Donald Trump

mrussel1

Bentleyspop said:

Parksy said:

Greetings All  and Merry Christmas! 

As I continue to watch Trump being the most corrupt POTUS in history... I wanted to get some feedback from some Americans on here. 

While it's easy to blame Trump for all that he has done.. do any of you share some of the blame with the general legalities in general?  Like ok, it's bad that he's giving out pardons like presents... but do you as Americans blame each government before for allowing this technicality to be allowed? It's striking to me that a Bush, Clinton, Obama didn't think to themselves... "OK, this is too much power for one elected person." 

And also, do you expect Biden to change some of these policies?  It would be a President taking away Presidential powers, which seems unlikely even though it also seems like the right thing to do. 

One big difference between this president and all the others is that he is just handing them out as he sees fit rather then utilizing the Presidential Pardon office.

That's exactly right.  The office exists for a reason.  Trump just wrecks everything for everyone. 

mickeyrat

Sidney Powell’s secret intelligence contractor witness is a pro-Trump podcaster

By

Jon Swaine

Dec. 24, 2020 at 4:03 p.m. EST

As she asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to overturn President Trump’s election loss, the attorney Sidney Powell cited testimony from a secret witness presented as a former intelligence contractor with insights on a foreign conspiracy to subvert democracy.

Powell told courts that the witness is an expert who could show that overseas corporations helped shift votes to President-elect Joe Biden. The witness’s identity must be concealed from the public, Powell has said, to protect her “reputation, professional career and personal safety.”

The Washington Post identified the witness by determining that portions of her affidavit match, sometimes verbatim, a blog post that the pro-Trump podcaster Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman published in November 2019. In an interview, Maras-Lindeman confirmed that she wrote the affidavit and said she viewed it as her contribution to a fight against the theft of the election.

“This is everybody’s duty,” she said. “It’s just not fair.”

In a recent civil fraud case, attorneys for the state of North Dakota said that Maras-Lindeman falsely claimed to be a medical doctor and to have both a PhD and an MBA. They said she used multiple aliases and social security numbers and created exaggerated online résumés as part of what they called “a persistent effort . . . to deceive others.”

Powell’s reliance on Maras-Lindeman’s testimony may raise further questions about her judgment and the strength of her arguments at a time when she is becoming an increasingly influential adviser to the president. Trump’s legal team distanced itself from Powell last month after she falsely claimed Republican state officials took bribes to rig the election. But she has visited the White House three times in the past week, once to participate in an Oval Office meeting. Trump has weighed naming Powell a special counsel to investigate the election, according to previous reports.

Maras-Lindeman, 42, served in the Navy for less than a year more than two decades ago and has said she worked later as a government contractor and part-time interpreter. She has identified herself as a “trained cryptolinguist.”

North Dakota’s assertions about her credentials came in a civil case brought by the state’s attorney general in 2018 over a purported charitable event she tried to organize in Minot, N.D., where she and her family resided. Attorneys for the state said she used money she collected — ostensibly to fund homeless shelters and wreaths for veterans’ graves — on purchases for herself at McDonald’s, QVC and elsewhere.

A judge ultimately found that Maras-Lindeman violated consumer protection laws by, among other things, misspending money she raised and soliciting donations while misrepresenting her experience and education. He ordered her to pay more than $25,000.

Maras-Lindeman has appealed to the state Supreme Court. In court filings and in her interview with The Post, she denied mishandling the funds or misleading donors. She blamed identity theft and bureaucratic failings for a proliferation of variations on her name and social security numbers associated with her.

Maras-Lindeman also claimed that she was targeted by the state for political reasons, noting that around that time she was exploring running for mayor of Minot — under the slogan “Make Minot Great Again.” She said that in 2018 she assisted the campaign of David C. Thompson, the Democratic challenger to longtime Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R). Thompson is now Maras-Lindeman’s defense attorney.

