You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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Lord Jim
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Lord Jim »

Scooter wrote:
'If he was smart, he would've put his name on it': Trump criticizes George Washington about Mount Vernon's name

President Donald Trump was not impressed with a tour of the first commander in chief’s home last year, Politico reported Wednesday, describing his visit to Mount Vernon with French President Emmanuel Macron and their wives as “truly bizarre.”

“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump reportedly said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

On the subject of whether anyone remembers George Washington, The Washington Post, which is based in the capital city of Washington (not Washington state) near George Washington University, would refer readers to the fact that Washington has come in first or second nearly every “best presidents” poll conducted, including the most recent one, in 2018, by Siena College Research Institute. Trump, in case you’re wondering, came in 42nd out of 45 commander in chiefs.

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Big RR
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Big RR »

No problem, Trump will be remembered among his presidential colleagues like Buchanan, Harding, Andrew Johnson and others who faile dto distinguish themselves as president other than with their failures. Indeed, I'll bet he will head that group.

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Lord Jim
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Lord Jim »

“You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
The Washington Post, which is based in the capital city of Washington (not Washington state) near George Washington University
And I might add, not far from The Washington Monument...

You see Donald, when you are truly worthy of being remembered, you don't have to put your name on anything ...

Other people will do that...
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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

Big RR wrote:I won't speak for Wes, but there are many who still do;; who run to his rallies and chant things like "Build the wall"; even "Lock her up"; and far more who agree "He might be an asshole, but he's our asshole". Indeed, I know many people in that latter group; intelligent people who are otherwise ration but have a blind spot when it comes to Trump. I don't understand it, but it makes me very uneasy--maybe they just can't admit they were taken in by the hype?
At some point we have to acknowledge that many of the core Trump base DO share his contempt for non-white human beings and many of his other despicable characteristics.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Scooter wrote:
Washington has come in first or second nearly every “best presidents” poll conducted, including the most recent one, in 2018, by Siena College Research Institute. Trump, in case you’re wondering, came in 42nd out of 45 commander in chiefs.
The plural 's' should come after 'commander', not 'chief', in 'commander in chief'.

And I couldn't help but wonder — who were the three Chief Executives that were rated even WORSE than Trump?
So I looked it up and I found that Trump was 42nd out of 44, not 45 (they only counted Grover Cleveland once, not twice), so there are only TWO guys rated worse than Trump — James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson...  and if Trump hadn't been ranked so high on "Luck" and "Willingness to Take Risks", they'd have probably had to rank him 45th worst, after his 43 predecessors and "a POTUS to be named later".  Even William Henry Harrison, who was in office for only a month before succumbing to complications of pneumonia (allegedly the result of his coatless and bare-headed foray into the cold and wet weather for his own inauguration) and whose only official act of consequence was to call Congress into a special session in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country", was rated five places above him.
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Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Indeed, I know many people in that latter group; intelligent people who are otherwise ration but have a blind spot when it comes to Trump. I don't understand it, but it makes me very uneasy--maybe they just can't admit they were taken in by the hype?
Saying that they are racists is just too simple: many of them are of course, but I doubt that the majority are. (We've seen the same thing in UK with the [to me] disastrous Brexit vote: it's easy to say that the Brexiters yearn for the days when Britain was great before all those foreigners came over and spoiled it, but it's just not true and unhelpful. Similarly it's easy [and I think true] to say that they were to some extent hoodwinked by the promises about the money they would save out of Europe - who wants to admit that s/he was fooled?) I think that BigRR has at least a good part of it right: there is a human tendency to refuse to admit that you were wrong about someone. How many people are there, often women, who were taken in by a seductive face and a pleasing manner, but who refuse to see that he enjoys tormenting women and you are in the crosshairs? And in fifty years in commercial operations, I have lost count of the number of ineffective blowhard asshole managers who have been hired by the senior VP who refuses to see what a bad choice he (generally) made and lets the rest of us clean up after the idiot. Commoner than you think.

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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Lord Jim wrote:
“You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
The Washington Post, which is based in the capital city of Washington (not Washington state) near George Washington University
And I might add, not far from The Washington Monument...

