Trumperies

[Tharmas]

An interesting analysis here from FiveThirtyEight about Trump's approval ratings.

[MattShizzle]

When I find myself in tweets of trouble
Mother Russia comes to me
speaking words of wisdom...
covfefe!

[crazyfingers]

So I thought I'd chime in here.

I've been here in Japan this week and into next week. In my 26 years of visiting Japan, politics has never come up before in my client meetings.

But this year is different.

My clients are senior level divisional managers at many of the big name Japanese tech firms.

Universally Trump is regarded as unstable, dishonest, uninformed and likely just as crazy kim jong-un.

I have said that I wished that more Americans understood that.

[BracesForImpact]

[quote=""crazyfingers""]So I thought I'd chime in here.

I've been here in Japan this week and into next week. In my 26 years of visiting Japan, politics has never come up before in my client meetings.

But this year is different.

My clients are senior level divisional managers at many of the big name Japanese tech firms.

Universally Trump is regarded as unstable, dishonest, uninformed and likely just as crazy kim jong-un.

I have said that I wished that more Americans understood that.[/quote]

Many Americans, especially Trump supporters, simply don't care what those "Japs" think. Personally, I consider him only marginally better than Kim Jong Un. If all restraints were removed, I consider it a real possibility that he could be a very similar figure.

[lpetrich]

Trump Reportedly Hates Being President, but 'Doesn't Want to Go Down in History' for Resigning | Alternet
Apparently noting this article about the Department of Justice succession: Trump threatens to break the glass on DOJ succession plan - POLITICO

But Trump, too, is cognizant of the comparison to Nixon, according to one adviser. The president, who friends said does not enjoy living in Washington and is strained by the demanding hours of the job, is motivated to carry on because he “doesn’t want to go down in history as a guy who tried and failed,” said the adviser. “He doesn’t want to be the second president in history to resign.”

So he's reluctant to resign because of what a humiliation it would be.

Even though he has been playing golf at 10 times the rate of his predecessor Barack Obama.


Trump Doesn’t Want to Be President - POLITICO Magazine

Donald Trump doesn’t really want to be president. If he did, he’d nominate candidates to the 350 important but vacant administration jobs and get on with the job of governance. He doesn’t seem to want to be commander in chief of the armed forces, either, having outsourced Afghanistan troop-level decisions to Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Don’t burden him with foreign policy—which so daunts him that he’s postponed an official trip to Britain because (as some report) he fears the inevitable protests that will greet him. Nor is he much interested in upholding the oath he took on Inauguration Day, promising to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He proves this lack of interest every day by ignoring the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause.

Instead, Trump lusts for the job of White House communications director, a position that has been open since mid-May, when Michael Dubke resigned.

Then him vs. Sean Spicer.

[MattShizzle]

What would be worse - 2nd to resign or first to be removed? Or even 3rd to be impeached.

[sohy]

If he hates being president so much, why is he already campaigning for his second term?

[praxis]

The number of unnamed sources Politico comes up with in article after article is just staggering. What it looks like to me is extrapolating to an extreme and nothing more.

Example: Trump makes the statement that he misses his old life and finds the presidency isolating so he goes off on weekends. Politico frames all that into Trump hates being president and invents "advisor" informant discussions as a storyline.

It is a disgusting display of whateverthefuckitis that makes it into their shit news reporting. Alternet appears to believe it's a winning formula.

[Jackrabbit]

I don't think most people complain about him going off on weekends. They complain about him going off on weekends after lambasting Obama for going off on weekends. And then doing it himself far more often.

[crazyfingers]

[quote=""sohy""]If he hates being president so much, why is he already campaigning for his second term?[/quote]

I don't think that he's campaigning for his second term. I think that he's holding pep rallies to boost his own ego. But If my observations are correct, his crowds are getting smaller and smaller.

