[Winstonm]

From San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich to Trump supporters:

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San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has never been shy when it comes to criticizing President Donald Trump and he continued Monday, calling Trump a “soulless coward.”

According to Dave Zirin of The Nation, Popovich called him Monday to vent after Trump attempted to defend his lack of public statements about the four United States soldiers who were killed in an ambush in Niger.

Speaking Monday his press availability, Trump said: “President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.”

A former Obama White House official rejected Trump’s claim in a statement to Yahoo News’ Gabby Kaufman.

Popovich — who served in the Air Force — called Zirin sometime after seeing the remarks and told Zirin specifically: “I want to say something and please just let me talk and please make sure this is on the record.”

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Here is what Popovich told Zirin in their ensuing conversation:
“I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this President had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never-ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families, is so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.”
“This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner – and to lie about how previous presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers – is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this President should be ashamed because they know it better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.”

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Popovich also spoke during the Spurs’ media day in late September, addressing Trump’s controversial comments about NFL and NBA players.

“Our country’s an embarrassment in the world,” Popovich told reporters.

[Winstonm]

Any shame yet?

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President Trump told friends at his pricey Mar-a-Lago club they “all just got a lot richer” after the passage of new tax overhaul legislation, CBS News reported Sunday. Trump reportedly made the remarks to friends dining at the exclusive club on Friday night, shortly after he signed the controversial bill into law.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake:

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....we're appealing to older white men and there are just a limited number of them, and anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

Sooner or later the voters will figure out, and I think they are and have, that we've got to have something else.

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

[cherdano]

Remind me - did Flake vote for or against Trumps business tax cut bill?

[hrothgar]

cherdano, on 2017-December-24, 13:02, said:

Remind me - did Flake vote for or against Trumps business tax cut bill?

He voted for it, but only after provisions were added that would personally benefit him to the tunes of 10s of millions of dollars...

Its said that we all have a price.
Guess Flake now knows what his is...

[Winstonm]

Here, according to Billy Bush, is what Donald Trump in his own words really thinks about his followers: (emphasis added)

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The man who once told me — ironically, in another off-camera conversation — after I called him out for inflating his ratings: “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,” was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country.

In other words, he thinks you are chumps, marks, shills, and he is the greatest show on earth.

[Vampyr]

About the Mar-a-Lago comment, Trump's supporters will not believe it, because CBS is mainstream and therefore fake news. Quite possibly they will never hear about it anyway.

I am starting to suffer from appal-fatigue. Everything that the Orange One does and everything he says would be shocking if one weren't recovering from the thing he said yesterday, or an hour ago. It's genius. Ever since the campaign, nobody has been able to focus on any of hundreds of things that would have ended his candidacy, because they are each eclipsed by the next thing.

[Winstonm]

In a way I have sympathy for Trump supporters as for the rest of their lives they will have to live with the realization that they helped elect this man.

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This is the president of the United States speaking to the New York Times. His comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed. This is not a partisan judgment — indeed, the interview is rarely coherent or specific enough to classify the points Trump makes on a recognizable left-right spectrum. As has been true since he entered American politics, Trump is interested in Trump

[Winstonm]

The stench emanating from the White House is now so foul as to be permanent - thanks voters.

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On Thursday, in a meeting with a senators and House members on immigration, the President of the United States, asked this: "Why do we want all these people from 'shithole countries' coming here?"

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A lawyer for Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former porn star one month before the 2016 election in an effort to keep her silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. According to people familiar with the deal, Michael Cohen arranged the hush money for Stormy Daniels, born Stephanie Clifford, as part of a non-disclosure agreement negotiated by her lawyer. Per people familiar with the deal, Trump and Clifford had an alleged sexual encounter after they met at a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada

[cherdano]

Winston, you have strange priorities. The president outed himself as a racist (in case anyone wasn't listening before). He has outed himself before as a serial committer of sexual assaults. And you still care that he had a (presumably consensual) sexual encounter with a porn star?

[Winstonm]

cherdano, on 2018-January-12, 16:29, said:

Winston, you have strange priorities. The president outed himself as a racist (in case anyone wasn't listening before). He has outed himself before as a serial committer of sexual assaults. And you still care that he had a (presumably consensual) sexual encounter with a porn star?

No, I was only emphasizing all his varied sleaze - the two quotes just happened to occur hours apart is all. But that he did pay off a porn star to stay quiet makes the Russian pee pee tape claim sound more credible, don't you think?

[Winstonm]

Let's let the NYT editorial board explain it:

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Why don’t we take a step back and contemplate what Americans, and the world, are witnessing?

