President Donald Trump

[DMT]

But so was I! It's bizarre how often I agree nowadays with David Frum.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/this-is-a-constitutional-crisis/569443/

If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution—and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath.

[Fresno Bob]

It appears ITC was spot-on. This is fucking insane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/o...esistance.html

you beat me to posting this, it's like the "Charlie X" episode from Star Trek TOS or the Twilight Zone episode with Billy Mumy, "It's a Good Life"

[revo]

you beat me to posting this, it's like the "Charlie X" episode from Star Trek TOS or the Twilight Zone episode with Billy Mumy, "It's a Good Life"

Or the entire series of "Benson!"

[In the Corn]

It appears ITC was spot-on. This is fucking insane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/o...esistance.html

It's Ivanka!

[Fresno Bob]

It's Ivanka!

People are fixating on "lodestar", an unusual word used only by Pence in recent memory, excellent psych-op double fake if it wasn't him

[nullnor]

is it just me or does the twilight zone seem to keep becoming more realistic than most things to watch. outside the casual spaceship in stories that surprises everyone and turns out to be real, all those gotcha themes and moral of the stories suddenly don't seem so sciency.

so this is how it's going to go. Donald Trump is going to make so many enemies, where it's like one of those you can't do something with everyone all the time, where it's not going to end good. i'd say the best word to describe everyone involved would be shrewd. people may not like politicians but they aren't dumb. and i think all people realize that eventually we all get a comeuppance. how Trump insiders eventually address it can be left for the history books, but rest assured it's happening. think of all the unspoken rules the man has broken. if you don't think there will be a backlash among his own supporters you are kidding yourself. and lets face it, we're all opportunists. the real question is how it will be spun.

it's a very slender thread. once he has outlived his usefulness, almost everyone he knows will turn on him. you're watching something historic in the making.

i think of it like the movie shawshank redemption, when the warden threatened to burn the library and said we'll all gather around a giant bonfire of burning books and chant and sing like cavemen.

it's an unprecedented time. and in some ways, he has made every mistake you can. this is the future.

[Sour Masher]

And, of course, Trump is demanding the NYT name who were the op-ed, so he can be tried for treason. I have zero doubt that Trump would gladly give the order to have whoever wrote this killed and would sleep well when the deed was done. This is the man we elected to lead us.

Also, the lodestar inclusion is a brilliant one, because it says much without saying anything. It is totally believable that 1. Pence wrote it without realizing he was using a word that implicated him, or 2. He used it purposefully as a way to test the waters in whether the writer would be lauded a hero, at which point he could imply or not deny he wrote it and ride the wave of support to a primary challenge, or 3. Someone else purposefully p!anted the word as a red herring.

I don't think a 4th option of a speechwriter accidentally using it, as I'd imagine anyone who write professionally would never make some an obvious error, unless he is she meant to do it, and I don't know why anyone that low in the totem pole would expose themselves in that way.

[Sour Masher]

Funny, I haven't heard anyone mention Trump Derangement Syndrome recently. Oh, maybe because we were right, just like we were about Iraqi WMDs. Another disaster that could've been averted if the left had any power in our country.

Yeah, I'm hopeful more people I realize it wasn't derangement, it was other people recognizing just how unfit and dangerous Trump is. TDS was a clever way for many to belittle the real concerns people have about the worst, most unfit, most dangerous president in our nation's history.

[The Feral Slasher]

Funny, I haven't heard anyone mention Trump Derangement Syndrome recently. Oh, maybe because we were right, just like we were about Iraqi WMDs. Another disaster that could've been averted if the left had any power in our country.

To be fair I don't think there are many who are posting in this thread anymore who ever promoted TDS. But just to play devil's advocate, how does Trump trying to assassinate Assad support the "Trump is Putin's Puppet" theory ?

[Hornsby]

He. Is. Insane.

[heyelander]

Friend on facebook:

My two cents on the op-ed is that its nothing more than an appeal to GOP voters ahead of the midterms. The appeal makes the case that Trump continues to be a worthwhile trade-off for tax cuts, deregulation and unstated, judges. The appeal says the actors in place can continue to contain the President's worst urges and limit permanent damage. At no point does the writer call for an actual use of the 25th Amendment. Nor does it call on Congress to exercise its Article I powers. Further it does not call on voters to reject this status quo arrangement. It simply makes the case for GOP voters to maintain this status quo in the midterm elections.

[Redbirds Fan]

IIRC, Kissinger used the term "lodestar" during his eulogy for McCain. Any idea who may have helped write that speech for him?

[Sour Masher]

Friend on facebook:

I can't in good conscious ask you to get into it on FB with a friend, but I really want to know why the hell Republican voters felt/feel the need to put into power someone who they admit needs to be handled and restrained in this way? Why the hell wouldn't said voters rally to replace him as a candidate in 2020? Is there really no one else in the party that they think could win? If all that is good, in their minds, about Trump, is what he has done to move forward the GOP agenda, do they really think he is the only guy capable of doing that?

[heyelander]

I can't in good conscious ask you to get into it on FB with a friend, but I really want to know why the hell Republican voters felt/feel the need to put into power someone who they admit needs to be handled and restrained in this way? Why the hell wouldn't said voters rally to replace him as a candidate in 2020? Is there really no one else in the party that they think could win? If all that is good, in their minds, about Trump, is what he has done to move forward the GOP agenda, do they really think he is the only guy capable of doing that?

he's not at all a supporter... and I doubt it speaks to the 2020... just for the midterm. He's saying it's basically "We know this guy isn't really to your liking and you're worried, but we have it handled... look at all the good we can get done on the side and just trust us to make sure nothing too crazy happens."

[Sour Masher]

To be fair I don't think there are many who are posting in this thread anymore who ever promoted TDS. But just to play devil's advocate, how does Trump trying to assassinate Assad support the "Trump is Putin's Puppet" theory ?

I wouldn't mind fielding that one, with the preface this is all unsubstantiated speculation that I am in know way putting forth as facts, and I could easily be swayed from it with credible evidence to the contrary.

That said, personally, I never bought into the theory that Trump is a Putin puppet in the sense of Putin really have secret sex tapes of him or anything so damning that Trump was forced to obey any and all orders from Putin. But there does seem to be a lot of evidence for some combination of Trump being in bed with Putin financially, and/or him admiring Putin and wanting to be like him when he grows up into a real billionaire/authoritarian dictator/murder of people who say bad things about him, and/or him just being grateful in what a valuable ally Russia has been in his political success, and him not wanting to lose that ally.

So if he does have dealings (financial or political) with Putin that make it better for him to be on Putin's good side, he may do whatever he is okay to keep that relationship, but he may have a line where he wants to assert to Putin and the world that there are limits to his kowtowing, and Assad's actions genuinely pissed him off enough to want taking him out be that statement.

Part of that may have been a calculation that it would be better to ask forgiveness of Putin than permission on that issue, and that he felt he could smooth it over by doing the other things he has done to advocate for Russia over our traditional allies. And if he really need to make it up to Putin, I'm sure if Trump had taken out Assad, he could have appeased Putin by officially recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea. I think that could have been his ace in the hold. Such a move would make many politicians, and the entire international community, go apeshit, but it probably wouldn't have mattered much to his voters.