You see Donald, when you are truly worthy of being remembered, you don't have to put your name on anything ...

Other people will do that...
:clap: :clap: :clap:
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You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by RayThom »

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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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Lord Jim
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Lord Jim »

Even William Henry Harrison, who was in office for only a month before succumbing to complications of pneumonia (allegedly the result of his coatless and bare-headed foray into the cold and wet weather for his own inauguration) and whose only official act of consequence was to call Congress into a special session in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country", was rated five places above him.
Well in all fairness, if Donald had had the good sense to drop dead a month after his inauguration, he might have been able to rank a little higher...

I'd certainly have a better opinion of him...
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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

I’ve been reading and following Brexit pretty closely, and have seen Brexitannia which includes interviews with a number of pro-Brexit Britons, and have friends in the U.K. (not just Gob) in the thick of it all and I’m sorry, but there is plenty of evidence of a strong sentiment of racial bias and xenophobia among a large number of Leave voters.

To pretend otherwise is preposterous, as it is to pretend there isn’t a lot of the same among Trump voters.

I’m not sure why folks are so resistant to accepting the truth that there is still a great deal of virulent racism in our societies; after all, in this country black people were being openly lynched within the lifetimes of some on this board, and plenty of horrible things were being done to other white people (Irish) who were considered on par with blacks within the same period of time in the U.K.

The last few years has proven definitively that the grand delusion was the false perception of the past few decades (beginning with the start of the PC movement in the 80s) that racism was largely being overcome. In truth, it was merely driven underground to a large extent. Since the election of a black man as President that deep-seated long-standing American racism has re-emerged, first in the vile roots of much of the opposition to Obama and then in the election of Trump.

America is a country founded nearly entirely on the exploitation and/or enslavement, or mass murder, of people of various colors. We are still sick with the disease of such a terrible beginning, but far too many white people are unwilling to call it out for what it is.

So we beat on . . .
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

Stunned John Kerry reacts to perhaps the dumbest series of questions ever asked by a GOP representative.

On April 9, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the need for leadership to fight climate change. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped broker the Paris climate accord for the Obama Administration, served as a witness.

During the hearing, Kerry had to endure one of the dumbest lines of questioning ever heard in the House from Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Massie thought he could have a “gotcha” moment with Kerry by claiming his degree was in a pseudoscience.

When all Massie did was prove that he has little idea how degrees or science work.

Massie: Secretary Kerry, I want to read part of your statement back to you: “Instead of convening a kangaroo court, the president might want to talk with the educated adults he once trusted to fill his top national security positions.” It sounds like you’re questioning the credentials of the president’s advisers currently, but I don’t think we should question your credentials today. Isn’t it true you have a science degree from Yale?

Kerry: A bachelor of arts degree.

Massie: Is it a political science degree?

Kerry: Yes, political science.

Massie: So how do you get a bachelor of arts in a science?

Kerry: Well, it’s liberal arts education and degree, it’s a bachelor.

Massie: OK, so it’s not really science. So I think it’s somewhat appropriate that someone with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing pseudoscience in front of our committee today.

Kerry: Are you serious? This is really, seriously happening here?
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rubato
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by rubato »

Ahem, just as an aside, America was founded in the last era when all of the major civilizations in the world were based on slavery in some form or other. It is only in the next century that the idea that slavery is wrong became widely popular.

While not all Brexteers are racist nearly all racists are Brexiteers just as not all Trumpians are racist but nearly all racists are Trumpians.

The Republican party, having lost direct racism as their greatest organizing principle, learned decades ago that hatred and fear of immigrants was just as good. That is why they have lied abut the scale and effects of immigration legal and otherwise. And that was the handle Trump used to corral them. Dishonest demagogues resort to fear and hatred because they are effective.

yrs,
rubato

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RayThom
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You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by RayThom »

Scooter wrote:Stunned John Kerry reacts to perhaps the dumbest series of questions ever asked by a GOP representative.
For an exercise in complete frustration... roll the tape:

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

For the record, that guy is no idiot - he holds both a BS and MS in engineering from MIT, probably the most rigorous university education available on the planet.

