Thread: President Donald Trump

In elections tonight, it looks as though Mississippi is living up to its reputation as an utter backwater of ignorance and stupidity, electing a Republican/Trump candidate. I'm starting to think that if this rogue country collapses into a civil war and eats itself, it might be the best thing for the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by panama hat

Mississippi . . . no surprise.

But . .

Kentucky voted in a Democratic governor, unseating a Republican

Small steps

That's fucking hilarious. The US channel I've been watching has been riddled with negative ads against Beshear (mostly about them darned immygrunts!), and Bevin has been pumping out an ad where baldy orange cunto says how great he is.

Hopefully a sign of things to come.

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

kudo to Trump for pushing the laws to the limit

He has changed the whole ball game forever.

He has made it the norm to break laws. He has blatently said that he is above the law due to presidential immunity and he operates on that belief.

I kind of though the classist, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, egocentric campaign that he ran to win the White House would be toned down once he was in office, but he is just getting worse.

The divides he has created in society and the way he has made a mockery of American democracy are here to stay.

The damage this guy has caused will take decades to fully comprehend.

Originally Posted by Wally Dorian Raffles

He has changed the whole ball game forever.

He has made it the norm to break laws. He has blatently said that he is above the law due to presidential immunity and he operates on that belief.

I kind of though the classist, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, egocentric campaign that he ran to win the White House would be toned down once he was in office, but he is just getting worse.

The divides he has created in society and the way he has made a mockery of American democracy are here to stay.

The damage this guy has caused will take decades to fully comprehend.

I think he's more of a symptom than a cause. The "Them and Us" shit started a long time ago. The GOP invented negative advertising, even though they always claim they are the "party of values".

You only have to listen to their brainless, hypocritical wittering about the impeachment hearings, when the silly wankers are the ones that invented all these rules with their endless and pointless "Benghazi" hearings.

As I post, US news just reported that Bevin is not conceding and blabbering about recounts, etc. They can't even lose gracefully.

Sondland has changed his testimony:

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, revised his original testimony in the House impeachment probe into President Donald Trump to add that he conveyed to a Ukrainian counterpart that Trump would not release nearly $400 million in foreign aid until the country agreed to launch specific investigations sought by Trump.

“I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland said in a document released Tuesday by the three House committees carrying out an impeachment probe, describing his conversation on Sept. 1 with a top Ukrainian official.

Sondland went on to say that the Ukrainian official had pressed him for details about exactly what Trump wanted in exchange for releasing the aid, which had been appropriated by Congress.

Sondland said he recalls telling the official that if Ukraine wanted the U.S. military aid, then the country’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, would need to deliver a public statement in person announcing the launch of investigations intended to benefit Trump politically.

The four pages of written revisions to his October testimony were submitted on Monday, just a day before the entire testimony was released by House impeachment investigators.

The new testimony from Sondland, who is still employed as Trump’s ambassador to the EU, threatens to undermine claims by Trump and his political allies who have repeatedly denied that congressionally mandated foreign aid to Ukraine worth nearly $400 million was ever used as leverage by Trump to try and pressure the country into launching investigations.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/impeachment-probe-releases-testimony-by-two-of-trumps-three-amigos.html

Look at his brilliant excuse for changing it:

In explaining his change of heart, Sondland claimed that it was the testimony of other current and former administration officials who spoke to House investigators after he did, and who contradicted Sondland’s original testimony, that “refreshed my recollection” and prompted Sondland to write an addendum to his original deposition.

Trump delivering and exposing all those state officials for what they are, cowards and duplicitous officials

Trump got humiliated in the elections tonight of that there is no doubt.

This speaks for itself....

Woman who lost job for middle-finger gesture to Trump wins election and now gets power to legislate over his golf course

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

This speaks for itself....

Indeed it does..

Virginia cyclist who flipped off Trump wins Loudoun County seat representing his golf club


A legion of reasons propel political neophytes to run for office, but none may be as unusual as what inspired Juli Briskman, the cyclist who gave President Trump the finger two years ago and found herself without a job and at the center of a national uproar.

