Is Trump doing a good job?

[Kriegsspiel]

I don't think so, no.

[doodle]

Unfortunately humans don't compare their relative wealth and well being to their ancestors, or the world at large. I think many Americans are at least subconsciously cognizant that we have a pretty big disparity between the top and the bottom. I think the recent covid situation also touched on some nerves being that those on the frontlines in "essential" worker positions...namely retail and grocery workers are among some of the lowest paid positions. It's ironic that our economic system compensates the most essential workers the worst. So these demonstrations and their ensuing violence are not just an expression of frustration with police but with our larger system...and whether one disagrees or not it is at least understandable why some people might feel frustrated. The comparison to Bolshevik revolution isn't that far sstretched

[doodle]

Interesting short interview with Penn Jillette about his times working with Trump.



https://youtu.be/A-UK40_XkWw

[shekels]

Couple of comments.

Trump is a poor extemporaneous speaker.
He has good, maybe excellent problem solving and decision making instincts but can't explain things very well.

Seems like a fair criticism.

You can't shout or protest your way to better race relations. In fact I think that sets back the progress. Not even mentioning riots and looting. Now, all of those actions can change laws. Policing will change as a result of all of the unrest. As to how to improve relations, I think MLK and Gandhi had the right ideas.

For extra credit:
Let's realize that a lot of the violence has been instigated by the radical left, the types who want to overthrow the government, etc. They are always looking for a vehicle to hijack, and this one has been what they dream of. My point being, they've set back race relations and don't care. For them, worsening race relations is probably a net positive. Black people are often pawns in other peoples' chess games. I think it's happening now.

I've been doing a bit of reading lately, and it was pretty wild to me how many similarities there are between 2020 and the peri-World War I years. Would you have guessed that suffragettes in Britain prior to WW I were bombing buildings and committing a ton of arson? I'd never heard about this little piece of history. And it was just like you said, the activists' violence was not effective; they changed the laws later on as their entire society was transformed by the war. Some of them assisted draft dodgers and remained pacifists, but some totally changed once the war started and became pretty big nationalists.

Another thing you can see similarities in is the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It started with popular protests and looting and police unable to get it under control, and the Bolsheviks took advantage of the unrest (as Antifa is trying to do vis-à-vis the BLM protesters), began establishing councils (soviets) for trade unions, soldiers, and police (as BLM recently accomplished in Flint). Then of course they simply took over the government from the unpopular one and then began the bloody civil war, then they started disappearing people(including the son of one of the pacifists who had optimistically moved to the USSR after the war). Recall the PV reporting on Bernie Sanders' campaign staff musing about putting conservatives in gulags.

Flint has been Understaffed for YEARS.
It came to the point where I had 100,00 citizens in this city that we had to try to protect and I had five officers on any give shift to protect them," Johnson said. "If one of those officers called off sick or took a day off, then I had to hold somebody on overtime."

Flint city population has shrank along with it's size.
Flint MI Crime Rate

[shekels]

For extra credit:
Let's realize that a lot of the violence has been instigated by the radical left, the types who want to overthrow the government, etc. They are always looking for a vehicle to hijack, and this one has been what they dream of. My point being, they've set back race relations and don't care. For them, worsening race relations is probably a net positive. Black people are often pawns in other peoples' chess games. I think it's happening now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9NBscCE8Ac

[dualstow]

Another thing you can see similarities in is the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It started with popular protests and looting and police unable to get it under control, and the Bolsheviks took advantage of the unrest
...

There’s a great piece on that in the WSJ’s opinion section (where my current sig comes from).

{One striking difference from LA ‘92} is the rationalization, and sometimes full-throated defense, of violence from left-wing elites: the glorification of havoc, the vilification of cops and their middle-class admirers, highfalutin defenses of vandalism. The sense of revolution and class warfare was everywhere this week: the cognoscenti and underclass arrayed against the petty bourgeois shop owners; the elite and those they claim to represent against everybody else.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/violent-pr ... 1591400422

[Tortoise]

It's ironic that our economic system compensates the most essential workers the worst.

That’s because compensation, like most goods and services, is generally based on supply and demand, not the distinction of “essential” vs. “non-essential.”