[Copernicus]

I think that resignation is the furthest possible thing from his mind right now. With Mueller investigating him, he knows that a resignation could lead to spending more time in a courtroom than on the golf course. Right now he has tremendous power to obstruct the investigations into his past and his business deals, not to mention opportunities to expand his wealth. Congress has his back, and that is unlikely to change in the midterm elections, when Republicans could increase their lead in the Senate. Their numbers in the House should decline, but not even that is certain. A year from now, he'll still be in the White House, and Republicans will still control all three branches of government and most state governments. There is plenty of time to plan for the midterm elections.

People need to stop fantasizing about this catastrophe somehow magically abating. Trump won't be dislodged that easily, and then there is Pence.

[Jackrabbit]

Yes, getting rid of the Orangutan will make the world safer, but it won't solve the problems. Only the end of gerrymandering and dark money will do that. I.e., if the true will of the people can ever be expressed.

[sohy]

[quote=""crazyfingers""]

If he hates being president so much, why is he already campaigning for his second term?

I don't think that he's campaigning for his second term. I think that he's holding pep rallies to boost his own ego. But If my observations are correct, his crowds are getting smaller and smaller.[/QUOTE]

Sure, a lot of it is simply for attention, but the man is so delusional and full of himself that I think he enjoys all the attention that being president gives him. I don't think he likes doing the work of the president which is why he's already given over most military responsibilities to Mattis. And, I'm pretty sure that Steve Bannon has been instrumental in helping him too. Tillerson is out there doing his own thing without even hiring most of the unfilled positions in the state department. What is Trump actually doing other than getting attention, mocking Democrats, tweeting etc.? He loves the job as long as he can delegate as much work as possible to others and then blame them when things go wrong.

I honestly don't believe he wants to resign or hates being president. He's a narcissist and being president is the perfect job for one who loves constant attention. He has a great talent for projecting his own traits and faults on others, which may be why he still has an overall approval rating of about 40%, much higher among Republicans.

[lpetrich]

Frank Rich: Nixon, Trump, and How a Presidency Ends -- a very detailed discussion of how much Donald Trump's presidency has in common with Richard Nixon's last years as President.

There are differences between the two, but most of them are not very flattering for DT, like DT's willingness to make troublesome off-the-cuff statements. The only exception, it seems, is that RN was a heavy drinker while DT is a teetotaler.


Ivanka Goes Mental During Fox News Interview, Unleashes Shocking Trump Rant (VIDEO)

In an interview with Ainsley Earhardt that aired earlier this morning, Ivanka went off the deep end by telling several lies and lavishing a revolting amount of praise on her father. Despite sitting in on several key meetings and practically taking on the role of First Lady, Ivanka actually said she tries to “stay out of politics.” In almost the same breath, Ivanka bragged about just how much she’s involved in Trump’s decision-making.

From the interview,

Earhardt then asked Ivanka about Trump’s Twitter addiction, wondering “what do you advise him in regards to his tweeting?”
Ivanka, who is basically the only senior adviser that Trump will sort of listen to, lied:
You know I try to stay out of politics. His political instincts are phenomenal.”
Ivanka has been usually thought of as the only Trump somewhat rooted in reality, but she lost it during this interview. She gave her father an “A” grade on his presidency, and said this:
I think is he doing amazing job, I think he’s doing an unbelievable job.”
Either Trump pressured his daughter to talk him up after his disastrous Fox News interview last week, or Ivanka has lost her damn mind.

Even though she has an image of being relatively level-headed, at least in comparison to her father.

[MattShizzle]

Not him specifically, but from his female version of Joseph Goebbels.

[lpetrich]

Image of the United States has plunged under Trump, survey shows | Reuters

The image of the United States in the world has been seriously damaged by President Donald Trump and an overwhelming majority of people in other countries have no confidence in his ability to manage world affairs, a Pew Research Center survey showed.

Nearly every nation polled had a decline from Obama to Trump, and a parallel decline in the US's favorability rating, though the US rating declined less than the Obama-to-Trump rating, typically half as much.

Israel was close to neutral, with the US having the same rating and with Trump being a little bit better than Obama.

