Yep - will be interesting to see over the coming days/weeks what additional documentation makes its way to Congress and possibly the media with respect to if, how and when Trump was informed.

It really is interesting how incapable he is of handling this job.

Quote :

"The POTUS has one hell of re-election message of “I can drink water, walk up a ramp and read.” Good stuff."

This cracked me up.

[Edited on June 30, 2020 at 8:38 PM. Reason : a]

6/30/2020 8:37:15 PM

It’s just such a bizarre argument to even be having. Trump is so obviously manifestly unfit to be in charge of even a Putt-Putt course and Earl is out here arguing it’s not him, it’s the system.

It’s not even hard to argue that America has sucked for a long time, been way too militaristic and we need to really examine every flaw and make changes... all while acknowledging that this dude is uniquely unsuited to do anything remotely like leading.

This isn’t a mutually exclusive thing. Earl (and more to the point people like him who are actually real people) just lack all nuance and it’s simply bizarre.

6/30/2020 8:52:12 PM

^facts

https://podcast.thebulwark.com/david-priess-on-russia-and-the-pdb

This is pretty good.

Quote :

"During the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, Priess served at the CIA as an intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer as well as at the State Department as a desk officer in the Near East Bureau. His work included time as the daily intelligence briefer to FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft, presenting to them each morning the highlights of the of President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and other intelligence materials."

http://www.davidpriess.com/National-Security.html

[Edited on June 30, 2020 at 8:53 PM. Reason : a]

6/30/2020 8:53:19 PM

Quote :

" respond to the point not the person making it"

Sometimes this is probably ok. But you have soiled yourself too many times to be considered being taken seriously

6/30/2020 9:09:47 PM

^couldn't have said it better myself

6/30/2020 10:28:44 PM

Quote :

"It’s just such a bizarre argument to even be having. Trump is so obviously manifestly unfit to be in charge of even a Putt-Putt course and Earl is out here arguing it’s not him, it’s the system."

Thats an argument between you and your strawman. I'm arguing its not just him, its the system. I mean, Trump is literally part of the system so when I criticize the system that made him president it doesn't somehow exclude him. I've always said Trump is the "unmasked" (sic) manifestation of the system

Quote :

"all while acknowledging that this dude is uniquely unsuited to do anything remotely like leading."

If you took out one word "uniquely", I'd agree with this statement. but isn't that a form of nuance? I can definitely see the slight differences between Trump and our previous presidents and even go as far as saying Obama was the least bad one out of the group. I can admit Trump is a monster while also seeing that some of the indirect consequences of his presidency (record wokeness) as positive results. I can also see how from a right wing POV, Trump has effectively delivered on several of their long-term policy goals. Wouldn't leading something you see as bad mean that he is capable of leading something.

Could it possibly be that I have the nuanced stance on Trump and that you are failing to see my nuanced view of him?

I'll also go ahead and admit that I usually do lack nuance because I proudly refuse to accept nuance towards human rights issues and that is why you said that. This usually manifests itself as an abrasive approach towards liberals and that approach is knowingly annoying because the only available response seems to be admitting you don't think everyone should get these rights (what the right does) or dismissing the un-nuanced points as "not real" or "not serious"(what you do).

[Edited on June 30, 2020 at 11:06 PM. Reason : i don't think theres anyone on the left who doesn't accept that trump is at least slightly worse]


[Edited on June 30, 2020 at 11:12 PM. Reason : they want trump to wear a mask so bad that they are electing a masked version of him]

6/30/2020 11:04:25 PM

ah yes the nuanced trump

[Edited on June 30, 2020 at 11:39 PM. Reason : talk to someone about your speed problem ]

6/30/2020 11:37:24 PM

Quote :

" I can admit Trump is a monster while also seeing that some of the indirect consequences of his presidency (record wokeness) as positive results."

This is where I got.

7/1/2020 12:07:13 AM

Quote :

"Trump has effectively delivered on several of their long-term policy goals. Wouldn't leading something you see as bad mean that he is capable of leading something. "

Most of the conservative goals that have been reached under Trump (tax cuts, conservative judges) required and indeed received very little "leadership" from him. He "delivers" by being a Republican with a Republican-controlled Senate (and, in the first couple of years, House). Show me an actual policy accomplishment during this administration, and I'll show you something Mitch McConnell did.

The closest Trump comes to leading, to making things happen, is to do nothing while claiming to have done something huge. Witness USMCA. It is not a major change from NAFTA, and it certainly isn't a change in a way that will bring massive numbers of jobs back to the United States. He basically changed the name, but he touts it as a big win. Or look at The Wall. In three years he's managed 200 miles of Wall on a 2,000+ mile border, but he does victory lap after victory lap over it.