On Tuesday, Briskman got a new job, winning a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors — ousting a Republican in the process.

“It’s feeling fantastic, it’s feeling surreal,” Briskman, 52, a Democrat, said by telephone as she celebrated her victory. “The last two years have been quite a ride. Now we’re helping to flip Loudoun blue.”

In 2017, Briskman was engaged in a different form of flipping, this one involving her middle finger, which she raised as she rode a bicycle alongside the presidential motorcade as Trump departed his golf club in Sterling.

The moment was captured by a photographer, whose picture of Briskman — her back to the camera, finger raised — found its way to Twitter and set off a social media storm. Days later, after she told her bosses that she was the woman behind the finger, her employer, Akima, a government contracting firm, fired her.

By then, Briskman was already active in local politics. But she said that the incident gave her new inspiration to work at the polls in 2017, volunteer on Democrat Jennifer Wexton’s campaign when she ran for Congress, and run for a $66,000-a-year seat.

A single mother of two, Briskman, who began her campaign for supervisor eight months ago, said she was intent on basing her campaign on issues and not the incident involving her finger.

“I’ve lived in the district for over 20 years,” Briskman said. “We were a little concerned about that being the platform. Voters want to know you understand their issues.”

But she acknowledged that her notoriety helped her raise $150,000 for the race.

If a voter expressed opposition to the president, Briskman said she would mention, “I’m the woman who flipped off the motorcade and lost my job. And they would say, ‘Oh yeah, that woman!’”

As it turns out, Briskman’s district includes a certain golf course owned by a certain president.

“Isn’t that sweet justice?” she asked, her cackle suggesting that she knew the answer to her own question.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...5a8_story.html

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

This speaks for itself....

Karma.

with trump, everything is a self-serving scam....

TRUMP CAMPAIGN'S MEAL CONTESTS ARE 'OUT-AND-OUT FRAUD' IF NOBODY WINS, SAYS EX-WHITE HOUSE LAWYER

f the Trump 2020 campaign is holding phony contests to raise money by offering a prize of meeting President Donald Trump that is not honored then it is "out-and-out fraud," a former White House lawyer said, and could lead to prosecutions.


The Popular Information newsletter reported that the Trump campaign has held 15 contests since 2018 offering the prize, which includes a meal, travel and hotel expenses, and a photo with Trump for the winning donor.


Other campaigns have used the same cash-raising tactic, including those of Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. These contests are typically followed up with an announcement of a winner and images from the meal.


But there appears to be little, if any, public evidence of any winners to date of the Trump campaign's contests, raising questions about who has won the prizes.


When asked for comment, Kayleigh McEnany, national press secretary for Trump 2020, directed Newsweek to a tweet by the campaign's communications director, Tim Murtaugh. "People win the contests each time," Murtaugh tweeted, without elaborating further.


Newsweek asked McEnany if any public photos or statements about the contest winners were put out by the campaign and, if not, why? McEnany did not respond.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-2020-...d-meal-1470100

Republicans are struggling to find a unified defense as they shift their ever-changing arguments about why President Donald Trump's actions are not impeachable, amid damaging testimony from senior diplomats that Trump sought to condition US military aid to Ukraine on opening investigations into his political rivals.What once was a frequently repeated mantra -- there was no quid pro quo -- has now morphed into a multi-pronged and sometimes disjointed defense, with Republicans each taking the job into their own hands, hoping to fight back against the allegations raised daily with the release of new transcripts.

Republicans across the Capitol have resorted to attacking the firsthand knowledge of witnesses, muddying the waters with calls to name the whistleblower and even seeking to discredit the Trump administration's ability to be organized enough to execute a scheme to use military aid in order to advance its own political agenda.

"What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward Ukraine: It was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to, they seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo, so no I find the whole process to be a sham and I'm not going to legitimize it," Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters Wednesday.

The shifting strategy comes as a tidal wave of new information emerges from transcripts of key witnesses including US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who surprised lawmakers by amending his testimony and who made things more complicated for Republicans.

"That is Sondland's opinion," said Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, of Sondland's revised testimony. "These are all folks' opinions."