Early Monday morning, F.B.I. agents raided the New York office, home and hotel room of the personal lawyer for the president of the United States. They seized evidence of possible federal crimes — including bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations — related to payoffs made to women, including a porn actress, who say they had affairs with the president before he took office and were paid off and intimidated into silence.

That evening the president surrounded himself with the nation’s top military officials and launched unbidden into a tirade against the United States’ top law enforcement officials — officials of his own government — accusing them of “an attack on our country.”

Oh, also: The Times reported Monday evening that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is investigating a $150,000 donation to the president’s personal foundation from a Ukrainian steel magnate, given in exchange for a 20-minute video appearance when he was running for office.

Meanwhile, the president’s former campaign chairman is under indictment, and his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. His son-and-law and other associates are also under investigation.


This is your president, ladies and gentlemen. This is how Donald Trump does business, and these are the kinds of people he surrounds himself with.

I understand the dislike of Hillary Clinton. But voting for Trump was a mistake. There is nothing wrong with being wrong at times. We all are. Hopefully, we won't make the same mistake again.

[Vampyr]

Winstonm, on 2018-April-10, 15:58, said:

I understand the dislike of Hillary Clinton.

Me too. Being a smart, competent woman who has been dedicated to public service since law school is so vile.

[Winstonm]

Vampyr, on 2018-April-10, 16:15, said:

Me too. Being a smart, competent woman who has been dedicated to public service since law school is so vile.

I didn't say she was vile. I said she was disliked. Nixon was competent and dedicated to public service since law school - that didn't make him well-liked, either.

[barmar]

Didn't W win the presidency in a large part because many folks would like to have a beer with him?

That's the difference between being competent and being likable.

[kenberg]

This thread, by its title, asks about the relative role of competency and personal qualities. As Barry says, there is a difference between being competent and being likable. We probably all agree with that.

But personal qualities have a way of intruding on policy matters. Today we are told that the sanctions Nikki Haley announced are to be, at least, put on hold. For the moment, leave aside the merit, or lack of merit, of these sanctions. Does DT not understand how he has undermined Ms. Haley? I suppose he understands, he just doesn't give a crap.

For me, the question "How could I vote for.." can be updated to "Who in their right mind would work for him?" Anyone who speaks for the president should phrase it as "I am going to tell you what the president's position was one hour ago when I last spoke to him. I make absolutely no claim that this his position now, or what his position will be tomorrow". Stay tuned for the next tweet. And then for the explanations as to what the tweets actually mean. Of course it is all fake news. Got that.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2018-April-17, 07:49, said:

For me, the question "How could I vote for.." can be updated to "Who in their right mind would work for him?"

I suspect many of them are doing it under the principle of "It's shitty work, but someone's got to do it." The government is too big to fail, and we need people running it.

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Anyone who speaks for the president should phrase it as "I am going to tell you what the president's position was one hour ago when I last spoke to him. I make absolutely no claim that this his position now, or what his position will be tomorrow". Stay tuned for the next tweet. And then for the explanations as to what the tweets actually mean. Of course it is all fake news. Got that.

At this point I think we all get it, disclaimers would be redundant. In fact, it's not clear what the point of press conferences are any more, since everything they reveal is at best ephemeral, if not just a blatant lie. I guess they're pro forma -- it would hardly be better if they never talked to the public at all (other than tweets).

[MrAce]

barmar, on 2018-April-17, 08:56, said:

I suspect many of them are doing it under the principle of "It's shitty work, but someone's got to do it." The government is too big to fail, and we need people running it.


At this point I think we all get it, disclaimers would be redundant. In fact, it's not clear what the point of press conferences are any more, since everything they reveal is at best ephemeral, if not just a blatant lie. I guess they're pro forma -- it would hardly be better if they never talked to the public at all (other than tweets).

+100

[barmar]

In other words, we're all just going through the motions, trying to pretend that it's still business as usual in the White House. But there's nothing "usual" about Donald Trump. He's not just rewriting the playbook, there is no playbook any more, he's just making it up as he goes along. The only consistency with the past is that they still have the Easter Egg Roll and Thanksgiving turkey pardons.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2018-April-18, 09:28, said:

In other words, we're all just going through the motions, trying to pretend that it's still business as usual in the White House. But there's nothing "usual" about Donald Trump. He's not just rewriting the playbook, there is no playbook any more, he's just making it up as he goes along. The only consistency with the past is that they still have the Easter Egg Roll and Thanksgiving turkey pardons.

It no longer requires Thanksgiving to pardon turkeys. (See Arpaio, Libby)

[Winstonm]

Still proud?

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WASHINGTON – A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker.

Yep, best president foreign money can buy.