heywood on 17/9/2024 at 21:36
Quote Posted by Vae
Just a reminder...
Four sitting US presidents have actually been assassinated.
Abraham Lincoln
James Garfield
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president to have been injured in an assassination attempt while in office and survive.
Two former presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Donald Trump, have also been injured in attacks.
Every politician targeted in each assassination attempt was a member of the Republican Party with the exception of one, JFK.
Every violent perpetrator was either a democrat, a socialist, or a communist.
For Discendo Vox
Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate who was part of a conspiracy to kill Lincoln
Garfield was assassinated by a delusional member of the Republican Stalwart faction
McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist with mental illness
Kennedy was assassinated by a suspected Soviet agent
Roosevelt's shooter was declared innocent by reason of insanity and committed, after saying he shot Roosevelt because McKinley's ghost visited him and told him to avenge McKinley's assassination.
Reagan was shot by a mentally ill man with no politics and a Jodie Foster obsession. He tried to get Carter first.
Trump's shooter was a registered Republican but there was nothing before the shooting to suggest a political motive. It was seemingly done for notoriety.
But the guy who they just captured is a politically motivated Democrat supporter, I'll give you that.
Starker on 18/9/2024 at 03:47
Any kind of affiliation wouldn't matter anyway, because such an act would only benefit Republicans -- if Lord Dampnut was martyred, Republicans would flock to the polls in massive numbers to cast a vote for DJ Vance, even the Republicans who would have stayed home otherwise. And millions of Democrats would suddenly lose their reason to vote.
heywood on 18/9/2024 at 11:44
Affecting the election outcome would be a minor consequence. If Trump is assassinated, it will inspire riots, revenge killings, and domestic terrorist attacks. It would be another stain on American democracy and a sign that the US isn't stable enough to rely on. If he is killed by a lone wolf, like the two so far, I will blame it on the vigilante gun culture the right keeps pushing now and the lack of mental health screening and treatment. That connection between policy and outcome is not something Republicans will accept because the cognitive dissonance will be too great, so it will drive them into conspiracy holes. The gap between Americans who believe in the real world and those who deny it will grow. It will be even worse if he gets killed by members of a political organization or foreign actor, because that will be like 9/11 all over again and cause us to build Surveillance State 2.0 and go on witch hunts. No good would come from it.
Nicker on 18/9/2024 at 12:55
Lawrence O'Donnell reminds us of the vile and cowardly hypocrisy of tRump, when he criminalized women's bodily autonomy and their right to life-saving procedures. A right he continually brags about removing. A right he fully expected he could count on, to rid himself of the complications of fatherhood.
Worse than that, his actions, have criminalized women's medical procedures, un-associated with abortions, resulting in the avoidable death of at least one American woman, because the doctors who could have easily saved their lives, feared spending a decade in prison for doing the right thing.
Amber Nicole Thurman of Georgia, died in hospital because doctors refused her a routine procedure to clear dead, foetal matter from her uterus.
Amber Nicole Thurman is the first acknowledged death from Trump's pride and joy, but she will not be the last.
Add that to the one million Americans who died because of his inaction and incompetence dealing with COVID. Add that to the tens of thousands who have dies in Ukraine and Russia because of his support of fellow tyrant, Vladimir Putin. Add that to the hundreds of domestic and foreign intelligence agents and assets which he sacrificed to buy favour with Putin and others, by openly and secretly sharing national security information with his fellow despots.
I am sure my body count is a bit short. Feel free to add your own.
Lawrence O'Donnell lays it out. The pro-Trumpers here, including our beloved "objective" caucus, need to watch this in its entirety. I have my doubts that they will and that they are already making their excuses why not.
[video=youtube;KMaHAI5tGUI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMaHAI5tGUI[/video]
Starker on 18/9/2024 at 14:07
I think that body count is vastly inflated. Pandemics cannot be stopped by any one individual and the majority of the deaths would have happened regardless who was in power. The invasion happened after Lord Dampnut had already been fired. And I haven't heard of any deaths of US intelligence agents or assets that can be linked back to his mishandling of intelligence information.
Discendo Vox on 18/9/2024 at 15:38
Quote Posted by heywood
Roosevelt's shooter was declared innocent by reason of insanity and committed, after saying he shot Roosevelt because McKinley's ghost visited him and told him to avenge McKinley's assassination.
Reagan was shot by a mentally ill man with no politics and a Jodie Foster obsession. He tried to get Carter first.
Trump's shooter was a registered Republican but there was nothing before the shooting to suggest a political motive. It was seemingly done for notoriety.
But the guy who they just captured is a politically motivated Democrat supporter, I'll give you that.
I believe the recent arrestee was all over the place on political affiliation and was also in the "severely mentally ill" category.
Quote Posted by Starker
I think that body count is vastly inflated. Pandemics cannot be stopped by any one individual and the majority of the deaths would have happened regardless who was in power. The invasion happened after Lord Dampnut had already been fired. And I haven't heard of any deaths of US intelligence agents or assets that can be linked back to his mishandling of intelligence information.
It's fair to place a significant degree of blame for the pandemic at Trump's feet. The Trump administration defunded a monitoring and research entity in Wuhan which was basically set up to study and monitor the exact kind of viral outbreak that produced Covid-19; it would have at least provided greater opportunity for an early identification and response, even if containment was still unlikely. Trump also has historically and continues to promote anti-vaccine sentiment and a number of harmful pseudoscientific cures. His specific actions on that front have politicized and polarized a large swathe of the population against vaccines and other public health measures. That has a body count associated with it that we won't be able to measure for a generation, and is going to feed other harmful pseudoscientific beliefs for a very, very long time.