Thompson said in an interview that the case was a “vindictive exercise” and was excessive given the relatively small amounts of money in question. “They took a missile to kill a fly,” he said.

In an interview, Stenehjem — who signed a brief this month asking the Supreme Court to take up a case that sought to overturn the election — dismissed the claim that his investigation was politically motivated and said that anyone working with Maras-Lindeman should “back away” from her.

In a text message, Powell did not directly address questions about Maras-Lindeman’s fraud case and credentials. “I don’t have the same information you do,” she wrote to The Post.

Powell’s lawsuits — litigation she has referred to as “the kraken,” after a Scandinavian mythological sea monster — rely in key respects on a handful of anonymous expert witnesses. Among them is a purported military intelligence expert identified in court filings as “Spyder.” The Post reported this month that the witness is an I.T. consultant named Joshua Merritt who has never worked in military intelligence. Rather, Merritt spent the bulk of his decade in the Army as a wheeled-vehicle mechanic.

Like Merritt, Maras-Lindeman told The Post she had never spoken directly to Powell or anyone working on her legal team. She said she distributed the affidavit widely to like-minded people and was unaware it had come to Powell’s attention until it appeared as an exhibit in one of her cases.

Maras-Lindeman’s 37-page affidavit outlines a purported conspiracy by the Canadian company Dominion Voting Systems, which sells voting machines used in some states, and Scytl, a Spain-based firm that provides election software. She claims that votes cast on Dominion machines in key states were hacked as they passed through Scytl tallying systems and rigged in favor of Biden.

“The vote is not safe using these machines not only because of the method used for ballot ‘cleansing’ to maintain anonymity but the EXPOSURE to foreign interference and possible domestic bad actors,” she writes in the affidavit.

Like Trump and many of his supporters, Maras-Lindeman points to election night spikes in Biden’s vote totals — explained by officials as merely the result of densely populated areas reporting their counts — as evidence of a “digital fix” involving abrupt dumps of bogus votes.

In a statement last month, Dominion described allegations leveled against it by Powell and other Trump supporters as “baseless, senseless, physically impossible, and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.” Scytl said in a statement that it “does NOT tabulate, tally or count votes in US public elections,” had no relationship with Dominion, and that its U.S. operations are run by a Tampa-based subsidiary.

Last week, Dominion said it had written to Powell to demand that she retract what the company said were defamatory accusations.

Federal judges have rejected all four of the complaints Powell has filed, two of which — in Wisconsin and Arizona — included Maras-Lindeman’s affidavit.

In Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled that Powell’s request that the results of the election be overturned is “outside the limits” of the court’s power. Attorneys for Gov. Tony Evers (D), in seeking the dismissal, said the complaint was “rampant with wild speculation and conspiratorial conclusions, and simply without any basis in law or fact.”

A federal judge in Arizona wrote that allegations “that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court” and “most certainly cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.”

Powell has appealed the cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she is seeking to have them consolidated.

Maras-Lindeman, who goes by Tore (pronounced “Tory”), spent recent weeks in Washington with a group of fellow Trump supporters working to bolster Powell’s legal campaign, according to social media posts and statements on her podcast, “Tore Says.” The group included Millie Weaver, a former correspondent for the far-right website Infowars, who released a documentary over the summer — “Shadowgate” — that helped propel Maras-Lindeman to prominence among conspiracy theorists on the right.

Maras-Lindeman told her listeners on Dec. 7 that she was speaking from “the belly of the beast” and that a group of Trump loyalists was working to take action against those who had stolen the president’s victory.

“There are really good people — patriots — gathered, working hard to ensure that they not only get to the bottom of what happened during this election . . . but they’re also seeking to prosecute,” she said.

Maras-Lindeman spent time at Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington and interviewed Patrick Byrne, the millionaire Overstock.com founder and Trump backer who has said he is funding a team of “cybersleuths” to scrutinize the election. Byrne and Maras-Lindeman told The Post he is not funding her.

