Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part III - A Democratic House

[mister d]

You don't see why people would doubt, to use a polite word, the motives of a Trump appointee entrusted to produce a summary of a report on potential Trump misdeeds? Like I said, you can keep assuming good faith. I'll keep assuming bad faith until/if an uncompromised report is released and proves me wrong.

[Square Rob]

My gut tells me that the left is getting played here from a political standpoint. Let’s assume the actual report is more middling even than Barr’s summary. Trumpists already got to hold their exonerated parade, and frankly, there’s a good sector of the population that’s going to believe the first reality they heard about it. So to them, the witch hunt comments have a new validity, because well the left kept saying there was something there and Mueller is honorable but well he didn’t find anything. Now the left will have a big public fight to get the full report released and unless it’s completely a 180 from the Barr summary, the Trumpists will just trot out the witch hunt stuff again and say that the left keeps promising things that aren’t proven true. The sector that was more swayed by the exonerated claims will have that reality harden and there we are. Chances are anything in the actual Mueller report that we don’t already know is going to have a lot of gray area which makes it a bit confusing to your average person.

I’m not saying the left shouldn’t pursue getting it released at all. They should. They should just be very careful about how they go about it and definitely shouldn’t count on it having any lasting damage on Trump. Unless Mueller explicitly says ‘this dudes done so many crimes but we don’t indict a sitting prez so shrug.’

[EnochRoot]

My gut tells me that the left is getting played here from a political standpoint. Let’s assume the actual report is more middling even than Barr’s summary. Trumpists already got to hold their exonerated parade, and frankly, there’s a good sector of the population that’s going to believe the first reality they heard about it. So to them, the witch hunt comments have a new validity, because well the left kept saying there was something there and Mueller is honorable but well he didn’t find anything. Now the left will have a big public fight to get the full report released and unless it’s completely a 180 from the Barr summary, the Trumpists will just trot out the witch hunt stuff again and say that the left keeps promising things that aren’t proven true. The sector that was more swayed by the exonerated claims will have that reality harden and there we are. Chances are anything in the actual Mueller report that we don’t already know is going to have a lot of gray area which makes it a bit confusing to your average person.

I’m not saying the left shouldn’t pursue getting it released at all. They should. They should just be very careful about how they go about it and definitely shouldn’t count on it having any lasting damage on Trump. Unless Mueller explicitly says ‘this dudes done so many crimes but we don’t indict a sitting prez so shrug.’

You’re basically saying that “the left” is being gaslighted. Don’t view this as “the left” and “the right”.

Just get at the truth, and let the chips fall where they may.

[Pruitt]

A vision of Hell...

A Book About Trump By Rick Reilly

[degenerasian]

A vision of Hell...

A Book About Trump By Rick Reilly

No surprise. He's an egomaniac. There are many stories like this.
For example, he used to keep ratings for The Apprentice in his pocket and would show them to everyone he met.

The bigger surprise is why is anyone playing golf with him?

[DaveInSeattle]

A vision of Hell...

A Book About Trump By Rick Reilly

Saw this online earlier today:

Former ESPN football announcer Mike Tirico recalled one time he played with Trump and hit one of the best shots of his life. He knew he landed close to the green, he said, but by the time he reached the green, his ball was mysteriously 50 feet to the left the hole and in a bunker.

Tirico said that Trump’s caddy later pulled him aside after the game and told him Trump had cheated: “Trump’s caddy came up to me and said, ‘You know that shot you hit on the par 5? It was about 10 feet from the hole. Trump threw it in the bunker. I watched him do it,’” he said.

[Nonlinear FC]

Wow. It's one thing to fuck around with your ball or "drop" shots when you tally up after a hole.

Fucking with someone else's ball? I know nothing is shocking anymore, but that is supremely fucked up.

[Nonlinear FC]

Matt Taibbi on how badly the media botched the Russia story. (+1 in the JoeK column, folks.)

