Thread: President Donald Trump

the West Wing was a ridiculous self-righteous Hollywood PC tv show, perfect for snowflakes, and for another time

the current shitshow in the WH is 1000% better and more entertaining and in line with reality,

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

An absurdist comedy with characters playing parodies of parodies.

VEEP couldn't come up with more ridiculous storylines. They gave up trying.

Originally Posted by Cujo

Actually it was to divert attention from the whole 'at Pompeos request I fired the inspector general that was investigating Pompeo for illegaly bypassing congress and approving a 500 million dollar sale of arms to Saudi Arabia' thing.
Seems to have worked spectacularly. There are so many of these scandalous statements and scandals that things quickly fade into the background.

Exactly right Cujo. The real news on the Saudi deal has been swept far back. Checks and balances in the USA are not working, especially with more and more IG's getting replaced by yes men. It is a said state of affairs.

Originally Posted by Cujo

Actually it was to divert attention from the whole 'at Pompeos request I fired the inspector general that was investigating Pompeo for illegaly bypassing congress and approving a 500 million dollar sale of arms to Saudi Arabia' thing.
Seems to have worked spectacularly. There are so many of these scandalous statements and scandals that things quickly fade into the background.

In my opinion you are on to something here.

Others would call you a conspiracy nutter.

Originally Posted by Cujo

I fired the inspector general

he has now fired about 5 for daring to look under the rocks

Haven't heard a thing about Jeffrey Epstein's cohorts in awhile. AG Barr seems to have swept that under the rug just like I said would happen in my Epstein thread. Leslie Wexner is going to skate again.

Is he more dickhead or asshole, I can't decide.

Donald Trump defied requests from company executives and was called a “petulant child” by a state attorney general when he refused to wear a face mask during a visit to Michigan, a battleground state where he has repeatedly clashed with the Democratic governor, and on Thursday used a speech to urge American churches to reopen amid the pandemic.

Trump toured a plant belonging to the Ford car company, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which has been recast to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment to use in the coronavirus crisis.

Surrounded by Ford executives who were wearing masks, Trump told reporters he had put one on earlier, out of the view of cameras.

“I had one on before. I wore one in the back area. I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,” Trump said.

When asked if Trump was told it was acceptable not to wear a mask in the plant, the Ford executive chairman, Bill Ford, said, “It’s up to him.” The company had indicated prior to the visit that the president should wear a mask at the factory.

And the Michigan state attorney general, Dana Nessel, had written to the White House saying it was the law in Michigan that everyone should wear a mask in such a setting – an indoor venue with many people in attendance.

“The president is like a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke,” she told CNN, adding that Trump’s behavior was “extremely disappointing” and that thousands of people in Michigan have died from coronavirus.


The US death toll on Thursday surpassed 94,000 and there are more than 1.5m confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the nation.

Trump said he tested negative for Covid-19 on Thursday morning, but within the last week two senior White House aides have tested positive, and the president has been taking the drug hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic.

This despite it being not proven for treating the coronavirus and garnering stern warnings from federal regulators and the World Health Organization that it should not be taken for coronavirus outside clinical trials.

Earlier in the visit to the state, Trump held a roundtable discussion with African-American leaders concerning vulnerable populations disproportionately hit by the virus.

Trump has consistently disregarded guidance from the top federal public health experts, both urging people to wear masks in close company and urging states not to rush to reopen while the coronavirus is not under control in the US.

But the president continued his pressure for states to reopen for business nonetheless and on Thursday, at the discussion with African-American leaders, urged the swift reopening of churches for in-person religious services.

He appeared to put pressure on the leading federal agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when he told the roundtable: “We are opening our churches again. I think the CDC is going to put something out very soon, spoke to them today. I think they are going to put something out very soon. We got to open our churches.”

But he later acknowledged that if he held political rallies again soon they would be outdoors.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has clashed in recent weeks with Trump over statewide social restrictions to limit coronavirus, and moves towards mail-in voting during the pandemic, prevailed Thursday in a high-stakes challenge from Republican lawmakers over her stay-at-home orders.

