There is an interesting new story about a bizarre practice by President Donald Trump who reportedly rips up material given to him despite the duty to preserve the documents under the Presidential Records Act. Two staffers have recounted how they were required to spend considerable time taping the documents back together to stay in compliance with the PRA. They reportedly complained about the duty for people making $60,000 a year. They were suddenly fired. This Humpy Dumpty duty raises some serious questions of federal violations.
Many years ago, I wrote an academic piece on Presidential Records Act, which called for expanded claims over presidential documents. See Jonathan Turley, Presidential Records and Popular Government: The Convergence of Constitutional and Property Theory in Claims of Control and Ownership of Presidential Records 88 Cornell Law Review 651-732 (2003). The premise of the piece challenged the view of presidents that they own such documents. Obviously, ripping up the documents is the ultimate claim of personal ownership. Staffers called it Trump’s “storage system.”
Many of these documents are treated as historical records under the PRA. They are to be handed over to the National Archives for preservation. If this account is true, there are serious questions of the violation of the federal law — just as deleting emails or other records would constitute such a violation.
Solomon Lartey, 54, worked for 30 years for the government and described the difficult task of putting these documents back together. Reginald Young Jr, a senior records management analyst, also confirmed the bizarre duty. He was also suddenly fired.
Typical liberal reply. You don’t agree with me so you must be a racist. It’s always the liberal that pulls out the race card. You either agree with me or you are a racist.
That is the way these people are, I Bob. They think they are better than the minorities and that the minorities can’t survive without their help. They promote racism every time they take a deep breath. They don’t care because it takes what is otherwise their dreary life and makes them feel good about themselves because they can feel that they are better than others.
It’s a funny way of climbing the ladder. Instead of climbing the ladder to the top they can stop on the second step and look at all those that haven’t reached the first.
Ralph Adamo,
I looked in the filters and saw that for whatever reason the spam trap snagged two of your comments. I restored both for you.
For Mr. Smith,
May peace and prosperity rain down from the heavens.
For Ralph,
Lay down the boogie and play that funky music tonight.
One more thing. When did this become a porno site?
Peter Hill, the President is the commander in chief. He can relieve an officer of his command. And McMaster did that stupid interview with rollingstone. It just seems ironic that a neighborhood organizer can trash a decorated military officer. Again the commander in chief is a civilian( and that’s the way it should be). I still can’t understand how we( the American electorate) put a man in charge who never ran a lemon aid stand.
Bob, if you think Obama went directly from being a ‘community organizer’ to the presidency, then you are misinformed enough to qualify as illiterate.
And there is, of course, an element of racism to your comment. You’re actively denying Obama’s achievements. Like somehow he was merely an Affirmative Action Quota. ‘No intellect at all’.
Historically racists sought to minimize the achievements of successful Blacks. Regardless of education, the Black would have to prove their qualifications over and over. And during the Obama years, conservative Republicans continually questioned every facet of Obama’s background; spreading endless rumors that were easily debunked. And Donald Trump led that whole effort!
So here you are, Bob, self-righteously questioning Obama’s decision to fire a general. Yet for some odd reason Donald Trump is more qualified. When in reality Donald Trump is the first president in history to have no experience whatsoever in public office. Even Obama’s first job out of college taught him more than Trump knows about the Social Sciences. And that job was ‘Community Organizer’.
Bob, if you think Obama went directly from being a ‘community organizer’ to the presidency, then you are misinformed enough to qualify as illiterate.
Well, no.
1. He was a lecturer at the University of Chicago (taught p.t, taught boutique courses, and published nothing).
2. He was an associate at a 12 lawyer firm (for 3 years. Never granted a partnership).
3. He ran the Chicago Annenberg Challenge into the ground.
4. He was in the Illinois legislature for 8 years. (During which time he was a known maven in no area of policy).
5. He was in Congress for four years (of which about 18 months were spent campaigning for President). Again, he held the seat. And that’s all.
Someone acquainted with Obama in law school offered that he seemed to want to be the President of the Law Review rather than actually doing anything in the job.
Thirty years ago, people derided George Bush the Elder for being a walking resume and otherwise vacuous. The man they were deriding was a combat veteran who’d founded and run his own business (quite successfully) and had taken a bath financially by entering politics. IOW, he was nothing like Barack Obama.
Nutchacha, you’re forgetting one thing: Obama won the Popular Vote. Trump couldn’t achieve that.
Hilligula one a plurality of popular votes in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2008.
This is about the most honest response rendered by Peter Hill to date except he doesn’t know whether or not Trump could have achieved those goals. He is bloviating as he usually does. The rules are the rules so Trump smartly geared his campaign to the rules and won. Hillary disregarded the rules as she usually does so she didn’t bother gearing her campaign to the more important states and she lost.
Peters honesty, in this case, is not in his BS answer rather in the fact that instead of lying he changed the subject recognizing that no amount of his bloviation could resurrect the picture of Obama that provides Peter his peace and solace. NII accurately described a very common man whose path to fame seemed to come from the hard work of a lot of others. When Obama reached the pinnacle of his career and the dragging and pulling stopped, he failed.
a very common man whose path to fame seemed to come from the hard work of a lot of others.
Actually, it seemed to come from clever marketing, unscrupulous oppo, recruiting people who understood the nuts and bolts of the nomination process, the right calendar, and some happy accidents. It’s actually quite disconcerting how characters like David Axelrod and David Plouffe managed to sell this guy. In New York, jumping from the back benches of the state legislature to statewide office is quite atypical. Winning in a walk because two opponents in succession saw confidential paperwork from their divorce cases published during the campaign is one for the books. The incipient failure of 10 large financial institutions right in the middle of the 2008 election campaign was manna which comes along only very rarely.
“Winning in a walk because two opponents in succession saw confidential paperwork from their divorce cases published during the campaign is one for the books.”
Is it? Following Obama’s Presidency, it seems more like much of the same. That is how fragile our Republic is.
I remember some of his friends. In fact, I remember the boom when the 12th street brownstone blew up killing some people. Someone I know remembers Huey Newton and continues to wonder why there was no concern from the group when the secretary was killed. For some reason, all too many people involved in Obama’s history have a checkered past and some are associated with some really bad deeds.
