[Discussion] Hope to Remember The Trump Administration Thread as being 'transparent and honest'

Let's follow and discuss what our newest presidential administration gets up to, the good, the bad, the lawsuits, and the many many indictments.

I hope that once he's finally gone the only times we hear about him after is maybe what his prison routine is like. Yesterday I skimmed past an article with the headline of "Obama's Summer Reading List". As little interest as I have in that, I'd have even less in the cheeto's Summer Coloring Book List; plus it would be a huge loss of perspective to look on him as a human being just because he's out of office.

Surely part of Trump's interest in Greenland is that he has only ever seen a Mercator projection map and thinks it is yoooge.

Imagine a T-branded hotel on/in Greenland.
It goes straight down and isn't exposed to the floods, radiation, riots or famine.

All the amenities of a 5-star hotel, at least for a year or two.

He could sell those spaces like online steaks or university degrees.

CNN Op-Ed: In Trump's world, it's easier to regulate the bodies of disabled people than to limit deadly weapons

On his way to a rally in New Hampshire on Thursday, Donald Trump unveiled his latest musing — to incarcerate the vulnerable. This time, he's coming for people with mental illness, suggesting that the United States build more mental institutions because of mass shooters. Worse, it's all too possible some Democrats are going to help him round us up.

Standing before his helicopter, Trump told the press, "We're looking at the whole gun situation. These people are mentally ill, and nobody talks about that. I think we have to start building institutions again, because you know, if you look at the '60s and the '70s, so many of these institutions were closed, and the people were just allowed to go onto the streets."

None of this is true. First, we don't need to build more institutions. Second, the deinstitutionalization to which Trump refers — a process begun in the 1960s of systematic closing of state mental facilities and, ideally, accompanied by the creation of alternative means of support — may have created many new problems, mainly due to the lack of that second part, creating alternative supports. The pathway forward isn't to recreate the savage asylums of the past.

Third, the truth is that people talk about mental illness, especially after mass shootings, because it's politically easier to regulate the bodies of disabled people than the weapons used to kill.

Same with regulating video games and other forms of expression. Censorship is somehow easier than gun control.

#Repealthe2nd

David Roth is a genius at explaining our dumb president

Most of the idiocies at the core of Trump’s being were created in the same way that pearls are—an irritant lodges itself in the spongy matter of his mind years ago, actively or passively, and then is worried into something bright and very hard. In this case, though, we can watch this accretive work happening in real time—some dumb speech, long forgotten, grows into a great honor bestowed by strangers who admired him, and then into a controversial stand for which he was criticized but for which he boldly refused to apologize. And now it is something he can bring up, whenever he is feeling under-appreciated or anxious or when nothing else will come. He stalls and sputters and his pale eyelids flutter and suddenly then there it is, glistening on the dais in front of him—that time that Charles Woodson called to concede victory in the Michigan Man Of The Year Award, a few years ago or whenever it was. “Sir,” the Heisman Trophy winner said through his tears to Donald Trump, “you deserve this more than anyone.” What a beautiful memory.

Nazi red cap from Washington state got arrested for spending a Spanish immigrant in Miami 150 pages of explicitly violent, racist, and genocidal threats via Facebook over two months.

But it really wasn't the messages that got him. It was the fact he tried to pay someone $10,000 to "go to Miami and beat up this S**c who insulted me." Two days later he changed his mind and was willing to pay $25,000 to have the person chained up, stuffed in a "Rubber made Plastic Bin," and driven to Seattle. He assured his partner in crime that the most he could be charged with is kidnapping and that "nothing would happen to you if you got the right lawyers She's a S**c who Hates White Americans...I doubt the FBI would care much about her." [Narrator: The FBI cared.]

Why is this in the Trump thread? Because the guy repeatedly thanked and praised Trump in his threatening messages and believed Trump was going to kick off a "White Holy Racial War." It's spoilered because it's really pure evil, as is the entire criminal complaint.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECbP62zW4Ac0O6H?format=jpg&name=900x900)

Cue conservatives loudly castigating Trump for spreading the anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty (just like they did with Rep. Omar) and insufficient patriotism in three, two...ah, who am I kidding? It's never going to happen.

Sweet mother, the logical knots these people will tie themselves in to protect him...

The Republican Jewish Coalition defended Trump, arguing that the president was speaking about people being disloyal to themselves rather than to Israel.

“President Trump is right, it shows a great deal of disloyalty to oneself to defend a party that protects/emboldens people that hate you for your religion,” the group said in a tweet. “The @GOP, when rarely confronted w/anti-Semitism of elected members always acts swiftly and decisively to punish and remove.”

That’s almost impressive. I’m kinda amused that he thought the two options were “loyal to Israel” and “loyal to themselves”. It’s Trump; he means loyal to him personally.

mudbunny wrote:

Oh my god.

The stupid...It BURNS!!!

I cancelled a meeting with Denmark because they wouldn't sell me Greenland.

I guess we got lucky.
Though it is a bit of a shame for the people who had bought Trump Baby Balloons.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
“The @GOP, when rarely confronted w/anti-Semitism of elected members always acts swiftly and decisively to punish and remove.”

