What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Jacob]

I'm not arguing to convince the GOP leadership of anything. They're lying in the bed they made as far as I'm concerned.

[viper37]

It's a question of strategy.  Painting Trump as "the current end point" of the current GOP is fabulous at firing up the Bernie Bros, at energizing the base.  What it is not good at is convincing centrists and moderate Republicans to break from Trump.  To the extent you actually want to see Trump impeached you need GOP House leadership on board.  To bring them on board you have to paint Trump as an aberration against the GOP and Conservatism - not as it's ultimate conclusion.

You know, the Republican partisans voted Republican.  They chose Trump in the end, against someone more able to do the job than he was.  Why?  Because she was a Democrat.  Because she was a woman certainly disqualified her in the eyes of some.

But in the end, despite everything we knew about Trump, they chose the party over the country.

I am not sure you can convince Republican centrists of anything else then "Trump is bad for the party".  I just don't see them admitting Trump was the wrong candidate for the country.

[Barrister]

I'm not arguing to convince the GOP leadership of anything. They're lying in the bed they made as far as I'm concerned.

You've made your point of view perfectly clear.

[jimmy olsen]

 

[jimmy olsen]

I'm pretty sure he'll have to literally be dragged kicking and screaming from the Oval Office, but this would be a perfect ending to his pathetically petulant presidency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/art-of-the-deal-coauthor-trump-meltdown_us_591d1c53e4b094cdba511035?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_term=nosplashcard&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

'Art Of The Deal' Co-Author: Trump Will Resign, Then Declare Victory
Tony Schwartz says Trump is in "pure terror" that he's going to lose.
By Ed Mazza

The man who coauthored "Art of the Deal" with Donald Trump ― a book often cited on the campaign trail last year ― said the president will soon look for a way out of all of his administration's scandals.

"There is no right and wrong for Trump, there's winning and losing," Tony Schwartz told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "And right now, he is in pure terror that he is going to lose."

Schwartz predicted that Trump would ultimately "lose," but said he won't go through an impeachment process.

"I surely believe that at some point over the next period of time he's going to have to figure out a way to resign," Schwartz said in comments posted online by Mediaite. But in quitting, Trump will try to "figure out a way, as he has done all his career, to turn a loss into a victory so he will declare victory when he leaves."

Earlier in the segment, above, Schwartz told Cooper that Trump was "in a pretty significant meltdown." He added:

"I think he's reacting from a survival place. I think he's being run by the part of his brain that's reactive and impulsive, not capable of reflection and I think he's in pure defensive mode."

Schwartz, who wrote an op-ed about Trump earlier this week in The Washington Post, also had a warning for some of those closest to the president.

"Evidence of his meltdown is the fact that he's starting to scream at Jared Kushner," Schwartz said. "Honestly, I think his kids are next."

Schwartz said Trump's sons might be spared for now since they're not really in the White House picture.

"I can honestly easily see him going after Ivanka if she says the wrong thing right now," Schwartz said. "I remember very vividly when I was working with him how terrified people would be of going up against him in any way when you could sense that he was feeling I can guarantee you he is feeling right now."

Last year, Schwartz repeatedly criticized Trump despite having worked with him. He also advised the Hillary Clinton campaign for free.

"This is my penance for having created a man who has become a monster," he said in September. "I've spent 30 years feeling bad about it."

Schwartz also said he would be donating his share of the profits from "Art Of The Deal" to the National Immigration Law Center, an organization that aids low-income immigrants.

[Syt]

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-cancels-visit-ancient-masada-site-after-israel-blocks-helicopter-landing-611287

TRUMP CANCELS VISIT TO ANCIENT MASADA SITE AFTER ISRAEL REFUSES HELICOPTER LANDING

President Donald Trump has canceled a planned visit and speech at the ancient mountain fortress of Masada in Israel after authorities told him that he could not land his helicopter on top of the UNESCO-listed site.

Instead, Trump will now deliver a speech at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It comes after an Israeli Air Force (IAF) regulation that prevents helicopters landing at the summit of the Masada site, according to Israel's Channel 2 broadcaster.

Unlike former presidents who have made the trip, such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Trump declined to land the helicopter at a base of the historic site and then take the cable car up, preferring to cancel the visit altogether.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment, referring any matters involving Trump's schedule to the U.S. government. The Israeli Foreign Ministry also declined to comment on Trump's schedule.

The reason for the regulation is that helicopters on approach create dust, making landing at the desert site 1,300 feet above sea level precarious. On a previous 1997 landing by the IAF in the middle of Masada, the wind created by the helicopter caused damage to the ruins, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Masada, a UNESCO World Heritage site that the cultural agency calls a creation of "majestic beauty," is built upon a mountain overlooking the shores of the Dead Sea in southern Israel's Judean desert, some 60 miles southeast of Jerusalem. It is one of the country's archaeological wonders.