Like his association with Jeremiah Wright, His association with Ayers / Dohrn is simply an indicator of what his sensibilities were and are. They themselves are inconsequential. They pretty much always were. Kathy Boudin was a participant in an armed robbery in which someone was killed. That’s the most significant thing she’s ever done. As for the other Weatherman, their most significant act was setting up a bomb factory in the home of one of their parents, destroying property they were squatting on, and getting 3 of themselves killed. Wm. Ayers was hired by the teacher-training faculty of one of the campuses of the University of Illinois System. That tells you something about the sensibilities of the people who work there, who likely haven’t hired a common and garden Republican in 30-odd years. The trouble with Obama is that he so grotesquely normal in a certain bourgeois subculture. That’s higher education, that’s a fraction of the legal profession, that’s the school apparat, that’s the mental health and social work trade, that’s the median attitude among those who subscribed to The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and Harpers ca. 1988,
Former President of the United States Barack HUSSEIN Obama was the greatest President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces since Harry Truman. Moreover, prior to his marriage, he had “access” to the white women.
this is to “ya, but he was still black, that’s enough for me” allan
Marky Mark Mark – Obama was mixed race (white and black) and very kindly threw his white half under the bus when Bill Ayers wrote his (Obama’s) autobiography. So, you throw the people who raised you under the bus for the father who abandoned you. That makes sense. BTW, he had access to white women at all times and white men.
I don’t know why you would play these race games. It makes you look like a racist. Obama, whether black or white, was an American and our President. Not a very good President, IMO, but he doesn’t deserve being classified as representing a racial group in such a negative fashion.
Enough racist comments have been made on the blog so we don’t need any more such comments. Such comments are not funny or enlightening.
And there is, of course, an element of racism to your comment.
Quack quack down comes Groucho’s duck.
You’re actively denying Obama’s achievements.
He was a ticket puncher who didn’t have any. This really isn’t arguable, Peter.
Michael Bloomberg called Donald Trump a ‘fraud’ on prime time television during the Democratic convention. And ‘why’ didn’t Trump sue..?? Because Bloomberg is vastly richer than Trump.
Peter Hill – when you are a public figure such as The Donald it is very hard to successfully sue someone for libel or slander. This is the policy that kept the tabloids in business for years until they were successfully sued. Cannot remember who first did it, but if memory serves, it was a woman. My personal favorite is the Southern politician who sunk his opponent by claiming he was a “flaming heterosexual.” 🙂
It was Carol Burnett who successfully pressed a claim contra The Enquirer or The Star (I forget which). Not sure it survived appeals. The paper made specific factual claims about a sequence of events on one particular evening. The suit was, IIRC, > 35 years ago.
He didn’t sue because statements of opinion are not actionable. That aside, Trump is a public figure. Public figures were effectively stripped of any claims under defamation law, in 1967, courtesy our repulsive Supreme Court.
Damn Peter, your like the chew toy my dog has been working on. What’s next, Trump’s grandma wears army boots?
Michael Bloomberg is best known in the political world as the one to take on Coca-Cola and the rest of the soft drink manufacturers lost that fight. He considered running for President but didn’t have the guts though Trump did. Why didn’t Trump sue? Why should he when considering the fact that Bloomberg was a loser?
Sure PH, “community organizer” – ask them folk on the South Side how they feel about the organizer as his planned complex will destroy their neighborhoods, ruin a public park space and he won’t even agree to hire them. Sad.
Add to that the tremendous salary Michele received from the hospital in the area. The hospital was losing money on the poor people that went there so good old Michele created a program that shifted a good number of these poor (black) folk to the inferior facility a short distance away.
Historically racists sought to minimize the achievements of successful Blacks. Regardless of education, the Black would have to prove their qualifications over and over.
He’s not John Johnson or Andrew Brimmer. He’s a common-and-garden lawyer and academic adjunct. The guy who filled your prescription at Walgreen’s is just as accomplished. Only he never got the idea in his head he belonged in the Oval Office.
But you also wanted to mention that he’s black. Why deny your “heritage” or whatever other claptrap the loons your ilk loves to watch on the tube characterize their criticism of President Barack HUSSEIN Obama as.
this is to “a black President gets under my skin, I’ll tell you” nutty sufferer
But you also wanted to mention that he’s black. W
Uh, no. You did. Shouldn’t you be paying attention in algebra class and not offering dumb comments on your smartphone?
Whoever you are: read this and weep:
http://www.theobamafile.com
Most of what has been written about that fraud was by Obama himself.
Laurie, Did you mean http://www.plaintruth.com/the_plain_truth/the-obama-file/
Your HTTP leads to an advertisement for WordPress.
‘Bob, if you think Obama went directly from being a ‘community organizer’ to the presidency, then you are misinformed enough to qualify as illiterate.’
True. Obama spent a week as an Illinois state senator, voting ‘present’ on the 3 bills introduced during his stay.
Previously to that, no one really knows. We know he was born in Waukegan, where his father was a clerk at Blockbuster and his mother was an Avon representative. He struggled through DuPage County Community College and then attended Harvard Law on a full scholarship and served as the affirmative action selection on the Harvard Law Review. We also know that the day he was elected US Senator, his wife, Michelle, a hospital administrator, received a pay raise from $125,000 to $375,000. Nice racket if you can manage it.
Nice to know Jonathan Turkey believes Trump should be punished for ripping non essential papers but Hillary Clinton deserved nothing for deleting classified information off a private email server and bleachbitting it. Yep seriously this guy is full of crap now.
Turkey just said Trump should have to do the deposition with Summer Zervos. Actually no because right now Trump’s legal team most likely is looking through the State Judge’s background and comments about Trump, on their way to prove implicit bias. Yes Turkey doesn’t know that can squash any deposition that Judge orders. Once it gets to the US Supreme Court you will see that.
Thanks for checking in with today Pravda Faux News talking points. Dismissed.
this is to “I have a ‘Hannity was here’ tattoo accross my lower back” frankie
Marky Mark Mark – you really are without original thought, aren’t you? Do you have templates for your plea deals? Seriously, dudette, I fear for your clients, civil or criminal.
https://lawfareblog.com/terrible-arguments-against-constitutionality-mueller-investigation
Article by George Conway, husband to KellyAnne.
Turkey argued ‘against’ Obamacare in the Federal courts. And only 2 weeks ago Trump quoted Turely in a tweet. But we’re supposed to believe that Turley is a ‘leftist’..??
