monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Yeah, Farmer, this guy seems to know what's up, sho nuff:



http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/12/30/mit-climate-scientist-dr-richard-lindzen-urges-trump-cut-the-funding-of-climate-science-by-80-to-90-until-the-field-cleans-up/

It would appear you are wrong. It seems Bush was there in 2006, were you retired already?

http://www.gettyimages.com/event/president-bush-visits-national-security-agency-56659590#fort-meade-united-states-this-25-january-2006-file-photo-shows-us-of-picture-id57585566

We are a shell of our former glory when it comes to outer space and you know it. We can't even move our own people to the ISS at this point and we won't be able to for a few more years. I don't place all the blame on Obama of course, most of it should be blamed on Nixon for going with the shuttle program instead of keeping our eyes on the Moon and Mars.

What? Couldn't be. G-bag said and that is that.

I disagree with CI and his ilk, so I'm not a human, I'm an alt human.

There have, for years, been charges that the Chicago PD was a hotbed of racist brutes violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens, and most notably, African-American citizens.This hasn't been a hidden, dirty secret, and for decades, Democrat Chicago Mayors have, at the very least, known about these charges.

Now we know that all Democrats, and particularly the ones that lead our major cities, are paragons of compassion and social justice and thankfully, for these cities, all of the wheels of their complex political and administrative machines have been turned and maintained by the same passionate and justice minded Democrats than man the controls. Therefore, we know that the City Fathers & Mothers of shining cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, D.C. and Los Angeles would never have dismissed out of hand the complaints of discrimination and brutality made against their police departments. Don't we?

Apparently, though, the police departments of these cities, even those with African-American commissioners, chiefs-of-police, and widespread representation in the officer ranks, have been controlled by the shadowy forces of reactionary racism for all these years, despite all of the heroic reform efforts of Democrat crusaders.

Now, President Obama was far too respectful of his office to issue tweets demanding that the Mayors of Chicago, Baltimore, St Louis et al put an end to the discriminatory and brutal practices of their police departments, but he must have made a promise/threat to Rob Emanuel, similar to the one made by Trump, and Emanuel must have, effectively, told him to pound sand, because guess what? Approx 13 months ago Obama sent in the Feds!

The DOJ Feds from the Civil Rights division spent over a year investigating the facts and determined that indeed, the charges of discrimination and brutality were accurate and guess what else? Per the former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the Obama Administration would be sending in even more Feds to work with Mayor Emanuel in rooting out the shadowy racist cabal and bring justice to the minority citizenry of Chicago.

I feel certain that a clear-minded rational person such as yourself would have laughed at any suggestion that Obama and Lynch took these actions because of their deep seated hatred for police (and particularly white ones) and that Lynch's announcement of the findings was some sort of poorly veiled message to the left-wing base of the criminally minded and those bleeding hearts who want to coddle them, that it was open season on cops and let the looting begin.


I'm also pretty sure that you would have taken to your pulpit to warn us of the real danger inherent in extremists suggesting that Obama would be happy to hear increased chanting of "What do want! Dead cops! When do want them? NOW!" if for no other reason than he could get political mileage from it.

Of course we saw no such statements and charges made by serious A2K conservatives or anyone in this forum for that matter, but we can rest assured that you would have been ready to pounce if we had.

Please understand, I'm not failing to recognize the dramatic, fundamental distinction between Barack Obama and Donald Trump and their respective supporters. The former, like the leaders of America's Murder Capital are all paragons of compassion and social justice. The latter, of course, are all members of the shadowy racist cabal that is responsible for all of the ills of our society.

Yes, a racial bigot, scammer and misogynist won the presidency. Many are predicting he will be impeached before his first term is over. He doesn't understand rules and regulations. He even encouraged violence, and promised to pay the legal fees. The majority of women in this world understand this crotch grabber, and two million around the world demonstrated against this narcissist.

Heh, those are good ones, Frug, especially the "one trick donkey" one.



Them poor Limeys, eh? Their country has been riding a continuous downward slope ever since the ingrates voted Winny out of office in 1945 because he wasn't a socialist.

This is one of those phony controversies the Left likes to hatch and then beat to death with talking heads, print pundits, and political operatives throughout the internet. The rank & file pick up on it like dutiful worker ants and it is spread far and wide until it somehow becomes "fact."

Remember Romney's horrid "Binders of Women?"

The kerfuffle about the inauguration crowd sizes involved a series of unforced errors by Team Trump which may or may not have been launched by Trump himself.

I should clarify that I've no doubt that it was Trump who prompted the dust up, but I'm still not quite sure that he is the cartoon figure his opponents are diligently trying to cast him as.

