US politics general thread

[OrbitalDawn]

In case anyone was under the impression Scott Adams isn't an utter buffoon...

“It's one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. Think about this does to not just the country, but to the entire world...The severity of this is unspeakable... Her actions could actually result in war and death, because if you degrade the presidency enough...It could potentially destroy the planet, you could easily imagine how it would weaken the Presidency until some international entity gets adventurous...

So I would say Omarosa is one of the worst human beings in the history of human beings... I'd put her on par with at least potentially the worst killers and dictators of the world, in terms of recklessness, it's a different category if you've actively killed people, so it's tough to be in that category...I can't think of anyone I've ever had a lower people of who's alive...somebody mentioned pedophiles...only if they're serial pedophiles, you'd probably have to be doing a lot of pedophilia before you'd be as bad as Omarosa, because remember her potential impact could destroy the planet. She's as bad as a human being can be.”

 

[cerebus]

MSNBC
[MENTION=517855]Msn[/MENTION]BC
.@kwelkernbc: "Can you stand at the podium and guarantee the American people they'll never hear Donald Trump utter 'the n word' on a recording, in any context?"

Sarah Sanders: "I can't guarantee anything... I can tell you I've never heard it."
9:22 PM - Aug 14, 2018

 

[Techne]

He pees on prostitutes, talks of grab'em by the psy, calls Mexican immigrants rapists, talks of ****hole countries, colluded with Russia apparently etc. and people think the him talking Chinese ( nèi ge) is all of a sudden beyond the pale. Lol, the latest Trump derangment syndrome outrage cycle sure is hilarious.

 

[The_Assimilator]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ler-unite-right-livestream-interrupted-father

A livestreamed conversation with Jason Kessler, a white supremacist rally organizer, was interrupted when Kessler’s father admonished the 35-year-old on video, and told him to get out of his room.

Kessler was one of the main organizers of last year’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Heather Heyer was killed when a self-described Nazi drove his car into a crowd of protesters. In the video, he was in conversation with Patrick Little, a neo-Nazi who ran as a Republican for the US Senate in California this year. Little’s platform included calling for the United States to be “free from Jews”.

Kessler and Little were deep in conversation about Orthodox Jews, when Kessler’s father cut in.

“Hey!” Kessler’s father can be heard to yell. “You get out of my room!”

“You got a drunk roommate there?” Little asked.

“Something like that,” Kessler responded. His dad then cuts in, saying: “I want this to stop in my room, Jason, this is my room.”

Kessler explains to Little that legal costs associated with last year’s Unite the Right rally meant that he had to move back in with his parents.

Such an alpha male. Jordan Peterson would be proud.

 

[The_Assimilator]

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Tt4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA339&lpg=PA339#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[cerebus]

Good well-balanced (IMO anyway) discussion on covering Trump from the media standpoint:

[video=youtube;rg4IqrIpuQU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg4IqrIpuQU[/video]

 

[cerebus]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-and-omarosa-had-a-fcking-weird-fight-with-vietnam-vets

Source present at the time tell The Daily Beast that multiple people—including Vietnam War veterans—chimed in to inform the president that the Apocalypse Now set piece he was talking about showcased the U.S. military using napalm, not Agent Orange.
Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, “no, I think it’s that stuff from that movie.”
One clue belying the president’s insistence is that the famous Robert Duvall line from the scene in Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” is not “I love the smell of Agent Orange in the morning.”
He then went around the room polling attendees about if it was, in fact, napalm or Agent Orange in the famous scene from “that movie,” as the gathering—organized to focus on important, sometimes life-or-death issues for veterans—descended into a pointless debate over Apocalypse Now that the president simply would not concede, despite all the available evidence.
Finally, Trump made eye contact again with Weidman and asked him if it was napalm or Agent Orange. The VVA co-founder assured Trump, as did several before him, that it was in fact napalm, and said that he didn’t like the Coppola film and believed it to be a disservice to Vietnam War veterans.
According to two people in attendance, Trump then flippantly replied to the Vietnam vet, “Well, I think you just didn’t like the movie,” before finally moving on.

