President Trump

[Bellyhungry]

So.... earlier he lost Ann Coulter.
Then he got in a bunfight with Fox News.
Now George W. Bush has issued a statement that isn't exactly supportive.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/politics/george-w-bush-statement-on-george-floyd/index.html

He carefully avoids any mention of Trump. Read between the lines.

And now W's former staffers have formed a super-PAC to support Joe Biden.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/500767-bush-administration-alums-form-pro-biden-super-pac

Outside of the regular basket-of-deplorables, it looks like Trump's support is "dwindling".

To say the least.

You can add pastor Pat Robertson to the list:

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/s...91912910012417

[WWFS]

Fortunately, some people haven’t allowed their principles to be surrendered to the President’s caprice.

I'm very surprised that we've heard relative crickets from DoJ staff over Barr's role.

[bcampb00]

Wow, a Trumpian/Limbaugh rant. Suffice to say that "they" did not do all those things. People did, individuals with diverse opinions. Their was no liberal consensus on many of those issues. Let's look at the Trump collusion narrative, some are convinced he did, many (including I) do not think so. But I do think it needed to be investigated. I think you saw both opinions expressed during 2016/17 and their are lots of examples. This is the same as conservatives saying Biden wanted Skolkin fired to help Burisma. No evidence of that but I can point you to 100's of media that will make that claim.
I will donate money to bail out people who have been arrested for protesting and civil disobedience. Not looters, but protestors and their are plenty.
Trump has not been great at many of the issues you mentioned. You can argue he has done some good things. But overall he hasn't lead the country. He panders to his base more often than not, he has made little attempt at uniting the country in act, speech or tone. His response to Covid was horrendous, not just bad. His response to the Floyd protests had been poor. The country needs leadership, he is unwilling or incapable of reaching out to both sides even in a crisis. Everything is somebody else's fault. When cornered he tries to distract rather address issues.
I don't lay all the blame for division at his feet, I don't think most liberals do either. You are not going to get every issue right. It's tricky to try an unite the nation but it would be nice to see an effort. But what all Americans expect is leadership, especially in a time of crisis. He has failed at that by any measure.

Wow, quite a liberal/snowflake rant! (See what I did there - doesn’t much aid the objective of civil discourse does it?).

More seriously, I never enter the Trump thread and I am sure I will regret it here. I sense some battle fatigue from SA2.0 and wanted to ask you some questions on your points above.

1. “There was no liberal consensus on many of those issues”. Can you point me to the liberals / democrats that spoke out against the “Russian interference” investigation? It seemed to me that there was widespread silence (same Q for the Flynn investigation for that matter). You believe it “needed to be investigated”. Why, exactly? It should have been clear from very early on that this was politically motivated and that the evidence was scant, biased and very unlikely to lead to a successful prosecution. Yet the “investigation” lasted , what, years (and 10’s of millions of $)?

2. What in Trump’s response to Covid has been “horrendous, not just bad”? I just don’t see it in such unequivocal terms as you seem to. For one, I think it is way too early to evaluate any country’s response to Covid and their effectiveness at balancing the threats of the pandemic with the threats of closing the largest economy in the world (maybe it will be proven “horrendous” at some point, I don’t see it yet. Second, Trump is limited in his influence on the Covid response- healthcare is broadly within the purview of states. Doesn’t seem fair to tag Trump with Cuomo’s (for example) disasters.

It seems satisfying psychologically to blame everything on Trump (he is a complete jackass after all), but that doesn’t seem to do justice to the intellectual rigour of placing blame squarely where it belongs.

[trunckslammer1]

The US is so deeply divided. During the Obama years, when the GOP controlled both houses in his 2nd term, same thing happened. With Trump, it seems to have gotten worse as Social Media seems to magnify everything. Both seems so entrenched in their thinking.

Here in Canada we are somewhat lucky in that in absolute terms, we have about 30% Right (die hard PC) and 30% Left (NDP plus a few Liberals). They are to try and convince at least 10% of the middle to get elected.

[mpare]

The former Joint Chiefs Chairman is equally unamused. Oh, and I don’t believe that he’s a liberal/snowflake, who doesn’t know where responsibility should lie for this action.

https://apple.news/AQBbdsnduRe6RR-FN0ElPIw

Fortunately, some people haven’t allowed their principles to be surrendered to the President’s caprice.

[Marty Canuck]

George Takai, gotta love him!

[mpare]

I shouldn’t have laughed in response to the previous post, but I did.

[IrishGuy1979]

[Ignatius Reilly]

There's been some questioning as to who exactly was brought in to clear Lafayette Park for Trump's photo op.

When asked who they worked for they said "Department of Justice" or "The Federal Government". They had no badging or ID visible.

Who were those guys?

[Pingeye2_fan]

There's been some questioning as to who exactly was brought in to clear Lafayette Park for Trump's photo op.

When asked who they worked for they said "Department of Justice" or "The Federal Government". They had no badging or ID visible.

Who were those guys?

Apparently Jared and Ivanka cooked up the idea.

[IrishGuy1979]

The Deep State Army - put there to make Bunker Boy look bad

[Marty Canuck]

The Deep State Army - put there to make Bunker Boy look bad

Don’t get Rusty started....

[Bellyhungry]

There's been some questioning as to who exactly was brought in to clear Lafayette Park for Trump's photo op.

When asked who they worked for they said "Department of Justice" or "The Federal Government". They had no badging or ID visible.

Who were those guys?

Based on my limited sluething skill....They are the S.O.R.T. (Special Operations Response Team,) which is part of the Bureau of Prisons.