Trump was not responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but his actions toward Iran, particularly the highly publicized assassination of Qassim Suleimani, may well have played a galvanizing role in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, and Iran's continued aggressive approach to the conflict via regional proxies.
On the handling of sensitive documents and damage to US intelligence agents and assets, it's hard to have concrete information and inquiries on that subject likely won't produce public results, but there have been spikes in the loss of informants abroad following the 2020 election.
(
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.html)
mxleader on 18/9/2024 at 21:23
Quote Posted by Discendo Vox
It's fair to place a significant degree of blame for the pandemic at Trump's feet. The Trump administration defunded a monitoring and research entity in Wuhan which was basically set up to study and monitor the exact kind of viral outbreak that produced Covid-19; it would have at least provided greater opportunity for an early identification and response, even if containment was still unlikely. Trump also has historically and continues to promote anti-vaccine sentiment and a number of harmful pseudoscientific cures. His specific actions on that front have politicized and polarized a large swathe of the population against vaccines and other public health measures. That has a body count associated with it that we won't be able to measure for a generation, and is going to feed other harmful pseudoscientific beliefs for a very, very long time.
Funding may have been cut but there is yet to be any evidence that the cut was linked to the pandemic. One can speculate all day long and point fingers but once a virus spreads there isn't much you can do to stop it when there's no vaccine available. Trump can be blamed for his anti-vaccine stance though and all that goes along with that. He had a powerful opportunity to silence the foolish conspiracy groups and really slow the pandemic down but he loves the excitement that comes with stirring the pot.
He literally could have been the biggest hero of the pandemic but chose to be a stupid grandstanding show off. I don't know if he can tell the difference between the harsh reality of the presidency and the lack of reality of his role on the former reality TV show The Apprentice. Everything is a game to him. He could have been a huge hero with massive popularity if he would have listened to reason, kept his bullshit to himself and followed the teleprompter. He did, and is still doing, a lot of damage to the GOP.
One thing I'm curious this time around is if those people who were on the fence with voting republican last time, and probably threw away their vote, will do the same thing or rally around Trump because of the attempts on his life. I'm willing to bet that during his presidency and the following years he hasn't learned a damn thing other than what it's like to be shot at.
Starker on 18/9/2024 at 22:56
I think the biggest damage to the pandemic response was probably the denial it was happening at the very start. It really reinforced the idea that it's a nothingburger that will blow over very quickly and that it is not any worse than a flu. The early days were crucial to buy as much time and prepare as thoroughly as possible. There were even instructions on this very situation left by the previous administration that he threw out and completely ignored.
The second biggest damage was then not addressing the supply issues and not coordinating the response on a federal level. It forced states to compete against each other and try to procure supplies at exorbitant costs, leading to some places having a surplus of items while other areas were drastically overburdened and underequipped.
A not insignificant amount of damage was probably also done by constantly having big rallies and other gatherings that likely sped up the spread of the disease among his followers. It might well have contributed to the situation where deaths among Republican voters were significantly higher than among Democrats, even though Republicans tend to live in more sparsely populated rural areas and Democrats live in densely packed cities. And the gap only widened over the course of the pandemic.
As for the anti-vaccine stance, he was tentatively for the vaccines at first (and he could have easily touted the speedy development of the vaccines as his administration's accomplishment), but it was his base that was giving him pushback on any positive vaccine messaging and even booed him whenever he brought it up. Also I think at that point it was purely personal responsibility whether a person took the vaccine or not.
Discendo Vox on 18/9/2024 at 23:40
Notably Trump was anti-vaccine before he was pro-vaccine, before he was anti-vaccine; before his presidency, Trump infamously promoted the idea of vaccines causing autism ("Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!"). This was around the time he was developing a branded "personalized" dietary supplement. His alignment with some of the most self-serving and catastrophically harmful pseudoscience in modern history was always a clear synergy for him.
Nicker on 19/9/2024 at 03:42
Quote Posted by Starker
I think that body count is vastly inflated. Pandemics cannot be stopped by any one individual and the majority of the deaths would have happened regardless who was in power. The invasion happened after Lord Dampnut had already been fired. And I haven't heard of any deaths of US intelligence agents or assets that can be linked back to his mishandling of intelligence information.
My most sincere apologies for over stating. (
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/02/11/report-trump-associated-with-461000-deaths-in-2018-others-deserve-blame-though/) It's a mere 461,000 deaths due to 45's incompetence. including 50,000 health care workers.
Quote:
That’s assuming that you find many more deaths to be a negative health impact. According to the report, Trump’s policies or lack thereof contributed to the deaths of around 461,000 Americans in 2018. In 2019, about 22,000 deaths resulted from Trump’s dismantling of environmental protection measures alone, based on the Commission’s analyses. And of course, there was 2020, when the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic hit. Many have written about the Trump administration’s failure to mount a scientifically appropriate response to the pandemic. The Commission determined that 40% of Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented had the U.S. only had the same Covid-19 death rates as those of other Group of Seven (G7) nations, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
The invasion was delayed by Friend Putin in order to boost Trump's electoral chances. The invasion of Ukraine happened because Trump and his cronies in the Senate and Congress blocked defence funding encouraged and signalled that Putin was free to go in, unopposed because Zelenski refused to invent dirt on Biden. Remember the "perfect phone call"? Trump's hands are soaked in Ukrainian blood. Even after he was fired he continued to use his minions in the house to block funding to Zelenski.
And do you really think that Trump's secret meetings with Putin, Little Kimmy and Xi Jinping were bloodless? Like the CIA are going to admit that shit publicly?
Trump fucked US diplomacy and intelligence for the next generation. And people have doubtless dies for that.
