[hrothgar]

 Chas_P, on 2019-February-14, 20:00, said:

So your contention is that support for President Trump's policies...lower taxes, border security, better trade deals, etc...is directly proportional to how much light is reflected from his supporters' skin? I'm trying really hard to get the correlation. But so far it has escaped me. Please elaborate.

Sure

The central guiding principal that unifies Trump's base is hatred of the the "other". The other being just about anything other than ignorant white Christian trash.

"Border security"? Trump's entire platform is nothing more than a thinly disguised version of the "Daily Hate"?
Better Trade deals? Those don't actually exist... Trump has made a bunch of ridiculous claims which credulous shitheads like yourself lap up, but he hasn't actually achieved any kind of net positive...
Lower taxes? Maybe if you're in the top 1%. However, most folks in the middle class who are filing this year are getting a really ugly wake up call.

[andrei]

 Winstonm, on 2019-February-14, 20:57, said:

Christopher Titus
‏
Verified account

@TitusNation
Follow Follow @TitusNation
More
A friend of mine sat next to John Brennan on a plane and asked him if the Russia thing was as bad as they say. John Brennan said, “Can’t tell you what, but it’s much worse than you think.”
Mueller hasn’t found too little, he found too much.
#DemocracyShaken

11:21 AM - 14 Feb 2019

True? Lie? Hyperbole? What?

A friend sat next to JB on a plane. LOFL

This thread is priceless.

[Winstonm]

Sometimes I wonder if he isn't trying to get himself impeached.

Quote

Trump Dennison Individual-1 Comrade-1 announces national emergency at border

Quote

Replying to a tweet that claimed “the goal of a national emergency is to end illegal immigration and cartel smuggling,” Coulter wrote that “no, the goal of a national emergency is for Trump to scam the stupidest people in his base for 2 more years.” In a subsequent tweet, she added that “The goal is to get Trump’s stupidest voters to say ‘HE’S FIGHTING!’ No he’s not. If he signs this bill, it’s over.”

Who ya gonna believe - a lying ashhole or a conniving lunatic?

[Chas_P]

 hrothgar, on 2019-February-15, 07:41, said:

Sure

The central guiding principal that unifies Trump's base is hatred of the the "other". The other being just about anything other than ignorant white Christian trash.

"Border security"? Trump's entire platform is nothing more than a thinly disguised version of the "Daily Hate"?
Better Trade deals? Those don't actually exist... Trump has made a bunch of ridiculous claims which credulous shitheads like yourself lap up, but he hasn't actually achieved any kind of net positive...
Lower taxes? Maybe if you're in the top 1%. However, most folks in the middle class who are filing this year are getting a really ugly wake up call.

What a thoughtful eloquent post! "ignorant white Christian trash." Really?
1. I am an atheist.
2. My IQ is 146
3. I don't resort to name-calling ("credulous shitheads like yourself"). I consider it the last refuge of scoundrels.

I will leave you boys alone for awhile now. Please carry on your frivolity with great vigor.

[Winstonm]

Comrade-1 has stepped on his own shite:

Quote

Thirty minutes into his speech, Trump admitted, “I didn’t need to” declare a national emergency to build the wall, remarks that are sure to find their way into the lawsuits that are coming.

“The primary fight was on the wall,” Trump said, referring to his federal government shutdown.

“I have so much money on everything else, I don’t know what to do with it,” he claimed. “I could do the wall over a longer period of time – I didn’t need to do this – but I wanted to do it faster.”

(my emphasis)

Expect to see those words in every one of the hundreds of lawsuits to be filed to stop this power grab.

[kenberg]

 Chas_P, on 2019-February-15, 10:59, said:

What a thoughtful eloquent post! "ignorant white Christian trash." Really?
1. I am an atheist.
2. My IQ is 146
3. I don't resort to name-calling ("credulous shitheads like yourself"). I consider it the last refuge of scoundrels.

I will leave you boys alone for awhile now. Please carry on your frivolity with great vigor.

Totally irrelevant and on second thought deleted

[johnu]

 Chas_NoHonor_NoDignity_NoSelfControl, on 2019-February-15, 10:59, said:

I will leave you boys alone for awhile now. Please carry on your frivolity with great vigor.