He’s just a typical arrogant engineer with the added fabulous qualities of Republicanism and Trumpism.



At university I knew plenty of ‘hard’ science majors who routinely sneered at soft science majors; it’s a very common prejudice.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

GOP Texas lawmaker reintroduces bill to allow death penalty for women who have abortions

A Republican state lawmaker in Texas has reintroduced a bill that would criminalize abortion without exception, making it possible for women to be convicted of homicide and sentenced to death for having the procedure.

Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R) was placed under state protection in 2017 when he first introduced the bill because of the death threats he received, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

His bill earned its first public hearing this week, and he argued that his intention is to guarantee “equal protection” for life inside and "outside the womb.”

He has previously said that his proposal would completely remove access to abortions and “force” women to be “more personally responsible” with sex.

“Right now, it’s real easy," Tinderholt told the Texas Observer in 2017. "Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”

The Post called Tinderholt’s bill a clear violation of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The bill would criminalize abortion and classify it as homicide, which would make it possible for a woman to receive the death penalty for having the procedure done. The legislation's language directs authorities to enforce its requirements “regardless of any contrary federal law, executive order, or court decision.”

“I think it’s important to remember that if a drunk driver kills a pregnant woman, they get charged twice. If you murder a pregnant woman, you get charged twice. So I’m not specifically criminalizing women. What I’m doing is equalizing the law,” Tinderholt said during a hearing Tuesday, according to Fox4 News.

Hundreds of people attended the two-day hearing before the Texas House’s Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence this week.

Committee members said that it was the first time in Texas history that public testimony was hearing on a measure to hold women criminally responsible for abortions.

There are 446 witnesses who registered their approval for the bill ahead of the hearing, the Post reported. The majority of supporters represented faith groups or local Republican parties.

Fifty-four people — including business leaders, women’s rights activists and legal experts — spoke against the bill.
446 witnesses for and only 54 against, someone should just drop a few H-bombs across the state and raise both the intelligence and morality quotients of the country by 20 points.
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Big RR
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Big RR »

So how do you get a bachelor of arts in a science
To be fair, my college (Rutgers) only offered BAs in all fields except education and nursing (th eengineering school likely also offered BS degrees in the various engineering disciplines); my undergraduate major was Biochemistry and Chemistry (fulfilling all the ACS requirements for a Chemistry degree) and I received a BA. The degrees offered are up to the University, and presumably all students took enough electives outside of the sciences (for me that was something like 20 credits) to get a BA.

The guy may not be an idiot, but the questions is pretty asinine

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Big RR wrote:
The guy may not be an idiot, but the questions is pretty asinine
This sort of ties into something I said on another thread about not all Trumpists/Brexiteers are stupid racists (and, I know, no-one said they were) in the sense that we need to approach them (well, the bulk of them) as reasonably intelligent people who, for whatever temporary reason, believe that Trump and/or Brexit is the answer. A one-time boss of mine who was one of the smartest guys I have ever met (and I have known quite well two Nobel prize winners, one long after and one long before their winning work) once disagreed about something and I was able to bring him around to my point of view. I no longer have any recollection of the subject; but I remember him saying to me: "Just because I am capable of doing foolish things, that does not make me a fool." So in that sense, voting for Trump is (IMO) a foolish act by people who are not fools.

When I was at university (B.Sc Chemistry) it was always apparent that the engineers were the right wing crowd. Student Union meetings were predictably leftish unless there was some topic which stirred the engineers enough to make them attend - and engineering typically in those days (late 60s early 70s) was the biggest department. So when the engineers showed up, the floor votes took a decidedly rightward shift.

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

Clarence Thomas: Atheists Can’t Be Trusted Since Oaths Mean Nothing to Them

During a speech last week at a banquet for the (Churches of Christ-affiliated) Pepperdine University School of Law, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas perpetuated the conservative lie about how Democrats are imposing a religious test on potential judicial nominees before suggesting atheists can’t be trusted.

