Day to Day Politics: The Trump Report No 10. Creating his own case for impeachment.
Monday 6 March 2017
There can be no doubt that the President of the United States of America is mentally deficient. Alarmingly so. “You’re fake news” he yells at a journalist. Then he proceeds to ban any media outlet from White House press conferences that doesn’t support his presidency.
It was a press conference Quartz Media described as the most unhinged public appearance ever by an American president.
Speaking about the stream of leaks exiting the White House he said:
”The leaks are absolutely real but the news is fake because so much of the news is fake”.
He claimed his administration is running like ”a fine-tuned machine”
Now I’m no fan of the MSM but where is the evidence?
A Russian ship has lurked off the eastern coast of the US in recent days. Trump suggested blowing it up would be good for his ratings, saying “The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles off shore right out of the water.”
It gets more bizarre. You can read it here.
He hinted at nuclear war:
”We’re very powerful nuclear country and so are they [Russia],” Trump said. “I’ve been briefed and I can tell you one thing about a briefing that we’re allowed to say because anybody that ever read the most basic book can say it—nuclear holocaust would be like no other.”
When asked about his claim that that his Electoral College victory was the biggest since Ronald Reagan’s, the president said:”Tomorrow they will say ‘Rants and raves at the press. ”I’m not ranting and raving” he said, “I’m just telling you you’re dishonest people.”
Now that’s not bad coming from a perverted proven liar.
”The public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know.”
Can there be any doubt that the President is out to destroy the reputations of any media that is not on his side? To ban organisations like BBC, L A Times, CNN and The New York Times, among others, from his press conferences is insulting the American constitution, particularly after saying just weeks before that a free press is.
”What makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship”.
Those on the welcome list included conservative outlets Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, along with journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News.
Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, also called the decision alarming.
“President Trump’s calls for an end to anonymous sources was alarming. It is not the job of political leaders to determine how journalists should conduct their work, and sets a terrible example for the rest of the world, where sources often must remain anonymous to preserve their own lives.”
David Smith writing for the Guardian reported.
”Trump also railed against embarrassing leaks of his phone calls with world leaders including Australia and Mexico, suggesting that people within the White House could potentially put the US at risk by leaking confidential future conversations about how to handle North Korea.”
A fine-tuned machine indeed.
Now let me make it absolutely clear. Donald Trump, president of the USA is and always has been a liar. One who does it with minimum effort for maximum gain. Be they lies of omission, the trivial, or the profound. He lies to avoid guilt or for the acceptance of praise. He does so when his pride is challenged or his pretentiousness is laughed at.
He is trying to tame the media, not because they publish the news as they see it, but because they dare publish a version that offends his version of righteousness. No one would dare question him in business. Why would they now that he is president. He owns the truth.
An observation.
”The rise of the right has brought with it a new political language. One that has not yet been classified because it defies any normal understanding of what the word truth means”
He and his acolytes tell us that the media should focus less on the lies he tweets and tells in interviews and instead focus on what he does. They do so to hide the fact that he more often than not tells lies to explain a lie or to tell greater ones to divert us from existing scandals by creating another one by telling a greater lie.
It has to be said that the main stream media do not always write virtuous words of truth, but to overlook what he says as if it doesn’t matter and not report it would be a dereliction of duty.
Trump is a person of such unseemly character that every time he opens his mouth he decays the faultlessness of truth, science and factual evidence.
As Charles M. Blow put it in The New York Times:
”To take it even further, it may be these seemingly smaller infractions that produce the greater injury because the implications are more profound. Trump does not simply have ”a running war with the media” as he so indecorously and disrespectfully spouted off while standing on the hallowed ground before the C.I.A. Memorial Wall. He is in fact having a running war with the truth itself.”
When doing its job as it should, the fourth estate are the seekers of truth providing the public with reasoned reporting? It is not perfect and does far too much opining. Trump’s rise to power has come at a time when the media has come under pressure to tidy up its act.
He has taken advantage of it by renouncing every criticism of him as ”’Fake News” He wants to have power over free speech, absolute control of it with the ability to control the flow of information so that his own version of truth would hold sway over the public.
Life is about perception. Not what is but what we perceive it to be. Trump and his team are using every trick in the book to control the narrative. Quelling anything that is negative, even if true, with dishonesty while patting Trump on the back with mendaciousness and hypocrisy
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC he declared the media “the enemy of the people“.
And with self-righteous dismissiveness he excused his own perverted lying.
“I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources.”