I must admit that I'm leaning towards believing he is too thin skinned, too impulsive, and too focused on signs that he is winning. There are frustrating times when I am absolutely certain he is all of the preceding but then something will happen or a thought will cross my mind that gives me reason to reconsider.

I still cannot reconcile the cartoon version of Trump with the man who, in reaction to the repeated disagreements voiced by his nominees during confirmation hearings, defied all negative expectations and behaved precisely in the manner which even his critics have to acknowledge was perfect for the situation.

We need to keep in mind that his enemies in the MSM and Congress are, each and every day, attempting to bait him into committing a misstep, in the hope that he will have another cartoon Trumpian Moment or provide the Left's Holy Grail, a total public meltdown filled with frothing vitriol and obscenities.

During the hearings the Democrat Senators deliberately sought opportunities to illicit statements from the nominees which were in clear disagreement with Trump's campaign promises and policies. Enticing them to actually say something like "I disagree with the President-Elect on this issue." was a major victory.

Their comrades in the MSM, in turn, hammered home these points of disagreements on twitter, in News Alerts on TV or in e-mail, and in the opinions voiced on TV panels or in Op/Ed columns. Where ever possible the message that was disseminated was

"The real experts, the serious men and women of the DC Establishment, think that Trump's ideas are dangerous, nutty, stupid and amateurish and even the Republicans he has picked to hold the most important positions in the Trump Administration agree!"

I feel quite certain that everyone in on the setup was extremely confident that Trump would not only take the bait, he'd swallow the hook: There would be furious, and insulting tweets in the wee hours of the morning, leaks galore from Transition Team "insiders" about Trumpian temper tantrums, and even at some point, a very public "You're fired!" for some nominee before the confirmation process was completed.

Instead we saw one or two tweets praising all of the nominees for their performances and encouraging them to "be themselves," even if this meant acknowledging they disagreed with him. The tweets were then followed by a response to a question fired at him from a reporter in Trump Tower which said, with complete equanimity, the very same thing.

Honest critics of Trump have to admit that they were more than surprised by his reaction and if they are really honest they will admit that they were disappointed. A lot of work from a lot of people went into setting that trap and they had to be pretty sure, or at least hopeful, that it would catch the cartoon bear they've been trying to create for weeks now.

I certainly will admit I was surprised, but I was also pleased, reassured and stimulated to give the whole thing a lot more and deeper thought.

Out of control, petty, megalomaniacs don't react as he did, nor do thin skinned people with impulse control problems. If he could be controlled by his handlers on this one issue, he could be controlled by them on far less important ones.

I do think the man has a certain genius, if only for self-promotion, but I think his brilliance extends beyond that and in other areas. I don't profess to understand the way Trump's mind works or even be able at this time to draw confident conclusions about him that I can clearly articulate, but I am absolutely certain he is not at all the cartoonish figure his enemies seek to paint him as. He has been underestimated every step of the way from the moment he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy, and if the opposition continues to do so it will serve Trump, not them.

I do think he has much more of a strategy or plan in which many of these Trumpian moments are deliberate tactical moves, but I think a lot of what he's done and is doing is intuition based and spontaneous in terms of execution. So that while he may not have specifically planned on addressing inaugural crowd size on the weekend of his swearing in, I do think he generally planned some sort of dust up with the MSM. We need to keep in mind that despite what it may seem like on TV and in the Press, Trump’s enemies and critics are not the only ones experiencing these moments, they are not the only audience to which Trump play and theirs is not the only reaction to these moments that matter. Rush Limbaugh has been saying for a couple of weeks now that part of the MSM’s plan with all of this is to demoralize Trump’s supporters and I think he’s right. I don’t think its working but that doesn’t mean they are not trying, and trying very hard. Most of the people I socialize with are intelligent and informed but they’re not the political junkies I and many of you are. They’re not being personally bombarded by these stories and if they think one has become overly repetitive, they shut if off either figuratively or literally. Constant barrages don’t work if your target isn’t receiving them.

On Sunday I was with friends and family who are split about 70/30 in terms of supporting Trump vs opposing him. Obviously this didn’t represent a scientific polling experience but it was interesting. The unanimous opinion was that the inaugural crowd controversy was overblown by the media and boring. No one cared about it and they were tired of it. Keep in mind that this was Sunday; I doubt that three more days of it since then has piqued anyone’s interest. Even the most adamant Trump opponent thought it was a non-story and was annoyed that it seemed to be over-shadowing the Women’s Marches in DC and elsewhere. Of particular note was the reaction three guys, who in the past had expressed disappointment and frustration with Trump’s fixation with sideshow issues, had to my comment that I was annoyed that he brought up the crowd size and Time Cover nonsense at his meeting with the CIA. All of them disagreed with me and thought that if the MSM was going to keep attacking him about every little thing he should use every opportunity he gets to defend himself and attack them in return.

