[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2018-January-04, 13:28, said:

Nice try. Keep throwing *****. Maybe someday something will stick, who knows? Meanwhile the Trumptards keep winning! Too bad.

I'm loving all the "winning" in the past 24 hours...

Especially all the new commentary about money laundering, Bannon accusing Trump of treason, and how did that line go...
Predicting that Mueller was going to crack Donald Jr open like an egg on National team...

Good old Trump
Always hiring "the best" people...

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-04, 13:56, said:

I'm loving all the "winning" in the past 24 hours...

Especially all the new commentary about money laundering, Bannon accusing Trump of treason, and how did that line go...
Predicting the Mueller was going to crack Donald Jr open like an egg on National team...

Good old Trump
Always hiring "the best" people...

Nor should we ignore this. Especially as the group included one Republican.

[ldrews]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-04, 13:56, said:

I'm loving all the "winning" in the past 24 hours...

Would you like to compare the past 24 hours to the past year?

[ldrews]

Winstonm, on 2018-January-04, 14:07, said:

Nor should we ignore this. Especially as the group included one Republican.

I would advise you not to bet the farm on that.

[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2018-January-04, 14:57, said:

Would you like to compare the past 24 hours to the past year?

Unlike you,I don't think that Trump's presidency has been remotely successful...

He managed to get a Supreme Court justice approve by a Republican senate. Be still my beating heart.
He was President when congress rammed through the single least popular major piece of legislation in history

Yawn...

[ldrews]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-04, 15:04, said:

Unlike you,I don't think that Trump's presidency has been remotely successful...

He managed to get a Supreme Court justice approve by a Republican senate. Be still my beating heart.
He was President when congress rammed through the single least popular major piece of legislation in history

Yawn...

You are right, you are unlike me.

As you point out, 1 SC justice.

What you didn't point out, 12 Circuit Court judges
Immigration control (under suit but currently in force)
Reduced illegal border crossings
Reduced regulations
Repeal of Obamacare individual mandate
Large tax cut/reform
Withdrawn from TPP, Paris Accords, NAFTA being renegotiated
>80 pieces of legislation signed into law, a record first year
North Korea confronted, now talking with South Korea for first time in years
NATO nations now starting to pay their share of costs

All are significant accomplishments.

[Al_U_Card]

ldrews, on 2018-January-04, 17:21, said:

You are right, you are unlike me.

As you point out, 1 SC justice.

What you didn't point out, 12 Circuit Court judges
Immigration control (under suit but currently in force)
Reduced illegal border crossings
Reduced regulations
Repeal of Obamacare individual mandate
Large tax cut/reform
Withdrawn from TPP, Paris Accords, NAFTA being renegotiated
>80 pieces of legislation signed into law, a record first year
North Korea confronted, now talking with South Korea for first time in years
NATO nations now starting to pay their share of costs

All are significant accomplishments.

Wasn't there a 250+ million reduction in UN payments too? Every little(?) bit helps.

[barmar]

ldrews, on 2018-January-04, 17:21, said:

You are right, you are unlike me.

As you point out, 1 SC justice.

What you didn't point out, 12 Circuit Court judges

Out of how many openings and nominations? Did you see that candidate he nominated a few weeks ago, a lawyer who had never tried a case and couldn't answer some basic legal questions?

He's also way behind on appointments in many other federal agencies. Of 624 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, he's nominated 371 and only 214 of them were confirmed (as of December 21). So a year into his presidency, 2/3 of these positions remain open.

Admittedly, last February he said he didn't plan on filling all vacancies, as he considered them unnecessary. But I think most people assumed these referred to lower positions (there are almost 1600 total positions that are appointed by the President).

Quote

Immigration control (under suit but currently in force)
Reduced illegal border crossings

With modifications from the courts
And who would want to come here now?

Quote

Reduced regulations

By removing regulations that protect people and the environment. This is not a good thing.

Quote

Repeal of Obamacare individual mandate

True. As a result, insurance premiums will increase, because there won't be a pool of healthy people subsidizing the sick people. Again, not a good thing for the country.

Quote

Large tax cut/reform

Mainly for the rich.

Quote

Withdrawn from TPP, Paris Accords, NAFTA being renegotiated

Mostly considered bad ideas.

Quote

>80 pieces of legislation signed into law, a record first year

A Republican President signing laws from a Republican Congress, what an accomplishment! But only one of them, the tax bill, was a key legislative accomplishment. He couldn't achieve repeal of Obamacare, despite promising that he'd do that one his first day in office.

