The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[The_Tooth]

@Jack_Batty

I keep getting this Spock’s Beard vibe. Like I’ve teleported to a parallel universe where it’s a given that United States presidents are greasy real estate crooks who hire reality television personalities and Fox ‘News’ executives and run their administrations in such a way that everyone records everyone and backstabbing is common place as amoral underlings compete to be the most corrupt in an effort to get closer to the boss.

And that’s just the way it is, I suppose until I do whatever it was that Kirk did to get back from Crazy Land.

I figure once David Bowie died they just decided to let the simulation run its course because what’s the point? We’re all just abandoned Sims.

[enipla]

@elucidator

Kirk caught Evil Spock with a logical contradiction, which caused his brain to spazz out and provoke a fit of Vulcan mating frenzy, the zen fooey. Least, that’s how I remember it.

If I remember, it went something like this - “I cannot tell a lie. This is a lie.”

[Little_Nemo]

@DesertDog

I’m not sure what part of the Constitution charges the Republicans – or any other political party – to represent American national interests. I’m pretty sure without looking that the Socialist Workers Party was somewhat deficient in that regard as well.

Doesn’t mean I’m not vexed with the bastards.

Article II, Section 1: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: “I do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Article VI, Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution

So I guess Republicans in general are not Constitutionally charged to represent American national interests. But any Republican who’s been elected to office is.

[Channing_Idaho_Banks]

Yeah, to the best of their abilities. That leaves a lot of wiggle room.

[Johnny_L.A]

@enipla

If I remember, it went something like this - “I cannot tell a lie. This is a lie.”

Now listen to this carefully, Norman: I am lying...

[dasmoocher]

@JRDelirious

Y’know what? A lot of those persons who got bit in the face by the leopard? Given the chance they’ll vote for the leopards again. They have internalized that the system is rigged to f*** them over, so they might as well vote to bring down the whole thing and “let God sort them out” on the other side of the cataclysm

I think the article has been posted on the SDMB before, but it addresses what you’re talking about in some sense:

This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson.
“In Hell’s Angels, the gonzo journalist wrote about left-behind people motivated only by “an ethic of total retaliation.” Sound familiar?”

Thompson observed that the Hells Angels were alienated from a changing America in which they felt left behind.

Most people read Hell’s Angels for the lurid stories of sex and drugs. But that misses the point entirely. What’s truly shocking about reading the book today is how well Thompson foresaw the retaliatory, right-wing politics that now goes by the name of Trumpism. After following the motorcycle guys around for months, Thompson concluded that the most striking thing about them was not their hedonism but their “ethic of total retaliation” against a technologically advanced and economically changing America in which they felt they’d been counted out and left behind. Thompson saw the appeal of that retaliatory ethic. He claimed that a small part of every human being longs to burn it all down, especially when faced with great and impersonal powers that seem hostile to your very existence. In the United States, a place of ever greater and more impersonal powers, the ethic of total retaliation was likely to catch on.

…

Trumpism, by contrast, operates on the presumption that ordinary people aren’t going to get any chance to rule no matter what they do, so they might as well piss off the political insiders using the only tool left available to them: the vote.

(My apologies if you were the one who first posted the article.)

[BigT]

@Jack_Batty

I keep getting this Spock’s Beard vibe. Like I’ve teleported to a parallel universe where it’s a given that United States presidents are greasy real estate crooks who hire reality television personalities and Fox ‘News’ executives and run their administrations in such a way that everyone records everyone and backstabbing is common place as amoral underlings compete to be the most corrupt in an effort to get closer to the boss.

And that’s just the way it is, I suppose until I do whatever it was that Kirk did to get back from Crazy Land.

He convinced Evil Spock to resist, and Evil Spock in turn helped him get back home.

This unfortunately is what led to the Mirror Universe in Deep Space Nine, where humans were effectively a slave race, because, while the Federation reformed, all the other species were still just as evil.

Fortunately, this evil universe seems to be confined to a single government, not all of them. And a good half of the country got transferred over.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Celidin

My theory is that Kelly wanted some place he “knew” was safe from being seen, overheard, or recorded. Because theoretically the Situation Room is the most secure one in that building.

Oops.

The theory that I find most plausible was that he simply wanted to get her as far away from Trump as possible. Because he knew she’d throw a fit and try to barge into Trumps office if he fired her from the chief of staff’s office, because they’re real close (the offices, not Trump and Omarosa…although maybe they were close too.)

@dasmoocher

I think the article has been posted on the SDMB before, but it addresses what you’re talking about in some sense:

This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson.
“In Hell’s Angels, the gonzo journalist wrote about left-behind people motivated only by “an ethic of total retaliation.” Sound familiar?”

(My apologies if you were the one who first posted the article.)

Interesting. Amazon just happened to have the Kindle version of that book on sale this weekend. I bought it but I haven’t cracked it yet,

[Little_Nemo]

@Channing_Idaho_Banks

Yeah, to the best of their abilities. That leaves a lot of wiggle room.

Resigning and having a competent person replace them is within all of their abilities. If that’s their best option, they should obey their oaths and take it.

[raventhief]

@dasmoocher

I think the article has been posted on the SDMB before, but it addresses what you’re talking about in some sense:

This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson.
“In Hell’s Angels, the gonzo journalist wrote about left-behind people motivated only by “an ethic of total retaliation.” Sound familiar?”

