US Politics, August 2018: There must be something wrong, please recheck that poll!

please use this thread to discuss the President's ongoing meltdown

surely this

please use this thread to ruminate about the president melting down into a creek and disappearing around the valley bend

but her emails!

but she likes Bette fucking Midler!

hmm missing somebody in those NY endorsements, O?

― President Keyes, Wednesday, August 1, 2018 4:35 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

assume these endorsements are for people in close races not rofflestomps in dark blue districts

― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, August 1, 2018 12:47 PM (seven minutes ago)

i guess it depends whether Joe Lieberman has any pull

NEW: Trump lawyers tell me his tweets this morning are simply "his opinions" and not evidence of an ongoing effort to obstruct the Russia probe. @RudyGiuliani and @JaySekulow call in to explain @realDonaldTrump well-established practice https://t.co/WTDBOSMGjh

— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) August 1, 2018

Burying the lede, of course, but if President Dickhead had expended even a fraction of the energy he's wasted pushing back against investigations on actually shoring up election security, backing the IC, and railing against Russia - or, you know, pursuing avenues that might actually exonerate him rather than exacerbate the investigation - he would be in a much better place. Numbers would be up, he'd be able to exploit anti-Russia anger for political gain, all sorts of things might be going his way. But of course he couldn't do that. Because he's crazy. And probably guilty of all sorts of shit.

Can anyone explain to me how it's possible for Obama to endorse a wide array of democratic candidates when we all know he's on permanent tour with Beyonce and Jay-Z? There's obviously something fishy about this.

Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and “Public Enemy Number One,” or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement - although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018

not sure if I'd be comparing my campaign manager to Al Capone here, but then again, I'm not the 3-D persuasion genius

he's so fucking obsessed

Capone was infinitely better at covering his tracks and they notably got him on tax evasion!

I wonder how the supporters will explain away the brilliant 456-D chess at play when Trump eventually and inevitably shits his pants in public.

I mean, since his every public utterance is basically just that.

Yowza. https://t.co/XRBunwsQZ7 pic.twitter.com/6EiiZkqbqa

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) August 1, 2018

wherethewhitewomenat.gif

meanwhile, dissident against the House of Saud?

Saudi Arabia planned to invade Qatar last summer. Rex Tillerson's efforts to stop it may have cost him his job. https://t.co/X1luyyikYQ by @AlexEmmons

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) August 1, 2018

Well sure.

https://www.exxonmobil.com.qa/en-qa

has Trump ever indicated that he knows any specifics on what "collusion" is and what, exactly, he's being accused of? b/c it really seems to run no deeper than "collusion bad, so I didn't do collusion"

has he ever indicated that he knows anything

There was an anonymous account from some of his people (only the best people) last week that he at the very least doesn't understand the difference between collusion and Russia's active meddling in our electoral process.

Which is to say: he's vehement in his denial of collusion in part because he believes he's denying that he hacked anything on Russia's behalf. Y'know, just more of the profound stupidity we've come to expect from our leader.

well, everything revolves around him, so it's inconceivable that anybody could be investigating russian interference and it not be about his involvement

um it's not just anybody, it's 17 Angry Dems dontchaknow

Now I have that decemberists song stuck in my head.

I think when you hit 20 angry dems, it's technically a Blue Wave

One Orange Face and 200 Angry Dems

Someone should tell him it was 7 Chinese Brothers.

a swallowing the ocean hoax

Fuck you, Donald

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-s-order-to-penalize-SF-other-sanctuary-13123750.php?t=2d025bbd07

https://abcnews.go.com/US/special-counsel-mueller-president-obstruction-justice-sources/story?id=56973384

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office wants to ask President Donald Trump about obstruction of justice, sources close to the White House tell ABC News. According to sources, the president learned within the last day that the special counsel will limit the scope of questioning and would like to ask questions both orally and written for the President to respond to.

According to sources familiar with the President’s reaction Wednesday morning, that was the genesis for his early morning tweet storm.

how is this news

i mean.... it was assumed

would like to ask questions both orally and written for the President to respond to.

This would be great no matter how it might happen. Whatever he answers, it will no doubt directly contradict something he has said or tweeted, leading to follow-up questions, that in turn would lead to clarifications that directly contradict something else he has said or tweeted. Ad infinitum.

For his tribal loyalists, none of this matters, of course.

they will never agree to answer any questions, they will stonewall and dare him to issue a subpoena (which he probably won't do)

in other news
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pollster-sees-dead-heat-in-Ohio-special-election-13123515.php

how is this news

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 1, 2018 4:51 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They've always wanted to ask him about obstruction. Part of their original task was to look into obstruction, as credibly described by Comey. Much of the list of questions months ago was on obstruction. He's ranting bc his lawyers encouraged a delusion which has been punctured. https://t.co/rpf6JdVFwW

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 1, 2018

One journalistic approach to this situation is to try to cover the developments from inside Trump's head, in which case the revelation that Mueller wants to ask him about obstruction of justice can be a shocking stand-alone exclusive.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 1, 2018

