Over the last few years, I have several times had occasion to cite Charles Mackay’s 19th-century classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The title by itself captures something essential about our situation. But the particulars of the stories Mackay tells form an engaging collage of social history quite apart from the general argument. The book offers amusing accounts of such febrile public insanity as Tulipomania 17th-century Holland, when a single tulip bulb of a rare species could be traded for the price of a mansion.
The bouts of commercial madness are as admonitory as they are hilarious—beware contemporary South Seas Bubbles! But there are some other lessons of a political, or of a political-psychological nature, that bear incisively upon our current experience circa 2017 in the United States.
In the preface to the 1852 edition of his book, Mackay notes that nations, like individuals, have their “seasons of excitement and and recklessness, when they care not what they do.”
We find whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly. . . .
We’re there, friends. The “one object,” the single “delusion” that has caught the attention of the impressionable crowd of the media is Donald Trump. It is he they pursue with excitement, recklessness, and madness. And just this last week, in the frenzy of l’affair Comey, they have reached that critical state that Elias Canetti, in his magnum opus Crowds and Power, called “the discharge,” that moment when the individuals who make up a crowd shed their individuality and begin behaving as a single entity.
Canetti’s analysis of crowds is deeply idiosyncratic. But he grasped one key element of the phenomenon, summed up in the second noun of his title: The activity of the crowd is intimately bound up with the desire for and the exhibition of power.
align=”left” The “one object,” the single “delusion” that has caught the attention of impressionable crowd of the media is Donald Trump. It is he they pursue with excitement, recklessness, and madness. And just this last week, in the frenzy of l’affair Comey, they have reached that critical state that Elias Canetti, in his magnum opus Crowds and Power, called “the discharge,” that moment when the individuals who make up a crowd shed their individuality and begin behaving as a single entity.
In its mounting hysteria, the anti-Trump frenzy exhibits both sides of the crowd phenomenon: the dissolution of individuality and the scrambling after power.
Anti-Trumpers sound more and more alike, as Max Boot, David Frum, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, Peter Wehner, Jonah Goldberg, and others grow soft and fuzzy around the edges, like Wither in C.S., Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, and seemingly merge into a single skirling voice. Trump is “unfit for office!” He is “infantile” and must step down! The 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove him from office!
Can anyone distinguish among these hoarse imprecations? And more to the point, does anyone outside the commentariat pay them any heed? When you look at a smudge of organic matter under a microscope you see a bustling world of activity. To the busy hydropods on the slide, their movements seem important, definitive even. But to the world outside, it is a meaningless jumble—infectious, possibly, and therefore potentially dangerous, but intrinsically besides the point.
It is the same with the hysterical anti-Trumpers.
Yesterday, I had the misfortune to be stuck in an airport for some hours while waiting for a delayed plane. The entertainment provided was a feed of CNN which for the entire time went from talking head to talking head to repeat, mantra-like, the the half-dozen talking points about Trump, Russia, James Comey, Impeachment, Sources say, Obstruction of Justice, Russia, Comey, Impeachment, Abuse of Power, Russia, Trump, Russia, Secrets, National Security, Russia, Comey, Impeachment.
And so on. I had not had such a large dose of the MSM in years. It was more nauseating than amusing, but, seen from the outside it did have a certain malignant comedy.
Reality check:
- There has been an intelligence investigation into Russian interference with the U.S. election since at least last July. It has turned up nothing—that is to say, nada, rien, zilch—to indicate collusion between Donald Trump and “the Russians.”
- James Comey worked for Donald Trump. Trump probably ought to have fired him the day he was inaugurated. In any event, he was completely within his rights to fire him at any time.
- The meme that Trump fired him to stop an investigation into Michael Flynn’s alleged “ties to Russia” is false. How do I know? James Comey told me.
- Donald Trump did not “leak” or otherwise reveal “highly classified” national security secrets to the Russian Ambassador when he met with him last week. How do I know? Trump’s National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster told me.
And on and on and on. The crowd that is the anti-Trump brigade speaks with one voice because it has become one mind.
Ross Douthat writes that we should invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office because, “like a child,” he “blurts out” national security secrets to impress foreign visitors.
But Trump did not tell the Russians any secrets. The whole story is ridiculous on its face. What Ross Douthat really meant was that he does not like Donald Trump, ergo he should not be President and if no legitimate grounds to impeach him can be found (they can’t) we should use Constitutional legerdemain to correct the election of 2016.
And here’s where the issue of power comes in. Ross Douthat, like the other faces of the anti-Trump deity, cannot absorb the fact that the people voted contrary to his wishes. It is he, Ross Douthat, and people like him, who should decide who gets to be President. Not the ill-informed, unwashed multitudes who voted for Donald Trump. Their efforts are nothing less an attempt to reverse or repeal the results of last year’s Presidential election. Donald Trump should acknowledge and publicize that fact.
align=”right” The media, having descended into its crowd posture, cannot countenance any Trumpian success. He has to fail, because in their group-think world, Trump’s success entails their eclipse.
Although he is not moving with the dispatch or thoroughness that some of us would like, Donald Trump represents an existential threat to the swamp dwellers in Washington and their enablers in the media. Hence their hysteria, and their unanimity. If he succeeds, Trump will render them not just irrelevant but powerless.
And although you would never glean this from the monolithic, hysterical anti-Trump eructation that is the mainstream media’s reporting on Trump, he is actually having notable successes on many fronts. Not every front, mind you, but on many fronts. There is the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and nomination of many federal judges; there is Trump’s energy policy, which has made the United States the world’s premier energy producer; there is his battle against onerous and counter-productive regulation, an ongoing project; there is his dismantling of Obamacare, another ongoing project; his tax-plan, which if enacted will be a gigantic spur to growth; there are his foreign-policy initiatives, which, with a bit of luck, will come to be seen as brilliant statesmanlike forays on the model of Nixon’s initiatives in Russia and China.
I could extend the list. But here’s the point: it wouldn’t matter what Trump accomplished. The media, having descended into its crowd posture, cannot countenance any Trumpian success. He has to fail, because in their group-think world, Trump’s success entails their eclipse.
They are not necessarily wrong about that, by the way. But their dishonesty, compacted with their hysteria and cynical bid for power, is a disfiguring testimony to the loss of political sanity.
Some people think that the anti-Trump cohort is winning because that is all they hear or read about. Every time they turn on CNN or open The New York Times it is the same story.
But the unanimity is illusory. It is a tiny fraternity shouting at you as it talks to itself. It really is a form of insanity, sad to witness, but dangerous if left unchecked.
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It is V.P. Pence and establishment Republicans who have everything to gain by quickly ushering Trump out of the White House. It is also V.P. Pence and those in the White House and Republicans in Congress who believe their fortunes will rise with Trump gone who are leaking on the hour. Obviously, it is not Democrats leaking. Politically, Dems would be better off with Trump continuing as an albatross for Republicans.
Other than conjecture, where’s your proof? Aren’t you doing with this statement exactly what the press is doing to the President? Never forget the many Obama loyalists still planted strategically throughout the White House, who undoubtedly bribe lower level admin staff to blab what they see and hear.
ALWAYS ask the Admins and Janitors what is REALLY going on. It is amazing what people will say unguarded in their presence. I believe this is the real source of the leaks.
What Ross Douthat really meant was that he does not like Donald Trump, ergo he should not be President and if no legitimate grounds to impeach him can be found (they can’t) we should use Constitutional legerdemain to correct the election of 2016.
Those are the two most notable features of the neverTrumpers.
1) They’re really not very bright.
2) They’re convinced that they are very bright indeed, indeed that they are an intellectual elite and deserve to lead us all.
In fact the psychological profile of the neverTrumpers is exactly like that of the left.
Articles by pundits like Jonah Goldberg and Kevin Williamson read like high school boys who just read three Wikipedia articles. Basically, they also bank on conventional wisdom and things never changing. When things start to change they are exposed as the middlebrows (if that) that they’ve always been.
God, how I cannot stand those guys.
I like both of them, particularly Jonah, but this is a sad period in his political punditry.
I have also been very disappointed in the stands they have taken against Trump. I would have thought they would have been supporters. Oh, well …
As those writers possess at least some measure of resistance to transparent populist themes, it is not at all surprising that they are not Trump supporters.
Or if not supporters at least able to put aside their differences with Trump and do some thoughtful analysis.
“thoughtful analysis” = Trump worship.
Right on cue!
The ignorant cult of self righteous goobers – and prideful!
Yes, I didn’t vote for Trump, and I have reservations about him, but once he was elected – well, he’s the POTUS now, it really isn’t still up for negotiation.
But for them it is still up for negotiation. If that means sedition, oh well.
Why would you think they would support a Lib huckster?
Because it’s the only way they can get those tax cuts for Wall Street that they incessantly bleat about.
Consider that the things Trump has done are those things he said he would do and THEY said he would not in calling him a Lib huckster like our still butt hurt never-Trump friend Hominid. So, just like with the election and their reading of the electorate, there were and are (not surprisingly) wrong about Trump. They just can’t admit they were wrong and take what he is doing that is good for conservatism because it is more important they be right and that the people they support SAY the right conservative things and never do them than to support someone actually DOING the right conservative things.
Exactly.
You’re close but no cigar. They’re too small to admit they’re wrong.
100% on the money. The little snowflakes are upset.
Thanks! Here’s to hoping they stay that way.
I’m of the opinion that they are really in need of a nice, lacy hankie.
Totally agree!
Jonah sold out to Manhattan Privilege. It’s what guys from West Manhattan seek to achieve in life. He’s a globalist.
I used to like Jonah but now absolutely despise him. Fox would be wise to rid itself of him
I feel your pain! I used to hang on their every word.
Used to!
You’re ruled by your emotions, like all Libs.
Jonah Goldberg milked one popular but superficial idea – the ‘Liberal Fascism’ theme – for all it was worth.
Nepotism also played a big role in his career – his mother is Lucianne Goldberg, a literary agent notorious for her role in the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Jonah was the quintessential fat loser who has never gotten over never getting la id in high school and hated people like Trump, the cool, rich jock who had it all….
What a revealing theory you have put together here.
Exactly
THE NEVER TRUMPERS ,THE DEEP STATE AND THE MEDIA ARE PUSHING THE 1-2%ERS WHO CAN’T BELIEVE RUMP IS REALLY GONNA DRAIN THE SWAMP AND CUT THE DEBT AND KILL THE 1-2%ER DREAMS TO BE AS RICH AS HRC & BILL AND EVEN $69 MILLION AUTHOR OBAMA.
Have you tried Belkin? They make great keyboards. I’ve never had one have a broken caps-lock key like you’ve got. You should check them out.
Are you supposedly saying something important with all those Caps.?
Funny and revealing.
You have an infantile world view.
Lol!!!
Trump cool? Really that’s what you think?
Baseless.
I can’t believe I liked both once. Their writing seems to me to have deteriorated badly – I can’t know how much is the writing and how much is the reader :-(
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You project – it’s the psyches of the Trumpsuckers that are identical to the Lib-Leftists. They’re whiners and losers who want government to take care of them.
I’m always a bit surprised when Trump supporters claim that their opponents are not very bright. You know, given that you just voted for an orange version of Kanye West, whom even his own staff now refers to as a “moron”.
I mean, really. Come to grips with it. You voted for a reality TV star, and, 3 months into his presidency, even his own party is talking impeachment. And you think the other guys are dumb?
RINO Never-Trumpers were talking impeachment as a vehicle before he was elected (since the nomination), if you’ll remember. Wishing doesn’t make it so, or create a crime where there is none. That is what is meant by not very bright (their strategic thinking has a great big hole in it) and middle brow (the electorate moved their food dish and they are lost because they haven’t the imagination to change their mindset).
Just FYI, “RINO” doesn’t mean a Republican who disagrees with you. A “RINO” is a Republican who disagrees with fundamental Republican principles. You know, like free trade.
And in what world of yours isn’t threatening Comey not witness intimidation? (Hint: it has to be one where 18 USC 1512(b) doesn’t exist.)
Ummm…Trump is the chief executive and Comey works for him. He is allowed to direct the DOJ and to direct the FBI to do things, and fire the FBI Director if he chooses, so there is no question of obstruction of anything. Not to mention the testimony of Comey himself, and McCabe, and others that no obstruction has occurred (not to mention NO COLLUSION or evidence of collusion with Russia) If it had happened, as you and the RINOS of the Establishment and the MSM try to imply from Comey’s memo, COMEY was required to report it immediately if he suspected such had occurred under NUMEROUS statutes and professionally as a lawyer (disbarment being possible for NOT reporting it). But let’s have Alan Dershowitz explain it to you: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/20/dershowitz_calls_special_counsel_mueller_good_news_for_trump_hes_going_to_find_no_crime.html
As to your claim about RINOS, the statement stands as it is the RINO caucus of McCain, Graham, et al who are the Never-Trumpers. That they also run parallel with the Establishment members who want the status quo – those who say all the right conservative things the Jonah Goldberg and National Review pundit crowd like to hear but who never actually DO those conservative things – is not a coincidence.
I notice that you don’t address my point that you, in fact, are a RINO. After all, you’re rejecting key parts of what it means to be a Republican — key elements that have been central to being a Republican for the past 60 years. Sorry, Pumpkin, but you don’t get to redefine Republicanism just because you decided to join the party. McCain’s position hasn’t changed. It’s the Trumpkins, who voted in someone opposed to the Republican Party, that have.
And, no, the President doesn’t get to direct the FBI investigations. Thats why the FBI director has a 10 year term. The president can fire him, sure. But then, as now, he faces obstruction of justice charges if that FBI director was investigating something the president didn’t want investigated. As Trump had admitted is the case.
Admitted it. To the Russians.
No, really. You can look it up. Why else do you think the FBI director has a 10 year term?
So keep putting lipstick on that pig. It won’t make her pretty or stop Trump from being impeached.
I don’t address because 1) you don’t know me 2) it is untrue and 3) it is merely silly ad hominem. I am not a Republican, I am a constitutional conservative, thank you. I am certainly not an “establishment” Republican beholding the Chamber of Commerce, for instance, which would require support of unchecked immigration and amnesty to be a “Republican” in their minds. Sorry, Mutha, but you don’t get to define Republicansim at all because nobody made you the authority in charge of anything but your own keyboard. I would submit that the current brand of what you call “Republicanism” is the aberration compared to Republicans of the past.
As to the rest of your BS, a 10 year term doesn’t mean he can’t direct the person that works for him as Alan Dershowitz explained so well (and you obviously didn’t bother to read or watch – hence your continued ignorance on the matter). Your argument is fallacious 1) as Comey testified to Congress in March AFTER the dinner in February that nobody had attempted to obstruct the investigation 2) as McCabe JUST testified to Congress that no obstruction or attempt at obstruction has occurred and 3) the investigation continued (and wasn’t being conducted by Comey, but by investigators who kept on doing what they were doing after Comey was gone).
As to the Oval Office BS story you are referencing, everyone in the room has said ALL of the things reported never happened, including LAVROV. That an unnamed source hostile to Trump who wasn’t in the room is saying something different and a hostile press will report it as “fact” to generate “fake news” and you will parrot it and continue to parrot it after it has been debunked shows the quality of your thinking and the extent of your never-Trump butt hurt attitude. Get over it. Your guy lost in the primary. Hillary lost the election. Fair and square. Trump beat them.
So, no, really you SHOULD actually look it up and perhaps take a course or two on Government before you try to comment on things you don’t understand.
Dershowitz isn’t a constitutional scholar. His area is criminal law. Also, he’ll say or write anything you pay him to — or are you suggesting that OJ really is innocent?
And, no, I dont determine what makes a Republican. The Republican Party does. And we have 50 years of their platforms to tell us that, no, Trump isn’t a Republican. And neither are his supporters.
Everyone in the room. Except Trump. You always seem to ignore him. Because he admitted it. And we have official WH meeting summaries to support it. Just FYI, that’s not hearsay. Those summaries confirm obstruction of justice, sufficient for the House. (No, the House doesn’t have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Dershowitz is out of his depth on that)
Wow. You also need a course in jurisprudence along with Government. You see, to charge someone you need a predicate act – a crime. With no crime, no charges. This is not a Constitutional issue, but one of statute and law proscribing and prescribing what constitutes a crime under those statutes and laws. Everything Trump has done is certainly within his Constitutional authority and the Plenary and Unitary powers of the Executive. As Dershowitz points out, there is no crime committed – no statute or law violated – no matter how much you dislike Trump or disagree with him.
You have your opinions because you are ignorant or miseducated as to the points you are making. If you actually research the facts, rather than relying on your feelings and letting them lead you to believe whatever you read that is negative about Trump, perhaps your attitude will change. But that would require an open and inquiring mind, Mutha. Based on your statements, doesn’t seem likely.
Oh, and NO you don’t have official White House meeting summaries or statements by Trump. You have the word of an anonymous source that said these things – the WaPo et al go to pains to say “WE HAVE NOT SEEN THE MEMO, BUT WE WERE TOLD” re both Comey AND the White House meetings . And misconstruing what Trump says to narrowly fit what they WANT him to have said doesn’t make it so.
So you’re saying that the NYT ran with a story quoting a summary that either exists or doesn’t exist and which is sure to be subpoenaed by Congress if it exists — so that the NYT story will be either confirmed or debunked in short order and the NYT knows this. And you think they ran with the story without being pretty sure it’s accurate?
Really? You think that’s the case? You want to put money on that?
Also, since we’re talking jurisprudence, Congress can decide something constitutes obstruction even if it doesn’t meet the criminal definition. Yeah, I know. But it’s true. A high crime and misdemeanor doesn’t actually have to be a crime. Shocking. But there it is.
Again..Wow! Ummm…yeah, exactly that re the NYT, WaPo etc. Who do you think will report they were wrong and manufactured the report? Themselves? They are the media and they decide what they will print and, surprise, it won’t be that they purposely published fake news to undermine a President they don’t agree with because they are biased. Perhaps this will explain it for you: https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/?utm_source=POLITICO.EU&utm_campaign=ab6d830a9d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_10959edeb5-ab6d830a9d-189799085
Examples? NYT/WaPo/McClatchy report throughout the campaign on information on Trump’s campaign from surveillance. They post a headline “Trump “wire-tapped” in Trump Tower”. Trump posts twitter based on their reporting. THEY then claim that he lied with ludicrous attempts to construe what he said as meaning Obama personally traveled to Trump Tower, unscrewed the phone and put in a bug. Then we get the charge from Judge Nap that the British HAD surveilled Trump…and the MSM and Brits had a fit!
What did we find out? After throwing a fit and lying about it…the Brits admit that, yes, they ARE the ones who turned the information over to the US. What else did we find out? That, yes, Susan Rice unmasked people in these intercepts and that the intercepts had NOTHING to do with Russia and were private political communications of Americans.
The only identifiable crimes in any of that would be 1) surveillance of American citizens 2) unmasking said citizens for a non-National Security reason after claiming it WAS about National Security and 3) the leaks of classified intel (re Flynn) that relied on those intercepts and unmaskings. Now, how was all of that reported and have you seen any retractions? So yeah, I’ll put money on it because it happens ALL THE F’ING TIME.
Sorry, but no. They have to have an actual crime, not just some political BS. But beyond that, they would have to have evidence of a predicate act, and they don’t nor will they. For instance, Slick Willy was impeached for perjury in a civil case and the underlying and associated acts. Not for lying to the American people or for sexually harassing an intern.
Accolades for all your replies. Here’s what I’ll put money on: you and I, and a bunch of others who read Epstein’s Mother, wouldn’t want him on our jury.
Wow. So you’re saying somebody came up with proof that, when the country elects an incompetent reality TV start with narcissistic personality disorder, whom his own staff calls a “moron,” that the news media reports on this. Truly shocking.
No, sorry, witness intimidation is an identifiable crime. So is violation of the Emoluments Clause. And so is obstruction of justice. Now, you may wish this wasn’t the case. And I’m sure there are some paid hacks out there willing to tell you that firing the FBI director because he was investigating you, and then telling the Russian ambassador that that’s exactly what you did, somehow isn’t “obstruction” for purposes of the House impeachment charges. But they’re either idiots or lying.
And, let’s be honest here, you know as well as I do that you can’t tell the difference. After all, you seem to think that impeachment requires a criminal offense. Anyone who told you that is wrong. So — are they idiots, or are they lying?
No, Harvard came up with the proof though their study. What is remarkable is the use of “fake news”by the Dems and MSM and people like you because they don’t like losing an election, being out of power, and the possibility that the country will be turned back from the ruinous progressive path and policies that you love so well. You are apoplectic and hysterical about policies the Dems, including Hillary and Obama, supported less than 10 years ago but have somehow become anathema when we return to those policies! Obama will be all but erased from history and his time in office a momentary blip on the radar. Imagine if we turn the clock back to the policies of the ’80s! We will rescue the country and put it back on the correct path – which means adherence to the Constitution and the Rule of Law.
Then you go off into fantasy, fever swamp land just to prove the hysterical overreach. One, it has been determined by past Supreme Court rulings that things like a foreign person purchasing a hotel room in fair exchange – or a house or anything else where equitable value is received in a transaction – would not violate the Emoluments Clause. Again, however, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to a Foundation, such as the Clintons ran, that does nothing with the money but fund their travel and staff salaries with more than 90% of the money, would certainly violate the Emoluments Clause – and did. As with all things, if you want to know what dirty deeds the Dems have done, just look at what they accuse the Republicans of doing and you can bet that is it – both displacement and a smoke screen for their own illegality.
So, you see, you don’t believe that Hillary actually violating the Emoluments Clause with hundreds of millions of dollars was real but that the made up violations by Trump, for the price of a few hotel rooms and dinners (which are allowed under the clause as determined by the Supreme Court) is a damning indictment. If nothing else, this should point out to you how unbalanced and fantastic your conspiracy theories are. I will tell you what I told the never-Trumpers in the campaign every time they came up with the next scheme to thwart the will of the people voting for
Trump – all you are doing is setting yourself up for another, bigger disappointment when it doesn’t happen.
This is all fantasy and political smoke screens from Dems and the media. If you read the accounts of Hillary’s campaign, you will find that ALL of these memes were developed within 48 hours of the loss by her staff to explain the loss. The MSM has faithfully carried the water for four months. But what they are coming to realize is the precipice they are on – both the Dems and the media. The Dem leaders have pulled back because they realize they have nothing and they don’t want to be seen by the voters as trying to thwart a legal election and reverse it by extra-legal means. They know what this would mean to their future. The MSM executives, if not the rabid journalists and editors, know that their credibility is on the line. They have put it out there and looked like fools in the service of their cause – but if they push it too far and the bubble pops with the public, they go down forever.
Just FYI, “fake news” isn’t “news I don’t like.”
And, no, Hillary didn’t violate the Emoluments Clause, because that money didn’t end up in her pocket while she was in government. And, no, they are not allowed under a clause as determined by the Supreme Court. (I’d love to see that citation.)
A few years ago, someone tweeted asking whether you could impeach a president for incompetence. The answer is, yes, yes you can.
Just an FYI – the “fake news” people got their panties in a bunch about was just click bait by websites on social media. Everyone knew what it was – it is no different than the push polls done by politicians all the time. What “fake news” has become, however, is the MSM just reporting anything and everything – with a thin veneer of “anonymous sourcing – to try to thwart or bring down a President they didn’t want to be elected and that they disagree with.
Again, if you want to know what the MSM/Libs/Left are actually up to themselves, see what they are accusing the Right of doing. It is uncannily accurate. So when the NYT reports on Oval Office conversation through anonymous sources, for instance, and everyone that was actually IN THE ROOM refutes the story, yet the NYT/MSM still try to make an issue of it – that is “fake news” or propaganda as it used to be called. When the MSM gave up its thin coating of non-partisan professionalism and became advocates – which actually happened sometime ago but is now blatantly evident because they don’t care who knows – they lost the ability to shape opinion to their will.
What they are beginning to realize is that they overstepped and are on the verge of reaping the whirlwind – and it may be too late for them anyway.
Whether Clinton violated the Emoluments Clause through her association with the Clinton Foundation is ambiguous because there are no specific instructions for how to handle foreign government donations to a charity that has ties to a State Department employee. The department’s own rules don’t address this scenario, either. But she used the money to cover travel expenses for Clinton Foundation activities, which is “in her pocket”, and to pay staff that worked for her at both State and the Foundation.
Dave Kopel, a constitutional law professor at Denver University, said he believed the clause’s intentionally broad phrasing about gifts of “any kind whatever,” would cover indirect gifts via the foundation. Then there is Bill….there is a corresponding law to the Emoluments Clause, the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, that says federal government employees and their spouses can face a civil penalty if they accept gifts from foreign governments.
None of this has ever been litigated, but there is at least a case to be investigated. Especially given the problems with the Clinton Foundation IRS 990 filings for their financials that had to be withdrawn for several years and redone (we still haven’t seen the revisions”, because if they were left as they were there was REAL trouble on the horizon. As long as they restate them appropriately and pay any fines, that will be OK with the IRS…but the public might still have a BIG problem with it.
As to your last statement, that is ludicrous and NO, no you can’t. That is why we have elections – otherwise Carter would have certainly been impeached if it were possible (and it isn’t).
A president can be impeached for any reason the House decides. Including incompetence. Seriously. Under common law at the time the Constitution was drafted, “high crimes and misdemeanors” included appointing incompetent subordinates.
And while I agree that Clinton’s stuff shouldn’t have been allowed, that really was an area for govt ethics and GAO. This is the president. And it’s ongoing and more flagrant. He’s already been warned and ignored the warning.
First, there is nothing for Trump to be “warned” about – perhaps you missed the part about the Supreme Court having ruled (re the Foreign Gifts act) that an exchange of money for goods and services of like value” (such as a meal or hotel room) would not qualify. So there is no “there there” with Trump, whereas Hilary was doing it left and right even if the press and Comey and Holder and Lynch and YOU give her a pass on it.
Try to fly that “high crimes and misdemeanors” rhetoric past anyone with a brain – which leaves out Maxine Walters and any of the other loony left – and you’ll get laughed out of town. The Congress is still Republican and likely to stay that way. No such proceedings will be occurring.
If someone obstructs a Federal Investigation into a possible violation of law,
and that investigation ends in the knowledge that the initial suspect(s) did not commit the crime
or ends in the investigators inability to adequately prove that the suspect(s) committed the crime,
or the investigation reveals no crime was committed..,
any one of those realities does not then retroactively permit those that obstructed the Federal Investigation to obstruct that Federal Investigation.