Many “essential” workers don’t make much money because they are so easily replaced by other workers with the same skill set.

Water is one of the most essential substances on this planet, yet it’s very cheap for us because it’s very plentiful. Should we raise its price significantly to reflect the fact that it’s so essential?

[vnatale]

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?

https://civiqs.com/results/approve_pres ... ign=ticker

[vnatale]

Colin Powell: Trump lies 'all the time'
Microsoft News · 1 hr ago · by CNN



https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/other/c ... i-BB15a46D

[doodle]

Colin Powell: Trump lies 'all the time'
Microsoft News · 1 hr ago · by CNN

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/other/c ... i-BB15a46D

Imagine my shock that a Democrat general would claim that Trump lies!
And next time, maybe you should quote Pravda instead of the Cartoon News Network. They're probably much more objective about Trump.

He was career long Republican until the party lost its mind

[doodle]

Trump does lie alot.(or is horribly misinformed)..that is an objective statistic.

[stuper1]

Colin Powell: Trump lies 'all the time'
Microsoft News · 1 hr ago · by CNN

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/other/c ... i-BB15a46D

That's very rich coming from a guy who could get up in front of the UN and completely mangle the truth with a straight face, taking us into a ridiculous war with Iraq.

Sure, Powell can get up and give a very grave performance, but that doesn't mean he's trustworthy at all. Have you read the book "War Is a Racket"? Anyone involved with that racket at the highest levels is likely an excellent liar. But we all trust him because he looks and sounds so trustworthy when he appears on TV, so if he says that Trump is a liar, then it must be true.

[doodle]

Not sure where you guys get your news. Powell has spoken repeatedly about his presentation to UN calling it one of the most regrettable moments of his career. He was given bad data and presented it.

Where to start with Trump and his lies...lol. give me a minute...this going to be a loonnggg list

[doodle]

Is this too biased? Honestly picking out the instances when he spoke the truth would be a much shorter list....but nothing can convince Trumptards that the orange God king in his "great and unmatched wisdom" could ever speak falsehoods.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/ ... ing=false

[doodle]

Is this any better...or still lamestream media lies?

I don't know why I even bother at this point...I'm laughing at my own foolishness for even trying .



https://www.factcheck.org/person/donald-trump/

[Ad Orientem]

Trump does lie alot.(or is horribly misinformed)..that is an objective statistic.

Let's have some examples. That should be very easy since there are so many.
Right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_ ... nald_Trump

[stuper1]

Trump is a politician. Of course he lies. Isn't that a given?

The only point I would make is that Biden also lies and Powell also lies.

The media only focuses on Trump's lies.

[Ad Orientem]

Trump is a politician. Of course he lies. Isn't that a given?

The only point I would make is that Biden also lies and Powell also lies.

The media only focuses on Trump's lies.

I would accept that most politicians will lie, or have done so at some point in their career. But Trump lies pervasively. And he does so about things both trivial and very serious. I am satisfied that Donald Trump is the most morally corrupt man ever to occupy the presidency. That doesn't make him the worst president. It's hard to top Buchanan or Wilson. But there is no doubt in my mind that he is morally, intellectually and temperamentally unqualified for any position of public trust.

[Ad Orientem]

"It has long been a truism that politicians lie", wrote Carole McGranahan for the American Ethnologist journal in 2017. However, "Donald Trump is different" from other politicians, stated McGranahan, citing that Trump is the most "accomplished and effective liar" thus far to have ever participated in American politics. McGranahan felt that "the frequency, degree, and impact of lying in politics are now unprecedented" as a result of Trump.[5]

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University stated that past U.S. presidents have indeed "lied or misled the country", but none of them were a "serial liar" like Trump.[14] Donnel Stern, writing in the Psychoanalytic Dialogues journal in 2019, declared: "We expect politicians to stretch the truth. But Trump is a whole different animal", because Trump "lies as a policy", and he "will say anything" to satisfy his supporters or himself.[15]

Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth, writing for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2017, described lies having "always been an integral part of politics and political communication". However, Trump was "delivering untruths on an unprecedented scale" in U.S. politics, both during his presidential campaign and during his presidency. Skjeseth also commented that no one in French politics was comparable to Trump in his provision of falsehoods.[16]