In past episodes, Maras-Lindeman has discussed conspiracy theories, including one that baselessly accused high-ranking Democrats of human trafficking centered at a D.C. pizzeria. In an episode last year, she said, “What we realize is that this Pizzagate stuff, this satanic constant abuse of children is an actual real thing.”

Maras-Lindeman, who is of Greek heritage, joined the Navy in December 1996 and spent eight months training in Illinois and Florida as an airman recruit before departing the service in August 1997, according to a Navy record.

In their civil case, North Dakota state attorneys said that Maras-Lindeman created a profile on Together We Served, an online veteran community, that incorrectly depicted an extensive military career.

The profile, which is no longer online, said that Maras-Lindeman reached the rank of lieutenant, served in the combat zones of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the Office of Naval Intelligence, and was awarded multiple medals including a Purple Heart.

In the interview, Maras-Lindeman denied creating the profile and said whoever did had misstated the details of her career. She previously posted to Twitter a purported copy of her Navy separation paperwork, which said that she specialized in communications and intelligence.

Neither the record provided to The Post nor the paperwork Maras-Lindeman posted online stated a reason for her departure, but the papers she posted said that the character of her discharge was “general (under honorable conditions).”

In response to questions about the nature of the discharge, a Navy spokesman referred to the Navy Military Personnel Manual. The manual said it means, “The quality of the member’s service has been honest and faithful; however, significant negative aspects of the member’s conduct or performance of duty outweighed positive aspects of the member’s service record.”

In her affidavit, Maras-Lindeman identifies herself as a former “private contractor with experience gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence” and says that from 1999 to 2014 she had responsibility for delegating tasks to other contractors working for the United States and allied nations. She stood by that account in her interview with The Post.

In a court filing in North Dakota last year, she wrote that she had worked as a contractor since 1996 and had been “a vendor with certain programs associated with USSOCOM,” the U.S. Special Operations Command. A spokesman for the command said in an email that its contracting office could find no record of any contract with her.

She claimed in Weaver’s documentary that, as an intelligence contractor, she carried out a notorious 2008 intrusion into the State Department’s passport records on several presidential candidates. In a separate podcast interview, she said that she retrieved the records on direct orders from John O. Brennan, who then led a private security firm implicated in the incident and was later CIA director. “I went and got them,” she said. “He told me to go get them.”

A spokesman for Brennan said that Brennan had never heard of Maras-Lindeman.

Maras-Lindeman told The Post that, by its nature, her covert work could not be independently verified. “People like me don’t exist,” she said. “You just have to trust.”

According to a LinkedIn profile that has since been deleted, between 1997 and 2014 Maras-Lindeman obtained eight academic degrees in the United States and the United Kingdom, along with additional professional qualifications. The attorneys in the fraud case said in court filings that they could find records of her earning only one degree, a bachelor’s in biology from the University of Kentucky in 2011.

Maras-Lindeman told The Post someone else created the profile — despite claims to the contrary by state attorneys in the fraud case — and she declined to comment on its particulars.

After obtaining the degree, Maras-Lindeman and her family moved to Beaverton, Ore.

She took a voluntary job teaching Greek at Agia Sophia Academy, a private Greek Orthodox school in Beaverton. Her archived biography on the school’s website used the title “Dr.” and said she had a PhD. Attorneys for North Dakota later said in a court filing in the fraud case that Maras-Lindeman “is not a doctor and does not possess a PhD from any institution.”

The school’s principal, Christina Blankenstein, said in an email that the school could not vouch for Maras-Lindeman’s professional record because her position was unpaid. Maras-Lindeman worked at the school for between a year and two years, Blankenstein said.

In the interview, Maras-Lindeman said the school must have misunderstood paperwork she gave them saying that she was a PhD candidate.

After she moved to North Dakota, Maras-Lindeman asserted in series of small claims court cases that she was a pediatric oncologist, attorneys for North Dakota said in a court filing. As recently as November 2017, a website for a purported cancer research organization named “ML Laboratories” referred to her as “Dr. Tore Maras-Lindeman” and said she was its founder.

