The Trump Card...

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Every single Republican House member who has been in Congress for more than 4 years need to be taken out to the wood shed and paddled to the point where they can't sit down for weeks. 7 years, and the best they can come up with is a rabbit raisinette.
One thing Trump and the GOP controlled Senate did manage to accomplish was a VERY big deal - the confirmation of Neal Gorsuch to SCOTUS. I'm not a Mitch McConnell fan by any stretch of the imagination, but he finally grew a pair and used the Democrats' own tool against them to get it done in spite of their kicking and screaming. McConnell looked good doing it while Schumer and the other Democrats looked foolish in their futile, baseless objections.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'm not a McConnell fan either, not even a little bit, and he's one of my Senators from Kentucky, but I agree, he looked almost presidential along side of the child-like actions of the sniveling, whining Schumer.

On a fun note, Dreamer is protected by DACA, leaves the US and goes to Mexico without informing Immigration (thereby voiding his DACA protections), gets mugged in Mexico and tries to sneak back into the US as the Border Patrol catches him climbing the wall in Calexico. He gets deported. Now he's suing ICE in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

The judge who gets the case? A Trump favorite! Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

Oh, what fun. :D
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
That brings up another Trump accomplishment, done without passing any legislation: illegal border crossings are down +/- 40% since January and the changes in ICE policy since Obama left office. Tolerance for sanctuary cities is no longer fashionable and their illegal activities will actually be taken seriously by the new Justice Dept. Imagine that - enforcement of our existing laws being considered a Presidential accomplishment :eek:

Trump’s Accomplishments: The First 50 Days
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime and Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
0420-trump-nugent-twitter-2.jpg

Liberals are just spittin' bubbles over this one.​

0420-kid-rock-palin-twitter-3.jpg

Liberals want to sue somebody over this one.

 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
I'm not a McConnell fan either, not even a little bit, and he's one of my Senators from Kentucky, but I agree, he looked almost presidential along side of the child-like actions of the sniveling, whining Schumer.

On a fun note, Dreamer is protected by DACA, leaves the US and goes to Mexico without informing Immigration (thereby voiding his DACA protections), gets mugged in Mexico and tries to sneak back into the US as the Border Patrol catches him climbing the wall in Calexico. He gets deported. Now he's suing ICE in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

The judge who gets the case? A Trump favorite! Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

Oh, what fun. :D
This might not end well.
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
That brings up another Trump accomplishment, done without passing any legislation: illegal border crossings are down +/- 40% since January and the changes in ICE policy since Obama left office. Tolerance for sanctuary cities is no longer fashionable and their illegal activities will actually be taken seriously by the new Justice Dept. Imagine that - enforcement of our existing laws being considered a Presidential accomplishment :eek:

Trump’s Accomplishments: The First 50 Days
Just a follow-up on this subject matter and the discussion of Trump's accomplishments to date: it occurred to me after posting the above that he doesn't have to get one single piece of legislation passed to make a significant impact on our country's economy, culture and foreign relations with other countries; he just has to start enforcing existing laws. Keep in mind that his predecessor sued AZ for passing a law that in effect mandated enforcing federal immigration law. The Trump DOJ and his AG will be the polar opposite of Holder/Lynch cabal when it comes to ignoring corruption in border control, IRS malfeasance, sanctuary cities, an out-of-control EPA, you name it.

He can start building the wall because the legislation is already in place: remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006? Everything Trump needs to start construction is already in place and the Democrats voted for it. If the GOP doesn't include the necessary adjustments and funding in the upcoming budget, each and every one of their congressional members should be publicly taken to the woodshed as suggested in Turtle's earlier post.

Top Democrats Voted For The Border Wall Trump Is Building

Many of the things Trump is doing right now won't show results until later this year or early next year, but he can still make significant cultural and economic improvements by using his pen and his phone. It's not so flashy as some people might like, but the results are all that matter.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime and Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Some of it's Executive Orders, some of it's legislation (resolutions, technically) that have stopped or rolled back last minute Obama regulations, but from this piece from The Hill, the actions Trump has taken already will save taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of $86 billion. (that's some serious golf travel money, right there). The numbers are probably a little high, more like $55 billion, according to the estimates from the OMB on the original regulations costs.