7/1/2020 8:09:05 AM

Today:

Quote :

"I think we're gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear, I hope."

7/1/2020 6:10:23 PM

Yea the guy is a fucking horrible president.

This isn't anything new at all but just posting in the context of the bounty thing - https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/trump-intel-briefings-russia/index.html


[Edited on July 1, 2020 at 6:40 PM. Reason : a]

7/1/2020 6:17:23 PM

His “leadership” on COVID-19 has been so bad, it feels like sabotage.

7/1/2020 6:49:42 PM

It starts with the easiest truth to grasp that he is utterly incapable of understanding.

The health and economic choice is false. They are EXACTLY the same thing.

7/1/2020 7:34:49 PM

He doesn't want to, but if he did, would the president even have the power to enforce the rules you want him to enforce? What would your ideal executive action on COVID look like?

From my understanding of the role of the executive branch, hey put the agencies in place to put out the guidance on the topic and that has been done. Then either congress passes a law to give it teeth or the states act according to what is happening in their state. Is it not supposed to be the role of state and local leaders to enforce the guidelines?

Hypothetically, if Fauci says everyone in (city) should wear a mask, and (governor) nor (mayor) mandate masks, could the president override their call and force (city or nation) to wear masks? It seems like the executive branch is operating according to the constitution and the state and local leaders are dropping the ball.

NY vs United States

Quote :

"Primary Holding The federal government cannot commandeer a state into enacting a certain law."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/144/
Printz vs. United States

Quote :

"Primary Holding The federal government violated the Tenth Amendment when Congress required state and local officials to perform background checks on people buying guns. "

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/898/

These cases seem to suggest that the 10th ammendment prohibits executive mandates like the one in this hypothetical.

If this is true, it is the responsibility of governors and mayors to enact these mandates. States have their own health officials and are fully capable of doing this. Yet, people like Desantis have given no mask order and people like Abbott reopened prematurely. I'm no lawyer and may have misread any of this. What am I missing?


[Edited on July 1, 2020 at 8:01 PM. Reason : I'm just asking questions. Please don't hit me.]

7/1/2020 7:59:48 PM

Funny to me how people confuse leadership and authoritarianism.

7/1/2020 8:00:37 PM

Enforcing a mandate is fairly easy, just do it the same way we do seat belt laws. "You want federal aid for coronavirus, masks are mandatory" on top of enforcing all federal employees to wear masks

7/1/2020 8:17:05 PM

I still don’t understand how you can be a living, breathing human being in this country in July of 2020 and not grasp that Trump has massive influence over state and local GOP officials. They live in fear of tweets and pray for endorsement tweets every day. They constantly debase themselves at his altar.

To not understand that simple things like him endorsing masks or consistently reinforcing what his admins experts say gives cover to all these sycophants to be responsible is just sticking your head in the ground.

You have to be willfully obtuse and ignorant to reality to act like nothing Trump says or does really matters. Or more sinister, you must have some vested interest in shielding him from all responsibilities.

[Edited on July 1, 2020 at 8:23 PM. Reason : X]

7/1/2020 8:21:03 PM

Quote :

" It starts with the easiest truth to grasp that he is utterly incapable of understanding. The health and economic choice is false. They are EXACTLY the same thing."

He’s also oppositional-defiant and petulant. He knows he’s the dumbest person in any room he’s in and to compensate he makes bad decisions to spite the smarter people around him.

Melania in 2015 said trump was like having another child at home. The guy really has some unresolved psychological issues...

7/1/2020 8:31:10 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/white-house-does-not-plan-any-immediate-response-over-intelligence-reports-on-russian-bounties-targeting-us-troops/2020/07/01/7a5ee23c-bbb5-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

Cue the traitor's expected response:

Quote :

"The White House is not planning an immediate response to intelligence reports of Russian bounties given to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan because President Trump does not believe the reports are true or “actionable,” according to two senior administration officials. Trump is not convinced he should do anything about the bounty issue, which he decried in a Wednesday morning tweet as “just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party.” One administration official said there is an internal White House dispute about how much information to declassify to support the president’s skepticism of the intelligence. Some of Trump’s own senior intelligence officials viewed the information as credible enough to warn the Pentagon and allies so they could ensure they had measures in place to protect their forces in Afghanistan, and to begin developing options for responding to the Russian operation, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said Wednesday."