Another ridiculous lie from a poster with no self control, no dignity, and without honor.

He will back in 5...4...3...2...1...

[hrothgar]

 Chas_P, on 2019-February-15, 10:59, said:

What a thoughtful eloquent post! "ignorant white Christian trash." Really?
1. I am an atheist.
2. My IQ is 146
3. I don't resort to name-calling ("credulous shitheads like yourself"). I consider it the last refuge of scoundrels.

Chas, you might think that you scored well on a standardized test, however, this post does very little to demonstrate any real competencies in reading comprehension, logic, or even a decent memory.

Let's review:

• I made a comment describing Trump's base as ignorant white Christian trash
  
• You responded with claims that you don't fit that definition, presumably in an attempt to disprove my claim

Here's the rub: A couple weeks back you posted the following

Quote

I don't really like Trump, but let's face it. He's the Pres for about two more years (maybe 6).

Doesn't sound like you're actually a member of Trump's base
[You're just a random troll who think's that claiming an IQ test score of 146 would actually impress people]

[johnu]

Quote

 andrei, on 2019-February-08, 10:51, said:

This might change and you can claim victory in future, but for now it is premature.

You almost got something correct. The last battle is over. The next battle, if any, is over the next spending bill. And there will be many more battles in the next 2 years, assuming Dennison hasn't been impeached and removed from office before then.

The master of the "Art of the Misdeal" has once again demonstrated his stable genius negotiating skills. Let's recap what's happened.

1. During the 2016 presidential campaign and the 1st 2 years of his presidency, Dennison has insisted that Mexico will pay for his wall. Repeated hundreds of times at debates, campaign rallies around the country, and during TV interviews. 100% total lies by the world's greatest grifter and liar.

Trump urges Mexican president: Stop saying you won't pay for the wall

Quote

"You have a very big mark on our back, Mr. President, regarding who pays for the wall," Pena Nieto said. "My position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall."

Trump responded, "But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that. You cannot say that to the press, because I cannot negotiate under those circumstances."

Fact check: Trump says he 'obviously' never said Mexico would pay directly for the wall. But he did.

Quote

"When during the campaign, I would say Mexico is going to pay for it, obviously I never said this. I never meant they're going to write out a check," Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday

Dennison needs to hire an assistant to make a large spreadsheet of all of his lies so he can try to keep track of them and avoid looking even more stupid by publicly contradicting himself.

2. Dennison could have had 25 billion for his wall

The immigration deal Trump should’ve taken, but didn’t

Oops, Dennison rejects Democrats' proposal and 25 billion in wall money.

3. Dennison rejects 1.6 billion for border security in bill from Congress after previously agreeing to sign the bill. This was after President Coulter let the Manchurian President know who wore the pants in their relationship.

3. Dennison shuts down government until he gets 5.7 billion for his wall. As everybody saw after a month long government shutdown, Dennison caved and restarted government without getting 5.7 billion for his wall.

4. Dennison caves again and gets 1.3 billion for border security, less than he was going to get before the shutdown.

Andrei - Please explain to all the readers how this was another brilliant victory by the Russian puppet.

[barmar]

 johnu, on 2019-February-15, 17:46, said:

Dennison needs to hire an assistant to make a large spreadsheet of all of his lies so he can try to keep track of them and avoid looking even more stupid by publicly contradicting himself.

He'd need to rent one of Google's or Amazon's data centers to hold that spreadsheet.

If "pants on fire" produced real heat, Dennison would be personally responsible for much of global warming.

[johnu]

 andrei, on 2019-February-15, 08:02, said:

A friend sat next to JB on a plane. LOFL

This thread is priceless.

Did you pay your own tuition to clown school or did you get a scholarship? Don't answer, that was a rhetorical question
Since Fox Propaganda viewers usually don't bother to find out what's happening in the real world, John Brennan has been saying there are more bad things about Dennison and Russia that haven't been revealed since the start of the Mueller investigation in all types of national news shows.