 

[Unhappy438]

National debt jumps $500 billion in less than six months

The U.S. national debt has increased by more than half a trillion dollars in less than six months, amid predictions that the U.S. is on the verge of returning to another explosion in government borrowing.
The debt rose to an all-time high of $21.4 trillion on Thursday, according to government data posted Friday. That's more than $500 billion above the $20.88 trillion seen March 7, just a bit more than five months ago.

Fiscal 2019 is expected to be worse: The Congressional Budget Office predicts a budget deficit of just under $1 trillion.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/national-debt-jumps-500-billion-in-less-than-six-months

But MUH Obama debt?

 

[cerebus]

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!
2:24 PM - Aug 19, 2018

41.5K

31.4K people are talking about this

 

[cerebus]

Giuliani:

No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Pretty big scoop from NYT over the weekend.

White House Counsel, Don McGahn, Has Cooperated Extensively in Mueller Inquiry

The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.

In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Giuliani:

No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth.

A very Giuliani quote.

Here's another cracker:

“Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

As Popehat says:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1031234895627005952

Giuliani really has a talent for putting defense arguments as unconvincingly, unappealingly, and suspiciously as possible. If his son were a Manhattan gynecologist he’d go around saying “my boy spends his days fingering women near the park.”

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Cohen, Trump’s Ex-Lawyer, Investigated for Bank Fraud in Excess of $20 Million

Federal authorities investigating whether President Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, committed bank and tax fraud have zeroed in on well over $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that he and his family own, according to people familiar with the matter.

Investigators are also examining whether Mr. Cohen violated campaign finance or other laws by helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. The inquiry has entered the final stage and prosecutors are considering filing charges by the end of August, two of the people said.

Any criminal charges against Mr. Cohen would deal a significant blow to the president. Mr. Cohen, 52, worked for the president’s company, the Trump Organization, for more than a decade. He was one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal and visible aides and called himself the president’s personal lawyer after Mr. Trump took office.

 

[scudsucker]

This is satire, but it is amusing;

http://www.officialmikepence.com/

 

[scudsucker]

This is not satire, but it is also amusing:

Kevin McCarthy threatened to haul Twitter before Congress to explain why they were blocking his ability to see Laura Ingraham's tweets. Turns out it was a function of the way he had set up his account.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/go...censorship-hearings-bungles-account-settings/

This tweet is the modern Republican party in a nutshell. Get outraged by something that isn't happening, provide evidence that isn't real, demand action on the pretend issue and refuse to acknowledge that that whole thing was made up, even when faced with incontrovertible evidence.

​

 

[cerebus]

This is not satire, but it is also amusing:

Kevin McCarthy threatened to haul Twitter before Congress to explain why they were blocking his ability to see Laura Ingraham's tweets. Turns out it was a function of the way he had set up his account.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/go...censorship-hearings-bungles-account-settings/

This tweet is the modern Republican party in a nutshell. Get outraged by something that isn't happening, provide evidence that isn't real, demand action on the pretend issue and refuse to acknowledge that that whole thing was made up, even when faced with incontrovertible evidence.

​

 

[cerebus]

Of course, he's lying when he says he doesn't ask that their 'sick behavior be removed':

[B]Donald J. Trump[/B]‏Verified account @[B]realDonaldTrump[/B]
FollowFollow @realDonaldTrump
More
Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!
5:09 PM - 11 Oct 2017

 

[Cray]

In case anyone was under the impression Scott Adams isn't an utter buffoon...

 

[greg0205]

I feel like last night's Last Week Tonight was the 2018 version of The Ring.

Let me explain... No, it isn't a cursed video where folk who watch it die seven days later and no, Samara doesn't climb out of the screen to kill you... Rather it's Trump, Navarro and Kushner's grotesque stupidity that creeps from the screen and I feel that if I don't share the clip, in seven days time that stupidity will have me in a hi-care mental home, drooling and peeing in a bag.

Enjoy.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

I feel like last night's Last Week Tonight

Pity John Oliver is a bought and paid for shill, just like Trevor Noah and a long list of other shills. When you're so blatantly obvious in your agenda it is hard to watch for the one or two nuggets of information that may be useful.