45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 5)

[p1stonhead]

Byker28i said:

This seems a little scarey, people born in America denied US passports because it's not believed they are americans, punishing everyone delivered by a list of midwives suspected of forging some documents, but not saying who those midwives are.

The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown.

In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings. In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States.

The denials are happening at a time when Trump has been lobbying for stricter federal voter identification rules, which would presumably affect the same people who are now being denied passports — almost all of them Hispanic, living in a heavily Democratic sliver of Texas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/...

Of course thats a thing now.

Although to be fair, being born in the UK (after 1986) doesnt mean you automatically qualify for a passport.

[Byker28i]

Now why would trump endorse the GOP candidate for Florida, who said 'monkey it up' when discussing his black opponent, who until yesterday when it was discovered, was an administrator on an active Facebook group where conservatives share racist, conspiratorial and incendiary posts about a litany of targets, including black Americans and South Africans, the “deep state,” survivors of February’s massacre at a Florida high school, immigrants, Muslims and, in recent days, John McCain, according to:

https://american-ledger.com/accountability/desanti...

As I said yesterday - he knew exactly what he was saying and who he was targetting when he made those comments on Fox

[Gameface]

Countdown said:

If you’re willing to believe that an invisible supreme being exists who created the earth in 6 days, then Trump’s stories are small change in comparison.

They believe television evangelists need 4 private jets in order to spread Gods word quicker...

And also believe that all brown people are bad.

And also believe more guns is the answer.

Etc

Etc.

It's actually quite scary how ignorant and blinkered some people can be. They can't all be intellectually sub par, so some perfectly intelligent people are within this demographic and totally believe points above.

[Byker28i]

Another resignation due to links to white supremacists, a policy analyst working for the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security.
http://fortune.com/2018/08/29/leaked-emails-ian-m-...

Don't these people think their emails etc would be monitored as part of their security clearance?

[Byker28i]

Mueller has asked for more time to consider if he wishes to have a retrial for Manaforts 10 charges that were unable to be found guilty due to one juror holding out. He's been obtaining emails from Manaforts first lawyers, claiming that client attorney privilege doesn't count as they were abetting a crime.

Manaforts pretrial for his second trial didn't go well yesterday either. Manafort’s team tried pushing two key motions.

They asked to get the trial moved out of Washington DC, where the jury is expected to be more likely to convict him, and into some other venue. But when the judge asked defense lawyers where they’d like it to be moved, they had no answer. The judge then laughed them off

Manafort’s lawyers then asked that the start of the trial be delayed, arguing that they haven’t had time to sort through the mountain of evidence submitted by the prosecution, because they just got done with the first Manafort trial. That’s when the judge told the defense attorneys that it was their own fault, because they had insisted on having two different trials to begin with. The judge did delay the official start of the trial by a week, but decided to leave the start date for jury selection intact, meaning the defense doesn’t really get any extra time.

This judge doesn't seem interested in the games Manaforts lawyers are playing. Could be bad news

[Gameface]

Challo said:

Agreed. His constantly lies of fake news media, deep state, corrupt FBI and DOJ will have huge ramifications for the future of the USA. It’s become a cult where his supporters only believe him or Fox News.

He is tweeting about stories run by Fox News who get there stories from conservative blogs/websites.

Laura Ingram ran a story about about China hacking Hillary Clinton, which Trump straight away tweeted about. Tucker Carlson last night mentioned that the FBI have denied this, but then went on to say why is it not being investigated. FFS the FBI have said it’s bks and Fox just continue pushing the fake news.

If nothing changes there is going to be a huge amount of damage done to America from a social standpoint.

His constant undermining of the USA security services will have a lasting impact.

The only time he's really been pulled up for it was when he took Putin's word over his own national agency's.

[Gameface]

Byker28i said:

They asked to get the trial moved out of Washington DC, where the jury is expected to be more likely to convict him, and into some other venue. But when the judge asked defense lawyers where they’d like it to be moved, they had no answer. The judge then laughed them off.