And there was this:

John Brennan Says Trump’s ‘No Collusion’ Claims Are ‘Hogwash’

Quote

“The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of ‘Trump Incorporated’ attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets,” Brennan wrote.

Russian denials of interference in the election, Brennan added, also were “hogwash.”

[johnu]

Dennison was particularly delighted to criticize President Obama for playing too much golf. As everybody in the entire world has seen, Dennison golfs Obama into the ground when it comes to number of rounds played so far in his term. Dennison even tries to hide the number of times he golfs from the press with custom made obstructions and security details.

When tied in with the national emergency decree he declared today, this has reached beyond ridiculous,

Following national emergency announcement, Trump goes golfing

Quote

President Donald Trump will head to his Mar-a-Lago resort and golf club Friday afternoon, hours after declaring a national emergency in order to build a wall on the southern border, according to his public schedule.

I must have missed the part where Dennison hunkers down in the White House with top advisors to plot their plan to respond to an urgent federal emergency. The irony of declaring a federal emergency, and then going on a golf vacation is completely lost on Dennison, and probably most of his supporters.

[johnu]

Quote

I don't really like Trump, but let's face it. He's the Pres for about two more years (maybe 6).

 hrothgar, on 2019-February-15, 17:45, said:

Doesn't sound like you're actually a member of Trump's base
[You're just a random troll who think's that claiming an IQ test score of 146 would actually impress people]

He supports nearly every Dennison policy decision and tweet, and gets irrationally upset when Dennison is critized and exposed as the fraud that he is. Nope, doesn't sound like a Dennison MAGA supporter to me.

As far as IQ scores, maybe he took an IQ test twice and added the results together? Who knows? On the internet, you can claim to be anybody. You are defined by what you post and the results are in.

[hrothgar]

 Chas_P, on 2019-February-15, 10:59, said:

3. I don't resort to name-calling ("credulous shitheads like yourself"). I consider it the last refuge of scoundrels.

That's nice.

Guess was raised differently. In my family, randomly disrupting discussions for kicks and giggles was severely frowned upon.

You've already admitted that your reason for posting here is to troll the forums and bait the libs.
You don't get to complain that people aren't treating you with respect.
(And I couldn't care less that you use polite language to mask your pathologies)

[awm]

 Chas_P, on 2019-February-15, 10:59, said:

...
2. My IQ is 146
...

It's always amusing to see people resort to "argument by IQ score." Keep in mind:

1. Anyone can claim any score, it's usually not verifiable.
2. IQ only measures ability at certain kinds of pattern recognition and logical puzzle.
3. A high IQ doesn't imply social or emotional intelligence.
4. A high IQ doesn't make you a moral or ethical person.
5. A high IQ doesn't mean you keep an open mind or are receptive to new evidence.
6. Even though a high IQ *might* mean you're able to reason well from first principles, it doesn't mean your first principles aren't utter nonsense.
7. While IQ implies some level of aptitude for certain professions, in most cases your work ethic, degree of learned knowledge, and ability to work with others will be more important.
8. Bridge players are usually good at IQ-type problems and the "average" score on these forums might be higher than you think.

One observation is that we see a lot of professional mathematicians arguing against climate change. These mathematicians probably have very high IQ. But they don't really know anything about climate science (IQ does not imply knowledge) and they aren't necessarily willing to learn (IQ does not imply receptivity to evidence). I'd prefer to trust a "subject matter expert" over a "high IQ individual" for advice in basically all cases.

[y66]

Guest post from Matt Yglesias at Vox:

Quote

Today’s national emergency declaration from Donald Trump is an obvious fraud, detectable if nothing else by the reality that various White House and congressional officials have been teasing it as a possibility for months. In a real emergency, you act fast.

In a fake emergency, you act when you’ve decided the political timing is right as part of a larger ass-covering move because you need to back down from an ill-advised congressional fight that, itself, followed from an ill-advised campaign promise.