And all this is happening against a backdrop of accusations of overt interest in all things Russian. Media reports suggest that President Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus privately asked the FBI to prevent news stories of the Trump campaign’s communication with Russian intelligence.
The Trump Russian connection is something he can’t seem to lie his way out of and as the plot thickens so does the frequency of his tweets.
As the media and the American embroil themselves in the reds under the beds scandal, Trump on queue Tweets that Obama has bugged Trump Tower. He has no evidence, it’s just a hunch.
In repsonse, Obama Policy advisor Ben Rhodes tweets:
”No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.”
The story originated from Breitbart News, an extreme right wing conservative news outlet. White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon was the executive chair of Breitbart before joining Trump’s team.
In the meantime the people are being diverted from ”Russiagate” and the following legislation. Its classic Trump, or a conservative tactic. ”Create another scandal”
In case anyone got overly side-tracked by the Russian drama and the installation of listening devices, the following bills have been introduced.
- HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
- HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education
- HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
- HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
- HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
- HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
- HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions)
- HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
- HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Non-discrimination Act”)
- HR 808 Sanctions against Iran.
The New Millennial voters may have hated Clinton and certainly didn’t love Trump but is this what they really wanted.
Slowly but surely the President is building a case for his own impeachment.
My thought for the day.
“Instead of searching within when we are at fault the first human reaction is to apportion blame elsewhere. Why is that so?”
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jimhaz -
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Alan Baird
Return to home page“It’s called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, ‘everybody is writing about this charge’. It’s a tool of an authoritarian,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.
There are no other forces trying to have Trump impeached?
John Pilger made a comment about Trump and who created him I think holds true ‘The truth is there was noone to vote for”.
Fake news has been used to avoid, deflect and obfuscate since politics began. Your list is forboding for Australia over the next 3 years. With life at the moment a sperm penetrates an egg you wouldn’t want to be a sexually active non-stay at home woman who has a god given miscarriage and then has to endure an investigation for to find the cause.
Sadly labor avoided any ‘opt out’ mechanism for Aborigines under the basic card in government and has shown little or no objection to cashless cards and privatisation (to the son of a nat) of the welfare system. Why??
Thought: pauline is asking for people to research vaccinations. Wow will climate change be next for research? Then, amazingly, research into the meaning of democracy???
ps who is trump and what is his finger doing with a button??
Interesting point, Kaye, on the ‘wrap-up smear’ strategy used by politicians.
I am constantly intrigued at the level of coverage our right-wing politicians get by a single appearance on the Bolt Report – Abbott’s mantra being the most recent instance of this. In case we get the impression that there is a big national following of the utterings of Andrew Bolt and his right-wing guests, just consider the facts.
“The first eleven episodes of The Bolt Report on Sky News in 2016 averaged 23,254 national viewers, compared to ABC’s Insiders averaging 264.000 nationally.
So, it would seem that the Bolt Report is getting far more national attention than it warrants, largely because other media outlets pick up what his guest are saying rather than an interest by subscribers to pay TV. Which means that right wing politicians use Bolt (and 2GB) as a platform to spruik their ideas and ideologies knowing that there will be no incisive questioning from respective hosts : not a healthy situation in a democracy and a good argument in favour of retaining an independent and impartial public broadcaster, prepared to probe and question !
Pauline, Tudge Trumble, Trump…Go away, and don’t come back…
“Instead of searching within when we are at fault the first human reaction is to apportion blame elsewhere. Why is that so?”
Trumble blames Shorten for all his problems, Trump goes for Obama, ( and hubby blames me 🙂 )
Why is that so?
Methinks those two never grew up… We need grownups in charge.
His narcissism is so strong that he can’t stand the idea of ANYONE being more popular and (gag, choke) loved than him so he will try to ruin, via childish and petulant behaviour, any upstart who dares to be better than him. He’s a maniac with power and it’s chilling. Will they find any empirical evidence to back up the bugging claims? At a rough guess, no, but that won’t stop the The Donald and his sycophants like…not naming names…ah, ah, Spicer…ah, ah, Conway…damned sneezes, from ramping up the paranoia.
Helvityni, you have just created a new group of characters – The Terriblegrubbies. Or how about The Turdies?
…and he is telling us, repeatedly: I’m the PM of this country, and the elections are two or more years away…
Turdies 🙂 ,and they belong to the Nasty Party.
Trump is extreme, he is the monster, Murdoch is doctor Frankenstein. The major difference between Trump and the likes of Howard, Abbott and Turnbull is that he is more erratic, more unhinged, more frequent but the tools of lies, distraction and diversion are EXACTLY the same. Children overboard, $100 roasts, energy security crisis, blame labor….