Maras-Lindeman also used an email address and Twitter handle identifying herself as “Dr. Lindeman.” She told The Post she reserved the accounts so they would be ready for her when she earned a doctoral degree.

mrussel1

Least surprising article ever

cutz

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-22e9cd885c1d4de1b9be68e13233a306

Trump’s presidential legacy, by the numbers

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Words matter. But numbers tell stories, too.

Presidential historians and others will plumb them as they assess President Donald Trump’s legacy,

Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the U.S. death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico to the tens of thousands of tweets he sent during four years in office.

Some of the numbers that are part of Trump’s legacy:

—325,000 and counting: Number of U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19.

—6: Coronavirus vaccines being developed and-or distributed under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program.

—2: Coronavirus vaccines — by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a separate one by Moderna — that U.S. regulators approved in 2020 for emergency use.

U.S. health care during the Trump presidency.

0: Comprehensive health care overhaul plans Trump introduced despite repeated promises to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act with a plan that would cover everyone at a lower cost.

3: Justices added to the Supreme Court, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority.

221: Federal trial-level and appeals court judges added to the judiciary.

Trump and the judiciary.

$3.1 trillion: 2020 budget deficit, the largest in dollar terms in U.S. history. Trump had pledged during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the gap between federal spending and revenue. Tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 contributed to the imbalance, and it ballooned further after Congress passed $2.4 trillion in economic relief earlier this year to help unemployed workers, business owners and others weather the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

3: In-person meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean demilitarized zone).

$21 trillion: Federal debt in December, when it exceeded the size of the economy for the first time in history outside World War II.

82: Number of Trump administration environmental and public health rollbacks tracked on Harvard University’s rollback tracker.

4: Men who served as acting secretary of defense, the most in any administration.

203: Days the Pentagon operated without a Senate-confirmed defense secretary, the longest stretch in the history of the office.

450: Miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful” steel wall along the U.S.-Mexico border expected to completed by year’s end.

Trump and immigration.

39%: Trump’s average approval rating among American adults in AP-NORC polls over the course of his presidency. Assessments of Trump’s performance were remarkably stable, compared with his recent predecessors, ranging from a low of 32% to a high of 43% in AP-NORC polls.

1 billion: Barrels of oil and gas pumped from federally managed lands in 2019 as the administration sped permits and opened wilderness and other areas to the industry.

$135 billion: Expected growth in the defense budget under Trump. President Barack Obama’s final defense budget for 2017 totaled $605 billion; Trump’s final defense budget for 2021, approved by Congress in December, totaled $740 billion. Trump vetoed the bill citing various reasons, but Congress had enough votes to enact the bill over his objections.

4: International agreements Trump pulled the U.S. out of: Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate agreement, Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

13: Federal executions scheduled since July, when the administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus, making Trump the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years. Federal executions will be carried out until just before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

315: Days Trump has visited a golf course as president, according to Factba.se, a data analytics company.

418: Days Trump has visited a property he owns, according to Factba.se.

1: New branch of U.S. military: the Space Force.

15%: Drop in trade deficit with China between January-September 2020 and a year earlier. This followed a 19% drop in 2019 to $308 billion, the lowest since 2013.

25,000 and counting: Tweets, including original messages and retweets, sent by Trump since he took office on Jan. 20, 2017, according to Factba.se.

ikiT

MAN this guy blows.

mickeyrat

ikiT said:

MAN this guy blows.

they didnt include his fact check record

OnWis97

We all know that Trump only cares about himself and possibly Ivanka.  There's always been fear that he'd take America down with him if he lost. And he still might.  But, perhaps his real anger will be taken out on the GOP.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29/politics/donald-trump-house-votes/index.html

And this would be a great thing. Not because I would enjoy seeing the GOP flounder (I would) but because taking the party down with him is so much better than taking an entire country down with him.  It's still going to be a looooonnnnngggg few weeks.

