It almost makes me wonder if it would be a good idea if there was a website that covered the latest gaffe and the corresponding actual news worthy story that was lost out on optimal coverage because of it.
Edit: I couldn't find this before but here is an interesting article I read yesterday [0]. It's an opinion piece by Alexey Kovalev. - "I’ve reported on Putin – here are my tips for journalists dealing with Trump".
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/23/report...
It's like having to choose between being upset about the person that mugged you for $500 on the street, or the bank that surreptitiously added 0.05% APR or the loan you just got for your house. One feels more important in the moment, but the other has much farther reaching implications, not just to your pocketbook, but as to whether you can trust anything about that institution going forward.
If this is the beginning of a new trend for the Whitehouse where nothing presented can be trusted, and it continues through future presidencies, I can definitely tell you which I think will be more important in 20 years.
But is that such a bad thing?
They say access journalism is dead, but access journalism is just repeating stuff said by people with power. Making them accountable is a good thing.
Trump may have unintentionally restored investigative journalism...
This can happen if they can find a way to monetize text that costs 100x more to produce and has 100x less engagement than clickbait.
(Or, maybe not, who knows.)
For a transition of normative systems it seems that it is required that at some point people "don't believe in anything" anymore.
You think Trump is inventing Whitehouse lies, right before our eyes? Politicians have a looooong history of lying, big lies that get peole killed ("Iraq WMDs are a slam dunk!") . Where have you been?
But there was serious doubt even if it did not constitute a clear proof. And doesn't this actually make matters worse? An obvious lie about something without much if any consequences versus a somewhat convincing lie about something that affected the lives of millions? To me the former one seems more like a stupid thing to do, the later one seems ruthless, evil or what ever you want to call it.
You can use the Obama birth certificate turn around as counter point and that was definitely less than 10 years.
President Obama is on video, audio, Twitter, and just about every other form of media saying things that subsequently were proven false. A brazen example of that is the infamous line, "If you like your plan you can keep your plan." which he knew to be false (and Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of much of the ACA had apparently laughed at as impossible).
I don't mean to single out President Obama as it's really all Presidents, or more generally politicians, that do it. It's not unique to Trump, didn't start with him, nor will it end with him.
Just the refusal to admit them would be bad enough, but since he's gotten away with it just about every time, it shows a worrying trend of there being no accountability. Combined with the frequency, the problem is just multiplied.
I find a politician that can't seem to be held accountable for his actions and that trades on this for more political power very troubling.
Telling people you are going to strengthen whistle blowing laws to empower workers, then prosecuting a record number of people under the Espionage act is closer to a damaging lie.
I bet good money he'll be saying billions of people watched his inauguration by then.
I wasn't trying to imply that the White House could be trusted in all things, but that there was some level of truth you could probably assume, especially about things that were already known or weren't worth lying about. What we have now is an example of disputing obvious facts, and over something inconsequential, as issues the White House responds to about go. This is clearly different than what we could expect before, even if we couldn't always expect for an entirely honest answer before.
For me it looked like the media had really nailed him on not releasing his tax forms, even going so far as to uncover damning ones from the 90s, but then the inside edition tapes came out and everyone focused on that instead.
Trump has tapped in to something and I fear it's going to work quite well.
It is one of the great achievements of US democracy, although one has to question how much meaningful change can realistically be achieved in a massive country with little more than 7 years available (because re-election campaigns and lame-duck status in practice will consume a full year). For all the drama that they generate and the feeling of electoral power, strict term limits are a very conservative measure. On the other hand, you're guaranteed Trump will be gone by January 2025 at worst.
https://www.youtube.com/user/charismaoncommand/search?query=...
Most of the worst dictators and tyrants in the world didn't start off at 'maximum mayhem'. They tend to start with lies, misinformation, subterfuge and misrepresentations, then they move up to things like false accusations, inquisitions, persecution and the like.
Every step just makes it easier to move closer to full blown deportations, incarcerations & executions etc.
A bit harder to stop them at the last step, when you have allowed the previous 99 steps to go unquestioned.
Was it? American involvement created a decisive winner in what would have been a stalemate. Imagine if Versailles hadn't been so one sided?
All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story.
We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example the airport shooting. So much false information is reported just because they have to be the first/exclusive.
What wasn't true? Honestly curious as I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him.
> All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story.
Certainly, but that doesn't discount the validity of the reported incidents.
> We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example the airport shooting. So much false information is reported just because they have to be the first/exclusive.
Yes and no. I think a lot of that comes from reporting on a developing real-time situation where information is constantly revised. That's rarely the case with speeches or political coverage of this sort.
I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him.
Obama had a bust of Martin Luther King on display in the Oval Office.
After Trump's inauguration, a WH press-pool reporter noticed and reported on Twitter that the Churchill bust was back in the office (it was), then added that the MLK bust had been removed (it hadn't, it was simply obscured by a door).
It was never really a story - just a handful of tweets - and the reporter tweeted the correction within an hour [2]. Trump has used this as an example of "media dishonesty:".
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/462314...
I suspect all of these things were widely reported, yet largely spurious accusations.