"Fabrications have long been a part of American politics", wrote Sheryl Gay Stolberg in The New York Times in 2017, as several presidents in the previous 50 years have lied. Stolberg cited that Dwight Eisenhower lied about a U.S. spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union, Lyndon Johnson lied to justify U.S. policies regarding Vietnam, and Bill Clinton lied to conceal his sexual affair. Meanwhile, Stolberg recounts that Richard Nixon was accused of lying in the Watergate scandal, while George W. Bush was accused of lying about the need for the Iraq War (with Donald Trump being one accuser of Bush lying). However, Stolberg states that "President Trump, historians and consultants in both political parties agree, appears to have taken what the writer Hannah Arendt once called 'the conflict between truth and politics' to an entirely new level ... Trump is trafficking in hyperbole, distortion and fabrication on practically a daily basis."[17]

Mark Barabak of the Los Angeles Times has described in 2017 that U.S. presidents "of all stripes" have previously misled the public, either accidentally or "very purposefully". Barabak provided examples of Ronald Reagan, who falsely stated that he had filmed Nazi death camps, and Barack Obama, who falsely stated that "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it" under his Affordable Care Act. However, Barabak goes on to state that "White House scholars and other students of government agree there has never been a president like Donald Trump, whose volume of falsehoods, misstatements and serial exaggerations" are unparalleled.[18]

From here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_ ... nald_Trump

[doodle]

"It has long been a truism that politicians lie", wrote Carole McGranahan for the American Ethnologist journal in 2017. However, "Donald Trump is different" from other politicians, stated McGranahan, citing that Trump is the most "accomplished and effective liar" thus far to have ever participated in American politics. McGranahan felt that "the frequency, degree, and impact of lying in politics are now unprecedented" as a result of Trump.[5]

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University stated that past U.S. presidents have indeed "lied or misled the country", but none of them were a "serial liar" like Trump.[14] Donnel Stern, writing in the Psychoanalytic Dialogues journal in 2019, declared: "We expect politicians to stretch the truth. But Trump is a whole different animal", because Trump "lies as a policy", and he "will say anything" to satisfy his supporters or himself.[15]

Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth, writing for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2017, described lies having "always been an integral part of politics and political communication". However, Trump was "delivering untruths on an unprecedented scale" in U.S. politics, both during his presidential campaign and during his presidency. Skjeseth also commented that no one in French politics was comparable to Trump in his provision of falsehoods.[16]

"Fabrications have long been a part of American politics", wrote Sheryl Gay Stolberg in The New York Times in 2017, as several presidents in the previous 50 years have lied. Stolberg cited that Dwight Eisenhower lied about a U.S. spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union, Lyndon Johnson lied to justify U.S. policies regarding Vietnam, and Bill Clinton lied to conceal his sexual affair. Meanwhile, Stolberg recounts that Richard Nixon was accused of lying in the Watergate scandal, while George W. Bush was accused of lying about the need for the Iraq War (with Donald Trump being one accuser of Bush lying). However, Stolberg states that "President Trump, historians and consultants in both political parties agree, appears to have taken what the writer Hannah Arendt once called 'the conflict between truth and politics' to an entirely new level ... Trump is trafficking in hyperbole, distortion and fabrication on practically a daily basis."[17]

Mark Barabak of the Los Angeles Times has described in 2017 that U.S. presidents "of all stripes" have previously misled the public, either accidentally or "very purposefully". Barabak provided examples of Ronald Reagan, who falsely stated that he had filmed Nazi death camps, and Barack Obama, who falsely stated that "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it" under his Affordable Care Act. However, Barabak goes on to state that "White House scholars and other students of government agree there has never been a president like Donald Trump, whose volume of falsehoods, misstatements and serial exaggerations" are unparalleled.[18]

From here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_ ... nald_Trump

Fake news. Obviously liberal bias

[doodle]

Penn Jillette I think says it best...and he actually kind of liked Trump.



https://youtu.be/XMnTZdPGkKw

[Cortopassi]

I do have a serious question if You or a Loved one are in a car that is being Vandalized.
Hit with bricks, clubs and people are trying to get into your car and you fear for your LIFE and that or your family.
Is it OK to drive away and possibly injure bystanders who are in the path.