The Juggler

cutz said:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-22e9cd885c1d4de1b9be68e13233a306

Trump’s presidential legacy, by the numbers

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Words matter. But numbers tell stories, too.

Presidential historians and others will plumb them as they assess President Donald Trump’s legacy,

Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the U.S. death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico to the tens of thousands of tweets he sent during four years in office.

Some of the numbers that are part of Trump’s legacy:

—325,000 and counting: Number of U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19.

—6: Coronavirus vaccines being developed and-or distributed under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program.

—2: Coronavirus vaccines — by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a separate one by Moderna — that U.S. regulators approved in 2020 for emergency use.

U.S. health care during the Trump presidency.

0: Comprehensive health care overhaul plans Trump introduced despite repeated promises to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act with a plan that would cover everyone at a lower cost.

3: Justices added to the Supreme Court, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority.

221: Federal trial-level and appeals court judges added to the judiciary.

Trump and the judiciary.

$3.1 trillion: 2020 budget deficit, the largest in dollar terms in U.S. history. Trump had pledged during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the gap between federal spending and revenue. Tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 contributed to the imbalance, and it ballooned further after Congress passed $2.4 trillion in economic relief earlier this year to help unemployed workers, business owners and others weather the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

3: In-person meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean demilitarized zone).

$21 trillion: Federal debt in December, when it exceeded the size of the economy for the first time in history outside World War II.

82: Number of Trump administration environmental and public health rollbacks tracked on Harvard University’s rollback tracker.

4: Men who served as acting secretary of defense, the most in any administration.

203: Days the Pentagon operated without a Senate-confirmed defense secretary, the longest stretch in the history of the office.

450: Miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful” steel wall along the U.S.-Mexico border expected to completed by year’s end.

Trump and immigration.

39%: Trump’s average approval rating among American adults in AP-NORC polls over the course of his presidency. Assessments of Trump’s performance were remarkably stable, compared with his recent predecessors, ranging from a low of 32% to a high of 43% in AP-NORC polls.

1 billion: Barrels of oil and gas pumped from federally managed lands in 2019 as the administration sped permits and opened wilderness and other areas to the industry.

$135 billion: Expected growth in the defense budget under Trump. President Barack Obama’s final defense budget for 2017 totaled $605 billion; Trump’s final defense budget for 2021, approved by Congress in December, totaled $740 billion. Trump vetoed the bill citing various reasons, but Congress had enough votes to enact the bill over his objections.

4: International agreements Trump pulled the U.S. out of: Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate agreement, Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

13: Federal executions scheduled since July, when the administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus, making Trump the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years. Federal executions will be carried out until just before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

315: Days Trump has visited a golf course as president, according to Factba.se, a data analytics company.

418: Days Trump has visited a property he owns, according to Factba.se.

1: New branch of U.S. military: the Space Force.

15%: Drop in trade deficit with China between January-September 2020 and a year earlier. This followed a 19% drop in 2019 to $308 billion, the lowest since 2013.

25,000 and counting: Tweets, including original messages and retweets, sent by Trump since he took office on Jan. 20, 2017, according to Factba.se.

That 450 number for wall mileage is bogus. It's actually 15:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649

HughFreakingDillon

The Juggler said:

cutz said:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-22e9cd885c1d4de1b9be68e13233a306

Trump’s presidential legacy, by the numbers

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Words matter. But numbers tell stories, too.

Presidential historians and others will plumb them as they assess President Donald Trump’s legacy,

Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the U.S. death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico to the tens of thousands of tweets he sent during four years in office.

Some of the numbers that are part of Trump’s legacy:

—325,000 and counting: Number of U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19.

—6: Coronavirus vaccines being developed and-or distributed under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program.

—2: Coronavirus vaccines — by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a separate one by Moderna — that U.S. regulators approved in 2020 for emergency use.

U.S. health care during the Trump presidency.