[0] http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/23/mainstream-media-still-b...
Just about everything was true.
That's exactly why they said it. Notice how it distracted everyone from talking about the marches? Trump knows how to change the media narrative.
He never had much of a platform beyond "build the wall!", and is happy to roll with Republican dogma. The Republicans proved during the last administration that they're willing to bend the rules to breaking point to damage their opponents; they've decided they're willing to humor Trump so they can get him to do what they want.
If the president were a more established Republican like Ted Cruz, we'd still be seeing huge and destructive changes to health care, climate change policy, etc.
It's hard to know which is the bigger threat. Trump is a new style of threat in the way he arrogantly ignores the old polite conventions and even the law itself, lining his pockets in plain sight. Letting that pass unchallenged could result in a permanent autocracy, one "strong man" after another.
The Republican party is "just" pushing an extreme agenda, similar to what they did under Bush, which is more of a known threat (or not a threat at all if you agree with their platform). But they're also neglecting their duty to push back against Trump's abuse of the system. They should be fighting tooth and nail to force him to sell his businesses.
There are publications that tend towards policy focus, and there are even more publications that are half policy-wonk half-commentariat but at least not trapped in the gossip column soundbite minutia.
If you look at circulation numbers, though... The Economist is about 1.5 million in the US. Time seems less news-digest these days and more commentary, but it's got double the circulation.
But both of those are, of course, below Sports Illustrated, People Magazine, Better Homes And Gardens, and Costco Connection in terms of regular readers.
One could surmise that the real issue is that there isn't a large audience that actually wants what you (and I) think we should be paying attention to. Most of us are used to having a set-it-and-forget-it approach to how government works, and don't really believe we should have to pay attention.
And on top of that, some large portion of the country resents the very idea that expertise, education, and focused thinking should represent any authority worth respecting more than their opinions. Why would anyone in that demographic care to read news and policy details at all? The only important thing is knowing that people who are in their ostensible tribe are in charge.
This isn't just to bag on people -- everybody has limited attention and if possible it's nice to not to have to give it to things unless you have to. It's to underscore the problem: in a market economy, publications that stay afloat are going to try to provide what people pay attention to and/or pay for. And that may not be the same thing as what "deserves" attention.
Impeachment requires a crime.
Lying isn't usually a crime, and as best I can tell hasn't been one any of the times Trump has done it (.. yet?). It also hasn't been a crime any of the times Obama has done it.
Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal.
When we come up with something criminal (and especially if it rises to the level of "high crimes") we can hope Trump gets impeached. As yet, I don't see it, and certainly not in your examples.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause
"The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that ... restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress."
I suspect we will hear a lot more about the "consent of Congress" in the next 6 months if this has any merit.
> The financial conflict statute prohibits federal employees from participating in matters where they could enrich themselves. It applies to everyone in the executive branch, from the lowliest file clerk up to the White House chief of staff – except for the president and vice president.
Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/07/can-congress...
You could try to convince Congress to re-apply the rules, but that's a different discussion.
The fact that Congress has specifically granted permission under the Emoluments Clause to Presidents, at the latter's request, while the conflict statute was in effect wouldbsuggest stronglynthat neither past Presidents, nor, more importantly, the Congress has viewed the non-application of the conflict statute to the President as a grant of permission under the Emoluments Clause that makes more specific grants unnecessary.
OTOH, absent coverage under the conflict statute or some other statute establishing judicial remedies, there may an argument that there is no such remedy for a Presidential violation of the clause, and that the only remedy is via impeachment. That's probably the biggest weakness in an Emoluments Clause lawsuit.
On the gripping hand, a court ruling to the effect that the only remedy is by impeachment may create additional political pressure on Congress, which would probably have value to those bringing the claim, perhaps moreso than a judicial remedy that, e.g., forced Trump to give up past gains and avoid future gains through divestment.
The trouble is that impeachment is the responsibility Congress, and it would be a brave Republican congressman who would vote to impeach a Republican president right now.
Constitution has a clause that prohibits it for any public official including the president (assuming for the moment that it is the meaning of the emoluments clause), unless Congress specifically authorizes it.
Congress additionally passed a law - 18 U.S. Code § 202 and § 208 - that regulates conflicts of interest among government officials. Its domain intersects with the Emoluments Clause somewhat, but it is not an implementation of the Emoluments Clause. It says that certain actions by people other than the president are illegal. Insofar as it intersects with Emoluments Clause, it is at best redundant (although even then it defines clear penalties, so not really).
But there's nothing in it authorizing the president to receive emoluments. § 202 does contain language excluding certain people from the categories of "government officer" and "government employee", which are the target of § 208; but this simply means that § 208, and prohibitions in it specifically, do not apply to those people. In other words, the law doesn't say anything about them. It most certainly doesn't contain any language explicitly authorizing emoluments. Here, see for yourself:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/202
If we look at other past cases where the Emoluments Clause had to be dealt with, Congress specifically authorized such things, with clear verbiage to that effect. For example, here's the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7342
Note the language: "The Congress consents to ..."
There's nothing even remotely similar in the law we are discussing.
