Trump addresses Congress (2-28)- Doper real-time commentary thread

[jshore]

@iiandyiiii

My main point is that this rhetorical shift (unless it totally reverses) shows that the ACA really was a game-changer, and an enormous progressive success. Even if it’s repealed, some of its most important elements will probably stick around for good, at least based on Republican rhetoric.

I agree with you in the sense that the success of ACA (despite its problems and the refusal of Republicans to allow us to fix any problems, since they only want to get rid of it) has raised the bar higher. There will hopefully be hell to pay if a lot of people lose their insurance under the Republican plan.

[The_Stainless_Steel_Rat]

@Bryan_Ekers

Trump tweet: I almost think that were I to win some small success now I could become Dictator or anything else that might please me—but nothing of that kind would please me—therefore I won’t be Dictator. Admirable self-denial!

In the interests of reporting the facts, I don’t believe that Trump said that; it was said (or words to that effect) by General George B. McClellan in 1862, after his rapid promotion to Commander of the Union Armies in the Civil War (note: didn’t quite work out for him).

As to the speech, I haven’t and don’t plan to listen to it; platitudes and bombast are to be expected, and apparently Trump did as well as could be expected. The proof of the pudding is in the actual actions taken, and we’ll see what the coming months bring.

[RTFirefly]

@ThelmaLou

So this time Uncle Harold came to Sunday dinner WITHOUT his underpants on his head and we’re ready to declare him normal?

The bar is so low that the fact that Trump didn’t make an idiot of himself (IOW did not behave like himself) is cause for general celebration. Sad.

Exactly. Why, he didn’t foam at the mouth once! How fucking Presidential!

What a worthless media we have.

[VinylTurnip]

@jshore

Well, you standing up and cheering might reveal more about your failings than Obama’s. Even Trump’s new National Security Advisor advises against using the term.

On NPR this morning, Trump mouthpiece Sebastian “Punchable Voice” Gorka claimed that the press were reporting this inaccurately, that McMaster was referring specifically to ISIS fighters, and not to the global fight against jihadis in general, which absolutely was a war against radical Islamic terror. The reader is free to decide whether or not this explanation makes any sense, or whether Gorka is a credible figure or more full of shit than a port-a-john at a chili cookoff.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@The_Stainless_Steel_Rat

In the interests of reporting the facts, I don’t believe that Trump said that

Of course not - it’s far too articulate.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@VinylTurnip

On NPR this morning, Trump mouthpiece Sebastian “Punchable Voice” Gorka claimed that the press were reporting this inaccurately, that McMaster was referring specifically to ISIS fighters, and not to the global fight against jihadis in general, which absolutely was a war against radical Islamic terror. The reader is free to decide whether or not this explanation makes any sense, or whether Gorka is a credible figure or more full of shit than a port-a-john at a chili cookoff.

This is the same Sebastian Gorka who threatened to take legal action against a reporter if said reporter didn’t quit tweeting mean things about him?

[Velocity]

@iiandyiiii

Yes, though they are all essentially agreeing that companies will be barred from dropping or preventing customers due to pre-existing conditions. That’s one of the most important parts of the ACA, and it’s a big progressive victory that the Republicans are agreeing with it.

Be that as it may, I think it is fair to require insurance companies to insure patients with preexisting conditions, but it is not necessarily fair to require them to pay for certain preexisting injuries, etc. If I am uninsured, and break a leg, and *then *buy insurance, it’s not fair to make the insurer pay for the injury, any more than it is fair for me to be an uninsured driver, get in a car wreck, buy Geico insurance and *then *demand that Geico pay for the wreck.

[ThelmaLou]

Sensible analysis from The Atlantic.

…Trump worked his way through more than an hour of television without insulting or demeaning anyone. He did not mention his crowd sizes, argue about his vote margin, or attack the press. Although he again trafficked in misleading or deceptive statements, he eschewed outright lies.
…

These limited but real accomplishments elicited a barrage of praise from cable and social media commentators last night. Donald Trump: presidential at last!

In the light of morning, it’s time for a colder review. Trump did achieve something last night, and something important. But he failed to achieve three other things that are even more important to his presidency—and those three failures will matter much more in the days ahead.

The first failure: There’s still no coherent agenda…
…

The second failure: There’s still no plan to build a majority coalition to support a Trump program…
…

The third failure: The scandals accumulate unanswered…
…

But here, too, the gamble is: Plunge ahead and hope that nothing too damaging comes to light. Through his long business career of big risks, big failures, and big recoveries, that gambling instinct has propelled Donald Trump forward. It makes sense that he manages his presidency the same way. But never before has he faced such dangerous consequences if his gamble goes wrong. And this time, the people who will pay such consequences are not only Donald Trump’s unfortunate investors, lenders, suppliers, and workers—but the whole of this great nation and its truest friends abroad.

Each point is detailed in the article.

[ThelmaLou]

Missed edit window.

Does anyone have a sense of how the Trumpniks are reacting to last night’s “normal” performance from their hero? Are they glad he behaved like a grown-up or do they feel he has sold out to the grown-ups and turned into one of them (even if only temporarily)?