The obstructors remain vulnerable to an Obstruction of Justice Charge.
Again, a misunderstanding or misinterpretation – willful or otherwise. The obstruction is the predicate act, if it occurs. What was said above was that such a predicate act, obstruction, has to occur and there has to be sufficient, legally obtained, substantive evidence of the predicate act that would lead to a successful prosecution (or arguably so). In these types of crimes, as Professor Dershowitz points out if you bother to watch or read the link I posted, it then goes to intent – which is hard (read impossible) to prove. As Comey realized when he didn’t report it, as he would be required to do under various statutes, what Trump said does not rise to that level by a mile nor would it be provable.
However, sometimes in can be proven – such as with Hillary and her emails. She had a server. The presence of her server and her use of it to receive classified emails showed intent (even though USC 18 does NOT require intent and specifically says “negligence in handling” classified material is sufficient for violation of the statute). The set up and use of the email server was the predicate act that led to the violations of the other sections of USC 18 – one in which the real, verifiable presence of the server is prima facia evidence of intent to use the server for the purposes of sending and receiving emails to avoid State Department IG and lawful Congressional oversite. That Comey, after listing all the violations of USC 18 would invent the presence of “intent” as a standard in the statute is less unbelievable than the fact that, after inventing it, he had bald faced evidence of the intent that he invented! If you want to know why he should be fired, this would be Exhibit A.
It was not my intent to misrepresent facts, that is something I “try” not to do.
I apparently entered a conversation late and misunderstood your post.
I apologize and concur with almost all you said.
As to Comey’s firing, I felt Obama should have fired him last fall; I felt Trump, on inauguration Day should have requested his resignation.
But, in keeping Comey on past the announcement of the FBI investigation, into possible collusion by Trump “associates” and The Russians, after publicly singing Comey’s praises, Trump placed himself in a politically and possibly legally (not knowing all the facts) awkward position.
And the justification to fire Comey had [defacto] exceed its expiration date.
“Not knowing all the facts.” Boy, you can say that again.
Also, Dershowitz is smart enough to know that you don’t need a statute or law violated for the House to impeach and the Senate to convict. So, again, he’s not an idiot. Which means he’s a liar.
Ummmmhmmmm….you go on believing that in your fantasy world, Mutha, and see how that comes out for you. Just like with the election. As my grandad used to say, “Crap in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first.”
At this point, I really don’t care if he gets impeached. His agenda is dead. Good enough for me to take.
Or do you disagree with that, too, and think McConnell isn’t telling the truth when he says exactly that? In which case, I’ll have to ask: how’s that wall going?
Oh, that is a hoot! It is four months in, he is halfway to repealing Obamacare, has a conservative Supreme to replace Scalia (instead of Garland), has revoked all or nearly all of Obama’s executive orders already, and has started on the border wall and immigration. (In case you didn’t notice, money was already appropriated for the wall previously and he has discretionary money that can be used – that is why they have bids and specifications out for construction). We also, finally, have an actual budget and not a continuing resolution. He has YEARS to go and his agenda is moving forward. That you think it is dead due to this puny, petty BS is hilarious! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you think getting a bill through the House by 3 votes even though you have a 30+ majority is “half way,” you clearly don’t know how our government works. McConnell has already said it’s DOA. Along with his tax plan. Along with his budget. Along with his wall.
Incidentally, since it looks like Obamacare his here to stay, you might want to have that giggling checked out. They actually have medication for they today, and it’s covered.
Oh, geez. Wow again. Look, the bill is – even in reconciliation – a funding bill. That has to originate in the House. The Senate is restricted as to what they can do by their own rules on reconciliation bills. No matter what they pass, and they will pass something, the two bills will go to a joint committee for negotiations for a final joint bill. One that will have to pass both the House and the Senate. Republicans are more than aware they have to do it, even if RINO squishes really don’t want to – the close vote was due to them. Once they realize they can’t derail it – as they just found out – the bill will pass (as long as they don’t try to appease the moderates and hack off the conservatives who have more votes). The Dems are just making themselves the “dummy” in this little game of bridge by not participating.
You think you are standing up to the powerful but in truth you are serving them. They want to choose who runs things, not the voters. In truth you are looking to overturn the will of the American people in favor of things that they rejected.
By “the will of the American people,” you mean the 30% who voted for Trump, right?
Just FYI, the “American people” actually voted for Clinton, by 3 million votes, and 2% of the total. It was just a factor of Trump getting 78,000 more votes in 3 states that got him the electoral college. If you’re going to pull that “will of the people” nonsense, sorry, but it doesn’t work your way. And with Trump’s approval ratings now in the upper 30s, you know as well as I do that he’d lose the election today.
Ummm….again, you need a good course in Government, Mutha. Our electoral system, for reasons explained in Federalist No. 68, is based on the electoral votes of the states, not a plurality of the popular vote…and for very good reason as this election demonstrated. So the fact that Hillary won more votes in limited regional areas had no bearing on the results of the election. Perhaps if you Dems realized that – and bringing this up points to you being a Dem not a never-Trumper – Hillary would have run a different campaign. Just as, if it had been based on the popular vote instead, Trump would have run a different campaign with different strategy.
Shh… don’t tell Epstein’s Mother how his logic is flawed, let them run in 2020 with that same strategy!
Yes. Just let them keep talking.
Then don’t pretend it’s the “will of the people” when you admit the will of the people is irrelevant.
Ah, but it is! Just not the concentrated, narrow, regional political desires of LA, Boston, NYC etc. Rather the will of the populace as a whole through proportional representation – as further demonstrated in the Congressional majorities in the House and Senate which extended to the Electoral College. As elucidated in Federalist 68, that is EXACTLY what was intended with this system.
No, sorry, “the people” are not geography. They are a collection of individuals. And if individuals prefer to live in cities, that does not suddenly make individuals living in rural areas suddenly more representative of “the people.”
Federalist 68 was not interested in “the will of the people.” After all, the President, under Federalist 68, wasn’t even an elected position, but an appointed one — appointed by electors. Which is why Hamilton says:
So, tell me — what was the name of the elector you voted for? And how did you know that elector was going to make the right choice so that, as Hamilton says:
We know that Hamilton’s next sentence — ” the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union,…” — obviously no longer apply to the nation-wide elections we hold today.
Sounds like that little but significant change we made to how the electoral college is selected did exactly the opposite of what Hamilton wanted.
And again, Wow! You should take that governments course! For purposes of residency, governance and voting, we have these geographical entities known as “States”. They were developed as states in the classical use of that word – with political powers, autonomy, and governance. Within those states, there are further representative subdivisions of Two Senate seats and various proportional House seats based on populations. These subdivisions have electors also based on population that, much like Senators, equalize the balance of power between small and large states as each state has 2 – but the House is proportional representation so that large states still have appropriate representation. The electoral college maintains that balance in the election of the President. It isn’t that rural areas are more representative, but that they are represented EQUALLY and cannot be dictated to by the large, urban centers. So, when Trump wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida but loses Madison, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Miami – he STILL wins the state and by winning those states, while losing the cities, he still won the election. Otherwise for the first 150 years or so, all our Presidents would have been from New York. Everyone has been fine with this system, until the whiny Dems threw a tantrum and have to change the game (rig it) so that it favors them. Sorry, Mutha, not happening. You lost. Get right with it.
When Hamilton was writing, there were no political parties or infrastructure. The parties have been grafted onto that structure and have served the role of the “persons, selected by their fellow citizens” as the electors come from among the party and elected officials the people have chosen to represent them. This used to result in the parties just picking the candidates in proverbial smoke-filled rooms in the past, but that changed and we now have the primary system and voters select the candidate and that is ratified by the parties at conventions. You should really study up on the history of all of this because, again, you are apparently ignorant.
Hamilton’s words as the the “little arts of popularity” reflect his time – not a time when Hillary’s whole raison d’etre for her campaign was “I am a woman and it is my turn”. So, please, don’t act like Trump is the first politician to rely on popularity to win an election (imagine that!) or that the lack of popularity somehow conveys gravitas. It reflects the will of the people. Dems and the MSM continue to reject the lessons at their peril. You, however, by not educating yourself will merely remain deluded.
Actually, that has nothing to do with the Constitution. States dont have to have a winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes. Change that, and the “will of the people” will actually reflect who wins the presidency. In the meantime, you’re hanging your hat on a justification that you would have opposed as undemocrqtoc had a Democrat won that way.
Ummm…again, you should check out history. The Dems, after the 68 debacle, are the ones that changed the rules on the primaries and election laws to what they are now (they controlled most all of the state legislatures back then, so the Republican Party accepted the changes). These are your rules. But, anyway, yeah it would be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court – by the Dems! If you look at the map from the last election, proportional voting allocation – which would still fall to the Congressional District level and not be a raw vote – would make things WORSE for the Dems. It also wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
Oh, and no – if Hillary had won we wouldn’t have revolted because she won the election. We didn’t revolt when Obama won. We accept the system. No, we would have revolted when she started trying to enact her agenda if it impinged on our Constitutional rights….but not because she won.
Actually, Ohio and Maine have proportional representation. The states can do whatever they want. And, no, it would not have made things worse, since it wouldn’t necessarily fall to the congressional district level.
Face it, Trump lost by 3 million votes and he won the electoral college by 78,000 votes in 3 states. He would lose today — and if Georgia is any indicator, the Republicans will lose the House in 2018. Trump will resign shortly thereafter. His approval rating is at 38%, which is pretty much the lowest possible that any presidential candidate can get, since there will always be 38% who will support a candidate just on partisan grounds.
And if you really think a democracy can sustain having the will of the majority thwarted permanently on geographical grounds, then you had better work to significantly lessen the power of presidency. Because you know and I know that that is just not a sustainable situation.
“Will of the people” indeed.
Ummmmm….we’ve been around for over 250 years with this system and it works fine except for your and the Dems whining whenever you lose, as if it is your God given right to win elections. If anything you said had any bearing on the election – since you are only talking about fantasy – it might be different. 3 million votes make no difference, but they also stopped counting everywhere else when the results were clear, so many votes in areas that didn’t matter don’t even get counted –
except when California and NY etc keep counting just to push the issues (many military votes, even in Florida in 2000 for instance, go uncounted). But the point is you, and the Dems, are just trying to find a way to subvert a system that doesn’t work for you…and that supports a vastly different country than what YOU want to change it into. Sorry – that is why you lost the election, not the system.
See, that’s actually “fake news” — they don’t stop counting when it no longer makes any difference. Whoever told you that was lying. And you can tell, because they publish the final count and only the final count is certified.
And when the Democrats win in November 2018, and if the Supreme Court rejects gerrymandering, I expect to hear lots of Republican wailing and gnashing of teeth. Particularly after the investigations of Trump start in earnest. (“Oh, my goodness! Republicans never ran constant investigations of Democrats before!”)
Heavy sigh. It costs money to count votes – they end it as early as possible. If they process all the ballots on the first run through and the person wins by 200,000 votes and there are 100,000 outstanding paper ballots it makes no difference in the results. So when the losing candidate concedes, they stop counting – both because they conceded and because it doesn’t matter. That is the final count that is certified. Except in the case of CA that went on for days trying to make a point – as did other cities in liberal land. How about we talk about the voting, you know, where places like Detroit had tens of thousands of more votes than voters? All of that will soon be getting explored by Trump’s new commission. So hold on to your hat, Mutha.
Again, look at the map from the election. You really think the Dems are going to take the house? Because your boy Nate Silver says it isn’t very likely unless things get worse. This will all play out to the detriment of the Dems by then…oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Dems when they lose again. You are worse than ignorant, you are a fool if you think otherwise. Will they gain seats? Maybe, but not anywhere near the “wave” they would need to change the House. The Dems will likely lose several seats in the Senate. So keep chasing those unicorns instead of fixing your party, Dems.
I don’t know who told you that, but it’s clearly wrong. Every vote is counted, aside from what you’d expect from human error and spoilage. That’s why official totals don’t come out for days later.
You might want to look that up.
And, yes, “unless things get worse.” Over the past 120 days, tell me when has it not gotten worse for Trump? And that’s putting aside the possibility of a recession which, if historical trends are followed, is likely.
Dude. C’mon. If you haven’t guessed I’ve been involved in government and counting votes. Nobody told me, it is what I have witnessed in multiple states. So, please don’t tell me what I know. Ballots are all pretty much optically counted now in any but the smallest areas, so the vote totals for votes the day of are immediately available. What is left is the remaining paper/absentee ballots and spoiled ballots. If there aren’t enough to make a difference in any races, they don’t bother to count them.
You might want to look that up.
Unless things get worse, which means “something that actually occurred is uncovered” as in, you know, evidence beyond Dem/MSM innuendo, rumors and wishful thinking. Because that is all it is right now. As Dr. Victor Davis Hanson said, it is the MSM/Dems’ version of the “Big Lie”. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/20/victor_davis_hanson_whole_trump-russia-collusion_story_is_a_big_lie.html
Before the year is out, we’ll have 3.5% to 4% growth in GDP. So no hope for you there, Mutha.
Spoiled ballots don’t count, so of course they’re not counted. And absentee ballots can be easily optically counted. Since the law in every state I’ve seen requires them to be counted for the official count, you’re saying that, while nobody ever told you they’re not counted, you’re pretty sure this is the case because…?
You’re confusing when they declare a winner with when they publish the official results.
The only way the US economy can produce 3.5%-4% GDP growth is by overheating. Which means a recession in 2018.
Again, Wow. You just need to give up and go to bed. Each state and county has rules for reviewing spoiled ballots if it is a close enough race. That was the whole thing about Florida, for God’s sake! Gore wanted to change the rules on HOW those ballots were examined AFTER the election was run by the agreed rules. The absentee ballots take weeks to count and they start counting them before the date of the election, so much of the early vote is known on election day. But the ballots mailed at the end of the cycle don’t arrive until near the election and they have to be opened and counted – which takes several days, especially if they matter (the election is close). Again, if the winner is up by more votes than the total of the ballots outstanding – especially if there is a large margin for the winner – they are never counted. You seem to be hung up on “told” but this is a fact of operations…especially after the loser concedes. They certify their final counts and send them on to the state at that point. But, again, California spent the money and kept counting for days to enlarge Hillary’s margin. You may think it is different, but it is not…not every vote gets counted in those cases…only when there is a close race.
You’re just confused in general. Remember what Mark Twain said and try to live by it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Dude, the economy grew at 7% to 9% under Reagan…you have no idea what you are talking about. The GDP grew from between 7% to 9% from 1980 to 1990 – even up to 11% in 1983 as you can see in the historic GDP numbers below. Go to bed and stop being silly.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b28a199181407f51101c0fcf78fa48db2519764b9343becc3315ce69b5eb2da.png
Look at real GDP growth rate.
http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate
Or put it in context
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
The trend-line is downward. Reagan came off of stagflation and was at the start of the computer revolution. Even the Chinese aren’t going to be hitting 7-9%. Sorry, the demographics just aren’t there for you, plus most macroeconomists suspect that the Great Recession caused a permanent downward resetting of economic growth, world-wide. No, this is “regulation.” If it was, it wouldn’t be global. It’s demographic. The US may experience blips of 5%, but no real economist expects anything other than 2% as a long-term trend.
And we’re not talking about spoiled ballots. They’re spoiled. They don’t get counted. That’s the point.
Mutha, are you an economist now? Do you actually know what you are looking at, or are you Googling until you find a line going down that you like and saying, “Well, there you go! Says what I want it to say!” Put it in context? OK – Obama was the first President to NOT have over 3% growth at any time in his term, coming OFF a huge recession, which has NEVER happened. His policies were repressive relative to business and economic growth. By removing those road blocks we get to over 3% growth naturally. By lessening the corporate tax from 35% to 15% and bringing the $3 trillion dollars in money sitting offshore back into the United States, we will add another 3 to 4% growth – just not by the end of this year. But we will be back up where the economy should be.
Just because you and the Dems believe in the “New Normal” that your pet economists throw out to explain Obama’s failure, don’t take that rationalization as the sine qua non for the economy.
What do demographics have to do, specifically, with the growth of the economy? Explain that one, Mutha, if you can find a way. We have the highest per worker productivity in the world and have for some time. So what are you talking about? Is the population going to collapse? We won’t have workers? Because the reduction in illegal immigrants will increase wages and move unemployed citizens back into the work force.
Spoiled/rejected ballots, on the first count, are any ballots that don’t go through the machine and get counted for whatever reason – there are also spoiled ballots that are messed up by the voter and returned to the registrars (put in an envelope and a new ballot is given to the voter). The first type of ballot is subject to review (rejected by the machine for some reason) while the second type (in the pouch, are not).
On punch ballots, it could be hanging chads that cause a ballot to be rejected by the counting machine, as you may remember. On second count before certification, they had a process in Florida in 2000 (for instance) for seeing if a chad was “hanging” which indicated the hole had been punched for sure, but that the paper was still attached and fouled the machine. If you’ll remember, Gore wanted any dimple – not clearly punched, perhaps even a mistaken choice, whatever – to be counted (just in heavily Democratic areas, too). In other areas it can be because of a slight mutilation of the form, a misfeed in the machine, a bunch of things. After that count, if they can’t be read or discerned according to the rules, ballots are REJECTED, Again, go ask what YOUR local election rules are relative to counting – they print them up for you and they are probably on line.
No, I’m not an economist. But I did sleep at the University of Chicago. And had 2 Nobel prize-winning economists as profs.
So are the IMF and the OFR “pet economists”? What about the Bank of England? (And, no, transferring a bunch of offshore cash into the US isn’t going to boost economic growth aside from that one-time accounting benefit. Growth requires investment and that money offshore can already be used for investment, it just can’t be returned to shareholder without being taxed. And, I get that maybe you haven’t been paying attention to current events, but investment capital is dirt cheap right now.)
No serious economist believes 4-5% growth is achievable. See what I wrote about the Great Recession and a permanent reset.
And, yes, we are running out of workers. Particularly vis-a-vis retirees. As is China and all of the developed world. Please. This is basic economics. Read up on this.
Well whooop de freaking doo! Did you become them? Do you have their credentials? Because you should be better educated about these matters from University of Chicago – unless of course you are one of the young, indoctrinated liberals rather than the older crop that were taught to think for themselves rather than parrot the doctrinaire slogans of their party. You appear to be the former by your comments.
Yes, the International Monetary Fund is run by liberal economists like Paul Krugman (not that he is in the IMF, just an example of an economist like them) who spout this stuff not based on economic conditions, but their political beliefs and convictions as to how things SHOULD be. They continue to deny the very numbers I just posted for you from the 80s even existed – they continue to say it was impossible even though it happened. Get that? That explains them. So the liberal bureaucrats at the IMF and Office of Financial Research do not outweigh the real world or other economists simply because of where they work….especially when they have been so wrong so often.
You are wrong about the money off shore – it has already been distributed and these are the remaining corporate profits. So, no, the shareholders already got their money. This is money that, if brought out of foreign banks to the US for any reason, is subject to a 35% tax. Sorry, you are just believing the smoke and mirrors thrown up by the Dems to preserve a tax that does them no good. There are about 30 companies that hold most of this money, such as Apple and Pfizer. If the money is brought back on shore, we get the 15% in taxes AND the money would be reinvested here. What good is it doing US in the Caymans. Again, spouting doctrinaire pronouncements from your Dem leaders, Mutha – think for yourself.
To believe them, you would have to think them to be serious economists – which is a conflicting statement if you know economists. You can write whatever you want about a permanent reset, as can they, it doesn’t make it so (why I said it is not the sine qua non…I read what your wrote, and it is BS). As I said, those guys you are quoting say the 80s never happened because it conflicts with their theories due to their adherence to Keynesian economics and their rejection of the Laffer curve along with the Austrian School of Economics. So pick your economists, but any economist that rejects actual data from actual events and goes with theory due to their political ideology is sort of suspect, don’t you think?
HAHAHAHAHA! You’re are very funny, Mutha. You DO just pick up whatever meme the Dems put out in the papers, don’t you? There are between 93 and 96 million working age people out of the workforce right now in this country, the labor participation rate is near the lowest it has ever been. Some of those are people retiring, but a vast majority are NOT – they are unemployed and the economy is not generating enough jobs to employ them. In many sectors, this is because government policy has been to allow them to use H1B visas, for instance, to bring in programmers from India rather than use more expensive US citizens that are more than qualified for the work. So, yeah, we’ll lower their corporate taxes – but that money is going to be used to pay US workers after we shut off programs like that. It isn’t that we don’t have the jobs, it is the system that has been set up – by the guys at the Chamber of Commerce and such – to get cheap labor through using these programs (and promoting illegal immigration and amnesty).
As to China, they have SEVERAL demographic problems – pick your poison. Not only are they getting older, but their manpower faces depletion from the one-child policy. They have several men for every woman – and those men are all getting older with fewer to replace them because…ding, ding, ding….you have to have a man and a woman to make a child and you have to have two children just to maintain population. So China has a bunch of aging, single men that are going to die off. They did this so they would have cannon fodder for their military. However, that will soon collapse of its own weight. The risk is that they will go to war while they still have the capacity to use these single men.
This is all basic economics, look it up – just not in Krugman’s column. Expand yourself a little.
So — those numbers you cite; did you crunch those numbers yourself? You say the IMF denies their accuracy. Are you sure of their accuracy because you you crunched them? Because, if you didn’t, then you are obviously picking one group of experts over another. What is the reason for your choice — other than that they agree with your prejudices?
And, no, the labor participation rate is not near the lowest it has ever been. If you’re going to be making a fact-based argument, you should get the facts right. The rate right now is about 63%. That’s the same as it was in 1977. Labor force participation rates in the 1940s to the early 1970s were in the 58-59% rate. You’ll notice that the participation rate increases with the baby boomer generation. And now that they’re retiring, …
You’ll also notice that labor force participation rates in the United States have been in decline since 1999.
https://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS11300000_1948_2017_all_period_M04_data.gif
Please name your “real world economists.” No, really.
And just FYI, Krugman has a Nobel. I know you hate this fact. But there it is.
No, Mutha, you don’t have to crunch the numbers – the St. Louis Federal Reserve and Bureau of Economic Analysis do that for you from government reports…without legerdemain used by economists to twist the numbers to fit their theory. So, yeah, official government reports of official government numbers is my source – not politically contrived numbers.
We don’t know whether historians will call it the Great Expansion of the 1980’s or Reagan’s Great Expansion, but we do know from official economic statistics that the seven year period from 1982 to 1989 was the greatest, consistent burst of economic activity ever seen in the U.S. In fact, it was the greatest economic expansion the world has ever seen – in any country, at any time. Yet the economists YOU cite deny it happened – the Dems deny it happened, libs deny it happened. Why is that?
The rates increased after the 50s because – ta dah! – more women entered the work force! So the numbers naturally increased – but nice bit of BS spinning you tried there, Mutha.
As to Krugman, is that really where you want to hang your hat? As Jeffrey Sachs wrote tin 2015:
… rather than a new recession, or an ongoing depression, the US unemployment rate has fallen from 8.6% in November 2011 to 5.8% in November 2014. Real economic growth in 2011 stood at 1.6%, and the IMF expects it to be 2.2% for 2014 as a whole… [It is likely] that aggregate growth for all of 2015 will be above 3%.
Sachs, who is every bit as left wing as Krugman, writes:
Not one of [Krugman’s] New York Times commentaries in the first half of 2013, when “austerian” deficit cutting was taking effect, forecast a major reduction in unemployment or that economic growth would recover to brisk rates. On the contrary, ‘the disastrous turn toward austerity has destroyed millions of jobs and ruined many lives,’ he argued, with the US Congress exposing Americans to ‘the imminent threat of severe economic damage from short-term spending cuts.’ As a result,’Full recovery still looks a very long way off,’ he warned. ‘And I’m beginning to worry that it may never happen.’
And Sachs makes the more general point that you can believe in progressive government without buying into Krugman’s kooky economic theories:
There is nothing progressive about large budget deficits and a rising debt-to-GDP ratio. After all, large deficits have no reliable effect on reducing unemployment, and deficit reduction can be consistent with falling unemployment.
University of Chicago economist John Cochrane writes that Krugman’s economic view of the world is not taught in any major economics graduate schools, is not taken seriously at academic conferences and is not considered acceptable by any professional economics journals.
Monetary economist Scott Sumner points out that there is no empirical evidence to support Krugman’s views:
… it would be useful to do a more systematic study of fiscal austerity, but the Keynesians don’t seem to know how to do so. All I see are cross sectional studies that mix together countries with an independent monetary policy, with those that lack an independent monetary policy (like the Eurozone members.) Mark Sadowski did a regression with only those countries having an independent monetary policy, and found the effect went away. No correlation between austerity and growth. This objection to Krugman’s graphs has been made over and over again, but he never responds.
So Krugman, who espouses your brand of economics and “data crunching” (read manipulation) is a prime example and why I use him to illustrate your thinking – you should rethink it. I could go on about Krugman, but let me kill two birds with one stone – here are 15 Nobel winning economists that disagree with Krugman – and you and to who you may refer in that regard:
Kenneth Arrow Stanford University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Robert Engle New York University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Eugene Fama The University of Chicago Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Lars Peter Hansen University of Chicago Professor of Economics
Oliver Hart Harvard University Professor of Economics
James Heckman University of Chicago Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Finn E. Kydland University of California at Santa Barbara Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Robert Lucas University of Chicago Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Eric Maskin Harvard University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Harry Markowitz University of California at San Diego Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Dale Mortensen Northwestern University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Roger Myerson University of Chicago Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Edmund Phelps Columbia University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Thomas Sargent New York University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Thomas C. Schelling Harvard University and University of Maryland Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
William Sharpe Stanford University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Vernon Smith Chapman University Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Oliver Williamson University of California at Berkeley Professor of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics
Dude. Really. You’re becoming Trumpian. 1982-89 was not the greatest economic expansion in the world. From 1992 to today, China’s economic growth has never dipped below 6.9%, and was frequently north of 10%. In relative and absolute terms, it was higher. 1982-89 was not even the greatest economic expansion in the 20th Century in the US — that belongs to 1961-69. Nor was it the longest — that was Clinton, 1991-2001.
