'Everybody has a heart. Except some people,' Trump thread 90.

[lionheart]

From Bette Davis, who was too canny to name names.

Here is the old thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3458456-Shutdowns-military-pullouts-and-resignations-it-s-Christmas-and-Trump-thread-89?watched=1&msgid=84240445#84240445

www.indy100.com/article/trump-nepal-bhutan-nipple-button-india-john-walcott-cnn-white-house-8763576

So, tonight is the SotU. I'll be watching it on mute with one eye on closed captioning (thanks again to whoever it was who suggested it!) and the other firmly on Nancy Pelosi seated behind him. It should be interesting, but probably also infuriating.

They're saying his theme is going to be 'unity' and 'working together'. Uh huh, oookkkkaaaay. That's like having Harvey Weinstein give a speech on how to achieve equality and respect for women.

For those of you who will actually hear him, you can tell when he's actually reading the prepared speech because his voice will go all 'slurry' and robotic. You can absolutely tell during his speeches when he's thinking 'this is bullshit but I have to say it'.

I've been watching Jed Bartlett's State of the Union to cheer myself up instead.

Kenneth P. Vogel
@kenvogel
NEW: Federal prosecutors in SDNY have been interviewing witnesses in recent weeks about the flow of foreign $$$ to 3 firms MANAFORT recruited to help the Russia-aligned government of VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH —
@SkaddenArps
,
@PODESTAgroup
& Mercury Public Affairs.

www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/politics/paul-manafort-news-ukraine.html

Don’t know if this would provide the same escapism perking but this is currently available on bbc sounds

Mueller: Trump Tower Moscow
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00029g9

When Hunter and Najib are given the job of looking into the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, their investigation soon throws up some startling results - particularly in relation to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the man who said he’d "take a bullet" for his Presidential client. This up-to-the-minute contemporary drama sheds light on a story that continues to unfold. Jonathan Myerson, award winning dramatist whose previous work includes The Republicans and The Clintons, unravels the story so far, following investigators as they uncover the truth behind Cohen’s dealings on behalf of the man known to the inquiry as Individual One. Robert Mueller's investigation is still ongoing, although it has produced several convictions already. The Special Counsel himself, former head of the FBI and a highly respected public servant, is an almost unknowable figure, shunning all publicity throughout his career and especially since being appointed to the Russia probe. Mueller: Trump Tower Moscow imagines the goings-on at the heart of the investigation. With Kerry Shale as Michael Cohen, Nancy Crane as Stormy Daniels and Nathan Osgood as Felix Sater, appearing alongside a group of invented characters playing the staffers on the Mueller team.

I’m not a fan of things like this - they run the risk of muddying the waters, mixing facts with fictions, at a time when the truth is being overwhelmed by so much information. I didn’t like that a film had been made about Brexit for the same reason; it’s still an ongoing investigation. Would be interested in hearing what people who’ve heard it thought though! (I haven’t listened to it).

Epic press conference being held by the women of the House right now. Streaming live here: twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1092875569442697216?s=21

Pity that they didn't have the media miked.......

'Tantrum in a sandbox'................I like that.

Yes, you’d think they would have got that sorted out beforehand,

45 will likely consider it a ploy...........

And dressed in white.

History, importance of.

New Yorker

I want to watch the SOTU - but I don’t know if I can stand to hear Trump speak. I usually get by with transcripts

Well, I watched it. He waffled on for almost one and a half hours. Lots of outright lies in there. Nancy Pelosi was finding it difficult to keep a straight face behind him. He didn’t declare a state of emergency, but is outright begging for partisan support for the wall. He also definitively stated that there is no place for socialism in the US.

There was so much hooting and standing ovations and clapping and chanting and carrying on - he still has much Republican support.

The White House tweeted this afterwards:

The White House @WhiteHouse
Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.

Trump did say this, and in a threatening way, relating it to the “ridiculous” Russia investigation. I found it astonishing, even for him.

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw
·
1h
One line stuck out like a sore thumb in Trump’s State of the Union: “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.” That’s a ridiculous threat. It equates the search for truth with war. That’s deeply wrong. And it’s unamerican.

Congratulations to those who could bear to watch/listen to him - I've just turned off the news bulletin at the sound of his ghastly voice.
I have stepped away from both Trump and Brexit so much that my first thought this morning was of how Brian Aldridge got on in court yesterday (in a radio soap called "The Archers"), not of the SOTU, which is a definite improvement in my life priorities But I thought you'd like to read the below and I will now return to my fantasy world in Ambridge

Dan Rather:

"This is who he is, who he was, and ever shall be.