Another is to recognize the president doesn't comprehend the extremely-easy-to-understand legal peril he is in, deliberately surrounds himself with supplicating fools, flies into rages when confronted with reality, and appears badly incapable of managing the duties of his office.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 1, 2018

ok I meant "how is this news" to ME, not our presiding moron

Yeah, it's important to occasionally shift your perspective a little and consider that something which seems like the most obvious and un-newsworthy thing in the world may, for Donald Trump, have an effect not unlike a golden retriever's first exposure to an Oculus Rift.

just imagine when he finds out that people wouldn't like it if he fires sessions and rosenstein on the same day

2 Angry Republicans

ok I meant "how is this news" to ME, not our presiding moron

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 1, 2018 5:48 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no i get that and i agree with you. my point is i like the implication of those tweett, which is that things like this should be covered as "the president appears to have discovered something that we reported 9 months ago".

look at this shit. this is the groverhaus of coats. the grovercoat

Behold. The 5,000 ostrich coat Manafort bought with an international wire transfer, according to a men’s clothier who testified today. Government exhibit pic.twitter.com/BjuQ39ZeJ0

— Kara Scannell (@KaraScannell) August 1, 2018

i thought there would be more feathers

i know that's silly but for that much shouldn't it have had feathers??

I know, right?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_juA16UhwBDU/SzrH2RYwjYI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/zNl3aOqjxOY/s1600-h/Picture+8.png

https://78.media.tumblr.com/71b6c0ace587d58944f9fc86da610b28/tumblr_nj4ln6UcOq1qd2ub7o4_250.gif

That looks like a bag of shit, one of those cheapo split-leather knockoffs you buy at a market sold from the back of a truck which disintegrates in a month. Who on earth could pay 15 grand for a jacket with elasticated cuffs?

He does not seem like the leather hoodie type.

wonder if he’s ever hung out with buzz bissinger

Is anyone doing a daily podcast wrap-up of the Manafort trial?

i’m curious why you would throw the well being of the polis out as a metric?

xxxp - Obama caused enormous personal anxiety to the Republican base - they weren't just pretending to believe he was always on the verge of springing his Stalinist trap, taking their guns and sending them to gulags. We can call it irrational and stupid, but it was real.

is this really true? i would love to hear some personal stories about the anxiety you witnessed. i have some i could share w/ you about hyperventilating children.

(i am a teacher in a school w/ a fair number of dreamers)

Because that's not necessarily something controllable. If you're more anxious of Trump than you were of Dubya because Trump doesn't uphold some traditions of civility in discourse or whatever, that's on you.

If you think there are specific actions he's taking that are worse than previous Republican Presidents, then those actions are the problem, not your personal anxiety. It remains to be seen, for the most part, what those consist of.

is this really true?

Is it just fun to play dumb?

Man fuck off

at the beginning of the obama administration i was working in a school in a different part of the county. all of the students in this school were from duncan hunter and darrell issa's districts. we had a fair number of angry students - a number of whom were caught passing around a drawing of obama as a monkey in a noose, accompanied w. a play on words referencing joe biden's last name, (b stood for barack, d stood for dumb and e stood for evil, you can figure out what the other letters stood for). it was a huge scandal. the next year, we were almost sued by a group of parents, because we had put up a flag display w flags from all of the nations our students originated from and failed to put the american one above and larger than the rest. i believe these instances of misbehavior stemmed from a type of anxiety, yes. you might even say they were hyperventilating, but not really.

so i would say the two types of anxiety we are comparing are a bit different.

no dude, it's called socratic method

is it fun to BE dumb?

If you're more anxious of Trump than you were of Dubya because Trump doesn't uphold some traditions of civility in discourse or whatever, that's on you.

ok so discourse =/= action?

good to know

If you think there are specific actions he's taking that are worse than previous Republican Presidents, then those actions are the problem, not your personal anxiety

curious what would be some objectionable actions, in your estimation? assuming that deliberate psychic harm on segments of the population doesn't count?

maybe you might argue - to use something i am familiar with - that being actually deported is bad, but that worrying about it is not. is that the sort of argument you're going to use?

milo's been kinda fucking it up on this thread for a couple of days. as he's a usually excellent and reasonable poster and given that this week has been really extra angry-making / patience-destroying for lots of folks, I figure I'll give him that FP he's earned with his last post and leave it there.

maybe you might argue - to use something i am familiar with - that being actually deported is bad, but that worrying about it is not. is that the sort of argument you're going to use?

Fear of deportation is something that's only existed under Trump?

shut the fuck up

you're so pompous about making sure we don't forget that all presidents and all government workers are shitbags because that's how you reinforce your little nutshell of conscious progressive capitalism - just stfu, and let people vent, and maybe listen for once

Nah. All Republicans are evil and have been for 50 years - getting blinded by Trump's manner just makes it easier for them to maintain their power and slip in all the same shit they'd do under Trump under a President Pence or Cruz or whomever because at least they're being civil about it.

you understand i am talking about DREAMERS, right?

xpost MOTHERFUCKER STFU

Fear of deportation is something that's only existed under Trump?

