The Trump Presidency – 2016

[stevew]

Doesn’t she have an adopted kid from Africa? The story makes no sense.

[CU Tiger]

I dont know where to post this so why not here?

Pretty interesting story "locally" ICE came in and arrested/is deporting 30 illegals at a manufacturing plant in NC yesterday. What makes it especially concerning (to me) is that it was a firearm manufacturer.

https://sanfordherald.com/news/2793/...creek-arsenal/
and
https://rantnc.com/2019/02/05/ice-ag...cturing-plant/

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Pretty embarrassing for her. Not sure what she saw that was suspicious (give her the benefit of doubt, hope it wasn't just skin color) but to claim she was right at that time is troubling. The investigators either gave her the wrong info or she just jumped to conclusions she shouldn't have.

Well thank god I have never run into Cindy at the zoo, as my white ass and my black wife escort our Hispanic granddaughter to see the Giraffes.

Seriously, I am sure Mrs. McCain had good intentions, but if it was just skin color it is disturbing. This type of bigoted mentality has to go.

[Atocep]

The narrative she had with it is what's alarming. Where did she even get that? If it's something she made up to sell the story better that's some seriously disturbing shit.

[Thomkal]

So Twitter is aflame tonight over an article Jeff Bezos had in Medium magazine. He details the blackmail/extortion attempt by David Pecker/National Enquirer used against him where he threatened to print "unflattering pictures" of him and the woman he is supposedly having an affair with unless Bezos stops investigating Pecker and his company:


No thank you, Mr. Pecker – Jeff Bezos – Medium


Seems incredibly stupid to try to blackmail the richest man in the world who could buy up your company without losing much sleep over it

[bronconick]

So let me get this straight:

You think the richest man in the world who owns one of the most politically incisive newspapers--one known for decades for kicking the political hornet's nest--and who takes it personally that one of his journalists was farking murdered by the Saudis, and who is currently going through a divorce with nothing to lose personally, is someone who cares about hiding dick pics?

And your plan is to blackmail this person?

[Thomkal]

Ronan Farrow also coming forward with story on how he had been blackmailed by AMI:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...=.d4a32fcc02ee

[Thomkal]

Whitaker testimony expected to start around 9:30.

[albionmoonlight]

Jeff Bezos is going scorched Earth against the Enquirer. And you probably feel a certain way about that.

Think about if the Koch Brothers were going scorched Earth against the Los Angeles Times. Would you feel the same way?

Today's vigilante can easily become tomorrow's supervillain.* And today's supervillian can easily become tomorrow's vigilante. Be careful about how hard you root for or against this.

*Does not apply to Batman who will always be awesome.

[Shkspr]

If the LA Times engages in routine libel, blackmail, and extortion, and violates court orders to cease engaging in illegal activity, then I hope the Kochs destroy them.

Twice. Fuck bothsidesism.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

If the LA Times engages in routine libel, blackmail, and extortion, and violates court orders to cease engaging in illegal activity, then I hope the Kochs destroy them.

Twice. Fuck bothsidesism.

What he said. None of that should be in the arsenal of reputable journalists/news sites regardless of their political slant.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

What he said. None of that should be in the arsenal of reputable journalists/news sites regardless of their political slant.

And I think I agree with y'all. Just on the merits of what it appears the Enquirer did, I think that they deserve what they are getting without any regard to left/right.

But I am seeing a lot of left-leaning folks on Twitter who are just seeing this through the lens of "Hero attacks Enquirer/Trump" without any regard to the other issues at play.

Basically, once again, this message board dedicated to a football game has a better and more subtle understanding of politics and current events than almost the entire rest of the internet.

[JPhillips]

I don't know if Trump is involved. I don't know if the Saudis are involved. But the basic premise of, "Fuck you, I won't be blackmailed," is very appealing to me.

[JPhillips]

dola

I expect Avenatti will be posting pics of his junk before the weekend's over to get back in the spotlight.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

dola

I expect Avenatti will be posting pics of his junk before the weekend's over to get back in the spotlight.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by bronconick

So let me get this straight:

You think the richest man in the world who owns one of the most politically incisive newspapers--one known for decades for kicking the political hornet's nest--and who takes it personally that one of his journalists was farking murdered by the Saudis, and who is currently going through a divorce with nothing to lose personally, is someone who cares about hiding dick pics?

And your plan is to blackmail this person?

Perfection.

[RainMaker]

The story of where they got the pictures is going to be bigger than the blackmail stuff. Most people I've talked to think they have a government source.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The story of where they got the pictures is going to be bigger than the blackmail stuff. Most people I've talked to think they have a government source.