You know, the same "swiftly and decisively" they never used on people like Steve King.

A scathing new Pentagon report blames Trump for the return of ISIS in Syria and Iraq

A report from the Pentagon inspector general found that President Donald Trump's decision to rapidly pull troops out of Syria and divert attention from diplomacy in Iraq has inadvertently aided the Islamic State's regrouping in Syria and Iraq.

The Department of Defense's quarterly report to Congress on the effectiveness of the US Operation Inherent Resolve mission said that "ISIS continued its transition from a territory-holding force to an insurgency in Syria, and it intensified its insurgency in Iraq" — even though Trump said ISIS was defeated and the caliphate quashed, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Many officials and experts have repeatedly warned that a rapid US withdrawal from Syria would enable ISIS to regroup into an insurgency after their battlefield defeats by the US-led coalition.

The IG's report also explicitly said the troop drawdown in Syria, which Trump announced at the end of last year, contributed to instability in the region. The drawdown, which prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left the US's Syrian partners in the lurch, without the training or support they needed to confront a resurgent ISIS. In Iraq, the Iraqi security forces lack the necessary infrastructure to fight off ISIS for sustained periods.

Can anyone explain Trump's fixation on Greenland?

NathanialG wrote:

Can anyone explain Trump's fixation on Greenland?

Immigrant detention zone?

My boring theory: It really did start as some offhand remarks about the strategic importance of Greenland, either from Trump himself or someone around him. Maybe not even about buying Greenland, but just investing in it/military presence.
Then later media reports on it, and make fun of it. Now Trump actually cares. Not about buying Greenland as such, but the media mocking him. So he end up talking and acting as if he wants to buy it, in an attempt to show he is not a joke.
Simply because, in Trump World, everything is about himself.

Lent wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Can anyone explain Trump's fixation on Greenland?

Immigrant detention zone?

Only White people (in his mind)?

Ego Man wrote:
Lent wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Can anyone explain Trump's fixation on Greenland?

Immigrant detention zone?

Only White people (in his mind)?

Probably actually thinks it's green (golf). Or that it will be very green with global warming.

Greenland has come up a lot recently in the news in relation to its glacier melting at an alarming rate. No doubt some fox news bobblehead quipped that it'll soon be nice and habitable.

Lent wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Can anyone explain Trump's fixation on Greenland?

Immigrant detention zone?

He doesn't know it's deceivingly named and thinks it'll be a great source of lumber.

CNN had this headline in a tweet last night.

"President Trump Postpones Denmark Trip After Prime Minster Refuses to Sell Greenland to United States"

If there's a single (comical, not tragic) headline that describes the Trump era more, I'd like to see it.

The impetus behind the comment may also be someone with an eye towards resources that Greenland may have that is becoming accessible with the retreating ice.

Honestly, I think it's just as simple as wanting a legacy, and to maintain the illusion of being the bestest business man in the world. Buying Greenland would, in his mind (I think) prove this, and he would want that to be his legacy. Although we all know what it will actually be.

Come on. He wants to buy it because a) it's big and b) somebody somewhere told him he couldn't. Dude has the same motivations as a four year old. It's not legacy, it's not future-looking, it's not planning a racial utopia, it's something shiny that came into his brain.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

it's something shiny that came into his brain.

There’s nothing shiny in that mans brain. The things in his brain are dark, fetid, decomposing piles of idiocy.

The Greenland thing is not just him being a crazy asshole. In my opinion, it is one of those actions that give away the game. Greenland is poised to weather climate change better than most places.

Trump's environmental policy is about deregulating so that corporations can make one last grab at the resources that are available before the world burns. The wealthy are happy to live out their lives in places like Greenland that will be less affected while the rest of us die because of their greed. Sure, the resources they pillage won't be enough to survive for long. But that's a problem for their kids.

"I am the chosen one," said Trump as he raised his hands and looked to the heavens during a press conference after using one of the 16 tweets he sent today to praise a conservative conspiracy theorist who said that Israeli Jews "love [Trump] like he is the second coming of God."

DSGamer wrote:

CNN had this headline in a tweet last night.

"President Trump Postpones Denmark Trip After Prime Minster Refuses to Sell Greenland to United States"

If there's a single (comical, not tragic) headline that describes the Trump era more, I'd like to see it.

He literally stated that he cancelled the meeting because the Danish PM called his proposal 'absurd', and that she shouldn't have mocked him uh I mean AMERICA because only Obama would allow that.

It is quite impressive, although not surprising, that after 3 years, his advisers still haven't managed to make Trump understand that the other NATO countries aren't literally paying US for protection through their national defense budgets.

Trump wrote:

For the record, Denmark is only at 1.35% of GDP for NATO spending. They are a wealthy country and should be at 2%. We protect Europe and yet, only 8 of the 28 NATO countries are at the 2% mark. The United States is at a much, much higher level than that....

Because of me, these countries have agreed to pay ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS more - but still way short of what they should pay for the incredible military protection provided. Sorry!