If you can think for yourself, you’re a leftist. If you can read anything not in their bubble, you’re a leftist. If you cannot quote Hannity or Bill-O, you’re a leftist. If you step in dung and not blame Obama or Hillary even after people tell you that you are walking straight into dung, you’re a Trump supporter.
If you can think for yourself, you’re a leftist.
Isn’t that cute?
Once in a while, you might give the assembled here some evidence that you had in the course of your life done any thinking or learning.
Ralph – wondered what happened to you. 😉
Does he regularly rip up notes? Or did they have to remind him a few times? That must be strange. Suddenly every post-it note and handwritten draft becomes a record. I agree with preserving documents.
Strange how Hillary Clinton was allowed to keep a bootleg server in her bathroom in order to hide correspondence that was also a record. Then she used Bleach Bit to wipe the servers, acid washed her phones, broke them with a hammer, and gave some to the FBI without their SIM card.
The law just doesn’t seem to apply to everyone.
Trump should not rip anything up, even the lowliest note or dinner menu. His staff shouldn’t complain about doing what’s necessary to put a document back together and stop being so elitist. At least they are complying with the law.
I know people who have worked for past Administrations. Staffers used to water down drinks to slow the drunkenness down, especially on trips, and would get chewed out for it. Staffers are handlers at times. There are some really cool stories about times long past in the White House. Sometimes the private reality is quite different than the public persona.
this ridiculous “whataboutism” merely reveals your dearth of cognitive depth and lack of intellectual rigor; oh, and that Pravda Faux News issues your ideas and opinions. Unfortunately for you, there are others who have already checked in with today’s talking points.
this is to “Hannity is my truth whisperer” karen
Marky Mark Mark – Only David Brock and the DNC hand out daily talking points. And, if you really knew what you were talking about you would know that Hannity never whispers. 🙂 Dudette, you are such a joke.
Reblogged this on The Inquiring Mind.
Reblogged this on The Most Revolutionary Act and commented:
Under federal law, presidential documents become the property of the US taxpayer.
So are the thousands of documents the DOJ refuses to release under subpoena.
andrewworkshop – there are over a million documents the DOJ will not release to Congress. I think they are hoping to slow walk to the midterms when they hope the Dims will take over the House and Senate and they will be saved from themselves. Our only hope at this point is Judicial Watch who is slowly digging documents out of them.
@Paul C Schulte June 11, 2018 at 7:09 PM
“andrewworkshop – there are over a million documents the DOJ will not release to Congress.”
Why, if one didn’t know better, one would be tempted to think that a lot of officials in the US Government don’t want the American people to know what it’s (been) up to.
Ken Rogers – I am sure the DoJ and FBI are transparent as hell, but they do have the appearance of a coverup right now.
@Paul C Schulte June 12, 2018 at 8:26 PM
“Ken Rogers – I am sure the DoJ and FBI are transparent as hell, but they do have the appearance of a coverup right now.”
Well, I don’t know transparent hell is with all its purported fire and smoke and whatnot, but I can agree that the FBI had no lack of transparency nor a corruption problem until J. Edgar Hoover got involved with the agency, after which it was all pretty much downhill.
If I had a dime for every name-brand Democrat or DOJ official that failed to comply with the PRA I’d be sipping cold ones in Tahiti 24/7/365.
On the yacht you bought with cash.
MELANIA’S ONE MONTH ABSENCE UNEXPLAINED
To review briefly this cinematic enigma: Melania Trump enters Walter Reed to undergo, we’re told, a minor, normally outpatient, procedure for a “benign” condition, requiring — paradoxically — a one-week hospital stay. Although such a procedure would have been scheduled well in advance, the First Lady’s hospitalization was not announced beforehand, as would be customary.
At the hospital, witnesses spot Melania’s aides dressed in surgical scrubs — another peculiarity that seems to undermine the stated facts. Usually, hospital visitors change into scrubs on just a few occasions: When in the presence of an immunocompromised patient; when toxic drugs or chemicals are being used; or when their own clothes become damaged or stained — as can happen when transporting a bleeding accident victim, for example.
Melania remains unseen for nearly one month, without explanation. In an apparent attempt to deflect questions, President Trump tells the press corps that his wife is fine and “watching them” at that moment from a White House window. All turn to look, but see no one at the window — an eerie moment straight out of Hitchcock. No explanation is offered.
Upon Melania’s reemergence, the president describes her minor procedure as “a four-hour operation” — another massive contradiction neither explained or acknowledged.
The point is not that we should invade the First Lady’s privacy (which could have been protected with any simple, coherent explanation of her malady, eliding intimate details). The point is that Melania Trump is such a convenient blank space around which this administration practices weaving its inconsistent lies. She’ll be gone for a week; no, a month. She’s at the window; no, she’s not.
Edited from: “Melania’s Recent Behavior Is Right Out Of Hitchcock”
NEW YORK MAGAZINE, 6/11/18
In normal times it would be unusual for the First Lady to drop out of sight for a month. Normally a disappearance like that would raise many questions in the media. But with Donald Trump’s White House, odd occurrences like this ‘are’ the norm.
If indeed Melania required a medical procedure, ‘what’ was the condition..??
One might speculate that the true nature of her condition is something the White House has no desire to address.
Bess Truman appeared in Washington for the social season and otherwise lived in Missouri. Don’t know that it caused much comment at all. And, yes, Jackie Kennedy did take weeks-long vacations while living in the White House. Alone. With her children left with caregivers.
The media knew exactly where Bess was: Independence Missouri. There weren’t any mysteries.
Trump claims his wife had a ‘medical procedure’. It’s bizarre that no other explanation has been given. But with Trump there is always some bizarre, new story. Even well-informed readers have trouble tracking them all.
The explanation was given in a brief press release from Melania’s office.
Pete: I agree with you, but Melania isn’t an elected official and is entitled to privacy. That said, she might have been able to help raise awareness of her health problem by being honest. If it was kidney cancer, for instance, raising awareness could save lives. Some wonder whether she might have undergone a facelift or other cosmetic procedure. The story put out by the White House doesn’t add up.
“Raising awareness” is a nonsense excuse used by exhibitionists and media cheerleaders.
Your entry in the daily contest for most ridiculously ill-informed and incoherent post on the blog. That hat looks good on you though. Thanks for playing.
this is to the nutty sufferer
I take it you have some macros which generate these posts.
Marky Mark Mark – there is not a daily contest, but if there you would be a constant winner because you lack originality.
