Trump Thread

[Beskar]

Monty calls CSPAN about impeachment: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1197573672313200640

Trust you.

[Montmorency]

Trust you.

Different Monty!


An even cooler story of an even Realer American, Daniel Burke.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

TUALATIN, Ore. — Daniel Edward Burke, of Tualatin, Ore., passed away peacefully on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at age 73, following an extended illness.
Dan was born June 17, 1936, in Lawrence. He went to school in Lawrence through his first years of college, received a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii, and an master's degree in political science from the University of Oregon.
Dan married Suzanne Dillard-Burke in 1986. He was preceded in death by his parents, Daniel and Theresa Burke, and his brother, David. Dan is survived by his loving wife Suzanne; his brother, Robert (Mona); his sister, Anne; his son, Erik (Jessyca); his grandson, Finnian, and nieces, nephews, and brothers and sisters-in-law. Dan was a generous and caring person who will be deeply missed by his family and friends.
Dan served in the U.S. Army, attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., and then served as a Korean interpreter. Dan worked for four years with the Multnomah County Sheriff's office, and ran his own closeout specialist business, KIRE Distributors, for the next 28 years until his illness.
Dan had a large appetite for life and gift for languages. He spoke Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Polish, and Yiddish and was conversational in several other languages. He loved to sing and enjoyed the original Latin Mass. Dan liked to work on math problems and logic puzzles, and was a voracious reader. He loved to spend time with his wife and family and enjoyed several trips to Europe and China with his wife Suzanne. Throughout his life, Dan closely followed political and social causes, and was always an advocate for the underdog.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Montmorency]

Wow, remember a couple years back when we used to joke about Trump's Stalinist impulses around presenting his in-group vs. out-group?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...1a4_story.html

The large color photograph that greets visitors to a National Archives exhibit celebrating the centennial of women’s suffrage shows a massive crowd filling Pennsylvania Avenue NW for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after President Trump’s inauguration.

The 49-by-69-inch photograph is a powerful display. Viewed from one perspective, it shows the 2017 march. Viewed from another angle, it shifts to show a 1913 black-and-white image of a women’s suffrage march also on Pennsylvania Avenue. The display links momentous demonstrations for women’s rights more than a century apart on the same stretch of pavement.

But a closer look reveals a different story.

The Archives acknowledged in a statement this week that it made multiple alterations to the photo of the 2017 Women’s March showcased at the museum, blurring signs held by marchers that were critical of Trump. Words on signs that referenced women’s anatomy were also blurred.

A placard that proclaims “God Hates Trump” has “Trump” blotted out so that it reads “God Hates.” A sign that reads “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women” has the word Trump blurred out.

“As a non-partisan, non-political federal agency, we blurred references to the President’s name on some posters, so as not to engage in current political controversy,” Archives spokeswoman Miriam Kleiman said in an emailed statement.

Holy maloney, but it does track with his hollowing out of the bureaucracy and its replacement with personal whim and conditioned obsequiousness. Recall the similar but more dangerous (?) manipulation of official weather projections that did not comport with Trump's proclamations this past September.


(Just to be clear, National Archives have apologized and promised to replace the image.)

[Montmorency]

https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-bea...v-parnas-audio

Video reminder, too, of how stupid everything is.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I was surprised by the second article of impeachment. It was an interesting take that the managers proffered.

[Montmorency]

Impeachment:

The White House defense, as an extension of its revival of the failed theory that "if the president does it it's not illegal/corrupt," is that "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."

Aside from providing a pretext for establishing the first Galactic Empire autocracy, the logic entails:

Any of the fake news about malfeasance by Obama and Clinton would be above challenge if real.

"Controversial" doctrines of executive power with no direct foundation in the Constitution would a fortiari invalidate the textually-defined recourse to impeachment for all presidents past and future.

A communist president could literally justify installing the dictatorship of the proletariat.


Ultimately the Republican argument is much simpler and more coherent than many would like to admit in polite company, namely IOKIYAR.

[a completely inoffensive name]

"The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'" -Alexander Hamilton, 1792