes – Image shows re-tweet links to news items in the US during the election. Hilary supporters are blue, Donald’s in red. Blues get their news from Washington Post, etc. Reds from Breitbart, etc. Little crossing over. Research by University of Columbia. There are two societies with little interconnect. Banging on about the obvious failings of Trump and his coterie is not going to be heard by anyone expect by the like-minded.

[Stavros]

Parallel Universes – Image shows re-tweet links to news items in the US during the election. Hilary supporters are blue, Donald’s in red. Blues get their news from Washington Post, etc. Reds from Breitbart, etc. Little crossing over. Research by University of Columbia. There are two societies with little interconnect. Banging on about the obvious failings of Trump and his coterie is not going to be heard by anyone expect by the like-minded.

In which case I will desist, though it is hardly my fault if Trump's supporters are too cowardly to respond in support of their idol.

[filghy2]

Parallel Universes – Image shows re-tweet links to news items in the US during the election. Hilary supporters are blue, Donald’s in red. Blues get their news from Washington Post, etc. Reds from Breitbart, etc. Little crossing over. Research by University of Columbia. There are two societies with little interconnect. Banging on about the obvious failings of Trump and his coterie is not going to be heard by anyone expect by the like-minded.

I think you are being too pessimistic. People who retweet are more likely to be those with strong priors in the first place. Even so there is still a significant purplish area on that diagram. It has always been the case that most of the electorate is firmly attached to one side or the other. Elections are determined by the 10-20 per cent in the middle who are open to changing their minds. I doubt that too many of the people in the red zone would have been voting for Obama previously.

[Paladin]

He just wanted to say genitals is my guess. It's titillating. Maybe not, but I really wanted to say tit.

You're all still proving Abe Lincoln correct. Look up the Article by William Safire.

[bluesoul]

He'll end up outsourcing the presidency. Plain and simple.

welp: this ended up being incorrect.

[Aticus100]

I wonder how many actual presidencies (where the US has a President as opposed to whatever the fuck Comrade Trump is) it will take before the rest of the world views that office as anything less than a joke again?