One that's not detailed in The Hill piece, but was in the OMB report, is the regulation that would have required all companies to disclose any and all allegations of labor law violations to the Department of Labor, regardless of whether they had any merit whatsoever. It was a ridiculous feel-good regulation that even the Department of Labor didn't want anything to do with (trial lawyers were all up in it, though). The reason they didn't want anything to do with it is because the Labor Department, the OMB and the CBO all came to (roughly) the same independent conclusions that the regulation would require an additional 930,000 hours of paperwork by the Department of Labor, 2.6 million hours of paperwork for employers, an additional cost to the Department of Labor of $73 million annually, and $1.3 billion in additional costs for businesses to administer the regulations.

100 Days? Who cares. He was already having a positive effect on the culture and the economy before he even got sworn in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime and davekc

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
This is kind of a funny...

You may have seen the story (at a gazillion media outlets) where Obama's White House photographer, Pete Souza, likes to troll Trump with "contrasting" pics, and the Palin/Kid Rock/Nugent photo is no exception. The caption, "Being respectful," is a little hypocritical of Souza, since he's gone out his way since the election to be as disrespectful as possible to Trump. But the hypocrisy gets better (especially when you realize that Pete Souza was the Chief White House Photographer for both Obama and Reagan).

In 2012 Obama invited a bunch of people from Philly to the White House for the first ever White House Gay Pride Reception. Immediately below is gay activist and national director for public engagement at the group Solutions for Progress, Matty Hart. Below that picture you will find the lovely an talented gay activist photographer Zoe Strauss. Both of these pictures were taken by, of course, White House Chief Photographer Pete Souza. :rolleyes:

Hart-Reagan-WH.jpg

Reagan-WH-Zoe-Strauss-FB.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime and muttly

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
It would seem that Pete Souza would qualify for the #DrainTheSwamp project. Presumably, he serves at the pleasure of POTUS just like the head of the White House Travel Office.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
It would seem that Pete Souza would qualify for the #DrainTheSwamp project. Presumably, he serves at the pleasure of POTUS just like the head of the White House Travel Office.
Yeah, he doesn't serve this president, though. Trump didn't retain his services.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
It's not a numbers game. Every president and congress is different. Every time is different, with very different issues facing the nation at any given First 100 Days.

I agree. I can see comparing a current president's accomplishments/failures to the most recent president because the time frame is brief compared to a comparison of all presidents. But even then, things are different as Turtle correctly points out. It is, however valid to score a president's accomplishments/failures using the 100-day scorecard he himself offered up.

I grew weary of the 100 day thing weeks ago as the media continually brought it up. That standard seems to me to be arbitrary and meaningless. The 100 day thing gives lots of people lots to talk about but how important is it really?

My answer is it's not important at all. But Donald Trump's answer quite different. In fact, Trump is on record making the first 100 days of his administration something of crucial importance in evaluating the validity of his judgement, the reliability of his words and his claimed ability to get things done.

That item of record, and the scorecard Trump himself provided is the Contract With the American Voter, which he personally signed on October 22, 2016, and had posted online for the world to see then, and refer to in the future. In that contract, Trump himself vests his first 100 days in office with profound significance. These promises were not simple utterances made on the campaign trail. They were put in writing and presented as a contract under Trump's signature.

Scoring is made easy with the help of this Trump Promise Tracker, maintained by the Washington Post. While that publication is no friend of Trump's, the promise tracker seems to be an objective tally of the promises Trump made on October 22, 2016 and the status of each with as his time in office proceeds.

Trump's first 100 days in office ends next Saturday. It appears he has a lot of work to do to fulfill his Contract with the American Voter.
 
Last edited:

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume someone else created this Cracker Jack of a meme.

Setting aside the fact that the meme borders on the sociological cliché of the classic liberal ad hominem personal attack born of emotion rather than containing any intelligence whatsoever, Ted Nugent's wife, Shemane, not only earned a Masters degree, but she once contracted a life-threatening lung illness from toxic mold in her house, could barely walk, and was dependent on bottled oxygen for a year before recovering.