The only real question for the courts here is whether receiving payment for goods and services from a foreign government qualifies as emolument or not. The originalist interpretation is in favor of that - this is one of those clauses in the Constitution where the Founders wrote a great deal about why it was there, and it's clear that their concerns were broad rather than narrow (preventing "foreign corruption" of all kinds).
1 - Theodore Roosevelt. Nobel Peace Prize. He accept both the cash award and the medal.
2 - Barack Obama. Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted only the medal.
... and most interestingly ...
3 - Ronald Reagan. Receipt of pension payments from the state of California as a former Governor and California pension plan participant.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/198...
The way I read the analysis of Ronald Reagan's situation, any benefit from a domestic state, city, or county could potentially fall afoul of the emoluments clause. Think here of any local property tax rebate from a city to entice a Trump business to build a hotel or set up shop. Maybe even a tax rebate / waiver from prior business development agreement could fall afoul. Who knows how deep this particular rabbit hole could go.
I also was puzzling over Hobby Lobby the other day and I realized that Trump's situation vis-a-vie the emoluments clause could be parallel to Hobby Lobby versus the ACA. Hobby Lobby wanted out of the mandate for birth control and the Supreme Court sided with them because Hobby Lobby was a closely held corporation; close enough where the owners' religious beliefs could be infringed upon by ACA birth control mandates on the corporation they controlled.
I believe the Trump empire is a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby. Per the Supreme Court a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby has a personal connection unlike widely held corporation. Simply saying payments made to Trump's corporation is a sufficient separation from the person to avoid the emoluments clause may not be a strong argument for those arguing Trump's side.
Edit: IANAL, but rather a politics major.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10...
If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.
I think as it stands, he's on decent legal footing.
Which admittedly is a little ridiculous, you'd think the Prez. would not be above conflict of interest.
Aside from that, Trump says ridiculous things, but they are mostly in the vein of ridiculous populism. It makes him look ridiculous to most people, I don't know why he does it, that said, none of his policies so far are as gonzo as his ridiculous rhetoric.
Give it time. Maybe he'll cool down, or maybe he'll do something impeachable.
I predict: tons and tons of PR snafus, but nothing illegal.
I predict something illegal
> If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.
Impeachment is sort of a legal process but it's really political, while Republicans control congress and he hasn't sunk with the base impeachment won't happen.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/24/14358654/tr...
The interesting thing about this is that it's a bipartisan affair as far as party affiliations go: the two main guys behind it are the ethics people for Bush and Obama, respectively.
I would be somewhat surprised if the Congress ended up doing it, but seeing how spineless they already are wrt Trump even where he contradicts them, not super surprised.
My point, rather, is that, should such a thing happen, it would be a bona fide constitutional crisis. If two branches of government are openly in defiance of parts of the Constitution, it becomes a free for everyone else, as well. Secession would suddenly be on the table for real - after all, the Constitution is what makes the Union, so if the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land, then the states could reasonably argue that they aren't bound to the Union in any sensible way. Or they could simply state that per the Emoluments Clause, they consider the president illegitimate from there on, and so no EO and no act of Congress signed by him has force of law on their territory. Or even invoke the 9th and the 10th Amendments in a full-on literalist vein (stealing the book from fringe factions of the right), and just claim that the feds simply don't have most powers that they claim as well.
This is all very far-fetched, but in the event of an open defiance of SCOTUS by the other two branches, we'd already be in the realm of far-fetched things, so the impossible becomes possible, and unlikely becomes probable.
Donald Trump is the man in office. Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with anything.
However Clinton may or may not violated the Constitution is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether Trump is violating it now.
Seems to work like a charm to derail conversation about the real topic at hand.
Because we're trying to ascertain if the complainers are genuinely principled or partisan hacks. I've a feeling most of them would be turning a blind eye if it wasn't trump.
For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument.
I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this person still be saying the same thing?" If the answer is no, I ignore that person. This cuts out about 97% of all political discussion and saves a lot of time.
I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046
For context, Doug Band is a very close Clinton associate and he's discussing an initiative apparently launched by Chelsea Clinton to investigate money within the Clinton Foundation (which is also mentioned in some of the other Podesta emails).
He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.
You need to be more specific. If you mean the emoluments clause, I think it's more accurate to say that it's hard to verify whether he meets "the requirements set forth in the Constitution." If you know of an instance of his business accepting a gift from a "king, prince or foreign state" since he's assumed office, then he's actually in violation.
> He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.
There is also that. Although I think a not insignificant fraction of that party would much prefer Pence, and if they were going to oust him doing it as far from the next election as possible would seem preferable.
he barely slid in a electoral vote disaster, despite the electoral vote being meant to be used against men like Trump
Did you not pay attention to the election at all?
Looking at a number of swing states with significant numbers of electoral votes can, though. The margin of victory was just over 1% in Florida (29EV). It's less 1% in Pennsylvania (20EV) and Wisconsin (10EV). Michigan (16EV) was less than .25%.
That's 75EV won by that thin a margin. Half that could have swung the election.
