US Politics Mega-thread - Page 30

On March 24 2018 02:15 LightSpectra wrote:
how the blazing fuck could any rational human being look at a guy that said "The Iraq War was awesome, also let's bomb the shit out of North Korea and Iran" be appointed National Security Advisor, and not only be able to sleep at night, but think it sounds like a great idea?

On March 24 2018 03:00 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

It's amazing the mindbending that goes on there...
+ Show Spoiler +

On March 23 2018 22:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Guilty pleasure. I’d love to know what’s going on in the heads of the countless devot christians who voted for him and keep supporting him. At one point, his conduct will end up hurting him, i believe. People’s ability to contradict themselves is always surprising but it’s not infinite.

Meanwhike, getting my popcorns ready. That Stormy Daniel woman must be having the time of her life. Looks like being in the spotlight is what she enjoys, and it looks like she would love to make as much damage as she can...

During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to defend religious liberty, stand up for unborn life and appoint conservative jurists to the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. And he has done exactly what he promised. The pro-abortion lobby NARAL complains that Trump has been “relentless” on these fronts, declaring his administration “the worst . . . that we’ve ever seen.” That is more important to most Christian conservatives than what the president may have done with a porn actress more than 10 years ago.

Trump’s election came as religious liberty was under unprecedented attack. The Obama administration was trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious conscience and facilitate payment for abortifacient drugs and other contraceptives. During oral arguments in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, President Barack Obama’s solicitor general told the Supreme Court that churches and universities could lose their tax-exempt status if they opposed same-sex marriage.

Hillary Clinton promised to escalate those attacks. In 2015, she declared at the Women in the World Summit that “religious beliefs . . . have to be changed” — perhaps the most radical threat to religious liberty ever delivered by a major presidential candidate. Had Clinton won, she would have replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal jurist, giving the Supreme Court a liberal judicial-activist majority.

The impact would have been immediate, as the court prepares to decide two cases crucial to religious liberty. In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court will soon determine whether the government can compel a U.S. citizen to violate his conscience and participate in speech that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs. In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra, the court will decide whether the state of California can compel pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertise access to abortion to their clients, in violation of their conscience. Those cases are being heard not by five liberals, but five conservatives, including Justice Neil M.Gorsuch — because Trump kept his promise to “appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the bench.”

The president is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges who will protect life and religious freedom for decades. He also fulfilled his promise to defend the Little Sisters from government bullying, by expanding the religious and conscience exemption to the Obamacare contraception mandate to cover both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

On March 24 2018 02:39 xDaunt wrote:
Yeah, it looks like Trump is going sign the bill on the basis of the national defense spending stuff that's in there but otherwise crap all over the bill.

On March 24 2018 03:36 Danglars wrote:

It would be better if he veto'd it and held out for actual wall funding. Not this strings attached 1.5billion, no concrete compromise. He can put Congress on notice to not do pork business as usual.

On March 24 2018 03:36 Danglars wrote:

It would be better if he veto'd it and held out for actual wall funding. Not this strings attached 1.5billion, no concrete compromise. He can put Congress on notice to not do pork business as usual.

On March 24 2018 03:41 zlefin wrote:

how would that put congress on notice to not do pork as they usually do?
that sounds more like asking for more pork in the form of the wall.

On March 24 2018 03:58 Danglars wrote:

Congress gets the pork they want. Business as usual. Trump not elected, Clinton elected.
Congress must surrender cash to border security, the wall and the more high tech stuff, in order to get any pork without veto. The election mattered. Compromise reached.

On March 24 2018 04:07 IyMoon wrote:


The election only matters if you elect someone with leadership skills

On March 24 2018 04:25 Danglars wrote:

Right, a veto would’ve shown leadership.

On March 24 2018 04:25 Danglars wrote:

Right, a veto would’ve shown leadership.

On March 24 2018 04:33 Gorsameth wrote:

"Trump shuts down government" just pushes a Democratic victory closer in the election.

On March 24 2018 05:03 bo1b wrote:
I just don't understand how hiring Bolton is justifiable, after all the things that have come out of Trump's mouth regarding the Iraq war and those involved.

We've seen some mental gymnastics leading up to this event but this is something else.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/375705302382817281

Haha.

On March 24 2018 03:58 Danglars wrote:

Congress gets the pork they want. Business as usual. Trump not elected, Clinton elected.
Congress must surrender cash to border security, the wall and the more high tech stuff, in order to get any pork without veto. The election mattered. Compromise reached.

On March 24 2018 03:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'd note p6's take seems different than it was 6 months ago and very different than what we see daily in liberal media outlets, but more along the lines of something I can agree with.

Who do you think are the Russian puppets within his team?

Forget senior White House staffers, outside advisers, friends and others “close” to the president. There’s only one person who truly knows what Donald Trump is thinking at any given moment: Donald Trump.

The president’s surprise Friday morning tweet threatening to veto a $1.3 trillion government funding bill — and subsequent reversal in a matter of hours — capped another week in which Trump’s impulsive decisions undermined his exasperated staff.

Tensions were running high in the White House on Friday, especially on the communications team, as staff scrambled to figure out whether the president really intended to veto the bill or was just blustering. There is growing concern in the West Wing that the president’s unpredictable behavior is undercutting staffers’ credibility, according to two people who have spoken to White House officials in recent days.

"The press and comms team, more than others, are at their wits’ end,” a former White House official told POLITICO. “I don't blame them for being frustrated, because they're on the front lines of this and are directly responsible for dealing with the blowback of the president's un-planned tweets.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Less than 24 hours before Trump threatened to blow up the deal to keep the government open, the White House sent two senior staffers — Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short — to brief reporters about Trump’s support for the spending bill.

“Let's cut right to the chase. Is the president going to sign the bill? Yes. Why? Because it funds his priorities," Mulvaney told reporters.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence touted the legislation during a Thursday speech in New Hampshire, telling Trump’s supporters it includes a crucial down payment toward building a massive wall along the Mexico border. And, despite Trump’s misgivings, the White House itself circulated statements saying the administration supports the bill and casting the legislation as a "win for the American people."

Trump’s Friday tweet unleashed a wave confusion in the White House, with aides and even senior officials such as Defense Secretary James Mattis rushing to convince the president that he should accept the bill.

Ultimately, Trump signed the bill on Friday with Mattis by his side, saying the move was “a matter of national security.”

He also made sure to knock the spending package, calling it a “ridiculous situation” and pledging, “I will never sign another bill like this again.”

But in the run-up to Trump’s announcement, White House aides privately acknowledged it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that the president would double-down on his opposition to the legislation, plunging Washington into chaos.

Asked earlier Friday whether Trump was serious about vetoing the bill, one White House official said simply, “Who knows.”

White House officials had long been aware that the president was unhappy with the legislation, but they believed they had convinced him to support it.

Friday’s tweet again raised questions about whether the president’s senior advisers are capable of following the president’s ever-evolving stances on crucial issues of national importance.

On March 24 2018 05:24 zlefin wrote:

I don't see your point; you're just asking for a bunch of pork for the wall.
you don't set an anti-pork notice by asking for your own pork; tha'ts simply saying you want a larger share of the pork for yourself.
if your goal is simply to change the pork allocation so trump gets more of the pork, fine; that makes a certain amount of sense.
but that's still pork business as usual.

and re: bob
all that stuff trump previously said was lies/bs, therefore he changed his mind. it's not like he actually believed any of the stuff he said. he was jsut spewing some bs cuz it sounded good at the time; now he'll spew different bs that seems right for now.

also, the list of people willing to work for trump is fairly short; and most people who're on it are people who would be barred by a sensible leader.