**(My apologies if you were the one who first posted the article.)

**
I think I was? A friend of mine sent it to me, and I read it and promptly posted it here. I may not have been the first though.

It explains a helluva lot though.

[Guest-starring_Id]

@Rick_Kitchen

Peter Strzok got fired this morning.

Stephen Miller’s uncle wrote a scathing piece for Politico about their immigrant family and Stephen’s lack of acknowledgement of it
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351

Maybe one of the most acerbically hilarious things that I have read in a very, very long time is bolded, below (which is about someone seeking help at the author’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society):

Politico article:
Before Donald Trump had started his political ascent promulgating the false story that Barack Obama was a foreign-born Muslim, while my nephew, Stephen, was famously recovering from the hardships of his high school cafeteria in Santa Monica, Joseph was a child on his own in Sudan in fear of being deported back to Eritrea to face execution for desertion.

Janitorial reference?

[Smapti]

@Loser Donald

Former executive producer of “The Apprentice” Mark Burnett “called to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa. I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have. She made it up. Look at her MANY recent quotes saying such wonderful and powerful things about me – a true Champion of Civil Rights – until she got fired. Omarosa had Zero credibility with the Media (they didn’t want interviews) when she worked in the White House. Now that she says bad about me, they will talk to her. Fake News!

A lot to unpack on this one.

1. This call definitely never happened. Loser Donald has a history of claiming someone “called” him to verify whatever lie he’s spinning at the moment (E.g., “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”) It’s pretty unlikely that a private citizen would just up and call the president’s private line, unprovoked, to tell him that the story he just heard on TV (because you know he was rage-watching Omarosa’s interview on MSNBC as he tweeted this) was untrue.

2. Loser Donald definitely used the N-word on the set of The Apprentice, or he wouldn’t be denying that there are tapes of him saying it instead of outright denying he said it.

3. “A true Champion of Civil Rights”? LOL. Loser Donald has been a racist his entire life just like his father was. He has a well-documented history of racist statements going back decades and thinks of everyone, including himself, in terms of ethnic stereotypes (he’s claimed in the past that he’s good with money because of his Scottish ancestry and hard-working because he’s German).

4. He’s now describing her firing in the passive tense because he got caught in a lie via Omarosa’s tape where he didn’t know Kelly fired her.

5. Most if not all of the things Omarosa is saying about him must be true for him to take such an active interest in trying to discredit her.

6. If everyone who’s worked for you turns around and starts making negative statements about you as soon as they’re no longer employed, it says more about you than it does of them.

[Steve_MB]

@smithsb

Dumbed down “intelligence” briefings.

Not dumbed down enough to keep up with His Dumbness:

Dumbed-Down Security Briefings Still Too Difficult for Trump to Read

When Donald Trump was elected president, it quickly became obvious that the traditional national-security briefing a person in his position receives daily would be well beyond his zone of proximal development. The briefings were slimmed down in length, chopped up into easy-to-digest bullet points, and decorated with lots of graphs and pictures. Alas, the Washington Post reports, even the kiddie version of the presidential brief has proven too challenging…

[ElvisL1ves]

Aw, damn, now I gotta boycott Sam Adams and not just Yuengling:

Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch was among a group of executives at a recent dinner with President Trump, where Koch praised recent federal tax code changes, saying that they’d allow Boston Beer Co. a level playing field against foreign brewing companies — and thus the ability to “kick their ass.” Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone was having none of that and took to Twitter to write, over a series of tweets, “I will never drink Sam Adam’s [sic] beer again! We need to hold these complicit profiteers of Trump’s white nationalist agenda accountable! Hey Jim Koch! While you were thanking Trump for your tax break, did you happen to express any concern for the families separated under his cruel and inhumane immigration enforcement policy?” Curtatone, a Democrat, has been mayor of Somerville since 2004. Since Trump took office, Curtatone has been outspoken about protecting Somerville’s status as a sanctuary city.

[Steve_MB]

@ElvisL1ves

Aw, damn, now I gotta boycott Sam Adams and not just Yuengling:

It would be kind of meaningless for me to declare a boycott of either of these “I’m afraid your cat has diabetes” brews.

[Gyrate]

Trump continues on the subject of Omarosa:

@The Donald

When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!

Yeah, it’s so unfair how you give someone a “break” by giving them a $180,000 per year job at the White House for no apparent reason or purpose and they turn out to be a “crazed, crying lowlife”. It’s not like the guy who hired her four times could possibly have any responsibility for any of what happened.

[DesertDog]

@Little_Nemo

So I guess Republicans in general are not Constitutionally charged to represent American national interests. But any Republican who’s been elected to office is.

Excellent point, but the number of elected Republicans to even the party hierarchy has to be quite low, never mind the great mass of registered voters. Would that they held their candidates to that standard, but I think that will not be any time soon.

[Rick_Kitchen]

So Donny called Omarosa “not smart”. How many black people’s intelligence has he disparaged now? And has he ever criticized a white person’s intelligence?

[Happy_Lendervedder]

Well, just looking at his tweets over the past two weeks: Three; LeBron James, Don Lemon and now Omarosa.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

@Happy_Lendervedder

Well, just looking at his tweets over the past two weeks: Three; LeBron James, Don Lemon and now Omarosa.

Then, of course, earlier this summer, calling Maxine Waters “extraordinarily low-IQ.”

He’s really hammering home the fact that he thinks black people are dumb, ain’t he?