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/31/18286902/ ... att-taibbi

[L-Jam3]

I can't get over the lack of judgment that would be in place to do this. The risk/reward is so leaning that I can't comprehend why anyone would do this. Tossing a ball shot by a journalist? When their entire job is to break stories no less?

Obviously he has deep-set mental isssues, but now I'm wondering how much he was just a figurehead in the Trump Organization, while all his underlings ran around putting out the fires he set. I know some people here don't like this word here, but that story paints Trump as a total cunt, full stop.

Has anyone ended "friendships" due to their support of Trump? I certainly have dropped "friends" such as facebook friends. Not blocked, but simply said to myself "fuck you, I can't associate with someone who holds these views". It's not like they were anything more than facebook friends, and while I don't have many close friendships, it's not like I lost anything of value in doing so.

[Nonlinear FC]

I have not lost any friends, but I have dropped 3 different high school classmates that I played baseball with. It was always a superficial friendship, because they were the meathead jock guys that I pretty much just put up with in high school and didn't get together with socially afterwards.

Two of them would take to Messenger and start railing on about bullshit and after a couple of times where I basically said I'm not going to debate or engage with you because you're not using an agreed upon set of facts... The 3rd time with both of those guys I literally told them to fuck off and then blocked them. One guy was all butt hurt and I just said straight up we weren't ever really friends so this wasn't some big deal and let's just move on.

I honestly hope I see those guys somewhere to see how they'd handle it. I'll just grin at them and if approached ask if they still support a racist president.

[Johnnie]

Matt Taibbi on how badly the media botched the Russia story. (+1 in the JoeK column, folks.)

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/31/18286902/ ... att-taibbi

I'll definitely be reading this.

Matt Taibbi is also on the latest Chapo Trap House that came out today.

[Nonlinear FC]

The interviewer does a pretty good job of pushing back on him. As with our conversations on here, I think people taking a b/w or binary approach to this are just flat out wrongheaded. You can absolutely make the case that the Russia collusion angle is thin, especially from a legal standpoint, but also acknowledge that SOMETHING super shady was going on wrt to Trump's position on Russia.

There's just no way you're going to convince me that his desire to build a tower in Moscow, and the fact that he repeatedly lied about it, wasn't a factor in how he and his campaign dealt with Russia all along. I honestly don't really understand any rational person that can ignore that factor.

[Pruitt]

The things with Trump is that there's no reason for him to not do whatever he wants. It's obviously his personality, but at what point did his lying, cheating and boorishness slow him down? The guy is the President with a vociferous cult of meatheads who bow down to him.

So he cheats at golf. Does he have any trouble finding celebrities who will play with him?

It just occurs to me that during the campaign he answered allegations of tax-avoidance by basically saying that he'd be an idiot to have not looked for ways to avoid paying his fair share.

And people loved it.

[Nonlinear FC]

I'll take, what is the percentage of Americans that get their info from Fox News for $2000, Alex...

https://www.axios.com/trump-mueller-rep ... jrDvxJ9-Nw

[EnochRoot]

I'll just leave this here



And let Matt Taibbi struggle with reconciling this shit with the innuendo he conflated with established facts to drive home his narrative that the world would be a better place if he could get a better writing gig than the 2019 version of Rolling Stone.

[degenerasian]

I can't get over the lack of judgment that would be in place to do this. The risk/reward is so leaning that I can't comprehend why anyone would do this. Tossing a ball shot by a journalist? When their entire job is to break stories no less?

Obviously he has deep-set mental isssues, but now I'm wondering how much he was just a figurehead in the Trump Organization, while all his underlings ran around putting out the fires he set. I know some people here don't like this word here, but that story paints Trump as a total cunt, full stop.

Has anyone ended "friendships" due to their support of Trump? I certainly have dropped "friends" such as facebook friends. Not blocked, but simply said to myself "fuck you, I can't associate with someone who holds these views". It's not like they were anything more than facebook friends, and while I don't have many close friendships, it's not like I lost anything of value in doing so.

You're talking about Trump.. and a lack of judgement?

[Johnnie]

BTW, is it seriously headline news that Trump cheated at golf? Like, who fucking cares? This petty bullshit and the media fixation of it is why this country sucks.