How can you be so unprepared? As if vetoing one venue won't raise the question of what venue you'd prefer? It's comical how bad some of the lawyers in this whole thing are.

Thankfully the useless ones all seem to be on the Trump side of the equation.

Have their been similar stories about Mueller's team? I don't recall any.

[Lazermilk]

hidetheelephants said:

Lazermilk said:

Escapegoat said:

Pence is really keeping his head down. Can't remember the last time I saw him and Trump pictured together. Is he biding his time until the legal problems get too big for Trump?

I wonder if/when his team will quietly see if there's enough political support to allow them to throw Trump under an impeachment bus. Maybe if the mid-terms are bad enough?

The smart people among the Republicans must know that Trump's base has nowhere else to go.

If trump gets impeached, will Pence just pardon him and he doesn't go to jail?

Could they hold off until the 2020 elections hoping that a democrat gets elected, then charge him and stick him in jail and hope the new Democrat president may not pardon him?

If RICO offences are uncovered I'd be surprised if there aren't state level offences that could be used to put Trump away; it would appear presidential pardons don't apply to state convictions, so all it would need is a keen state attorney general and Trump could get a long stretch.

Fingers crossed then

[Blackpuddin]

Interesting story in Private Eye about a paper just published by academics from Stanford and the University of Texas which suggests that the impact of fake news and its use by malign forces is about to get much worse thanks to 'deep fake' tech whereby video can be manipulated to show real people saying and doing things they never said or did. "The marketplace of ideas already suffers from truth decay as our networked information environment interacts in toxic ways with our cognitive biases," says the report. "Fake video could feature public officials taking bribes, displaying racism or engaging in adultery… the technology will allow individuals to live in their own subjective realities, where beliefs can be supported by manufactured 'facts'."
Take this truth decay thing to its logical conclusion and it won't be long before 'news' becomes utterly redundant.

[anonymous-user]

Blackpuddin said:

Take this truth decay thing to its logical conclusion and it won't be long before 'news' becomes utterly redundant.

It's exactly what Trump and his advisors have been aiming for since the beginning of his campaign.

It doesn't matter to many that he paid of a porn star despite repeated denials.

Not so long ago this would have been news, really really big news.

It was just a mild bump in the road for Trump

[Tryke3]

Where is the swamp ?

[Eric Mc]

desolate said:

It's exactly what Trump and his advisors have been aiming for since the beginning of his campaign.

It doesn't matter to many that he paid of a porn star despite repeated denials.

Not so long ago this would have been news, really really big news.

It was just a mild bump in the road for Trump

I think that's the wrong interpretation of the "porn" stories. Most Trump followers do not believe that his dalliances with porn stars and Playboy models is fake news. They genuinely believe the stories are true. The important aspect of the porn related stories is that they know they are true - but they don't care.

So, that's nothing to do with them thinking the stories are "fake". It's to do with the stories being true but of no consequence.

The "fake news" allegations are of more importance when it comes to reporting basic government activity and the legal jeopardy surrounding Trump.

[Blackpuddin]

desolate said:

Blackpuddin said:

Take this truth decay thing to its logical conclusion and it won't be long before 'news' becomes utterly redundant.

It's exactly what Trump and his advisors have been aiming for since the beginning of his campaign.

It doesn't matter to many that he paid of a porn star despite repeated denials.

Not so long ago this would have been news, really really big news.

It was just a mild bump in the road for Trump

The revenue-driven sensationalisation of news hasn't helped. When just about everything is trumpeted as the biggest news ever, the news landscape flattens out and we become harder to shock.

[Bill]

Eric Mc said:

I think that's the wrong interpretation of the "porn" stories. Most Trump followers do not believe that his dalliances with porn stars and Playboy models is fake news. They genuinely believe the stories are true. The important aspect of the porn related stories is that they know they are true - but they don't care.

So, that's nothing to do with them thinking the stories are "fake". It's to do with the stories being true but of no consequence.