This myth kicked into high gear in 2017 when Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned Amy Coney Barrett about how her beliefs might influence her decisions as a federal judge. It was a good question, considering Barrett had once written a paper about the role of Catholic judges in death penalty cases (since Catholics believe the death penalty is immoral). Barrett suggested Catholic judges could recuse themselves from such matters to avoid conflict, but added that there were times when they shouldn’t step away. Since Barrett made her faith an issue, it was absolutely fair game to ask her about it.

Anyway, Thomas said that sort of questioning was a form of religious persecution.
“I thought we got away from religious tests,” Thomas, himself a Catholic, said at Pepperdine University School of Law. “I don’t think I know a single judge that had allowed religion to interfere with their jobs.” (oh yeah, you do, start by looking in the mirror)



Thomas said that he had discussions about faith with the late-Justice Antonin Scalia and that they both felt that it would be a “violation of his oath to somehow allow his faith to displace the law.”

“Because we took an oath to enforce the law and interpret it impartially, and he took it very seriously,” he said.
Just because you’re not citing the catechism in a decision doesn’t mean faith doesn’t influence you. Openly devout Catholics, for example, need to be asked if they can objectively look at cases involving LGBTQ rights or abortion. No one’s saying they can’t be confirmed, only that asking these questions isn’t off limits.

The worst thing Thomas said, though, came later, when he questioned the legitimacy of atheists in similar roles.
… Thomas said it was interesting that skepticism of faith came in a profession where many take an oath before taking office.

“I think it’s interesting in a profession where we all take an oath, that they would look at people who have strong faith as somehow not good people, when, if you’re an atheist, what does an oath mean?
That’s the sort of right-wing hypocrisy we’ve come to expect from people like Thomas. Not only does he create a straw man out of the legitimate questioning — as if asking about nominees’ beliefs suggests they’re “not good people” — he also says oaths taken by atheists are meaningless presumably because they’re not made to his God.

Bullshit. We can take an oath on the Constitution because we care about the rule of law. We can take an oath on anything meaningful because we care about the roles we are undertaking. Just because you don’t place your hand on a Bible doesn’t mean you’re not taking your job seriously.

Plus, if this administration is any indication, taking an oath on the Bible doesn’t mean much of anything either, given how many scandals Trump’s officials have been embroiled in.

Thomas’ bigotry is exactly why judges must be questioned about their stated beliefs. Anything that suggests they might rule in a way meant to please God instead of following our laws deserves to be called out.
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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

Trump Says He Considered Ivanka for World Bank: She’s ‘Good With Numbers’

President Donald Trump considered nominating his daughter Ivanka Trump for a variety of jobs including one at the World Bank, according to a new interview.

“I even thought of Ivanka for the World Bank,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an interview. “She would’ve been great at that because she’s very good with numbers.”

Trump in the interview said that he has thought of his daughter, who works in the White House as an assistant to the president, for several different positions, including United Nations ambassador, but has been dissuaded because of the appearance of nepotism, he said in the interview.

“She would’ve been great at the United Nations, as an example,” Trump said, adding that his oldest daughter is “a natural diplomat.”

If he did nominate her, Trump said, “they’d say nepotism, when it would’ve had nothing to do with nepotism. But she would’ve been incredible.”

New World Bank President David Malpass, who was nominated by Trump in February, is a loyal supporter who had been sharply critical of China and called for a shakeup of the global economic order. No other countries proposed any candidates to challenge Malpass, making his selection by the board all but assured.

Malpass, who was approved last week as chief of the development lender, has put an emphasis on worldwide economic growth and said he sees no need for a restructuring there.

The position of World Bank president has historically gone to an American, while a European has led its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund. Some observers have called for the bank to break with tradition and appoint a non-American in recognition of the growing clout of emerging markets such as China and India, and the lender’s focus on development.

The White House previously said Ivanka Trump was involved in the selection process for the post, but wasn’t a contender for the job.

She has been involved in World Bank initiatives on women’s economic development and has worked closely with the bank’s leadership over the past two years, which is why she worked on the nomination, spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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Lord Jim
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Lord Jim »

She’s ‘Good With Numbers’
Given his math skills, "good with numbers "is a pretty low bar for Trump...

He would have been impressed by Jethro:

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