Security at the US-Mexico border is, of course, not perfect. But the world is full of problems, none of which are an “emergency” in the sense of requiring some kind of urgent extralegal repurposing of funds. Indeed, by robbing the nation’s drug interdiction and military construction budgets for his slat-building adventure, Trump is much more likely to make national problems worse rather than better: The process of fencing the southern border — ongoing for decades already — is subject to diminishing returns, with the valuable sections having been fenced years ago.

The crisis on display over the past couple of months is the total incompetence of Donald Trump. He has no understanding of how to set a policy agenda or get anything done.

Consequently, without Paul Ryan around to drive a legislative agenda that he can rubber-stamp, he’s flailing. First, shutting down the government and throwing millions of people’s lives into chaos. Now, reopening the government having obtained nothing he couldn’t have had in December while adopting a Hail Mary “emergency” scheme that is only going to make things worse. It’s a much better outcome than a new shutdown, but it should all make us worry about the president’s shaky ability to handle a real crisis.

The world’s stupidest political standoff

This all began, obviously, when Trump promised to build a solid concrete wall across the entire span of the US-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it.

That was an incredibly stupid idea, wasteful and unworkable in every way, and his critics said so. But Trump transmogrified his opponents’ mockery into a test of will. The political establishment didn’t want to secure the border, but Trump did — and the wall was proof.

In office, Trump has been confronting the reality that his critics were correct in every way. Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, so congressional appropriations are needed, and the cost-benefit question is valid. He also long ago conceded that precisely because of cost-benefit considerations, there is not going to be a wall stretching across the entire border — there are places where it’s infeasible and useless, and that’s that. He also conceded, by the way, that there’s not going to be a wall at all, that the previous steel bollard anti-pedestrian fencing that he mocked as a candidate is a useful barrier and that Border Patrol personnel prefer its see-through quality.

The whole dispute, on a practical level, is simply about the level of spending and pace of construction of a type of border hardening that has been underway for years.

Democrats find this border hardening to be mostly wasteful; Republicans say it’s important. To any halfway competent president, this is the most banal kind of political controversy imaginable. If you have a pet project that you want to get money for, you have to offer your opponents something in exchange.

The wall itself is stupid

Trump’s problem here is that the wall is a bad idea and his own allies and staff know it’s a bad idea. The sort of illicit border crossings that pedestrian fences are supposed to prevent have already fallen to very low levels (perhaps because of the already-build barriers, perhaps for other reasons), and the immigration conversation has moved on to other things — most notably, the treatment of asylum-seeking families from Central America.

Because the wall is bad, immigration hawks don’t want to make any meaningful concessions in order to get it.

Anytime talks seem to be getting off the ground about some kind of swap of help for DREAMers in exchange for wall money, the hawks swoop in with a bunch of other demands that have nothing to do with the wall.

It’s reasonable that conservatives don’t want to make concessions for the wall because the wall is bad. But by the same token, if your political allies don’t want to make concessions to get something because the thing in question is bad, the smart approach is to just let it slide, not throw a tantrum.

But instead, we have Donald Trump.

A crisis of leadership

First the shutdown and now the “emergency” both stem from the basic fact that Trump will neither admit his whole wall spiel was BS nor decide to act like someone who genuinely wants a wall and make a deal to get it.

Instead, a lot of people’s time and money is now going to be wasted on litigation while money is taken away from duly authorized programs and sent instead to a construction project nobody really wants. This is not the worst thing anyone has ever done in American politics — it’s not even close to being the worst thing Trump has ever done — but it’s arguably the most absurd.

And it raises, once again, the fundamental question about Trump. When you have a president who can’t handle relatively banal problems like a disagreement over a $5 billion appropriation for a pet project, what’s going to happen to us when a real crisis hits?

The other fundamental question is why does a guy with an IQ second only to John Adams do stuff like this?

[ggwhiz]

 awm, on 2019-February-16, 06:20, said:

It's always amusing to see people resort to "argument by IQ score." Keep in mind:

Indeed.

The most hopeless bridge student I ever had was the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The 2nd worst spoke 8 languages and gave security briefings to Nato before being appointed as a Citizenship judge.

Brilliant people that were hopeless in so many ways.