(And yes, you can play this game the other way, but the only state Clinton won that was that closely contested was... New Hampshire, 4EV)
The election was quite close. Trump's electoral victory was very thin.
That's the state of affairs to be expected when the EC winner loses the popular vote.
He could have lost FL _or_ OH and still won.
So, did Trump win by a lot when you take out California and New York? Yes. He also lost by a lot when you take out the South. Population is the only fair metric for weighting regions against each other. The South is not entitled to control everyone else's lives, especially since they're the damned region that demanded extra Representatives for their slaves.
Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in place that actively punishes voter suppression. Voters per inhabitant ratio and election turnout could be used to penalize states with low engagement to ensure voter suppression does not occur.
It, however, removes the penalty for suppressing votes because the remaining votes continue to have a fixed weight.
Also, the "CA and NY would run the US" is an extremely weak argument. It's logically equivalent to saying that Texas and Oklahoma are currently running the US, since their electoral votes are sufficient to swap the winner from Trump to Clinton.
Actually, I don't think it's equivalent, since basically no Congressional majority or Presidency has been won without the South for the past 50 or so years. You can actually estimate which party will be dominant in an American party system by looking at who consistently holds the South, irrespective of how other regions vote.
So California and the Northeast can consistently vote one way, and it basically just doesn't matter if the South happens to disagree.
How's that a landslide victory?
Payments in exchange for regular business which would have been engaged in anyway would seem not to apply, although there's disturbing room for corruption there.
"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." [1]
Add to that:
- The lack of case law or Congressional guidance;
- George Washington receiving and accepting "two gifts from officials of the French government" without asking for nor receiving any Congressional consent [2]; and
- Almost every Founding Father from the South operating their plantations while in public service.
I think it's safe to say (at least as a non-Constitutional scholar) that this clause is far from definitive on anything. Please note that I am not defending Trump's behavior nor saying this clause cannot be interpreted to apply. I'm saying we cannot comment on this with any reasonable degree of certainty.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/11/17/would-trumps...
What nation, looking to create a favorable deal of some kind with the US, would allow a Trump project to languish in frustrating red tape -- or allow a Trump project to lose out to a competitor in cases where the government is the decision-maker? What would the informal Trumpian chatter be like around that international negotiating table?
Whether it does or not is ultimately something that'll have to be decided in court.
U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8. states:
"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." [1]
U.S. Const. art. II, § 1 cl., 7 states:
"The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." [2]
There isn't a lot of case law surrounding these clauses [3] nor guidance from Congress. It could be an impeachable offense, though frankly that's true of anything. Impeachment is a political, not judicial, process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-is-the-emolumen...
Nope. They've had lawyers on this for a while, and I think he's ok on it.
FYI - do you know how many Republican secretly wished that Trump were 'gone'? Probably most of them. He's a) a loose cannon and b) not actually a conservative on many issues.
I think he's legally in the clear on his ownership issues.
I would hope so, because frankly Trump is such a loon that I would rather Mike "electrocute the gay away" Pence, but...
Sigh.
It is not "breaking precedent". George Washington kept his farm.
It's entirely unreasonable to expect a regular citizen to give up his business simply because he's elected to public office. Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.
Owning a farm is a little different to being involved in sprawling international ventures that leave you open to pressure from foreign powers.
Consider that just the knowledge of that, which might not be more than he might read in the papers, could very well cause him to adjust his policies either in the hope of favours, or even just subconsciously to avoid causing trouble for them.
Beyond that there is plenty of scope for outright blackmail. E.g. what if some Chinese representative whisper in the ear of some Trump employee that significant legal problems might appear as long as China's relationship with the US is still strained over Trumps apparent lack of support for the One China principle. They'd not even need to mention his company, for that matter, or contact him.
A slightly pointed press release about how there will be a crackdown on companies believed to not represent interests that don't fully support the One China principle would work too.
Chances are we'll never find out how Trumps policies are affected (or not) by foreign interference, but it'd be naive to think that there aren't multiple powers that have people considering how they can take advantage of Trumps business ventures presence or prospective interests in their country to curry favour with him or try to pressure him right now.
I know if I was running a country, then at this point I'd have a whole team on looking into opportunities, because even though it'd be rather unethical I'd want something in my back pocket in case Trump were to do something unpredictable that'd harm our interests. I'm sure there are plenty of regimes with less scruples about unethical methods.
Since it is a pledge, it also supposes that his word has any value. Anyone who looked at his business or charity dealings knows that his promises are worthless.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plan-to-donate...
This an outright lie.
It also isn't lying if the person saying it believes it to be true.
"No, sir. I did not lie in my CV. I _believe_ that this funny looking letter I received from my mother some time ago means that I have Ph.D from MIT"
Some people believe their arguments are so strong that the other person must have been secretly convinced, and is therefore lying.
Setting aside for the moment that people often believe their arguments are far more convincing than they actually are, people can and do believe anything, so a better reason than that is necessary to accuse people of lying.
On the contrary, it's explicitly legal as nothing the President does is considered a conflict. It's like that because otherwise everything and anything could be a construed a conflict of interest. In the interests of not having a continual flood of lawsuits the top of the executive branch is considered to be exempt from conflict of interest laws that otherwise affect the rest of government.