And none of those economists you list, to my knowledge, have suggested that the US economic growth rate could be boosted to 4-5%. All you’ve done is listed a bunch of economists who disagree with Krugman’s Keynesian stimulus ideas. You’ve not listed any who think reducing regulation can boost US economic growth all that much. (The consensus is about 0.5% — nothing to sneeze at, but 2.5% from 2%, not 4-5%.) Demography is your killer here.
http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2016/october/new-normal-for-gdp-growth/
And, incidentally, the regulatory burden in the US was higher in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet growth was higher, until the Oil Shock permanently shifted it downward. The Reagan boost did not affect the long-term trend line, though it did break stagflation (again, nothing to sneeze at).
Dude. Really. Go look up the economists and data for yourself, there is plenty out there! Do your own research, educate yourself, and get our of your “only the liberal Dems are correct about anything” mindset – it will help you reexamine those numbers you quote re China and Bill Clinton (the Reagan Boom carried through Bush to Clinton – so that would be 1980 to 1992 and beyond). It created $30T in new wealth – so please, get a life and get a clue.
Now, I am trying to run a business and don’t have time to keep pissing around with your foolishness during the work week. But here is a paper for you, one more time, with a whole bunch of data and attributions that you can follow up on. http://www.nber.org/papers/w21035 As you will see, this argues that tax cuts targeted at the lower 90% (not the upper 10%) do spur growth, which is why overall tax reductions across the board make sense and work.
If you can open your mind and keep your head from exploding, you will see there are two mechanisms in play that indicates the top 10% also spur the economy. One is that a cut in tax rates makes the risks of entrepreneurship more appealing. The other is that higher income earners, if taxed less, might save more and this will then finance the next round of investment in industry, thus creating jobs. That second is rather important: it’s the flip side of what Ben Bernanke means when he talks about the great global savings glut. Having more savings around will reduce the risk adjusted return to capital, just what everyone is talking about. More savings will thus reduce that rate and so presumably spur more entrepreneurship and so on. However, the usual channels by which we think that top 10% income tax cuts might affect employment aren’t likely to make themselves known over the 5-7 or so years of the average business cycle. They just take longer than that.
I just provided you with the economic data. Which part of it do you disagree with?
Also, I get the feeling you don’t understand that paper. It doesn’t say a tax cut targeted at the lower 90% spurs growth. It says that a tax cut at the lower 90% spurs more job growth than at the top 10%. A 2-3% increase in the job growth rate for tax changes at the state level. Over 2 years. That means that if a state is adding 100,000 jobs over 2 years, a 1% tax decrease in state GDP yields an extra 2000-3000 jobs over 2 years.
Nowhere did I see the author suggesting that that pays for itself in increase in tax revenue.
The point of the article isn’t that a tax decrease increases jobs, but that a tax decrease for the top 10% doesn’t do jack.
And, no, the economic data does not suggest that a tax cut on the top 10% increases entrepreneurship. That’s an article of faith on your part. And on Bernanke, it runs exactly the opposite direction. If you’ve got too much savings, more savings is not going to increase entrepreneurship. Capital is very cheap right now.
Lowering taxes is not going to jumpstart the economy more than it will cost in economic drag because of the increase in federal debt. No serious economist argues otherwise.
We voted. Trump won. Get over it.
Keep that in mind in November 2018.
Trump is embarrassing you. Perhaps you should get over him.
I am very proud of my President Donald Trump.
I am sure he is also very proud of you!
It is “just a factor” of Hillary piling up a margin of nearly SIX MILLION popular votes in two heavily-taxed far-left states that were uncontested by Trump.
And Trump won by piling up 78,000 votes in 3 states that almost certainly wouldn’t go for him today.
You’d have to be a moron to believe anonymously quoted hearsay, served up by angry partisan hacks. And for the record – I didn’t vote for Trump. Unlike the angry left and the idiotic Republican never-Trumpers, I can see things clearly. The president’s enemies are a bunch of butt-hurt losers who are incapable of seeing/hearing past their little Beltway bubble. If they could/would, they’d understand their hysteria is only strengthening support for the president everywhere between LA and NY. You know, where it counts, electorally speaking.
You mean those anonymous sources consistently later confirmed by Trump himself? You mean strengthening support for him into the 38% range? Even Republicans in Congress now say that, in a choice between believing an anonymous source in the WP or believing Trump, the WP wins every time.
How exactly does Trump manage to recruit anyone these days?
McMasters: “I was in the room, and the WP story is completely incorrect.”
Trump: “No, they nailed it. I gave away secrets in a yuuge way!”
McMasters: “But the president is allowed to declassify any information. So he wasn’t giving away anything classified!”
Trump: “Oh, yeah. I gave the Russians our nuclear launch codes. They’re good people!”
Trump isn’t trying to recruit anyone. Unbeknownst to the media, they are doing that job for him.
Nothing the media has breathlessly reported has turned out to be true, in the actual court of law sense. You remember that, right?
Your polls are garbage, just like they were prior to the election. So who cares what they say? And no one gives a rat’s a$$ what bought-off Republicans in congress think or say. People out here in the real working world think even less of Democrats in congress.
Uh, yeah. Nobody cares what Congress thinks.
So how’s that wall going? Or Trump’s budget? Did Dodd-Frank get that “number” done on it? Tax reform? Muslim ban?
Tired of winning yet?
I think you’re going to care what Congress thinks when they threaten to release Trump’s tax returns and Trump resigns to “spend more time with his family”.
Nut job alert. You do realize that Congress can’t release tax returns? At least I would hope that your intelligent enough to understand how it works. Or not, you voted for HRC and you are likely just another Millennial, educated in a system that handed out grades like candy to make you feel better about yourself.
By the way, while you and your ilk are worried about non-stories and pushing a new Cold War because you aren’t bright enough to understand the nuances which lost you the election, Trump is re-writing the Obama legacy, one executive order after another. Stripping away your god’s actions. So feel free to continue your childish rants and your monitoring of how many scoops of ice cream Trump had.
Uneducated moron alert: Yes, Congress can. You might want to look up Internal Revenue Code Section 1603(f)(4)(A). In fact, you might want to look up a little history, and how Congress published Nixon’s tax records.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-has-the-power-to-obtain-and-release-trumps-tax-returns/2017/02/07/aa53254c-ea63-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.1e679a6b04db
Funny how it’s always the people who did poorly in school who make complaints about the education system….
And you didn’t perform poorly in school? That would be an admission that you didn’t attend. You were probably “home schooled” by unemployed communists.
Hey, don’t be so jelly. I know you Trumpkins are suffering in the global economy and all with your poor education, but, hey, not my fault I went to school. Hate the game, not the playa.
Well then you stupid DemoncRAT stooge, Congress, nor anyone else besides President Trump has the authority to divulge his tax returns.
Here’s a fact for you loser. President Trump, in his first 125 days in office has accomplished more than any other president since Harry Truman in their first 125 days.
Now then, little snowflake, just jump back into the box of rocks you came from.
Yeah, what law school did you go to? You might want to consider that before opining on something you know nothing about. Yes, Congress can vote to make publish Trump’s tax returns. You might want to look up Internal Revenue Code section 6103(f)(4)(A).
And, no, Trump hasn’t done anything in his first 125 days, other than authorize a pipeline that, really, nobody cares about. Keep trying, Pumpkin.
So, how’s that wall going?
Sorry, you fail. Congress, in order to even see, much less disclose ANYBODY’s tax return, must have an actionable reason to REQUEST anybody’s data. If that is attempted President Trump would have them tied up in litigation for at least enough time for him to complete his two terms.
If OUR President Trump hasn’t accomplished anything except authorizing a pipeline in his first 125 days of office then every president since Truman accomplished nothing in the same time frame.
The very best thing that President Trump has accomplished, since his election on the 8th of November is to have established majorities in the Congress and the Executive branch. The DemoncRATs will be lucky to elect a dog catcher in 2018 and 2020, unless they run Hillary for the position. After all, it takes a b*tch to catch a b*tch. But then, you should know ALL about being a b*tch.
The DemoncRATs are scared to death of President Trump and so are the Republicans who are beholden to the Special Interests groups.
Now then, just crawl back into your box of rocks with the rest of your subversive Trump haters.
So you didn’t read the statute, huh?
You do know they published Nixon’s tax returns, right?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-has-the-power-to-obtain-and-release-trumps-tax-returns/2017/02/07/aa53254c-ea63-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.bda596bb5a81
Must be tough not having an education.
Funny how that Republican Congress seems to be passing nothing Trump puts up. Almost like they’re not afraid of him…
Incidentally — and I know that this will come as a shock to you given, you know, you know nothing about history — in Obama’s first 100 days, he signed new wage law into effect as well as an $800 billion stimulus package. Reagan submitted a radical budget change and new tax plan, both of which were passed by Congress. Meanwhile, Trump brags about the laws he passed, but that’s because he knows his followers are idiots and too stupid to look up what those laws are. Like such wonders as 3 separate laws appointing 3 separate people to the Smithsonian Institution’s board; 2 laws naming 2 building; 2 laws designating a place for 2 war memorials; 13 pro-forma laws reversing new agency rules that Obama put in place as he was walking out the door; …
Democrats aren’t afraid of Trump. Republicans are. Democrats smell blood.
But keep the dream alive, Pumpkin!
Also, just FYI on those “garbage polls” — I know that you Trumpkins will find this shocking, given, you know, math not being your thing and all. But the November 2016 election polls were right. The polls said Clinton was leading by 2%. And she won the popular vote by 2%.
And that means that if the current polls are even vaguely in the ballpark — well, then, November 2018 isn’t looking pretty for Donnie, is it? If he can’t get anything through Congress now, how’s it going to work with a Democratic House?
What “DemoncRATic “House”. Don’t you mean a totally Republican House, after the swamp critters are flushed down the drain with the rest of the swamp?
Tired of winning yet, sparky? How’s that wall going?
Have patience little snowflake. The winning is just getting started.
So how’s that budget going, Pumpkin?
Was China declared a currency manipulator yet?
Withdraw from NAFTA yet?
Has Obamacare been repealed yet?
Huh. With all that “winning”, I’m surprised you can sit down without one of those donut-pillow seat cushions.
Seat cushions beat the heck out of those DNC issued knee pads that you’re wearing.
How’s that wall going, Pumpkin?
Hillary has a 95% chance of winning.
There’s no path to 270 EV’s for Trump.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ….
Suck it up buttercup because it isn’t changing to please you.
Look at the actual poll results. Says she wins by 2%. And she won the popular vote by 2%
In the meantime, Trump now has only 38% approval.
Tired of winning yet, Pumpkin?
You know how a person wins the presidency?
By winning the electoral college vote.
So far four presidents have not won the popular vote.
In the meantime, I’m not tired of reduced illegal immigration.
I’m not tired of obamacare going away.
I’m not tired of law and order and border security.
I’m not tired of fighting islamic terrorism.
I’m not tired of mining.
I’m not tired of pipelines.
I’m not tired of manufacturing jobs coming back.
Keep dreaming about 38%, snowflake.
I swim in your tears and laugh at your foolish delusions.
Illegal immigration has been down for 10 years now. And Obamacare isn’t going away.
And no manufacturing jobs are coming back. Unless you count robots.
Sure illegal immigration was down during the obammy years because the illegals were only riding on top of trains getting here.
Others were getting first class airfare from obutthole!
While obuttf*ck’s lazy a$& couldn’t pick up that “magic wand” to move jobs back Trump did.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/us-adds-28000-jobs-manufacturing-and-8000-government
http://advancedmanufacturing.org/manufacturing-adds-jobs-durable-goods/
Obamacare is dead and you know it. When the taxes go away you can kiss lib*ta*rd chances for the next election goodbye.
When you finally pull your head out of your a$& you’ll hear a loud popping sound. You may notice everything is not brown and smelly.
Oh, Sweetie, if you stopped with the meth, you actually could finish that GED. And without Obamacare, how are you going to deal with your meth-mouth?
When confronted with the facts you can only use logical fallacies as a riposte.
I’ve wasted enough of my time on you.
Sweetie, name the logical fallacy. I challenge you.
Spot on, Bunky!
And I just can’t quit laughing at people who share a common problem with the Clinton witch; their Depends are all overflowing.
Who’s the President “pumpkin”? Do you need another lace hanky?
How’s that wall going, Pumpkin? Must have surely got through that Republican Congress, right?
In other words, you are claiming that RINOs who are part of the swamp that Trump is committed to draining prefer the word of nameless Democratic sources to the word of a president who showed them how to fight back.
Just FYI, if the Republican Party has been small government and pro-free trade for 60 years, those guys aren’t the RINOs
And, yes, when you’ve got a guy willing to lie about such easily checked things as the size of his crowd at election, someone believing an anonymous source over a pathological liar is just common sense.
The word of Donald J. Trump means what exactly?- he promised to immediately classify China as a currency manipulator, to immediately recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and sent poor Pence out to say that he fired Comey because of the Hillary emails.The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.
Why do you lie to people who are much smarter and more knowledgeable than you?
Sweetie, when a smarter person tells you something, don’t challenge them if you don’t have rock-solid evidence to support your claims. You’re just going to keep embarrassing yourself.
McConnell already said the House bill would have to be significantly modified to get through the Senate, since it would have to be a reconciliation bill. On top of that, he doesn’t currently even have the Republican votes. So, yeah, they’re going to change the name of Obamacare, but that’s about it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39821789
Oh, and did you notice that the CBR passed by Congress explicitly excluded any money to build a wall? It also pretty much ignored all of Trump’s budget?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/bipartisan-agreement-reached-to-fund-government-through-september.html
Is that a “lie” as well?
Sweetie, most people are going to be smarter and more knowledgeable than you, so don’t even try this game. At least until you finish that GED.
Face it, sucker, you’re just another leftist moron braying mindlessly.
Yes, Obamacare is dead–finished–kaput.
Good riddance to bad garbage.
The wall WILL be built.
The Demon-crats are trembling at the prospect of Mueller finding nothing to support their Big Lie. Who will be the first member of your team to smear the special counsel they pretended to want?
Here’s the little secret you and your fellow lefties overlook: Barack Obama’s DOJ, the most lawless in our nation’s history, spent months breaking laws and turning over every rock to find something–anything!–to bring down Trump.
They found ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
You lose again…
Keep telling yourself that. And tell me if you’re tired of winning yet.
Nope, I never get tired of winning and the best is yet to come!
Live with your losses, sucker.
So how’s that wall coming? Get that Muslim ban in place yet?
The wall will be built. Nobody ever advocated a Muslim ban, as you know.
Your beloved Obama had eight years to wreck America. Trump has had four months to start restoring this nation’s greatness.
Yes, and Mexico’s going to pay for it, huh?
Keep faith alive…
If Trump doesn’t keep his promises, he won’t win a second term. Your intellectual and moral superiors are not agenda-driven ideologues like you.
Funny how you imagine you’re an intellectual superior when you’re still working on that GED.
And, no, Trump isn’t going to win a second term. He’s not even going to get any of his legislation through a Republican Congress.
How did you like that continuing budget resolution? Lots of money in there for the wall, right?
You shouldn’t mock GEDs, dunce. You don’t have one.
Admittedly, neither do I, but I was too busy getting an advanced degree.
Trump gave a magisterial speech on the threat of radical Islam. You were too blinded by your irrational hatred to notice.
Yes, of course. Just FYI, advanced degrees don’t come with a plastic “telescope” in a box of cereal.
The fact you think Trump gave a good speech while sucking up to the largest funder of terrorism in the ME is proof of that.
Your utter helplessness to alter a single event in my life mirrors your overall impotence.
Yes, Trump told the Saudis what an American president should have told them long ago. Whether or not they will turn out to be reliable allies remains to be seen.
Told them that we support them no matter what?
Yeah, see, your knowledge of the Middle East is only rivaled by your inability to tell what makes a good negotiator.
My knowledge of the Middle East greatly exceeds your own.
Trump’s negotiating skills have made him very rich. By contrast, you are an anonymous troll infesting the bowels of the internet.
To rid America of the deranged deal your beloved Obama foisted on the electorate through deception and outright lies, Saudi cooperation will be necessary.
Really. Please tell.
And, no, Trump’s a famously bad negotiator. He was born rich, and squandered his dad’s money.
Tell me, since you know so much about the Middle East, no doubt having been there many times, how many Iranians were involved in 9-11? How much Iranian backing does ISIS have?
Yes, Trump squandered the twenty million he inherited. Fortunately, it was magically transformed into 5-10 billion.
Iran was not involved in the jihadist attacks of 9/11. Iran is not connected with Sunni ISIS. Iran seeks nuclear weapons to annihilate Israel and establish regional hegemony.
Hehe, you’re so cute when you’re gullible!
He actually inherited about $200 million. And he’s not a billionaire. He wants you to think he is. But he’s not. He even lost a lawsuit on the issue.
Just like how he told you he was going to repeal Obamacare, NAFTA, declare China a currency manipulator, build a wall, etc. etc. etc. Because he knows you’ll literally believe anything you’re told.
Your superiors are impervious to your lies. Fred Trump was never worth anything remotely close to $200 million. My grandfather was a friend of his.
Trump is probably not worth the $10 billion he claims–more like $5-7 billion.
Trump IS repealing Obamacare. Perhaps you could find a high school graduate to explain it to you.
Conservatives do not belong to cults of personality like you leftists. If Trump fails to make good on his promises, we simply won’t support him.
Your imagination is impressive, as is your naivete. But Trump already lost this lawsuit, so we know quite well that he’s not a billionaire. Which, of course, is why he refuses to release his tax returns — and is why Trump will resign the moment Congress threatens to make them public.
Fred Trump gave Donnie millions before he died, then gave the entire firm to him when he died — in addition to his inheritance. That firm was estimated to be worth $200 million in 1982. So, yeah, Donnie inherited $200 million.
http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-donald-trump-inherit-100-million/
And, yes, Trump isn’t worth nearly as much as he says. One reason he doesn’t want anyone to see his tax returns is because he doesn’t want anyone to know that his debt levels make him a millionaire instead of a billionaire.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/donald-trump-net-worth
You bought everything from Trump, hook, line and sinker. Typical, low-education Trump voter…
Silly liar.
No, Fred was not worth $200 million. Sorry.
I don’t buy everything ANYBODY says. Unlike you, I have critical thinking skills.
Remember, you are merely a punching bag for your intellectual superiors.
His company, bequeathed to Donnie, was worth $200 million. Read the article.
You keep using that phrase, “intellectual superiors.” Is this something you get told a lot? I mean, I get it that you don’t have much of an education, but you really seem rather desperate. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed about that you never finished high school.
Perhaps you should find someone to read the “polifact” article to you. It appears to refute your lies.
I take it you never heard about Trump’s lawsuit against Tim O’Brien, huh?
According to the article YOU cited:
“A National Journal writer, S.V. Dáte, estimated Trump started with $40 million in 1974 when he became president of his father’s real estate company. By one estimate, the firm was worth about $200 million. Divided among Donald Trump and his four siblings, each would have received $40 million.
But the company wasn’t liquidated that year, so Trump didn’t receive that as cash.
In 1982, after running his father’s firm for eight years, Forbes magazine estimated Trump’s worth at $200 million.
Pounder cited a couple other articles about Trump’s career and wealth or his father, but neither explained how much he inherited.”
We conclude that
1) Trump did not receive $200 million from his father;
2) He greatly increased the fortune he started with;
3) You are either careless, dishonest, or both.
Except that, 8 years later, when the company Trump inherited was evaluated, it was worth $200 million. That business had made no major purchases or advancements. So that company was worth $200 million. Which Trump inherited.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit, is it?
My reading skills are, manifestly, enormously superior to yours. Your fatuous attempt to extrapolate from conflicting estimates and mere guesses stamps you as a fraud.
What we KNOW with certainty is that Trump’s inheritance was divided among his siblings and he amassed a personal fortune far greater than his inheritance.
Why you pretend to care about such trivia is not hard to deduce. You worship two crooks who made tens of millions of dollars peddling influence.
Yes, the $40 million was. But not the company itself. Trump defrauded his brother out of that.
Come on. You can’t read? He inherited $40 million in cash, but he had control of the company. The company was worth $200 million. And that’s aside from the money in trust that Fred gave to Donnie before he died.
Your desperate lies have been rammed down your throat, Lefty.
Sorry, you lose again.
Please inform Trump’s brother that he was “defrauded.”
ROTFLMAO
He drank himself to death, Spanky. Trump’s brothers and sisters were largely cut out of Fred Trump’s will — which is why Donnie inherited the company.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/us/politics/for-donald-trump-lessons-from-a-brothers-suffering.html?_r=0
You might want to brush up on your reading comp.
Either way you cut it, Donnie inherited between $100 million and $200 million. Let’s go with the smaller figure, just to make you happy. Take that $100 million and invest it in the S&P500 in 1982. How much do you think it would be worth today?
Yes, I know math isn’t your thing. The answer is $4.6 billion, Sweetie. Now, we know Trump isn’t worth near that. He might not even be worth a billion, if Tim O’Brien is right. So looks like Trump underperformed a standard index fund by a factor of 4. If I’m right, and he got $200 million via his company, he underperformed by a factor of 8.
That’s your brilliant businessman president, Spanky.
Yes, we agree that Trump has told us that his brother drank himself to death. Your lie that Trump somehow “defrauded” him has been exposed.
Estimates of Trump’s current wealth run from $5 to 10 billion. How accurate those estimates are, no one knows except Trump himself.
Your silly lie that Trump “squandered” his father’s money has been rammed down your throat.
I am vastly your superior at math.
No, those are Trump’s own estimates. O’Brien estimated less than $500 million. Trump sued him and lost. O’Brien also saw Trump’s tax returns — and didn’t change his estimate. Even Forbes, which was lobbied by Trump and gives his estimates all the benefits of the doubt, says no more than $3.5 billion. That’s less than market return rates on his daddy’s money.
You keep imagining you’re my “superior”. This despite an obviously poorer education and lower intelligence. Makes me think you’re very sensitive on this topic.
Are there any actual ISSUES you care about, lefty?
Oh, sure. I care about the Russians manipulating the election. I care about violations of the Constitution and corruption. I care about idiot ideas about how NATO works or beliefs that global trade is bad.
Hmm, you pretend to care that the Russians revealed damning e-mails showing the corruption and mendacity of Hillary Clinton. You care that those e-mails were REVEALED, not that they existed. Hillary’s crimes meant nothing to you.
You pretend to care about Putin, but you rejoiced when your beloved Obama assured Putin that he would have more “more flexibility” after he disposed of Romney.
You are, of course, totally indifferent to Obama’s hamfisted attempts to affect the outcome of Israel’s election.
Needless to say, you don’t give a rat’s patoot about the monstrous Ted Kennedy’s outreach to the KGB to influence the 1984 election. You are pleased that the mainstream media largely suppressed the story.
You know nothing about NATO and your understanding of free trade is undoubtedly on a par with the rest of your sophistry.
Which crimes about Hillary? Come on. Speak up.
And, no, I don’t care if the US tries to influence other country’s elections. I don’t live in other countries. Also, I’m not suggesting Russia is morally at fault for selectively leaking Hillary Clinton’s emails. Those morally at fault are the idiots who believed it — you know, like you — and the traitors aiding the Russians. You know, like Trump’s staff.
And, yes, Sweetie, I understand a lot more about NATO than a drug store employee like yourself. I actually have real degrees.
No, you have no real degrees. You are a low-IQ ignoramus who merely spouts DNC talking points.
Hillary’s crimes were outlined by Comey in his brief for indictment before he concluded that a Clinton cannot be indicted. The Clintons amassed a huge personal fortune by peddling influence. Similar pay-for-play schemes have landed many lesser mortals in the slammer.
You tend to be incoherent so your superiors can’t know what you mean by the bizarre phrase “the idiots who believed it.” Are you daring to pretend that the damning e-mails were not, well, REAL???
NOBODY thinks that anything was fabricated.
The e-mails that Hillary and her minions wanted to keep secret reveal crimes that the public wasn’t supposed to know about. Through some form of magic, Russians are “traitors” to an adversary nation for leaking information that they determined would tarnish the candidate they assumed was going be elected president. It never occurred to Putin that Trump might win.
You should care if the US tries to intrude in the elections held by other nations. Such behavior flouts all the ethics of diplomacy observed in the civilized world.
We assume that your knowledge of NATO is comparable to your overall low level of understanding.
Tell me, Sweetie, how many Nobel prize winners did you have as professors in grad school?
Peddling influence isn’t illegal. And you haven’t named a single crime Clinton was charged with, let alone convicted.
Oh, and just FYI — there are no “ethics of diplomacy.” Making things up — just like you making up degrees — doesn’t fool anyone.
It’s a real shame they let you vote. In the good old days, you actually had to have an education. But, hey, getting rid of that is how we got Trump…
Sorry, sucker, my educational background is as real as yours is fake.
The only Nobel Prize winner I have ever met is Milton Friedman (at a Cato Institute luncheon).
Comey detailed Clinton’s crimes.
Uh, yes, selling political favors is quite illegal.
There is indeed an ethical component to diplomacy, which is why your beloved Obama was the first American president to actively meddle in an ally’s election.
Gee, you’re dumb!
So, as you said, not much in the way of educational achievement for you then, huh?
Show me which law outlaws “selling political favors.”
And show me where this ethical component is written down.
See, if you actually had an education, you’d know enough not to make silly claims you can’t back up. Because odds are you’ll eventually run across someone like me — you’re intellectual superior, who will inevitably call you on it.
None of my claims are silly. They have crushed your lies.
I don’t recall stating that the diplomatic precedents inhibiting US presidents from interfering in the elections of allied countries are written down. It appears that you have been caught lying again.
You are pretending that selling political favors has NOT landed crooked pols in jail????
Really?
ROTFLMAO
Cite the law, Pumpkin. And cite the “diplomatic precedents” — please start with Mossaddegh and work your way through Allende.
There is no “law.” There is a precedent.
I’m afraid your desperation has reached implosion levels. When the CIA and British intel decided that Mossadegh’s tilt toward the Soviet Union threatened the West’s interests, nobody regarded Iran as a firm ally. Obama’s personal hatred for Bibi Netanyahu led him into uncharted waters.
Show me the precedent.
And you do know that the US interfered in the Iranian elections, right?
If you weren’t illiterate, I’d refer you to an excellent book on Iran’s political movements by Ervand Abrahamian. But, hey, illiteracy is a terrible terrible thing….
Yes, your illiteracy has provided much amusement for your superiors.