Sondland and the top US diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, both said they came to believe that any White House meeting with Ukraine's President or US military aid for Ukraine's government was tied to an announcement that the country would investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

"That was my clear understanding, security assistance money would not come until the President committed to pursue the investigation," Taylor told congressional investigators, according to the transcript.

New avenues of defense in the House

The transcripts have corroborated key points made in the whistleblower's initial complaint, but Republicans have also argued they've provided new avenues to poke holes in the Democrats' case.
Republicans seized on the fact that Taylor -- a career diplomat -- never talked directly to Trump about what the rationalization for withholding the aid. Republicans also touted testimony from former US Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who told investigators that he wasn't aware a quid pro quo existed.

"You asked what conversations did I have about a quid pro quo ... none because I didn't know there was a quid pro quo," Volker testified.

Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a top ally of Trump's, touted Volker's testimony and said it was only getting "easier" to defend the President.
"It's actually getting easier," Meadows said.

Republicans have also argued that some witnesses have done little more than offer their opinions.

Republicans say that in Sondland's amended testimony where the ambassador said he recalled speaking with a top Zelensky aide and saying the "resumption of US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the anti-corruption statement we had been discussing for many weeks" that it was just Sondland's opinion.

"He said he was making a presumption ... that's in his statement," the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, told reporters Wednesday.

But while Republicans are seizing on Volker's testimony to defend the President, there are signs that the former envoy wasn't aware of key conversations related to the US aid and investigations.

Volker testified that the Ukrainians were unaware that the aid was being held up until late August, when the push had already been dropped for them to open an investigation into Burisma and the 2016 election. But Sondland testified that he had told a top aide to Zelensky on September 1 that his understanding was in order for the military aid to be released, the Ukrainian had to announce investigations into Trump's political rivals, undercutting a key Republican talking point.

In the Senate

Across the Capitol, Senate Republicans' views are also evolving. While Vice President Mike Pence urged Republicans in a closed-door lunch Tuesday to lean on the transcript as evidence that there was no quid pro quo, some Republican senators have focused instead on arguing the President's actions have been problematic but are far from impeachable.

"The Senate will face the question of whether that's an impeachable offense. And I don't think the American people are going to conclude that it is," said Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi.
Others have suggested it's not the Senate's role to defend Trump at every turn, as lawmakers will act in the role of jurors if the impeachment effort moves to a Senate trial.

"I think on the Senate side of the building, the best thing for us to do is to let the facts get assembled and try to figure out what they mean," said Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican in leadership from Missouri.
Several Republicans have avoided answering questions about whether it's OK for Trump to ask Ukraine to probe his rivals.

One, Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona, took the long route -- around the Capitol and around parked cars -- to avoid cameras. Her aide stepped in front to say: "No comment."

Next week, Republicans will once again adapt to a changing landscape in the impeachment probe. They'll have to defend the President in public hearings after House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff announced Taylor, State Department official George Kent and former US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will testify.

"Those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves and make their own determinations about the credibility," the California Democrat said Wednesday.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/polit...ent/index.html

Democrats’ claim of victory Tuesday in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, as well as the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature, left Republicans stumbling and increasingly uncertain about their own political fates next year tied to an embattled and unpopular president.

Many allies of President Trump rushed to explain away the poor performance of incumbent Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) as an anomaly, while other GOP veterans expressed alarm about the party’s failure in a state where Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016 — and where he just campaigned this week.

Although Bevin was controversial and widely disliked, he was also a devotee of the president, embracing Trump’s agenda and his anti-establishment persona. And in the contest’s final days, Bevin sought to cast his candidacy as a bulwark against House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But Bevin’s attempt to nationalize his cause by stoking conservative grievances about the impeachment process was not enough to overcome his problems, nor was Trump’s raucous rally for the governor on Monday — raising questions about Trump’s political strength as he faces a barrage of challenges and a difficult path to reelection.