If that's true, I don't think we're ever going to hear about it. It that's true, it's going to be buried in a massive information sinkhole. And you're right. If that's true, I can think of at least 1 person (with strong ties to the NE) in the govt who would like to see Bezos embarrassed. Almost too easy to believe.

[stevew]

Trump is dumb enough to have someone hack a phone to discredit a political opponent. He's got more than enough 3rd world dictator in his political dna

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Well thank god I have never run into Cindy at the zoo, as my white ass and my black wife escort our Hispanic granddaughter to see the Giraffes.

Seriously, I am sure Mrs. McCain had good intentions, but if it was just skin color it is disturbing. This type of bigoted mentality has to go.

I say give her a pass for this incident, it does seem as if she had good intentions even though there may be some bias/prejudice (vs racist).

There's a balance here and I don't know where it is. I do think people should report suspicious things but it can go too far and infringe on people's rights.

Cindy McCain report shows challenge for mixed-race families - Story | KSAZ

The incident draws attention to the suspicion that parents, relatives, nannies and others face when they travel with children who don't look like them. That it happened to McCain, who adopted a daughter from Bangladesh and is recognized globally as an advocate for ending human trafficking, illustrates the challenge of being vigilant without triggering concerns about racial bias.

"There's a huge danger in trusting your gut when it comes to race and all kinds of identity dimensions," said Andrew Grant-Thomas, who co-founded an organization called Embrace Race along with his wife. "We make these split-second judgments. And often those split-second judgments...are driven by bias."
:
McCain is an outspoken advocate for preventing human trafficking. She's co-chair of the Arizona Human Trafficking Council, which recommends ways to end exploitation, and trafficking is a focus for the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.

"Her hypersensitivity to looking for trafficking in this instance was not correct," but everyone has a responsibility to be aware of the issue and it shouldn't discourage anyone from reporting potential problems," Luke Knittig, a spokesman for the McCain Institute, said in an email.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I say give her a pass for this incident, it does seem as if she had good intentions even though there may be some bias/prejudice (vs racist).

There's a balance here and I don't know where it is. I do think people should report suspicious things but it can go too far and infringe on people's rights.

Cindy McCain report shows challenge for mixed-race families - Story | KSAZ

I think I can agree with this assessment from what I'm reading. This looks like a "when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. She's hyper-aware of human trafficking profiles, so she's going to be more prone to seeing that type of thing in the wild than most of us.

So, fundamentally, it is an issue of bias...but bias doesn't have to come with a pejorative sense. We all have biases based on training, education, and interests, and we interpret events through the filter of those biases. And sometimes we've just flat wrong, because our biases led us to misinterpret the data at our disposal.

When I was in college, I worked in drug rehab. After 8 weeks of training about addictions and substance abuse patterns, I found myself looking hard at my friends' alcohol consumption habits. Have a few beers to deal with stress? You might be an addict. Need a shot or two at night to help you relax? You might be an addict. It took some time to learn to separate my professional skill set from private life.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I say give her a pass for this incident, it does seem as if she had good intentions even though there may be some bias/prejudice (vs racist).

There's a balance here and I don't know where it is. I do think people should report suspicious things but it can go too far and infringe on people's rights.

Cindy McCain report shows challenge for mixed-race families - Story | KSAZ

This wasn't just reporting something she saw as suspicious. She went on to blatantly lie about it afterwards. Why should she get a pass for it?

“I went over to the police and told them what I saw and they went over and questioned her and, by God, she was trafficking that kid,” she was quoted as saying. Although she went on to claim that the woman was “waiting for the guy who bought the child to get off an airplane,”

[stevew]

Straight out of the Trump playbook of blatent lies and when called out claim you're being prosecuted by the libtards.

[Edward64]

Here we go kids ... go Warren!

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Here we go kids ... go Warren!

Bout time we had a native american president.

(Honestly I don't care, I just wanted to get the dig in)

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I say give her a pass for this incident, it does seem as if she had good intentions even though there may be some bias/prejudice (vs racist).

There's a balance here and I don't know where it is. I do think people should report suspicious things but it can go too far and infringe on people's rights.

Cindy McCain report shows challenge for mixed-race families - Story | KSAZ

Originally Posted by Atocep

This wasn't just reporting something she saw as suspicious. She went on to blatantly lie about it afterwards. Why should she get a pass for it?

Exactly, no pass when you make a blatant accusation without fact.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Bout time we had a native american president.

(Honestly I don't care, I just wanted to get the dig in)

At least you avoided referencing the sites/designation of past massacre against native american tribes, unlike that orange in chief.

Pretty amazing how self-assured FOX can put out a dozen articles denouncing her as “not fit for office because she lied“ given the current ocupant.