7/1/2020 11:24:49 PM

Please continue Robert C O’brien

7/2/2020 12:51:29 AM

Quote :

"I still don’t understand how you can be a living, breathing human being in this country in July of 2020 and not grasp that Trump has massive influence over state and local GOP officials. They live in fear of tweets and pray for endorsement tweets every day. They constantly debase themselves at his altar."

They aren't scared of tweets, they're scared of the overlapping set of voters they share who happen to be the people Trump speak for/like in his tweets.

If this is the case though, then why aren't they also responsible for this? How is worrying about a tweet acceptable for state and local leaders?

Quote :

" To not understand that simple things like him endorsing masks or consistently reinforcing what his admins experts say gives cover to all these sycophants to be responsible is just sticking your head in the ground."

I think most of the anti-mask people are against wearing masks because they don't like wearing masks and I don't think the president affects how much you comply. These are the type of people who live their entires lives on "the government can't tell me what to do". They don't even wear condoms.

Quote :

"You have to be willfully obtuse and ignorant to reality to act like nothing Trump says or does really matters. Or more sinister, you must have some vested interest in shielding him from all responsibilities."

What Trump says matters obviously. I'm saying that it SHOULDN'T matter and the fact that so much relies on what he tweets is indicative of widespread systematic failure. Every leader, check and balance had to fail for the last hope of people wearing masks to hinge on a Trump tweet.

I do this with every problem not just trump. If someone throws trash on the floor, I recognize that the person was an asshole, but put a lot more focus on getting a garbage can in that area so that assholes won't get to the point where they see throwing trash on the floor as a good option.


I'll use the recently popular "bad apples" dilemma as a great example. Cop shoots someone. It comes out that he was always an awful, racist, brutal cop. Everyone responds "OMG GET THIS COP OUT OF HERE SO WE CAN HAVE JUSTICE". I interject, saying that the system produced the situation that allowed the cop to kill the man and allows cops that aren't even "as" evil to kill people all the time. We cannot have justice until we repair the system so that no apples have the power to kill like this.

You wouldn't respond to that by wondering if I'm secretly just trying to defend the one particular cop .

7/2/2020 3:30:12 AM

Political party affiliation is a better predictor of mask wearing compliance than age, gender, education level, rural/urban location, etc etc etc.

If Trump had come out at the beginning of COVID and stuck with his whole “we are at war with COVID, USA rah rah rah, everyone wear a mask!” And then was seen in public with a MAGA mask on. . . . We’d have armed patrols of old white Karens Waving flags and enforcing mask wearing in the streets. No doubt in my mind.

7/2/2020 6:00:50 AM

^

7/2/2020 10:24:22 AM

The missed marketing campaign for MAGA masks just can't be discussed enough.

It's baffling the campaign didn't think of this.

[Edited on July 2, 2020 at 12:35 PM. Reason : ih]

7/2/2020 12:35:25 PM

Quote :

"The missed marketing campaign for MAGA masks just can't be discussed enough."

dude chetto won't wear a mask and is making it a political issue

would be very off/anti-brand to have maga masks

7/2/2020 1:32:10 PM

but why stop there? Give me some MAGA gun collection centers and MAGA abortion clinics. MAGABLM....

7/2/2020 1:39:15 PM

Look at you, lumping in mask wearing with others policies that Republicans generally oppose meaning you 100% agree that it's a political issue and not 'oh they just don't like it'

You did it! You made that logical connection!

[Edited on July 2, 2020 at 1:50 PM. Reason : a]

7/2/2020 1:49:54 PM

They DID have MAGA masks. Parscale was hawking them shits in early March as hard as he could:

Sure they look like repurposed mouse pads, but MAGA was ready to eat them up just like cheap shitty MAGA hats.

Then Trump went on multiple public appearances where he refused to wear a mask and essentially said only pussies wear masks. And now germ theory is a partisan division point. To me, our current problems with mask wearing compliance can be piled on Trump almost singularly.

7/2/2020 2:05:02 PM

^Amazing

Additional details on the latest treason intrigue from Trump - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/02/afghan-middleman-in-russian-bounty-case/?utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=22782&utm_term=Situation%20Report%20OC&?tpcc=22782

[Edited on July 2, 2020 at 2:14 PM. Reason : a]

7/2/2020 2:13:53 PM

You hate to see it

[Edited on July 6, 2020 at 6:23 PM. Reason : they criticize Trump for about 10 things per day. i only talk about the one that is bogus]

7/6/2020 6:13:39 PM

No clue where that came from but we have ZERO indication from anywhere that mild cases are “totally harmless.”