The outcome — with Democrat Andy Beshear claiming victory with a lead of several thousand votes and Bevin refusing to concede — underscored how Republicans are struggling to navigate choppy political waters as the 2020 campaign now begins in earnest. Trump continues to dominate the party, but many lawmakers are uneasy about their ability to defend his conduct and hold on to suburban support.

Yet few Republicans are willing to even lightly criticize Trump because they widely believe they will need his voters’ backing and enthusiasm to survive next year.

Still, the Kentucky defeat has sparked concern among the party’s donors and many longtime GOP leaders who are worried that the nonstop twists of the House impeachment inquiry and Trump’s growing fury are making it increasingly difficult for Republicans to make a clear and compelling case to voters.

Democratic successes Tuesday in the vote-rich suburbs of Philadelphia were also cited as another example of Republican trouble in Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016. In the critical Delaware County suburbs, Democrats held on to all five seats on the county council and the party also did well in local races in nearby Bucks County.

“Taking a step back from KY and looking at all the elections last night, GOP should be most concerned about what happened in local elections in Chester, Delaware and Bucks County, PA,” Josh Holmes, a McConnell confidant and political strategist, tweeted. “That is genuinely alarming if you know the voting history.”

Robert Costa on Post Reports: ‘So many suburban voters, just as we saw in 2018, remain hesitant about the GOP. And President Trump’s base is turning now.’

Former Pennsylvania congressman Ryan Costello, a moderate Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs, said “there appears to be an electoral realignment in the suburbs” and warned Republicans to take notice.

“Republicans aren’t leaning in on the issues that affect suburban, affluent voters like gun safety and the environment,” Costello said. “Plus, Trump is not a benefit but a burden. That forces Republicans to have to ask voters to really hear them out on issues like taxes and school safety even if those voters don’t like Trump and that’s not easy.”

“It was a rough night,” said Scott Reed, the chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “The Republican Party is lacking message discipline, and that needs to be addressed. There is a lot of positive news around President Trump’s governing on the economy, on regulations and judges, and it seems to be overwhelmed by the drama.”

Republicans wake to a blue Virginia

“It’s a definite shot across the bow, even though Republicans picked up the state attorney general position in Kentucky,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, referring to Republican Daniel Cameron, who became the first African American to win that office. “But losing the governorship is a smack at both Mitch McConnell and the president, sending up a cautionary note.”

Steele added, “Just because Trump shows up doesn’t mean an automatic win anymore.”

Allies of McConnell, the Senate majority leader, argued that Bevin’s loss did not indicate any looming trouble for him, who is up for reelection in 2020 and is working to hold the Senate GOP together amid the impeachment debate.

“Republicans won every office on the ballot except [Bevin’s],” Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell adviser, tweeted. “Some unique candidate problems. GOP brand was fine elsewhere.”

Early Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted, “Based on the Kentucky results, [McConnell] will win BIG in Kentucky next year!”

Some Republicans, however, also viewed Beshear’s appeals to moderation as a sign that Republicans cannot take red-state races for granted.

Instead of drifting to the left, the son of former governor Steve Beshear railed against Bevin’s divisive style and his attempts to slow the expansion of Medicaid under former president Barack Obama’s health-care law.

“Republicans look at that and say, ‘Anything could be competitive if the Democrats are going to be on their games like they were with Beshear here,’ ” said former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (R). “You’re seeing Democrats building on what they did in 2018, running more moderate candidates and making sure those candidates are financed.”

In a statement, Democratic Governors Association Chair Gina Raimondo congratulated Andy Beshear.

“Governor-Elect Andy Beshear will restore decency to Frankfort and has spent his career lifting up every single Kentuckian,” she said. “Tonight’s victory is a major pickup for Democrats and a massive rejection of Bevin’s record of stoking chaos, undermining public education, and trying to gut health care coverage.”

On Monday night — less than 12 hours before the polls opened — Trump appeared at a rally in Lexington, Ky., to support Bevin but also made sure the crowd knew his own reputation was on the line.

“If you lose, they will say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world,” said Trump, pointing at a bank of news cameras. “You can’t let that happen to me, and you can’t let that happen to your incredible state.”