Too bad Natacha. The right of privacy is preserved so you can rest comfortably. When you have your next Pap smear there won’t be cameras there detailing the event.
The point is not that we should invade the First Lady’s privacy (which could have been protected with any simple, coherent explanation of her malady,
IOW, her ‘privacy’ could have been protected by answering questions from voyeurs. Malicious voyeurs.
When do we get to delve into Hillary Clinton’s spasmatic seizures and her tendency to fall?
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1176&bih=633&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=5PoeW7DMIMjXzwKW_YOADA&q=hillary+fall&oq=hillary+fall&gs_l=img.3…45948.47868.0.48232.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1c.1.64.img..0.0.0….0.62dS-2uSCAo#imgrc=ciE0zWRReAhbtM:
https://www.everydayhealth.com/urinary-conditions/first-lady-melania-trump-undergoes-kidney-embolization-what-it/
Did it ever occur to you, Peter, that maybe a cigar is just a cigar.
@Insufferable Philodoxer June 11, 2018 at 6:30 PM
“Did it ever occur to you, Peter, that maybe a cigar is just a cigar.”
If you’re appealing to the authority of Freud. here, you’ve seriously misrepresented him. As one of the major contributors to the evolution of human consciousness and the recognition of its essentially symbolic nature, Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” [My emphasis]
Leaving off the “sometimes” again suggests a literal-mindedness, the attempt to apprehend reality in a cognitively one-dimensional way that’s ill-suited to empathically apprehending its complexity:
“Anyone who asserts truth, especially truth based on authority and not on experience or research, without remaining open to contradiction, may be called a literalist or fundamentalist. This does not mean that the claims of fundamentalists—religious, scientific, economic, anthroposophical—are wrong. They may be—and probably often are—true in any number of ways.
“But the assertion of truth, the close-minded, hierarchical, smug sense that one knows better than another (even if presented in the guise of open-minded, democratic, and humble discourse) AND the simultaneous assumption or assertion that the truth exists beyond any method for discovering or proving it, adds to conflict, strife, and suffering in the world. What else can fundamentalist assertions do but compete blindly and, in the end, meaninglessly?”
Furthermore, as Owen Barfield has written, “It will, I believe, be found that there is a valid connection, at some level, however deep, between what I have called literalness and a certain hardness of heart.”
http://ssagarin.blogspot.com/2010/05/fundamentalism-and-metaphor.html
One of the things we can all give thanks for is that we never cross paths with you in meatspace. How your family copes with your witless pontificating I cannot imagine.
@Insufferable Philodoxer June 12, 2018 at 3:13 PM
“One of the things we can all give thanks for is that we never cross paths with you in meatspace. How your family copes with your witless pontificating I cannot imagine.”
Regardless of whom you’re addressing with this projective howler, Philo, rest assured that I, at least, will continue to call you out on your one-dimensional and hostile pontificating, in addition to those occasions when you’re merely speaking out of egregious ignorance.
Awesome, You reasonably point out that based on the nonsense he posted here, he appears to be an intolerant, close-minded and spiteful bigot. Moreover, by using vocabulary that these types don’t get exposed to on Pravda Faux News, he’s even more confused and so dismisses your treatise without comprehension. Nice.
to the gambler
@Mark M. June 13, 2018 at 10:12 AM
“Awesome, You reasonably point out that based on the nonsense he posted here, he appears to be an intolerant, close-minded and spiteful bigot.”
Thanks, Mark. It’s his literal-mindedness and attendant incapacity for empathy with his “enemies” that best explains, I think, his and similar mindsets and the combative, dogmatic assertions, almost always bereft of any proffered evidence, that come out of them. I don’t know whether and to what extend my remarks and citations confused him, but I can confidently assert that in direct proportion to their truth value, he didn’t appreciate them. 🙂
One of the things that my interactions with this particular philodoxer and some others here has made me even more acutely aware of than I was before is the important role that political psychology has to play in understanding and communicating with people at different “places” on the libertarian-authoritarian political spectrum.
In other words, the interactions have greatly reinforced and clarified my realization that evidence and logic, notwithstanding how important they are in rational political discourse, are by themselves insufficient for coming to terms with our fellow citizens, if we lack insight into different mindsets which are more open- or close-minded on the question of the importance of logic and evidence, themselves, and into the extent of someone’s ready willingness to employ them.
Additionally, of course, is the obvious fact that two people with different mindsets can view the same phenomenon as being evidence for contrary conclusions regarding how to deal with them. As a result of these and other considerations, I’ve decided to re-immerse myself in the study of political psychology, in order to better understand the most fruitful ways to interact with those who have a varyingly opaque authoritarian mental filter, or mindset, because as important as intellection is, we neglect at our peril the emotional component of our own and others’ political orientations.
Thanks again for your appreciative remarks.
I understand where you’re coming from on this, but I fear that your goal is unreachable. First, I suspect that these types are actually very well aware of the moral and ethical catastrophe that the current administration represents; they are unconcerned because they believe those shortcomings will not effect the achievement of the goals they imagine this administration shares with themselves. I’m referring to some vector of “white nationalism” or “nativism” representing a return to what these types consider to be the “good ole days” or some such. In more vernacular terms, they believe that because the authoritarians are old white guys, old white guys won’t be the targets of authoritarian persecution. Second, I don’t think the hard-core 38% can be reached through logical discourse. Although painting that entire cohort with a broad brush is not optimal and somewhat simplistic, I think that in generally terms they are older; unlikely to actually encounter persons of other racial groups in their daily lives, or at least very infrequently–a scenario which breeds fear of the unknown and susceptibility to believe rumors and falsehoods and engenders confirmation bias; and, they generally survive in a semi-homogeneous “bubble” which sustains a belief system which they incorrectly hold to be a “mainstream” or “majority” opinion. I believe the only remedy for this demographic slice of the polity is simply that–demographics. The nature of the American election experience fully allows a 38% to 40% subgroup to carry such irrational beliefs for the entirety of their natural lives. But the actual majority of the polity will be able rectify the colossal and dangerous error committed by these people and others who threw the dice one time but will join the rational majority going forward. This is the reason I don’t attempt to convince any of the Trumpers here of anything; not only are they not rationally connected to any level of reasonableness, but the necessary swing voters have already recognized their mistake and will join with us to save the country henceforth.
this is to the gambler
Marky Mark Mark – insulting Trump supporters is how the Democrats are going to lose the mid-terms. Do you really want to help them?