0: Comprehensive health care overhaul plans Trump introduced despite repeated promises to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act with a plan that would cover everyone at a lower cost.

3: Justices added to the Supreme Court, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority.

221: Federal trial-level and appeals court judges added to the judiciary.

Trump and the judiciary.

$3.1 trillion: 2020 budget deficit, the largest in dollar terms in U.S. history. Trump had pledged during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the gap between federal spending and revenue. Tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 contributed to the imbalance, and it ballooned further after Congress passed $2.4 trillion in economic relief earlier this year to help unemployed workers, business owners and others weather the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

3: In-person meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean demilitarized zone).

$21 trillion: Federal debt in December, when it exceeded the size of the economy for the first time in history outside World War II.

82: Number of Trump administration environmental and public health rollbacks tracked on Harvard University’s rollback tracker.

4: Men who served as acting secretary of defense, the most in any administration.

203: Days the Pentagon operated without a Senate-confirmed defense secretary, the longest stretch in the history of the office.

450: Miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful” steel wall along the U.S.-Mexico border expected to completed by year’s end.

Trump and immigration.

39%: Trump’s average approval rating among American adults in AP-NORC polls over the course of his presidency. Assessments of Trump’s performance were remarkably stable, compared with his recent predecessors, ranging from a low of 32% to a high of 43% in AP-NORC polls.

1 billion: Barrels of oil and gas pumped from federally managed lands in 2019 as the administration sped permits and opened wilderness and other areas to the industry.

$135 billion: Expected growth in the defense budget under Trump. President Barack Obama’s final defense budget for 2017 totaled $605 billion; Trump’s final defense budget for 2021, approved by Congress in December, totaled $740 billion. Trump vetoed the bill citing various reasons, but Congress had enough votes to enact the bill over his objections.

4: International agreements Trump pulled the U.S. out of: Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate agreement, Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

13: Federal executions scheduled since July, when the administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus, making Trump the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years. Federal executions will be carried out until just before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

315: Days Trump has visited a golf course as president, according to Factba.se, a data analytics company.

418: Days Trump has visited a property he owns, according to Factba.se.

1: New branch of U.S. military: the Space Force.

15%: Drop in trade deficit with China between January-September 2020 and a year earlier. This followed a 19% drop in 2019 to $308 billion, the lowest since 2013.

25,000 and counting: Tweets, including original messages and retweets, sent by Trump since he took office on Jan. 20, 2017, according to Factba.se.

That 450 number for wall mileage is bogus. It's actually 15:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649

i actually watched a piece on it on CNN just the other day that also stated it was 450. 

Gern Blansten

I just spoke with a client doing some year end tax planning....he says "so if Biden wins do you think the capital gains rate will change next year?"

If Biden wins....fucking idiots

The Juggler

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

cutz said:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-22e9cd885c1d4de1b9be68e13233a306

Trump’s presidential legacy, by the numbers

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Words matter. But numbers tell stories, too.

Presidential historians and others will plumb them as they assess President Donald Trump’s legacy,

Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the U.S. death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico to the tens of thousands of tweets he sent during four years in office.

Some of the numbers that are part of Trump’s legacy:

—325,000 and counting: Number of U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19.

—6: Coronavirus vaccines being developed and-or distributed under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program.

—2: Coronavirus vaccines — by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a separate one by Moderna — that U.S. regulators approved in 2020 for emergency use.

U.S. health care during the Trump presidency.

0: Comprehensive health care overhaul plans Trump introduced despite repeated promises to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act with a plan that would cover everyone at a lower cost.

3: Justices added to the Supreme Court, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority.

221: Federal trial-level and appeals court judges added to the judiciary.

Trump and the judiciary.

$3.1 trillion: 2020 budget deficit, the largest in dollar terms in U.S. history. Trump had pledged during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the gap between federal spending and revenue. Tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 contributed to the imbalance, and it ballooned further after Congress passed $2.4 trillion in economic relief earlier this year to help unemployed workers, business owners and others weather the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

3: In-person meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean demilitarized zone).

