Post inauguration Trump:

[roar]

[David]

Well that escalated quickly.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-weld-trumps-treason-over-ukraine-calls-for-death-penalty-republican-primary-challenger-says

[Wokko]

Nobody cares about Bill Weld except disingenuous liberal media looking for faux conservatives and RINOs to attack Trump.

[David]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Wokko]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1176610391058722816

4D Chess

They're so stupid it hurts.

[stui magpie]

^

He's good. Focusing on that quote that "If we don't impeach him, he's going to get re-elected" was beautiful.

[swoop42]

Is it usual practice for a call made by a President to a foreign leader to be recorded and transcribed?

I like the theory that a "whistle blower" doesn't actually exist and an individual acting on behalf of the Trump administration just fed false information to the Democrats in order to bring about the current situation.

In the world of international espionage this kind of move wouldn't be all that uncommon I would have thought.

Trump is setting them up!

[stui magpie]

There's the conundrum,

If you believe Trump is setting them up and playing 4d Chess with their heads, you have to admit he's smart.

If you believe he's dumb as a bag of door knobs and bumbles his way through stuff, you have to admit the Democrats and most of their supporters have the collective IQ of a potted palm.

[David]

I’d say it’s a given that everyone over there is either half-crazy or being dragged along by the crazy ones through the sheer force of gravitational pull. Still, I don’t really have a strong view as to whether or not he should be impeached over this; certainly, the allegation would amount to serious abuse of his position in any sane world.

Anyway, the only political analysis I consume these days is Chapo Trap House – they discuss this from 4:40 on: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/352-rod-drehers-the-exorcist-ii-92419

[swoop42]

[pietillidie]

^You don't need to be dim to be incompetent. Trump is bright enough, he's just subject to overwhelming psychiatric problems which override any smarts he has and incline him to corruption, among other things. Most people with that level of impairment are at home depressed or barely scraping by. Unfortunately, grandiose narcissism is an other-destructive rather than self-destructive condition, so rather than languishing in misery at home Trump gets about causing public chaos.

[Skids]

Meanwhile, he just keeps getting things done....


President Donald J. Trump Has Reached Agreements with Japan to Improve Trade Between Our Nations

QUOTE
We’re going to have a really great relationship, better than ever before on trade. I think it’s going to be better for Japan and better for the United States.

President Donald J. Trump

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-reached-agreements-japan-improve-trade-nations/?utm_source=ods&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1600d

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/25/trumps-phone-call-with-ukraines-president-read-the-full-transcript

The article contains the unclassified Memo, published by the White House.

[David]

Maybe I need to read between the lines better, but I can’t quite see the smoking gun there (it’s also possible that they’ve redacted more damning parts of the phone call – it’s not a full transcript, apparently). Still, one thing that stands out is how little Trump is interested in anything to do with the national interest or trade deals, or whatever – instead, he pivots straight to a) talking about retribution for Ukrainians who contributed to the Russiagate probe and b) trying to get dirt on Biden. Also, we see an example of what craven suck-ups middle-rung foreign leaders are when dealing with the US, but I guess that’s not terribly surprising.

[Jezza]

This is Russiagate 2.0.

Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot for the 2020 election.