If those bystanders are at all related/working with the people messing with me, sure. If there are 3 year old kids playing in the street, I guess it would have been nice to have a few guns in the car...

[Cortopassi]

Penn Jillette I think says it best...and he actually kind of liked Trump.



https://youtu.be/XMnTZdPGkKw

That is a perfect 1:34 summary for me as well.

[vnatale]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/election ... d=msedgntp

Trump’s Actions Rattle the Military World: ‘I Can’t Support the Man’
Jennifer Steinhauer 8 hrs ago


Erin Fangmann grew up in a military family, has been married to a captain in the Air Force for 18 years and has voted Republican all her life, including for Donald J. Trump. But as with a number of other veterans, troops and military family members who have watched the president with alarm, her support has evaporated.
a person standing in a garden: Erin Fangmann, whose husband is in the Air Force, said that she had voted Republican all her life, but that President Trump had “hurt the military.” © Bridget Bennett for The New York Times Erin Fangmann, whose husband is in the Air Force, said that she had voted Republican all her life, but that President Trump had “hurt the military.”

“He has hurt the military,” said Ms. Fangmann, who lives in Arizona, one of several states in play this November with a high percentage of veterans and active-duty service members. “Bringing in active-duty members to the streets was a test to desensitize people to his future use of the military for his personal benefit. I think the silent majority among us is going to swing away.”

Since 2016, Mr. Trump has viewed veterans as a core slice of his base; in that year’s presidential election, about 60 percent voted for him, according to exit polls, and swing-state counties with especially high numbers of veterans helped him win. Many veterans and members of the military stuck with him even as he attacked the Vietnam War record of Senator John McCain, disparaged families of those killed in combat and denigrated generals whom he fired or drove from government service. Some conservative rank-and-file enlisted members silently agreed with Mr. Trump.

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But the president’s threat last week to use active-duty troops on American streets against largely peaceful protesters, and his flirtation with invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, have rattled the military world, from its top leaders to its youngest veterans. If they break in significant numbers, they could carry political weight in key battleground states like Arizona, North Carolina and Ohio.

“I have always been a swing voter,” said Amy Rutkowske, an Army veteran and spouse who lives in North Carolina and is volunteering on a House race, the first time she has ever volunteered in politics. “My fundamental understanding is that the president is the commander in chief and that the office demands respect. But I have never wanted a different commander in chief more.”

Some members of the military — who are not permitted to speak about politics publicly — and their families have been posting critically on social media about the president and policies of his that they once supported. Others, who have never been excited about Mr. Trump as their commander in chief, have begun to speak out, join protests and volunteer for progressive causes.

They say that Mr. Trump has politicized the armed forces — which pride themselves as being above politics and discourage partisan discourse in their ranks — and has threatened the Constitution, both of which they deem as last straws.

Of course, many veterans and military personnel still support Mr. Trump. Quality recent polling on their views is scant, but some have embraced his America-first campaign message, his focus on military spending and his creation of a new Space Force that has been unexpectedly well-received after initial scoffing.

In the 2018 congressional elections, when support for Democrats surged, 58 percent of military voters continued to vote for members of Mr. Trump’s party, according to exit polls. And those who do turn away from the president now will not automatically support his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

a sign in front of a building: Todd Winn, a retired Marine, protested in front of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on June 5. © Rick Bowmer/Associated Press Todd Winn, a retired Marine, protested in front of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on June 5. Martin Sepulveda, a former commander in the United States Navy Reserve who lives in Arizona, said of Mr. Trump, “I can’t support the man.” But he added: “Am I a Biden guy? No. I don’t know what I will do. I have been a registered Republican for years.”

But the recent condemnations of Mr. Trump from high-level military veterans like Jim Mattis, the former defense secretary and a retired four-star Marine Corps general, have in some cases fortified the shifting views among military members. “The Mattis statement has changed people in some amazing ways,” said Chelsea Mark, a Marine veteran in Florida who works for a veteran service organization. “I went on a veteran hike recently, and I saw someone wearing a Donald Trump T-shirt, and that same person this week was posting anti-police-brutality things on her Instagram.”