Trump’s campaigning fared better in deep-red Mississippi, where Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) defeated Democratic attorney general Jim Hood on Tuesday in that state’s governor’s race.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in an interview prior to the race being called that campaigns in the Deep South, including the Mississippi gubernatorial contest, have drawn attention because both parties are giving them serious attention and fielding candidates with the ability to win statewide.

In late 2017, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) won a special election for U.S. Senate, giving Democrats hope of a comeback in similar states.

“We had two statewide officials running against each other and we haven’t had that in years,” Wicker said. He dismissed the suggestion that Trump’s standing could diminish. “If this race was about Trump, it’d be a 60-40 race” in Republicans’ favor.

When asked if Democrats are figuring out ways to do better in the South, Jones said earlier Tuesday: “We’re doing that, that’s pretty obvious with the way things are going. Democrats speak to voters in the South more than they have in the last two generations.”

The gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi came one year after Democrats made major inroads in statehouses, including flipping seven governorships and more than 400 state legislative seats. Many of those gains were in Midwestern or coastal states that formed the backbone of the backlash to Trump in the 2018 midterm elections. Louisiana also holds a runoff election Nov. 16 to decide the governor’s race there.

In 2016, Trump carried Kentucky by about 30 points, Louisiana by about 20 points and Mississippi by about 17 points.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), reflecting the views of several Senate Republicans on Tuesday, said he did not see Kentucky as a bellwether for 2020 even if the president was making it sound that way during his remarks at Monday’s rally.

“It’s not a national race except in the sense the president wants to make it about him,” Cornyn said. “Nobody likes to lose, but I wouldn’t call it a bellwether for 2020. Look, if the Democrats elect Elizabeth Warren as their nominee, I think it’s going to come at a price for them.”

“Bevin’s got his own problems,” Cornyn said. “That’s unrelated to national politics.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c58_story.html

Well what a surprise. Bevin is claiming "Voter Fraud". Without any fucking evidence whatsoever, as per fucking usual with these Republican wankers.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin — the governor with the lowest approval ratings in the country — isn't giving up. After refusing to concede to his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear, Bevin's campaign requested a formal recanvass, with Bevin claiming there were a number of "significant irregularities" in the vote count process.

In what his campaign had billed as a press conference, Bevin declined to take any questions from the press, insisting everything he had to say is everything he knows. Bevin said he expects the recanvass -- which is not the same as a recount -- to take place Nov. 14.

"What we know is that there really are a number of significant irregularities, the specifics of which we're in the process of getting affidavits, and other information that will help us to get a better understanding of what did or did not happen," Bevin said in his statement late Wednesday afternoon. "Those will be forthcoming in the days ahead."

Originally Posted by Cujo

Totally corrupt.

Completely.

Imagine if he was judged by the same standard Obama was.

oops, solly, dp.

The only reason Trump is the president today is because the majority of American voters were disillusioned with the presidents who preceded him.

Nothing to do with whether he could do the job or not, people just wanted change for the sake of it.

I also was from the start interested to see whether a real estate salesman could take over the most powerful job on this planet and make a go of it.

Obviously what everyone feared could happen has happened and the experiment has failed.

If Trump has any common sense and decency left he should hold his hands up to the American people and say thanks for the opportunity but I'm going back to do what I'm good at. The sooner the better before he fucks up things even more.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

If Trump has any common sense and decency left he should hold his hands up to the American people and say thanks for the opportunity but I'm going back to do what I'm good at. The sooner the better before he fucks up things even more.

Sorry LT, but

Thats why we call it a conditional question...

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

The only reason Trump is the president today is because the majority of American voters were disillusioned with the presidents who preceded him.

The majority voted against him.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

The only reason Trump is the president today is because the majority of American voters were disillusioned with the presidents who preceded him.

Not even close LT.

Only 26.5% of the electorate voted for baldy orange cunto.

What got him in was that the a huge amount of Democrat voters either did not like Clinton or did not like what the party did to Bernie.

The real reason is Clinton was just such a bad candidate.

Originally Posted by Cujo

The real reason is Clinton was just such a bad candidate.

Well yeah but she still got more votes than the orange turd.