She was sued by the Republican controlled state legislature who disputed the extent of her authority to declare emergencies in Michigan, such as the coronavirus crisis, and mandate the reach and duration of restrictions as a result. The legislature will now appeal, although Whitmer is now moving to gradual reopening.

Trump goes without mask at Michigan Ford plant despite company request | US news | The Guardian

Trump's going to be apoplectic.
At 5.30 she's asked what her response is to trump saying he didn't wear a mask because he didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing him wear one.
She says "he's a ridiculous person and she's ashamed to have him as president"

I like the opening shot and the Ford Banner relating to masks!

Originally Posted by SKkin

Haven't heard a thing about Jeffrey Epstein's cohorts in awhile. AG Barr seems to have swept that under the rug just like I said would happen in my Epstein thread. Leslie Wexner is going to skate again.

There are always other more important issues the population is to be informed of...(and kept "outraged")

BTW, for long I haven't seen the term "International community"... (that is also always very outraged by some issues)

oops,do, solly

2/6

---

Before we get into the details, consider the timing of this move

It's hard to think of a time in living memory when independent oversight was more important for America.
Impropriety and incompetence are everywhere you look.

In the past six weeks, Donald Trump has ousted five inspectors-general.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


The Trump administration and state governors are under intense scrutiny over their failure to act swiftly and effectively during the crucial early stages of the pandemic, which modelling suggests cost at least 36,000 lives.
To cope with the economic collapse, the Federal Government has already borrowed $US3 trillion ($4.5 trillion) from the nation's children and grandchildren, with more eye-popping stimulus on the way.


And already there have been problems.

• At least $US1.5 billion, intended to help small businesses struggling with the coronavirus, was snaffled up by publicly listed companies, which were given preferential treatment to apply by banks which collected larger processing fees as a result.

• And then there's the seizure of Republican Senate intelligence committee chair Richard Burr's phone in an FBI investigation into his dumping of $US1.7 million worth of stocks before the markets tumbled.

• Fury over a $US700 billion taxpayer bailout for "too-big-to-fail" companies after the 2008 financial crisis, which funded lavish bonuses for bankers and traders, helped spawn the Tea Party movement, which in part led to Trump's election.

Who knows where this latest, much bigger, round of murky stimulus will lead in the years to come

3/6

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Oversight is scarce. Trump is cutting it back even more

Right now, we don't even have a good mechanism for understanding whether fraud is being committed on a grand scale.
As part of the latest stimulus legislation, an oversight board was established with broad scope to sniff out "fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement".

Named the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), its membership includes inspectors-general, who were tasked with alerting the public about anything improper in the public health and economic response to the crisis.

In the past few weeks, three of the committee's watchdogs have been fired: Mitch Behm from the Transportation Department, Christi Grimm of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon's Glenn Fine.

Behm was investigating a possible conflict of interest; Grimm had reported severe shortages of medical supplies in hospitals; Fine was heading the group overseeing the massive stimulus package.

Trump claimed he had to act after receiving "reports of bias".

"We have a lot of IGs from the Obama era," he said on Tuesday


Former Justice Department inspector-general Michael Bromwich told Reuters it was akin to "a reign of terror" unleashed on the IG community at a time when they're more needed than ever.

"That is bad for everyone, but it's worse for the public," he said.

4/6

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The firings aren't limited to coronavirus matters

And yet, the sacking of these three inspectors-general are not even the most controversial.
State Department inspector-general Steve Linick had been investigating several matters involving the department head, Mike Pompeo.

Donald Trump claims he fired State Department inspector-general Steve Linick at Mike Pompeo's request.
(Reuters: Carlos Barria)

The Secretary of State had been accused of misusing taxpayer-funded staff by directing them to pick up his dry-cleaning and walk the family dog, Sherman.

It's a relatively trivial, but potentially embarrassing, allegation.
But Linick was also looking into a much more serious matter: whether the Trump administration had unlawfully declared an "emergency" last year that enabled Pompeo to bypass a congressional ban on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.

