zombe on 19/6/2020 at 09:25
*naxt-page*next-page*next-page* ... *sigh*
Wake me when discussion on this inane shit is over and we are back at something pertaining to reality. Or is there really nothing insane going on in the real Trump front to talk about?
demagogue on 19/6/2020 at 11:03
Be careful what you wish for.
I mean just today, or at least what was reported today, we learned that he told President Xi that building concentration camps for Muslims was exactly the right thing to do, he asked Xi to buy more US agricultural products to help his personal reelection bid in return for tariff breaks, and he told Xi that "a lot of people" think the Presidential term limits shouldn't apply to him (Xi very slyly told Trump he thinks he should be president for another 6 years), he's still saying "Chinese flu", Bolton said he tried to get Trump to drop his illegal Ukraine quid pro quo shenanigans at least 10 times, and Trump refused every time, he said that he couldn't watch the George Floyd murder because 8 minutes is just too long (he also insisted he shouldn't have resisted the police like that), he said cornavirus testing is overrated and makes the US look bad and he told the Wall Street Journal that people wearing masks is a signal of direct opposition to him, a Trump post was taken down by Facebook for "organized hate" using a neo-nazi icon (there were also 88 ads with a 14 word slogan, which is unambiguous neo-nazi numerology) just after Zuck said he wouldn't be censoring Trump posts, and a Tweet of his was labeled as "manipulated media", Trump's DOJ is suing to stop the publication of Bolton's book with the brilliant argument that everything written in it is classified (which assumes it's true; he's not even bothering to argue that it's false. Oh and this quote: "He's a hardliner, but I call him a stupid liner"), the EPA is ending the regulation of perchlorate in drinking water (linked to infant brain damage), Biden is leading Trump by an average of 9 points across the country, particularly in swing states that Trump has to win, he said that he made Juneteenth famous, nobody even knew what it was, and he asked some assistant if she knew what it was, and she said the White House has issued a statement the last 3 years for it, which greatly surprised him, the fourth senior official to handle the Russia portfolio at the White House in three years is leaving his position, the highest ranked African American official at the State Department is resigning in protest, Trump signed in 200~300 conservative judges many of them sensationally unqualified (it's a whole other deep well of stories about some of the numbnuts becoming federal judges now), there's more ad nauseum....
And that was just what was reported today, Juneteenth. And every day is like that. Tomorrow is going to be Trump's stupid hate rally in Tulsa, and there will be another flood of this crap tomorrow.
Starker on 19/6/2020 at 12:15
One thing I find fascinating is the ability of this administration to have multiple major scandals every day that in any other administration would have lasted for months on end.
Speaking of which, in the ongoing series of
The Best People:
Quote:
(
https://www.propublica.org/article/this-treasury-official-is-running-the-bailout-its-been-great-for-his-family)
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have become the public faces of the $3 trillion federal coronavirus bailout. Behind the scenes, however, the Treasury's responsibilities have fallen largely to the 42-year-old deputy secretary, Justin Muzinich.
A major beneficiary of that bailout so far: Muzinich & Co., the asset manager founded by his father where Justin served as president before joining the administration. He reported owning a stake worth at least $60 million when he entered government in 2017.
Today, Muzinich retains financial ties to the firm through an opaque transaction in which he transferred his shares in the privately held company to his father. Ethics experts say the arrangement is troubling because his father received the shares for no money up front, and it appears possible that Muzinich can simply get his stake back after leaving government.
[...]
Gryzemuis on 19/6/2020 at 15:56
Are you guys still surprised about what Trump does and says ?
Didn't you see it all coming in 2016 ?
All you need to know about Trump, to be able to predict him:
1) he's dumb.
2) he's a sales guy. he'll say or do anything to get the deal made.
3) he's a tv-host. ratings are more important than reality.
4) he's a con-man. if you get away without being caught, you're not breaking the law. (aka fuck the law).
5) he's a mobster. the only thing that matters regarding people is whether they are loyal to him.
With these simple 5 facts you can explain anything he's done or said.
You can predict a lot too, but not everything. Because he's so dumb that he can't always follow his own rules.