But the nation with the biggest difference was Russia, where Trump has a much better rating than Obama, and the US improved a lot from Obama to Trump.

That adds to the Trump-Russia connections.

[Hermit]

Alluding to a fake Time front cover the publishers told the president to stop displaying...

[Jackrabbit]

TRUMP: So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English.

HABERMAN: Like, nothing, right? Like zero?

TRUMP: Like, not “hello.”

HABERMAN: That must make for an awkward seating.

TRUMP: Well, it’s hard, because you know, you’re sitting there for——

HABERMAN: Hours.

Problem is, she can speak English well enough. She just pretended she couldn't so she didn't have to converse with The Orangutan. This link shows her making a speech at the Ford Foundation. In English.

[Tharmas]

Commenting on Trump's latest lunacy is getting old, but with his new press secretary, Scaramucci, we have another Trump-like character in power. Scaramucci is also arguably the most odious toady Trump has installed, so it's an interesting combination, a sycophant who is himself drunk with power.

The Guardian has a good take on him. If you follow the links to the New Yorker article you'll see the man in his own words.

The betting has already started about how long he will last.

[Copernicus]

Scaramucci is perfect for Trump, as the Guardian article says. I suspect that he'll last as long as Trump does, and that could be at least until after next years.

[sohy]

If you've ever seen the Austin Power movies, you can see the remarkable similarities between the Mooch and Mini Me.

[Tubby]

[quote=""sohy""]If you've ever seen the Austin Power movies, you can see the remarkable similarities between the Mooch and Mini Me.[/quote]

Was the term "guido" used for his type in your New Jersey days?

[lpetrich]

Why the Trump dynasty will last sixteen years | Edward Luttwak

He states in it that

the President’s re-election committee is already hard at work, while his daughter Ivanka Trump is duly apprenticed in the White House that, according to my sources, she means to occupy as America’s first female President

So it's Donald Trump again in 2020, then Ivanka Trump in 2024 and 2028.

After noting Hillary Clinton's defeat of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries,

As it was, of course, the victory of the Democratic establishment merely ensured the victory of the only Sanders counterpart on the Republican side with whom Sanders differed sharply on almost everything – except for the only thing that really mattered to both: the urgent need to mobilize government policies to increase American jobs and wages, in firm opposition to all the competing international and planetary priorities continuously proffered by elite Americans and their core institutions, along with Pope Francis and other leading figures.

He then discusses a rather curious issue: affordability of cars.

That is why the car affordability numbers revealed in June 2016 were so vastly significant in determining the outcome of the elections. Going by metropolitan areas, they extracted maximum affordable car prices from median incomes. The latter ranged from the stellar $87,210 of San Jose in the opulence of California’s Silicon Valley, all the way down to the $24,701 of deindustrialized Cleveland, Ohio, numbers that in turn yielded maximum affordable price limits of $32,855 in San Jose, and $7,558 in Cleveland – not actually the lowest number, which was Detroit’s $6,174, owing to high average insurance costs in that crime-afflicted city (at $1,131.40 per annum, as compared to Cleveland’s $659.47).

What made these seemingly obscure numbers nothing less than momentous was that the cheapest new car on sale in the United States in 2016 was the Nissan Versa sedan at $12,825, twice the level that average households could afford in Detroit or Cleveland, and more than average households could afford in cities ranging from Philadelphia, Orlando, Milwaukee, Memphis, Providence, New Orleans, Miami and Buffalo, as well as, a fortiori, in a very great number of smaller localities across the United States, even in high-income states such as California and Oregon, as well much more commonly in the lower-income Southern and rust-belt states.

Since Americans are so car-dependent, this means trouble.

He mentions two issues: wage stagnation and what he considers overregulation of car design: safety and fuel efficiency.

And both those purposes are much more costly to achieve than they could have been because they are subverted by the safety norms that prohibit the much lighter vehicles I happily drive in Japan, whose K-cars merrily drive up steep mountain roads in spite of their minuscule engines, and that also prohibit the several small cars sold in Europe for much less than the $12,825 of the cheapest US car.