Tonight we saw once more the man in full who was surprisingly and controversially elected to the presidency. President Trump may be shrouded in the power and privilege of his office but he is diminished by historic unpopularity, buffeted by scandal and struggling in the recent repudiation of the midterm election.

Much of the rhetoric tonight was expected. There was fear mongering, shallow bravado, and recurrent waves of divisiveness. That it was delivered from a teleprompter with more competence than customary does not diminish the harshness of the rhetoric. There were moments where he bowed to more unifying language, but how many people think Trump believes what he says? And tomorrow one can expect Trump unmoored will return to Twitter.

Overshadowing the speech was a threat that, in the President's mind, progress demands an end to investigations. If that was a trial balloon, it is one made of lead. And yet, lest anyone see distance between the man at the podium and the Republican lawmakers, the standing ovations he received were of a frequency and precision I have rarely seen by either party to previous State of the Unions.

In the end, I doubt many if any minds were swayed. How many even watched? Does it matter? Do we care?

Previous presidents facing political headwinds have used this speech to tack towards the center, to at least play lip service to the unity of our nation and the worth of those on the other side of the aisle. The President, by instinct, necessity or psychology, only knows the high stakes of doubling down no matter the hand. We've seen how that instinct ended up in his casino businesses. But here we have no choice but to watch him play his cards, no matter how ruinous.

Yet the power of the presidency, as we are seeing, has its limits. The opposition is riled and ready. No speech will change the battle lines and political calculus over the future and vision for our nation.

State of the Union speeches rarely last in the consciousness of the country. And one has a sense that this one is already being forgotten, or was never thought about in the first place."

I have to say that the descriptions of the Republican reception of the SOTU has shocked me - they are disgusting in their self-interested wish to cling to their power and riches at the cost of their constituents who are not as wealthy as them.

I can't find much about how Stacey Abrams was received yet. Oh, there's this:

Media Matters
‏Verified account @mmfa
2h2 hours ago

Stunned hosts on Fox News can only praise the response by Stacey Abrams:

“She seemed to get more to what people's lives are like in the reality"

Transcript: mm4a.org/4eT #SOTU

Yes, he said this too, and was received a standing ovation from his flunkies for it.

The White House @WhiteHouse
The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.

The clip of this is even better but here's Nancy.

I have read bits and bobs on it, there's a fact checker out there and the lies, the lies, the lies. He really is the liar-in-chief. Everything is either exaggerated, lied about, made up.

From what I saw, Pelosi acted respectfully but her face was a picture at times.

I really loved this...

"The president, while bragging about his own record on the economy, noted high numbers of women joining the workforce.

“No one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the newly created jobs last year,” he said.

But it was the record number of women elected to Congress last year — many of whom vehemently oppose him — who stole the show.

At first, many congressional Democratic women — many of whom were wearing white as a sign of solidarity and in honor of the suffragists — remained seated. But slowly, as the applause continued, they began to point to themselves, stand, and celebrate. Some pumped their fists in the air.

“You weren’t supposed to do that,” Trump quipped, as cameras shot to high-profile new additions to Congress, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)."

Fact check.

apnews.com/403cd4b711704c7caf1e0d337a2d390b?utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

Pain I agree. I don't want to listen to fictional drama about an ongoing investigation.

Maybe it's OK if "ongoing" actually means an unsolved cold case from 30 years ago. But fictionalising something that's still unfolding right now? Can't see any way that's a good idea.

Love this take on his Address... so so true

www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-state-of-the-union-protection-racket-either-mueller-gets-it-or-the-american-economy-does?ref=home

"Because Trump is bleeding politically, and under rising legal pressure from every quarter, tonight's State of the Union speech contained his usual pastiche of Trumpian paranoia about the border, dick-waving braggadocio, outright lies, and movie-script ideas passed off as intelligence reports. Coyotes! Duct tape! Mad Max caravans!"

Agreed, Perking.

It was preposterous. Even the statements that were supposed to sound 'unifying' were veiled threats. And the outright lies and exaggerations were ridiculous. And I was only reading them (via cc). I can only imagine his fake smarmy tone of voice. And yet, his base will eat it up like manna from Heaven.

I thought Nancy did very well in controlling her face. I would've been eye-rolling and making all kinds of disparaging noises.

Well, at least we won't have to hear that shit again for a year.