On June 5, the same day the Marines issued a ban on displays of the Confederate battle flag at its installations, a retired Marine in dress uniform stood solo in front of the Utah State Capitol in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, with black duct tape across his mouth that read, “I can’t breathe.”

Mr. Trump’s moves to use the military against American protesters and looters came after several months of other highly unorthodox moves by his administration involving the military, including the clearing of three members of the armed services accused of war crimes; the firing of Capt. Brett E. Crozier after he raised alarms about the coronavirus on the aircraft carrier he commanded; the calling back of West Point students during a pandemic so the president could address them for a graduation, which he is set to do on Saturday; and the diversion of funds from military projects to pay for a border wall, a move that followed the deployment of troops to the border just before the 2018 midterm elections.

“This is the culmination of all those metronomic choices that have intruded into the military chain of command and culture,” said Kori N. Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, who served as a foreign policy adviser on Mr. McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “I do think it is likely to chip away among veterans, just as I believe it will chip away at support with Republicans more broadly.”

Mr. Trump’s ordering of the killing of a top Iranian general, which briefly appeared to bring the United States to the edge of war with Iran early this year, was a disappointment to the many veterans and service members who had supported him in part for his promise to end American involvement in overseas conflicts.

“The news of wanting to deploy the military domestically has caused a huge sense of outrage among most families I know,” said Sarah Streyder, the director of the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates diplomacy-first foreign policy and works on behalf of military families. “A lot of military families live on Facebook. Social media is very important for this transient community.”

a group of people holding a sign posing for the camera: Kate Marsh Lord and her children have marched and joined peaceful demonstrations in their neighborhood in Northern Virginia. © Provided by The New York Times Kate Marsh Lord and her children have marched and joined peaceful demonstrations in their neighborhood in Northern Virginia. Numerous military spouses concurred. “From what I see from my friends communicating online, spouses have grown much more vocal in opposition to policies,” said Kate Marsh Lord, a Democrat who is married to a member of the Air Force and lives in Virginia but votes in Ohio. “I have seen more spouses speak out on issues of race and lack of leadership than in my entire 15 years as a military spouse.”

Roughly 40 percent of active-duty service people and reserves are people of color, underlining how the current moment has affected military families.

“People took offense that they were using the military to calm peaceful protests by people of color who were out on the streets,” said Jerry Green, who served in the Army until 1998 and now lives in Tampa. “When I saw that whole thing unfold, for me, personally, it was awful. I was really distraught.” Mr. Green, who is black, will not be supporting Mr. Trump, whom he once found interesting, he said.

In North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, a Democrat and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve who is challenging Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, is working to capitalize on the military and veteran vote in his state, where Mr. Trump recently diverted millions of dollars for military installments to pay for a wall at the Mexican border after Congress blocked its funding.

“Cal’s profile as a military veteran is quite powerful in a state with so many veterans and military members,” said Rachel Petri, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cunningham. “Not only in communicating with them, but also with independent and swing voters who see the military and veterans as part of the state’s DNA.”

Other Democratic groups around the nation are also seeking leverage with the military vote. “We believe that Trump’s support within the military, with military families and with veterans, is soft and receding,” said Jon Soltz, a founder of VoteVets, which has been increasingly successful in electing Democratic veterans. “Our plan for the fall is simple: We’re putting together the most comprehensive data-driven veteran and military family get-out-the-vote operation the Democratic Party has ever seen, and we will deploy it to ensure Donald Trump is a one-term president.”

Giovanni Russonello contributed reporting.

[doodle]

I'm curious where the fundamental difference in perspective lies when two people evaluate Trump. How can two supposedly rational human beings with similar cultural backgrounds have such a amazing wide difference of opinion regarding the presidency of Trump? That to me is so strange. Im not comparing him to Hitler , but there seem to be similarities in the way he had extremely fervent supporters as well as people who saw him as the Antichrist. How can one individual be seen in such different lights?