[QuickSilver]

@VinylTurnip

On NPR this morning, Trump mouthpiece Sebastian “Punchable Voice” Gorka claimed that the press were reporting this inaccurately, that McMaster was referring specifically to ISIS fighters, and not to the global fight against jihadis in general, which absolutely was a war against radical Islamic terror. The reader is free to decide whether or not this explanation makes any sense, or whether Gorka is a credible figure or more full of shit than a port-a-john at a chili cookoff.

Gorka is a smacked ass.

[drad_dog]

Am I wrong or did Trump say that murder was at a 50 year high last night? Hasn’t this been debunked for a long time?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Rick_Kitchen

This is the same Sebastian Gorka who threatened to take legal action against a reporter if said reporter didn’t quit tweeting mean things about him?

From the linked story:

Mr Gorka was arrested in January last year when he tried to pass through a security checkpoint at Reagan National Airport in Washington DC with a loaded handgun.

[UDS]

@drad_dog

Am I wrong or did Trump say that murder was at a 50 year high last night? Hasn’t this been debunked for a long time?

No, he said . . .

“The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century”

. . . which is apparently correct. The long-term trend has been downwards, but in 2015 there was an uptick.

[running_coach]

@UDS

No, he said . . .

“The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century”

. . . which is apparently correct. The long-term trend has been downwards, but in 2015 there was an uptick.

Feb 7, 2017Rated: False.

“The murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right?” Trump said. “Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that – I’d say that in a speech and everybody was surprised, because the press doesn’t tell it like it is. It wasn’t to their advantage to say that. But the murder rate is the highest it’s been in, I guess, from 45 to 47 years.”

However, there’s a difference between saying the country’s largest cities experienced their biggest annual increase in homicides in more than four decades (as Trump said during the debate) and saying that the country is experiencing its highest murder rate overall in more than four decades (as he told the sheriffs).

[jshore]

@UDS

No, he said . . .

“The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century”

. . . which is apparently correct. The long-term trend has been downwards, but in 2015 there was an uptick.

Here is an article with a nice graph that puts that uptick in context: Reality Check: Is Trump right on US murder rate? - BBC News While there was indeed a significant uptick, the murder rate (murders per inhabitant) is still lower than it has been in all years since 1965 except for 2010-2014.

[UDS]

@running_coach

Feb 7, 2017Rated: False.

Yes. Trump has previously lied about this, but what he said in his address to Congress yesterday was true (if not terribly meaningful).

[BigAppleBucky]

Limericking‏ @Limericking
A populist racist in power
Whose attitude’s typically dour
Won praise from the press
Across the US
By toning it down for an hour.

[Johnny_Ace]

It’s bullshit statistical games with numbers to make things sound far worse than they really are; otherwise we wouldn’t need Big Daddy Dictator to save us from the crime-ridden streets. Let’s just make this clear.

United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2015

In the bottom half of that page, from the sixth column (Murder), the rate per 100K population is quoted from FBI crime reports for each year listed:

2014 had the lowest murder rate on the entire chart, at 4.4 per 100K. The highest was 10.2, in 1980.
In 2015, the murder rate increased to 4.9 per 100K, an increase of 0.5, or a little over 11.3%, and the ninth-lowest rate over that same 56 years.

Here’s where the games come in: if the same increase had occurred from 1980 to 1981, it would have been only a 4.9% increase.
To put this into perspective, the average annual murder rate over those 56 years was 7.1 per 100K. To see the actual distribution, check out the page I cited.

Trump is quoting the percentage as if it’s really bad when in fact it’s nowhere near as bad as he wants you to think.

[Steve_MB]

@QuickSilver

Nor do I believe they will be effective in negotiating lower drug, healthcare and health insurance costs nationally

Teh Donald has already folded like a cheap suit on that after this meeting:

PhRMA CEO: Ooooooh, piss boy! (fingersnap)
Donald: YessirWhateverYouSaySirRightAwaySir!!!

[ThelmaLou]

Pundits are treating Trump like theater. They should learn from the real critics.
http://wapo.st/2lU84EV

A theater critic offers advice on how to view the show Trump is staging:

On Wednesday, as a wave of positiveheadlines describingPresident Trump’s first address to Congress rolled in, Slate chief political correspondent Jamelle Bouie tweeted in disgust, “This morning is a good reminder that so much of what passes for political analysis is just theater criticism.” On behalf of critics everywhere, I take aminor amount of umbrage: After all, we generally set higher standards for performances than “basic competence,” and we tend to address style as well as substance. But given that his real point is that the pundits who praised Trump seemed to be falling for mere optics, maybe political commentators could stand to take a few tips from those of us who practice criticism for a living.

1. When someone doesn’t tell the truth, the reason for the distortion matters as much as the distortion itself…
2. The presidency is a season of television, not an episode… Watching analysts treat a single speech as evidence of a major pivotis like watching a critic who hasn’t been slogging through that mediocre run of a show tune in for a single decent episode and declare on the evidence of that one hour that the whole thing is a masterpiece.

… The test of whether Trump has found a way to be presidential … is not whether he can do it for one night, but whether he can do it for years.

3.Remember that different actors may be trying to do different things, particularly in the absence of a director or showrunner…analyzing the address as a piece of theater requires critics to remember that every personthere has their own motivations and is making their own contributions to the unfolding script of the evening.