General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[Junkenstein]

Point well made.

Idiot claiming "no political figure ever treated worse, ever, really ever, I'm super serial".

I'm sure ghandi, Mandela, king etc. Etc. Are all weeping beyond the grave for him.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

The biggest question with Trump is how much of it is corruption and how much is just stupidity. I know a lot of you don't believe he could really be that stupid but personally that's been my impression of him from the beginning.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The biggest question with Trump is how much of it is corruption and how much is just stupidity. I know a lot of you don't believe he could really be that stupid but personally that's been my impression of him from the beginning.

It's difficult to imagine that a president could be as stupid as this man apparently is, but I have to admit my hesitation to believe it is based more on some assumption that you have to be smart to make it that far than on any observable evidence. He does somehow manage to defy the laws of political physics, but that is the result of the artery of hatred he's tapped into more than his own doing. Whether or not he is "stupid" because he is actually too unintelligent to understand things, or because he's never exercised any mental muscle other than "throw money at it until it goes away", I don't know. He obviously lacks even a basic understanding of civics, history, and even economic theory beyond buzzwords, and the result is the same either way.

As for corruption, I don't think Trump sees "corruption" as a thing that even exists. In his mind, if he can make a move and get away with it, it's fair game. He seems to be completely amoral, absolutely untethered to other human beings no matter how close they are. It's very likely deep inside mental illness or sociopathy territory, to a point where he might not be "corrupt", only because he is incapable of conceiving of any such concept. The people around him, however, are obviously corrupt. Whether it is by Russians or just money and power is unclear and really not the question.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yeah, I see a dumbfuck in a prominent position and it's generally either one of two things - he's either playing the retard in which case he's being dishonest or he really is as dumb as he appears in which case someone smart is totally pulling his strings. I'm not saying Putin cos I honestly have no f'kin idea but if not him them someone like him.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Yeah, I see a dumbfuck in a prominent position and it's generally either one of two things - he's either playing the retard in which case he's being dishonest or he really is as dumb as he appears in which case someone smart is totally pulling his strings. I'm not saying Putin cos I honestly have no f'kin idea but if not him them someone like him.

Could be multiple people pulling the strings. His election was apparently the result of at least two unrelated conspiracies (the Russian email hacks and the Pied Piper conspiracy, though admittedly the later thought they were setting him up to fail. There were also a bunch of news organizations printing biased and outright fake news tp try to sway the electorate in his favor). I think that the best hope at this point is that all the people pulling his strings tangle each other up (or alternately for him to reach the point where he's blowing the job off completely instead of just taking too many golfing vacations; at that critical point there is an abrupt transition from dangerous incompetence to the ideal leader of eastern mysticism that rules well by doing nothing)

[minuspace]

 Washington Post (or, more recently, something also on NyT re: Dura-Trumps)

President Trump reportedly eschews exercise because he believes it drains the body's "finite" energy resources, but experts say this argument is flawed because the human body actually becomes stronger with exercise.

I got this one. See, his Chinese comrades probably tried to splain him the concept of Yin, the female principle, which TCM considers finite & non-renewable. That Trump then uniquely informed his understanding with only the concept of Yin should come as no surprise. Trump clearly has negligible Yang.

[P3nT4gR4m]

On the plus side, dude is a walking heart attack. Be funny as fuck if he was the first president to assassinate himself walking too hard on the golf course 

[Bu🤠ns]

On the plus side, dude is a walking heart attack. Be funny as fuck if he was the first president to assassinate himself walking too hard on the golf course 

Hey if cherries and milk can take out one shit-show of a president...

[Cain]

So, today's roundup:

Someone whose named rhymes with Kared Jushner is being investigated by the FBI for their links to the ever-expanding Russia scandal.

The Special Counsel's team has been looking into the impeachment process "for research purposes".

The Israeli agent who was burned by Trump was not only an asset on ISIS, but also on Hezbollah.  Israeli intelligence is beyond outraged at this. 

And Russian officials bragged that they could use Michael Flynn to influence Trump.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

So, today's roundup:

Someone whose named rhymes with Kared Jushner is being investigated by the FBI for their links to the ever-expanding Russia scandal.