The MSM’s effort to inflame the original reservations of three of my friends had the exact opposite effect. They had managed to turn three almost #NeverTrumpers into cheerleaders for his antics. As for those who were all in Trumpsters from the start, rather than being demoralized, they were gleeful. They love every time he says how dishonest the media is and for them it never gets old.

Again a small isolated sample but it’s a common reaction it this happenstance, a result of a deliberate Trump strategy or a logical reaction to a MSM that is overplaying its hand and seems more obsessive than Trump? Probably a mix of all three.

Now this doesn't mean I think Trump’s necessarily a Master Strategist. Just because these incidents are some parts of a loose plan doesn't mean they are a good idea or won't be self-defeating. It also doesn't mean that he always picks the right issue to blow up or goes about it in the right way. I haven't come close to deciding how I feel about whether his plan will work, but we are on Day 6 of his Administration. It is way too early to reach any conclusions or finalize judgments.

What we do know at this point is that he is President of the United States.

We know he won the GOP nomination, running against 16 other candidates, all of whom had far more political experience than him and some of whom were pretty heavyweight. Throughout much of this campaign he was mocked and given little to no chance of winning.

We know he won the general election, running against one of the most powerful political machine in our history. Throughout much of this campaign he was mocked and given little to no chance and he successfully weathered Trumpian Moments that far outweighed the current dust up.

At some point it makes good sense to stop underestimating the guy who keeps beating you up, and mockery and dismissal has a pathetic quality when your smirk is interrupted by swollen, cracked lips.

If Clinton had won we would right now be in the middle of a "Honeymoon" that could be expected to last for another 94 days. If a situation arose wherein a Clinton aide made a reference to "alternative facts," first of all, despite HRC's history of mendacity, the MSM would not have covered it beyond the day in which it was said. If it was reported at all. Secondly, no progressive wag would be smirking and sneering about the term and insisting that not only was it synonymous with "manufactured facts," but that the HRC aide knew it was when she used it.

Just as with "binders of women" there is a context wherein the phrase "alternative facts" makes sense and has no sinister connotation but as with the phrase used against Romney, Trump's enemies will never admit this.

With respect to that first one, it is reminiscent of what Bertrand Russell once said, which went something like this:

Yeah, Finn, the media is gittin played by Trump, sho nuff, and they don't even know it. Someone suggested that, since he was hostile to the press, he would therefore "limit their access."

My response was that I expected him to do the opposite. He would grant broader access in order to have more occasions and opportunities to publicly attack and humiliate them.

You bring up the Romney, and the attendant drones, example, but there are plenty with respect to Trump himself. The media usually doesn't tell you what Trump says. They just tell you what he "really means," and the useful idiots take it from there. For example:

1. Trump mocked the disability of a reporter. (He did no such thing)
2. Trump attacked a gold star family. (He did no such thing).
3. Trump said all Mexicans are rapists and murders
4. Trump said no muslims would be allowed to live in America.

Just a few examples. The whole list would be virtually infinite.

Every time he deals them some cards (off the bottom) they think they have a good hand and overplay it.

So, what is this context wherein the phrase "alternative facts" makes sense, exactly?

The phrase "alternative facts" isn't so sinister as it is imbecilic.

I done done that, a while back.

Nothing complicated about it.

To summarize, she was just explaining how Trump could, and did, arrive at an "alternate conclusion" (not really facts). The basis for that conclusion was facts that the media ignored, and pretended didn't, and couldn't, exist.

Of course, true to form, when the media replays the interview, they abruptly end it as soon as the blowhard interviewer yells "there no such thing as alternative facts." The left eats that **** up.

To give an analogy, let's say someone, say O.J. Simpson, is accused of murder.

At his trial, hundreds of "facts" are presented to the jury.

When the trial is over the jury finds him not guilty.

Others (non-jurors) swear that he was "proven guilty."

From all the "facts" available, it's clear that each group is selecting "alternate facts" to emphasize.

No analogy required. We all know who Trump is. The world knows Trump, and 2.6 million around the world let Trump know he's one of least popular American president to have existed.

What do you like about Trump besides the fact that a) he inherited his wealth, b) he has a history of bigotry, and c) he scammed many people and the Trump Foundation?

Well, of course I love all of that, but there's also much more to love about him. He aint no phony-ass, two-faced bullshitter, and he won't submit to cheese-eatin, candyass "political correctness."

Thanks for your honesty. I can now ignore most of your posts.

Outstanding essay. I believe I'm more negative towards Trump than you, but like much of what you write here that was simply superb.