$21 trillion: Federal debt in December, when it exceeded the size of the economy for the first time in history outside World War II.

82: Number of Trump administration environmental and public health rollbacks tracked on Harvard University’s rollback tracker.

4: Men who served as acting secretary of defense, the most in any administration.

203: Days the Pentagon operated without a Senate-confirmed defense secretary, the longest stretch in the history of the office.

450: Miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful” steel wall along the U.S.-Mexico border expected to completed by year’s end.

Trump and immigration.

39%: Trump’s average approval rating among American adults in AP-NORC polls over the course of his presidency. Assessments of Trump’s performance were remarkably stable, compared with his recent predecessors, ranging from a low of 32% to a high of 43% in AP-NORC polls.

1 billion: Barrels of oil and gas pumped from federally managed lands in 2019 as the administration sped permits and opened wilderness and other areas to the industry.

$135 billion: Expected growth in the defense budget under Trump. President Barack Obama’s final defense budget for 2017 totaled $605 billion; Trump’s final defense budget for 2021, approved by Congress in December, totaled $740 billion. Trump vetoed the bill citing various reasons, but Congress had enough votes to enact the bill over his objections.

4: International agreements Trump pulled the U.S. out of: Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate agreement, Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

13: Federal executions scheduled since July, when the administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus, making Trump the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years. Federal executions will be carried out until just before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

315: Days Trump has visited a golf course as president, according to Factba.se, a data analytics company.

418: Days Trump has visited a property he owns, according to Factba.se.

1: New branch of U.S. military: the Space Force.

15%: Drop in trade deficit with China between January-September 2020 and a year earlier. This followed a 19% drop in 2019 to $308 billion, the lowest since 2013.

25,000 and counting: Tweets, including original messages and retweets, sent by Trump since he took office on Jan. 20, 2017, according to Factba.se.

That 450 number for wall mileage is bogus. It's actually 15:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649

i actually watched a piece on it on CNN just the other day that also stated it was 450. 

That is including miles and miles of wall that were repaired.

I guess the numbers vary depending on the source. Forbes says it is 30 miles:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/the-border-wall-that-u-s-not-mexico-is-paying-for-quicktake

4. How much more wall has Trump gotten built?

As of Aug. 7, work had been completed on 30 miles of barriers where none had existed prior to Trump’s presidency, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Of that amount, five miles are “primary” barriers -- the first to be encountered -- while 25 miles are “secondary” barriers beyond the primary ones. Funding had been identified for another 157 miles of new wall that’s “in the pre-construction phase,” according to the agency.

brianlux

Parksy said:

Greetings All  and Merry Christmas! 

As I continue to watch Trump being the most corrupt POTUS in history... I wanted to get some feedback from some Americans on here. 

While it's easy to blame Trump for all that he has done.. do any of you share some of the blame with the general legalities in general?  Like ok, it's bad that he's giving out pardons like presents... but do you as Americans blame each government before for allowing this technicality to be allowed? It's striking to me that a Bush, Clinton, Obama didn't think to themselves... "OK, this is too much power for one elected person." 

And also, do you expect Biden to change some of these policies?  It would be a President taking away Presidential powers, which seems unlikely even though it also seems like the right thing to do. 

I have thought for quite some time that the president has too much power.   To my way of thinking, the role of that office should be one in which the person at the top provides inspiration, sets a good example, promotes the ability to communicate well and use tact,  maintains order in governmental affairs, acts as a respectful and respected liaison between the U.S. and other countries, and seeks to promote peace, the well being of the people, and the health of the planet that sustains us. Isn't that enough?!

HughFreakingDillon

I'd like to know how a president reduces his own powers permanently in the US. I think like most things, if it can be done or undone, the opposite can also be done. 