Putting on my non-partisan hat, though, I am nervous about the precedent of removing a president from office iff it is seen as a partisan move. The removal of Trump without widespread Republican support (as opposed to a small defecting faction) might be seen as precedent for a higher frequency of partisan impeachments - a danger to be weighed against (in my not-very-objective opinion) the dangers of a Trump presidency.
Downvote only if the comment detracts from the discussion, not just if you disagree.
Impeach only if the President commits crimes while in office, not just if you dislike the President's politics more than the VP's.
We already have a one-party state in which the Republican Party plays partisan hardball, as much as possible, to prevent elections from altering their control over the government. Why not fight back for once?
Pence is no foreign policy wiz but I'm not worried about him precipitating huge geopolitical shifts against America's interests.
If nothing else, it at least provides some stability.
So yes, Trump stepping down wouldn't mean much difference when it comes to his role as a head of government since his team seems to be handling that, but the head of state is still a very important role. Don't forget, he said,
"I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything[,]"
essentially describing sexual assault, emphasized by me. Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad. Understand, no international body would respect Trump if he weren't the President. He does not prop us up as a country, he receives respect because we prop him up, and even then, he still depreciates his image by trying to project and strengthen his fragile pride and by involving himself in frivolous engagements on Twitter.
So yes, having a different head of state would be beneficial for us, at least in our view. It would not make much of a difference in terms of actual policy, but it would give us with a better representative, which isn't a difficult bar to exceed.
EDIT: I almost forgot, despite the politics of it, I do personally feel that a conflict of interest as a President is detrimental to the role as the head of government. We have already seen for example his orders on DAPL, which he still owns some shares of, a direct conflict of interest. And worse, of course, there are his foreign investments, which is worse from a national security standpoint. Sorry, but a head of government should represent us, not their own personal financial interests. You don't even need all my feeling about Trump as a figurehead, although that is important, but his conflicts of interests are a significant issue with him as an elected official.
Which is pretty much exactly how you would expect a "I have no idea what I'm doing but I don't want to fuck it up so I'll fill my cabinet with people who know what they're doing and let them do their thing" administration to work.
>Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad.
Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.
Sorry, but have to actually seen his cabinet? Ben Carson heading Housing and Urban Development. Betsy Davis heading Department of Education. Rick Perry, a guy with a bachelors degree in animal science, heading the Department of Energy... these people are some of the least qualified people on the planet.
You should
The fact that he is openly racist is one of the biggest marks against him
That's very true, if they're the sort of person you trust to put their personal feelings and opinions aside when they make decisions. If you don't feel they're that sort of person, you better hope their values align to your own.
I'm not so sure. I almost get the impression that he doesn't really care about a lot of those things except as a means to get that part of the republican base to the polls.
You're delusional if you think Trump will perform a first strike. That's complete nonsense.
He's a businessman, not a warmonger. His rhetoric is entirely along those lines as well.
Pence is at least a sane conservative theocrat
Trump is a lying corrupt racist who is extremely unpredictable and may or may not blow up markets, start wars, abandon our allies, or deport millions of people
Whenever I read something like this, I always wonder whether people posting it legitimately think this kind of rhetoric will advance their argument, or is it all just about social signalling.
If I was to criticize someone with the intent of changing others opinions about the person in question, the last thing I would do is interject my criticism with a bunch of derogatory and emotional labels. It would simply make me sound biased, irrational or extremely partisan/dogmatic.
And yet, this is exactly what people do, even in the media, who has all kinds of incentives to project a rational and detached image. Extreme social signaling is the only explanation I can come up with.
He may be (most likely is) corrupt but, as has been extensively discussed elsewhere, it is not clear that has done anything strictly illegal, which makes it tricky to say definitively.
He definitely spouts outrageous lies all the time, though.
Legalized corruption remains corruption. It was when Clinton did it, and it is when Trump does it.
I'm not the one who commented that, but I think it's simply true and easily demonstrable given any widely-accepted definitions of the terms. Will saying it "advance an argument"? I don't know. But it is true.
If you are correct, you must know something that most people who are willing to bet money on their opinion do not.
Add to the fact he won't be releasing his taxes so the American people won't have a clear picture of who he owes money to or who owes money to him this makes for a very uncomfortable situation.
Are you aware that all profits from his foreign holdings are going to the federal treasury?
If not, rethink.
Being president of the USA is a big deal, he needs to be willing to set aside his pride and company. Sell it for pieces, invest those in a blind trust or index stocks. At least the foreign properties he can buy them back afterwards. Even Carter appointed an independent trustee to run his peanut farm.
> so just leave it only to career politicians.
What's with the hate for career politicians, would you hire something out to be programmed by someone who had just taken an introductory python course?
Besides that Trump is worse on corruption, worse on lying, worse on demagoguery then most career politicians. Which is a fairly large accomplishment.
> The hates toward DJT are crazy.
He earns it.
Do you really want a leader who is using their power to profit only themselves?
Damn straight. We want business out of our government. The government belongs to everyone, not to billionaires.