[GrantDawg]

Someone was attacked as sexist for saying Elizabeth Warren was "unlikable." I think it stems from the same attack that Hillary faced, and people credited it was because she was a woman. I disagree completely. I agree both Hillary and Warren are unlikable because they are somewhat devoid of charisma to me. I just watched Amy Klobuchar's launch, and I find her quite likable. I am not saying anything about her politics in general, just who can stand listening to for a period of time. I sort of like Tulsi Gabbart personality wise. Kirsten Gillibrand doesn't bother me the little I have seen of her.



I really don't know what my point is. I try to base who I vote for largely on political views, but personality and likeability does make a big difference. Not only because you have to hear them constantly while in office, but it is very unlikely an unlikable president is going to get very much done.

[NobodyHere]

People said Al Gore and John Kerry were unlikeable too. Some people want to see sexism and racism in everything.

[Edward64]

Too many Dems running for me to sort through. I'll get serious in my considerations after it thins down some.

[PilotMan]

I think Klobuchar's chances are much stronger than Warren's right now. It's so fucking early though, why even bother paying attention? trump would like nothing more than to be allowed to campaign against every democrat, every single day, from now until Nov 2020 without doing anything else. Every day that he gets to talk about hypothetical situations and questions takes away from the realities he should be forced to swallow and deal with.

[PilotMan]

Just filed our taxes for this year, and with my injury our income was down 30.5% from 2017. Our total tax liability was down 70.2%. Our overall refund was up slightly. My effective tax percentage went down from 9.4% to 3.65%.

This seems to be a function of sliding down tax brackets from missing 4 months of work. I know full well had I had my normal year that our liability would have been much higher (LTD is untaxed income). Our overall refund is higher than last year, but I did have extra withheld when I was making money too. Most guys in my tax situation saw a slight decrease in taxes from previous years, but not the drop that I did.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Too many Dems running for me to sort through. I'll get serious in my considerations after it thins down some.

I'm not saying there could never be a Democratic candidate who'd inspire more revulsion in me than Trump does, but...it'd take some work.

I'm sure I'll eventually have a preference for one Democrat over another when Wisconsin's primaries roll around but for right now, "not Trump" is my leader in the 2020 field.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

I think Klobuchar's chances are much stronger than Warren's right now.

Klobuchar's got a minor scandel brewing that could end up really messing up her chances. Generally speaking, most people aren't going to care that she's super abusive to her staff (and while a lot of times a strong woman won't get away with things that a strong man will, these reports just look straight up bad for her), but if it stops her from hiring campaign staff, and already reports are that three possible campaign managers have declined to consider it based on her reputation, she'll be dead in the water.

[Kodos]

How Amy Klobuchar Could Win The 2020 Democratic Nomination | FiveThirtyEight

Interesting. I never would have guessed based on the few interviews I've seen with her.

2. Staffing a campaign and building support among insiders. Articles published by HuffPost and BuzzFeed News have included allegations of abusive behavior by Klobuchar toward her staff, citing both statistics showing her high turnover and heretofore largely anonymous accounts of bad behavior from former staffers.

These rumors have been widespread for a long time. (To insert myself as a barometer here, as someone who doesn’t live in Washington and who is sort of ambivalent to political gossip, I’d heard about them several times.) In some ways, the HuffPost and BuzzFeed stories are relatively gentle in that they don’t contain that many details and are largely anonymous. Furthermore, this criticism can be gendered: A woman who exhibits the same behavior as “tough” or “demanding” male boss might be typecast as as “b—-.”

They also reek of inside-baseballness. Having a reputation as a bad boss can be problematic within your industry. But without salacious details, it’s not the sort of scandal that voters are liable to care all that much about.

At the same time, the nomination process is to some extent an inside game. If, as the HuffPost story claims, Klobuchar has trouble recruiting the layers of highly talented staffers that the other candidates have because of a reputation (well-earned or not) for being an abusive boss, that will hurt her. It will hurt her more if it signifies a general wariness about Klobuchar among Washington insiders, which could yield fewer endorsements and less willingness by “party elites” to rally around her if the field has been winnowed down to two or three candidates.

[QuikSand]

FWIW, Klobuchar was the most interesting person to me as a dabbler among the burgeoning D field. My current national politics in a nutshell: I really want to get rid of Trump, but I'm an not deeply in love with very many of the Democratic party's grand ideas at the moment.

Accordingly, I am pretty big into electability. I see these "bad boss" things as a very helpful early warning sign about her on that front, and I take them seriously. Not quite at Warren's level, but seriously.