The Juggler

I honestly don't think anyone thought someone as corrupt as Trump would ever get elected and abuse the powers in the first place. So I do not blame his predecessors. I think blame can start being handed out moving forward if stronger checks are not put into place because sooner or later a more competent corrupt autocrat wannabe might get elected. Thank God Trump is as dumb as a rock. 

Also I am guessing it will be up to congress to ensure those checks. 

Zod

I feel like the US constitution was designed to prevent a dictator.   IE they fought against the British Monarchy. 

Trump got away with a lot of things, and showed there's some issues, but in other ways the constitution did was it's designed to do. It does separate powers.   That being said, what we've learned from the Trump era, is maybe you can get around that if you start replacing everyone with your own people, and/or get collusion from the other separate powers.

I agree with the post above.   The original drafters of the constitution probably didn't envision that enough people would agree with a dictator that they would try to keep in power.  It's definitely scary if someone like this rose again, but was more competent.

It does show that while the US constitution held ground this time, the obvious kryptonite is collusion between different government branches. 

Still.. the fact that Trump hasn't been able to steal the election, shows that at least the thing is somewhat working.

OnWis97

Zod said:

I feel like the US constitution was designed to prevent a dictator.   IE they fought against the British Monarchy. 

Trump got away with a lot of things, and showed there's some issues, but in other ways the constitution did was it's designed to do. It does separate powers.   That being said, what we've learned from the Trump era, is maybe you can get around that if you start replacing everyone with your own people, and/or get collusion from the other separate powers.

I agree with the post above.   The original drafters of the constitution probably didn't envision that enough people would agree with a dictator that they would try to keep in power.  It's definitely scary if someone like this rose again, but was more competent.

It does show that while the US constitution held ground this time, the obvious kryptonite is collusion between different government branches. 

Still.. the fact that Trump hasn't been able to steal the election, shows that at least the thing is somewhat working.

I think the "judicial" parts of "checks and balances" has come through very well. But I think the republic was still exposed as being a bit of a house of cards. When all's said and done, Biden won the election fairly handily but I would not go so far as to say that America loudly denounced him.  He brought people to the polls, on both sides.  Had he won, he'd have had four more years to stack the courts.  I don't think the framers envisioned a 51-49 Senate and a power-hungry majority leader joining a deranged president (the one part they did anticipate) filling the courts with party loyalists who would simply do their bidding. Now, that might contract my very first sentence, but four more years of Trump and Mitch? Who knows? They may have been able to bring courts along to the dark side.

It's almost a cliche by now, but the Constitution anticipated Trump; it did not plan for an entire party to allow him to continue to push fascism. 

And another key element to a republic / democracy is public confidence and buy-in. That's as shaken as it's ever been in the United States. This includes people like me who really believe one party's objective is authoritarianism along with the fact that one man's ego has a critical mass of people thinking that the presidential election was fixed.

Trump's loss helps. If the Dems win Georgia, that would help.  But we're not out of the woods. Hopefully the current fascination with fascism subsides before the GOP takes the reins, again.  But in the social media, echo-chamber world, these hurdles are difficult to scale.

mickeyrat

 N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates
By Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O'Connell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-tax-returns-new-york-investigation/2020/12/29/11c43a38-43c8-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

HughFreakingDillon

mickeyrat said:

 N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates
By Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O'Connell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-tax-returns-new-york-investigation/2020/12/29/11c43a38-43c8-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

2021 is shaping up to be a very good year

Poncier

HughFreakingDillon said:

mickeyrat said:

 N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates
By Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O'Connell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-tax-returns-new-york-investigation/2020/12/29/11c43a38-43c8-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

2021 is shaping up to be a very good year

https://youtu.be/H4lurE-IpHE

gimmesometruth27

mickeyrat said:

 N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates
By Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O'Connell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-tax-returns-new-york-investigation/2020/12/29/11c43a38-43c8-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

this is very, very bad for trump.

sdny would not spend all of this money to go halfass digging for evidence. this confirms to me that they have probable cause.