You are ranting about an effort by the CIA and British intel in the early days of the Cold War to counter Mossadegh’s tilt toward the Soviet Union. You dream that these clandestine efforts were in some way comparable to Obama’s ham-fisted interference in the last Israeli election.
I have read far more books than you have–obviously.
Incidentally, it is long past time for you to declare victory, tuck your tail between your legs, and slink off. We are the only remaining posters here. Your results will not start improving until I leave.
Hey, I get it. You’re on a conservative website. You’re obviously not used to coming across intelligent people. But, hey, you did and you got pwned. The most intellectual response you seem to manage is “you’re a liar!” Whine whine whine.
And while I appreciate the size of your library of Sandra Boynton books, that’s not exactly the kind of thing that buys you bragging rights.
Hmmm, let’s review:
You brayed–insanely–that I “believed” that Hillary’s e-mails were real. Uh, yes, I do believe that they were real and so does everyone else, for the convincing reason that they were real.
You argued–insanely–that a public official selling favors is not breaking the law. You got laughs, but no one swallowed your snake oil.
You totally ignored my devastating question about the monstrous Ted Kennedy’s outreach to the KGB. That’s okay: your party’s auxiliary media covered up the giant story.
You got nailed on your ridiculous lie about Trump giving the Russians our nuclear launch codes.
Well, you got nailed on lots of lies.
Yup, I think we agree that your chin has certainly “pwned,” as the kiddies say, my fists.
ROTFLMAO
Well, see, there’s why you never got in to a decent school! You’ve got no reading comprehension abilities!
Sweetie, I said nothing at all about Clinton’s emails. I take it you’re confusing me for someone else.
On selling favors, I only asked you a question — show me that statute that makes it illegal. That you can’t — well, that’s hardly my problem, is it? Seems to me like it is one of those things you imagined, given that lobbying is a thing. Come on. Show me all that widdle emucation your mommy got you!
I ignored your comment on Ted Kennedy because I limit myself to things that are relevant, not every weak babbling of an imbecile. Why would I care about unproven accusations of someone from 40 years ago? Was Kennedy ever charged with anything? Hey, I don’t know. It was 40 years ago.
So, is the Tu Quoque the only argument you can imagine? Is this one of those things you learn at an inferior university? Just FYI — not only is the Tu Quoque a logical fallacy, I’m not a Democrat…
You’re also proving you’re an imbecile if you didn’t realize the launch codes was a deliberate exaggeration. Though, of course, since Trump just dismantled NATO and handed leadership of the West to Merkel, I can see how you would think that was serious.
Mrs. Epsteen, try to moderate the crypto-intelligentsia hyperbole. Trump did not “dismantle” NATO. Trump did not hand “leadership’ of the West to Merkel. Now it is your turn to show us “all that widdle emucation your mommy got you!”
So when Merkel just told Trump to take a hike and that the EU would be relying on itself from now on — what exactly did you think that meant?
In realpolitik, international diplomatic terms? Nada. For domestic consumption? You tell ’em, Angie! Same for The Donald. As for the EU, it is a shell. Great Britain has turned away. Apart from the growing resentment and costs of the Syrian and Libyan mass resettlements, how many years more will what is left of hard-working Germans and French continue to subsidize perpetually-vacationing (or striking) Greeks, Spaniards and Italians? There is indeed a spectre haunting – its called economic reality.
I wish any part of that paragraph made sense.
The EU without the UK is a German economic engine. (You’ve also never been to Spain, if you think they’re perpetually vacationing.) But you’re right — there is indeed a spectre haunting the United States, called economic reality. And that spectre isn’t big on trade restrictions.
Sorry, but go ask a CEO of a major company who is setting global standards these days. I’ll give you a hint — if Trump backs out of the Paris climate deal, you’ll suddenly hear from a whole bunch of American companies about how they’re still going to be adhering to those requirements because, after all, they do business around the world, not just in the US. Same with Dodd Frank.
Moral suasion is a thing in the international environment. And Trump just gave up all the US had.
Miss Epsteen. The EU is in “existential crisis”. G. Soros, May 31, 2017. More like a death rattle.
And what do you base that observation on?
I agree that the EU will be smaller. It will morph into a modern version of the Hanseatic League. That will make it stronger, not weaker. In the meantime, the US has ceded international leadership. On the geopolitical front, it is now led by China. On the technical and financial front, it is led by the EU.
You seem to be under the impression that international leadership is something that happens when the president travels and makes “big deals”. It’s not. It happens every day at the government staff level, at a thousand international organizations dealing with everything from international airport communication standards to bank capital requirements to anti-trust rules to harmonized data codes of a million sorts. The US has been walking away from leadership in many of these areas for the past 10 years, but it dropped off the face of the earth over the past 3 months. Not only does the Trump admin have no grownups in the room at any of the Departments, but it has no experience and no overarching philosophy to guide these Departments in these everyday dealings.
So, when all the major US companies start talking about how they’ll be following the European lead on these things going forward — well, I’m just giving you the heads up so you’re not too surprised.
I take it you haven’t been keeping up with current events. Surely you’ve heard of George Soros and his latest, unsolicited view of your unimpeachable EU?? Away from that, the inferences you’ve drawn predicated upon a miswritten description of my impressions about “international leadership” are horribly mistaken. It is conceded that the bureaucracies you embrace perform as described. Which is to say that you’ve undercut your own argument. Any educated person understands that bureaucracies have a life of their own, until – if things go really bad – they don’t. The Soviet Union’s 70 year failed, murderous and and self-flagellating experiment in Central Planning is living – and killing – proof. By contrast, we have the grand American experiment pitched as a republic. Even the US bureaucracies are not without fault – slavery and the sorry history with Native Americans being the most prominent examples. But that was then, and this is now. The modern, collective incompetency of the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama administrations have been, and will be, smoothed-out and watered-down. What is worrisome to thinking, tax-paying United States citizens (yeah, that’s about 48% of not-stupid American voters), is that Obama, Clinton, Sanders, democrats, and socialist “progressives”, want bigger, more expensive bureaucracies to regulate behavior, education, commercial activity, and tax collection wedded to a health care system, to list only a few. Trump needs more time – and perhaps more grown-ups. But after all, the widely-disseminated remnants of eight years of Obama appointments and hires (your bureaucracies) made it clear on January 10, 2017, that Trump was “not their president”. Well, he is, and will be for at least the next four years – time enough to gain experience, clean house, and make some omelettes. The EU and NATO, in particular, will come around. Try to grasp the underlying tactic here – Trump is not walking away – he is asking for accountability.
You’ll forgive me if I apply a large discount rate to the publicly stated opinions of a man who makes his money short-selling currencies.
(Incidentally, that’s not an Ad Hominem. It’s a cui bono. Important distinction.)
Many presidents have thought they can circumvent the “bureaucracy”. None have accomplished it, because patronage is illegal and has been for coming up on 150 years. Also — and, again, I take it you haven’t been keeping up with current events — Trump is being undermined by his own appointees. The WH leaks like a colander, and his own people think he’s a moron. So, uh, no. Trump’s not going to win that game. I’ll be surprised if he lasts 2 years, since the Republicans in the Senate will undermine him. All they have to do is vote to make his tax returns public, and I’m guessing he’ll resign rather than have evidence out there about how little money he really has.
(You seem to be under the impression that Trump has a learning curve. How cute!)
Explain your thinking about why the EU and NATO will “come around”? Is this because they need the US to protect them? From what?
From opprobious idiots like you.
So you’re a big Soros fan? Is that what you’re saying?
Only in the sense that I would not mind if he walked into one.
Yes, patronage is illegal. It is also alive and well in Washington, DC; 50 states; 16 territories; and, 194 nations, excluding Taiwan if you like.
I never pay retail either. Not sure about that erudite “cui bono” thing. Is “cui” related to “Chas”?
Yes, Trump, like every president – like all of us – has a learning curve. Your fulsomeness indicates that you are on the downside of yours. Goodnight, and good luck.
Re Trump’s learning curve, faith is indeed the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
If you say so.
Yeah, that “moral suasion” did wonders for Obama in the Crimea and in the Ukraine and in Syria and in Libya and in Egypt and in Brussels and in Paris and in western Iraq and in San Bernandino and in Chicago and in……As for Dodd and Frank, weren’t they “Friends of Angelo” before they weren’t?
Actually, it did wonders. You seem to confuse Crimea with something important to the US, not realizing that it gave Obama perfect leverage to force Germany, and particularly France, to distance themselves from Russia while securing future markets for American natural gas.
You do know that the French very reluctantly cut off military sales to Moscow, right?
And how is Syria important to the US again?
Obama never forced anything. You are increasingly delusional. As for Syria, go ask Barry. Your guy Obama drew the red line.
You really do need to start keeping up on current events.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21651536-france-looking-way-cancel-delivery-two-helicopter-carriers-russian-navy-scrapping
You ignored the Ted Kennedy story because you are a low-IQ ignoramus. If you haven’t read it about something on a loony-left blog, it doesn’t exist–right, su8cker?
https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
No, the low-IQ ignoramus is someone going to Cornell who couldn’t get into a better school and who somehow thinks a 130 IQ is impressive.
My IQ is considerably higher than 130: yours is not.
My acceptance at Princeton did not include a scholarship.
If your IQ was that high, you certainly wouldn’t have brought up Mensa. Only idiots do that. And while your IQ might be higher than mine, the odds are considerably not in your favor. (And, also, you wouldn’t have made such clearly asinine comments about Russia threatening Germany if you had even two brain cells to rub together.)
Russia does not currently threaten Germany, although WEST Germany joined NATO for protection against the Soviet Empire. Putin has an arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles. Germany has no nukes.
My purely factual comments strike you as asinine because you are dull-witted and ignorant.
Pumpkin, WEST Germany wasn’t given a choice. It was occupied by the United States when it “joined” NATO. Germany could develop nukes tomorrow. And Putin’s “arsenal” probably has only one functioning weapon in 10.
Sweetie, go back to a real school. Study a few things. Come back, and have a discussion with the grown ups.
Your ignorant bluster has exposed you as an ineducable fool. At the beginning of the Cold War, Western Europe was terrified of the expansionist tendencies of your beloved Soviet Empire. The West Germans feared they would suffer the horrible fates of Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states, and Czechoslovakia. The only deterrent to the massive Red Army was America’s nuclear umbrella.
Germany could indeed develop nukes tomorrow, but nukes cost lots of money. Why not let Uncle Sap foot the bill?
Military analysts do not share your fantasies about Russian weakness.
I have studied much harder than you ever did and I went to better schools.
You lose again, dunce.
See, again you make statements that are objectively false. No, nukes are quite cheap. What on earth makes you think they are expensive? Why do you think Russia relies so heavily on nukes? Come on. Even someone mentally challenged like yourself can figure this out. (Hint: Russia doesn’t have the cash for conventional forces.)
I know quite a few more military analysts than you do, Pumpkin…
My goodness, I seriously am surprised you’ve got the mental capacity to breathe
Sorry, cretin, you’ve never met a military analyst in your life.
http://www.globalfirepower.com/armor-tanks-total.asp
Well, you mean, except this morning at the kids soccer game. Or when I saw my neighbor barbecuing last night. Or my other neighbor, the retired general (though he’s clearly not an analyst).
Come to think of it, seems like you can’t through a cat around this area without hitting one.
So, in your Big Book of War, did it happen to mention what type of tanks make up the bulk of those Russian (or even Chinese) forces? You seem fixated by numbers, but you can’t tell a T-55 from your shoelaces. (For context, how far is Berlin to Moscow and do you think your typical 1955 Chevy Bel Air could make the trip without breaking down. Uh, yeah…)
So, do you use artificial lungs?
Hmm, I wonder where one can find MY “Big Book of War.”” Perhaps you should have clicked on the link I provided to find out the source of the data.
Well, no matter, here’s another one that, interestingly, reaches the same conclusion that EVERY military analyst has reached, namely, since WWII Russia has had more tanks than any other nation:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Military/Army/Main-battle-tanks
Does that Big Book of War link tell you the type of tanks that all those numbers represent?
You do know that tanks come in different types, right? Do you know that they even come in “generations”? How many of those tanks you keep referring to are third generation or better?
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/655373
You don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re ranting about–just another loud, fact-free lefty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_the_Soviet_Union
By now, I’m a bit surprised you can sit. Usually after someone keeps taking the pounding you’ve been getting, they have to sit on one of those donut cushions. Yet you keep coming back, making absurd claims that so easily underscore not just your ignorance but your complete intellectual inferiority.
You’re like the hunter who keeps shooting at the bear: you’re not really here for the debate, are you?
It’s hilarious how you delusional ignoramuses–flat-Earthers, moon landing deniers, Holocaust deniers, 9/11 twoofers, America-hating commies–desperately tell yourselves that you’re somehow winning despite getting pounded to dust.
MY absurd claims are incontrovertible facts.
Your absurd claims have been handled very roughly.
Yes, that word “incontrovertible” doesn’t mean what you think it means. It certainly doesn’t mean “something you’ve disproven”.
You don’t have much of a learning curve. But, hey, you already admitted your low IQ and poor education, so…
Yes, the word means precisely what I understand it to mean. An uneducated dimwit cannot lecture me on proper usage.
You have been caught lying again. No one thinks I have “admitted” anything of the sort, as you know.
Yeah, see, as a Trump voter, it’s clear you don’t know what the word “lying” means. If you did, you obviously wouldn’t be a Trump voter.
Yeah, the Russians rely on WWII ordinance.
You are an idiot.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-armata-tank-vs-americas-m-1-abrams-tow-missile-who-17719
So how many of those T-14 tanks have been deployed, Einstein? All 10,000 of those tanks you mentioned, right?
Oh, wait — I guess “none”? “None” is the answer you’re looking for, right?
So, returning to the question that you don’t have the brain wattage to answer: what generation of tank are all those tanks you mentioned?
Tell us again how the West Germans were “forced” to join NATO, lefty.
ROTFLMAO
Ah, changing the subject, huh?
Well, huh, how about the fact that West Germany joined NATO on May 9, 1955, and West Germany actually formally became an independent country on May 5, 1955. You think the timing was at all coincidental? Obviously not, right? I mean, in those 4 intervening days, Germany clearly had the time to put together an completely independent proposal in its completely independent parliament and completely independently vote on signing a treaty.
So, do you like have a kid around who administers CPR in lieu of breathing?
Your deranged delusion about Adenauer not champing at the bit to join NATO confirms you as an idiot.
For someone who didn’t even know who Adenauer was until 40 minutes ago, you sure have strong opinions.
Explain the scenario where West Germany doesn’t join NATO.
You are a comical buffoon:
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue2/english/history.html
Not bright enough to read history beyond an official document, huh?
Please explain the timeline. Don’t let your little head get distracted. Explain a scenario where West Germany doesn’t join NATO the moment the occupation ended.
Your stupidity and lack of intellectual curiosity prevents you from reading the material I linked to. The West Germans were always eager to join the protective alliance against the Soviet Empire. There was, for obvious reasons, considerable reluctance on the part of other Western European nations to acquiesce in a rearmed Germany in the wake of the horrors of WWII.
And you think that the US, UK and France had a role in choosing those leaders might have had something to do with it…?
Sweetie, go back to school. Become literate. Go look up the archives and find George Kennan’s “Mr. X” article in Foreign Affairs. Then explain how West Germany in 1955 just accidentally decided all on its lonesome to do what Kennan advocated should happen 6 years prior.
Yes, there was considerable “reluctance” on the part of France. But in 1955, France, like you, wasn’t the one wearing pants in the relationship.
I wrote a thesis on Kennan’s memoirs for a class in Modern European history. Only a lunatic tries to pretend that West Germany’s desire to join NATO was “accidentally” fulfilled. You are raving so furiously and lying so mindlessly that you have detached yourself entirely from reality.
The article that you could not read explains how Germany was finally permitted to rearm and participate in the defense of Western Europe.
No one thinks that America, the UK, and France “chose” Konrad Adenauer to head the West German republic.
Sorry, honey, but a short paper in your class wasn’t a “thesis”. A thesis generally requires more than 5 paragraphs.
Your puerile and desperate efforts to alter my educational background have failed miserably. Your bag of tricks is empty, dunce.
I don’t need to “alter” your educational background. You’re the one who admitted going to Clown College.
You have been caught lying again, moron.
A fact you can’t understand isn’t actually a “lie,” though I can see how you draw comfort from that idea.
Your desperate attempts to smear my education are based on envy. The puerile falsehoods you fabricate have nothing to do with facts.
I’ve got a better education than you do. Why on earth would I be envious? I’ve actually studied under Nobel prize winners.
How many future presidents taught at Clown College?
You are envious because it is painfully obvious that you never went to college. You have not studied under any Nobel Prize winners–you are, in fact, very poorly educated.
No future presidents taught at the Clown College you wish you were able to attend.
Oh, clever! “Clown College”! Did you make that up yourself? I’m surprised, since a clever retort like that requires intelligence! Kudos!
Yes, actually, a president did teach at my law school. Along with 2 Nobel Prize economists. I know it’s painful to you. But there it is.
Your lies are not painful to me. They are, well, merely lies.
It matters not at all if you eke out a bare living chasing ambulances. You remain historically illiterate.
Says the guy with no education and no experience, working in a pharmacy.
In reality, of course, my education is manifestly superior to yours and I do not work in a pharmacy. Since retiring, I live very comfortably off my investments.
How many Nobel laureates did you say you had as professors? You know, since your education is “manifestly superior”, had to have at least 3. Plus a president.
Your desperation is causing to chase your own tail. Either you never went to college, you went to a very poor school, or you were an abysmally bad student.
I simply don’t give a rat’s fuzzy patoot.
You bore me.
Sweetie, if you had 2 brain cells to rub together, you’d know where I got my graduate degrees. Not that hard to figure out who has all the Nobel prizes and used to have a professor who went on to become president…
Hint: better school than you ever attended.
Bigger hint: you have no advanced degrees. You are quite stupid and historically illiterate.
And by now you know it’s not true.
Kind of humiliating for you, huh? You stick to the conservative websites because you imagine you won’t actually come across someone intelligent. And, bam, there I am to ruin your picnic.
Yes, your total humiliation was certainly difficult for you to swallow. After all, you are used to bullying people with lies.
Here you were exposed as a low-IQ fraud, but that’s all right: I have crushed many leftist trolls just like you.
Hey, not my fault you got humiliated. You’re the one bringing a spoon to a gun fight.
Well, I humiliated you by presenting facts that destroyed your errors and lies. You humiliated me by stating loudly that you humiliated me.
Lots of Holocaust deniers and flat-Earthers humiliate me in precisely the same manner.
So you finally admit that West Germany didn’t become a sovereign nation until 1955, and then joined NATO only 4 days later — 4 days after it was allowed to make its own laws without Allied governor approval — and, wait, that’s humiliating to me because…?
Is this like the part where you insist Russia has 20,000 modern tanks, and then insist that the “bulk” of those tanks are T-72B3s, where you then later back down because, at most, 600 are and, no, a T-72B3 isn’t a “modern” tank?
Or is this like the part where you say it is really expensive to build nuclear weapons, even though, no, actually, they’re quite cheap compared to conventional forces?
Or where you say the range of Russian tanks is “infinite” because Russia has mobile support for tanks, even though, no, Russian logistical support is notoriously bad? (Incidentally, you might want to Google Anatoly Serdyukov — how’s he doing these days? I remember he was sacked for corruption regarding Russia’s logistics operations. That was probably a career-killer, amiright?)
Yeah, see, the beauty of the internet is that all that nonsense you write is still up there.
Sorry, liar, you were busted. You first falsely claimed that Russia did not lead the world in total number of tanks. Your foolish error was rammed down your throat. Then you pranced and danced, braying that Russia’s tanks were “museum pieces.” You were proved wrong. You were shown repeatedly the statements that destroyed your lies.
You made a jackass of yourself by raving about “fueling stations” for invading tanks. Tanks are supplied by mobile fuel units. You dredged up irrelevant nonsense about some Russian who was sacked. Your mad claim that Russian tanks could not sweep across Western Europe because their range was limited is idiotic.
No, I DO NOT “admit” that your stupid blunder about the date when West Germany became a sovereign nation was, against all evidence, correct. YOU WERE WRONG.
West Germany became a sovereign nation on September 20, 1949. Although it obtained FULL sovereignty when the occupation ended in 1955, the nation had already existed for six years.
Show me exactly where I denied that Russia has the most tanks in the world. Come on. Because I didn’t. You just imagine I did, because you’re an idiot and not intelligent enough to do well at reading comprehension.
And, yes, I showed you that they are almost entirely museum pieces. What else do you call 40 year old tanks? Or 60 year old tanks.
Did you miss the part where I broke down Russia’s tank forces?
T-55: 2800 reserve
T-62: 2500 reserve
T-64: 2000 reserve
T-72: 1900 active; 7000 reserve
T-80: 450 active; 3000 reserve
T-90: 350 active; 200 reserve
So, uh, yeah. And not a single one of those in the same generation as an Abrams or Leopard 2.
I’m impressed you keep doubling down on your stupidity. Suddenly West Germany only became “fully” sovereign in 1955. But was partly sovereign before that? Honey, there is no “partly sovereign” any more than being “partly pregnant”. You either are or you’re not. And West Germany in 1949 was occupied and not making its own laws.
But, hey, you want to keep proving your intellectual inferiority to a squirrel, keep going.
Your desperate shifting of the goalposts cannot trick me.
You were crushed on your false claim about Russia’s tank strength. The red herring (no pun intended) about the size of Russia’s reserves is irrelevant.
NO ONE ever argued that Russia’s main battle tanks were in the same class as the best American and German tanks.
I stated the FACT that Russia has over TWENTY THOUSAND tanks as compared to roughly FIVE HUNDRED German tanks.
Without being able to read Putin’s mind, we can safely assume that he has no plans to invade Germany.
What his plans are for the Baltic republics and other former Soviet satellites, well, he isn’t telling.
I have repeatedly posted an article that states the facts clearly:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/everything-you-need-know-about-russias-lethal-tank-force-17013?page=2
Your nonsense about West Germany’s sovereignty has been destroyed. The nation came into existence in 1949. NO amount of lies will ever change that reality. West Germany stated making its laws when it became a nation under the constitution that went into effect in May of 1949.
The US did not force West Germany to join NATO. Your claim is idiotic since Eisenhower and Dulles were opposed to admitting the Germans into a Western military alliance.
Full sovereignty (yes, Virginia, there are degrees of sovereignty) was achieved upon the ending of the occupation in 1955.
Again, you avoid addressing even basic questions. Show me where I said Russia didn’t have lots of tanks. The point is that — as I’ve shown and as I noted so many posts ago and which you cannot deny — only just over 10% of those 20,000 tanks are actually in combat-ready condition. The rest are “in reserve”. “In reserve” includes 2800 T-55s. Do you know what a T-55 is?
Now, since we’re talking about 2700 tanks at most that the Russians can actually draw upon, all of which are far inferior to the 500 tanks the Germans have, and given that the Russians would have to operate 800-1000 miles from their borders and given that the Russians have very very very — did I say “very”? — limited abilities to supply their tanks at a distance from bases, and given that Russian lines of communication are exceedingly vulnerable to German aircraft, artillery, tanks, and special forces (as well as the Poles) … well, as I said when this whole conversation started, no Pumpkin, Russia is not a threat to Germany. Which is why Germany feels no real need to invest more in its military right now.
Yes, Sweetheart, that is what this argument is about. I know your combination of senility and inferior intelligence means you can’t remember. But go up and read what I wrote at the very beginning.
Also, deny it all you like. But in 1949, Germany wasn’t an independent country. Which are the words I used. No, really, go up and see the words I used. Sorry, a country that is occupied by foreign soldiers and who has foreign governors who have to approve all laws and all government appointments — no, Pumpkin, that’s not an “independent country.” I can’t understand why you insist on debating that point, other than your odd but not unusual combination of stubbornness and overriding stupidity. No wonder you’re a Trump voter.
Yes, Pumpkin, you’ve been pwned. Over and over again. You’re really not here for the hunting, are you?
Perhaps there is a way to retrieve early segments of this defunct thread, but I lack motivation to search for it.
The reason I posted information providing the number of tanks at Russia’s disposal is that YOU made stupid baseless claims about Russia’s tank forces. You certainly did deny Russia’s overwhelming numerical superiority.
As you know, the original claim I made was that the West Germans relied on America’s nuclear umbrella for protection from the Warsaw Pact nations. That statement is indisputable.
You then proceeded to make a total horse’s ass of yourself by braying mindlessly about fueling stations for Warsaw Pact armor sweeping across Western Europe. When you were reminded that a modern army fuels its armor as it moves, you drooled, stuttered, and pranced away from your blunder.
When your dishonest claims about West German armor and air power were rammed down your throat, you started backpedaling furiously, ending up in a cul-de-sac from which escape proved impossible.
No one agrees with your ignorant lies about West Germany having to obtain “approval” from the Western allies to enact laws. You cannot hope to find any support for such idiocy.
West Germany became an independent nation in 1949. Full sovereignty was achieved in 1955 when the country was permitted to join NATO.
Your lies stamp you as an ineducable fool. You really should ask a high school graduate to read to you from an authoritative study of the Cold War. I have made a few suggestions, which you will ignore.
You mean you lack the intelligence to do it.
And your claims about the number of Russian tanks don’t address my point. It’s just you’re too dumb to realize it. Russia has less than 2000 active tanks. None of which can reach Germany, and all of which would be destroyed if they did. You making claims about not counting a whole bunch of T-55s, well, doesn’t help your case.
No, Germany was not “independent.” And independent country can do what it wants. By your definition, Hong Kong is “independent”. As is Scotland. You might want to look up the “Petersburg Agreement,” particularly the Marshall Plan element that gave the US considerable control over the German economy and led Kurt Schumacher to call Adenauer “Chancellor of the Allies”
You’re an imbecile. Even you realize that now. It’s just you keep trying and hoping, beyond reason, that you’ll bluff your way out of it.
You continue to rave mindlessly.
Russia has no plans to attack Germany. If it did, it would have to conquer the intervening nations, which would be a rather easy task in the absence of American protection.
your simpleminded bleats about those thousands of Russian tanks being destroyed, presumably by magic, ignore the inconvenient fact that Russia bristles with missiles–long-range, medium range, and short-range. Germany has no comparable arsenal, having saved money by relying on America.
Someday this might sink in.
