The "stable genius" with the nuclear codes began looking insane this week
The media has been exaggerating the things that Trump has been saying for a long time.
In many cases their overreaction was tiresome.
But this past week was something else. Trump really did start talking like an insane person.
President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to release ISIS fighters in Europe as a form of punishment for countries like Germany and France; said he’s strongly considering trying to change the Constitution by executive order (it doesn’t work that way); indicated he hasn’t ruled out trying to illegally serve more than two terms; rewrote history during comments about Russia’s expulsion from the G8 that framed the situation in the most pro-Kremlin manner possible; and, despite five draft deferments, joked about giving himself the Medal of Honor.That was Wednesday. And that’s an incomplete list of all the outlandish stuff Trump said on that day alone.
Any of the aforementioned statements would’ve generated major scandals coming from the mouth of any other president. But given the week Trump has been having, they arguably didn’t even make the cut of the five most WTF things he’s said since his New Jersey vacation ended on Monday.
Did you catch all of that? Because that isn't even the most bizarre stuff.
Just this morning, the president delivered a proclamation stating that, "Our great American companies are hereby ordered" to stop dealing with China (!). He also declared the chairman of the Federal Reserve, whom he himself appointed, was an enemy of the state.But remember when the president endorsed the idea he is King of Israel and the Second Coming of God? And then he said Jewish people who vote for Democrats—that is, the 70-to-80 percent of American Jews who don't support him—are guilty of "disloyalty" to Israel? And then he accused Rashida Tlaib of anti-Semitism? And then he started screaming, "WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?" And then he canceled a diplomatic trip to Denmark because the prime minister was rude in saying she wouldn't sell him Greenland? And then he demanded Russia be reinstated in the G8, and said they were only thrown out because they "outsmarted" Obama, when in fact it was because they'd invaded Ukraine? And then he declared he was The Chosen One, looking to the heavens as he said it, who'd been tapped by the almighty to launch a trade war against China?
TRUMP: "The fake news, of which many of you are members, is trying to convince the public to have a recession. 'Let's have a recession!' ... I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it. So I'm taking on China." pic.twitter.com/OHmXOzoO7I
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 21, 2019
....like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God...But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019
Let me first say that Jews do not in fact believe in the second coming of God.
What is one to make of all of this?
If you don't think that there isn't a lot at stake in 2020. Think again.
Comments
On a lighter note
Can you imagine the epic word salad that would be a Trump/Biden debate? It would make Lewis Carroll look like Strunk & White.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky
And the hits keep coming
link
What could go wrong?
The next Katrina makes landfall with 150 mph radioactive winds and turns New Orleans into an underwater Chernobyl. Hey, Greenland's looking better and better...
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky
Sounds fine to me. I've seen it work on Sharknado
Double-standards
Israel: Love it or leave America
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky
He will give a press conference with Macron in a couple
of minutes. Being insane and being considered as such is the solution for him to save face.
How long will the world accept an insane person to rule the world ?
https://www.euronews.com/live
Trump and Macron Press Conference
[video:https://youtu.be/1c_bOU57Z0g]
hard to listen to the translator"s voice, but it is almost live.
May be this one is better?
[video:https://youtu.be/iqKdl8nB5vU]
https://www.euronews.com/live
Macron the talking head ... /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
This was researched in the 1950s
And abandoned because - in addition to the obvious reasons - it was determined that it simply wouldn’t work.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
de Piffle Johnson
does the same routine in the UK.
Comes out with a daily dose of bollox, and yet everyone pretends all is normal.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
daily dose of bollox
All is normal.
It's when Boris
BadenovJohnson starts making sense that you need to start worrying....."US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Hell, Boris Badenov would be an improvement by this point...
...but what the world really needs now is some fearless leadership!
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Toxic rubbish
All of it.
[video:https://youtu.be/3-_9cAEhxvA]
Seems like I read somewhere, maybe
at Common Dreams today, that the executive power he is liable to invoke in re ordering corporations to stop doing business with China, was a law written years ago, first used by Carter, for times of economic emergencies.
It is not new, and was also used by Obama.
This comment in no way is meant to make Trump appear to be sane. And it doesn't address his other nutty shit. It is just that his staff has advised him that his "I hereby order corporations" remark may actually be within his power.
Republicans are quick to notice Biden's noticeable mental lapses, but they never call out Trumps'.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Interesting, thanks. Just checked it out quickly and
yes indeedee. I didn't know that when I wrote my thing. But it brings up some questions, like, what kind of emergency could they create to justify such a significant move? And why did Trump say 'I hereby order" when said national emergency hasn't been declared. It sounds like Yoo justifying torture or using the GWOT AUMF to attack Syria. Which unfortunately, worked.
Another example of why the office of the president needs to be abolished along with a wholesale remaking of our political system.
I think your essay was posted before that
article became available.
I do not think we have the mechanisms in place to get rid of a nutty president. We certainly had Reagan in office when he likely had to have his diapers changed. And since NOBODY would trust a group of doctors who could easily be compromised to say this president or that president is a nut, what else is there but to start all over in designing and implementing a governed democracy?