King Herod is believed to have built the fortress, but its defining story is that its Jewish rebel defenders who—under threat from a Roman siege—killed themselves rather than be captured alive by the invading forces some time between 73 and 74 AD.

News of the president's cancellation stirred reactions among observers of the American-Israeli relationship and officials inside the country. "Well Masada was too hot, so we found a great spot instead for POTUS," Eitan Weiss, deputy spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted, appearing to mock the reason for the cancellation. "@IsraelMuseum. The Dead Sea Scrolls make an important setting."

Another Twitter user joked : "Trump is going to move the U.S. embassy to Masada," referencing the consideration the president is giving to moving Washington's diplomatic representation from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, tweeted that a raft of decisions on the Trump administration in regard to the visit has "soured" Israel's mood. As well as the Masada cancellation, Trump will only spend 15 minutes at the national Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, a move likely to offend the Israelis.

Ahead of the visit, a member of Trump's diplomatic staff told the Israelis that the Western Wall was in the West Bank and they did not want Netanyahu to accompany Trump on his visit to the site. The declaration sparked Israel's anger and a call from the government for an explanation from the White House, which subsequently said that this was not Trump's position.

It will be the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to the Western Wall (Barack Obama only visited the site as a presidential candidate).

Israel considers the site to be the nearest to the holiest landmark in Judaism—the Temple Mount—where Israelis can pray, to be part of Jerusalem and, therefore, Israel. Jews cannot pray at the Temple Mount, which is controled by a Jordanian-Palestinian Islamic Waqf, or trust.

But the wall sits in the old city of East Jerusalem, a territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War, and therefore land that much of the international community, including the U.S., does not recognize as Israel's.

[Jacob]

You've made your point of view perfectly clear.

[Maladict]

So, no comment from Trump on Erdogan ordering his thugs to beat up protesters in DC?

Maybe he was busy taking notes for his upcoming trip.

[jimmy olsen]

Lol, what a fucktard. Trump literally talked a reluctant Flynn into taking the job.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/18/donald-trump-talked-michael-flynn-into-white-house-job

[CountDeMoney]

TRUMP CANCELS VISIT TO ANCIENT MASADA SITE AFTER ISRAEL REFUSES HELICOPTER LANDING

Oh, that had to steam him something fierce.  Somebody still has him out-martyred.

[crazy canuck]

*Can* you smell, not "do" you smell.  Dumbass.

Do you see what I see?

[Eddie Teach]

A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite?

[crazy canuck]

This kind of talk frustrates me to no end.

Of course it does, because it shows that people are realizing the damage the "respectable" radical right agenda is doing to the US.

There are two separate ways to criticize Trump.  First, is that he is an individual almost unprecedented in his lack of qualifications and character to be President.  And second, that he is a Republican and advances a more-or-less Republican agenda.

If you want to argue the first, it's an argument that has a great chance to draw in even other members of the GOP to agree with it.  But when you start making the argument that Pence, who is a fairly bland but typical Republican, is just as bad as Trump, you drive those other Republicans right back in to the arms of Trump.

Pence and his ilk set the stage for Trump. More of their "bland but typical Republican" policy (which is quite radical and in Pence's case damaged his home state of Indiana significantly) is not the antidote to Trumpism. Rather it's slightly more competent Trumpism, which has the potential to damage the Republic even further than Trump's buffoonish incompetence.

I love how (in Pence's case) defending the very traditional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman - a definition, by the way, that is still accepted in the majority of the world - is in fact "radical".  The "radical" position has been to change the definition to accept gay marriage.  And look - just because something is a radical change doesn't make it wrong.  I'm one to quote Goldwater on extremism from time to time.  But words have meaning, and it's impossible to use the word "radical" in talking about Mike Pence.

At some point defending the "traditional" becomes defending the indefensible.   The values of community are, for a conservative in the Burke tradition, what is important.  As a society we, at least in Canada and most of the US, have recognized that marriage is more than a biblical definition.  Taking a position against that wider definition based on religious belief is reactionary.  And I suspect the reason you think Pence is "bland" is because you share the same reactionary views.  The sort of  reactionary views that arguably run counter to the kind of conservatism Burke embraced.

[crazy canuck]

A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite?

[Valmy]

Republican partisans voted Republican.  They chose Trump in the end, against someone more able to do the job than he was.  Why?  Because she was a Democrat.  Because she was a woman certainly disqualified her in the eyes of some.

But in the end, despite everything we knew about Trump, they chose the party over the country.

I am not sure you can convince Republican centrists of anything else then "Trump is bad for the party".  I just don't see them admitting Trump was the wrong candidate for the country.

Well to be fair they also chose Trump over every other Republican. And the second place guy was Cruz who is a dangerous radical.

Dangerous radicals and screwjobs are just who they favor these days despite BB's best efforts to see them as Burkean.