You are too stupid to understand that the reserves can be activated quickly. The Russian air force is five times the size of the German air force. Germany saves money on defense by letting America carry the load. Does this sound familiar?
You reveal your hopeless ignorance of Cold War history in every moronic post. Adenauer was called “Chancellor of the Allies” because he understood that German reunification was a chimera, a ploy to allow Stalin exert influence over the entire country. Adenauer strongly advocated aligning closely with the Western allies, which meant that there could be no reunification.
West Germany became an independent nation in 1949. There isn’t a historian alive who thinks otherwise.
Ah, typical Trumpkin — I demolish your arguments, and now you claim my arguments for your own.
Yes, Russia has no plans to attack Germany — because it couldn’t if it wanted to.
Because Russia is no threat to Germany, the United States is not “protecting” Germany from anything.
Because Germany is not being threatened by anyone, it sees no need to spend more on its military budget, no matter what that idiot Trump wants.
If West Germany was “independent” in 1949, why didn’t it rebuild it’s military? Why didn’t it sign trade agreements with anyone? Why didn’t it sign any treaties without first getting US approval? Why did its laws need approval from French, British and American high commissioners?
You’re like a whack-a-mole, except you get hit on the head each time.
I am no “Trumpkin.” I voted for Trump because he was the alternative to a corrupt leftist who offered a continuance of socialist policies that were wrecking the country.
Germany continues to rely on America’s nuclear umbrella to save money on a strategic arsenal that will probably never be needed. Trump raised precisely this point when he suggested during the campaign that NATO might be obsolete.
Trump’s rabid vilifiers missed his point entirely and started shrieking. Sound familiar?
During the occupation, Germany was not permitted to rearm. Adenauer understood that accepting the partition of Germany and aligning closely with the West was the path to full sovereignty.
Yep, keep trying to back yourself out of all those mistakes you’ve made. Including Trump.
Yes, I can understand that your humiliation has left you shattered. The fault is entirely yours for attempting to fight far above your weight class.
When you try to discuss a subject about which you know nothing with someone who has taken the trouble to study it, you end up with the result you got. It ain’t pretty, but YOU made the decision to bluff without learning any facts. No doubt that is your typical MO.
I have made zero mistakes, as you have discovered. You have made many, as I have demonstrated.
Oh, that’s right — zero mistakes. Aside from denying that the majority of Russian tanks aren’t museum pieces. And claiming that Russia threatens Germany. Or that Germany isn’t paying its “fair share” to NATO.
Pumpkin, you’ve got no education in this subject. No military experience. You’ve never written in a military journal. And no education to speak of. Yet you still think you can go up against someone does?
You really aren’t here for the hunting, are you?
Yes, ZERO mistakes by me; many by you.
The article from “The National Interest” I keep posting explains why Russia’s vast tank armada is very far from being obsolete. Your stupidity prevented you from reading it.
NOBODY believes that Russia is currently threatening Germany. Since we are the only two people here, it is unclear just who you are trying to con.
Germany saves money on defense by relying on the US for a nuclear umbrella.
You obviously have no military experience (why would an America-hating leftist join the military?) and have certainly never published in any sort of technical journal.
You remain a loud dull-witted fraud and a mere punching bag for your superiors.
Uh, no, if you had any reading comprehension, you’d know those articles say exactly the opposite of that. Did you even read them? How do modifications to 150 40-year old tanks constitute a “vast tank armada that is not obsolete”? Come on. How much of an idiot are you?
And, yes, I’ve published in military journals. Law reviews. Political science journals. What have you published — something about not taking pills with grapefruit?
I imagine that before dropping out of high school, you used to argue furiously with your teachers over every question you missed on tests.
Sorry, Pumpkin, but by now you know I’m better educated than you are. You’re the guy who went to Clown College. I’m th guy who studied under Nobel laureates. We covered this. You just don’t want to believe it because it hurts your self image.
Sorry, reality is a bitch. The record of this thread shows clearly that you never attended college, or if you did, you slept through the experience. You are arrogant, unintelligent, and poorly educated.
You are devoid of critical thinking skills and a dogged foe of logic.
I don’t believe that you went to a good school because you are the product of a failed education.
Hide from it all you want. But I’m not the one too dumb not to dig myself out of a hole like you have.
You should have studied harder. You might have gotten into a better school.
My extremely high level of intelligence made it possible for me to succeed spectacularly in school without having to study hard.
By contrast, your low intelligence coupled with your poor work habits produced the embarrassing spectacle you present every day.
Yes yes, you did well at Clown College. But we both know you’ve got a barely passable IQ. You make too many obviously falsifiable claims and then try to dig yourself out to be intelligent.
The prestigious university I attended compares very favorably with the community college you flunked out of. You are, after all, the “lawyer” who believes that every pol in jail for peddling influence was convicted under imaginary statutes.
My IQ is far higher than yours–obviously!
ALL of my claims, being rational, are falsifiable. Unfortunately for you, none of them have been proved false and none of them will be. The distinction is, of course, lost on you.
Sweetie, if your IQ was high, you wouldn’t have tried to impress me with a reference to Mensa. You have to be either very young or an idiot to try that.
And we already know you didn’t have any Nobel laureates as profs. So, no, weak school.
Gee, you are one stupid liar, cretin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_affiliated_with_Cornell_University
So, out of those 54, which did you have?
Granted, I had only 2 out of the 99 at my alma mater…
Let’s take another look at your stupid fantasy that a political entity can only regarded as an independent state if it has “full sovereignty.”
In 1955, Hungary joined the UN. By the criteria of that august body, Hungary qualified as a sovereign state. Yet Hungary remained a satellite of the Soviet Union. Its yearnings for freedom were crushed under the treads of Soviet tanks a year later.
And, no, you don’t get it.
Yes, Hungary was not an independent country. It was a client state. Nobody thought it was independent. Particularly the Hungarians. (And just FYI, the Baltics were also considered “independent” within the UN, too. Nobody was fooled by that, either.)
Are you trying to prove my point for me? Because I already did it.
We agree that a satellite of the Soviet Union with a puppet government falls short of any rational conception of a sovereign state. Yet, the UN recognized Hungary as just that.
After the birth of the West German republic in 1949, it was still operating under constraints imposed by the Western allies. It did not achieve full sovereignty until the occupation ended in 1955.
Your claim that West Germany was not a sovereign nation until the occupation ended has been proved wrong. Adenauer’s government passed laws and governed the domestic affairs of the new nation until the end of the occupation.
You have never read a book on Cold War history (hell, there is no evidence that you’ve ever read a book), so your frantic Googling merely exposes you as an ignorant fraud.
You are, after all, the idiot who pretended he went to law school while arguing that all the pols in the slammer for selling favors broke no laws.
By the way, it was the PetersbErg Agreement.
ROTFLMAO
And as I said, the UN “recognized” Latvia as an independent country as well during the Cold War. So why did you point to the UN as an arbiter of who is independent?
By now, you’ve backed yourself into another corner. Not the best record for you.
The UN has designated itself as arbiter of what is and what is not a sovereign state.
Everyone sane gets the idea that West Germany was a free, self-governing entity while the satellites of the Soviet Empire were not. Nevertheless, the Soviets would have exercised their veto power to keep West Germany out of the UN.
Do you truly believe that people who make distinctions you cannot understand are backing themsekleves into cpormers?
I can declare myself arbiter of anything I want, too; certainly don’t make it true. So why are you pointing to the UN for support when it said Lithuania was an independent country, but Taiwan is not?
Oh, never mind. It’s clear you’re not even aware of what customary international law says about sovereignty. (Quick! Go google it! You don’t want to look ignorant, do you?)
Unlike you, I rely on books and article in serious journals for information, Google is merely a convenient supplement. Since you cannot read a book, I will provide an online source that explains the subject concisely. Your response will be to ignore it.
Please note the four different senses in which the term sovereignty may be used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
West Germany came into existence as a nation in 1949. It achieved full sovereignty upon the end of the occupation in 1955.
Unlike you, I write many of those books and articles. And I’ve published in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute.
How about you?
An “independent” country is a synonym for “full sovereignty”. Anyone but a moron knows that.
Sorry, the people who teach political science for a living disagree strongly with your fact-free bleats. Your stupidity prevented from learning the four different senses in which the term sovereignty can be used.
You have published absolutely nothing in any technical journal. You remain a dull-witted know-nothing.
You can try to talk yourself out of the hole you dug all you want. But by now, even your tiny brain knows you’ve lost.
I have crushed all of your stupid blunders and exposed your desperate lies, moron.
I am done with you.
Now at long last you can start “winning.”
ROTFLMAO
During the Cold War, Russian tank armies outnumbered NATO tanks by at least 10-1.
Your dull-witted fabrications are amusing to your superiors.
Did you get that out of your “Big Book of War”?
During the Cold War, most of those tanks were T-34s, because the Soviets never threw anything out. And the Americans responded to those overwhelming Soviet numbers by … building cheap tactical nukes.
Sweetie, leave the thinking to the professionals.
No, moron, you are not a “professional.” You are a dull-witted, agenda-driven crank who peddles bullshit.
The huge Soviet tank armies of the Cold War did not contain many T-34s, which were phased out at the end of WWII. It is true that America’s nuclear umbrella protected the NATO nations of Western Europe.
Yes, Sweetie, they did. The T-34 was not “phased out” at the end of WWII, but were held in reserve by the Soviets well into the 1970s, and actually in active units until 1968. Honey, you can actually look these things up. The Warsaw Pact didn’t stop producing them until 1958.
71% of Russia’s current tank force — that 20,000 number you so excitedly cited to — are second generation T-72s, T-64s and T-62s. Another 14% are first-generation T-55s in reserve. The US stopped using second generation tank models in the 1990s. Another 17% of Russian tanks are T-80s, which the Russians would like to believe are “third” generation but which really are just T-64s, with a far less reliable engine and a weak attempt at composite armor. So, yeah. There’s a reason the Russians are already withdrawing them from service. So that leaves 3% of Russia’s tank force — 550 tanks — that are at all comparable to the M1A3 or the German Leopard 2. Compare that to the 300 Leopard 2s in active service (which, incidentally, is a far superior tank), and… what were you saying again, imbecile?
Silly liar, you still haven’t learned that you can’t con someone much smarter and vastly more knowledgeable:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/everything-you-need-know-about-russias-lethal-tank-force-17013
Funny that you seem to continue to go back to the same source. So, tell me, how did those Russian tanks perform in Georgia? Or Chechnya?
Well, for one thing, it does look like you are looking up a subject you know nothing about.
No, it looks like I have exposed you as an agenda-driven know-nothing.
I show that you are wrong in all of your uninformed pronouncements.
The huge Russian tank fleets were created to overrun Western Europe, not to fight guerillas.
Yeah, you might want to actually keep up on your recent reading on the subject. Georgia wasn’t a guerrilla battle. And how did those “huge Russian tank fleets” do in Georgia?
While we’re on the subject, how did those Russian tank designs do in Iraq? Syria? Lebanon? Egypt? Serbia? Ukraine? Has a Russian tank ever done well against a Western model since 1945?
Oh, yeah, right — that new Russian T-10 is going to change all that! It won’t be deployed until 2020, and, let’s be honest, it will be “deployed” the same way the An-94 was “deployed,” but, hey, you read about it online so it must be true!
So you’re not in this for the hunting, are you?
When you losers get crushed, you start bouncing off the walls. I destroyed your deranged falsehood about Russia having comparatively few tanks, or mostly outmoded tanks. I showed that for NATO the constant worry throughout the Cold War was that the massive Red Army with its seemingly inexhaustible supply of tanks would overrun Western Europe. There is no dispute on that point.
Now you are pretending that Georgia was the site of tank warfare. You alone believe this.
Nobody has ever claimed that Russian tanks purchased by Arab nations were competitive with American armor.
You must be living in Colorado — you’re clearly high. I never made claims about the Soviets having few tanks. And you never addressed at all my point that the vast majority of Russia’s tanks are archaic museum pieces. Merely saying there is “no dispute” doesn’t actually resolve a dispute.
And with Georgia — uh, yes. Yes, it did involve large numbers of Russian tanks.
http://thehigherlearning.com//uploads/2015/03/russia-5day-war.jpg
I’m a little surprised you graduated, even from Clown College. Your learning curve is virtually flat.
Uh, this portion of the thread deals with your mad claim that Russia doesn’t have all that many tanks. That is why I have posted links to several sources that refute your lie.
There were no major tank battles in Georgia. Nobody thinks there were, just as nobody has ever denied that wherever the Russian army is, there are Russian tanks.
I addressed your false claim that most of Russia’s tanks are “archaic museum pieces” by presenting information that proved it false. You were, as usual, unable to read it.
Your illiteracy means that you don’t even understand what that article says. In no part of that article does it say that the majority of Russian tanks are T-72B3s or T-90s. In fact, those tanks make up a small minority of Russia’s arsenal. As I’ve already described for you, the majority of Russian tanks are old. Even the T-72B3M and T-90 are old tanks, packed with reactive armor because they don’t have anything better. The article you cite to even admits that — and yet you’re just too dumb to understand the topic being discussed.
I never claimed Russia doesn’t have many tanks. I pointed out that the vast majority are relics. I even listed the numbers for you. You’ve yet to offer anything suggesting otherwise. All you’ve done is cite National Interest articles by one guy about (1) a tank that hasn’t been and likely won’t be deployed, and (2) Russian upgrades to a 50 year old design. Tell me — in all of the conflicts that have pitted Russian T-72s against American M1A1s or even M60A3s, how many American tanks were destroyed by a T-72? Because here’s a hint for you, Buttercup — the German Leopard 2 is in the same category as the M1A3, not the T-72. And that’s putting aside that tanks are easy targets for a whole host of other weaponry.
Yet all of this is merely because you asserted that nuclear weapons are expensive things to have. Or did your little brain forget about that? Clearly that’s wrong, so you’ve retreated to defending an utterly secondary topic about the quality of Russia’s tank forces. Sweetie, anyone who knows anything about this subject knows how poorly Russian tanks performed in Chechnya, Georgia and now Ukraine — and that’s aside from Iraq and elsewhere. Your assertions that Georgia did not involve “tank battles,” which is why Russia lost so many tanks, is akin to whining that of course Russian tanks didn’t perform well — they were in combat!
Just FYI, tanks don’t exist just to fight other tanks. Because, if you had 2 brain cells to rub together, you’d realize how stupid that is. (Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re going to respond with something from the internet about somebody saying that the primary purpose of a tank is to fight other tanks, ignoring the operative term “just”.)
Pumpkin, go argue about something you know about, like working in a drug store or Walmart or wherever. Leave these discussions to the people who actually have studied the topic formally, or who have some background in the subject.
Your stupidity prevented you from reading the article that stated the following:
“While the developmental T-14 Armata captures the spotlight, the bulk of Russia’s armored forces consist of upgraded T-72B3 main battle tanks. Other tanks like the T-90 and the legacy T-80U are still relatively rare. Nonetheless, Russia’s current armored force meets Moscow’s requirements even without the Armata—which is both expensive and potentially unneeded. In fact, Russia might get more bang for the buck by addressing the two key weaknesses of its armor—a new gun design and new ammunition.”
Let’s see that again:
“While the developmental T-14 Armata captures the spotlight, the bulk of Russia’s armored forces consist of upgraded T-72B3 main battle tanks.”
So the article you could not read does indeed state precisely what you pretended it does not.
The following statement by you has been proven false:
“In fact, those tanks make up a small minority of Russia’s arsenal. As I’ve already described for you, the majority of Russian tanks are old.”
You cannot, of course, explain why anyone should believe that Russian tanks performed badly in Chechnya or Georgia. You are merely bleating nonsense, as usual.
OF COURSE, the tanks sold by Russia to Arab clients were no match for top-of-the-line American armor. NOBODY has ever suggested otherwise.
Now you are introducing yet another shift in goalposts by pointing out that tanks are vulnerable to other weapons, i.e., air power. Yes, that was true as far back as World War II.
You remain a know-nothing fraud.
Couple of things, resulting from both your lack of reading comprehension and your clear lack of knowledge of this subject:
1) It’s factually incorrect that the bulk of Russia’s tank forces are upgraded T-72B3s. No, really. You can tell from the following paragraphs: “Meanwhile the T-72B3 remains the backbone of the Russian Ground Forces.” “Backbone” does not mean “the majority,” and Majumdar squares this circle by not counting all those 20,000 tanks you cited earlier as real. Which is rational, because they’re not. The Russians could get a lot of them running in a year or two, if they found the spare parts. But, no. They’re not the majority. And as Majumdar notes in his other article you cited: “While Russia operates well over five hundred modern T-90A and T-90AM main battle tanks, the bulk of Moscow’s ground forces rely on the venerable T-72 and its numerous derivatives.”
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-first-post-syria-move-stronger-t-72-battle-tanks-15500
2) The vast majority of Russian T-72Bs are in storage. As your own article says, 150 have been upgraded to the T-72B3. This basically means upgraded to a 1985 standard by slapping on reactive armor. (I’ll pause here for you to look up what “reactive armor” is). If you look at most Western tanks, the third gen doesn’t use reactive armor — composite armor is better and the two systems don’t work well together.
3) So, yeah. 150 tanks. That’s the “backbone.” And you also seemed to not comprehend the part that said “But at the end of the day, as Kofman noted, the T-72B3— and indeed the T-90A—is an upgrade of a 1970s-era tank. Both designs retain the key faults of the original—the ammunition storage system will explode in a catastrophic fashion if the tank is penetrated. “If you penetrate a T-72, often its ammunition will cook-off and blow-off the turret,” Kofman said. “No matter what you call it, you’re still working with a late version of the T-72 and many of its integral faults or limitations.””
And the reason I believe Russian tanks performed poorly in Ukraine and Georgia is because the Russians believe they performed poorly. Many were taken out. The tanks used in Georgia had no thermal sights, and poor radios. You might want to google “General Anatoly Khrulyev,” the Russian commander who led the attack in Georgia — maybe ask how he was wounded when 25 of 30 armored vehicles in his own personal armored column were taken out. Or how Russia lost two tanks during the fighting in the village of Zemo-Nikozi.
And just FYI — the tanks used by the Iraqi military in 1991 were equal to the T-72s used in the Russian military.
Also, you clearly aren’t bright enough to understand what “goal shifting” is. You’re the one who brought up Russian tank numbers to suggest that Russia is stronger than Germany. And now, after I’ve demonstrated that the vast majority of those 20,000 tanks you cited to are in mothballs — yes, that actually is what we call an “incontrovertible” fact — you’re also whining that I’m pointing out that the 500 or so remaining tanks that actually are modern-ish are not just vulnerable to German Leopard 2s, but to German artillery and German air power.
Oh, whine whine whine. Such an intellectual weakling you are. Who set up the voice controls for your computer? You’re obviously illiterate, so I’m curious.
Your stupidity is on display as usual. Unfortunately, there is no one here except the two of us.
Let’s review:
“While the developmental T-14 Armata captures the spotlight, the bulk of Russia’s armored forces consist of upgraded T-72B3 main battle tanks.”
Now, for those of us who are competent in the use of English, the phrase “the bulk” does indeed mean THE MAJORITY.
Your claim that Germany’s FIVE HUNDRED tanks offer a counterbalance to Russia’s TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND is idiocy, pure and simple.
It is almost as moronic as your fantasy that West Germany came into existence in 1955 and was “forced” to join NATO by the US.
You are an ignorant fool and a clumsy liar.
Exactly. That’s incorrect. The majority of Russian tanks in their arsenal are not T-72B3s. Only a few hundred have been upgraded to that level — and that’s hardly an “upgrade,” since it involves mostly slapping on reactive armor.
If you want to insist that the majority of Russia’s “22,000!!!!” tanks are T-72s — well, then you’re clearly an idiot. I read off the figures for you. Only 9000 are T-72s, and only a few hundred can actually work. The vast majority are T-72Bs, and most are in “reserves”, which is Russian for “no engine” or “no gun”.
By the way, when did West Germany become a sovereign country?
Incidentally, what is the distance between the Russian border and Germany? You think a tank could drive all the way on a single tank of fuel? If not, how do you imagine Russia’s going to invade Germany? Got lots of gas stations for Russian tanks in Ukraine and Poland?
You have no military experience. You have no military knowledge. Everything you know on this topic you picked up reading the internet over the past few days. You’re an uneducated buffoon trying to argue with someone you well know by now intellectually outguns you.
But, hey, as I said, you’re not really here for the hunting, are you/
You were caught lying when you “read off the figures.”
The staging areas for a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany were in Poland, as students of the subject know.
Yes, it is true that everything you know about Cold War history is the product of frantic Googling without consulting a single serious book on the subject. The psychologists call what you exhibit here “projection.”
West Germany became a sovereign nation on September 20, 1949. Your mad falsehood about the country coming into existence in 1955 is utter nonsense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Germany_(1945%E2%80%9390)
you display no ability to read for comprehension, but an excellent discussion of “The German Question” can be found in John Lewis Gaddis’s magisterial “We Now Know.”
So you’re saying that West Germany was a “sovereign nation” while occupied and broken into three occupation zones? When did the General Treaty enter into force.
I fully expect you not to answer that question. That’s your MO whenever you get shown an embarrassing fact.
Sorry, Pumpkin. That’s not what true sovereignty is.
Yes, the entire world believes that West Germany became a sovereign state in 1949.
(From the article your stupidity prevented you from processing:)
The Cold War divided Germany between the Allies in the west and Soviets in the east. Germans had little voice in government until 1949 when two states emerged:
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), commonly known as West Germany, was a parliamentary democracy with a capitalist economic system and free churches and labour unions.
German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly known as East Germany, was the smaller Marxist-Leninist socialist republic with its leadership dominated by the Soviet-aligned Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in order to retain it within the Soviet sphere of influence.[1]
After experiencing its Wirtschaftswunder or “economic miracle” in 1955, West Germany became the most prosperous economy in Europe. Under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, West Germany built strong relationships with France, the United States, and Israel. West Germany also joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Economic Community (later to become the European Union). East Germany stagnated as its economy was largely organized to meet the needs of the Soviet Union; the secret police (Stasi) tightly controlled daily life, and the Berlin Wall (1961) ended the steady flow of refugees to the west. Germany was reunited in 1990, following the decline and fall of the SED as the ruling party of the GDR.
Answer the question: when did the General Treaty go into force? How is an occupied country “sovereign”?
Also answer what is the range of a T-72 and how far is the Russian border to Germany.
The range of all Russian tanks is unlimited. They are supplied by mobile fuel units.
You have already been slapped down on your idiocy about Russia being the staging area for a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. No one believes you.
Ah, yes, “mobile fuel units”. Not at all vulnerable to attack and quite plentiful and effective in all previous Russian engagements….
Oh, right — but they’re not meant to operate in contested territory over 800 miles! So unfair that the Russians would have to pass through Poland!
So you think the Warsaw Pact still exists, huh?
As I said, get some experience and an education. Then come talk to the big boys.
Nobody believes that the Warsaw Pact still exists. If Russia decided to invade Germany, it would certainly go through Poland.
Mobile fuel units would not be vulnerable to attack given Russia’s enormous air superiority over the small German air force.
As I stated days ago, Germany relies on America’s protection and is wealthy enough to contribute its fair share to NATO expenses..
Again, your ignorance is utterly amazing. Russia does not have enormous air superiority over Germany. It doesn’t even have air superiority over Turkey. As with its tanks, only a small fraction of its aircraft work. Hardly any are fourth gen.
Incidentally, “LOCs” aren’t Swedish smoked fish. You might want to look up the subject. And then tell me when, exactly, has Russia managed to maintain a LOC of any distance.
Sweetie, Russia would be operating 800 miles from its home bases, minimum. It would be operating over hostile territory on the way to Germany. It’s aircraft would be at the very edge of their operational range, and well within German anti-aircraft defenses. In the meantime, all those Russian “mobile tank thingies” you mention would be vulnerable to everything from Polish special forces, to German artillery, to German helicopters, to German and Polish aircraft, to anti-vehicle mines.
Please. Go talk to someone who actually served in the military. In a senior capacity. Maybe you get some old colonels come in at Walmart while you’re greeting people.
And one other thing — and I get that this is a common idiocy among you Trumpkins — but, honey, NATO has no “expenses.” Not big ones, anyway. It’s not a combined pool of funding, except for a small office in Brussels. I know Trump is too dumb to know that, even though his generals keep telling him. And you’re obviously too dumb as well, so, hey, you’ve got something in common with your idiot hero!
The “colonels” you meet while mopping floors at Walmart probably are as genuine as you are.
Russia does not currently threaten Germany, so the relatively small size of Germany’s armed forces doesn’t pose a problem. Germany continues to rely on America’s nukes as a shield.
It’s wonderful that in your imagination NATO has no expenses. Reality, of course is very different. It would be a fine thing if all the NATO members paid their fair share.
Your stupidity, naturally, prevented you from reading the material I presented showing the comparatives of Russia armed forces and those of Western Europe.
Oh, did you just make a quip about mopping floors at Walmart? Ho ho, so funny! And SO original! That originality must come from that huge intellect of yours.
But I’m glad you finally realized that I’m right — yes, Russia does not currently threaten Germany. In fact, it can’t. It’s weak. And, no, Germany doesn’t rely on America’s nukes as a shield because nobody is threatening Germany with nukes.
Oh, remember how I was saying Germany could build nukes quickly? Yes, Pumpkin, they are thinking about it.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/wie-donald-trump-deutschland-zur-aufruestung-zwingen-koennte-a-1119912.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=https://t.co/J8tkDBM2kC
https://www.ft.com/content/277695dc-ec52-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6?mhq5j=e1
So tell me, Pumpkin — what is NATO’s budget? If you were to break that budget down equally per country, would it be more or less than $83 million per country, including civilians? What is the “fair share,” given that NATO’s budget is funded by each country according to their domestic national income?
Your complete lack of experience or knowledge about the military means you read something on paper and somehow believe that all tanks are the same and that all aircraft a country lists as existing somehow fly. You have no experience — and you’re just too stupid to realize your lack of experience means you know nothing about a topic.
Come on. Answer the question. What is NATO’s budget and how much does it come to for each of the 28 NATO members?
You ask moronic questions that any child capable of using Google can answer:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/
So more or less than $83 million per year? Come on, answer the question.
And do you imagine that’s a lot of money?
Yes, $2 billion is certainly a lot more than $83 million.