Second, I don’t think the hard-core 38% can be reached through logical discourse.
Well, you know, Marky Mark, we often don’t see ourselves as others do.
There is a site where one can read a paper written by a computer program and this sounds almost like one of those. Lots of words that say very little with conclusions lacking any appropriate evidence. Mark, go back to the short stupid insults This type of wordiness lacking thought makes you appear even more stupid.
Haha. Your opinion about anything has any value to whom? Thanks for playing. Drive home safely.
This is to “True, I’m an old white guy but I’ve lost my shine box” allan
Mark, you have lost more than your shine, that is if you ever had any.
Ken:
“Leaving off the “sometimes” again suggests a literal-mindedness, the attempt to apprehend reality in a cognitively one-dimensional way that’s ill-suited to empathically apprehending its complexity:”
…
“Regardless of whom you’re addressing with this projective howler, Philo, rest assured that I, at least, will continue to call you out on your one-dimensional and hostile pontificating, in addition to those occasions when you’re merely speaking out of egregious ignorance.”
********************
Psycho-babble adds not one wit to your witlessness. Attacking NII for intellectually skewering you on a regular basis adds not one wit to your credibility. But do carry on though, I use your purple prose to explain to young people how writing to seem important and complex but in reality saying nothing more than ” i don’t like you” really equates to poor argumentation skills.
@mespo727272 June 15, 2018 at 8:09 AM
“Ken: Psycho-babble adds not one wit to your witlessness. Attacking NII for intellectually skewering you on a regular basis adds not one wit to your credibility. But do carry on though, I use your purple prose to explain to young people how writing to seem important and complex but in reality saying nothing more than ‘ i don’t like you’ really equates to poor argumentation skills.”
In view of your own frequent comments reflecting a decidedly authoritarian mindset, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that you view the evidence-free pontifications of another pseudonymous authoritarian as “intellectually skewering” me or anybody else.
For only one example, your advocacy of executing innocent people in order to satisfy your emotional need to see a certain class of criminals put to death is a manifestation of the same authoritarian mindset that produces pronouncements from “NII” such as “waterboarding isn’t torture.”
I’m acutely aware of how refractory to evidence and reason the authoritarian mindset is, but I nonetheless feel an obligation to point out to others its manifestations whenever I see them, and I actually appreciate your and your fellow philodoxers’ providing such unambiguous examples of that mindset.
I’m influenced in this regard, among other motivators, by the exhortation of the great Christian poet and prophet against empire, William Blake, who wrote: “Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! Set your foreheads against the ignorant hirelings! For we have hirelings in the Camp, the Court, and the University, who would, if they could, forever depress mental, and prolong corporeal war.”
Unless the seething animosity that motivates so many people to seek the physical punishment and/or deaths of their fellow human beings can be sublimated in enough of them into life-supporting creativity, the combination of that impulse with the catastrophic capabilities of contemporary weapons of mass destruction presages a very unhappy outcome for the human species.
In other words, “Mespo,” warmongering hirelings are dangerously obsolescent, so try not to be one.
I think I’m more hierarchical than authoritarian. For example, I avidly support your right to express any cockamamie idea you choose. I also reserve the right to comment on it. As for being tough on criminal actions, that was mainstream thinking for centuries (and worked pretty damn well) until the sentimentalists took hold and feminized the Justice system. And they’ve brought us mass murder, licentiousness and instability. Viva the new order!
@”mespo727272″ June 16, 2018 at 12:07 PM
“I think I’m more hierarchical than authoritarian. For example, I avidly support your right to express any cockamamie idea you choose. I also reserve the right to comment on it. As for being tough on criminal actions, that was mainstream thinking for centuries (and worked pretty damn well) until the sentimentalists took hold and feminized the Justice system. And they’ve brought us mass murder, licentiousness and instability. Viva the new order!”
I have no idea what you mean by “hierarchical,” but your perception of the inarguably brutal US criminal justice system as having been “feminized” by “sentimentalists” is yet more dispositive evidence of your authoritarian mindset.
Are you oblivious of the fact that the US incarcerates, on a per capita basis, more of its citizens than any other country in the world, including Russia and China, with 70% of those convicted in the US sentenced to imprisonment?
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2018.html
In his remarkably thoughtful and inclusive essay, “The Caging of America,” Adam Gopnik analyzes in detail the many factors that have gone into America’s being the world’s leader in incarcerating its citizenry:
“The accelerating rate,/I> of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one.
“No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a ‘carceral state,’ in the flat verdict of Conrad Black, the former conservative press lord and newly minted reformer, who right now finds himself imprisoned in Florida, thereby adding a new twist to an old joke: A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.”
“Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.” [Emphasis added]
“The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in ‘supermax’ prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo ‘exercise.’ (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.)
“Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an un-coöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing.
“The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/the-caging-of-america
How much more barbarically punitive would you like to see the US criminal justice system become in order to correct its “feminization by sentimentalists”?
Donny is about to rip up more than paper. He’s going in to finish off the civilians in Yemen. I guess he feels killing children keeps them completely safe?
I wouldn’t really care if he ripped up paper so long as he was doing an otherwise good job on behalf of the US and towards the rest of the world. Instead, he’s helping Saudi Arabia or Israel or both to kill civilians, including lots of children.
Where do this people come from?
He’s going in to finish off the civilians in Yemen. I
The peoples of South Arabia have had five bouts of intramural warfare in the past 60 years. They’re not in much danger from Trump.
@Insufferable Philodoxer June 11, 2018 at 6:17 PM
” ‘He’s going in to finish off the civilians in Yemen.’
“The peoples of South Arabia have had five bouts of intramural warfare in the past 60 years. They’re not in much danger from Trump.”
Yeah, Jill, if the Saudi and US governments weren’t killing them, they’d just be killing themselves, so the good guys might as well get in some target practice and generate some rev for the MIC.
Saudi Arabia is assisting one side in the latest round of intramural warfare in Yemen. Yes they would be shooting at and killing each other, but with a more troublesome element therein having the upper hand.
Insufferable Philodoxer June 12, 2018 at 8:50 PM
“Saudi Arabia is assisting one side in the latest round of intramural warfare in Yemen. Yes they would be shooting at and killing each other, but with a more troublesome element [sic] therein having the upper hand.”
