Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Karl Henning]

.

[Florestan]

Hence the power of the myth.

Probably. But not even all the Earp brothers together could have stand with their Colts one single AM-15 shooter.

[Karl Henning]

[El Tupé] is right back where he started, and that's a problem for the GOP

After a momentary upward blip in the polls (Was it the holidays? A lower presidential profile? A non-disastrous State of the Union? The tax bill hype?) voters have gone right back to disliking [El Presidente Tupé] — a lot. The latest Quinnipiac poll has the president's approval rating down to 37 percent (with 58 disapproving), compared to a 40-percent approval rating on Feb. 7. And by a margin of 67 percent to 24 percent, they want him to release his tax returns.

In a demonstration that tribal loyalty predominates over obvious observation, "[El Tupé] has not been loyal to his spouse throughout his marriage, American voters say 56-18 percent, with 26 percent undecided. Republicans are the only group to say Trump has been loyal." Really, Republicans, you think that, or do you not permit yourself even a moment of honesty? "Voters also say 66-30 percent, including 58-37 percent among men, that [El Tupé] does not respect women as much as he respects men. Again, Republicans are the only group taking [El Tupé's] side." And once again, as a group, Republicans seem to have given up any powers of discernment.

[Mahlerian]

perhaps. The video game thing though...haven't we been through all this before with song lyrics? Anyway, the whole thing about arming teachers is pretty pathetic and sad.

We've been through it before with video games too, as well as violent movies and TV.  After the Columbine shooting, it was revealed that the shooters played a lot of Doom and other similar games, and this was readily seized upon by the media, starting a moral panic.

As with all of these kinds of things, the content didn't create the monster, it just reflected back to the monsters something that was already in them.  No one would seriously argue that The Beatles' lyrics made Charles Manson do what he did, but he certainly liked to have something other than himself to foist responsibility for his actions onto.

[Karl Henning]

The real reason Congress banned assault weapons in 1994 — and why it worked

[Que]

Donald Trump stands by proposal to give teachers guns: 'Attacks would end!'.

Who is this idiot? 

Is he the president of something? 

Q

[Christo]

Donald Trump stands by proposal to give teachers guns: 'Attacks would end!'.

Who is this idiot? 

Is he the president of something? 

Q

I already started giving lectures with a Kalashnikov on my shoulder; it works wonders, I can tell you. 

[milk]

Donald Trump stands by proposal to give teachers guns: 'Attacks would end!'.

Who is this idiot? 

Is he the president of something? 

Q

I just saw him rambling about this, I guess when he invited survivors to the White House? He rambled for about 3 minutes about arming teachers. Yeah...it's wearying to repeat the same kinds of conclusions but: I don't think he cares or wants to be there in that job. Maybe describing him as a crippled, twisted soul would make him seem more interesting than he is. He's a real nothing of a person, maybe a borderline person. He can't change who he is. He just should never have been elected (and there's blame to go around for that). I think he's just a nothing of a person. I've known people like him, I think. These are people who seem sort of like characters on the outside, but when you look hard at them you realize they don't have a strong sense of self. They fill in their selves with a lot of fake stuff but underneath the borderline personality is a profound emptiness and rage. 

[amw]

After Columbine they introduced armed police officers to a lot of public schools. Did not stop any school shootings, but resulted in a lot of kids being sent to prison or juvenile detention for offenses that previously would have resulted in suspension or disciplinary action by the school authorities.

Giving teachers guns won't necessarily result in teachers shooting unruly students instead of giving them suspensions but it's not going to decrease the chances of that. And obviously a school shooter will just shoot the teachers first.

There are already too many firearms in circulation in the USA for a large scale gun buyback a la Australia to be feasible, but restricting access to guns and some kind of national registry of gun owners are good starts. I'm definitely pro gun ownership, if you want to have a restored browning machine gun to fire at targets on a shooting range for fun go ahead, but it's not sensible to allow concealed carry and people bringing firearms into public spaces etc.

Also seems like the Trump administration has been glad for the distraction, given all the indictments lately, and bad press, and people having to resign for domestic violence accusations and so on.

[milk]

After Columbine they introduced armed police officers to a lot of public schools. Did not stop any school shootings, but resulted in a lot of kids being sent to prison or juvenile detention for offenses that previously would have resulted in suspension or disciplinary action by the school authorities.

Giving teachers guns won't necessarily result in teachers shooting unruly students instead of giving them suspensions but it's not going to decrease the chances of that. And obviously a school shooter will just shoot the teachers first.

