Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

As we pass the anniversary of the second year of the Trump presidency...


David Faris of The Week, reviews Trump's deplorable presidency so far:




"Today (1/20/2019) marks the two year anniversary of President Trump's ignominious reign over the United States. We are now at the midpoint of Trump's first, perhaps only, term as president of the United States, what we can now understand as our collective Trumpening. 

 It is natural to ask about the consequences of handing the office of the presidency to a friendless, joyless, violence-worshipping narcissist. Unfortunately, what we know about the repercussions of this period is vastly outstripped by the disasters to come. For all the many ignominious assaults that the country has endured over the past two years, we have not yet experienced even a fifth of the calamities this man and his misrule will ultimately inflict upon us. But we know a few things. 

 We know that President Trump has, perhaps permanently, transformed the presidency with his malevolence, ineptitude, and divisiveness. Donald Trump is by far the laziest and least informed person ever to inhabit the White House. In two years, he has defined deviance so far down that he may have forever altered the expectations of the office of the presidency itself. As we have learned from a thousand anonymously sourced news analyses, the president's time is largely unstructured, filled mostly with blocks of compulsive Fox News watching, an activity that he telegraphs to the public by live tweeting it. America's voters are constantly being told, by the president of the United States, to watch particular Fox programs and to applaud quotes by right-wing gadflies uttered without any serious pushback from other guests on what is now effectively Republican state television."

12 comments:

Shaw Kenawe said...

Am-scray, Steve. You're not welcome here. You're a WYD troll with nothing of value to say.

Jerry said...

The baby president has no clue, nor does he care the damage this shutdown is doing to our country and individuals in our country. Of course, the poor are hit the hardest. The long term effects are serious.

The Republicans, especially McConnell are missing in action and supporting all this harm to our country and its people.

This is what the Republicans wanted. They wanted to drown our government in a bathtub. They wanted to destroy our government as we know it.

It's really sad.

I hope the Republican party disappears forever because of this act of national destruction.

The shutdown is causing such harm to America and individuals in America it is good enough cause alone to impeach the president.

Dave Miller said...

FreeThinke posted an interesting piece this week on language. In it the writer wondered about a rebuttal and a denial. He said a rebuttal without evidence is nothing but a denial that includes nothing factual.

I thought it was interesting in that denials without evidence are all Trump and people in his Admin issue when confronted with their numerous lies and obfuscations.

They cannot rebut the arguments against them because they either have no facts on their side, or dismiss all contrary evidence as made up.

For instance... the wall will not be effective at cutting drug smuggling to the US. They don't like that inconvenient truth, so they disregard it. They never offer a rebuttal.

Anonymous said...

Ms.Shaw, why are you scared of alternative views?

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dear Anonymous, I do allow alternative views. Skudrunner is our resident alternative view. The reason I delete people like Steve and other trolls is that they attack my commenters and me. Skud does not do that. If you act like a grown up, your views will be published here.

Anonymous said...

Why should Shaw bother reading his crap, when he allows his readers to post mason comments about her there?

Anonymous said...

Some people/trolls are simply beyond..any type of reasoning concerning Trump and what he has done,
UNTIL what Trump has done comes home and affects them directly. I saw this in action with people
at work. Staunchly FOR Mr. Trump until someone's sons and daughters, who work in the TSA, now,
have to go to work without being PAID...

When those bills start to bite The Deplorables and their families,
things...somehow...are seen in a new light...It's called Reality...and that's when things start to shift,
for many of these people. Sometimes it is a bitter thing to realize that basically, you've been duped.

But as I tell them, you cannot blame Mr. Trump. He showed the Republican party exactly who he is,
what he is, and he became The Choice of the Republicans, and, with some vote fraud, Russian meddling,
Russian-paid third party candidates who had NO HOPE AT ALL of winning, Facebook propaganda enabled
by Mr Zuckerberg himself, and *Purity Ponies on the Dem side who "felt that Hillary was not the right choice",
and all that has brought us to what squats in front of us today:

A man who has never held any elective office and who made a regular practice of not-paying his
contractors for work done, is now demanding that an ineffective and wasteful object be built, at this point,
simply to salve his weak ego, and is demonstrating that he will hold the gov't in a shutdown mode until
his demands are met.