The Special Counsel's team has been looking into the impeachment process "for research purposes".

The Israeli agent who was burned by Trump was not only an asset on ISIS, but also on Hezbollah.  Israeli intelligence is beyond outraged at this. 

And Russian officials bragged that they could use Michael Flynn to influence Trump.

Also I just saw another one of those "someone close to Comey" things, saying Comey is now convinced Trump was intentionally trying to sway him on the Russia investigation. Maybe a twig, but on the fire it goes.

[Cain]

I was just reading a good article on that: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump

Comey never told me the details of the dinner meeting; I don't think I even knew that there had been a meeting over dinner until I learned it from the Times story. But he did tell me in general terms that early on, Trump had "asked for loyalty" and that Comey had promised him only honesty. He also told me that Trump was perceptibly uncomfortable with this answer. And he said that ever since, the President had been trying to be chummy in a fashion that Comey felt was designed to absorb him into Trump's world—to make him part of the team. Comey was deeply uncomfortable with these episodes. He told me that Trump sometimes talked to him a fashion designed to implicate him in Trump's way of thinking. While I was not sure quite what this meant, it clearly disquieted Comey. He felt that these conversations were efforts to probe how resistant he would be to becoming a loyalist. In light of the dramatic dinner meeting and the Flynn request, it's easy to see why they would be upsetting and feel like attempts at pressure.

On March 27, he described one incident in particular that had bothered him. Comey was about to get on a helicopter when his phone rang. It was the White House saying that the President wanted to speak with him. Figuring there must be something urgent going on, he delayed his flight to take the call. To his surprise, the President just wanted to chitchat. He was trying to be social, Comey related; there was no agenda, much less an urgent one. Notably, since the President has claimed that Comey told him in two phone conversations that he was not under investigation, Comey said nothing to me about the subject coming up in this call. Indeed, he regarded the call as weird for how substanceless it was. What bothered Comey was twofold—the fact that the conversation happened at all (why was Trump calling him to exchange pleasantries?) and the fact that there was an undercurrent of Trump's trying to get him to kiss the ring.

[Cain]

Nothing to hide...

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN18F2KK

The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia, two people familiar with White House thinking said on Friday.

Trump has said that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation "hurts our country terribly."

Within hours of Mueller's appointment on Wednesday, the White House began reviewing the Code of Federal Regulations, which restricts newly hired government lawyers from investigating their prior law firm's clients for one year after their hiring, the sources said.

An executive order signed by Trump in January extended that period to two years.

Mueller's former law firm, WilmerHale, represents Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met with a Russian bank executive in December, and the president's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is a subject of a federal investigation.

Legal experts said the ethics rule can be waived by the Justice Department, which appointed Mueller. He did not represent Kushner or Manafort directly at his former law firm.

If the department did not grant a waiver, Mueller would be barred from investigating Kushner or Manafort, and this could greatly diminish the scope of the probe, experts said.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I was just reading a good article on that: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump

This disturbs me, not just because of the content and character of this kind of inappropriate contact, but because it still technically comes down to how Comey "felt" about it. There may be nothing overtly criminal in it. It's unusual, even inappropriate ethically, but not illegal. And even if it was illegal, there's a whole ocean full of ways for Trump loyalists to call it hearsay and speculation. Hopefully when Comey testifies later this/next month, or at least in private conversations with Mueller's investigation, he can bring something more than "he made me feel dirty". But Comey at least seems to be a person who is smart enough not to get himself into the situation he's in now with nothing to back himself up.

Nothing to hide...

The fact that this is already public knowledge is great, but I hope Rosenstein can come through on this waiver. Given Mueller's own history in the DOJ/FBI, I don't doubt his personal honesty or thoroughness just because he worked for a firm that represented Trump (unlike Lieberman who owns a firm that represents Trump and is apparently about to be nominated for the FBI directorship). But my paranoid half worries he was the one appointed as Special Counsel precisely because of this rule, in order to insulate Trump and his closest circle from the investigation.

[Cain]

So, this was a thing today:

[tyrannosaurus vex]

So, this was a thing today:

What's the problem? He told reporters, not the Russians. Sheesh.