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Duke of Bullshit: "The" Donald

Started by Recusant, November 11, 2015, 11:29:56 PM

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Pasta Chick

I also seriously doubt the validity, but it's pissing Trump off and the puns just write themselves so really what's to lose?

Also, I enjoy the idea of it being exposed as fake, Trump fans yelling about how it is fake and we should stop, and just saying "yeah, we know" and continuing to do it anyway.

Davin

^ :lol: maybe we fight crazy with crazy?



Where there's smoke, there's fire, amiright?

This stuff doesn't just come up out of nowhere, there has to be something to it.

If he doesn't have ties to Russia, he should release his tax records.

etc.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Firebird

Quote from: Davin on January 11, 2017, 04:24:59 PM
^ :lol: maybe we fight crazy with crazy?

At this point, why not? Unfortunately the public doesn't seem to care if you're the "better person". I'm not saying we should go around pushing every bit of fakery or unsubstantiated rumor, but calling for Trump to release his tax returns now is a good start. Also, if the Democrats refuse to confirm a single one of his Supreme Court nominees after the GOP stole Obama's pick, I'd have no problem with that anymore. If they're going to act like fascists, then they deserve no respect.
"Great, replace one book about an abusive, needy asshole with another." - Will (moderator) on replacing hotel Bibles with "Fifty Shades of Grey"

Pasta Chick

I mean...

Was it on HAF someone made a point about the pizza shop shooter? That it's kinda fucked up that if all these people really, honestly believe that Hilary is running a sex slave ring out of a pizza shop, only one person actually tried to do a damn thing about it. Which means most of them don't actually believe it.

And then on Facebook just now, I saw someone make the excellent point that while virtually everyone is questioning the authenticity of the reports because of how they were released, no one is actually questioning whether Trump actually did any of this. It's all totally plausible. It's not like the "Obama death panels" where right off the bat you're thinking "yeah, that sounds made up." That in itself is a problem.

Recusant

There's an interesting piece on FiveThirtyEight in which they speculate that vaccination might become politicized because of Trump's yapping about it. They describe the way that people's views of climate science have diverged along political lines since the 90s, a time when both Republicans and Democrats had similar views. Of course the climate denier line of baloney was largely funded by fossil fuel interests, while there is no big source of funding for the anti-vaccination crowd, and the pharmaceutical industry has plenty of cash to put into countering the anti-vaxxers. Will politics alone drive a change in views among Republicans? I don't think so, but it will be something to watch.

"Will Trump Make Vaccines Another Partisan Issue?" | FiveThirtyEight

I came across that while I was reading a piece there about a Pew survey in which police say that their jobs are harder because of the scrutiny over killing unarmed black people (oh dear!). That's not particularly on topic in this thread, though.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Davin

It's crazy how these things become political issues. They're not political things, they are scientific things. It's a bit frustrating.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Dave

Quote from: Davin on January 11, 2017, 08:07:59 PM
It's crazy how these things become political issues. They're not political things, they are scientific things. It's a bit frustrating.

Rather than crazy I think it is sad.

Health, education - things with importance beyond easy measure become the balls our fucking stupid politicians use to play their infantile games.

Those who believe a politician,  any politician, have only themselves to blame when their arse gets bitten. A politician's word is only as good as his or her action - I believe them when they do it right, not until.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Harmonie

Quote from: Davin on January 11, 2017, 08:07:59 PM
It's crazy how these things become political issues. They're not political things, they are scientific things. It's a bit frustrating.

Nearly everything that the Republicans and Religious Right bring up as "issues" are all lies and what they're fighting for is hurtful to so many people. It baffles me that these groups have so much power when their positions are so blatantly wrong.

Everything about "President" Trump and a Republican/Religious Right controlled government is scaring me half to death. I can't even calm down because everywhere you turn it just gets worse and worse. I thought the Bush years were bad, I had no idea.

Icon Image by Cherubunny on Tumblr
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

Recusant

I thought about creating a separate thread for this article, but I don't know how many will bother to read a long exposition on the history of the presidency of the US and how Trump may fit into it, so I'll just put it here. It's got an intriguing title, anyway.  ;)

The Politics Trump Makes: Is Trump, like Carter, a Disjunctive President? | New Left Review

QuoteThe interregnum between Trump's election and his inauguration has occasioned a fever dream of authoritarianism—a procession of nightmares from faraway lands and distant times, from Hitler and Mussolini to Putin and Erdogan. But what if Trump's antecedents are more prosaic, the historical analogies nearer to hand? What if the best clues to the Trump presidency are to be found in that most un-Trump-like of figures: Jimmy Carter?