The declaration was made in the aftermath of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a time when Riyadh was dropping American bombs on Yemen, contributing greatly to the world's worst humanitarian crisis.



Trump claimed he'd never even heard of the inspector-general.
So why did he sack him?
"I was asked to by the State Department, by Mike [Pompeo]," he said when pressed this week.


The Secretary of State, under investigation on several fronts, simply asked the President to sack the man leading the inquiries and it was done.

Pompeo has said he didn't know he was under investigation, claiming Linick had to go because he wasn't "performing a function" that was "additive" to the state department.

Others claim it was because of unauthorised disclosures, or leaks.

5/6

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Republicans keep quiet about the purge

The fact that the fifth sacking, a few weeks ago, surprised no-one, doesn't make it any less disturbing.
Michael Atkinson was the intelligence community inspector-general who lit the spark that ended in the President's impeachment and ultimate acquittal in the Senate.

Atkinson was just carrying out his duty, as the law required, to report the Ukraine whistleblower complaint to congress.
Trump saw it as unacceptable disloyalty.

Only one Republican has spoken out strongly against the President's purge. He's the same sole Republican who voted in favour of impeaching Trump.

"The firings of multiple inspectors-general is unprecedented; doing so without good cause chills the independence essential to their purpose," wrote senator Mitt Romney on Twitter.

"It is a threat to accountable democracy and a fissure in the constitutional balance of power."

6/6

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Trump's legacy is already set in stone

The President has every right to remove an inspector-general for any reason whatsoever.
No doubt, there may be some bias among the crop appointed by Barack Obama.

But presidents usually grit their teeth and bear it, in the knowledge that every administration will cop criticism in the name of accountability, with voters making the final call.


Government watchdogs were appointed to agencies to ensure oversight after Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal ended his presidency.(Wikimedia Commons: Ollie Atkins, White House)

In 1981, president Ronald Reagan moved to fire IGs installed by his Democratic predecessor Jimmy Carter, but a political uproar forced him to rehire several of them. Obama fired one IG to great bipartisan backlash, and he never tried it again.

We're so immune to the constant uproar under Trump, this "scandal" was easy to miss.

But it represents yet another brutal assault on the checks and balances that have helped keep the US Government accountable to its employer: the taxpayer.

There will be a time when Trump is no longer president

But his legacy is already carved in stone.

It'll take a bold, scrupulous and popular president to resist copying the Trump playbook to avoid hard-edged scrutiny.

... ends

Originally Posted by panama hat

Trump said his last c-19 test was very positive . . . then had one brainfart after another trying to say that it was a really good positive but not a positive because the test was negative


. . . seriously, people go apoplectic when Biden fluffs a line

This guy seriously is a cretin

We’re so, so very fucked.

everything is fine, Trump is handling it like a Champ

not sure why you guys are all being triggered by minor shit that Trump does, it's not like he is responsible for anything or can do anything

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

everything is fine, Trump is handling it like a Champ

not sure why you guys are all being triggered by minor shit that Trump does, it's not like he is responsible for anything or can do anything

He's responsible for the shit that comes out of his mouth you monumental retard.

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

everything is fine, Trump is handling it like a Champ

U.S. Coronavirus Cases:

1,621,196

Deaths:

96,359

Originally Posted by Cujo

He's responsible for the shit that comes out of his mouth you monumental retard.

Stop taking the shit troll seriously. He's a babbling fucking idiot.

So the fat bald orange cunto wears his mask until the press are around so he can show the trumpanzees that he "isn't scared" or something.

The utter fucking wanker.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

So the fat bald orange cunto wears his mask until the press are around so he can show the trumpanzees that he "isn't scared" or something.

The utter fucking wanker.

Well he actually said he didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing him in it.
Which, whichever way you cut it, whatever the REAL reason may be is a very very stupid thing to say.
As the Michigan A,G, said, he's a ridiculous person.