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2020 American Political Scene

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  • #91
    An unusually succinct observation.

    Put yourself up for election against several Republican candidates, beat the Hillary machine, and I'll toss you a cracker if you win.

    Originally posted by Firestorm View Post
    Boris Johnson may look like Trump's long lost brother but that is where the similarity ends. Johnson's image of an uninformed, clumsy everyman is carefully cultivated to make him endearing to voters. On the other hand, Trump actually is as dumb as he appears.

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    • #92
      Originally posted by ofelas View Post
      Put yourself up for election against several Republican candidates, beat the Hillary machine, and I'll toss you a cracker if you win.
      Sure, as long as you don't dig a little into the details (clown car of GOP lightweight idiots and then losing to Clinton - Hilary Clinton, for the love of god - by 2.8 million votes, rescued only by the Electoral College)

      He's a great self-marketer, I'll give him all the credit in the world for that. Probably the best in several generations.

      Business Executive?
      Deal Maker?
      Leader?

      lol not a chance in hell
      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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      • #93
        Americans morale is up.
        https://news.gallup.com/poll/284285/...onal-life.aspx

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        • #94
          Originally posted by surfgun View Post
          Concur. My personal and professional life are at an all time high.
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • #95
            Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
            So I will freely admit I've been paying scant attention apart from the new-media meme wars, but where did this Buttigieg character come from?
            He has apparently jumped 10% overnight to overtake Bernie, and Joe Biden has plummeted even more.
            It would help if they published the last main Iowa poll, but as already noted the results were cancelled, at Buttigieg's insistence.
            Now the actual Iowa count is being revised again and again and again, each revision showing another net gain to Buttigieg and a net loss to the other main contenders, though Joe drops the most each time.
            Never mind, he answered it for me.

            Click image for larger version

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            I don't think the ol hopey changy thing is going to work out for him the way it did for Obama/Trudeau/Macron. That ship has sailed.
            In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

            Leibniz

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            • #96
              Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
              I don't think the ol hopey changy thing is going to work out for him the way it did for Obama/Trudeau/Macron. That ship has sailed.
              You prefer the new "let's get Muscovy to interfere in our elections", lie ridden post truth, nepotistic narcissism?

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              • #97
                Why Would a Billionaire Charge the Secret Service $650 a Night?

                Last year, Eric Trump was asked about Secret Service protection at Trump Organization properties.

                “If my father travels, they stay at our properties for free,” he said. “So everywhere that he goes, if he stays at one of his places, the government actually spends, meaning it saves a fortune because if they were to go to a hotel across the street, they’d be charging them $500 a night, whereas, you know we charge them, like $50.”

                You will be stunned to learn that this is not remotely true.

                Instead, as the indefatigable David Fahrenthold and three colleagues at The Washington Post chronicle in his latest scoop on the president’s business, the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service (in other words, the taxpayer) from $400 to $650 a night to stay at Mar-a-Lago while guarding the president. At another Trump property, his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, the Secret Service was billed $17,000 a month for a small cottage, even when the president wasn’t present. These are just snapshots. Despite heroic public-records work by the Post, there’s still no complete picture of just what the Trump Organization is charging the Secret Service.

                It’s no longer news per se that the Trump Organization is profiteering from the presidency. Since Donald Trump refused to divest from his business at the start of his term, that’s been inevitable. There’s the massive emoluments scandal of the Trump International Hotel in D.C. There are Trump’s Irish properties, at which he “invited” the vice president to stay, then charged the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars. There was his shameless choice to hold the G7 summit at Trump Doral—a decision so universally reviled that the White House quickly reversed it. One of the arguments the administration offered for picking Doral was that it would allow savings on security. “He’s not making any money off of this, just like he’s not making any money from working here,” insisted Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. The new Post story shows that was almost certainly false.

                New or not, the question remains: Why does a billionaire charge the Secret Service $650 to stay at his property?

                The issue is not whether taxpayers should pay for presidential protection. They should, unequivocally. The question is about the cost. As the Post notes, other presidents who allowed the Secret Service to use their properties, including both George Bushes and Bill Clinton, didn’t charge them. None of those presidents owned a for-profit business while serving as president either.

                Perhaps only Trump knows the answer to why he’s charging so much. But here are a few theories as to why so rich a man would gouge his bodyguards and constituents.

                The president is simply a penny-pinching cheapo. In 1990, Spy started mailing progressively more minuscule checks to rich people to see who would go through the trouble of cashing them. Only two people cashed the smallest checks, for 13 cents: an arms dealer, and Donald Trump. Trump is the kind of guy who, while running a huge real-estate business, routinely stiffed contractors out of four-figure checks. Why wouldn’t he squeeze every cent out of this too?

                The profiteering is the point (with apologies to my colleague Adam Serwer). Trump’s presidential run was conceived of more as a publicity stunt than a serious policy initiative. He set out to make money, and if winning the election wasn’t really part of the plan, that didn’t mean it didn’t contribute to the ultimate goal.