And when it comes to Russia? The fact is there is leverage by the country and monetary involvement of the parties. When I get a security clearance and they are looking for ways that I could be compromised, the extent to which I can be is secondary to whether or not I can be in the first place.

He may not have been conspiring to throw the election (or maybe he was and I'm being gaslighted), but he stood to make significant money with Russian influence during the election. That's a big fucking deal and impeachment worthy on its face. But since the DOJ has a policy to leave it up to Congress to make a ruling and Congress is made up of megalomaniacal assholes buying for power at every turn, no impeachment will happen.

[Nonlinear FC]

Johnnie, while I agree with you in a general sense that social media and at times The Media, spend way too much time nitpicking a lot of meaningless bullshit with Trump (and I've said so on here), I'm just going to disagree about the golf thing.

Yeah it's beside the point of anything truly significant, but there's more to this side story than a lot of the petty bullshit I would throw on that pile (how he eats his steak, for example.)

The foundational issue is Trump bitching about Obama golfing and then proceeding to lap him on rounds played in, what, 3 months? It doesn't really matter what the activity is, but the fact that he is spending so much time (and taxpayer money) at his posh country club resorts after all the bitching he did is pretty much the perfect embodiment of all of his bullshit.

But when you get down to the actual golfing aspect. This isn't meant to be a dig, but I'm curious if you've ever played a serious round of golf. Like I said before, it's one thing to kick your own ball out of the rough, or to "forget" that one shot you duffed 3 feet to the right when you count up your shots at the end of a hole.

Fucking with someone else's ball is truly next level CRAZY on a golf course. To have your caddy do it? I can almost, if I squint real hard, see "accidentally" bumping a ball on the lip of a sand trap. I've seen guys jokingly run over a buddy's ball with their cart. But to have your fucking caddy go ahead and move another person's ball?

We make fun of the N. Korean's for weirdly inflating The Dear Leader's golfing prowess. Yeah, it's a silly game and the "hole in one on every hole" is laughable. But it also shows how fucking bananas they are.

This is in that category. Sign of a deranged individual, and I'm not even coming close to kidding.

[mister d]

Yeah, I love stepping on my dad or brother's golf ball but I assume we're closer than Trump and Tirico.

[Johnnie]

I caddied for a buddy once on the base golf course at Barksdale a long, long time ago. Golf was his passion and he invited me along, so I went. Outside of that, I've fucked with a windmill a time or two in mini golf. Fun for an evening.

That said, I hate golf. Despite it. It's easily one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. And what compounds my hate for golf is what Malcolm Gladwell brought up in his podcast: it's wasted real estate reserved for special people and not more communal land like it is in Scotland.

So when it comes to this "fucking with other people's balls" thing, I seriously couldn't give a fuck less that we have another example of a guy we've already proven is a dogshit human doing a dogshit things. It's petty.

I care more about my aircraft maintainer friends stationed at MacDill AFB who are working weekend after weekend since Trump became president because of how often he goes to Mar-a-Lago. The amount of waste there is staggering.

But no. Golf etiquette.

Claps quietly.

[The Sybian]

The foundational issue is Trump bitching about Obama golfing and then proceeding to lap him on rounds played in, what, 3 months? It doesn't really matter what the activity is, but the fact that he is spending so much time (and taxpayer money) at his posh country club resorts after all the bitching he did is pretty much the perfect embodiment of all of his bullshit.

So much this. Trump attacked Obama something like 27 times about how much he golfed, and on the campaign trail, constantly said he would be far too busy to ever have time for golf. Kind of a stupid thing on its face, but his entire campaign was about putting America first, draining the Swamp, etc..., while he has done nothing but enrich himself and allow major corporations and Billionaires to plunder the country at everyone else's expense. Not only does he golf constantly, but what the media should focus on is the profit he is making every time he golfs. He is golfing on properties he owns, and forcing the Secret Service to rent golf carts at his resorts! There are countless costs to Presidential travel, but what is unique with Trump, is that he is the one profiting! And from reports, he is grossly overcharging for everything. During his campaign events, he only served wine from Trump owner wineries, rented out space from his business. His campaign accepted contributions, and funnelled it into his own pocket at every step. The factor in that while he visits Mara-Lago, he doubled the membership fees, and sells access to himself. There are numerous reports that Mara-Lago members are creating policy for Trump, and he just pushes it through. How is that not illegal? And all of his base are perfectly fine with this, yet still freak out that Obama golfed on their dime.

[Nonlinear FC]

I caddied for a buddy once on the base golf course at Barksdale a long, long time ago. Golf was his passion and he invited me along, so I went. Outside of that, I've fucked with a windmill a time or two in mini golf. Fun for an evening.

That said, I hate golf. Despite it. It's easily one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. And what compounds my hate for golf is what Malcolm Gladwell brought up in his podcast: it's wasted real estate reserved for special people and not more communal land like it is in Scotland.

So when it comes to this "fucking with other people's balls" thing, I seriously couldn't give a fuck less that we have another example of a guy we've already proven is a dogshit human doing a dogshit things. It's petty.

I care more about my aircraft maintainer friends stationed at MacDill AFB who are working weekend after weekend since Trump became president because of how often he goes to Mar-a-Lago. The amount of waste there is staggering.

But no. Golf etiquette.

Claps quietly.

Yeah, I understand and pretty much support your point of view here.

But for a lot of people that take golf seriously, it's not petty. It's not really etiquette. Etiquette is shit like allowing someone to play through, or following the order teeing off based on who scored lower the previous hole.

Throwing someone's ball in the bunker doesn't even come into the discussion of etiquette.

That's like taking a shit on the dinner table and being chided for poor manners.

[Nonlinear FC]

The foundational issue is Trump bitching about Obama golfing and then proceeding to lap him on rounds played in, what, 3 months? It doesn't really matter what the activity is, but the fact that he is spending so much time (and taxpayer money) at his posh country club resorts after all the bitching he did is pretty much the perfect embodiment of all of his bullshit.

So much this. Trump attacked Obama something like 27 times about how much he golfed, and on the campaign trail, constantly said he would be far too busy to ever have time for golf. Kind of a stupid thing on its face, but his entire campaign was about putting America first, draining the Swamp, etc..., while he has done nothing but enrich himself and allow major corporations and Billionaires to plunder the country at everyone else's expense. Not only does he golf constantly, but what the media should focus on is the profit he is making every time he golfs. He is golfing on properties he owns, and forcing the Secret Service to rent golf carts at his resorts! There are countless costs to Presidential travel, but what is unique with Trump, is that he is the one profiting! And from reports, he is grossly overcharging for everything. During his campaign events, he only served wine from Trump owner wineries, rented out space from his business. His campaign accepted contributions, and funnelled it into his own pocket at every step. The factor in that while he visits Mara-Lago, he doubled the membership fees, and sells access to himself. There are numerous reports that Mara-Lago members are creating policy for Trump, and he just pushes it through. How is that not illegal? And all of his base are perfectly fine with this, yet still freak out that Obama golfed on their dime.

I know you know this, but my epiphany on Trump supporters (at least the ones that I know) came during the campaign on Facebook. One of my h.s. classmates (who pretends like he went to Georgetown Prep and UMd, when he went to public school and E. Carolina U), was constantly forwarding and promulgating fake news articles. When ppl would call him on it, he would engage in bad faith whataboutism. One day, he finally slipped up when I called him something that was so obviously a lie and he said "I don't care if the articles are true, I just love to see you guys get all riled up!"

That's really all there is to any of this for some of them. Getting a rise out of the libtards. That's it.

So I don't really even try to see where they are coming from anymore. On the golf thing, of course there's no defense of any of that. They don't care about it, because it serves the purpose of pissing off rationale people.

Yeah? You win?

Fuck off.

[A_B]

Why did tirico take so much time to get to the green?!?!?!?!

[DaveInSeattle]

Why did tirico take so much time to get to the green?!?!?!?!

Maybe he was walking, and President Bone Spurs was riding in a cart?

[Nonlinear FC]

Why did tirico take so much time to get to the green?!?!?!?!

Maybe he was walking, and President Bone Spurs was riding in a cart?

That did occur to me, too.

I've only had a true professional caddie a couple of times, and it was a 4-caddy, not individually assigned. I do recall that once we got down to a reasonable approach distance, he would sometimes take one of the carts ahead of us to near the green.

[Pruitt]

Fucking with someone else's ball is truly next level CRAZY on a golf course. To have your caddy do it? I can almost, if I squint real hard, see "accidentally" bumping a ball on the lip of a sand trap. I've seen guys jokingly run over a buddy's ball with their cart. But to have your fucking caddy go ahead and move another person's ball?

We make fun of the N. Korean's for weirdly inflating The Dear Leader's golfing prowess. Yeah, it's a silly game and the "hole in one on every hole" is laughable. But it also shows how fucking bananas they are.

This is in that category. Sign of a deranged individual, and I'm not even coming close to kidding.

For non-golfers, substitute "cheating at poker" for "cheating at golf."

Not that one was needed in order to prove this about Trump, but this is a sign of a really worthless piece of shit.

[sancarlos]

One of the admirable qualities of the Swamp is that even when discussing a man like Trump, we usually lean toward reasoned discussion rather than insults or the like.

That said, here’s a witty example of “the like”. (A thread of tweets).

[Pruitt]

That's great!

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.

[Giff]

I can only imagine the regular group my Dad plays with in their retirement community have decided that throwing balls other players balls off greens is perfectly acceptable now.

That said, they might believe the black guy who doesn't identify as black.

[Nonlinear FC]

Well-documented that Trump and Co never really took the idea of winning in 2016 seriously. Not saying they didn't have certain people that were micro-targeting and thinking there was a chance, but for the most part they wandered about looking for ways to grift as much as possible and probably to line things up like Trump Moscow and a TV network and whatever was going on in the minds of ppl associated below the family level. (Evidence, all the ppl in jail, indicted and implicated in all the shit dredged up by the FBI/DoJ).

Anyways, this week really has me wondering if he's trying to throw 2020. The Dems demolished the GOP and a huge part of that was because of how truly horrible the GOPs approach to health care "reform" was perceived by the vast majority of Americans. They also did so despite conjuring up a bunch xenophobic and vile bullshit with that caravan all through October.

So, what is he doing this week?

I really don't understand what he thinks he's accomplishing. Anyone got a better theory?

[Nonlinear FC]

And another thing. You know how with every other president in the modern era, you can go back 4 or 8 years to when they started their term, and it's kind of shocking how much they have aged in a relatively short period of time.

Trump is going to be the first one to buck this trend.

That's not a compliment (obviously.)

[brian]

Well-documented that Trump and Co never really took the idea of winning in 2016 seriously. Not saying they didn't have certain people that were micro-targeting and thinking there was a chance, but for the most part they wandered about looking for ways to grift as much as possible and probably to line things up like Trump Moscow and a TV network and whatever was going on in the minds of ppl associated below the family level. (Evidence, all the ppl in jail, indicted and implicated in all the shit dredged up by the FBI/DoJ).

Anyways, this week really has me wondering if he's trying to throw 2020. The Dems demolished the GOP and a huge part of that was because of how truly horrible the GOPs approach to health care "reform" was perceived by the vast majority of Americans. They also did so despite conjuring up a bunch xenophobic and vile bullshit with that caravan all through October.

So, what is he doing this week?

I really don't understand what he thinks he's accomplishing. Anyone got a better theory?

He's just an idiot?

Seriously though his brand is so tied up in winning that I find it hard to believe he'd be trying to lose the election. I think he is just so crazy and deluded he really thinks they can come up with a plan, despite the fact anyone who has been following this shit knows the GOP has nothing to offer.

I'm honestly more worried about Cohen's scenario where Trump refuses to leave office if he's beaten, claiming election fraud.