Quote

North Korea confronted, now talking with South Korea for first time in years

While also baiting them into a nuclear war.

Quote

NATO nations now starting to pay their share of costs

While reducing our leadership role in international policy. We've become a laughing stock in NATO and the UN. Meanwhile, China is chomping at the bit to take over that role.

Quote

All are significant accomplishments.

Yes, he's keeping his campaign promises. But keeping promises to do stupid things is not necessarily a good thing.

[Winstonm]

A Trump sycophant is interested only in presidential pimping. Not discussion. Not facts. Not debate. Pimping. Why play the John?

[ldrews]

Winstonm, on 2018-January-05, 11:26, said:

A Trump sycophant is interested only in presidential pimping. Not discussion. Not facts. Not debate. Pimping. Why play the John?

Since we disagree on core principles to begin with, you are correct, there is not much to debate. You support the government as it is or even extended. I strongly favor significant reduction in government. Debating about who is president, who is behaving according to your preferences, is a waste of time.

Now, if you would like to debate about the "proper" functions of government, about how much liberty/freedom is it acceptable to relinquish in order to have government, etc., then I am at you disposal. But if you continue to support the status quo, then we have nothing to talk about.

So yes, I will continue to advocate for reduced government, just as you continue to advocate for rearranging the deck chairs on the current "Titanic" government. We might call you a "Hillary syncophant".

[ldrews]

barmar, on 2018-January-05, 10:37, said:

Yes, he's keeping his campaign promises. But keeping promises to do stupid things is not necessarily a good thing.

Whether they are stupid things is obviously in the eye of the beholder. I obviously disagree, as did millions of other voters. So to me keeping campaign promises is a decided plus as well as surprising. How long has it been since we had a President that kept his campaign promises? Remember "Hope and Change"?

[y66]

Winstonm, on 2018-January-05, 11:26, said:

A Trump sycophant is interested only in presidential pimping. Not discussion. Not facts. Not debate. Pimping. Why play the John?

You're just now asking this LOL?

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2018-January-05, 13:41, said:

You're just now asking this LOL?

It's called the Pimp Paradox.

[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2018-January-05, 12:13, said:

How long has it been since we had a President that kept his campaign promises? Remember "Hope and Change"?

https://www.nytimes....o-is-worse.html

Quote

After we published a list of President Trump’s lies this summer, we heard a common response from his supporters. They said, in effect: Yes, but if you made a similar list for previous presidents, it would be just as bad.

We’ve set out to make that list. Here, you will find our attempt at a comprehensive catalog of the falsehoods that Barack Obama told while he was president. (We also discuss George W. Bush below, although the lack of real-time fact-checking during his presidency made a comprehensive list impossible.)

We applied the same conservative standard to Obama and Trump, counting only demonstrably and substantially false statements. The result: Trump is unlike any other modern president. He seems virtually indifferent to reality, often saying whatever helps him make the case he’s trying to make.

In his first 10 months in office, he has told 103 separate untruths, many of them repeatedly. Obama told 18 over his entire eight-year tenure. That’s an average of about two a year for Obama and about 124 a year for Trump.

[Winstonm]

What exactly were the Trump campaign promises?

1) I am a racist and will remain a racist after elected.
2) I am totally ignorant about government and will stay totally ignorant until I die.
3) I am a totally self-absorbed prick and will remain so forever.
4) I will do my best to make government my personal criminal empire.

[y66]

Guest post from Paul Krugman:

Quote

I haven’t yet read Wolff’s book – do I really have to? — but the basic outlines of his story have long been familiar and uncontroversial to anyone with open eyes. Trump is morally and intellectually incapable of being president. He has also exploited his office for personal gain, obstructed justice, and colluded with a hostile foreign power. Everyone who doesn’t get their news from Fox has basically known this for a while, although Wolff helps focus our minds on the subject.

It seems to me that that the real news now is the way Republicans in Congress are dealing with this national nightmare: rather than distancing themselves from Trump, they’re doubling down on their support and, in particular, on their efforts to cover for his defects and crimes. Remember when Paul Ryan was the Serious, Honest Conservative? (He never really was, but that was his public image.) Now he’s backing Devin Nunes in his efforts to help the Trump coverup.

As Brian Beutler says, Republicans have become the Grand Obstruction Party. Why?

The answer, I think, is that the cynical bargain that has been the basis of Republican strategy since Reagan has now turned into a moral trap. And as far as we can tell, no elected Republican – not one – has the strength of character to even attempt an escape.