Not for no reason. You are being downvoted because you apparently don't understand what a conflict of interest is, and yet have the audacity to suggest that the criticisms towards Trump are "crazy".
This isn't "crazy hate", this is wanting to know who is pulling my President's strings.
Is lying about WMDs and then destroying the lives of millions of human beings (also known as iraqis) a crime?
I realize that this issue will never be solved in the minds of Clinton voters, but as long as it legally resolves the problem, opinions simply don't matter.
And it's not like he only has hotels. He owns, or has stake in (not necessarily controlling, but still enough to derive profit) many other businesses. Some of which aren't even in US.
As many people - including several specifically involved in government ethics compliance - states, the only thing that can truly and definitely resolve this problem is divestment and transfer of control to a blind trust. Anything else is going to be suspect.
Given how hard he fought for the Presidency, I seriously doubt that he would endanger his ability to continue in office just to keep a few tenths or hundredths of a percent of his overall hotel revenue.
The point is when it comes to ethics in leadership is that you are supposed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. For that to happen, we must see evidence. If its good enough for rank and file members of corporate America, it's good enough for the President of the United States. He must disclose his financial conflicts of interest and resolve them -- in public.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-clue-to-the-wherea...
He has been President for exactly 5 days now.
if anything it seems tailored made to keep non politicians from ever taking office without sacrificing a lot. funny how many politicians come in with little and leave with a lot more
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/emolument
Receiving market rate for a service absolutely does count.
Can you clarify how long one must be in public office to commit a crime?
That's an incredibly disingenuous statement.
That is Trump-level spin. Wow.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208:
(a) Except as permitted by subsection (b) hereof, whoever, being an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government... has a financial interest—Shall be subject to the penalties set forth in section 216 of this title.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/202:
(c) Except as otherwise provided in such sections, the terms “officer” and “employee” in sections 203, 205, 207 through 209, and 218 of this title shall not include the President, the Vice President, a Member of Congress, or a Federal judge.
As a matter of fact, that's exactly why they impeached Clinton. Face it: America impeaches Presidents for being not-Republican, and empowers Presidents for being Republican. It's a one-party state.
Interestingly, Clinton was impeached for breaking his own law, the Violence Against Women Act, which he created to win reelection. (The rape shield part of the law is what created the ground rules for how he was questioned in court, and what he was allowed to say and not say in his defense.)
This law also created a series of social programs that Trump defunded today via an executive order.
For whatever reasons (and I still don't fully understand it, no, check that, I don't understand it at all), the Clintons were an absolute hate-magnet for the Right. Clinton's sexual relations -- essentially no different from what any of the GOP opposition leaders turned out to be engaged with, if not far less serious (Dennis Hastert's long-time homosexual exploitation of minor boys under his care, for example) -- turned out to be the hook that the GOP could finally snag him with.
In the case of Trump, I suspect there's a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes jockeying and assessment of power. Questions over who the party (or any possible coalition or new political force) wants to see him replaced by -- Pence might well be no better, potentially worse. The question of how deeply tainted Trump's entire cabinet (and more) may be.
The GOP has been fractured for years, and only barely holds itself together. The prospects of real violent rebellion or reaction to a deposal of Trump may also be staying hands.
It's funny you mention that, since by all metrics Clinton was about the most conservative democrat to gain office recently. A shame we've steadily moved away from middle-of-the-road since then.
Going to share that thing until I'm blue in the mouth. That documentary mentions that Surkov[0] uses this tactic, confusing the public about what is true and untrue.
I have to say, whether people on the right believe this or not, this has been at least subconsciously adapted as one of their tactics. When there is no truth or lie, then whatever you want is true, which makes you ripe for manipulation by the powers that be.
https://twitter.com/chrisapplegate/status/787751065315840000...
Agreed on the Republican majority. I suspect the best the US can hope for is a Republican bloodbath in the 2018 midterms to deliver House and Senate back to Democrat control. I don't believe the chances of that are high though.
If you mean the voters, my understanding is it's a fairly high hurdle from a structural standpoint -- there are far more democrats up for reelection than republicans.
This is ridiculous.
The hate for Trump has caused people to go into utterly misguided tizzies, and it's pathetic.
I loathe Trump - but he's not a totalitarian.
He has given no indication of encroaching on civil liberties, there's no indication he wants to socialize large parts of the economy, or expand control by government, or even expand surveillance programs.
He's boorish, loud-mouthed and says crude things - but his policy actions are not that drastic.
'Enforce immigration laws' - fairly reasonable.
'Build pipelines' - outside of environmental concerns - absolutely normal.
'Re-negotiate trade deals' - not sure if I agree but not crazy.
'Get NATO allies to pay their share' - not crazy.
A 'mild' social conservative totalitarian might roll back laws on gay marriage, abortion etc. - but Trump hasn't mentioned it at all.
He has been forceful on trying to get American jobs back, and he'll likely overhaul the tax code, likely with some tax breaks.
He hasn't been nearly as aggressive in terms of foreign policy as Clinton.
He's indicated that he wants to get along with Russia. Is this such a bad thing? Clinton/Obama tried it earlier as well.