Journalists and pundits often fixate on a President's personality and psychology, as if the office were born anew with each election. They ignore the structural factors that shape the Presidency. Yet every President is elected to represent a combination of ideologies, policies, and coalitions. That is the President's political identity: Lincoln brought to power a Republican Party committed to free labor ideals and the overthrow of the slavocracy; Reagan, a Republican Party committed to aggressive free-market capitalism and the overthrow of the New Deal.

Every President also inherits a political situation in which certain ideologies and interests dominate. That situation, or regime, shapes a President's exercise of power, forcing some to do less, empowering others to do more. Richard Nixon was not a New Deal Democrat, but he was constrained by the political common sense of his time to govern like one, just as Bill Clinton had to bow to the hegemony of Reaganism. Regimes are deep and intractable structures of interest and belief, setting out the boundaries of action, shaping our sense of the possible, over a period of decades.

Every President is aligned with or opposed to the regime. Every regime is weak or strong. These two vectors—the political affiliation of the President, the vitality of the regime—shape "the politics Presidents make." That phrase is the title of Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek's classic study of the presidency, which, when it appeared in 1993, completely altered how political scientists understand the institution and its possibilities.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Davin

It does feel like the government is as corrupt and against the public as the ones in the 70's and 80's.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Bad Penny II

Quote from: Davin on January 12, 2017, 02:26:21 PM
It does feel like the government is as corrupt and against the public as the ones in the 70's and 80's.

I thought there was a pattern of worsening.
This is worse than that has become before.
It incentiveises the next to be worse still.
Take my advice, don't listen to me.

Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Bad Penny II on January 12, 2017, 02:46:42 PM
Quote from: Davin on January 12, 2017, 02:26:21 PM
It does feel like the government is as corrupt and against the public as the ones in the 70's and 80's.

I thought there was a pattern of worsening.
This is worse than that has become before.
It incentiveises the next to be worse still.

This certainly has the potential to be worse.   Mr Trump is dangerous.

Davin

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 12, 2017, 04:12:47 PM
Quote from: Bad Penny II on January 12, 2017, 02:46:42 PM
Quote from: Davin on January 12, 2017, 02:26:21 PM
It does feel like the government is as corrupt and against the public as the ones in the 70's and 80's.

I thought there was a pattern of worsening.
This is worse than that has become before.
It incentiveises the next to be worse still.

This certainly has the potential to be worse.   Mr Trump is dangerous.
It's not just Trump, it's a bunch of the others that got elected as well. If Trump were elected and the rest of the government were fine, I wouldn't worry too much. But now we have these Representatives getting rid of the power of ethics oversight, people that want to take our privacy under the guise of public safety, while trying to keep what they do for the public, private. It's not just Trump, it's the government as a whole right now that we have to worry about.

And for the ultimate sadness, the people that voted those people in, voted them in for exact opposite reasons. I.E.: most voted "for a smaller government" and are getting a bigger, more imposing one for it.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Dave

The Trump badmouths the US security agencies, then his nominees for defence and the CIA give them plaudits.

Crazy!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Recusant

Hearkening back to the OP of this thread: "Donald Trump treats the press like an authoritarian thug" | The Guardian

QuoteTrump's first press conference since July made plenty of news. He acknowledged Russia's role in the Democratic National Committee hack for the first time, elaborately sidestepped traditional conflict-of-interest rules and announced a new cabinet nomination. Yet the most shocking moments came not with policy pronouncements, but in his handling of the assembled media itself.

His pointed, public attacks on journalists during the press conference were a tactic ripped from the playbook of authoritarian regimes around the world. Their goal is to discredit the media and undermine journalists' ability to play their crucial role in holding government accountable.

The conference began with Trump press secretary-designate Sean Spicer deriding as "outrageous and highly irresponsible" Buzzfeed's decision to publish an uncorroborated dossier alleging, among other things, Russian interference involving the president-elect and top campaign aides.

Spicer also impugned as "pathetic" and "sad" CNN, which declined to publish the dossier but ran a more general story indicating that US intelligence agencies had conveyed to Trump and to President Barack Obama reports of the Russian government holding compromising information about Trump.

Trump and his team were well within their rights to vociferously and even angrily rebut unverified reports that were highly damaging to the president-elect. But they didn't stop there. Once Trump took the podium, CNN reporter Jim Acosta made persistent attempts to ask a question, calling out that having been attacked by name, the network ought to have the right to pose a query.

Trump spurned Acosta menacingly, saying "not you," "your organization is terrible," and "you are fake news." He referred to Buzzfeed as a "failing pile of garbage." Acosta reports that he was then told by Spicer that if he tried again to ask a question he would be thrown out of the press conference.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken