POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

[Drew S.]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

A man who beats his wife may genuinely love her but does that mean he should be allowed to live with her if he can't stop himself from beating her up? Personally I look at Trump like I would any patient with a personality disorder. The guy can't help himself. He has a physiologic lack that makes him a narcissistic sociopath. I have dealt with any number of patients like him. The behavior is very predictable and no amount of medication or therapy helps. Listening to people say he is learning, is inexperienced? He will not change. People with this disorder have very little ability to learn from their mistakes because they do not take ownership of their missteps and do not like someone else to be smarter than they are. They have a very difficult time forming relationships other than as a way to get what they want.

I agree he wants to succeed at what he is doing but I don't agree with the motivation. It isn't love of country but because success is what gives him a sense of self worth. He wants to be successful running a country. I might want to succeed at doing a heart transplant- Neither of us has the skill set or the intellect to do it. The difference lies in how people handle when they are in over their head. A selfless person would ask for help, surround themselves with people who would assist them to do a good job. Trump is incapable of admitting he is lacking knowledge and is unwilling to take instruction.

If you look at it the guy has succeeded in surviving only because he has a crap load of money and has been able to buy his way out of anything he has done. He has more money to pursue the legal avenue than anyone who has been up against him. Have watched him since I was in college- he pretty much legally harasses people until they run out of money and go away. The list of people he has screwed and things he has sold off because they weren't doing well is pretty long. I kept waiting for someone to out it but when they did (I can't remember which big newspaper it was) he said the thing about Kelly having blood coming out of ... and the article got no traction.

His problem now is he can't buy his way out of this. He may be the biggest fish but he is in a fishbowl. People hold him accountable. He does have one brilliant skill- manipulating the media to distract off of what is happening.

As to the comment Whether he is 100% evil or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is what his actions result in. Take all the emotion out of it and look at what you think the country needs. Is that happening?
For me- I say no, it is definitely going in the wrong direction.
International relationships- Even if you aren't a Globalist the rest of the world is functioning on that model and we are not at the table. We do not have acting ambassadors, undersecretaries for some places, we have the Sec of State and the President contradicting each other and ambassadors tweeting statements contradictory to the President that the Press Sec says is their first amendment right (I actually heard him say this and choked)
Healthcare- we lag behind industrialized countries providing it. Even if it isn't a moral responsibility it costs us way more to support unhealthy people
Education- This admin is actively working against it - dismissal of scientific evidence and Sec of Ed promoting a model that has failed if research is believed
Federal agencies- people want small gov't but some is needed. Heads of agencies- unqualified or actively working against the agency's mission. (not to mention the agencies with no appointed leader and many unfilled posts)
General- lack of cohesive policies, message- every day the President says one thing and his spokespeople say a few other things- pretty much allowing people to hear what they want if they cherrypick.

(sorry- long post)

This is one of the best criticisms I've read of Trump, and its much more constructive than just calling him an idiot or making fun of his hands or whatever. To be honest, I've got a lot of mixed feelings on him. When he first signed up I wasn't a huge fan, and thought it was nothing more than a publicity stunt, but it was such a sad field of candidates I came around a bit and hoped for the best. As far as the general election, I think a lot of people were between a rock and a hard place. Despite all Trump's character flaws I strongly(maybe even irrationally) disliked Hillary and never would have wanted to see her as president.

As far as how he's done so far, its a mixed bag. I disagree completely on the health care approach, am somewhat in the middle on immigration, but am very happy with the tone of some of his speeches. His speech in Poland last week was a good one and a breath of fresh air. The west does face some huge issues right now and at some point we are going to have to front up to them. It's valid to criticize how he has done administratively, and hopefully as time goes on he improves.

Not to deflect, but I think the Obama presidency was a lot bigger disaster than we realize right now. We ran massive, massive deficits(not all his fault but he was the commander in chief, and I realize Bush was responsible for this as well), he took a bad situation in the middle east and made it much worse, and I think his decision to let the Chinese take over the South China Sea and build bases there could be his biggest blunder, which doesn't get a whole lot of attention.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron. We need to get away from the left-right stuff if the country is ever going to move forward.

[mookie1995]

Who's telling you that? Trumpy Jr? Others aligned with Trumpy?

Yeah, those are some credible, unbiased sources right there.

But Hillary's EMAILZ!!!!!

If there was anything tasty, would it not have been used

All we heard though was EMAILZ

[MaizeRage]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Whether you like Trump or not you should still want to see the country be successful.

Do you think Russia was doing whatever they could to get your candidate elected because they want to see the country be successful?


The Trump camp seems to punting on Fredo since he's beyond saveable and the new line is that Trump himself had no idea of the meeting. Four hours after Fredo confirmed the meeting, Trump said in a speech that he would hold a press conference the following week with new info on Hilary Clinton. To quote Seth Bullock, "It's poor d-mn timing at the least"

I thought Trump got elected because of all of us racist, ignorant hicks out here in the red states hate women and anyone of color?
I thought it was because HRC was such a lousy candidate?
I thought it was because that evil Comey decided to come forward with his emails announcement just days before the election?

Just out of curiosity, is there going to come a point where you guys actually pick a narrative you like as to why Trump was elected, then stick with it?

Oh don't worry, it's still the first one. The fact that you rubes were dumb enough to fall for this will never be lost on us.

[GrinCDXX]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

This is one of the best criticisms I've read of Trump, and its much more constructive than just calling him an idiot or making fun of his hands or whatever. To be honest, I've got a lot of mixed feelings on him. When he first signed up I wasn't a huge fan, and thought it was nothing more than a publicity stunt, but it was such a sad field of candidates I came around a bit and hoped for the best. As far as the general election, I think a lot of people were between a rock and a hard place. Despite all Trump's character flaws I strongly(maybe even irrationally) disliked Hillary and never would have wanted to see her as president.

As far as how he's done so far, its a mixed bag. I disagree completely on the health care approach, am somewhat in the middle on immigration, but am very happy with the tone of some of his speeches. His speech in Poland last week was a good one and a breath of fresh air. The west does face some huge issues right now and at some point we are going to have to front up to them. It's valid to criticize how he has done administratively, and hopefully as time goes on he improves.

Not to deflect, but I think the Obama presidency was a lot bigger disaster than we realize right now. We ran massive, massive deficits(not all his fault but he was the commander in chief, and I realize Bush was responsible for this as well), he took a bad situation in the middle east and made it much worse, and I think his decision to let the Chinese take over the South China Sea and build bases there could be his biggest blunder, which doesn't get a whole lot of attention.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron. We need to get away from the left-right stuff if the country is ever going to move forward.

This shouldn't be so quickly hand-waived. You realize this was an important decision right? Maybe a bit of self reflection was in order BEFORE the election?

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Has he done anything about it? Or is he just swallowing Trump's load with a frown on his face now?

So far the latter. He was in fact one of Dump's biggest cheerleaders before this.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

Huh.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

So you're saying that the Senate is incapable of considering a nominee for one position until they have finished considering another? Maybe your issue is that Mitch needs to learn to multi-task...



Dems walked out on one occasion, then the rules were changed and they voted the next day with no Dems present. So no, they can't choose to do it more.

Sure, Mitch could just schedule all the nominees for votes. All you need in the Senate is Unanimous Consent to schedule a vote. Without it there's debate until it's given or cloture is passed, and then you can vote 3 days later.


Going back to when I first commented on this issue, I more or less said the minority party can't stop nominees, but they can slow the process to a snail's pace. Of course they can do it more and if they think it's politically expedient, they will.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

First Republican comes out saying the revelations against Dump are serious. He's Zeldin (NY-1: Eastern L.I.) and he ran as a Dumpy and only Monday was saying it was a "nothingburger." Evidently the email chain (1) *****ed his conscience, (2) changed his mind, (3) freaked him out because now his constituents can see what a sh-t Dump is and he wants off the sinking ship.

It's only one, but hey, somebody must have been first with Nixon, too.

At this point, we all know Donnie's not going to start acting maturely. You have to think some of these Republican Reps in blue and purple states are starting to get nervous about 2018. As soon as their internal polling looks substantially unfavorable, they're going to start running away from Dump.

[leswp1]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

This is one of the best criticisms I've read of Trump, and its much more constructive than just calling him an idiot or making fun of his hands or whatever. To be honest, I've got a lot of mixed feelings on him. When he first signed up I wasn't a huge fan, and thought it was nothing more than a publicity stunt, but it was such a sad field of candidates I came around a bit and hoped for the best. As far as the general election, I think a lot of people were between a rock and a hard place. Despite all Trump's character flaws I strongly(maybe even irrationally) disliked Hillary and never would have wanted to see her as president.

As far as how he's done so far, its a mixed bag. I disagree completely on the health care approach, am somewhat in the middle on immigration, but am very happy with the tone of some of his speeches. His speech in Poland last week was a good one and a breath of fresh air. The west does face some huge issues right now and at some point we are going to have to front up to them. It's valid to criticize how he has done administratively, and hopefully as time goes on he improves.

Not to deflect, but I think the Obama presidency was a lot bigger disaster than we realize right now. We ran massive, massive deficits(not all his fault but he was the commander in chief, and I realize Bush was responsible for this as well), he took a bad situation in the middle east and made it much worse, and I think his decision to let the Chinese take over the South China Sea and build bases there could be his biggest blunder, which doesn't get a whole lot of attention.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron. We need to get away from the left-right stuff if the country is ever going to move forward.

As far as the Obama Presidency goes- no matter who was elected was screwed. Bush had mucked up so many things that who ever went in after him was doomed to look bad. Compound that with a GOP with the stated goal of making O fail rather than governing or trying to fix things. If we look at it as a block of time- yes it was a failure. Not particularly keen on some of what he did but he restored our cache on the international front and started to deal with healthcare (obviously my impact subject)

As far as the Poland speech- if you were looking at it as an American citizen who wants an opinion voiced I guess it was Ok. If you wanted it to get a point across to the rest of the world- good luck. The rest of the world has little regard for him and don't take him seriously as a leader at all. Basically they have dismissed him. They find him unpredictable (not in a helpful way- more like a kid taking a tantrum), don't trust him to keep his word, and generally views him as a person who has little understanding of what he is dealing with. He is in no position to lecture the world when he has routinely dismissed them and then said they misconstrued, he didn't. Any point he makes his spokespeople routinely say something else or try to translate what he meant if there is backlash. He could be saying something that is the absolute truth and it still will be like the grownups in Charlie Brown- background noise.

In this country if he says something multiple spokespeople come out to give various 'translations/versions. Internationally they ignore those (well, they make fun of them sometimes) and go with what he said, contradictions and all. The media that likes him can criticize how he is covered all they want perception is reality and in most of the world they do not like him.

I think its sad that in today's world if you're not part of the resist movement and criticize Trump at every turn you must be some sort of hardcore Trump supporter and therefore a racist or moron.

Read a really beautiful explanation of this somewhere. Basically Trump has broken every rule of civility, has encouraged others to do the same. He has said some truly outrageous things- you know the list. Some supporters defend him, dismissing things that would get others shunned or worse. They consider it loyalty, necessary support to forward his agenda. Folks like Evangelicals, Senators, etc. who should be calling him out are feeding the fire or are conspicuously silent.

Then we have a portion of the 'civilian' supporters following suit calling people derogatory names and questioning patriotism if the person disagrees. There is a ridiculous amount of outrage on both sides. This is not normal and in the past certainly would never have been tolerated. Now we have an avenue to perpetuate this and Social media has amplified those who are the most virulent. The president and his spokespeople have done nothing to stop this and seem to think it is OK. The regular people haven't seemed to object either. Not calling out this behaviour implies tacit acceptance. If supporters routinely acknowledged when there was fault and said they still wish X policy would be enacted then the supposition would be less. When people defending things that would never have even been considered defensible and no one from their side calls them out it looks like they agree with it.

I am old enough to have lived at the end of the cold war/ detente. If you would ever tell me I would see the GOP defending any person going to a meeting with a Russian, pretending that there was nothing to investigate I would have laughed right out loud. I would have peed my pants, laughing hysterically, if you told me I would be called names or told I was unpatriotic for saying I wanted the person held accountable.

[Drew S.]

As far as the Obama Presidency goes- no matter who was elected was screwed. Bush had mucked up so many things that who ever went in after him was doomed to look bad. Compound that with a GOP with the stated goal of making O fail rather than governing or trying to fix things. If we look at it as a block of time- yes it was a failure. Not particularly keen on some of what he did but he restored our cache on the international front and started to deal with healthcare (obviously my impact subject)

As far as the Poland speech- if you were looking at it as an American citizen who wants an opinion voiced I guess it was Ok. If you wanted it to get a point across to the rest of the world- good luck. The rest of the world has little regard for him and don't take him seriously as a leader at all. Basically they have dismissed him. They find him unpredictable (not in a helpful way- more like a kid taking a tantrum), don't trust him to keep his word, and generally views him as a person who has little understanding of what he is dealing with. He is in no position to lecture the world when he has routinely dismissed them and then said they misconstrued, he didn't. Any point he makes his spokespeople routinely say something else or try to translate what he meant if there is backlash. He could be saying something that is the absolute truth and it still will be like the grownups in Charlie Brown- background noise.

In this country if he says something multiple spokespeople come out to give various 'translations/versions. Internationally they ignore those (well, they make fun of them sometimes) and go with what he said, contradictions and all. The media that likes him can criticize how he is covered all they want perception is reality and in most of the world they do not like him.



Read a really beautiful explanation of this somewhere. Basically Trump has broken every rule of civility, has encouraged others to do the same. He has said some truly outrageous things- you know the list. Some supporters defend him, dismissing things that would get others shunned or worse. They consider it loyalty, necessary support to forward his agenda. Folks like Evangelicals, Senators, etc. who should be calling him out are feeding the fire or are conspicuously silent.

Then we have a portion of the 'civilian' supporters following suit calling people derogatory names and questioning patriotism if the person disagrees. There is a ridiculous amount of outrage on both sides. This is not normal and in the past certainly would never have been tolerated. Now we have an avenue to perpetuate this and Social media has amplified those who are the most virulent. The president and his spokespeople have done nothing to stop this and seem to think it is OK. The regular people haven't seemed to object either. Not calling out this behaviour implies tacit acceptance. If supporters routinely acknowledged when there was fault and said they still wish X policy would be enacted then the supposition would be less. When people defending things that would never have even been considered defensible and no one from their side calls them out it looks like they agree with it.

I am old enough to have lived at the end of the cold war/ detente. If you would ever tell me I would see the GOP defending any person going to a meeting with a Russian, pretending that there was nothing to investigate I would have laughed right out loud. I would have peed my pants, laughing hysterically, if you told me I would be called names or told I was unpatriotic for saying I wanted the person held accountable.

There's no doubt Obama inherited a tough situation, and he wasnt all bad, but he really dropped the ball on some very important things. We've run deficits for so long at so many different levels that it is going to be hard to ever reverse those. And maybe more importantly he let China really have their way with us. For me, they will wind up being the great challenge of this century and he left them in a lot stronger position than when he was elected.

I think Obama's fatal flaw was he thought where he was so much smarter than everyone else they would eventually acquiesce. This proved time and time again not to be the case and it seemed like he caught on. For better or worse, he is no longer in office and I don't need to beat that drum any more.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

I think Obama's fatal flaw was he thought where he was so much smarter than everyone else they would eventually acquiesce. This proved time and time again not to be the case and it seemed like he caught on. For better or worse, he is no longer in office and I don't need to beat that drum any more.

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

Besides Obama winning in 2012, Turtle Boy accomplished everything he set out to do. Including stealing a Supreme Court Seat.

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.13 - CNN is still Fake News

We'll agree to disagree. I would say (1) he actually was smarter than everybody else, because that's not that high a bar, and (2) the GOP was coming for him with switchblades before he even took office. They gave him NO chance.

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

It is amazing how all these people are coming around now, eh? It was patriotic to bash obama (people like drew would be mad if he'd cured cancer) but now you have to give the guy in the office respect!!

[Drew S.]

And drew was right there with 'em. But he now expects everyone to give Trumpy a chance cause............? Wants our country to succeed or something. Didn't feel that way the last eight years, but now..................

I wanted them to block Obama on gun control, which luckily they did, but on other issues thought they should have worked with him. I was disgusted with everyone involved as far as the budget went.

The Obama foreign policy blunders had nothing to do with Congress.