The "fake news" allegations are of more importance when it comes to reporting basic government activity and the legal jeopardy surrounding Trump.

The frailty of man, giving in to temptation (with a healthy dose of envy from the men who wish they could do the same.) If anything it helps his cause.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

I think that's the wrong interpretation of the "porn" stories. Most Trump followers do not believe that his dalliances with porn stars and Playboy models is fake news. They genuinely believe the stories are true. The important aspect of the porn related stories is that they know they are true - but they don't care.

So, that's nothing to do with them thinking the stories are "fake". It's to do with the stories being true but of no consequence.

The "fake news" allegations are of more importance when it comes to reporting basic government activity and the legal jeopardy surrounding Trump.

You make a fair point - what I meant to indicate was that a lot of pretty normal people have just zoned out.
Accepting BP's point that many news outlets don't help themselves Trump has set an agenda where nearly all news is seen as wrong in some way and most normal people won't spend time every day trying to get to the bottom of everything so they just cease to care.

[DMN]

The software exists and has already been used to add in Celebs to porn films. There was a reddit for them, untill they rightly got banned, along with some other scarey groups such as the Incels.

[Eric Mc]

It's a rot that started many years ago but has accelerated with the advent of the Internet.

I always think that Fox TV's broadcast of their disgraceful "Moon Hoax" documentary in 2001 was a seminal moment in the destruction of trust in the media - especially in the US.

[p1stonhead]

DMN said:

The software exists and has already been used to add in Celebs to porn films. There was a reddit for them, untill they rightly got banned, along with some other scarey groups such as the Incels.

Deepfakes are scary stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0

[4x4Tyke]

Eric Mc said:

desolate said:

It's exactly what Trump and his advisors have been aiming for since the beginning of his campaign.

It doesn't matter to many that he paid of a porn star despite repeated denials.

Not so long ago this would have been news, really really big news.

It was just a mild bump in the road for Trump

I think that's the wrong interpretation of the "porn" stories. Most Trump followers do not believe that his dalliances with porn stars and Playboy models is fake news. They genuinely believe the stories are true. The important aspect of the porn related stories is that they know they are true - but they don't care.

So, that's nothing to do with them thinking the stories are "fake". It's to do with the stories being true but of no consequence.

I'd agree and that raises the question, 'what do they care about?'

I think they do believe he is acting in their self interest, he's invoked the fear of outsiders narrative, 'those people' are a threat to you is the first step. They take your jobs, they rob you, they turn your children gay, they recruit your sons into gangs, they rape & murder your daughters, they terrorise you. We've seen that outsider fear is a powerful motivator, we've seen it from UKIP, Putin used it in his recent election, we saw it tried in the France and Austria elections. The next step is to dehumanise them, we see that with Muslims, even those in their own armed forces. We've seen where that can lead in very modern times in Kosova & Rwanda.

There does have to be a way to get through to his supporter and show this path is not in their best interests, it's not in anybody's best interest, other than the tiny few who ride that wave of discontent and do it at their supporters expense.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Thursday 30th August 09:56

[Eric Mc]

The important thing to realise is that Trump Supporters are not an homogenous lump of people who share identical views and possess identical limits of what constitutes right or wrong or what constitutes moral or immoral.

Like most people, they will all have their own personal limits when it comes to such considerations.

Some of Trump's behaviour will impact and affect some of the supporters in different ways. There is, no doubt, a group who could not care less what he does. The "shooting someone on 5th Avenue" comment is true for them.

But I would argue that MOST Trump supporters are NOT that lost in their "cultish" following of Trump and that, at some point, something Trump has done will cross their "moral threshold".

The key is how many of the "non-affected" group remain when it comes to influencing other Republican Congressional and Senate candidates. What I am seeing so far is that MOST Republican politicians actually despise Trump but are afraid to make [public comment that may upset his "base". At some point they will probably realise that the "base" has shrunken to a small enough core group that they don't need to worry about it any more - at which point they will do a "Nixon" on Trump and oust him.