[Nonlinear FC]

Yeah, you are on Occam's razor there.

Ok, haven't trotted it out for awhile.

Fucking moron.

[Johnnie]

These are my feelings too:

[degenerasian]

Trump's just trolling everyone and going on his ego run.

Trump winning the election doesn't change the fact that the GOP have been morally bankrupt for years. He might be the last Republican president.

As most of you have said, the Democrats should not be scared to be progressive and use words like poverty, welfare and tax. The GOP sure as hell dont have any ideas. They just tell people the libs are scary.

[Gunpowder]

Really though, in what kind of witch hunt do you theoretically fabricate a bunch of accusations but then investigate it on the straight and narrow and "exonerate" the accused? Worst fuckin' witch hunt EVAR

[A_B]

I'll say it...he's gonna argue he isn't fit to stand trial when all this shit is said and done and blame the stress for it. Say he was fine when he took office and the Dems did it to him.

[The Sybian]

Well-documented that Trump and Co never really took the idea of winning in 2016 seriously. Not saying they didn't have certain people that were micro-targeting and thinking there was a chance, but for the most part they wandered about looking for ways to grift as much as possible and probably to line things up like Trump Moscow and a TV network and whatever was going on in the minds of ppl associated below the family level. (Evidence, all the ppl in jail, indicted and implicated in all the shit dredged up by the FBI/DoJ).

Anyways, this week really has me wondering if he's trying to throw 2020. The Dems demolished the GOP and a huge part of that was because of how truly horrible the GOPs approach to health care "reform" was perceived by the vast majority of Americans. They also did so despite conjuring up a bunch xenophobic and vile bullshit with that caravan all through October.

So, what is he doing this week?

I really don't understand what he thinks he's accomplishing. Anyone got a better theory?

He's just an idiot?

Seriously though his brand is so tied up in winning that I find it hard to believe he'd be trying to lose the election. I think he is just so crazy and deluded he really thinks they can come up with a plan, despite the fact anyone who has been following this shit knows the GOP has nothing to offer.

I'm honestly more worried about Cohen's scenario where Trump refuses to leave office if he's beaten, claiming election fraud.

I think the simple, moron theory wins the day here. He doesn't understand or care about the political fallout (though somebody got to him and made him say he would wait until after the election to magcall fix healthcare). I think it's about trying to destroy Obama's legacy because he is still pissed Obama took a swipe at him at the WH Correspondents' Dinner.

It drives me nuts when the GOP and Conservative accuse the Dems of having no ideas and just attacking Trump. Dems are throwing out all sorts of plans like the Green New Deal. Don't they remember freaking out attacking it just 5 minutes before saying Dems have no ideas? The GOP has run on repealing and replacing Obamacare for 9 years, and have yet to throw out a replacement other than, "a beautiful plan that will be so much better." There have been 63 motherfucking votes to repeal Obamacare. 63 times?!?!? If the ACA is such a disaster, why can't they come up with anything better? Most Dems acknowledge ACA needs some fixes, and most would vote for a plan that improves the ACA, but the GOP doesn't want a better plan, they just want to attack Obama's plan and ensure it is less effective, so they can weaponize the shortcomings.

We are coming up on the 2nd anniversary of the GOP's Rose Garden celebration of their repeal of the ACA, but I still don't see their grand new plans. How do people still fall for their shit? [Getting Fox as their only source of news, and believing Fox's claims that anyone who disagrees with Fox is lying, and people who believe differently are sheep falling for the MSM propaganda]. I am so fucking frustrated with politics, I'm tempted to bury my head in the sand and stop paying attention, but that is the GOP goal, and I can't let them gaslight their way into having me giving up. OTOH, what the fuck good am I doing paying attention and bitching to you guys and friends who agree with most of what I'm saying? Sure, I vote, but how much does that help?

[The Sybian]

I'll say it...he's gonna argue he isn't fit to stand trial when all this shit is said and done and blame the stress for it. Say he was fine when he took office and the Dems did it to him.

If only he ever stands trial.