to be watching with my jaw dropped as Trump goes into full meltdown at his press briefing?

[sadpapercourtesan]

Is anyone else watching this?! He is literally ranting like a man possessed, I've never seen anything like it. He's declared war on the media (I know we're used to him lashing out at journalists but this is on another level)

I'm watching it on CNN and they have breaking news straplines like "Trump uses task force briefing to rewrite history on coronavirus response", "Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session" and "Angry Trump uses propaganda video, produced by government employees at taxpayers' expense"

He has just said, verbatim: "When somebody is President of the United States, that authority is total"

I thought our daily briefings were bullshit

Elizabeth Warren is awful. A liar and a flip flopper. As well as being the very archetype of the person that pushed many into voting for Trump.

She's the type of person who stands at her window making sure the neighbours are only buying essential items and doing one hour of exercise.

I think you're right about the first and I agree with you on the second, @CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate. But hey, a Grumpy Old Woman can dream.

Didn't Elizabeth Warren falsely assert that she belonged to an ethnic minority and use that to get special dispensations in college?
I don't particularly like her but I don't think either of these statements are true. She said she had some Native American ancestry - and she has, albeit a small percentage. There is no evidence she ever used this information to get a job.

"Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man" @isabellerossignol - except 'mediocre' is quite wide of the mark here.

I had time for Elizabeth Warren, I thought she was quite inspiring actually. But for me, the one loss in the race is Kamala Harris, hope she becomes VP.

He's worth his weight in gold for entertainment value. I just hope his security personnel have orders to off him if he decides to nuke China over this.

"I don't particularly like her but I don't think either of these statements are true. She said she had some Native American ancestry - and she has, albeit a small percentage. There is no evidence she ever used this information to get a job."

The way she attempted to claim heritage was utterly cynical and shameful. She tried to make herself out to be part of a victimised group for personal gain.

She has one ancestor something like 6 generations back.

Native Americans had to ask her to apologise.

I would never ever be able to trust someone like that - at least Trump is honest in his tomfoolery. (Not to say I trust him - but I'd vote for him over Warren and that's saying something.)

@Peregrina President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for being the main architect of The League of Nations. However, Congress refused to ratify it because it went against our idea of isolation from World problems. The League of Nations failed because of the US never ratifying it and the fact that Russia joined very late and then got kicked put because they invaded Norway or Sweden

www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-apology_n_5d5ed7e6e4b0dfcbd48a1b01?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC2F55xc5gi5G-rpE4JWFBy4589wo8PxyQrlNH-ZxLSFZTx2F9CYh0Ji0FN4geJpSQEedtuQ3_qxTDDeK5HA6CYGCWwFIfhNhH_JohEOvU3s9uuptqmfgNGi1oqfR8DNMKhrrWTqf_ZHP7Oj72EWkNdHilpk9RsTN_z4tP5RZ-pE

Quote: In 1836, Warren’s great-great-great-grandfather, a white man named William Marsh, enlisted himself in a Tennessee militia to fight in the “Cherokee War,” an occupation of Cherokee land in the lead-up to the Trail of Tears. Decades later, his grandson John Houston Crawford moved his family onto Indian Territory and squatted on Cherokee land in a move that, with no record of a permit, was almost certainly illegal.

She asserted that her mother was part Cherokee, she told and repeated a story about her parents facing discrimination because her father married a part Cherokee woman. When applying for college she identified herself as being part Cherokee. Later she identified herself as American Indian on her state Bar registration card.

Warren wrote she was American Indian in a 1986 registration card she filled out for the State Bar of Texas, according to a report from the Washington Post’s Annie Linskey and Amy Gardner. Gardner tweeted out a picture of the original form. Warren filled out the card after she was admitted to the bar, the Post reported. The form says information about her ethnicity was being gathered for statistical purposes; there’s no indication it was used for professional advancement.

She has 1/1024 or something American Indian heritage, not necessarily Cherokee, and which means nothing as most Americans, Brazilians, and even some Europeans have some native American Indian heritage.

She later had to apologise to the Cherokee nation. She had used the fake story of her heritage to gain herself identity points.

Not a great candidate.