Some see Trump and Hanson as leading us to a dangerous future and indeed they will but in the process they will be leading to their own self destruction. Just as Abbott did with his stupidity and overreach. Though no doubt they will and are causing a lot of collateral destruction in the process.
Rather than being seen as the age of the Right this period may in fact be the nadir of the right.
The fourth estate have only themselves to blame. If they had been doing what they are supposed to be doing, “seekers of truth providing the public with reasoned reporting”, conflict zones, the environment and debt mountains would not be the problems that they are today and Donald Trump would most likely not be U.S. President.
There is a twitter archive for Trump that is worth visiting.
http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/
People call me a troll, but geez is one ever wanted to demonstrate what a real troll is, then Trump takes the award.
Personally I think he is being feed things to tweet from Breibart each day via Stephen Bannon.
It would not surprise me if Paul Manafort was also still in the picture as dirty tricks strategist.
They are always really suss propaganda tweets – made for the purpose of mud sticks whether true of not and contain appeals to emotions to ensure those loyal do not begin to question him. They are purposefully designed to halt mental thought by giving the deplorables fake reasons to deflect all the wrongdoing to those opposing Trump – it seems too clever for Trump. Trumps tweets feel very much like the sort of propaganda a dictator puts out after a coup.
I’ve seen similar deflection stuff on Drudge for years now, its become a well established tool for republicans.
Trump is what the USA got for having a MSM that refused to debate societal issues in an informed, respectful and intelligent manner. MSM is the mouthpiece for the inequity-loving 1%ers (includes DT). Listen to what the MSM are saying but believe next to nothing of their analysis, that way you stand the chance to retain sanity.
Hanson will follow in the footsteps of Trump. It’s called a protest vote. The political party that promotes sound policies that address inequality deserve to win the next election and probably would if MSM, a major influencer of public opinion, were an intelligent entity.
Trump has always acted like a big petulant baby. All criticism is deemed conspiratorial and “fake” and almost all his press conferences include statements about the size of his electoral victory and how he garnered votes from all sections of the community.
His aim is to appear as if he is somehow overwhelmingly loved by the masses and to continue to maintain that illusion above everything else.
His argument about “fake news” falls apart when you look at his own historical and current efforts to mislead and the latest Obama bugging allegation is no different. I hope they follow this one up all the way back to the source.
I also wonder if he is continuing his personal vendetta with the journalist who first suggested he had small hands and still directly mailing him pictures with his hands circled? Perhaps he has delegated this to one of his minions. It’s an indication of immaturity and self-obsession.
It’s time the political blowtorch was put to the bellies of the likes of Trump and Hanson who seem to get a free pass to make any unsubstantiated comment they like without consequence – time to put up or shut up.
jimhaz, thanks for the link to the Twitter archive. Very entertaining.
I think Trump is like a mirror being held up to the USA…..media corrupt…check..now it’s in your face! Politicians all corrupt arseholes…check…how do you like our bunch…. Perhaps its the shock treatment that populations around the world need to look sideways at their media/political alliance. One can but hope.
[The fourth estate have only themselves to blame]
It is probably fair to say that they are another casualty of the internet and its resulting additional competition. In a way they are blameless – I’m not really seeing any things they could have done differently. This does not apply to Murdoch who has always abused the media for his own conservative propaganda.
I can understand them having to create ‘fake’ news for reasons of competition. When I say fake news in this context I don’t really mean made up or blatantly false information – but merely exaggeration and opinionated news. The advent of opinion writers, in place of journalists is a form of fake news. Such people do not have to be journalists they just have to be polarised.
It seems they had to do this or the companies would die out – but it is not just about the higher costs of good journalism. When people can find a plethora of things on the internet that entertain them in some fashion, things that cause them to emote, then news content must also gradually change to be as emotion inducing in some fashion – so they seek out polarised viewpoints in order to create this emotion which draws people in – it doesn’t matter if it is anger causing or soppy.
In the realm of TV, this process had actually started prior to the internet due to competition on that platform alone. Now we see one of the unintended consequences is the creation of a political cold war between the predators (with their ranks of sycophantic deplorables) and the peaceful herds (with their annoying social warriors). This cold war of hatred between the right and the left has been building up for 15 years or so. Trump would not have risen without this war already being well established.
The similarities between Trump and Abbott stand out like dogs balls.