                It’s about defiance. So many of Trump’s actions can easily be explained as trolling, or at least as a kiss-off. If you tell him he can’t do something, he’ll do it. What other explanation is there for announcing, in the midst of an impeachment investigation over abuse of power, that you’ll direct a major international summit to your own resort? Some people will be appalled by the charges, but there’s nothing they can do. When you’re a president, they let you do it. You can do anything.

                He feels he’s entitled. The extravagant charges are hypocritical because Trump has made great show of donating his presidential salary. He has insisted that the presidency is a money loser for him, depriving him of a chance to make money elsewhere. It’s impossible to assess this claim—Trump hasn’t released documents to back it up, and his reputation for honesty speaks for itself. It does appear that political backlash against the president has hurt business at some of his properties, though. Trump may view the money he makes from the Secret Service as the least taxpayers can do to mitigate his selfless sacrifices in making America great again, and a meager return for him.

                He’s not really a billionaire. Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg was recently asked whether Americans really wanted to watch two billionaires fight on Twitter. “Two billionaires? Who’s the second one?” Bloomberg quipped. Questions about Trump’s real net worth have circulated for years. When journalist Tim O’Brien (now a Bloomberg adviser) reported in 2005 that Trump was worth more like $250 million, Trump sued him for $5 billion. (The suit was dismissed.) Whenever any investigation has gotten near Trump’s business, he’s gone ballistic. Or perhaps the better explanation is that …

                He’s a paper billionaire with a cash-flow problem. Trump may well be worth billions on paper, but his empire is built on borrowing; he once called himself the king of debt. That means he has to service his loans, for which he needs cash. But several of his businesses seem to be struggling to bring in money, which could mean he struggles to move cash out the door too. As the Post previously reported, Doral is one of several properties that has seen its income tank. Revenue has also fallen at some of his hotels.

                One of the few hotels that seems to be thriving is the Trump International Hotel in D.C. (though even it has its own struggles). Yet the Trump Organization is looking to sell the lease on the hotel, for a record sum. On paper that seems illogical: Why would the Trump Organization sell a property that’s thriving? And if it’s thriving because of its connection to the president, why would another operator pay a huge price for value that will dry up once it’s sold? One answer would be that the Trump Organization is seeking a large cash infusion, so that it can continue to service its debts.

                Charging $650 a night for Secret Service agents doesn’t add up to the reported $500 million asking price for the D.C. hotel. But Trump has spent roughly a third of his presidency staying at his own properties, and all the nights there start to add up to a steady stream of cash coming in, from captive buyers. Just how much is unclear, though, because neither the Trump Organization nor the government will tell.
                ___________

                Surprise, it's probably all of the above! Mostly the profiteering though. Running for president was an infomercial, a way to open up a badly-needed fresh revenue stream, nothing more.
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • #98
                  I am curious, does anyone here know what is a dog faced pony soldier?
                  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eW0aI00aSqE

                  Or does Joe think this young female is an ugly Calvary person?
                  Last edited by surfgun; 09 Feb 20,, 22:21.

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                    I am curious, does anyone here know what is a dog faced pony soldier?
                    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eW0aI00aSqE

                    Or does Joe think this young female is an ugly Calvary person?
                    Supposedly a quote from a John Wayne movie. Regardless, he shouldn't have said that. Leave the horseface insults to childish whoremongers like Trump.

                    Also, it's Cavalry.

                    Calvary is Biblical. Cavalry is horses.
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • Tops you should work for Apple. You could debug the iPhone spell check! You will notice it in addition of it changing my spelling it also turned the lower case c into an upper case C!
                      Last edited by surfgun; 10 Feb 20,, 02:40.

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                      • Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                        Tops you should work for Apple. You could debug the iPhone spell check! You will notice it in addition of it changing my spelling it also turned the lower case c into an upper case C!
                        Oh lord, I should've known.

                        The spelling suggestions/auto-correct on these phones, Apple or Android, can be beyond stupid at times. "Hey let's make it a word hardly ever used!"

                        To give them credit, the upper case C is correct for Calvary...must be some Bible aficionados programming that stuff at Apple.
                        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                        Comment


                        • Appears the mystery is solved. The term does not come from any individual film. Biden apparently blended two phrases together from two separate 1950’s films.

                          https://slate.com/culture/2020/02/jo...one-power.html
                          Last edited by surfgun; 10 Feb 20,, 15:57.

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                          • D.J.Trump reads a poem to his audience...


                            If nothing else, this election season should be entertaining.
                            Last edited by JRT; 11 Feb 20,, 03:44.
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                            • Originally posted by JRT View Post
                              D.J.Trump reads a poem to his audience...
                              Here is Al Wilson's rendition of same.
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                              • Adios, Yang man!
                                https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...ops-out-114208

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