So if the creator of the meme was going for outrageously offensive and hurtful, they nailed it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JohnWC

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Ad hominem is the only weapon liberals seem to have in their arsenal
I know. It's sad. As soon as they run out of reasoned, intelligent points for their argument, which happens breathtakingly quick, they just start calling people names and attacking people individually.
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Ad hominem is the only weapon liberals seem to have in their arsenal
I know. It's sad. As soon as they run out of reasoned, intelligent points for their argument, which happens breathtakingly quick, they just start calling people names and attacking people individually.
"Living well is the best revenge" - George Herbert

That thing has been floating around the internet for several days now, and was probably created by some pajama boy who lives in his parents' basement spending his days thinking up baseless insults and swapping trash with his like-minded cyber-friends. It's safe to say the people in that picture are vastly more talented, more intelligent, more successful and live better, more productive lives than the 99.9% of these parasitic liberals who think stupid is funny.

Just a parting thought: I wonder if a similar meme would have gotten as much social media circulation if a picture of Trump had been made with Cher, Madonna and Barbara Streisand?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Pajama boy, tenured college professor... could go either way. Ya never know.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
You know how some people say Trump's base is eroding? Buyer's remorse, and all that? Most of that seems to be wishful thinking based on the wishful thinking of The Press, in particular the NYT who has searched high and low to find the odd Trump voter who now regrets voting for him.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll confirms this, and in a devastating way. It shows more buyer's remorse for Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. And were the 2016 election held again today, it shows Trump would avenge his popular-vote loss. As Jack Nicholson's Joker would say, "Whoop. Whoop."

While just 4 percent of Trump's supporters say they would back someone else if there was a redo of the election, fully 15 percent of Clinton supporters say they would ditch her. Trump leads in a re-do of the 2016 election 43 percent to 40 percent after losing the popular vote 46-44. That 15 percent Clinton voter abandonment is split between those who say they would vote for Trump (2 percent), Gary Johnson (4 percent), Jill Stein (2 percent), and either other candidates or not vote (7 percent).

Here's the full story: Trump voters don't have buyer's remorse, but some Hillary Clinton voters do.

As the story notes at the end...
"Just 2 percent of those who voted for Trump say he has been a worse president than they expected. Only 1 percent say he has been “much worse,"” and 1 percent say he has been “somewhat worse.”
{the poll doesn't say, but I guarantee you those 4% are people who don't think Trump is coming across as being classically "presidential," and because of his incessant Tweeting}

"In contrast, 62 percent say he has been better than expected, with one-third (33 percent) saying he has been “much better.”"

"That's not disillusioned Trump supporters; that's quite the opposite. And we have yet to see a poll that suggests there are a bunch of disgruntled Trump voters out there, stewing over their decision to install a reality show star as president." {The "reality show star" snark is hilarious, because Trump isn't losing his base, and The Washington Post hates it, and it's their own poll so they have to own it}
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoadTime

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
A crucial component of my predicted Trump impeachment scenario is the erosion of the Trump base. While some alt-right Trump supporters have made loud statements in becoming former Trump supporters, and a handful of others have jumped off the Trump train because they feel betrayed by his actions or inactions, it is clearly the case that the Trump base is holding firm up to this point.

Observations:

1. The base has not grown.

2. The base proved impotent in influencing congressional votes during the repeal and replace discussions.

3. No president who has been impeached has been impeached in his first year.

While I am watching for indications of an eroding base, the fact that it has not yet happened does not mean it will not happen. I've also been watching Trump's popularity ratings. It is worth noting that those numbers fluctuate by large amounts for all presidents as they move through their time in office. As an indicator of future events or future support, a president's job approval number on a given day has little predictive value.

The components of my impeachment scenario have yet to converge, but I continue to believe they will.
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
2. The base proved impotent in influencing congressional votes during the repeal and replace discussions.
Quite the contrary, the base proved potent in influencing congressmen NOT to vote for a bad bill being proposed by Paul Ryan. This was bad legislation from the beginning, and Ryan proved inept in even getting it off the ground by proposing "stages" of repeal and replacement of which there was no guarantee (other than "trust us") that they would ever see the light of day. Repeal and replace is still a work in progress thanks to the conservative base and their congressmen who are demanding a better bill, and a better champion for it than Speaker Ryan.

Is there a Doctor in the House? We Need Radical Surgery on the ‘Ryancare’ Bill
 
Top