Here’s Colonel Andrew Bacevich’s (ret.) cogent analysis of the present state of the “War on Terrorism,” including in Yemen, as waged by hapless past and current US leaders, :
“What explains the exceedingly modest payoff that America gets for the $600 billion-plus dollars that congress annually funnels to the Pentagon? It’s ludicrous to suggest, as Exum does, that the problem lies with timid and slow-moving civilian officials who have ‘denied subordinate commanders the flexibility to exploit opportunities they saw on the battlefield.’
“No, the real problem is that the senior civilian officials aided and abetted by the military professionals to whom they look for professional advice have jointly failed in the formulation of a coherent strategy—a concrete plan to achieve U.S. policy objectives at a reasonable cost. [Emphasis added]
“Senior civilians and senior military officers today engage in their tug of war over military minutiae—when, how, and whether to conduct a raid—because doing so enables them to sustain the pretense that the United States is engaged in a strategically purposeful enterprise: that America is killing people pursuant to some plausible political outcome.
“The truth of the matter is that America is killing people—terrorists and others—because its leaders don’t know what else to do. Killing people and bombing things has become a substitute for policy and indeed for thinking.
“Where there should be strategy, there is a void. Will a president who looks to the likes of Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn for advice fill that void? I don’t think so.[Bolton, Haspel, and Pompeo represent, if anything, an advisory downgrade].
“The operative question is not: Why did last week’s raid in Yemen fail? Instead, it is: What are U.S. forces doing there in the first place? [Emphasis added] How, at this stage of the game, is further expansion of the conflict once known as the Global War on Terrorism advancing the basic security interests of the United States?
“All that Mr. Trump is doing is to embrace the legacy of his predecessors: perpetuating what has become an open-ended war of attrition. [Emphasis added]
“ ‘Slow and ponderous’? Me, I’ll take it any day of the week, especially if the sole alternative on offer is ‘hasty and stupid,’ as it appears to be.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/02/yemen-raid-trump/516024/
For some feedback from Yemenis on the ground, including from a CIA asset, regarding how the US effort in Yemen has actually strengthened al-Qaeda there, see these interviews:
https://www.wired.com/2012/06/yemen-war/
Nothing Bacevich writes is cogent because he always writes the same article with the same subtext.
@Insufferable Philodoxer June 13, 2018 at 4:41 AM
“Nothing Bacevich writes is cogent because he always writes the same article with the same subtext.”
Why provide yet another example of your laughably spurious opinionating? In the first place, the cogency of an analysis obviously has nothing whatever to do with the number of times it may or may not be offered in different venues, and in the second place, your attempt to refute Colonel Bacevich’s foreign policy assessment with “same article, same subtext,” is to display once again your severely limited cognitive reach.
For readers not already familiar with Col. Bacevich’s background, here’s a brief biography:
“He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Later he held posts in Germany, including the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment; in the United States, and in the Persian Gulf, up to his retirement from the service with the rank of colonel in the early 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998.”
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Andrew_Bacevich
In addition to his many papers and articles, his full-length books include: Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country; The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War; America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History; The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism; Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War; Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy 1898-1949; and The Imperial Tense: Prospects and Problems of American Empire.
I’m quite familiar with Bacevich writing. Read one article, you’ve read them all. Just change a few proper nouns. The same thesis every time. And, no, it isn’t cogent.
He first came to public attention 30 years ago as part of a crew assessing the US aid program in El Salvador. His report was superceded by events before it was even complete and his forecasts proved false. No matter. The past is another country and borders are closed. He had the audacity in one of his his later pieces many years later to chide the military for ‘learning the wrong lesson’ in Central America.
A man mustered out of the military for being responsible for a ghastly industrial accident has spent the succeeding 27 years attacking more accomplished soldiers (e.g. Gen. Petraeus) and contending the military can accomplish nothing of value. No, I don’t take him seriously.
@Insufferable Philodoxer June 13, 2018 at 3:13 PM
“I’m quite familiar with Bacevich [sic] writing. Read one article, you’ve read them all. Just change a few proper nouns. The same thesis every time. And, no, it isn’t cogent.”
If you had any intellectual integrity, Philo, you’d indicate what this disqualifying thesis is, and how he’s managed to string it out in seven books, in addition to his many papers and articles. You’ve read all seven of his books, I take it, or you wouldn’t be able to honestly assert your accusation, right?
I’m humoring you here for the sake of any gullible readers who may be tempted to buy into your authoritarian pontificating, not because I think you’re capable of integrating into your currently strangulated consciousness any facts inconvenient to it..
In any event, will you be good enough to direct me and other readers here to some of your own books that refute Bacevich’s “thesis” that you’ve identified, preferably the ones in which you’ve actually identified the thesis?
Thanks in advance, Philo, for a timely provision of those titles (or any other published writings) in which you’ve refuted Bacevich.
P.S. Say, are you by any chance a friend of Henry Kissinger?
I’ve already indicated above what his thesis is. Sorry it went over your head.
Where do this people come from?
Just spit-balling here but I’d say your over-active imagination.
Darren, could you remove the porn sh!tposts and ban the perps?
Ivan, regarding your last posting I posted a full article for your enjoyment (Take note that Britain is one of the more reliable allies in the G7).
For those that just wish the gory details I’ll copy them here at the beginning and let those interested in the law and other things read the entire article.
“ The UK Home Office also admitted Shaykh Hamza Sodagar into the country, despite the fact that he has said: “If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.”
Geert Wilders Puts the Political Elites On Notice
The people are rising up. Can the elites put the genie back in the bottle?
June 11, 2018
Geert Wilders spoke at a massive rally for Tommy Robinson on Saturday. 20,000 people came out to call for Tommy’s release, and Wilders took the opportunity to put the political elites of Britain and continental Europe on notice.
“Our governments,” Wilders declared, “sold us out with mass immigration. With Islamization. With open borders. We are almost foreigners in our own lands. And if we complain about it, they call us racists and Islamophobes. But I say, no more! And what do you say? No more! And that’s right: enough is enough. We will not be gagged anymore. No more tyranny.”
It was extraordinary that the British authorities allowed Wilders into the country at all. Several years ago he was banned from entering the country, but although the ban was reversed on appeal, the British government recently banned Martin Sellner, Brittany Pettibone, Lauren Southern and Lutz Bachmann from entering, all for the crime of opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression, and thereby made it clear that it is more authoritarian and unwilling to uphold the freedom of speech than ever – at least when it comes to criticism of Islam, Muslim rape gangs, and mass Muslim migration.
