Jon Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I'm not sure Trump has actually 'done' anything much yet. Spot on. It's all mouth and very little (travel ban etc notwithstanding) trousers at this stage, and let's hope it says that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 How is the wall coming along? I guess it must be waist high by now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Brumerican Posted January 3, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 3, 2018 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) Isn't that how you'd expect any politician in office to use social media? EDIT: That's meant as an open question, rather than as a gotcha. EDIT 2: I think it misses reason 5, 'obvious trolling/posting for effect', like claiming that he's responsible for the lack of global air crashes. Edited January 3, 2018 by HanoiVillan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Isn't that how you'd expect any politician in office to use social media? EDIT: That's meant as an open question, rather than as a gotcha. I think you're probably right (including the trolling) but I guess his points are more about people's reactions to the tweets and what the bod believes to be a better course of action than the one we're collectively taking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 3, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted January 3, 2018 29 minutes ago, snowychap said: I think the only thing I would add to this, or change, is perhaps to frame it as giving him less credit. This appears to show a thoughtful strategy. I think the wild ramblings are rather more simple flailing around at everything he dislikes or wants to credit for as Fox News tells him, and we're all stupid enough to get distracted by it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 When friends fall out... Quote Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son and a group of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”, according to an explosive new book seen by the Guardian. Bannon, speaking to author Michael Wolff, warned that the investigation into alleged collusion with the Kremlin will focus on money laundering and predicted: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.” Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, reportedly based on more than 200 interviews with the president, his inner circle and players in and around the administration, is one of the most eagerly awaited political books of the year. In it, Wolff lifts the lid on a White House lurching from crisis to crisis amid internecine warfare, with even some of Trump’s closest allies expressing contempt for him. Bannon, who was chief executive of the Trump campaign in its final three months, then White House chief strategist for seven months before returning to the rightwing Breitbart News, is a central figure in the nasty, cutthroat drama, quoted extensively, often in salty language. He is particularly scathing about a June 2016 meeting involving Trump’s son Donald Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York. A trusted intermediary had promised documents that would “incriminate” rival Hillary Clinton but instead of alerting the FBI to a potential assault on American democracy by a foreign power, Trump Jr replied in an email: “I love it.” The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.” Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up “in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Any information, he said, could then be “dump[ed] … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication”. Bannon added: “You never see it, you never know it, because you don’t need to … But that’s the brain trust that they had.” Bannon also speculated that Trump Jr had involved his father in the meeting. “The chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.” Special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed last May, following Trump’s dismissal of FBI director James Comey, to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. This has led to the indictments of four members of Trump’s inner circle, including Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges; Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. In recent weeks Bannon’s Breitbart News and other conservative outlets have accused Mueller’s team of bias against the president. Trump predicted in an interview with the New York Times last week that the special counsel was “going to be fair”, though he also said the investigation “makes the country look very bad”. The president and his allies deny any collusion with Russia and the Kremlin has denied interfering. Bannon has criticised Trump’s decision to fire Comey. In Wolff’s book, obtained by the Guardian ahead of publication from a bookseller in New England, he suggests White House hopes for a quick end to the Mueller investigation are gravely misplaced. “You realise where this is going,” he is quoted as saying. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to **** Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.” Last month it was reported that federal prosecutors had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner property empire. Bannon continues: “It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.” Scorning apparent White House insouciance, Bannon reaches for a hurricane metaphor: “They’re sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five.” He insists that he knows no Russians, will not be a witness, will not hire a lawyer and will not appear on national television answering questions. Fire and Fury will be published next week. Wolff is a prominent media critic and columnist who has written for the Guardian and is a biographer of Rupert Murdoch. He previously conducted interviews for the Hollywood Reporter with Trump in June 2016 and Bannon a few months later. He told the Guardian in November that to research the book, he showed up at the White House with no agenda but wanting to “find out what the insiders were really thinking and feeling”. He enjoyed extraordinary access to Trump and senior officials and advisers, he said, sometimes at critical moments of the fledgling presidency. The rancour between Bannon and “Javanka” – Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump – is a recurring theme of the book. Kushner and Ivanka are Jewish. Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, is quoted as saying: “It is a war between the Jews and the non-Jews.” Trump is not spared. Wolff writes that Thomas Barrack Jr, a billionaire who is one of the president’s oldest associates, allegedly told a friend: “He’s not only crazy, he’s stupid.” Barrack denied that to the New York Times. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post TheAuthority Posted January 3, 2018 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted January 3, 2018 5 hours ago, chrisp65 said: I'm not sure Trump has actually 'done' anything much yet. Actual policies actually carried out? Not seeing much yet (tax and health pending). I'm not so sure. Look at his court appointees. He's appointed court judges (very conservative and in some case whack job judges) at a faster rate than any other administration. This is to appease the Mercer family and the Kochs of this world. Look at his appointment to the head of the EPA Scott Pruitt. He's a disgusting puppet of the fossil fuel industry and essentially a climate change denier. It's true that Trump's stupid tax scam is his only piece of major legislation that has made through both houses, but don't underestimate the damage his administration is doing to the structure of US institutions. Betsy Devos as head of Education??! Jesus wept. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Just now, TheAuthority said: I'm not so sure. Look at his court appointees. He's appointed court judges (very conservative and in some case whack job judges) at a faster rate than any other administration. This is to appease the Mercer family and the Kochs of this world. Look at his appointment to the head of the EPA Scott Pruitt. He's a disgusting puppet of the fossil fuel industry and essentially a climate change denier. It's true that Trump's stupid tax scam is his only piece of major legislation that has made through both houses, but don't underestimate the damage his administration is doing to the structure of US institutions. Betsy Devos as head of Education??! Jesus wept. Yep, agree with all that, but the 'vibe' is to hype him as 'worst ever'. He's nowhere near the worst ever, not yet. It's a relatively young country that has massacred and ripped off its own indigenous peoples and ran secret wars in other countries by proxy and royally screwed up Vietnam with probably over 3,000,000 dead in that war. We won't mention it's perpetual problems with guns and prohibitions. When you have that as the scale bar, court appointments are important, but it's not putting him at the top of the dung pile. Not yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) from word one to the end, it's hilarious / tragic / depressing / hilarious. As yet undecided. Edited January 3, 2018 by Rodders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 He never writes, he never calls... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 I kinda want him to stay in until and run in the next election. The only thing that would hurt him is losing by such a margin he couldn’t blame anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 There are no Family Guy style crazy tangents in that statement . Clearly Trump sat that one out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 8 minutes ago, a m ole said: I kinda want him to stay in until and run in the next election. The only thing that would hurt him is losing by such a margin he couldn’t blame anything. Trump 8 years Ivanka 8 years Barron 8 years . We have about 24 years to learn as much Bear Grylls/ Ray Mears shit as we can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Brumerican said: Trump 8 years Ivanka 8 years Barron 8 years . We have about 24 years to learn as much Bear Grylls/ Ray Mears shit as we can. Edited January 3, 2018 by snowychap 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Dude's got a bird hand. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 3, 2018 Moderator Share Posted January 3, 2018 All joking aside, the Bannon quotes in Fire and Fury are huge. He says it was treasonous and unpatriotic. He as good as says Trump is a huge money launderer for the Russian mob Which side is the right wing media going to fall? Which side are the Base going to go, being as Bannon seems to have more of a grip on the base than Trump... moving along from that which way does that take the Right of the GOP.? Add that to the revelations that the Steele Dossier wasn’t the catalyst to the FBI investigation. In fact the catalyst was Popadopoulous a Trump insider getting drunk with an Australian diplomat in London. Is this the start of the GOP about to cut Trump loose? One things for sure it won’t be a unifying thing, splits are going to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 27 minutes ago, Brumerican said: Trump 8 years Ivanka 8 years Barron 8 years . We have about 24 years to learn as much Bear Grylls/ Ray Mears shit as we can. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 On what he has done, this issue is not all on him given partisanship has become more rancorous anyway but the fake news bollockshas the potential to erode the mechanics of justice completely. I am not convinced a watergate could actually happen. I believe any evidence of collusion wouldbe dismissed by "the other side" that the country is effectively an authoritarian monarchical system that can avoid accountability. I hope that is wrong but I am not sure by any means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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