Those that voted for this man, as his policy begins to hit them directly, are beginning to see that, despite
what they've been told, this man is showing himself to be completely toxic, and evil, as the bills of friends
and relatives mount higher and higher...and the shutdown continues on... I told one worker-

"Do you see how elections matter now? Would you have voted for this man if you knew he would
destroy your family finances like this? Would you? Obama didn't do this. Your President did."
He looked shocked, and then hung his head. He has to work all the overtime he can, and
postpone his retirement, because he and his wife are supporting TWO households now..
his son is, basically, out of work, yet still has to go to work, without pay..
They've paid the mortgage and covered the other bills for this month, barely. Next month.?
He's looking for another job...outside of gov't...

An interesting aside..What happens if a majority of TSA and other gov't employees decide it isn't
worth it and find other jobs, quitting the gov't job?
That leaves a large hole in the gov't manpower force...weakening the gov't?
Isn't weakening our gov't the work of a foreign agent...or a traitor?

Shaw Kenawe said...

Thank you Anonymous. Well said.

Dave Miller said...

Anon... here's what TSA should do. Strike. Against the airports in NY, Baltimore, Chicago and Atlanta.

That will bring the US to a standstill and force Trump into action. Unlike Reagan with PATCO, Trump has no plan. What if there were rolling sick outs of TSA officers across the US?

It's be chaos.

I can't go months without a paycheck. It's flat out wrong to hold Americans over a barrel of your own making just because you were called out by a bunch of television hacks.

skudrunner said...

Rev, you forgot to add that restaurants should ban any conservative. Would you feel as high and mighty if the UAW struck GM and put thousands of people out of work. This is ll a temporary thing and any family who has to file bankruptcy if they miss a paycheck should take classes on how to manage their households.

This will turn out to be paid vacation as it did with Clinton and bho when they shut the government down. Do you really feel the chuckie-nancy show has any sincerity to it. Negations don't start with you will not get what you want, it starts with lets talk about what both sides want. Blame both sides for being stupid.

Dave Miller said...

Well Skud, you never disappoint.

You are exactly right that all employees will eventually get paid. So why is the government shutdown? There's no monetary gain to this. Here's why... Pres Trump thought he had a winning hand, stiffed the GOP leadership on a deal he had agreed to, accepted responsibility himself and said he'd be proud to shut it down and that he'd take ownership of it.

While Speaker Pelosi watched him in amazement.

Trump can open the government any day he wants. Meanwhile, people with debts are behind in payments and our Commerce secretary thinks everyone has such a good credit rating that they can get easy money loans to cover expenses. Trump says grocery stores will wait for payment.

I'm not sure what world these guys live in, but no grocery store in Las Vegas is going to open a line of credit for me. And those payday loans are going to pretty expensive for folks who live paycheck to paycheck.

Why again is the government shut down?

Shaw Kenawe said...

skudrunner wrote: "This is ll a temporary thing and any family who has to file bankruptcy if they miss a paycheck should take classes on how to manage their households."

That sentence by skud illustrates the difference between conservatives and progressives. We progressives understand that not all families are financially secure, especially those families who have staggering medical bills (due to accidents or illnesses or children born with congenital diseases, and poor health insurance, especially those families who were looking forward to a promised pay increase -- you know, the one President Billionaire CANCELLED:

Adding insult to his furloughed employees’ injury, President Donald Trump has ruled out pay raises for almost all federal workers in 2019.

An executive order issued late Friday froze pay at 2018 levels for 1.8 million federal workers, cancelling a 2.1% increase previously expected to take effect in January.


The people Trump is hurting the most are the people who, during the campaign, he lied to and said were the "forgotten Americans" he'd take care of. Trump doesn't give a flying donut about "the forgotten Americans." he just proved it by making their already difficult lives more miserable.

How could any of those misbegotten folks ever think that a selfish billionaire who lies and cheats would care one fig about their lives.

He just showed America, AGAIN, what a worthless, WEAK leader he is.

Also, skud try reading the facts before you come here and write about things that are patently untrue.

Dave knows what he's talking about vis-a-vis the shutdown and how Trump sabotaged himself and his own party by trashing his own compromise all because a couple of has-been talking heads made him soil his underwear about his "base."

He's now losing many in his base.

Apparently, skud, you are oblivious to the fact that over 60% of the American people DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS SHUTDOWN AND BLAME TRUMP -- NOT NANCY OR CHUCK -- FOR IT.

You can come here and be snarky but that doesn't change the facts.