Trump can never forgive an african american with a happy home life and principles and intelligence for having roasted him big time at that famous Whitehouse Correspondents Ball. Nor can he forgive Obama for
a) winning the election and becoming president
b) performing the job with worldwide admiration
c) being more popular than Trump!
So what does Trump do?
He fashions the the most arrogant and ridiculous set of lies to win over the gullible US citizens and then tries to paint himself as better than his nemesis. He does everything in his power to bring down Obama. To complete the destruction (in Trump’s eyes) of Obama he must destroy everything good Obama has done for the USA.
Sound familiar?? Trump’s latest effort to accuse the Obama administration of “wiretapping” him is rather like a Royal Commission into the unions isn’t it?
He must have a really, really small penis!
Maybe he should be forced to show it like Obama was forced to show his birth certificate
Steve Bannon Aligns With Vatican Hard-Liners Who Oppose Pope Francis
“During a visit to Rome a few years ago, Bannon struck up a friendship with the American Cardinal Raymond Burke, a traditionalist who has emerged as one of Pope Francis’ most vocal critics.
Bannon hired Thomas Williams, an American former priest, as Breitbart’s Rome correspondent. Williams belonged to the conservative Legion of Christ, which was roiled by scandal when it was revealed its founder had been a pedophile….
In July 2014, Bannon addressed a conference that was held inside the Vatican but was sponsored by a conservative Catholic group. Speaking via Skype, Bannon painted an almost apocalyptic vision of the state of the Western world.
“We’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which, if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting.”
A barbarity, Bannon added, that would completely eradicate “everything we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years,” and which he clearly spelled out a few minutes later: “We are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.”
This is language that Pope Francis has never used. The pope has repeatedly urged European countries to welcome migrants — who are, in the majority, Muslim — and he has championed the rights of the poor….
While most Breitbart reports on the pope have been neutral, headlines about the pope when Bannon was in charge included:
“Seven Ways Pope Francis Slapped Conservatives in the United States”
“A Vatican Expert: Pope Francis a ‘Friend of Islam’ ”
“Pope Francis Slams Capitalism, Death Penalty, Immigration Law; No Real Mention of Abortion, Gay Marriage”
“Pope Francis Threatens Legacy of Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan”
While Breitbart and Bannon seem to be making common cause with Roman Catholics who are on the outs with this pope, these Vatican hard-liners are not very powerful.
Nevertheless, Pope Francis’ supporters inside the Vatican worry that following Trump’s election victory, the pope is a little more isolated — a lonely progressive on the global stage. They say this has emboldened his critics both within and outside the Vatican, who have become more vocal.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/08/514102356/steve-bannon-aligns-with-vatican-hardliners-who-oppose-pope-francis
“He must have a really, really small penis!
Maybe he should be forced to show it …….”
kerri, I certainly don’t want see that little piece of evidence…Spare me, please 🙂 His crooked little pinkie finger is more than enough…
When reading the lists of the introduced bills and not the rest of the article the reader will think that the Abbott team it is back in power.
5 Ways To Stay Sane In An Era Of Non-Stop Outrage
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-stay-sane-in-era-non-stop-outrage/
Reading around the right wing blogs and the comments, what is it with the far right supporters (women and Men) that the bigger the liar and sexist a politician (male) is the more they are liked?
I am not right or left . All sides have a point if they are human. What I can not abide is the blanket condemnation by the corporate media, celebrities, social media and now AIM. What is else is happening in the world ? This widespread condemnation is well suss. Europe is over run by refugees. The tragic Middle East, and rampant corruptions. Why not concentrate on Australia’s poor locked up souls on some Island, the homeless here, the jobless, the attack on liberties, destruction and the widespread problems in this country (no trumps in sight). Hilary supported a sleaze bag, surrounded her self in suss coruptos so there was little choice. John Podesta, spirit cooking, her foundation, all those legal problems over the years and her war rhetoric was enough. She even made an orange man seem whiter than white. Since when did pub talk and at least appearing to care for the disenfranchised majority that voted legally be such a well orchestrated problem. David Brock, corruption, algorithims and shouting racist, sexist, trans in the bathroom mean more than the TTP, world war 3, a failing Social justice movement that has turned into little more than fascists masquerading as sensitives and calls for censorship over rule a democratic victory . Get over the name calling. They used to call me sambo and woggurt at school. Yeah when enough say something silly it still do not mean shit to an individual. Sticks and stones may broke some bones and names they really hurt but not kill a support for fair and just democracy, or even recognise that one evil maybe less than another.
John Pilger was right. There was no one to vote for. Total truth. One focussed but useless and one mentally fragile & dangerous.