Is he Right, Left, or is He Nothing at All? Trump thread continued.

[TheClaws]

My bet is on nothing.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3024189-In-the-dim-corner-we-have-Trump-In-the-dictator-corner-we-have-Kim-Or-is-that-mixed-up

across it's probably futile worrying about next year. We should celebrate that it hasn't passed (so far - this thing is a fucking zombie that keeps dragged back to life) and eat, drink and be merry in case the deranged orange one sees something on fox that makes him reach for the nuclear codes

I am over 65 so have Medicare, which is a government single payer system for older people (not to be confused with Medicaid, which is for lower income people of any age). American workers pay a Medicare tax on salary and wages to fund it. I'm still working so I'm still paying into the system and at the same time benefiting from it.

Medicare does not pay 100 percent of costs so I have private supplemental insurance to cover the difference.

Medicare has a lot of opposition when it was first passed with many on the right calling it socialized medicine.

Eric Garland
Eric Garland @ericgarland
Whoa, did somebody drag Gowdy into a SCIF and have a little talk? He seems rule-of-law-curious just now!

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/25/gowdy-joins-democrats-in-probing-trump-administration-use-of-personal-email/

Wtf

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble..
...It's old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars....
...owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities - and doing well.

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar
Nigel Farage just introduced Steve Bannon at the Roy Moore Rally calling him "the greatest political thinker in the Western hemisphere."

1. Bannon says to Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove: "Your day of reckoning is coming."
2. Bannon just now: "I've come to you unshaved and unkempt."
3. Bannon just now: Donald Trump did not run for president for adulation or glory..Trump ran for POTUS because of his duty to this country.
4. Bannon "Donald Trump is one of the most courageous individuals I've ever seen.
5. Bannon: "Jeff Sessions is one of the finest men I've ever met....he is the man with the most integrity in Washington DC."
6. Bannon: "Mitch McConnell despises Jeff Sessions...." - McConnell is the reasons Sessions was confirmed so that seems strange.
7. Bannon: "There's a time for peace...and there's a time for war...we're not going to hug out our differences."

9.?Bannon just used a term I haven't heard used a lot: "Economic hate crimes."

This is beyond grotesque.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
More
...owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities - and doing well. #FEMA

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/08/9-times-hillary-clinton-warned-would-happen%3famp

I agree I never thought he'd be this bad. I remember there were a few threads a year ago saying 'What if Trump actually wins?' and the general vibe was, 'Don't worry, he won't' and some posters, including me, said that, even if by some miracle he does get elected, the whole American political system is built on checks and balances and he won't actually be able to do very much.
That Seth Abrahamson tweet has really freaked me out because it's so true. I've never truly thought of Trump as evil because there is so much about him that is laughable- his orangeness, his stupid hair, the fact that he can't string a sentence together. The fact that he praises the healthcare system of Nambia - a country which doesn't exist.
But Abrahamson is right- he is evil, he is completely devoid of a soul.
I find myself awake at this time every night recently and I've always been a good sleeper.
I'm so grateful for these and the Brexit threads, I would truly be lost without them.
Has anyone got any jokes?

*"I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”*

This is a quote from Tony Schwartz who ghost wrote 'The Art of the Deal'. Not very reassuring, I know.

Not quite a joke but it's the best I've got

IVANKA TRUMP AND DONALD JR. TRIED TO 'BUMP' TIFFANY OUT OF HER INHERITANCE, ACCORDING TO NEWLY RELEASED RECORDINGS

www.newsweek.com/ivanka-trump-and-don-jr-tried-bump-tiffany-out-her-inheritance-according-newly-670841?amp=1

Apologies if this thread is where I found this earlier in the week, I posted it on FB for my "Countdown to Christmas" friends who started in August, but hope it may raise a wry smile here this morning. (Shame it's missing the possessive apostrophe after the s of months, but you can't have everything!)

I just saw his tweets about Puerto Rico. I've run out of words. He really is evil.

New Tapes Just Surfaced Of Trump Talking About Fondling Melania In Public

verifiedpolitics.com/new-tapes-just-surfaced-trump-talking-fondling-melania-public/

I just had a look at Fox, the only coverage they have of PR today is a single small opinion piece from a journalist with family there. The majority of the comments are either disparaging the reporter or PR.

I really think that the single best way for Trump to find some compassion if he has any is for someone to cut Fox from the White House. I know that's a statement from the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious though.

Totally get how anxiety provoking this all is , I've actually got into baking recently as a comforting distraction to all this!

Talking of jokes, I did laugh at this tweet:

7 years ago i joined twitter dot com to keep up with one direction on x-factor and now i'm a communist

inigo

This clip of Trevor Noah on black people protesting is good for laughs (albeit in an angry-making way)

mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/912519621890146305/video/1

Good job.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-mysterious-group-thats-picking-breitbart-apart-one-tweet-at-a-time-a7965256.html

Clip from Michael Moore's film Sicko, about how US healthcare got to where it was a few years ago. Includes the tapes of Nixon discussing with an aide that it was good that Health Management Organisations (HMOs) incentivised towards providing less healthcare.

The very next day, Nixon announced his new healthcare strategy based on those HMOs, saying "I want America to have the finest healthcare in the world, and I want every American to be able to have that care when he needs it."

Birth of The HMO

MissHoolie the Seth thread also made me realise I was more anxious than I thought. My sleep pattern has gone to shite. Can take hours to drop off and often awake really early......could just be peri-menapausal of course

This may be a contentious view, but I'm not sure that Seth's thread was a good idea, although I understand the utter dismay that drove him to write it. His well-researched legal threads have been very powerful and have spoken truth to power. His anti-Trump thread was more or less a rant and highly personal - the opposite of "play the ball, not the man." Trump's wavering supporters who might have been persuaded by careful argument will batten down the hatches seeing him being attacked. Also, branding Trump as evil let's him off the hook, like he doesn't know better - or if you want to pole at fairy tales/mythology narratives, he's been taken over by dark forces and its not him. Anything that detracts from his accountability & agency is a problem IMO.

Let's! and pole = poke

Roger Stone's statement.

www.scribd.com/document/359899170/Stone-Opening-Statement?irgwc=1&content=27795&campaign=VigLink&ad_group=1726779&keyword=ft500noi&source=impactradius&medium=affiliate#from_embed

Yes to that badbadhusky.

The question if accountability extends beyond Trump to those who collude with him and his fuckwittery. The spotlight in inevitably on Trump because he generates headlines but there are layers and layers of culpability.

And then there are the many ways to resist.

thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/352392-black-lawmaker-kneels-on-house-floor-in-solidarity-with-athletes

HRC dissects him on MSNBC and says he's cynically playing to his base. I think what she says makes a lot of sense:

www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/clinton-quite-telling-trump-attacks-black-athletes-not-neo-nazis-1054793283877

Anne Applebaum‏Verified account @anneapplebaum

Germans fool themselves if they imagine there was no Russian influence in their election

The Kremlin creeps into Germany
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-kremlin-creeps-into-germany/2017/09/25/3d06277e-a227-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.c93345579542