I think he presents himself in a manner unfit for someone who's in public office, but in the end, his actual actions are not particularly outlandish - and nowhere near totalitarian.
Obama would have socialized the entire healthcare system if he had the choice, and vastly expanded the welfare system, and would likely have introduced far more controlling legislation if allowed - and we do know he oversaw a fairly robust expansion of the surveillance state.
So Obama happens to be a 'nice guy' and 'not boorish' - does that make him any more or less totalitarian.
People need to grow up.
Trump is kind of a blow-hard, not a Nazi.
You mean, except for that part where he mentioned that he wants to strengthen the [non-existent] libel laws, so that "press can't get away with lies about me"?
Or his early remarks on Muslims? Surveillance etc?
> A 'mild' social conservative totalitarian might roll back laws on gay marriage, abortion etc. - but Trump hasn't mentioned it at all.
Now we're firmly in the "alternative facts" territory. Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dngW-FKKuo Or when he said that Japanese interment camps were a tough choice, but "that's how you win wars"?
" he wants to strengthen the [non-existent] libel laws, so that "press can't get away with lies about me"?"
The press has called him out for his lies - but they have also blatantly lied about him - and others.
There is nothing 'totalitarian' about being able to sue someone for printing lies.
2)
You're blaming me for having 'alternative facts' when you're inventing them?
The video indicates that 'campaign trail' Trump indicated that he was pro-life - because he was asked. (Of course, his whole life before that he was pro-choice, but to get GOP votes, he had to have this position publicly).
But in the very video you offered as 'evidence' - he didn't at all indicate he'd be legislating on the issue. In fact - he said it would be decided in the courts.
So a president indicating that issues 'decided in the courts' is now a 'Hitler totalitarian'?
Just today, on Charlie Rose - the leftist PBS commentators were indicating that he's made no real indication of anything related to social justice.
He did not mention 'abortion' in any of his policy docs, nor during any of his major speeches.
I'd argue you're making up facts if you think Trump has any plans to press the abortion issue in any meaningful way. There will be zero legislation.
But it doesn't matter - there's nothing at all in Trump's outlined policies that hint at 'totalitarianism'.
Nothing.
Obama murdered American citizens without a trial via drone strikes - and oversaw a massive expansion of the surveillance state. Those are 'scary totalitarian' things.
And I don't even like Trump.
He literally already has signed an executive order about it.
'Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ban federal money going to international groups which perform or provide information on abortions.
'The US president's order shows he "wants to stand up for all Americans, including the unborn," his press secretary Sean Spicer said.'
(I also disagree with your point from an ethical point of view, but that's not relevant here.)
There is everything totalitarian about being able to sue people for printing anti-Republican lies, but not pro-Republican lies. If you could sue people for printing or broadcasting lies, we would have driven Fox News off the air years ago.
http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemean...
> "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Practically it's all about politics
The other impeachment was of Andrew Johnson who barely avoided conviction by one vote was also by radical republicans and also about politics. Although in their case they were radically pro civil rights for former slaves so I'm a lot more sympathetic. Still the law they passed to try to explicitly trip up Johnson (banning him from dismissing Lincoln's secretary of defense) was arguably unconstitutional.
The reason Trump may not be impeached is because his party controls both houses of congress and they are afraid of the base. If his popularity craters finding a reason to impeach won't be that hard. The emoluments clause makes for an easy one (no proof of corruption needed just benefit, ultimatley congress is the judge). For other formal charges it may be my bias and low opinion but I have no doubt that if congressional investigations occur something about pre-election russian ties, corruption, or abuse of power will be found.
4chan ran a more effective propaganda/misinformation campaign than any dark shadowy corporate entity. Our insitutions are less than stellar, but at least they are run by adults. Americans are run by bedtime stories and mass hysteria generated by their own delusions, the manifestation of which now occupies our highest office.
1984 was a warning against communism, but China has a brighter future than we do. Nobody wrote a science fiction novel taught in high schools warning us against democracy in the age of decentralized peer to peer media. Government surveillance isn't ruining lives, but a poorly worded tweet can.
Every part of this is wrong. The people voted for Clinton by a plurality of 3 million votes. The Electoral College is a device for permanent Southern hegemony and, consequently, Republican supremacy -- there's nothing legitimate about it.
Trump is a Republican, so the current Republican Congress isn't going to be too picky.
Also just because Clinton was impeached doesn't mean he was removed from office. Those are different things.
That said, if it looks like he is going to put the nation at grave risk by his actions, and grave risk is something a bit more serious than being the butt of a lot of jokes, then there are a wide variety of tools built into our institutions to address that.
To answer your possible subtext on Clinton's impeachment, the answer is yes, that impeachment was political.
If only now you become worried about politicians lying, boy do I have bad news for you.
What we really need is a general strike. We have to shut down the economy to force him out.
I think people are taking this and running at breakneck speed without stopping to look at what they actually mean by this.
After watching the first few press conferences and Kelly Anne's interviews where she said that, it seems clear to me they weren't trying to say there were more people physically at the inauguration in their "alternative facts" but what they are referring to specifically is the viewership.