We have a system BY DESIGN that allows and empowers our version of Crazy King George II.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Is it the 25th Amendment?
It's a percentage of the cabinet, iirc. Doctors don't figure in it. The problem remains: Pence makes Trump look sane AND he wants the End Times.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
I fall on my sword that
I am not sure about the specific nutty president amendment. I usually invoke certain ones that pertain to my law practice, which is state, not federal.
1st, 2nd, 5th, 14th are the most invoked.
And Pence. 2nd Coming and End Times may sound completely nuts to you and me, but there are many US citizens who believe that.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
NSPD51
W tried to claim that the Great Recession (that was still something like 3 months off) was a sufficient emergency for him to suspend the constitution indefinitely. He didn't have the courage (or audacity) to actually try it. At the time I not-really-joked that he changed his mind at the next meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff where the chiefs came in armed.
On to Biden since 1973
The equation of Russia "annexed" Crimea with nuking
hurricanes is an interesting example of how Cold War propaganda is generated in a deeply disturbed psychological environment. Indeed, both are the product of profoundly deranged competing world views.
Are we supposed to choose sides in this insane asylum?
Well, Russia causes hurricanes
so might as well nuke one as the other, no?
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Oh yes, we are indeed
supposed to take a side, damned straight. Team sports Yeah? Never mind both teams are insane, just pick One And act like it really really matters.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I don't really get . . .
I don't really get the outrage over him saying that about China. It seems we do this to countries all the time (e.g., Cuba, etc.). Maybe that takes congressional action, though--I dunno.
Having said that, stopping trade/business with China would indeed be insane. It would send the world economies spiraling downwards into a black hole.
However, I've mostly seen Trump state crazy things in speeches and then completely forget about or just not following through from a legal standpoint. I'm hoping it's because he wants to keep people on edge (I really, really hope), and rouse up his base of support. They eat this stuff up (they tend to be authoritarians at heart, in my observation).
I also wonder if any of this is trying to make people think he is batsh*t, since I'd imagine a US president is always under personal threat from deep state/establishment sources. If he appears completely unhinged, it may make people hesitate to go up against him because of potential consequences. I dunno--just speculating there. But, if it is true that after achieving the presidency someone takes you aside and tells you that you will do what people tell you or your family/friends are under threat, going up against that (e.g., not starting a war with Iran) might put you at risk. So, you act scary as a defense mechanism.
Hmmm...
Trump is REALLY scary = This election is VERY important?
I feel like I've seen this movie before...
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
How is it important?
If it were important, the Democrats wouldn't choose another loser.
Not that something significant and out of the ordinary couldn't happen between now and then. Something completely unexpected.
Something like...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Something like that, yes.
I still have a prediction out there that Trump does not finish his first term. But I have no idea how that would come about.
You're not alone
My spouse says the same thing: Trump will not be the candidate in 2020. Trump has accomplished a lot of what the libertarians wanted, but he has become an embarrassment. Time to send in someone else. Maybe Trump will say he's sacrificed enough. After all, just today Trump said the presidency has personally cost him $3-5 Billion. I'm thinking the Republican PTB are looking at the Kasich & Nikki Haley team. It's still early.
Sounds more like
wishful thinking from the left. That would make me feel ultra good too, but it's very unlikely to happen. I think he greatly enjoys some of the trappings of office -- the bootlicking sycophants, the underlings bowing and scraping and flattering him to his face, the power or perceived power he wields. And not irrelevant, the legal protection holding the office gives him against all those many legal problems brewing out there.
He will try to hold on to power for another 4 and try for an additional 4 after that, by hook or by crook. As I've so thoughtfully and delightfully noted here before, if the economy does take a deep dive south before the election (odds there might be in favor, maybe strongly in favor), he will be told that sitting presidents tend not to win re-elect in such circumstances* and so he will need something to distract people from their shrinking bank accounts. War with a country like Iran might do the trick.
In any case, Donald is not going to pull a Lyndon 1968 and drop out. He even won't pull the real Lyndon 1968 and drop out with the plan (at the time or a little after) of getting back in later in the process when his party nominates a loser and instant nostalgia for the incumbent suddenly emerges.
My dos centavos.
* I can't recall any incumbent prez winning re-elect when a mid-to-large size recession hits in the 12-18 months before the next election. Donald will finger point and waive his arms mightily about immigrants and the fed chair and China, but the folks in WI, MI, PN, OH and FL won't be buying his con act anymore.
Dem elite don't see Biden as a loser
He will serve the Dem elite and their corporate sponsors/masters.
All they want to do in terms of electoral strategy is focus on Trump.
Guess what? China called last night. Really. Guess what they want to talk about?
Trump's guiding political strategic model is Rowdy Roddy Piper. He talks shit to put stuffed shirts and empty pantsuits at a disadvantage. And for whatever reasons, it seems to work.