AFAIK, DNA testing showed that Warren probably had an ancestor indigenous to American continent 6-10 generations back.
Which doesn't make her Cherokee.
She apologised and there is no evidence that she benefited financially.
The Native Americans whose opinions I read about were angry at the way she, like many others, relied on iffy family lore and then DNA tests to establish identity, which they think can only be established by Cherokees themselves. They said she had not benefited but others often did.

It's interesting to compare the standards to which women in politics are held and the way in which some men can regularly hurl insults, abuse power, destabilise international trade and politics and indulge in the most obvious forms of nepotism without it appearing to lose them any support.
And the part played in that process by deflection is interesting, too.

there’s no indication it was used for professional advancement.
This contradicts what you wrote earlier.

I’m reposting what Rousette linked to back on page 3 because I’m guessing lots of people didn’t click on the BBC’s Jon Sopel link because he said something quite interesting, that really isn’t obvious from these 2 minute clips. He spent an hour and a half taking questions - that is a really long time for any official at that level.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52276004

“...here we have a president who apparently hates us. But. But. But. He stuck around and answered questions for a full hour and a half.....

Going back to my previous experience of news conferences, I always think you are lucky if you get to ask one question. Most often you don't get to ask one - particularly if you are from a foreign news organisation. I think I asked five questions of the president (and one of them got a "that's a very good question" - 10 points for me). He loves to engage......

This president is more accessible than any senior politician I have ever known. And who can complain about that? He stood there and took all questions for an age, knowing full well this was playing out across all the US networks - and around the world, given the range of messages I got from all and sundry. But it is also confounding. You feel he wants to be loved, and can't understand it when love is not forthcoming.”

Sorry what @CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate wrote!

Leannb - this does not negate the statement I made - the USA was not in the League of Nations. I was happy to acknowledge the President's part in the idea.

As to the USSR - it's neither here nor there in a debate about who set the organisation up.

"Believed to have contributed" means exactly what it says. Nazi Germany also withdrew from the League which could also have been a contributory factor to WW2.

at least Trump is honest in his tomfoolery.
No he isn't. What are you talking about?

Aren't most Americans supposed to get excited when they find traces of Native Americans in their background? In the same way that people in the UK like to discover Viking ancestry?

He is not only a dangerous megalomaniac, he is also a raving nutter.

He's just signed a document giving the USA mining rights on the moon - as if that is likely to be anyone's priority right now.

Thanks for reposting Nekoness.

at least Trump is honest in his tomfoolery

You what www.factcheck.org/person/donald-trump/

I think the fact that Americans would rather have ANYONE rather than a woman as president is pretty obvious from the fact that only one woman has ever made it as her party's candidate and she then lost (although she did win the popular vote). No candidate is perfect, ever. And yet it never ceases to amaze me how a woman candidate who has said or done something or had a policy people don't agree with always has her entire campaign derailed by that. While people will happily overlook similar or worse from male candidates.

I mean, Trump's, "I just grab them by the pussy" comment didn't even slow him down for a second. And I remember seeing endless posts about how voters didn't like him but they'd put up with that for x, y, z reason. But a woman candidate doesn't throw herself into the path of a dog who might get hit by a car and she's probably doomed her chances forever because she doesn't care about animals.

This contradicts what you wrote earlier.

Somewhat true

But she did attempt to use it for professional advancement in her political career, in order to gain kudos and appear to speak authentically as a member of an ethnic minority.

It's like a white person asserting they have black heritage to have greater influence with the BAME community, only for it to turn out that their family owned a plantation several generations back and any black ancestry is so remote as to be negligible.

Interesting that it has been largely excused though.

Interesting that "grab 'em by the pussy" gave rise to no apology and has been excused anyway.

@BlingLoving where do you get that Americans would rather have anyone but a woman President? We just didn't want that one who actually ran

I've seen far worse rants from him. He's obviously trying to justify his actions or lack off.
It's rather sad how easy he bites.

roughly 50% of the population is female. And yet only one party, for one election has ever put up a woman? every other woman who has ever attempted to win her party's nomination has failed. Obviously that's entirely down to the competence, or lack thereof, of all these women...?