Even worse, the bannings of Sellner, Pettibone, Southern, and Bachmann were just part of a long pattern. Pamela Geller and I were banned from entering Britain in 2013, apparently for life, also for the crime of telling the truth about Islam and jihad. Meanwhile, Britain has a steadily lengthening record of admitting jihad preachers without a moment of hesitation. Syed Muzaffar Shah Qadri’s preaching of hatred and jihad violence was so hardline that he was banned from preaching in Pakistan, but the UK Home Office welcomed him into Britain.
The UK Home Office also admitted Shaykh Hamza Sodagar into the country, despite the fact that he has said: “If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.”
Theresa May’s relentlessly appeasement-minded government also admitted two jihad preachers who had praised the murderer of a foe of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. One of them was welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Meanwhile, the UK banned three bishops from areas of Iraq and Syria where Christians are persecuted from entering the country.
But now matters are coming to a head. Apparently British authorities decided that it would be too politically costly for them to bar Wilders again. And so he entered, and spoke, and gave them a strong dose of the reality that they are determined to ignore and deny.
Tommy Robinson is in prison today because he violated a court order demanding that he not film videos outside the trials of Muslim rape gangs. Clearly the government’s intent was to make sure that as few people as possible discovered the truth about its massive, years-long cover-up of those rape gangs, and refusal to prosecute the perpetrators. Theresa May and company obvious hope that other Britons who are furious about the sacrifice of thousands of British girls to the idols of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” will see what happened to Tommy, and be frightened into silence.
The British government, in imprisoning Tommy Robinson, has shown itself willing to incarcerate people for having opinions that it considers unacceptable. That heralds the death of Britain as a free society and the beginning of an authoritarian police state there, unless this slide to totalitarianism is stopped now. British public figures, whatever criticism they have leveled against Tommy Robinson in the past, should be calling for him to be freed today, or else they will be exposing themselves as supporting the degeneration of Britain into a police state.
Wilders addressed this endeavor head-on, declaring: “We will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated. And we tell the governments, we are not afraid of you. We will never surrender. We will stand strong and do our duty. We will defend our civilization. And we will protect our people.”
Wilders added: “And I tell you, to the governments. You can throw us in jail, but you will never defeat us. Because, my friends, for every Tommy whom you imprison, thousands will rise up. So take notice, Theresa May. Take notice, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte. Take notice, Mrs. Merkel or President Macron. Take notice: the future is ours and not yours. We will defeat you politically, because we, my friends, we are the people.”
If Wilders’ words don’t prove true, it will be because the death of free societies in Britain and Western Europe is truly at hand.
I certainly hope he’s right, but the rancid political culture of Europe is such that he can persuade perhaps 15% to 25% to listen. The rest will continue to let the gangrene eat away at the flesh.
Given a choice, the Labour Party membership turned the leadership over to Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is a man so distrusted by Labour MPs and Labour leadership that for over 30 years in the House of Commons he’d been relegated to the back benches and never given any responsibilities He grew up in a professional-managerial family and has brothers who are men of accomplishment, but his pre-political career consisted of time on trade union staffs and he had a history of academic failure prior to that. As for the ‘Conservative’ Party, they’re led by Theresa May, a woman with delusions of adequacy.
Red scare continues with Establishment Dims
California DNC Member Suggests Superdelegate Reform Is Part Of Russian Plot
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bob-mulholland-california-dnc-superdelegates-reform-putin-russia_us_5b1d636fe4b09d7a3d73e7bb
Gee, when President Obama was running for reelection George Clooney was raising money for him in Europe. Didn’t hear too much complaining then.
Was Obama or Clooney ripping up documents ?
You progressive twats with your alleged position of moral superiority make me wanna puke. You’re OK that your demigod Geezis Soetoro Obama incinerated with a drone 16 year old American citizen Muslim Anwar Al-Awlaki, without judicial charges pending.
The only known alleged “crime” the child Anwar committed was to find his name on the Magic Kenyan’s Secret Kill List.
And Geezis and HRC, they really brought some blessed “democracy” to Libya, no? See the late, beloved Anthony Bourdain in this image of “Hillary-style” Libyan “democracy.” Our sweet, departed hero stands atop what remains of the building on the left, in Libya.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/living/gallery-bourdain-libya-story-page/index.html
JJ – Bourdain was authentic person – a man of the people – interested in hearing their stories, exploring their culture (his show in W Virginia is great) – a Lefty but didn’t buy into the Establishment contempt for those outside their cult Hell he even called out HRC when she pretended not to know Weinstein was a long term Chester the Molester.
May that brilliant man RIP – and we can find solace in the work he left behind
excerpt from a 2016 Reason Interview
Bisley: A few years back you were on Real Time with Bill Maher and part of the discussion was about people living inside their own bubbles. What do you think of Bill Maher?
Bourdain: Insufferably smug. Really the worst of the smug, self-congratulatory left. I have a low opinion of him. I did not have an enjoyable experience on his show. Not a show I plan to do again. He’s a classic example of the smirking, contemptuous, privileged guy who lives in a bubble. And he is in no way looking to reach outside, or even look outside, of that bubble, in an empathetic way.
https://reason.com/archives/2016/12/29/anthony-bourdain
http://archive.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/06/29/clooney_to_raise_money_for_obama_in_geneva/
Here’s the lede: Actor George Clooney is offering more help to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by headlining a European fundraiser this summer for Americans living abroad.
American citizen living abroad can raise money from other Americans living abroad. And they can also vote.
So, sit down.
oh yeah they voted Sanders 69 to HRC 31 percent in a year of record turnout for American Democratic voters living overseas. More than 34,000 people participated, a 50 percent jump from 2008.
They did not want Obama 2.0
You missed the original point
What I am NOT missing is the panic Establishment Dims are in about Bernie – no Dim candidate can even come close to generating support and enthusiasm with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, but they hate her too
latest hit piece courtesy of The Economist
“Berned out: Democrats will soon decide that Bernie Sanders is an indulgence they cannot afford”
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/09/berned-out?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/bernedoutlexington
Michael A. Oh that dreaded private sector. Just do your job or hit the trail! I remember Obama relieving a decorated general of his position for not agreeing with him. I just found it kind of odd, a community organizer relieving a decorated career military man of his position.
I just found it kind of odd that a five time draft dodger with phony bone spurs fired HR McMaster.