I assume you’re doing that weird as shit thing where Trump says a stupid thing and you rush in to defend him from the big bad media.

[Edited on July 6, 2020 at 6:45 PM. Reason : Earl is actually Hugh Hewitt]

7/6/2020 6:45:28 PM

I don't defend people from the media, I defend the truth against what I see as dishonest or misleading attacks. Colloquially speaking, 99% of the time, the media's attacks on Trump are "totally" warranted. If its straight forward and honest, theres nothing to post about. The posts represent the hyperbolical 1% of the time I see a huge hole in the media's attack against Trump.

[Edited on July 6, 2020 at 10:01 PM. Reason : that shouldn't be taken as literally 99 out of 100 times. its hyperbole]

7/6/2020 10:00:41 PM

He wants to force schools to open.

Civics much? Did he skip that class in his private school education?

7/6/2020 10:50:35 PM

7/6/2020 10:51:28 PM

^^wait so you think Trump created the current F1 visa rules? the physical requirement in particular?

[Edited on July 7, 2020 at 12:27 AM. Reason : people just now learning online students can't get F1 visas]

7/7/2020 12:27:00 AM

Officially out of WHO.

What a fucking retard.

7/7/2020 2:33:45 PM

All to deflect from his own failures and incompetence. Our country is really in trouble. We’re all at the mercy of a single fragile mans ego.

7/7/2020 2:42:51 PM

bye tiktok and 60 other apps

7/7/2020 2:57:18 PM

Just saw a Trump ad about how the police will be defunded if Biden wins. You know its bad when attack ads have more of a vision for the future of the country than either campaign. I would totally vote for the Trump campaign's version of Joe Biden.

[Edited on July 7, 2020 at 8:34 PM. Reason : radical left!]

7/7/2020 8:34:08 PM

lol

7/7/2020 10:04:33 PM

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1280853299600789505?s=21

He’s so close to understanding it. One more easy leap.

7/8/2020 1:04:56 PM

Yes lets run our department of education exactly like those countries.

7/8/2020 1:43:50 PM

Should just rename this thread Treason Watch.

https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/

7/8/2020 7:50:42 PM

It's pretty clear Trump is actively trying to kill people at this point. No need to round up brown/poor/old people and send them to the gas chambers Hitler-style when all he has to do is deny/deflect/distract/blame/divide the country to get rid of people he doesn't like.

7/8/2020 10:11:40 PM

so what does his final solution look like?

7/8/2020 11:23:59 PM

I know what my final solution looks like

7/9/2020 12:44:57 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/politics/esper-briefed-russian-payments-to-taliban/index.html

7/9/2020 8:57:29 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/geoffrey-berman-testimony-william-barr-president-trump/2020/07/08/9dc3f270-c089-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html

Barr, I guess, trying to protect Trump from all the investigations into the traitor.

7/9/2020 10:46:00 PM

Quote :

"I don't defend people from the media, I defend the truth against what I see as dishonest or misleading attacks. Colloquially speaking, 99% of the time, the media's attacks on Trump are "totally" warranted. If its straight forward and honest, theres nothing to post about. The posts represent the hyperbolical 1% of the time I see a huge hole in the media's attack against Trump."

You know, I can't help but notice that you still didn't bother to define "mild", even when this objection of its omission is explicitly pointed out to you. Are you just incapable of engaging in good faith?

Here, let me help you:

Quote :

"Newly described case reports add to growing evidence that COVID-19 infections can result in severe, long-lasting neurological complications—including inflammation, psychosis, delirium, nerve damage, and strokes—even among patients experiencing mild cases of the virus with few other symptoms. In some instances, the new study claims, these neurological effects were the first manifestation of the disease."

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/dozens-more-cases-reported-of-neurological-problems-in-covid-19-67717

7/10/2020 2:05:51 AM

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1281438154994733058?s=21

So Fauci said this but there has been an avalanche of studies showing the potential long-term effects of COVID and the best answer is we don’t know.

Earl made an excuse and tried to play it off as an allegory but his post regarding the 99% of cases are harmless was a direct defense of Trump yet again just like the Easter re-opening. It was just as wrong too.

Earl knows that we simply don’t know what the long-term effects of relatively mild cases will be and at best it’s a weak cover for what Trump said and at worst it’s straight lying.

Trump was, as he has been throughout COVID, incredibly irresponsible and because he has such an outsized influence over conservative actions he likely caused more unnecessary sickness and death by saying it.

7/10/2020 10:28:19 AM