Then there is a part where he seems to deny that natural gas is now underselling coal and where he seems to think that global warming is a non-issue. He seems to think that former President Obama was trying to regulate coal to death.

Nothing on developing alternatives to coal, and eventually alternatives to natural gas -- he claims that wind and solar aren't cheap enough to compete with them.

What happens next depends on the fate of that other vector of the Trump strategy – his $1.3 trillion infrastructure plan which a White House team is striving to convert into an actual programme that specifies what is to be built where, and with what sort of funding, whether public or private.

That's way too optimistic. His infrastructure plans continue to be very vague, especially the funding of them. Tax breaks for Wall Streeters, apparently.

If the resulting employment generation kicks in fully by 2020, Trump will coast to re-election, especially if by then he can claim that the Mexican border is “sealed”, which will then result in his ordering the automatic legalization of all tax-paying and non-felonious illegal immigrants, giving him a chunk of the Hispanic vote as well, after decades of unfulfilled promises, including Obama’s.

That strikes me as also very optimistic. He might get some Hispanic votes, but his base would be outraged.

[Worldtraveller]

This part is pure BS:

And both those purposes are much more costly to achieve than they could have been because they are subverted by the safety norms that prohibit the much lighter vehicles I happily drive in Japan, whose K-cars merrily drive up steep mountain roads in spite of their minuscule engines, and that also prohibit the several small cars sold in Europe for much less than the $12,825 of the cheapest US car.

It's not regulations that drive the US to bigger, heavier and less fuel eficient cars. It's the people themselves, from the 'I need a bigger car because it's safer when I get in an accident' (implying that the other person is fucked, and they don't give a shit) to the small penis/big car syndrom to the simple status symbol of bigger-shinier -newer.

There are very few cars built for the EU that wouldn't meet the safety standards in the US (and I haven't compared in the last couple years, but in general, the EU has much better, more restrictive standards than the US).

Makes me doubt the veracity of the rest of the article just a bit.

[Hermit]

[quote=""Worldtraveller""]This part is pure BS:

And both those purposes are much more costly to achieve than they could have been because they are subverted by the safety norms that prohibit the much lighter vehicles I happily drive in Japan, whose K-cars merrily drive up steep mountain roads in spite of their minuscule engines, and that also prohibit the several small cars sold in Europe for much less than the $12,825 of the cheapest US car.

It's not regulations that drive the US to bigger, heavier and less fuel eficient cars. It's the people themselves, from the 'I need a bigger car because it's safer when I get in an accident' (implying that the other person is fucked, and they don't give a shit) to the small penis/big car syndrom to the simple status symbol of bigger-shinier -newer.

There are very few cars built for the EU that wouldn't meet the safety standards in the US (and I haven't compared in the last couple years, but in general, the EU has much better, more restrictive standards than the US).

Makes me doubt the veracity of the rest of the article just a bit.[/quote]The Times Literary Supplement has been owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. since 1981. Need I say more? Oh yes, I do. In February last year Stig Abell became its editor. His previous job was filling the role of managing editor of Murdoch's other jewel in the UK crown of News Corp's bevy of publications, the rabidly right wing, bottom of the barrel tabloid press newsrag named The Sun.

You know the TLS has sunk to unprecedented depths when a 74 word bandworm sentence like "The latter ranged from the stellar $87,210 of San Jose in the opulence of California’s Silicon Valley, all the way down to the $24,701 of deindustrialized Cleveland, Ohio, numbers that in turn yielded maximum affordable price limits of $32,855 in San Jose, and $7,558 in Cleveland – not actually the lowest number, which was Detroit’s $6,174, owing to high average insurance costs in that crime-afflicted city (at $1,131.40 per annum, as compared to Cleveland’s $659.47)." is allowed to pollute a publication dedicated to excellence in writing. Come to think of it, what has that article to do with literary reviews anyway?

The TLS is fucked at last.