McMaster was well regarded. Flynn was well regarded until he became a nutty conspiracy theorist.
I just found it kind of odd that a five time draft dodger with phony bone spurs fired HR McMaster.
He had a I-Y deferment. A couple hundred thousand were issued every year. It was in effect for about 18 months. After that, he had a high lottery number. There is no evidence whatsoever that his minor medical problems (just the sort of things for which I-Y deferments were issued) were phony.
We’ve reached an age where it’s difficult to find a partisan Democrat who isn’t in equal measure a dope and a liar.
5PM – Flynn was fired at the behest of Sally Yates using doctored 302s.
Good point.
Bob, should Presidents ‘not’ have the authority to relieve Generals? Or should that only apply if the President is a Democrat?
His point is about the irony of how political authority is exercised in a democracy. You have people like Obama, for whom the military is a toy theatre for social engineering projects and who mollycoddled such creatures as Bowe Berghdahl and Bradley Manning (because he did not disapprove of what they did), people like Bill Clinton (an actual draft dodger, which Dan Quayle was not and Donald Trump was not), and people like Lyndon Johnson (whose military service decayed into an elaborate prank) with authority over the military. Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter were career men; Truman, Kennedy, and Bush were combat veterans; Nixon and Ford had the standard sort of service common among men their age; Reagan had been in the Reserves during the Depression (he had a soft posting during the war due to poor eyesight); and George W. Bush had stateside duty in a setting prone to fatal accidents. The culture was once such that these problems were not so acute.
Yes, you possibly would find it odd, thankfully it never happened. Obama was your president at the time.
Obama is a vapid creature who had no interest in the health of the military as an institution.
You have a citation for that? I won’t bother waiting… Lol.
Susan, I don’t need a citation for my own opinions.
If you fancy he’s something other than vapid, you can give me a precis of what his policy specialties were while a legislator. Or a bibliography of his scholarly publications while on the faculty of the U. Chicago Law School. Or the name of the firm where he was granted a partnership. Or a precis of the splendid accomplishments of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Or the name of the judge for whom he clerked. Bueller Bueller Bueller…
Berghdahl was never prosecuted, Manning was sprung, you had soldiers forced to clump along in women’s pumps as some sort of weird disciplinary exercise, and Nidal Hassan was just a sad example of workplace violence. Yeah, he loved the military.
Watch Obama’s Town Hall at Fort Lee. He’s so bored and too arrogant to even feign interest as the service people and their spouses voice serious concerns about the VA and the decision to have mixed combat units
The one constant that is used by everyone when it stands to support their argument, but ignored when it might reveal flaws, is that there is a responsibility of the office holder to the office. The office is the country and is subject to the laws of said country. Regardless of one’s opinion concerning restraints, ignoring the laws and the ultimate reality that when elected and/or appointed to server the people, one must abide by the laws, cannot and should not be allowed.
Trump does not see himself as being elected to serve the people of the United States. Trump sees himself as having been selected as the leader, the king, someone who should be able to do whatever he or she feels is correct, regardless of the laws, and thus far, regardless of common sense and historical fact.
This arrogance is what attracted the millions of voters who, frustrated at their own positions of inconsequence in society, found an outlet in Trump’s tantrums. Who wouldn’t like, from time to time, to tell everyone to fu*^ off and just hack and slash. That’s not the design of democracy. The design of democracy is to find those who are best suited for the job of serving the public and following the laws.
It is increasingly obvious that Trump is not designed for the Presidency. However, the ultimate vindication will be him being seen as having been effective. Unfortunately Trump has already illustrated that all the world’s woes are the fault of everyone else, he is the only one capable to set things straight, and no body really takes the time to understand the past when experiencing the present.
Just as Reagan was not responsible alone for causing the USSR to tumble-it was already in motion-Trump will not be responsible for North Korea towing the line, if it indeed does. High ranking officials and military have been defecting from North Korea for many years and when given health examination are found to be harboring parasites and diseases typical of Mal nutrition. When a colonel in the army cannot afford decent food, the end is near. But, it will all be because of Trump if Kim concedes and all be the fault of everyone else if he doesn’t.
Somehow pointing to the fact that the sun is rising and taking credit for it, escapes too many voters. Add the chaos and confusion with the general public’s inability to focus past a jingo, slogan, or printed hat, and things do not look good. Where are the tar, feathers, and rail when you need them?
If you complain enough about doing your assigned job then the common practice is to terminate and replace. Why would you keep people on the payroll who were non productive.? To keep NYT and DNC happy? Screw them.
I’d complain about having to clean up after an adult who refuses to obey the law and behaves like an entitled little twit, referring, of course, to Mr. Trump.
You trumpets are completely effing nuts.
I’d complain about having to clean up after an adult who refuses to obey the law and behaves like an entitled little twit, referring, of course,
I bet your wife doesn’t like it either.
That possibly goes for Trump’s three wives.
MA
Sounds like something Lt. Calley said when he ordered the slaughter of innocents. Too bad the helicopter didn’t arrive earlier and off that scum.
No, but perhaps complying with federal law would be a good reason to keep people on the payroll.
this is to “Ya, he’s am imbecile all right and maybe a traitor, but at least he’s an old white guy” mikey
Thank you for noticing, Mark.
Whenever Professor Turley posts anything negative about Trump, the Trumpsters here invariably respond with consistently cynical comments. And their line of reasoning is typically what you discern: “Ya, he’s an imbecile all right, and maybe a traitor, but at least he’s an old white guy” mikey”.
Peter, you can deal with the criticisms or you can retreat to comfortable fictions. The choice is yours.
False dichotomy. Trump’s like that: his way or the highway. Sad!
Just yesterday you argued that it’s perfectly normal for presidents to deliberately alienate our closest allies. That’s exactly the type of comment Mark is referring to.
No, just yesterday you argued that it was a matter of interest that Trump makes statements which irritate Foreign Service cookie-pushers and editorial writers for The Economist. I pointed out that concern with that sort of thing is indicative of superficiality. If foreign governments have serious business to transact they will. If they don’t and wish to strike poses over jabs which are no worse than what American presidents put up with routinely, it’s not much of a loss to us. You do business with European governments. They are not friends and they are not even notably appealing.
The Art of Projection. A hilariously Trumpian response. Why can’t the Orange Overlord do and say precisely what he wants without any consequences? What a grotesque and bullish child.
You might quit thinking about public life as if it were high school on a bigger canvas.