My favorite was Pierre Treuill, a multiple National Pairs champion and an actuary. He got a call from his bank about bouncing a check and found 6 months worth of paychecks in his dresser drawer. Once went into work and when he couldn't find anyone to go to lunch with found out it was Sunday. His wife phoned the club to tell his partner that Pierre can't play with you today cause he can't find the garage door opener (and apparently had no idea how to open it otherwise).

And dozens more that are the stuff of local legend.

[andrei]

andrei said:

A friend sat next to JB on a plane. LOFL

This thread is priceless.

 johnu, on 2019-February-15, 22:48, said:

Did you pay your own tuition to clown school or did you get a scholarship? Don't answer, that was a rhetorical question
Since Fox Propaganda viewers usually don't bother to find out what's happening in the real world, John Brennan has been saying there are more bad things about Dennison and Russia that haven't been revealed since the start of the Mueller investigation in all types of national news shows.

And there was this:

John Brennan Says Trump’s ‘No Collusion’ Claims Are ‘Hogwash’

OMG.

Since JB's political opinions are well known, I thought it's evident that the LOL part is the "a friend sat next to him on a plane" (which is obviously true, right?).

Intelligence is not your strongest suit, is it?
I am only asking for a friend.

[rmnka447]

 johnu, on 2019-February-15, 22:48, said:

Did you pay your own tuition to clown school or did you get a scholarship? Don't answer, that was a rhetorical question
Since Fox Propaganda viewers usually don't bother to find out what's happening in the real world, John Brennan has been saying there are more bad things about Dennison and Russia that haven't been revealed since the start of the Mueller investigation in all types of national news shows.

And there was this:

John Brennan Says Trump’s ‘No Collusion’ Claims Are ‘Hogwash’

Well, if the collusion claims are such a slam dunk, then maybe someone should put real evidence of it out there.

Sadly, Brennan sounds like he's parroting his buddy shifty Rep. Adam Schiff who claimed there was plenty of evidence of collusion a year or two ago but that he couldn't share it with us. Now that he's Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he's said that they must move past the Russian investigation and investigate Trump's finances.

Like the famous campaign quip from either the '84 or '88 election parodying an Arby's ad, Cora's asking "Where's the beef?" It seems like all we've been getting for a couple is a lot of smoke and little barbecue.

[Winstonm]

 rmnka447, on 2019-February-16, 11:54, said:

Well, if the collusion claims are such a slam dunk, then maybe someone should put real evidence of it out there.

Sadly, Brennan sounds like he's parroting his buddy shifty Rep. Adam Schiff who claimed there was plenty of evidence of collusion a year or two ago but that he couldn't share it with us. Now that he's Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he's said that they must move past the Russian investigation and investigate Trump's finances.

Like the famous campaign quip from either the '84 or '88 election parodying an Arby's ad, Cora's asking "Where's the beef?" It seems like all we've been getting for a couple is a lot of smoke and little barbecue.

Well, much of the evidence is still in redacted form but enough is there to show that Paul Manafort met with Konstatin Kilimnik and Rick Gates at a private club inside Kushner's building, and there he passed along campaign polling data. Here is The New Yorker's explanation of that:

Quote

On Tuesday, when news broke that Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort had shared internal polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian business associate with ties to Russian intelligence, the through line between the campaign and the Kremlin began to look incontrovertible. The revelation came in an inadvertently unredacted court document, which was filed by Manafort’s lawyers in response to charges made by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, that Manafort had lied to investigators. According to the Times, some—but not all—of the data was already in the public domain. The rest came from the campaign’s own polling operation.

The SCO attorney - Andrew Weissmann - in the filing wrote that this meeting "goes to the heart of the Special Counsel's investigation."

In case you have forgotten, the SCO was initially authorized to investigate:

Quote

(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James 8. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and

(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and

(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).

(my emphasis)

The SCO in criminal charges stated that Kilimnik was still connected to the GRU (Russiann government) during the time when this meeting occurred.

So, to recap, you have the campaign chairman clandestinely meeting with a Russian agent in order to pass him private campaign polling data, data that would be extraordinarily helpful in targeting specific voters.

Perhaps you don't see this as collusion, but the SCO seems to disagree with your assessment.