Given the amount of money wasted by the government, paying over 22% of NATO’s expenses does not seem exorbitant. Trump, however, feels that member nations should pay their fair share.
I agree.
You are hopelessly out of gas, sucker.
Sweetie, what is 2 billion divided by 28?
And you, like Trump, are an idiot. The treaty lays out the administrative costs, which are divided by GDP. Incidentally, Germany pays 14% of those costs. What Trump means, if he were literate and not as dumb as you, is a commitment by each NATO country to spend 2% of GDP on their own national defense. Not on NATO. Not on some collective pool. Only complete and utter imbeciles believe such a thing exists.
Which would be you, I guess.
We can all agree that $2 billion divided by 28 yields roughly $71.4 million, not $83 million.
Trump is correct is asking all NATO members to accept their responsibilities.
Actually, you’re not counting the entire NATO budget, but who quibbles about 12 million, right?
So if NATO costs only $71 million per country, no problems at all. After all, everyone is carrying their fair share. What are you and the other imbeciles complaining about?
So when did the General Treaty go into effect?
The world continues to believe that West Germany became a nation in 1949. You may conjure up any date that gets your rocks off.
The excerpts I posted were too difficult for you. Here’s something simpler:
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4NDKB_enUS553US559&q=When+did+West+Germany+become+a+nation
So when did the General Treaty go into effect? And what did that Treaty do?
You seem to really want to avoid the question.
The General Treaty was signed on May 26, 1952. It went into effect in 1955, formally ending the occupation of West Germany, which came into existence as a nation in 1949.
You can keep saying it “came into existence as a nation in 1949” all you want. We’re talking “sovereign nation”. Because — and I know this will come as a huge shock to you — Germany never actually ceased being a “nation”.
And, no, Pumpkin — when there are foreign soldiers in your territory, and foreign governors setting your laws for you, no, you’re not a “sovereign” nation.
If you recall, and I know this is hard given your limited intelligence, this issue started because you insisted that Germany, out of its sovereign lonesome, decided, all by itself, to join NATO. With no input from anyone else! Imagine that — all within 4 days of the time that those foreign governors left.
Your mindless inanities do not shock me. I expect nothing better of you.
Germany ceased to be a nation when the Third Reich was utterly destroyed and Germany was left without a government. In May of 1949 a constitution was drawn up for the new Federal Republic and by late September a government had been elected. Thus, the nation of West Germany came into existence
My intelligence is far greater than yours, dimwit.
I mentioned that you could find out how West Germany finally achieved Adenauer’s goal of integrating with Western Europe by joining NATO. For obvious reasons, you won’t be doing any reading.
Keep telling yourself that, while ignoring the vocabulary words you don’t understand.
“Sovereign” nation.
Yes, the rest of the world will continue to laugh at your intractable stupidity.
The West German republic came into existence in 1949. No lies you tell will ever affect that fact.
The nation achieved full sovereignty in 1955, six years after its birth.
And since we’re talking about “sovereign nation” — no, really, you can go up and look up what I wrote — you’ve now admitted I was right. And you’re an idiot.
West Germany became a sovereign nation on September 20, 1949. It regained full sovereignty when the occupation ended officially in 1955.
You haven’t been right about anything yet.
Fools like you can’t learn because they have a neurotic need to be correct even in the face of overwhelming evidence proving them wrong.
Although you may be the loudest voice in your local bar, you are just a low-IQ fraud to your superiors, sucker.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. But you know you’re beat.
Just imagine how badly beaten I’d be if you ever got something right.
ROTFLMAO
Oh, look at this — your new found National Interest hero even has an article on the topic
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/not-so-scary-why-russias-military-paper-tiger-14136
I have subscribed to “The National Interest” since 1993. You are showing me an article I read over a year ago.
Yes, just as Stalin’s forces suffered horrific casualties before overcoming the gallant Finns, Russians continue to fare poorly by Western standards, emphasizing quantity over quality.
Throughout the Cold War, Germany relied on America for protection against overwhelming Warsaw Pact ground forces.
No lies you conjure up will ever affect that incontrovertible fact in the slightest.
So where is the Warsaw Pact today that Germany still needs “American protection”?
The hair you are clumsily attempting to split is that West Germany attained “full sovereignty” in 1955:
On 23 May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, Bundesrepublik Deutschland) was established on the territory of the Western occupied zones, with Bonn as its “provisional” capital. It comprised the area of 11 newly formed states (replacing the pre-war states), with present-day Baden-Württemberg being split into three states until 1952). The Federal Republic was declared “fully sovereign” on 5 May 1955. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)), with East Berlin as its capital, was established in the Soviet Zone.
You are an idiot:
“The Western Allies turned over increasing authority to West German officials and moved to establish a nucleus for a future German government by creating a central Economic Council for their zones. The program later provided for a West German constituent assembly, an occupation statute governing relations between the Allies and the German authorities, and the political and economic merger of the French with the British and American zones. On 23 May 1949, the Grundgesetz (Basic Law), the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, was promulgated. Following elections in August, the first federal government was formed on 20 September 1949, by Konrad Adenauer (CDU). Adenauer’s government was a coalition of the CDU, the CSU and the Free Democrats. The next day, the occupation statute came into force, granting powers of self-government with certain exceptions.
In 1949 the new provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany was established in Bonn, after Chancellor Konrad Adenauer intervened emphatically for Bonn (which was only fifteen kilometers away from his hometown). Most of the members of the German constitutional assembly (as well as the U.S. Supreme Command) had favoured Frankfurt am Main where the Hessian administration had already started the construction of a plenary assembly hall. The Parlamentarischer Rat (interim parliament) proposed a new location for the capital, as Berlin was then a special administrative region controlled directly by the allies and surrounded by the Soviet zone of occupation. The former Reichstag building in Berlin was occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung, the body which elects the German Federal President. However the Soviets disrupted the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany by flying supersonic jets near the building. A number of cities were proposed to host the federal government, and Kassel (among others) was eliminated in the first round. Other politicians opposed the choice of Frankfurt out of concern that, as one of the largest German cities and a former centre of the Holy Roman Empire, it would be accepted as a “permanent” capital of Germany, thereby weakening the West German population’s support for reunification and the eventual return of the Government to Berlin.
After the Petersberg agreement West Germany quickly progressed toward fuller sovereignty and association with its European neighbors and the Atlantic community. The London and Paris agreements of 1954 restored most of the state’s sovereignty (with some exceptions) in May 1955 and opened the way for German membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In April 1951, West Germany joined with France, Italy and the Benelux countries in the European Coal and Steel Community (forerunner of the European Union).”
Your deranged bleat that Russia fears Germany’s tiny air force is another mad fantasy unsupported by a shred of evidence:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/Russia/Military
Yeah, I know you keep looking things up. And you somehow believe that all those Russian planes and Russian tanks actually work.
Funny, where do you get that idea? Clearly not recent history.
Your superiors “look up.” You “make up.” Hence, your continual humiliation.
Yeah, Sweetie, when someone knows more than you, it’s not “made up”. And you’re not intelligent to even know the difference. Your entire knowledge of this subject is what you dug up on Google.
Selling favors means soliciting bribes. Lots of pols are in the slammer for doing what you approve of.
I suspect that the members of NATO do not take your hysterical falsehood seriously. Paying their fair share will not provide much impetus for Western European nations to dismantle the organization.
No, lobbying is not paying for influence. Lobbying is legal.
You’ve had another very bad day, dunce.
That’s not the only way to sell favors, Pumpkin. Which you’d know if you had gone to a decent school.
So what’s the statute?
On NATO, you’re not even aware of where that money goes, are you? “Fair share” indeed. Name one thing that the US is currently defending Germany against.
Gee, maybe if the Germans wanted America to remove its bases, Merkel might broach the subject?
The US defends Germany against Russia.
Thanks for asking, dunce.
Given that Germany’s military is stronger than Russia’s, that seems a bit odd, don’t you think?
Oh, yes. Germany’s military is stronger than Russia’s. I know. Shocking for you Trumpkins in love with Russia. Particularly those, like you, who never spent a day in the military. But that’s the case. Also — I know, another shock — Germany doesn’t actually border Russia.
So explain to me, using as big words as your little head can manage, how Russia’s anemic military, which lost heavily invading Georgia, and which performed poorly in Ukraine, is going to threaten Germany such that Germany needs defense from the US? With what army do you think Russia would do this?
Truly, your idiocy is astounding. I’m surprised you even manage to breathe.
Nobody alive, except perhaps 9/11 “truthers,” believes that Germany shares a border with Russia. Your straw man is pointless. German military technology is excellent, undoubtedly superior to Russia’s. I repeat that Germany has no nukes, which renders irrelevant your prattle about conventional weaponry.
And Germany could put together nukes within a few days. And France has nukes, and — shockingly — has a defense treaty with Germany. So, yeah, Russia isn’t going to use nukes.
So I’ll ask you again: how is the US defending Germany against Russia? If the US leaves, what’s to prevent Germany from putting together a nuclear deterrent tomorrow?
Admittedly, it’s not every day that one encounters an idiot who thinks that bribery is legal:
https://bribery.uslegal.com/federal-laws-on-bribery/
Nice switching of the goal posts. Sweetie, see, here’s the thing — you said selling favors was illegal. I asked you to show me the statute. And you come back with something about “bribery.” “Bribery” is by definition illegal — as is murder. But just as all killing isn’t murder, not all selling of favors is “bribery”.
Now, I know logic isn’t something they taught you at Clown College. But it is a thing.
So, we’re back to where we started. Now, go use that little head of yours and try to show me the statute that says, specifically, that selling favors is illegal. Come on. I know you think you can try.
Yes, I certainly stated that selling political favors constituted accepting bribes. There is no disagreement on that obvious point. If you imagine that offering favors in return for cash is not illegal you are even dumber than you appear.
I showed you a Federal statute, but your lack of intelligence prevented you from processing the information.
Yes, it was a federal statute for bribery.
So, under your supposed statute banning “trading favors for money,” campaign contributions must also be banned, if the donor expects the politician to vote a certain way, correct? So campaign finance must not exist in the United States…
Your deranged post about Trump supporters actually believing that Hillary’s e-mails has receded into the coils of this thread. If there is a way of finding it, I lack the motivation to learn it.
Your mad bleat about Trump squandering the money his father left him by increasing his fortune by several orders of magnitude remains part of your legacy here.
Yes, of course…
And yet I showed you evidence that Trump squandered the money his father left him. Come on, Pumpkin. Even the National Journal wrote about that.
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/54699/1-easy-way-donald-trump-could-have-been-even-richer-doing-nothing
https://www.vox.com/2015/9/2/9248963/donald-trump-index-fund
Even Jesus would find that rate of return damning. (No, really. You might want to check out Matthew 25:14-30.)
And as Mark Cuban, a real billionaire, said, no real billionaire spends his time selling steaks, vodka and playing cards.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/mark-cuban-donald-trump-wealth
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284272-mark-cuban-renews-attack-on-trumps-wealth-he-doesnt-have
So. Yeah. Me and Mark Cuban. How’s your blackjack “investment skills” versus Mark Cuban, Pumpkin?
Given that Trump’s personal wealth greatly exceeds the amount he inherited, your lie has been exposed and discredited as thoroughly as all the other crapola you peddle.
So finance is something new to you, huh? What, they don’t teach that at Clown College?
Your losing streak continues:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-while-other-controversies-rage-work-on-border-wall-moves-forward/article/2624408
You definitely aren’t in the top 98%. Even those dolts know enough not to cite the Washington Examiner. Particularly one that cites as “progress” nothing more than “planning”.
Again, I ask — how many feet of that wall has been built? Did you notice that figure in your op-ed you just linked?
You have been caught lying again, lefty.
http://www.investopedia.com/updates/donald-trump-net-worth/
You really should take a basic course on finance. For one thing, you’re citing something I already referenced. Second, the evidence cited comes from Trump’s campaign disclosures, where the valuation of assets is not audited and doesn’t follow GAAP. It’s basically a range that Trump made up. For example, all of those real estate assets — those are based on how Trump feels that day. No, really. He testified on that under oath.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/21/news/companies/donald_trump/
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sites/undefined/undefined/undefined/undefined/undefined/?q=cache:eP7E6w7XFmQJ:https:%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fchasewithorn%2F2016%2F03%2F31%2Fhow-donald-trump-exaggerates-and-fibs-about-his-4-5-billion-net-worth%2F%20&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us#1a4bbdd55e7c
Do try to keep up.
So… got any new evidence?
Thanks for the worthless advice, but my portfolio is in fine shape.
No, you did not reference the article I cited. Your lies about Trump’s wealth have been driven down your throat and you stand humiliated.
And yet I’m right. You know I am. Trump inherited $100-200 million, he’s now worth at most 3.5 billion and probably much less (which we will know when Congress publishes his tax filings), and his net wealth is far less than it would be had he merely invested in a Vanguard index fund.
So, yeah. You voted for a con man, you haven’t figured out that you voted for a con man, and you stand humiliated as your con man can’t get anything done and winds his way towards impeachment.
Hey, your mom told you an education was important. You should have listened to her.
Yes, OF COURSE you continue to cling to your delusions. You wouldn’t be a fool if you were amenable to reason and evidence.
No, the liars to whom you grovel will not manage to impeach Trump in the absence of anything remotely resembling a crime.
Trump has solid accomplishments after four months in office. The best is yet to come.
Be very afraid, lefty: AEMRICA IS COMING BACK!
Well, there’s no need to impeach Trump right now. He can’t get anything passed and the Republicans in Congress aren’t going to give him the time of day. But, trust me, once Congress votes to release his tax returns, we won’t need to impeach him — he’ll just resign, rather than have proof out there that he’s in such debt that he’s not a billionaire.
So those solid accomplishments — you’re not hanging your hat on a judicial nominee that the Senate approved at the cost of getting rid of their own ability to filibuster future Democrat nominees, are you? Oh, yeah, right: a pipeline!
How’s that wall going, Pumpkin?
Yes, it would indeed be difficult to impeach Trump in the absence of any crimes. The most lawless DOJ in the nation’s history, the one presided over by Barack Obama, spent months turning over every rock and found absolutely nothing. Leftist morons are desperate for the courts to give them victories they can’t win at the polls, but more disappointment awaits them.
You treat Trump’s four months in office as if they sum up his remaining seven-and-two-thirds years. The wall will be built.
AMERICA IS COMING BACK, loser.
Actually, his obstruction of justice — which he admitted to — is already more than enough for Congress to impeach him. See, had you actually had an education, you’d know that “high crimes and misdemeanors” do not necessarily include violations of federal law. No, really. I know, it’s shocking to those who have no legal education — or much education at all — but there it is. And Congress does not need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. All they have to do is vote.
And, no, Sweetie, the investigation just started — and DOJ has not been presided over by Barack Obama ever since Trump became president. Again, I know it’s shocking for the uneducated. But, again, there it is.
So how’s this wall going to be built? Is this because you imagine a majority of even Republicans in the Senate voting for it? You do know they need 60 votes, right?
Oh, right. Forgot about your lack of education and lower IQ. Yeah, Trump will need 60 votes in the Senate to get a wall built. And he can’t even get 50.
Just FYI, Pumpkin — when a president can’t get even the basics of his agenda even recognized by Congress during his first 4 months, it has never ever gotten better for him.
America is circling the toilet, Pumpkin. We saw this just this past week. And it’s happening because we let the illiterates like you vote.
Silly liar, your superiors laugh at your stupidity. Nobody thinks that Trump “admitted” to obstruction of justice.
True, the reign of the lawless Obama ended on January 20, but his efforts to nail Trump dragged on for over six months and produced absolutely nothing.
Obviously your buffoonish blunder about sixty votes being required to enact part of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration is nonsense.
AMERICA IS COMING BACK, loser. Your impotent bleating can’t change reality.
I take it you haven’t been paying attention to current events. He told the Russian ambassador he fired Comey because of the investigation into Russia connections. Yes, Sweetie — that’s obstruction.
What “crackdown”? You mean that illegal immigration thing that has been dropping steadily for the past 10 years?
Sweetie, you voted for a corrupt, incompetent moron. And your IQ is so low that you somehow think that that was OK. And you do this despite not having an education.
Hey, it hurts to be one of globalization’s losers. But that’s not my fault. You really should have studied harder in school.
Comey would have been fired on January 21 if Her Entitledness had won. Trump’s overdue act was the result of Comey’s bizarre behavior.
My IQ is high enough to make me a MENSA member and a Like Master in the US Chess Federation, along with earning me a Regents State Scholarship, an NMSQT scholarship, and a scholarship to the Cornell School of Industrial Relations.
Yes, Obama’s crippling of the US economy slowed the flow of illegal entries across the southern border, but the 70% drop since LAST YEAR is not merely part of a trend.
No, you don’t pay attention to current events, sucker.
To qualify for Mensa, you only have to be in the top 2%. That’s hardly impressive.
Despite it all, you’ve never been taught by a Nobel Prize winner. Well, shame you couldn’t get into a more selective institution…
Agreed, Mensa req
Agreed, Mensa requirements are hardly impressive, but let’s keep in mind YOUR inability to meet them.
I have not been taught by any Nobel Prize winners.
What did you learn from Arafat? Or was it Rigoberta Menchu?
ROTFLMAO
Merton Miller and Gary Becker. Also Richard Posner, though he looks increasingly unlikely to get a Nobel these days. Mearsheimer and Walt taught me about NATO.
And, Sweetie, if you’re not in the 99.5 percentile, you’re never even going to be noticed. 99.7+ percentile to even get your degree.
That’s the funny thing about the internet. As I said, math alone says you will eventually come across not only someone who calls you on your nonsense, but humiliates you about your poor education as well.
But there isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest that you know anything about math. By contrast, my background in probability and statistics served me well in my long career playing high-stakes team blackjack all over the world.
Doubtful with such a limited education and IQ.
Your superiors noticed that whenever you cranked out another lie to “call” me you got crushed like a cockroach.
Face it, loser, you’re just a punching bag.
And now you’ve realized you lost.
Do you ever wonder why you troll a conservative forum? Do you enjoy the thrashings meted out by people vastly more intelligent and knowledgeable than you?
You keep making that claim about intelligence, while demonstrating the exact opposite. You don’t know the law; you don’t know a thing about NATO or alliances; you think diplomacy is guided by some kind of ethical code, which you can’t cite to and which any reading of Thucydides, Machiavelli, Clausewitz or a dozen other writers would show is laughable.
What is it exactly that you know? Construction of a trailer park?
Well, I certainly know how to expose your lies and humiliate you.
You have not read a single one of the authors you mention.
Sweetie, just because you didn’t get a good education doesn’t mean I didn’t get multiple degrees at a better university where I read all of those authors, and had 2 Nobel Prize winners as professors.
I know it’s shocking. But, hey, had you studied harder…
Spoken like another delusional DemoncRAT who is in need of a nice lace hanky.
Real original handle you got there, Pumpkin.
Thank you, snowflake. Where would you like to have the hanky sent?
They’ll never forgive lying, thieving Hillary losing. The snowflakes are very upset.
Hey, you don’t see me all whining and butthurt that “No one in the history of the world has ever been treated more unfairly!” waa waa waa
Oh, I’m sorry, what were you saying again, Pumpkin?
Sad, but true.
Right on. And, as I added in a previous post, this has morphed from being “sore losers” to a coordinated attempt to subvert a democratically-elected government. That’s the real story here, whether or not Robert Mueller is interested in it.
So what part of what Trump’s opposition is doing is unconstitutional or illegal? Or do you think a single election is the be-all and end-all of how policy is decided in the United States?
I got a feeling you’re going to be quite disappointed.
Amen to that.
No, I think YOU’RE dumb. Because you’re falling for the Democrat-Media complex’s transparent attempt to undo a free and fair election, in collusion with disloyal people working in our own government. You know, the 95% who donated to Hillary.
As for those “Impeach Him” Republicans you seem to admire, either 1) they’re gullibly falling for all this obvious nonsense, or 2) they’re just looking to cover their own asses and get re-elected.
For the record, I did not vote for Trump. And he’s certainly added fuel to the fire, through his own incompetence. But we should all be more worried about this coordinated attack on our democracy, unless and until there’s actual evidence of an impeachable offense.
So you’re saying all those tweets — that’s part of the “Democrat-Media conspiracy”?
This isn’t a “coordinated attack.” This is Trump’s incompetence coming home to roost. Just as so many predicted before the election. I mean, seriously, what did you expect? The country elected a reality TV star with no experience in anything other than losing money and franchising his name, and with very clear psychological issues. You really think you can just pick any old idiot up off the street and the guy would make a good president?
Yes, the conservative guys who are useful idiots for the leftists hellbent on destroying America are certainly dumb.
Says the person who voted for a reality TV star with narcissistic personality disorder for president.
Yes, I voted for a celebrity who promised to do what none of the geldings who run under the Republican banner have the stones to do.
You are a mindless leftist who traffics in Big Lies. You recognize the existential threat Trump poses to your mission to take down America.
You nail it, Severn, but I would never have believed this possible before Trump. It’s almost like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I hear or read what they say and I wonder, who are these people? I think Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real malady, and they got it bad.
“In fact the psychological profile of the neverTrumpers is exactly like that of the left.”
True on the psychology of the two groups. Dynamic is very similar – cronyism, reliance upon centralized, corporate media to amplify their message.
There’s also a substantial Venn overlap between the progressivism of the left and the neoliberalism of the phony-con right. Both believe in Open Borders, both believe in technocracy, both believe in globalism – it’s no wonder they’ve made common cause in beating back the resurgence of the populist, nationalist right.
Well the alternative to a neoliberal capitalist economy is a state managed one. I’m tired of people trying to tell me I have a patriotic or civil duty to buy American products regardless of the price or how much damage it might do to my pocketbook.
It’s not that they aren’t bright. They are.
It’s that their cognitive dissonance is blinding them to relevant information.
It is great to observe and theorize about what is happening. But what is really needed at this time is reaction and preparation for what comes next. Because this is not only a phenomena of the media. It is also one of democrats and their never-trump republican allies who do have power. It is a mistake to think this is just going to burn itself out “because theyre all deluded.” These people are intent on over-turning the election. We must focus on ensuring that does not happen, regardless of anything any investigation finds. If comey, lynch, clinton, obama can get away with committing crine, we must insist the same standard applies to trump. And then be prepared to back that up, including confrontation if necessary. Unfortunately, all this is almost certainly bad for the country. But to not do it is to concede to the destruction of our democracy.
Trump is evidence that they don’t have power. They have titles.
I concur. HOWEVER, out here in the ‘burbs of the SF Bay Area, most people are laughing at the press feeding frenzy. They are “eating their young” so to speak, and in doing so, ensuring that their credibility with the public at large is that of Pravda in the days of the USSR.
The reason they tried so hard to disarm us is they knew with hildebeast as their fearless leaders, the days of complete and total control – and FEMA camps – was finally at hand. The militarization of local police, and all the urban military drills over the last eight years should have been a clue; as was the purge in the military of anyone loyal to the U.S., and actually asking if they were willing to follow ANY orders. So, yes, this is a temporary stay of execution.
But what scares the so-called “elites” to death is President Trump’s unpredictability, and his uncanny ability to connect with American people on his own, thereby reaching beyond their “democratic operatives with bylines” now publishing rumors of rumors. In the back of their tiny, power hungry brains is also the thought that Americans are now in possession of 340 million firearms (even though they did their best to dry up ammo and put gun manufacturers out of business). I believe their chatter is an echo chamber where they try to out-impress each other, but in doing so, impress no one else. Real Americans are disgusted by them appointing themselves as demi-gods who must tell us “what to think,” as Morning Mika so charmingly put it.
May they burst into a fireball on the road of life, where we look in our rear view mirrors like in the movie ‘Mad Max’ and watch them burn-burn-burn like Rome from their own hubris. Arrogance will be THEIR downfall. But do pray nonetheless.
May they all go down in flaming flames!
I wonder if Trump has the courage to call for overt action against Deep State from the army of people who attend his rallies? I wonder if Trump ever imagines it would come to that? I hope he does. Several million people descending on D.C. or storming that big info-storage facility out in Utah–with the intention of burning both places to the ground would be impossible to resist. Trump could definitely lead that kind of action and people who love liberty would follow. It would be another shot heard ’round the world…
I didn’t even vote for the guy; but you can sign me up. I’m with you all the way against the demonic Deep State.
Yeah a pitchfork army of goobers. Perhaps they could go to war with the “resistance” That would work out well. We could just kill each other. That would be great!
In less than two years we have the opportunity to throw out another thousand democrats from office. We need to look for some RINO’s to boot out too.
That won’t be difficult, Some deliberately non-supportive Rs have to go.
A truly massive under-statement. The rino crown needs to go.
I’m reading a historical novel that leads up to the American Revolution (Jeff Shaara’s “Rise to Rebellion”). The similarities in what led to our break with England with the power-mad arrogance of our Beltway/Manhattan/LA elites, is uncanny. The arrogance – that they, the elites know better than we the simpletons and rabble, is astounding. They wish to overturn the results of an election won fair and square by the outsider they hate; and we the people cannot allow this to happen. We must be ready to literally meet them in the streets if we have to. If we allow the elites to bring down the president, our country, as we have known it, will be lost forever. I fought in one war already for this country I love; I will fight again if I have to, this time against these enemies from within. They better start thinking about that – the multitude of others like me out there who aren’t so willing to just roll over and let the criminals win.
What we’ve witnessed is the entire Manhattan Media (the real power) and Democratic Party (the puppets) swear allegiance to the Crusade to Save Fair Maiden Hillary’s Honor from the dishonesty, cruelty and all around nose picking behavior of Trump and his valet Putin. Oddly, in this tale, the Black Knight that struck Maiden Hillary so grievously and denied her her just reward has now turned out to be the White Knight when dispatched by the Prince of Democratic Darkness – Donald Two Scoops. Clearly, a dragon must be slayed.
You will note that this story bears a remarkable resemblance to the tale of the UTube Video Caused Spontaneous Riot of Crew Served Weapons Consuming Maiden Hillary’s Ambassador. Then there was the tale of the Holy Grail of the Unsecured Server that the Black Knight/White Knight seemed to save Maiden HIllary from. Methinks the White/Black Knight might be bipolar – but who knows?
What future tales will our Hogwarts educated scribes will visit upon us? You do know they have special powers and can fly through the air on broomsticks? We live in very religious times. Keep your guns loaded.