Meanwhile, much of the left(?) seems to focus on attacking Biden's gaffes, purporting that they're indicative of his diminishing mental faculties. Most voters, however, are not proccupied with politics and figure that all these candidates are on the road stumping everyday and talking nonsense, so what if they twist their words up every now and then, and the cameras which are are them 24/7 catch a few bumblings? Politicians are thus widely seen as human, at least in this respect. Have Biden's numbers drastically gone down despite videos of his greatest gaffes? No.
There's something else, other things, that need to be focused upon if Biden and Trump are to be defeated. Let's see.... a Green New Deal? Medicare for All? Free College? $15 minimum wage? Workers' rights? An end to endless wars? Cutting the Defense (sic) budget? An end to Shock Doctrine?
Speaking of Biden: "I am not nuts"
reassuring
Trump accusing Biden of being insane is the pot calling the kettle black.
I've heard this before.
Who is the "Left"?
You mean the news media or Internet pundits? Neither of those are the "Left." The right wing is certainly 'attacking' Biden for his gaffes, and they will keep harping on them to weaken his image. People here are talking about his "lapses", but they are looking at the reality that his mental deficits are obvious.
But, like you say, right now the general public is not focused on that. They are focused on one thing only: Their number one issue: Health Care security. But the four Democratic presidential candidates who cosponsored Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Senate bill either no longer support it or won’t say if they do.
The people have been betrayed again. That's why Democrats will lose the 2020 election.
Hold on a sec
Bernie hasn't lost yet.
Let's not give into defeatism.
You're right. Bernie is a game changer.
I've been writing a future history where Bernie was already eliminated. But there is a future out there where Bernie remains in the race.
That would be huge.
The Democratic Party would not cope well. And they are mentally unstable as it is.
But the Republicans would suffer even more. For them, it's capitalism versus communism. They would become unhinged.
Yeh
Wouldn't that be a shame?
/s
That defeatism
sounds so March 2019, when Nervous Nellie lefties were going into the fetal position thinking Donald would be impossible to beat -- presumably b/c they had heard that meme so often in the media and online chats -- so why not just throw in the towel and Voltaire-like devote yourself to your garden.
But how the presidential outlook has changed in just a few months. The economy is about on the ropes and it has 15 more months to hold on by a fingernail until the election. Unlikely. If the economy goes, so does Trump.
How would you describe it?
When a crazy man is in the White House?
Business as usual? n/t
Speaking only for
myself, I would describe it as even worse than when crazy men LBJ and Nixon were in office. And at least for those two, there were enough sane, strong and independent people around to stand between the nut job and the nuclear button.
Not sure with Donald. I think all that's left on staff, after numerous rounds of house cleaning, are the bootlicking sycophants and equally deranged nut jobs.
What do I make of it?
Just political puffing. Much ado about nothing.
Average people will not get their policies adopted unless the elites also want them and the elites will get their policies adopted most of the time. Princeton Press study 2014.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/...
Fights between the oligarchy impact us, but there is nothing we can do about it unless we start making laws by referendum. We can't make laws by referendum at the federal level other than Constitutional amendments. But we can make laws by referendum at the state level and hope the federal judges hold the state laws passed by referendum are Constitutional.
Trump is not the only President who thinks he was
put into office by a god. He's just the first to really say it out loud.
Read The Family by Jeff Sharlet or watch the series The Family on Netflix.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
In all fairness, turning ISIS fighters loose
in countries that annoy the US may be a crazy thing to do but it is not unprecedented.
In fact this strategy has long been practiced by presidents of both parties.
It's who we are, it's what we do.
And besides we can't bring our troops home from Syria as long as they are tasked with protecting ISIS fighters in Idlib.
Where would they all go if not to the countries they came from ?
Maybe Saudi Arabia or Israel will take them in.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Not only this
I just read an article on how we are training even more 'moderate Syrian rebels' in Southern Syria. Funny how when one protects his country from outside forces who are using the same terrorists that they are supposed to be fighting makes that guy a bad guy.
Israel is being called ISIS' air-force because they have been attacking the armies that are trying to defeat them. On that topic how is Israel attacking at least 3 countries now considered self defense when if they are attacked back that is considered an act of war? Never mind.... it's Israel.
ETA link
That god thing
In those last two tweets, Trump was quoting what another person, Wayne Allyn Root, wrote. Yet you make it sound as though it was Trump himself.
BTW, it kinda pisses me off that you make me defend the indefensible Trump when you mischaracterize what was tweeted or said. In the interest of the accuracy and integrity of C99, I'll do it, but I shouldn't have to.
How exactly did I mischaracterize what was tweeted?
Especially when I posted a video of it.
That describes the staggering effort we made
...to maintain our intellectual honesty during the subversive Russia Hoax. Somehow, if we lost that, we would have lost everything. All the moral high ground would be under water. All truth would have been contaminated. But challenging the dangerous and frankly seditious accusations against Trump from the left was no picnic.
It's a thankless effort. In the end, you persist in holding the light on the truth only because of who you are.
Heh....