[digamma]

My other concern about Klobuchar (and I speak as a constituent of hers) is that she's never really been tested as a campaigner. Her closest campaign was her first for county attorney in 1998 and she's never had a serious challenger for her Senate seat (even when she won it in 2006). She's never had to show the dynamism that's required over a long haul campaign.

That said, people in Minnesota are fired up.

[ISiddiqui]

I will add that Klobuchar may be a decent VP pick. If she can't get the staff to mount a good campaign for the top job, being a prosecutor from the Upper Midwest may be a good balance for a coastal person. Same can be said for Sherrod Brown, but I think Brown may be considered one of the favorites and might be one of the last people standing (generally are less likely to be chosen as Veep).

[Ben E Lou]

With so many candidates throwing their hats into the ring, will the Dem nomination process turn into a repeat of R-2016, meaning will it simply be a matter of the loudest mouth gaining the most attention?

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

With so many candidates throwing their hats into the ring, will the Dem nomination process turn into a repeat of R-2016, meaning will it simply be a matter of the loudest mouth gaining the most attention?

I don't think that plays well with Dems.

It's likely whoever can balance moderate and progressive policy the best. If Beto jumps in I think he's the hands down favorite for the nomination. Otherwise I don't have the slightest idea of who is going to keep both millennials and traditional dems interested enough to win.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I don't think that plays well with Dems.

It's likely whoever can balance moderate and progressive policy the best. If Beto jumps in I think he's the hands down favorite for the nomination. Otherwise I don't have the slightest idea of who is going to keep both millennials and traditional dems interested enough to win.

My expectation is for the Democratic party to ensure that a lukewarm moderate is chosen to run rather than someone who would actually do something significant to help the countries citizens (y'know Medicare for all etc.) .... that will also give Trump a chance as the interwebs help alienate some of the democratic voters proclaim that Bernie should have been chosen etc. ... I'm just hoping that fear of another 4 years of Trump might be enough to prevent them turning their backs on Hilary Mark 2 this time around.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

With so many candidates throwing their hats into the ring, will the Dem nomination process turn into a repeat of R-2016, meaning will it simply be a matter of the loudest mouth gaining the most attention?

That has been my fear for the last few weeks now. I think more soft spoken folks will have to deal with the air being sucked out of the room by the candidates with the most grandiose plans.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I'm just hoping that fear of another 4 years of Trump might be enough to prevent them turning their backs on Hilary Mark 2 this time around.

I hope I am misunderstanding your sentence here because this suggests to me you're down for Hillary v Trump 2. I can't imagine a more painful and stupid exercise than that one. If we do that again, this country truly deserves whatever idiot it puts in the office.

[Kodos]

I think he was just saying someone who is politically similar to Hillary, but not actually Hillary. I don't think anyone wants to see that again.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I don't think anyone wants to see that again.

I think you forgot about Donald Trump, his family, and 20 million or so MAGAheads...

[thesloppy]

In hindsight I dunno if it would be possible to come up with a worse DEM candidate than Hillary. She wasn't just unlikable, she was unlikable with a remarkably poor (or just poorly delivered) platform, who took it easy on campaigning, has a long consistent history of talking progressively but acting in corporate interests, she was married to and served as first lady to the most fiscally conservative president in modern history, she, her husband and their foundation also have a long, consistent history of mishandling people of color, and she served as the face of the Republican bogeyman for the last 20 years.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I think you forgot about Donald Trump, his family, and 20 million or so MAGAheads...

Yeah, I meant anyone who wants to see the Democrats beat Trump.

[Galaril]

I don't see any of these Dem's who have entered the race so far as being able to beat Trump as sad as that is. I assume Biden will jump into the race late this year. I would be truly shocked if he does not run. I believe he would win hands down and as a savvy career politician be able to keep most of the Bernie-ites from sitting out like last time. Klobacher or Booker would be my preferences for his Veep at this time.

[larrymcg421]

I think any of the announced candidates other than Bernie, Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard could beat Trump. It's not going to take a great candidate to beat him, just a non-terrible one.

[RainMaker]

I think its too early to tell how it would play out. Most people don't know these candidates well yet. Give it a year and someone will catch on. I think Klobucher and Biden have a good shot. Same with Sherrod Brown. They can win the Midwest and some of the rust belt states.

This is naive of me but I think most Dems have a good shot. Trump is really unpopular and created a class of voters highly motivated to vote. Democrats destroyed them in the mid-terms and it looks like momentum is on their side. For as bad a candidate as Hillary was, she did get a lot more votes than Trump.

Trump won't come close to winning the popular vote. I think if he does win in 2020, he'll lose the popular vote by much more than he did in 2016.