I think the Bureau of Prison is under DOJ command, and therefore under Barr.

Apparently DOJ/Barr has no jurisdictional authority over the military, hence he called in his own troops.

[pudubny]

Wow, quite a liberal/snowflake rant! (See what I did there - doesn’t much aid the objective of civil discourse does it?).

More seriously, I never enter the Trump thread and I am sure I will regret it here. I sense some battle fatigue from SA2.0 and wanted to ask you some questions on your points above.

1. “There was no liberal consensus on many of those issues”. Can you point me to the liberals / democrats that spoke out against the “Russian interference” investigation? It seemed to me that there was widespread silence (same Q for the Flynn investigation for that matter). You believe it “needed to be investigated”. Why, exactly? It should have been clear from very early on that this was politically motivated and that the evidence was scant, biased and very unlikely to lead to a successful prosecution. Yet the “investigation” lasted , what, years (and 10’s of millions of $)?

2. What in Trump’s response to Covid has been “horrendous, not just bad”? I just don’t see it in such unequivocal terms as you seem to. For one, I think it is way too early to evaluate any country’s response to Covid and their effectiveness at balancing the threats of the pandemic with the threats of closing the largest economy in the world (maybe it will be proven “horrendous” at some point, I don’t see it yet. Second, Trump is limited in his influence on the Covid response- healthcare is broadly within the purview of states. Doesn’t seem fair to tag Trump with Cuomo’s (for example) disasters.

It seems satisfying psychologically to blame everything on Trump (he is a complete jackass after all), but that doesn’t seem to do justice to the intellectual rigour of placing blame squarely where it belongs.

1/ to your point. Few people said their should be no investigation. Russia interfered with the 2016 election, several Trump election campaign officials had connections. Manafort being one. It should be looked at. If Hillary's campaign had a Manafort type person working for them, Mitch would still be investigating it. The investigation was not so much about "Russian interfernce" as you say. But did the Trump election team collude with them. Russian interference has been concluded by all investigations including the GOP majority senate report released last month. As for your second point that it should be "clear" and the length of the investigation. Hmmm, Whitewater. By any measure Whitewater lasted at least 4 years, some say 6. What did it find? How much did it cost? What was the basis? Was it a national security threat? Mueller was less than 2 years, is this the same?
2/ I don't see it as way too early. The US with the most assets to fight the virus and organizations like the CDC botched it. Their are many aspects here. First Trump dismissed it, then he claimed he took it seriously. There is no evidence he ever took it seriously. Trumps team worried about HHS's Azar asking congress for too much money. So they asked for $1.8b on Feb 24. Congress and democrats in the senate immediately asked for $8.5b. This after a Feb5 briefing where senators and congressmen on both sides said they were not taking this seriously. Additionally Trump never understood the threat. Risk assessment is very important. They did virtually nothing from January 21 until Feb 24. Then when most thought that FEMA should lead the response Trump refused to lead. Under a national emergency FEMA should become the leader in obtaining critical supplies and coordinating the response. Trump waited until March 15 to activate FEMA even though WHO warned against critical supply issues on January 9. Then they blamed Obama for PPE issues with the national stockpile. Why did nobody look at it until March if the stockpile was low, they knew their was a threat on Jan 9th. No orders placed until laste March? Why?
Well, because they ignored all the national HHS, NSC and CDC play books for pandemics. Obama left a national pandemic playbook for executive level decisions. It was ignored. Trump admin officials state it was dated (even though it was completed in 2017) and they followed 3 other pandemic play books completed under HHS. Actually by my reading and most health experts, they ignored the OBama playbook and the three play books created under Trump's HHS are not executive level documents. To be clear they didn't follow them either.
Further in a crisis, information and communication are important. Trump took the lead. His communication was eradic and sometimes just wrong. He didn't give the CDC or HHS the ability to lead or communicate directly. They were the experts.
Lets look at the testing issue. CDC creates a test and by Feb 5 various reports say it not good. For three weeks FDA and CDC fight about this problem. Where is the leadership to intervene and resolve? Nowhere. In the meantime WhO using the German test is shipping hundreds of thousands of test kits that work. Why did it take 3-4 weeks to resolve this issue if it was properly overseen by the executive? If it's important it's looked at.
So by most expert accounts Trump's admin's showed no urgency, little understanding and little competence during the early days. Trump bet it wouldn't be a major issue. A complete misunderstanding of risk.

To to your comment that the "purview" of dealing with the crisis lies with the states. That not true. H1n1 was lead by CDC and FEMA. Once the federal govt decides it's a national emergency it's takes the lead. It's cannot dictate response but by fiscal and scientific arguments it can lead. The states understand this. Today, 4 months after the start of Covid, the states are still bidding against each other and the national stockpile for PPE and test kits. Does that sound coordinated? It's not coordinated or leadership. He decided to let the states fend for themselves. I have not read a single public health expert review that said Trump handled this well. I have posted many of these opinions and facts in this thread. You are welcome to search for them.
but I am frankly bewildered why you would ask. The US is the biggest economy in the world. It has the CDC, FEMA, HHS and the largest scientific community in the world to oversee these problems. Yet it has the among the worst numbers for Covid by about any measure. Not the worst by how can a world leading country be in the top 5 for Covid by about any measure?
My snowflake rant is complete. Now some questions.
Where and what do you think Trump did well with Covid response?
Do you think they acted with a sense of urgency? Do you have examples?
Did they understand the risks? That does not mean they knew how bad it would be. Did they understand how bad it would "could" be and take appropriate action?
How did so many lesser countries outperform the US?

[pudubny]

George Takai, gotta love him!

Not bad at all.