I loved reading this.
Maiden Hillary was the ultimate victim of the Tweeting Wiener (Carlos Danger). If it wasn’t for him, she would be President today.
Pray for the poor knave Wiener. He trusted that his life insurance policy, Maid Hillary’s emails, would protect him from the reach of those horrible bigots that believe sharing photos of one’s junk is somehow wrong. One should remember that Maid Hillary has seen many of her most loyal subjects die in prison of mysterious means. No one seems to know why this is.
This fits perfectly with a thought I had this morning. Somebody needs to create a comic book of Orange DT, Corruption fighter. Get the mighty army of kids out there to join our side!
It used to be worse. I can remember when you had to walk all the way across the room to change the channel.
It cannot be.. Ye speaks of olden days of 4 networks and nothing else… the horror….the horror…..
I speak of a 7″ screen and half the neighborhood in our living room to watch “Victory At Sea” on the only TV in town.
Was it black and white? :D
No, it was brown. Oh, the picture? Yes. We had the extra “snow” option.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dumontnetwork.com%2Fimages%2Fduchatham.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dumontnetwork.com%2F2.html&docid=DBgCqTvgxQvxWM&tbnid=AmyR7LbveOhchM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwi41oLosoHUAhWEgCYKHUeYCRAQMwhUKCUwJQ..i&w=410&h=309&bih=588&biw=1229&q=dumont%20television%201949&ved=0ahUKEwi41oLosoHUAhWEgCYKHUeYCRAQMwhUKCUwJQ&iact=mrc&uact=8#h=309&imgdii=3BLIyH1UbeAFbM:&vet=10ahUKEwi41oLosoHUAhWEgCYKHUeYCRAQMwhUKCUwJQ..i&w=410
Now we have 400 channels most of them owned by the same 6 companies.
No – 3 channels! And there was a time they cut all signals at midnight. lol Remember the old Indian pattern? Good times!
Remember the glowing dot when you turned it off?
It is really a coup attempt to reverse the results of an election. Trump won, fair and square, because there are enough Americans left who still want some say in their government and an economy that will provide them with jobs and a decent lifestyle. The elites want power and money for themselves and damn the “deplorables.” Their mask is off, I pity the backlash against the media and naysayers in the establishment if they succeed in toppling this president. I welcome this special counsel who will resolve the “russian” issue and hope he will also wxpose the abuses of power in the unmasking of americans to spy on them that Obama developed. Was Petraeus caught in that web? Who did they blackmail? I want to see justice all around.
Backlash of the 35%
You aren’t good at math either
What we have here is mass hubris on steroids…bulked up to appear stronger and more threatening and imposing than it actually is….and it has to keep the volume cranked up to 11 all the time to maintain that illusion….which only hastens its eventual inevitable demise
The left has options between an identity crisis in admitting their platform is inherently flawed and begin to reform their message, or double-down and keep building up the walls of denial and delusion at any cost. They seem to be choosing the latter.
They (the media) have chosen the form of their destructor. They have learned nothing over the last few years and seemed baffled by, when not completely unaware of, the disdain with which they are held in by the public. Their only protection lies not in the 1st amendment per se but rather in the public’s belief that they serve a constructive purpose making them vital and necessary to us not the elitists. There is very little time left for the media to return to their proper role of reporting the news fairly, instead they have doubled down on activism.
Mr. Kimball, you killed it right here and I Thank You for laying it out in terms even a child could understand. I wonder how Jonah Goldberg could put his name to his best-selling “Liberal Fascism” and still go on like he does about Trump? Goldberg should read the book his research assistants wrote for him.
Trump IS a Liberal fascist, dummy.
Repetitive chants is a poor form of persuasion in the public square. Not unlike the gauze clad Hare Krishna’s of the early 70’s.
You mean like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBAjhxjQ90
That is an excellent observation…There’s only one word for it: Liar. Okay maybe some others- hypocrite, traitor, fake, sellout, despicable. There are others that come to mind.
The media has gone mad. But the American people are very sane. They work for a living and pay their bills. Just look at Chicago and ask the question – what has Obama done for the people of Chicago? What have the swamp dwellers in DC done for your family?
exactly so…….therefore…thank you for a good article, penetrating discernment, and balanced analysis….MAGA.
I don’t disagree with Kimball’s main point but he ignores the fact that many of Trump’s problems are self inflicted. The man “shoots from the lip” and can’t seem to control himself. At the very least and much like Obama his lack of experience is showing. And you would think he would have been far more cautious since he must have certainly known that he would not get the panting puppy dog adulation that Obama got.
or maybe he just doesn’t give a crap what the MSMDNC thinks.
The author is exactly right that the current attempt by democrats the MSM (I repeat myself) and Never Trumpers is predicated on the arrogant notion that they and not the constitutionally prescribed process of an election should decide who is President.
But the height of their delusion is proven by the belief that together they can bully the Congressional GOP majorities into rescuing the failed democrat party and committing political suicide by helping them get rid of Trump. That’s not going to happen.
The establishment is not suffering from “madness”, they are using it as a tool. Far from being mad, they are being extremely deliberate in their attacks. They have done this against every Republican candidate back to Eisenhower, the only difference now is that they are going all in.
As for the “never trumpers” notice that they are all Neo-Cons. That gives who they are away. The are right wing globalists. They don’t disagree much with what the left wants, except, perhaps, they want to go a bit slower and want the US model rather than the European model. But their over-reaching goal is the same – they want a global government and Trump is threatening it. That is why they hate him and why they want him politically destroyed as soon as possible. This is why they hate him MORE than the Bushes, Nixon, Eisenhower, and even Reagan – Trump is in position to set their agenda back 70 years. He already has disrupted them for 10 years, so it is imperative that they destroy him now – particularly before another Justice retires.
Nice analysis!! They just think their way of running our lives is better than the D’s.
The Never Trumpers are really progressives who want to run your lives for you. It must be hard when you have the power, to sit back and let people have a bit of freedom. The progressive never trumpers just cannot help themselves to trying to tell us how to live our lives and what to think. They need to go back and read some of their own articles that talked about freedom and try to take them to heart.
Trump is the Prog who wants to run people’s lives.
May be true. But not yet.
The never trumpets wanted Hillary as potus. They did everything they could do to try and make it happen. They are just more democrats.
Lie.
Who did you vote for, the traitor wiretapper leaker McMuffin or the brownie eater Johnson?
I refused to participate in that farce of an election – I’m done choosing the “lesser of two evils.”
So you’re never voting again?
So you’re an Illegal Alien.
The Deep State.
The single defining characteristic of The Resistance, whether from the liberal progressive left or the Never Trump right, is their pathological terror of their looming irrelevance. Within the Federal Government are the hordes of under-worked and overpaid government employees, justifiably terrified of losing their jobs, as The Trump Administration erases reams of useless and often counterproductive rules and regulations. Of course they are going to try everything in their power to undermine the President, including illegal leaks of classified information.
Within the media are hordes of talkers and opinion dispensers. The old order is their one area of expertise. They have “sources” in the Federal Government who fed them inside information. They understood the rules, the way Washington has worked, in its own dysfunctional way, for decades. When they talked, wrote, and opined, they used to sound intellectual, even occasionally wise. But for over a year, now, they just appear idiotic. They have been wrong about the American electorate and President Trump day after day. They are afraid, terrified, of becoming what they already are: irrelevant.
We have gone beyond the point of no return. The old order is no more. The Deep State and Administrative State, etc., are being rolled up like dirty old carpets, and carried out to the dumpster by a new Administration that owes nothing to the talkers and opinion dispensers, or to the legions of government employees who have long stuffed the campaign coffers and ballot boxes for liberal progressive politicians. The old insiders are suddenly all on the outside. And the American electorate has seen that it is possible to bring in a new, exciting team to lead our country.
We the people are not going back to the old order. And that terrifies all of those old order somebodies who have over the course of the past year become nobodies. What The Resistance and the Never Trump people are really afraid of is not President Trump; it is us. We the people have terrified them by refusing to shut the hell up and vote the way the elitists of the old order told us to vote. So the loony clamor of wild, baseless accusations against the Trump Administration will continue. It is the sound of hordes of frightened, irrelevant people whistling past the graveyard.
^1776
Excellent post, olderwiser!
What an excellent post olderwiser. Very, very well stated sir.
I had no influence and I have no influence but I have fear of ignorant demagogues and their cult followers.
What could go wrong?
I realize an essay such as this excellent one has only so much room, but it sorely needed a reference to Eric Hoffer’s True Believer as well. For every cynical DNC creep and nevertrump neocon Quisling there are thousands of starry eyed imbecilic puppies lapping up the econo sized chow these Costco Bolsheviks dump in their dog dishes.
Moreover these last few months have cemented in my mind that my former formulation that the MSM are the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party was wrong and in fact the Democratic Party is the political arm of the Mainstream Media, as Stick also notes below..
Hey roger…
How easy you Never Truthers role over and accept massive lies from your favorite liar… I find it amazing that any patriotic American would accept the lies that your lord trump has told. You write…
“It is a tiny fraternity shouting at you as it talks to itself.”
Now YOU are telling the lies… check RCP polling averages… your lord trump is overwhelmingly rejected… 55% find sleazy trump unfavorable… 55% disapprove of sleazy trump… 58% think America under trump is going in the wrong direction.
So, keep supporting your liar, roger. Just remember – You will be known by the company you keep.
HB
David Brooks I don’t worry about….or some others mentioned in this article. They’re power-crazed Democrats in all but name. But as to the “conservative” (I used the word advisedly) #NeverTrumpers…I wish Jonah Goldberg a massive stroke. I hope the wheels fall off Krauthammer’s buggy and he crashes into a lampost. As for Steve Hayes? May he be plastered by a semi. De facto traitors, the lot.
Hmmm.
I would bet that those you wish such hardship on… just wish that sleazy trump would resign.
What’s with you trump trolls that you are so nasty?
HB
Trumpsuckers are closet Libs.
If you want to see true nasty, wander over to the WP and write a strong pro-Trump comment. You’ll be lucky if you escape with your scalp.
Yup.
Did that for all the obama years… nasty bunch, those liberals.
HB
Tu quoque. We don’t burn cars or assault anybody or intimidate anybody’s children by trespassing.. It’s just that we cannot abide pompous, myopic, self-righteous stuffed shirts who are unable to see the clear and present danger posed by Soros and his votaries (read present-day Democrats). We’re talking existential threats to America here — to which these dunderheads remain willfully blind.
David Brooks would change his tune if Trump found someone else to put a proper crease in his pants. I think Jonah is trying to be fair and that he recognizes the policy changes voters want. But like many Trump supporters who still like Trump’s policy changes and his appointments, they are getting tired of the constant politics by tweet. The more the people hear about the controversies regarding whether Melania wears a headscarf in Saudi Arabia, the more they will turn off their TVs. I don’t want all the Republican/conservative writers to give up on criticizing Trump when critic is due. I just want them to be measured. There are some blogs I no longer read because the pro-Trump commenters really would defend him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
Problem with this argument is that plenty of Americans think the current Dem alternatives are even worse… at this point I wouldn’t make any bets on the assumption that Trump’s unpopularity will translate into massive Dem victories in the midterms.
If Trump is so unpopular Trump opponents should trust that voters will vote in such massive numbers for Dems in the midterms that they don’t need to advocate for (let alone orchestrate) impeachment i.e. a coup detat.
Your initial point is well taken, but then you say…
“If Trump is so unpopular…”
There is no doubt that he is unpopular – note the few Republicans that came to his aid recently on the Comey firing & Russian intelligence divulgance, not to mention the polls that tump reads.
I would think that 2020 is up to the democrats… who are doing a smashing job of failing too.
HB
The unfavorable polls are absurd. Just like hillary having a 99% chance of winning on election night. “There is no path.” Now as for the wrong direction polls. Since Trump was sworn in there have been ZERO polls with over 60% wrong track. That was five months ago. In the five months prior to the election there were THREE polls that were UNDER 60% wrong track. Read it and weep, with Trump in charge the average American thinks the country is better off than at any time of NObama’s 2nd Term. Don’t be surprised to see this number continue to rise, however. But it won’t be caused by DJT, it will be caused by the loon dems and media trying to derail him.
Trump is unraveling his predecessor’s “legacy” and the public approves immensely.
sure
Just like Mexico is going to pay for trump’s wall… cause trump said so.
HB
He dismisses you with a contemptuous wave of the hand as part of the “hysterical crowd.” Trump can do no wrong and anyone who says otherwise is just part of the “hysterical crowd.”
Yes. The arrogance of the trump cult is getting to be quite worrisome.
HB
Are those the same pollsters who said Trump had a 5% chance of winning the election?
Nope. But they are the same ones that trump reads every day.
HB
Fake Polls is all you have left to hang on to….sniffle, sniffle….
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25212df292d35a10d5fc77dbfabfdc4463461bac3af6796953d691221126ac74.jpg
Fake pictures and a fake ‘el presidente’ is all you have.
HB
LOL RCP, I will remind you, did not predict Trump’s electoral college win. So keep believing your selected reality! I warn you though, you will continue being wrong and butt-hurt going forward. You will be especially angry when you watch Trump win re-election.
LOL !
You don’t like RCP polls… which is nothing more than an aggregation of national polling… really is to bad.
You see, you lord trump uses those same polls… and therefore your expressed nastiness towards any that do not bow to you… your expressed nastiness is directed at your lord trump.
Bad boy you be.
HB
Project much? I will repeat what I said before, your poll aggregate is worthless. Just ask Hillary and Mittens Romney.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… YOU be a bad boy!
Slime ball trump will be coming after you.
HB
Are you capable of posting anything containing thought and/or reason? Don’t answer that – it’s a rhetorical question.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… your russian trump trolls have dummied down a lot in America discourse and discussion.
“The report said Moscow used a variety of tactics in a bid to sway the outcome.
“Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations — such as cyberactivity — with overt efforts by Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries and paid social media users or ‘trolls,’ ” the report found.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/06/politics/intelligence-report-putin-election/index.html
Go back faking things in your own country.
HB
Historybuff is using CNN as a source. LOL
Your point is irrelevant to Kimball’s article. He is not talking about the entirety of those who disapprove of Trump, but of the Never Trumpers, who are indeed very few.
Seems with every trump lie, the numbers in Congress increase.
?
HB
David Brooks I don’t worry about….or some others mentioned in this article. They’re power-crazed Democrats in all but name. But I wish Jonah Goldberg a massive stroke. I hope the wheels fall of Krauthammer’s buggy. As for Steve Hayes? May he be plastered by a semi Traitors, the lot.
These Anti-Trumpers are mostly the losers in high school, the dorks who thought that with Obama they FINALLY would be cool forever. Look at the Millennials, losers in search of meaning and finsing only selfies and no jobs with that all so essential Gender Poetry Major (the day they grow up is the day they will spit on Pelosi…long overdue as well). Now that nonsense has transcended adult world and the Never Trumpers. McCain is THE reason we had Obama, he si such a apathetic old nothing, who give s ash it about his “service”…he is insane now…so of course he can tell us why Trump is bad? Please. Graham could not even win HIS OWN state, so of course the problem is Trump. Yeah ok. Look at the LibChicks, the militants who make the Feminazis look like 50ish homemakers …the ones who thought NOW FINALLY we WILL subjugate ALL men…they are oing insane (Kirsten Powers, look sweetie you doinked Anthony Weiner, you hardly qualify as intellectual, ok sweetheart?) Hillary was and always has been a loser and the issue is not the number of votes she got but that MOST were against Trump…on her own this idiot can not even raise ONE daughter (poor Chelsea, she really thinks she matters…with that “dad”?)
On and on BUT unlike high school, this time we win and destroy the losers. They have no place to go. I keep hearing about Kamilla Harris…she of the c ock hollster mouth who curses like she has not been la id in a decade, or Tom Perez, (finally an ugly MAN in the dems instead of those bag ugly chicks they prop up (Patty Murray, damn woman get a real hairstyle, ok, you uggggleeeee) whose mother is sad that she let that mouth suckle her. They are losers, weak and unaccomplished.
I do hope Biden jumps in…or Hillary gain.
Their followers are our lowers, our weak, our unaccomplished, the true bitter clingers who with one punch to the face run and weep and go away…more punches ARE needed on them, and soon
But no matter what, the MEDIA are now forcing more and more people TO Trump…we see the insanity of the mob in the media and we are afraid of them, not Trump.
Maybe we need another real Civil War…too many weak and useless people who are draining things from the rest of us. We fought to show the importance of unity and to free the slaves…now most blacks act like slaves of the DNC and MOST DEMS hate unity…maybe we need to go through it again…
Hey champ, Millennials have been fighting your war for going on 15 years now, and we’ll be paying your social security bill for the rest of our blessed lives. I’d shut your trap about us if I were you. Fortunately, I’m not — the Lord be praised.
Bullshiite!
Very few millennials have been “fighting” any wars. You’re a bunch of self-absorbed sissies who would never come close to the sacrifice of military discipline or facing an enemy in the field. And, we paid SS, too, and your college tuition as well, punk!
Lol, what it’s been Boomers over in the sandbox this whole time? Get a clue, fossil.
Learn to read, dickhead – I mean fewer than 5% of able-bodied millennials serve in the military.
Learn to think, champ. What percentage of the military is milennials?
Chump
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8ddb6c0cf585b323a9c67d17d24ed7b037a423d5563473d4c1acaa4bc212329.jpg
Oh, hey, a Nazi. Why am I not shocked to find a dumpster dumpling like you scumming around on this website?
…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc72a95eb8bd12d0d6a528af1dc9561c06251ea7d0f4bafcc0dac50a3a91be28.jpg
I just wish that here in the US we could treat Nazis the way we used to: 30-06 rounds through the skull. Times sure have changed.
If you were man enough to ever act on your crazed delusions, we’d still have a happy ending (with you either cut down by police or rotting in prison), but we both know you are just going to sit in your slime cave posting pictures anonymously on the internet. Happy trails, bitch.
Well said, Mr. Kimball.
The salient point for me is that since last July, they have turned up absolutely nothing. What is really disturbing is the growing trend of the press citing unnamed, anonymous chimera sources for their “scandalous” stories about Trump.
Most of the rabid anti-trumpers among the general population are left-wing Feminists. They are the ones swarming the public meetings of GOP congressmen and then running them off the road afterward. The MSM is packed to the gills with feministas. So is Academia. Therefore, the concentration of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the Media and Academia makes perfect sense.
The GOP must hang together or they will surely be politically hanged separately in 2018. On the other hand, if they fulfill the agenda of ACA reform, tax reform, pass a budget with an increase in defense spending and reduction in redundant or ineffective domestic programs, the independents will be somewhat satisfied and the base will be quite happy. That will prevent existential losses in the individual races next year and set the stage for a competitive 2020 presidential race.
Bwahahahaha!!!!
You left out border wall funding which is the main thing Trump ran on.
The irony: The author speaks to “Popular delusions and madness of crowds” to explain “hysterical” anti-Trump voices without bothering to consider the forces which elected Trump in the first place. How delicious. Please keep serving up your lack of self-awareness, Mr. Kimball.
Ross Whateverthehellhislastnameis is a pompous prick.
Jonah Fatberg is a giant douchebag.
David Frum is a Canadian disguised as a conservative.
David Brooks is short.
Pete Wehner is a soft-spoken pimp.
Max Boot I don’t know but I’ll go out on a limb here and say he’s a Pajama boy.
Given your enlightened verbiage I am not surprised you don’t know Max Boot, so let me fill you in. He was born in Russia (points for that from the likes of you) and, as a military historian, author of the well-regarded “Savage Wars of Peace.” Given that he is a military historian, it is not surprising that he has no use for a draft-dodger like Trump.
I would have expected similar dismissal of Trump from all true Republicans but, as it turns out, there is hardly such a thing as a true Republican.
Max Boot is a Bloodthirsty Bolshevik Jew that needs this
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f32932827e32b582537d37d40171e0e8d425314146d1c9e4210cccdaaff1414f.jpg
So it’s time to get the people who read books, write, and know stuff out of the ‘conservative movement’.
Thanks RK.
Neoconservatives do not hold a monopoly on reading books, writing, and ‘knowing stuff’. The upcoming generation are not yet in the positions of influence that Neoconservatives have, but the ideology of the latter is not intellectually ascendent. There is a tremendous flourishing of thoughtful discussion happening online about restoring national identity and realism about international affairs to the criteria of true conservative politics.
What Conservative Movement?
It conserved nothing, not even the Tranny Invasion of bathrooms.
You people are a joke.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de5bf8d52f43d0a5e35d996be34bd4fa7a5ae4be995b0f135d9d435bc98d7127.jpg
The Never-Trumpers speak for “the principals” of American government.
bravo mr author
There’s a recognisable infantility on the part of Trump’s opponents when he does not instantly pass reforms to Obamacare or make the changes to the tax system he promised. The critics don’t want these changes because Obama left everything in perfect change but the fact that Trump does not do everything instantaneously discredits him and his abilities. What they seek is instant gratification which is the basic instinct of infants everywhere. No allowance must be made for grown up debate and agreement on the best way forward. I remember an admiring newspaper article describing Barney Frank and a few advisors huddling over last minute changes to what bec
Good point. But you know what they say about sausages. I doubt it’s ever ideal how laws actually get made.
Plan on visiting Trump in jail as he sits behind bars made of 100 percent American steel
You’re more likely to end up like this.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec372e51e05b2e6efea79b9367bce10bd80b546f321955b745729e7690850243.jpg
What is so pathetic about this article is that the few Republicans you name have almost nothing to do with it. The media’s insane attempt to undermine the election is almost solely the work of the Mainstream media, along with the Democrats they represent. It is a well thought out plan being executed by them, and the few you name have only a marginal role. By focusing on them and ignoring the main culprits, you engage in precisely the mob mentality that you accuse them of In your phobia about Never Trumpers, you ignore the true culprits,
True, but the disloyalty and betrayal of those formerly on one’s side, even few in number, strikes closer to the heart. Notice that many of the NeverTrumpers share zip codes, offices, and MSM screen-time with their politically-correct ‘progressive’ colleagues. Stockholm syndrome. It’s bad enough that they’ve had to play the role of junior partner or token/controlled opposition for the last eight years. But when Republican voters chose Donald Trump over their own Jeb Bush, they chose to throw in their cards with their captors in the MSM.
The disloyalty to the Right is on the side of the Trumpsuckers.
The “right” voted Trump the nominee and then the President. Your attitude is the same as the left, disloyalty in your book means someone coming into your precious club without your permission and convincing most of the other club members to follow them and not you.
No, the Right did NOT vote Trump – the former Obama voters did that.
You mean you didn’t vote Trump and you are of course “the right”. Do you really think that the massive plurality Trump got in the primaries was all from Obama voters?
So where does that leave you and your small cadre of friends?
Somewhere like this?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f065cb5b38941b01012194bdf5f5ea2d3f340c8c93ba707552ca1ac4e7006404.jpg
Yep. That’s the dirty little secret. Trump was largely helped by Democrats infiltrating the GOP Primaries.
Then the Right is dead because no one cares about it anymore.
Bush may have raised a lot of money, but I did not see him as the candidate of choice anong conservatives.
Notice how most of the Nevertrumpers are Jews?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/962d86c100605871b46bf827cc6cf8131b0a2bff524143e3b179f8ab85f9cc28.jpg
Bingo! The neverTrumpers are genuine Conservatives.
What is your definition of “genuine conservatives” living in the swamp?
These are your faggy friends
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9bdb1e55b70e3286936a681b25b3bc0c2b057c995c72d3dfe1e6f967fb769ed.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d9c6f7340dc99850701a4da361f800c296b84ced88ac5535394c42a866bd700.jpg
See, folks, any criticism of Trump is just crowd hysteria – just as any criticism of Obie was racism.
No, 0bama wasn’t a failed president because he was black. His domestic and international shortcomings were due to the fact that he is a radical leftist. Likewise, Trump will be a great president to the extent he accomplishes conservative agenda items and repairs the damage caused by his predecessor DESPITE the hysterics of an emotionally distraught MSM and the rest of the democrat left.
Way to miss the point, dimwit.
Way to be in a current events coma for he past eight years there, Einstein.
He’s that Hope & Change / identity politics working for ya these days?
Ross Douthat writes for the New York Times which by itself disqualifies him as one of their many self-infatuated, pseudo-intellectual scribblers (Kristof, Friedman, Brooks) who never seem to be held to account for peddling their idiocies. Think of their predecessors — Walter Duranty (Stalins’s a great guy), Herbert Matthews (Castro’s a democrat), etc.
The “Never Trump” crowd continues to display a total inability to separate the Trump persona from the body politic’s desire for a change in USA’s direction—-certainly extenuated during the Obama years. Politics are becoming less about labels and more sources of power and the protection and promulgation there of. Fear of losing status and power to a cheeto colored and blunt business man has transformed many a person’s mental status to resemble the look displayed by HRC during the balloon dump at the DNC National Convention.
Why are you so hysterical?
If only we could have saw her face when they threw in in the back of the van like a sack of potatos.
The US was the premier energy producer for the past several years. It had nothing to do with a pipeline moving Canadian oil that would otherwise be moved, just in a different direction.
So basically the “great accomplishments” you list are a single judge, that Congress was going to confirm anyway, albeit at the cost of giving up the power to filibuster any future Democratic nominees. You don’t name any of these horrendous regulations that have been repealed, mostly because the only ones Trump has repealed have been those that had not yet gone into effect.
So, yeah. One judge. In the meantime, even Republicans in Congress are talking about impeachment, but all of this is based on absolutely no evidence, even though Trump himself tweets about evidence existing.
I get the feeling you’re stretching here to explain why there is so much smoke but there can’t possibly be any fire…
Is this what happened to little Epstein?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c494e92c4d4d2b3062209d86e33ae787b075eb73cf5abb9bb981978b74872716.gif
Oh, I’m so shocked! Racism! Anti-Semitism! I’ve never come across something so horrible. Whatever will I do?
“Epstein” is Puerto Rican, cholo
This should be posted throughout the land! It is the most cogent, concise and accurate representation of the current situation I have yet seen. This should be repeated from any organ that can be utilized and the President and his staff should propound upon it daily in such a way that the MSM cannot cause it to be ignored. It should be the singular message from the administration on all of this and directed toward the MSM, the various “opinion makers” in print and media, and the Congress (RINOS and DEMS).