There are already too many firearms in circulation in the USA for a large scale gun buyback a la Australia to be feasible, but restricting access to guns and some kind of national registry of gun owners are good starts. I'm definitely pro gun ownership, if you want to have a restored browning machine gun to fire at targets on a shooting range for fun go ahead, but it's not sensible to allow concealed carry and people bringing firearms into public spaces etc.

Also seems like the Trump administration has been glad for the distraction, given all the indictments lately, and bad press, and people having to resign for domestic violence accusations and so on.

I'm glad to live in a country where there's virtually no access to guns but I don't want to take away guns from hunters and trappers or from people's private hobbies, ownership and collections. I'm open to learning if the truth is otherwise, but it seems like the NRA has succeeded at removing any common sense from the debate. I don't know enough about guns to say what the common sense restrictions should be but I bet they're out there. If  it's constitutional to require licensing, then why not some stricter requirements to obtain the licenses? If you can't own a nuclear weapon, can they restrict some of the hardware that's designed for extreme combat too?
anyway...can't resist my second most detested republican idiot:
 

[Karl Henning]

Special counsel Mueller files new charges against Manafort, Gates

"According to the indictment, these are two fellows on a multiyear tear of lying to every bank they could find about their income. To a federal prosecutor, it's fairly crude. It's extensive and bold and greedy with a capital 'G,' but it's not all that sophisticated."

[Karl Henning]

And, mind you, this is The National Review:

[El Tupé] and his apologists have failed to learn the sad lesson of Hillary Rodham Clinton: When people have come to assume that every other word out of your mouth is a lie, it becomes very difficult to tell the truth effectively. If Mrs. Clinton had had a good and true explanation for her email shenanigans, no one would have believed her. If Trump has a genuine "win" to talk about, all thinking adults will treat his claims with skepticism. Even his allies and members of his staff know better than to take him at his word.

That's a problem for the president in particular, but it also is a problem for the conservative movement, which has become infected with Trump's dishonesty.

Dinesh D'Souza should be ashamed of himself. David Clarke should be ashamed of himself, and not just for his ridiculous hat. And conservatives should be ashamed of them, too, and for bending the knee to Scott Baio, Ted Nugent, and every other third-rate celebrity who has something nice to say about a Republican from time to time. And we should be ashamed of ourselves if we come to accept this kind of dishonesty in the service of political expediency. If conservative ideas cannot prevail in the marketplace of ideas without lies, they do not deserve to prevail at all.

[Karl Henning]

A President irredeemably in La-La Land:

Armed sheriff's deputy stayed outside Florida school while mass killing took place

[...] [El Tupé] has frequently suggested in response to mass shootings that more law-abiding people with firearms could help stop a shooter and the head of the NRA has repeatedly suggested the same. However, Israel's announcement Thursday suggested that even if a person is armed, trained and available to help, that may not stop a mass killing that unfolds in a matter of minutes.

[Karl Henning]

CPAC has always been 'out there.' Now the rest of the GOP is, too.

Conservatives of good conscience should be appalled that Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the youngest member of the National Front political dynasty in France, should be invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to deliver a speech insisting that France was turning from a Catholic country into a Muslim one, as well as a speech extolling that Britain should be first for the British people, France first for the French people France, etc. (In case you need the translation, that means Jews, Muslims and other "outsiders" aren't really part of the nation. Sound familiar?) In response, Mindy Finn, a leader in the #NeverTrump movement, tweeted: "It's a sad reflection on the state of conservatism that CPAC provided a platform for France's Marion Le Pen, a leader within a movement inflaming anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, though the half-empty ballroom for her speech offers some comfort."

Rational people of whatever political stripe should be taken aback, if not horrified, by National Rifle Association CEO Wayne La Pierre's diatribe about guns, socialism, loss of all our rights and so on. He insisted that those who demonstrated for new gun legislation "care more about control." He went on to say: "Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eliminate all individual freedoms," and warned that the country was slipping into socialism and that kids would be induced to rat out their parents if new gun laws were passed. "If they seize power . . . our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever," he said. It was unhinged, but entirely reflective of the extremism that characterizes the NRA. (Even more objectionable, arguably, was NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch's accusation that the media "loves" mass shootings.)