The cynical bargain I’m talking about, of course, was the decision to exploit racism to advance a right-wing economic agenda. Talk about welfare queens driving Cadillacs, then slash income taxes. Do Willie Horton, then undermine antitrust. Tout your law and order credentials, then block health care.

For more than a generation, the Republican establishment was able to keep this bait-and-switch under control: racism was deployed to win elections, then was muted afterwards, partly to preserve plausible deniability, partly to focus on the real priority of enriching the one percent. But with Trump they lost control: the base wanted someone who was blatantly racist and wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. And that’s what they got, with corruption, incompetence, and treason on the side.

Nonetheless, aside from a handful of Never Trumpers, just about everyone in the Republican establishment decided that they could work with that. They knew what Trump was, but were willing to overlook it as long as they could push their usual agenda. What about the populism? They guessed, correctly, that this wouldn’t be a problem: Trump didn’t even hesitate about abandoning all his campaign promises and going all in for cutting taxes on the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.

Early on, some speculated that this would be a temporary alliance – that establishment Republicans would use Trump to get what they wanted, then turn on him. But it’s now clear that won’t happen. Trump has exceeded everyone’s worst expectations, yet Republicans, far from cutting him loose, are tying themselves even more closely to his fate. Why?

The answer, I’d argue, is that they’re stuck. They knowingly made a deal with the devil, and can’t back out.

More specifically, Trump’s very awfulness means that if he falls, the whole party will fall with him. Republicans could conceivably distance themselves from a president who turned out to be a bad manager, or even one who turned out to have engaged in small-time corruption. But when the corruption is big time, and it’s combined with obstruction of justice and collaboration with Putin, nobody will notice which Republicans were a bit less involved, a bit less obsequious, than others. If Trump sinks, he’ll create a vortex that sucks down everyone involved.

And so we now have the Republican party as a whole fully complicit in Trump’s crimes – because that’s what they are, whether or not he and those around him are ever brought to justice.

What this means, among other things, is that expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point. Massive electoral defeat – massive enough to overwhelm gerrymandering and other structural advantages of the right – is the only way out.

The cynical bargain part sounds right. But saying "expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point" is about as astute as saying "issuing more troll warnings and deer warnings would be just foolish at this point".

[ldrews]

Winstonm, on 2018-January-05, 16:21, said:

What exactly were the Trump campaign promises?

1) I am a racist and will remain a racist after elected.
2) I am totally ignorant about government and will stay totally ignorant until I die.
3) I am a totally self-absorbed prick and will remain so forever.
4) I will do my best to make government my personal criminal empire.

OK, you obviously choose to be intellectually dishonest. So be it.

For tracking of actual campaign promises, see http://www.politifac...es/trumpometer/

[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2018-January-05, 17:44, said:

OK, you obviously choose to be intellectually dishonest. So be it.

For tracking of actual campaign promises, see http://www.politifac...es/trumpometer/

You mean this Politifact:

Quote

2015
PolitiFact's 2015 Lie of the Year was the "various statements" made by 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Politifact found that 76% of Trump's statements that they reviewed were rated "Mostly False," "False" or "Pants on Fire". Statements that were rated "Pants on Fire" included his assertion that the Mexican government sends "the bad ones over" the border into the United States, and his claim that he saw "thousands and thousands" of people cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.[24]

2016
PolitiFact's 2016 Lie of the Year was "fake news" referring to fabricated news stories including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.[25]

2017
PolitiFact's 2017 Lie of the Year was Donald Trump's claim that Russian election interference is a "made-up story."[26] The annual poll found 56.36% of the 5080 respondents agreed that Trump's "Pants on Fire" statement deserved the distinction.[27] Raul Labrabor's statement that " Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care," and Sean Spicer's statement that "[Trump's audience] was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period," came in second and third place getting 14.47% and 14.25% of the vote respectively. In its article, PolitiFact points to multiple occasions where Donald Trump stated that Russia had not interfered with the election dispute multiple government agencies claiming otherwise.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2018-January-05, 16:56, said:

Guest post from Paul Krugman:


The cynical bargain part sounds right. But saying "expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point" is about as astute as saying "issuing more troll warnings and deer warnings would be just foolish at this point".

The one bright spot of the Trump presidency is that it may...it may set the stage for a resurgence of the Democratic party and a democratic majority for decades. As Bogart said, "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”

[ldrews]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-05, 17:57, said:

You mean this Politifact:

You highlight another difference between us. I am interested in what Trump does, what actions he takes, what policies he puts into place.

You seem to mesmerized by what he says. And while you are reacting to what he says (or tweets), he is changing the landscape underneath your feet.

Keep up the resistance! It makes you easy prey.