Jeb looks just as small and unfit to be president as he did in 2016, and the Democrats look increasingly mob-like, delusional and prone towards extremism (hence calling themselves the “resistance”). Resistance to what? In the cases of Maxine Waters, Dick Durbin or Patty Murray would that be honesty and ethics?
LOL…..even the intellects that by reputation tout conservative views are often turning out to be frauds. So it goes with Kimball. Trump is a Populist leading the Republican Party off the cliff with his Socialist policies on healthcare, trade, infrastructure spending, punishing high wage earners in tax plan, etc. Trump is unfit for the office and incapable of the leadership we need at home and overseas.
NeverTrumpAlwaysConservative
Rickey =
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cbce8f55a02ac247e01da27d6c408212e96c94749a38726e4f8c9bb718ab2ad7.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/194274ce15a8442179ade947c3ea8b12117c5bd73af8818c1b4d5ce5d40fc596.jpg
Yep, you are a Trumper…..completely unable to reply with substance, just with sarcasm.
NeverTrumperAlwaysConservative
You may be right that the President is leading the nation down an unfortunate, ill-advised path. But he was elected by The People. Your guy, (or girl) lost, just as mine did, somewhere along the campaign trail. Respect for election results must be maintained or the Country, as a concept, is finished. And do not tell me that it is already finished and that you are on a mission to save or salvage what you can. Any plan to vacate election results is unacceptable, no matter the motivation.
I supported Ted Cruz. I can’t say the Country is finished but it’s certainly is on a path where the Constitution will be invoked only when it suits the interest of the political party seeking justification in a dispute.
Excellent piece. All very sad and true. While I didn’t vote for Trump (I sat out the gen. election), my sympathies and loyalty lies with him; he won the election fair and square. His victory (and the peoples’ victory) over the 1984-ish bureaucracy ripped the mask off of officialdom – and it ain’t pretty. There is definitely a soft coup against Trump (and we, the people) being attempted. It MUST be repelled by all who support the president and our form of government. If we let these tyrants win and bring down Trump’s presidency, all will be lost.
Typical Trump troll claims that he didn’t vote for Trump but…
No one believes you did not vote for Trump.
I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe. I’m not a troll and I’m not pushing any Trump agenda. I’m just telling the truth as I see it. I’m sorry if that burns you up. I was a conservative Republican from first consciousness to my early thirties. I left the Republican party in disgust over the invasion of Iraq. I voted for Barack Obama twice, as an Independent (b/c I fundamentally saw him as more old-school Republican, as strange as that sounds). I oppose/d Hillary Clinton with a passion b/c she is a danger to this republic. I voted for Bernie Sanders against her in the primaries; and sat out the 2017 general election in protest. So you see, I am no troll; I am a strategic voter who knows of what I speak.
Well then my apologies. I never understood why posters think it is necessary to tell us how they voted or (not voted) unless it has some bearing on their comment. Usually it is the sign of a troll but you may be the exception.
And you ARE pushing the Trump narrative (soft coup, etc.) whether you want to admit it or not.
What if a ‘narrative’ is actually true? Is it ok then to push it?
The truth is the truth, Dave781.
No Dave, YOU don’t believe him. You don’t speak for everyone.
Yes, you are right, it’s an attempted coup; a political coup, and it is the antithesis of “our form of government”.
1. You people refuse to look at the business ties of the Trump Klan and where the money goes.
2. You people are WRONG. He DID tell Russia classified inf. Yes he ca, but it was stupid. He put the lives of Israeli operatives at risk, as well as the lives of Americans overseas, as it will be more difficult to gather information as we are not to be trusted due to a chatty president.
3. Money laundering is being investigating NY right now. Will be interesting seeing what happens.
WELL AMIN MUDDASIR SYED! MORE THAN 167 MILLION WHITE
AMERICANS HAVE BEEN MURDERED AT THE HANDS OF MUSLIMS INSIDE THE UNITED STATES
AND THE LEFT WING MEDIA HAS COVERED IT UP AND NOT A DAMN WORD.
THE CALIPHATE IS BEHIND THIS AND THE CALIPHATE IS ISLAM THAT
HAS PUT THEIR HANDS ON EVERY RACE AROUND THE WORLD!
LOUIS FARRAKHAN HAS ORDERED THE SLAUGHTER OF EVERY RACE
STARTING WITH THE WHITE RACE IN EVERY WHITE COUNTRY!
WHY!
ALL FOR LAND.
THE ( AGENDA 21 ) is being pushed by these liberals to
enslave every race by controlling water, food, land. These liberals are a
threat to every race around the world! When one race goes, every race will be
powerless to stop it! You will be enslaved by ISLAM! LOUIS FARRAKHAN HAS BEEN
PROTECTED BY LIBERALS! DEMOCRATS!
WHAT IS YOUR FUCKED UP REASON TO SAY ( ( I S L A M A P H O B I A ) )?
THE DEMOCRATS – YOUR PROTECTORS IN EVERY WHITE COUNTRY ARE
CALLED ( ( L I B E R A L S ) ) AND THEY ARE A DIRECT THREAT TO EVERY WHITE
REPUBLICAN THAT HAS THEIR WOMEN RAPED THAT HAS BEEN USED AS AN ACT OF WAR! TO
DESTROY THE CORNERSTONE OF EVERY COUNTRY AND THAT IS THE FAMILY! AMERICA’S
FAMILY HAS BEEN DESTROYED AND MORE THAN 43 MILLION MURDERED IN THE LAST 8
YEARS! FOR THOSE WHO ARE STILL BREATHING!
STOP LISTENING TO WHAT ( islam ) IS SAYING NOW!
IT IS WHAT ISLAM IS DOING
I STOPPED LISTENTING TO ISLAM!
ISLAM’S ACTIONS IF FINITE!
EVERY MUSLIM IN EVERY COUNTRY HAVE RUN TO MOSQUESE THAT SAUDI
ARABIA HAS CREATED!
THE FACT THAT ISLAM / MUSLIM SAY YOU ARE VICTEM OF SOMEONE
WHO HAS STOLEN / HIJACKED YOUR RELIGION!
YOUR ACTIONS ARE CLEAR, YOU RAN TO THE MOQUES THAT WAS
CREATED AND CONTROLED BY THOSE YOU CLAIM TO HAVE STOLEN YOUR RELIGION AND THAT
YOU SIGNED UP WITH THOSE VERY PEOPLE!
You are not ( A / THE ) victim, you are the real treat to
the white race around the world and to every race that exists.
You have put your hands on Our children, Our Daughters, Our
Women and have been murdering our race in every country through ( M U L T I C U
L T U R A L I S M ) AND ( D I V E R S I T Y ).
RAPING OUR WOMEN AND TARGETING ALL OF OUR CHILDREN ALL
AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH SCHOOLS!
EVERY COUNTRY HAS NOT CLAIMED THAT WE ARE AT WAR WITH ISLAM
, IT IS ISLAM’S ACTIONS THAT YOU ARE AT (
W A R ) WITH EVERY RACE AROUND
THE WORLD THAT IS NOT ( I S L A M
).
It is Saudi Arabia
that states that ( they will hit their enemies with an IRON FIST! )
It is the book of the ( Q U R A N ) that has been used as a
weapon and that you are a follower of that book that has been the centerpiece
of your RACE WARE!
MORE THAN 700 MILLION LIVES HAVE BEEN EFFECTED AND FOR EVERY
GENERATION THAT WILL EVER FOLLOW!
YOU ARE THE THREAT THAT HAS FOR COUNTLESS GENERATIONS WHO
HAS BEEN BUYING THE LIBERAL POLOTITIONS THAT HAS LEAD TO MORE THAN 2.5 BILLION
DEATHS AROUND THE WORLD AND THAT IS INCLUDING America, France, Britain,
Germany, Italy, Spain, JAPAN, CHINA, ASIA, SOUTH AMERICA.
You stand for GLOBALISM and slavery and I refuse all three!
It is ISLAM THAT HAS COMMITED WAR AGAINST EVERY RACE AROUND
THE WORLD! MURDERED EVERY RACE AROUND THE WORLD!
TO THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN,
CHINA, ASIA,
AUSTRAILIA, ISLAM HAS ONE GOAL AND THAT IS TO EXTERMINATE EVERY RACE AROUND THE
WORLD!
ISLAM IS IN YOUR COUNTRIES AND THEY ARE EXTERMINATING EVERY
RACE AROUND THE WORLD! Chinese, Hispanic, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Latino,
Mexican, More than 60 islands has been wiped off the face of the earth! Hattie’s,
France, Canada,
Russia, Sweden
has been seized by the UNITED NATION’s LIBERAL ALLIES THAT HAS TAKEN OVER YOUR
COUNTRIES. HOW! BIG MONEY THAT HAS EDUCATED THEM AND THEY WERE EDUCATED INSIDE
YOUR COUNTRIES TO FIND OUT HOW YOUR COUNTRIES OPPERATE. ALL TO BRING YOUR
COUNTRIES DOWN FROM THE INSIDE AND TO MURDER YOUR RACE BY GOING AFTER YOUR
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM YOUR CHILDRENS SCHOOLS TO COLLEGE!
AND THE UNITED NATIONS HAS USED THEIR CONNECTIONS TO CAUSE
MASS MURDER AROUND THE WORLD OF EVERY RACE ARE BEING MURDERED THROUGH MASS
INVASIONS!
THIS MUSLIM WHO HAS WENT AROUND THE WORLD UNHINDERED BY
LIBERAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRATS TO CALL FOR THE EXTERMINATION OF THE WHITE RACE
WHILE INFILTRATING EVERY COUNTRY TO PUT THEIR HANDS ON EVERY RACE ALL AT THE
SAME TIME TO INCREASE THEIR NUMBERS AND TO USE EVERY COUNTRIES RESOURCES AND
MONEY TO ATTACK THE PEOPLE IN EVERY COUNTRY, CITY, TOWN TO EVERY CHILDRENS
SCHOOLS WHILE CAIR USES MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO SUBVERT YOUR RACE, YOUR
BABIES, YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR DAUGHTERS TO LEAVE YOUR RACE SO THEY CAN
EXTERMINATE YOU BY COLLAPSING YOUR COUNTRIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
HERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE, ONE VIDEO SAYS IT ALL.!
Louis Farrakhan Praises White Genocide “we killing you
& we ain’t even trying”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB9kH9-v3bk
ONE VIDEO THAT IS THE WORD THAT IS BEING USED AROUND THE
WORLD! CREATED 2005 DURING OBAMA’S RAIN OVER THE UNITED STATES THAT HAS USED
THE REFUGEE PROGRAM TO USE TAX PAYER DOLLARS TO DESTROY AMERICA,
THEIR RELIGION, THE WHITE CULTURE.
THE AGENDA 21 THAT WILL END THE WHITE RACE THROUGH SOCIAL
JUSTED THAT WAGES CULTURAL TERRORISM ON ALL WHITES ACCROSS THE COUNTYR TO FORCE
WOMENT TO LEAVE THEIR RACE TO COLLAPS GOVERNMENT! AND THIS IS THE ACTIONS BEING
DONE AROUND THE WORLD TO EVERY RACE PER THE VIDEO ABOVE.
Dr. Kamau Kambon wants to kill all white people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEqa90XpPw0
AND THESE PEOPLE ARE BEING PROTECTED INSIDE THE UNITED
STATES BY THE LIBERAL MEDIA AND THE POLITICAL DEMOCRATS INSIDE CONGRESS AND ALL
AROUND THE WORLD.
SAUDI ARABIA’S
KING SAID IT OPENLY, HE WANTS LAND FOR HIS PEOPLE. WHAT BETTER
WAY TO KILL YOUR WOMEN THROUGH RACE MIXING.
kill the white people race mixing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4nIZ4Z_9I&t=6s
Race-Mixing…END of the WHITE Race?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qYRJpgAUtQ
From south Africa
( GOOGLE : OBAMA 70,000 GENOCDIE )
70,000 Whites Murdered in ‘Modern’ South
Africa; Obama’s African Legacy
http://americanfreepress.net/70000-whites-murdered-in-modern-south-africa-obamas-african-legacy/
What is going on in South Africa
is a slow genocide of the white population. The mounting homicidal violence
against whites, the denial of access to jobs for whites and the erasing of
their history and culture mean genocide on the installment plan. Could America
be next?
Obama’s African Legacy: Poverty, Crime, Terrorism By Bill
White. The Democrats protected Obama while he committed crimes as President
called ( FALSE FLAGS ) to piss off the world.
This, of course, is why Obama, dancing at the end of strings
held by international bankers, murdered Qadaffi and destroyed his banking
system.
Obama acted like one of the old African chieftains, willing
to sell his own people into slavery.
Blacks in America
are laughing at white people, talking about how white people would be lousy at
being slaves. YOU MEANS WHITE WOMEN WHO ARE SEX SLAVES AND STERILIZED FROM
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF RAPES BY YOU MUSLIMS! SOUTH
AFRICA IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WANTING TO
FORCE WHITE PEOPLE TO PAY WHITE TAXES JUST LIKE THEY DO IN AMERICA!
LAUGHING!
https://youtu.be/yvkMcZAoVO0
Right Now Mexico
is now just seeing the mass invasion of their country! but you see. No one is
talking about the 7 Ocean cargo containers found at the bottom of the ocean
north east of South America fill with Mexican men and
children! NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THAT!
Vacating the 2016 presidential election results for anything less than proven “high crimes and misdemeanors” will result, at best, in cancerous cynicism regarding Federal power and American elections. At worst, it will result in violence.
I’ve been saying from day 1, since all this Russian brohahua started that the only way I will pay attention to it, is, if someone prove to me that Russians put a gun on the heads of all those workers in Michigan, and Wisconsin, and PA etc, on Election Day, and told them “vote for trump or we kill you!”.
Until then this is all just made up scandal. A bubble blown out of proportion (and frustration!) from the never trumpers, after they:
1. Couldn’t prevent trump from entering the race
2. Couldn’t prevent him from winning the nomination outright with primary votes
3. Couldn’t prevent the RNC delegates from officially making him the nominee
4. Couldn’t stop him on his way to the general election regardless all the scandals and negative media thrown at him
5. Couldn’t prevent him from winning the general election
6. Couldn’t undo his EC win with protests, popular votes arguments, and recounts.
7. Couldn’t convince electors to vote against him and then the senate confirmation.
8. Can’t prove any wrong doing or crime with the Russian “collusion”.
So now they are invoking the 25th amendment..,if that doesn’t work for them, what else is left? Either assassinate trump or kill themselves and put an end to their own misery.
And that’s all there is to it. The only 4-years-old tantrumers here are all those anti trumpers that can’t still let go the fact they lost the 2016 elections….moving on.
Who do the NTs speak for? In some small measure people like me that’s who. To assume that all who voted for Trump are all in for Trump is a juvenile piece of analysis. Trump was the second worst candidate for President, running close to HRC for the title as the worst. I voted for him, and I can’t stand the guy. I like half of his policies and NONE of his persona. Every time he speaks, it is the proverbial fingernails on the chalkboard…it IS a cringe inducing event to listen to the man. If we could dump him and not destroy the conservative (what little bit remains) movement, I would support it now. But this is still a zero sum game with democraps so we have to play our very weak, and very idiotic, cringe inducing Trumpkin the clown hand.
The mere fact that we elected him should be telling those in washington everything they need to know. They are either stupid and deaf or deliberately intent on not only not listening but also overturning what we’ve said. What trump says or does no longer matters. This about the American people.
“To assume that all who voted for Trump are all in for Trump is a juvenile piece of analysis.”
Who assumes that?
The author pretty clearly implied that the NTs are in tension with Trump VOTERS…that is not a true assumption…some yes…nowhere near all.
True, and we’ll be smart if disallow a media cabal to wipe out the votes of 60 million people.
I sympathize with the anti-Trumpers… as a personaility I find him embarrassing. However, I would much rather roll the dice with the Donald in charge that see the obsessive-complusive Dems trying to run ever aspect of our lives
Simple enough. It’s been clear from the start that Never Trump is a movement of pure self-aggrandizement, made more intense by having their noses out of joint because hardly anyone cares. NR in particular is in a state of trauma, realizing -but being unable to admit – how far they have fallen from their former status. (Frankly, that fall was inevitable as soon as Lowry took over.) It’s worth noting that when they finally endorsed Cruz, they ran one article backing him, and then almost nothing for a week. Jonah’s distaste for the endorsement was palpable; I still don’t get why French and Williamson were so lukewarm about it. (I do understand Mona and the Rubiettes.)
There was a truly appalling pair of articles at NRO, about a year ago, by Mark Antonio Wright, which made this very clear. He was thundering about the fire and brimstone which would strike down all who switched to Trump. In context, this looked very much like a six-year-old, holding a trash can lid and a stick, “attacking” a dragon. Except that it’s cute in a six-year-old.
Also about a year ago, Mollie Hemmingway nailed it in an article named “I Hate Everybody” (or something like that). I too didn’t support Trump for the nomination. In fact – because of where I live – I didn’t bother to vote in November. And I too am sick of his pointlessly shooting off his mouth when it makes it hard for others to support him. But none of that changes the obvious fact that NTers can’t stand it even when he does something they have to endorse. “Stop about Gorsuch, what else has he done?” Well, isn’t that enough? What would Hillary have given us? Had she won, our best bet would have been to confirm Garland before she could name Huma.
I do not pretend to understand the neverTrumpers but they are very predictable . And I agree with Severn that the psychological profile of the neverTrumpers is like that of the left.
Real people who dwell outside the toxic media bubble either ignore, or are wise to, the ranting media mavens and corrupt, subversive Congressional crowd.
Why are the neverTrumpers, the democrats and the liberal/progressive “Fake News” media talking points always the same? Always.
Have you noticed that when the “Fake News” breaks a story the democrats and the neverTrumpers run out to repeat it on TV.
Even with 90% of the “fake news” media and the liberal/progressive rallying around their anti-Trump call for ouster, it still only represents about 20% of the voters.
“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally” – S Zito
Someone drew a highly insulting chalk drawing of President Trump on the southwest sidewalk corner
@ Greenwich Ave and 6th Ave here in NYC yesterday.
Could someone please wash it off with hot water?
No person or clique in the news media “speaks for me,” but I do find myself in continuing agreement with those journalists on the right dubbed the “Never Trump” crowd.
That said, like most all of those writers I acknowledge and affirm that Trump is indeed the legitimately elected President.
I’m familiar with the argument — most visibly made on the right by Ross Douthat — that Trump is so manifestly unfit for the position he was duly elected to, a proper course of action would be to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. I’m more persuaded by the counter-argument made in response by Charles Cooke (another so-called NeverTrumper) that such an action is not only unwarranted and counter to Constitutional intent but also would be unwise in the extreme, indeed politically destructive, inasmuch as it would essentially amount to a coup by the “elites.”
As Cooke says, I fully buy the diagnosis, but not that proposed remedy.
Trump is the President. So be it. If he’s found to be guilty of misdeeds that are revealed in possible impeachment proceedings, throw him out. Otherwise he’s there for the duration. But I fail to see why that reality should prompt his critics to silence themselves. If you like Donald Trump, that’s fine. But I, and other Trump critics, have legitimate reasons — absolutely none of which involves a “quest for power” — to continue to consider him utterly unfit for the office, notwithstanding the fact that he does actually hold it.
Why are his supporters so completely unwilling to countenance ANY criticism? Didn’t we just labor through eight tiresome years of cult-of-personality politics?
It depends on how you define criticism. We have seen an orchestrated attack intended to remove a President from office.
It seems to me they speak more for the Dims then anyone else and why they can’t be trusted and should be thrown out of office as soon as legally possible. I will never trust them again or waste my time paying attention to what they have to say. That includes all the NeverTrump crowd and especially the talking head pundits! They have destroyed what little credibility they may have had!
Yes, YES, the neverTrump’ers absolutely speak for boneheaded Democrats, plain n’ simple! At this point, after the election of Trump, the negative rhetoric of disaffected [R’s] needs to be shut down, stifle it! This opportunity may never come along again, especially with the state of the left-wing media, so shuttin’ up would be the best solution and then embracing Trump being thankful Hillary didn’t win the election!!
Yes, they have indeed. What extremely little credibility the MSM had is a mathematical & statistical zero now.
Bill Kristol calls for Joe Lieberman to become President in a bizarre tweet. If that doesn’t wake up you conservatives that the neocons, Rinos and liberal democrats have always been in bed together, you’re clueless. Include those two love birds, Lindsey Graham and John McCain too.
I am a Trump supporter. Wish he’d think before opening his mouth. That might be the “containment” needed.
“……a form of insanity……dangerous if left unchecked.”
RK should have expanded on this!
IMO, if this “insanity” consuming the Media types keeps up for say, another year and a half, there won’t be a sane Democrat left.
Yesterday, we had the Media cheering on the California Dem Convention’s sprouting middle fingers shouting “F*&k Trump!”. I can’t wait for the next public display of “insanity”!
Let’s focus on what many of the Never-Trumpers have in common: their loyalty to the Bush family, particularly Dubya.
It is glaringly obvious that people like Kristol, Podhoretz, Goldberg and Douthat greatly overrate their intelligence. In reality, they are reasonably smart, but far from brilliant. They made a mistake in evaluating the consequences of ousting Saddam Hussein (I made the same mistake after reading Timmerman’s book) and ignored dissenting voices, such as William F. Buckley’s.
The election of Barack Obama doomed the neocon’s cherished Iraq project. All hope for establishing a stable pro-American democracy in the heart of the Middle East vanished when a radical leftist who traces all the world’s woes to America rose to power.
But the venture was always a longshot. And Trump dared question the wisdom of Bush and the people around him. For that offense, he can never be forgiven.
Who do the NEVERTRUMPERS stand for? If the election was any indication, they stand only for themselves and don’t give a hoot about the rest of the party. A pox on your houses.
#NeverTrump:::: Donald Trump is the comedy relief of the Primary season because Jeb! has the financial backing, experience and Bush name recognition to sweep the Republican Primaries.
( Trump won States and Jeb! did not.)
#NeverTrump:::: Donald Trump will be buried by the 15 other far more qualified candidates except Ted Cruz because no one likes him especially the Senate.
(Trump keeps winning and gaining delegates)
#NeverTrump:::: The Nation Review will run an entire edition proving the case that Donald Trump is not a Conservative and no Conservative should ever consider voting for him.
(Nobody cared if Donald Trump was a Conservative or not.)
#NeverTrump:::: With most of the other candidates out of the race (sadly Jeb!) the Republicans will rally behind that last few to deny Trump any further victories.
Except Ted Cruz because everybody still does not like him.
(Trump keeps winning with Cruz in second place)
#NeverTrump:::: Sadly Trump has enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican Convention. But the delegates will do their duty to the Party and deny the nomination to Trump.
By allowing a open Convention to nominate someone else (not Cruz) as the nominee.
(Trump is voted the nominee on the first ballot)
#NeverTrump:::: Drat.. Both Trump and Hillary are the nominees. But Donald Trump can be stopped with Bill Kristol’s Strategic Voting Plan. With funding, outstanding staff and a well honed Conservative message, enough States can be denied both Trump and Hillary to throw the General Election into Congress. Granted that Congress will have to pick between Trump, Hillary, Johnson and Stein. But Hillary would be the better choice if Congress does not pick Jeb!.
(#NeverTrump throws Utah to Trump and Donald Trump wins the General Election)
#NeverTrump:::: Ok….Donald Trump has the Electoral College votes to win. But with enough pressure the Faithless Electors will do the right thing and deny the Presidency to Trump.
( 2 Bush Family Electors deny Trump….But 6 Hillary Electors deny Hillary )
(Donald Trump is President Elect)
(Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th President.)
#NeverTrump:::: Just because Donald Trump is President, the #NeverTrump can make a common cause with the Democrats to force Trump from office. By using the Deep State intelligent resources to find information so damaging, Trump must leave. Giving President Trump the option resign or be Impeached just like Richard Nixon. The MSM has done it before. It can do so again.
(The “Russian-Trump Connection” flames out as there is nothing to sustain it)
#NeverTrump:::: Is there any chance we are not the most intelligent, morally superior and mentally resourceful people in Washington……Nope….No Way….Conservatism will prevail !
I hear Comey is changing his story. Will he get away with it?
The screaming never-Trumpers remind me of the guy you frequently see on big city streets.
He is screaming in an animated conversation with some he, it seems, is really ticked off at.
The key is not to engage and ask what delusion it is they are seeing.
Best to just not make eye contact, cross the street, and hope that mental heath services are available.
The only difference is these guys have a bigger forum.
Nailed it. The real anger, from the liberal left, Democratic Party and the never Trumpers in the Republican Party is that they don’t have the control they thought they had. There were 63 million who voted for Trump. That’s a big number which includes many educated, long time Republicans. The elite in DC and NY want to tell everyone what we should think because they feel they are somehow more enlightened. The reality is that they are entirely out of touch with the country. Great article.
The anti trumpers speak for conservatives like me. I’m an average working guy who is digusted by egotistical vindictive bullies and particularly con artists like this one. I’m. more disgusted, traumatized even, by the fact that millions of my fellow GOP voters were so easily gamed by this lifelong liberal tv personality, who like most liberals, equate conservatism with a**_holery.
But most disgusting of all is poeple like this author who refuse to address the objections of these decent poeple who refuse to be complicit in a feces hurling orangutan being the face of conservatism and instead impune their characters.
So trump, like most drunk drivers, managed to make it home on a few issues. Big deal. This all easy stuff any of the other sane GOP candidates would have done. The fAct that the drunk driver has made it home a few times does not absolve him or his enablers from their disgusting irresponsibility
So sorry that you’re traumatized by the most abrasive, aggressive, brash, nationalistic, outspoken, patriotic and productive president we’ve been blessed to have in over thirty years. What is really disgusting is the people driven by special interest groups to oppose his pro-American, pro-business, pro-military and anti-big government stance. Those people are scared to death of him because he is beholden to no one; he can’t be bought and he can’t be blackmailed.
Perhaps you, and those special interest groups and their fellow-traveling toadies should stock up on a plentiful supply of nice soft hankies, you’re going to need them for the next seven-plus years.
#AMERICA FIRST!
#MAGA!
Regarding l’affair Comey….just what did the Russians do? I follow the news closely and they stand accused by some DNC subcontractor of hacking emails. That is all I can determine. Somebody want to give me some guidance?