It's very possible they are correct in saying this and I guess their point is "well the media isn't reporting on these facts so we are going to present them ourselves".
> This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe
If "in-person" doesn't mean "physically at the inauguration" what does it mean then? It is not ambiguous.
Spicer made an unsubstantiated claim, and has since been defensively walking it back to the equally unsubstantiated second part of "around the globe."
"The media" is a very broad category, so I am not going to universally defend or attack them. But the Trump administration has simply been making things up and, as of yet, has not backed up any of these statements with evidence.
The media is a bit more hit or miss. It is true that some media outlets seem determined to make fun of Trump no matter what he does. That doesn't give Trump a free pass to make up shit. Obama had to deal with the same crap.
The phrase "alternative facts" too is ambiguous and, in the way it was used by Conway is classical doublethink. Doublethink involves two actions: a public lie and wilful self-delusion. One interpretation (without context) of the phrase "alternative facts" is that the facts are merely unknown and up for debate. But one merely needs to look at a photo of the inauguration to see that the facts are that Obama had higher attendance in 2009. [1] To claim otherwise is a lie.
Another is that the _true_ facts are known, but Conway is explicitly stating: these are the facts which I am telling you to believe. This is the wilful self-delusion.
From 1984:
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."
The ambiguity isn't what "in-person" means, it's what "both in-person and around the globe" means. Does it mean "both 1) in person and 2) around the globe (each independently)" or does it mean "both (the total sum) in person and around the globe"?
Obviously the second is more strained, but it's not completely absurd, especially if you allow for the inelegant phrasing common in live briefings.
It's easy to find things like this if what you're really looking for is to start a fight.
On the other hand he spent the whole press conference talking about metro ridership, the national parks service, and the physical event, which leads me to think in context that they weren't talking about tv. Never even mentioned the word tv actually.
>If "in-person" doesn't mean "physically at the inauguration" what does it mean then? It is not ambiguous.
You're right, it's not ambiguous. "In-person and around the globe" is clearly means viewing on TV or online streaming.
You are deliberately ignoring the "around the globe" part to create "alternative facts" of your own.
Charitably, Conway might have meant that Trump's inauguration may have been the largest if TV viewers are counted. Unfortunately, that's not what she said. You can't be both unambiguous and wrong, repeatedly, in any human game (EDIT: and win).
In the original claim, Spicer explicitly claimed Trump's audience was the greatest both in-person and by remote media (and stated I. a way which clearly implied this was beyond debate and supported by incontrovertible evidence), and, in any case, the only metrics I've seen anyone bring out for the revised claim (for which, incidentally, the Administration provided no evidence) also are indicative of it being false (but not absolutely conclusive on that pointz as published metrics aren't available for all media channels, particularly many non-YouTube online channels.)
At best Spicer both seriously misspoke and referenced separate standards when he meant to reference an aggregate and, even so, presented rank hopeful speculation as certain fact.
But even that stretches plausibility considerably.
This is like the media equivalent of bike shedding. Other stuff is complicated so they latched on to that phrase...
If, instead, they'd just said n-thousand people attended, and made some comment about bad weather, the attention would have moved on to the next thing a lot sooner.
And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.
What better way to compare attendance of an outdoor event other than photos? There are also DC metro numbers, but they don't seem necessary as we have high-resolution images.
>And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.
Seems emblematic of bigger issues. Such as: unwillingness to correct previous mistakes, a penchant for conspiracy theories, ego disrupting day-to-day operations.
Someone posted a good list of possible ways this could be misleading yesterday: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/there-are-l...
As far as reading too much into it, I meant that the election of the first black president was a much bigger deal then the 40 somethingth white old dude. I'd expect trumps turnout to be lower and I'm not sure why it would be news in the first place.
But that (and many of the questions in that link) are not relevant to the specific question of how many people were at the inauguration. Which is the topic at hand. Those questions would be more relevant in a discussion of drawing other conclusions from the attendance numbers
It's not that big of a deal, and doesn't mean much that there was less attendance. The weather was bad and it was not historically significant because he's not the first black (or anything significant) president ever. So why is he so blatantly lying? He could just move on and it would be no big deal... but instead he makes a very large deal about it, dedicating a special press briefing specifically to make up lies about to explain how the media got it wrong.
For the health of the republic, I'm keen to see the media become the adversary calling out lies, lies, and all damn lies. No matter what they are. Maybe then we can be free of all the lies.
Executive orders, cabinet appointments and apparently agency gag orders left right and centre with more, plus SCOTUS nominees, to come. But all my Facebook feed talks about is rain and lawn coverings.
And this is why you lost the election.
If you're saying Trump has Alzheimer's now, and that explains his behaviour... Well, Trump's been acting like this for decades!
Reports are that yes, they did.
Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but "alternative facts". Why tell such obvious falsehoods? We're all laughing (nervously) now because the lies seem to be harmless, self-serving vain ones. However, is Trump just a little insane, or is he actually finding out who is willing to say "We've always been at war with Eurasia" and who isn't?
This is probably a good time for people to be reading 1984.