Renzatic on 19/6/2020 at 16:36
Quote Posted by demagogue
And that was just what was reported today, Juneteenth. And every day is like that. Tomorrow is going to be Trump's stupid hate rally in Tulsa, and there will be another flood of this crap tomorrow.
Honestly, it's like we're living in a Paul Verhoeven movie, where everything's so over the top and gory, it's hard to take it as anything but satire.
Tony_Tarantula on 19/6/2020 at 19:01
Terrifying: (
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/model-predicting-united-states-disorder-now-points-to-civil-war/12365280)
Quote:
In the early 1990s, when Bill Clinton was in the White House and the United States looked unshakeable, the administration appointed Jack Goldstone to study how states fail. They meant other states; not the US. Few expected that his model would later predict their country's collapse.
In an unpublished paper submitted for peer review, Professor Goldstone, who is a sociologist, and Peter Turchin, an expert on the mathematical modelling of historical societies, have concluded that the US is "headed for another civil war".
The conditions for civil violence, they say, are the worst since the 19th century — in particular the years leading up to the start of the American Civil War in 1861.
The reason for this are trends that began in the 1980s, "with regard to inequality, selfish elites, and polarisation that have crippled the ability of the US government to mount an effective response to the pandemic disease," they write.
This has also "hampered our ability to deliver an inclusive economic relief policy, and exacerbated the tensions over racial injustice."
"Is the US headed for another civil war? In a word, yes."
Professor Goldstone is a leading authority on the study of revolutions and long-term social change at George Mason University. The model developed by him and Peter Turchin tracks such data as the ratio of median workers' wages to GDP per capita, life expectancy, average heights, and the number of new millionaires. It also measures political polarisation or the degree of overlap between the parties.
Applied to US history, it 'predicts' the 1861 Civil War and the unrest of the 1930s — a time of Jim Crow segregation, Gilded Age inequality, and fascism.
Ten years ago, Professor Turchin pointed his model towards the future, and made an uncannily accurate prediction. Just like in the 1850s, crisis indicators were rising, he wrote in the journal Nature. They could be a reliable indicator of looming instability and "look set to peak in the years around 2020," he wrote.
Nicker on 19/6/2020 at 19:48
Quote:
Are you guys still surprised about what Trump does and says ?
It's not that I am surprised by Trump himself but by the ability and willingness of his enablers hold their noses and look the other way, even to rationalise his demented and even criminal behaviours, to the public.
This and what Pyrian is about to say...
Pyrian on 19/6/2020 at 19:55
The fact that Trump's behavior is long since far from being in any way surprising, in no way implies that the drumbeat of wrong doesn't need to be pointed out, documented, resisted, and deplored. He's not some rando on the internet. Okay, I mean, he's not just some rando on the internet, he's also the president of the United States and his feet should be held to the fire constantly by Congress, the Inspectors General, the news media, and the voting public.
demagogue on 20/6/2020 at 00:56
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Are you guys still surprised about what Trump does and says ?
Didn't you see it all coming in 2016 ?
I think I posted this earlier. I saw the gist of it all the way back in 2001. (I was probably too young to notice at the time, but people following the news could have predicted it already in 1989 with the Central Park Five NYTimes ad he took out that he's still never apologized for.)
But the reason why I feel like I have a special understanding of him now is that now I've had a partner with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is the mirror image of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To know one is to know the other pretty well. People think they understand it -- oh he's always thinking about himself and sure does say a lot of bullsiht -- but unless you've read like 8 books and 700 articles and Quora and blog posts on it, you really don't understand anything, just because it really is impossible to understand without researching it.
To get a start at it, you have to imagine your brain not being able control the release of hormones involved in all the classic ego defense mechanisms. They're just left gushing at all times. So, e.g., it's not like intentional lying. It's like he's in total panic mode 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just trying to survive for the next 5 minutes without being caught as a fraud, and not showing the slightest hint of weakness or cracks, because he's always on just on the precipice of a suicidal-level breakdown he has to numb at every moment. He'll say literally anything. Then apply that to basically every category of human behavior a person goes through in a day. He has to signal strength and domination to quiet the demons minute by minute by excruciating minute. You don't understand it until you live with one of these kinds of people. They'll never be free of it, not even for a second. Every volitional action that passes through their midbrain is coursing through irreparably flawed wiring.