― louise ck (milo z)

in my direct experience, it's much much worse under trump. qualitatively different. you disagree, or what?

i say this as someone who worked full-time with dreamers in east palo alto during the second half of the bush administration. so my perspective on the matter is not exactly the same, and the immigrant communities i was working with then and now are somewhat different, but i assure you, it was *nothing* like this.

i could talk about how islamic and/or middle eastern communities in my neck of the woods, feel about trump's discourse compared to dubya's, but i really don't want to bore with too many anecdotes. i want to hear your anecdotes, milo!

"If you think there are specific actions he's taking that are worse than previous Republican Presidents, then those actions are the problem, not your personal anxiety."

what does this even mean?

I vote in favor of not being interested in milo’s anecdotes right now because I think maybe he should be spending more time on reflection instead of shoutposting his arrogant takes on how insidious behavior tends to creep up instead of happening all at once

BECAUSE WE COULDN’T SEE

you're right. it's dumb to even worry about whether trump is better or worse than bush or reagan. i think we all agree he's different, the rest of it is just bizarre hardmanning.

brothers and sisters, join hands

The shittiness and mental collapse of everything is earthquake magnitudes. Why the fuck would you ever try to compare analog to tainted clams diarrhea.

tomorrow is another day and shall give unto us a new thread for US politics to shit upon

what does this even mean?

That concrete wrongdoing is more useful to highlight than a vague sense of unease centered on one individual if you want to see political change.

there is a lot of concrete wrongdoing, so I'm not sure what point you're making

but i would say the psychological harm he's doing is equally malevolent

Ok so hearing the president of the united states daily spread paranoid conspiracy theories and racist invective causes more than a “vague sense of unease.”

It's slightly surprising how many sundowning dads Trump reminds people of. He totally reminds me of my dad. That fucking aspirational rat pack era.

He reminds me of Satan

Really, because he seems like a fucking sad fat white man in an adult diaper that somehow managed to live this long with a too hot for him wife and too good for him job. That seems completely ordinary.

lol

Ok so hearing the president of the united states daily spread paranoid conspiracy theories and racist invective causes more than a “vague sense of unease.”

That's my fundamental point: combating this shit as a systemic issue is vitally important. Racist invective and paranoid conspiracy aren't new. "Welfare queens driving Cadillacs," Philadelphia MS, black hands, Tim McVeigh, Bob Jones U, Operation Jade Helm, the list is damn near endless.
Believing this stuff is a fresh result of Trump undercuts the real danger, and as we've seen (in this very thread!) with Bush makes it easier for things to get worse in the future when the past can be whitewashed.

No one cares, dude. People use the word Trump as a stand-in for white supremacy, the GOP, police brutality, white nationalism, NIMBYs, whatevers, oversoying your latte. It's semantics. No one wants to complain about 3rd Eye Blind anymore when they haven't even been trying to put out singles.

Like, I really hate when dudes (it's always dudes) get all libertarian and "I was trying to live in the deep woods, drinking my urine, ages ago, doofuses. WAY before Trump." No one gives a shit.

new thread, plz

Yeah this Papadopoulos bombshell needs a new thread.

Really, because he seems like a fucking sad fat white man in an adult diaper that somehow managed to live this long with a too hot for him wife and too good for him job. That seems completely ordinary.

― Yerac, Saturday, September 1, 2018 12:00 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is funny, but only because trump is an insane through the looking glass grotesque version of your average priviliged white man. Florida retirement homes are not filled with megalomanics who ars pathological liars.

Maybe i am insane but he seems like a very, very bad thing to me—a distillation of everyhing rancid about america, but because he is a distillation far more concentrated, 100 proof American beserk

Treesh go to bed

xxxp - Obama caused enormous personal anxiety to the Republican base - they weren't just pretending to believe he was always on the verge of springing his Stalinist trap, taking their guns and sending them to gulags. We can call it irrational and stupid, but it was real.

is this really true? i would love to hear some personal stories about the anxiety you witnessed. i have some i could share w/ you about hyperventilating children.

― the late great, 1. september 2018 04:29 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It¨s not, no. That personal anxiety was caused by Fox, blaming it on Obama is wrong.

This is funny, but only because trump is an insane through the looking glass grotesque version of your average priviliged white man. Florida retirement homes are not filled with megalomanics who ars pathological liars.

― 🦅 (Trϵϵship)

a lot of trump's supporters (a minority, but a numerically large amount) are just as bad or worse than he is.

I think a big difference is that Bush was triumphalist while Trump is revanchist. Bush and his cronies really did seem to think they were going to democratize the entire middle east and improve the economy. Trump just wants power and to stop things from happening. Bush caused more harm, but his legacy will be easier to get rid off. Trump is something else, and it'll probably require impeachment proceedings against at least Kavanaugh. Stuff like that.

over a hundred people in his administration were indicted or convicted of corruption

The possibility that this won't happen with Trump is bad not good though.

are we really having the Trump-is-the-culmination vs Trump-is-an-aberration argument again?

"Bush's legacy is easier to get rid of" - - only if we're talking strictly within America's borders.

US Politics, September 2018: having a nervous breakdown