But let's not pretend that CPAC just got wacky this year.  For years, former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.) was CPAC's darling and the winner of its presidential straw poll. The conference featured speakers who raged against gays, Muslims and immigrants and, for years, it banned panel discussions about gay rights. However, it was also a place where mainstream conservatives came to speak, and where policy gurus from think tanks had calm discussions. In short, CPAC has been a fringy gathering for many years, a few thousand hard-right warriors (including many students) within a larger movement on the right.

Now CPAC encapsulates the GOP. Adherents of President Trump's brand of Republican politics do not bother to disguise their extremism,  conspiracy theories, paranoia or xenophobia. In a real sense, the party of CPAC and Trump — who is scheduled to speak on Friday, and will surely feel entirely at home with the hyperventilating rhetoric and contempt for facts on display — have displaced the rest of the party. The GOP used to contain, cool and generally outvote the extremists who showed up to CPAC each year for a ritual display of their ideological fervor. Now, the extremists — spitting venom and brandishing the Fox News view of the world (in which the FBI not Russia is the bad actor) — are the predominate voice in a party that has shed intellectual and moral integrity, as well as any pretense of concern for serious policy.

A few things are worth noting.

First, what you hear and see in the full-throated CPAC gathering is pretty much what gets bandied about on Fox News during its evening lineup. Whether it is birtherism, or climate change denial, or exaggerated and distorted generalizations about immigrants, it's the discussion in which millions of Republicans have been marinating for years. It is a political worldview in which bad stories (according to Trump) are ignored, unsubstantiated rumor becomes gospel, and the president's often incoherent views must be defended at all costs.

Second, it is impossible for many lifelong Republicans who favor smaller government, more family-friendly policies, a strong national defense, support for law and order, and constitutional restraint to identify with the political circus that is spilling out of CPAC and reaching into every state and local GOP party. More than even any individual policy, it is the atmosphere of unhinged hatred for political opponents, divisiveness, fanaticism and contempt for facts that make many former Republicans shudder.

Finally, it is not clear how the GOP comes back from the political abyss after a president like Trump and a party of wall-to-wall enablers of an ethnonationalist brand. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for example, isn't scheduled to speak, but he has enabled every policy escapade, indulged Trump's irrational outbursts, and refused time and again to defend democratic institutions and norms (including proper congressional oversight) to check this president's power or rebut his ideas. Let's give up the pretense that Trump isn't the totality of the GOP, or that CPAC isn't representative of the party. They are, and those elected leaders who cannot abide the Trump-ized GOP are retiring in droves. When they do, or when they lose in 2018 or 2020, there may be very little left of the rational, decent and constructive faction of the GOP.

[BasilValentine]

Good guy with a gun? Turns out there was a permanent armed guard, a sheriff's deputy, assigned to protect the students at the site of the massacre in Parkland Fl. What did he do? Took up a position outside the school and never tried to stop the slaughter. He has since resigned in disgrace. Nice theory though ...

[Karl Henning]

Good guy with a gun? Turns out there was a permanent armed guard, a sheriff's deputy, assigned to protect the students at the site of the massacre in Parkland Fl. What did he do? Took up a position outside the school and never tried to stop the slaughter. He has since resigned in disgrace. Nice theory though ...

Yup:

A President irredeemably in La-La Land:

Armed sheriff's deputy stayed outside Florida school while mass killing took place

[...] [El Tupé] has frequently suggested in response to mass shootings that more law-abiding people with firearms could help stop a shooter and the head of the NRA has repeatedly suggested the same. However, Israel's announcement Thursday suggested that even if a person is armed, trained and available to help, that may not stop a mass killing that unfolds in a matter of minutes.

[André]

I read that article yesterday. Turns out that being trained etc doesn't preclude a case of nerves when the goings suddenly get tough. What would school personnel do? Expectations that the science teacher would instantly turn into Rambo would probably be sorely disappointed.

This is clearly a case of dereliction of duty from the executive and legislative branches. Passing the buck to teachers is appalling political cowardice.

[Karl Henning]

[...] Passing the buck to teachers is appalling political cowardice.

That's Trump, in spades.  (As it were.)

[milk]

Good guy with a gun? Turns out there was a permanent armed guard, a sheriff's deputy, assigned to protect the students at the site of the massacre in Parkland Fl. What did he do? Took up a position outside the school and never tried to stop the slaughter. He has since resigned in disgrace. Nice theory though ...

and he's now being protected by an armed guard...and so on, and so on...

[Karl Henning]

Former Trump campaign official Rick Gates expected to plead guilty and cooperate with special counsel in probe of Russian election interference