Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "NowThis Impact"
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In Trump’s second book, Surviving at the Top (released as Trump’s empire was crumbling under massive debt in 1990), he described his temperament in ways that wouldn’t seem to bode well for America.
“I get bored too easily,” he wrote. “My attention span is short and probably my least favorite thing to do is to maintain the status quo. Instead of being content when everything is going fine, I start getting impatient and irritable.”
This is Trump openly admitting to being an agent of chaos and destruction. Placing an extreme narcissistic sociopath like Trump into any position of leadership, where his actions will have a direct affect on people's lives, constitutes a criminal act. Nothing good has ever resulted from anything that Trump has ever touched or been involved with. He is void of any and all goodwill or human decency. He is a purely toxic, insidious and malevolent being, who constitutes a malignant affliction on this country.
The economic fate and national security of America should have never been placed in the hands of a mentally impaired, and emotionally unstable demagogue, who will take a wrecking ball to anything, simply because he was bored.
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Marine Sgt, Maj. Dan Daly is known for being one of the most decorated service members of all time. He was awarded not one, but TWO medals of honor.
He coined an expression that will forever live on in books, movies, and among troops He almost earned a third for his part in a counter-attack against the enemy in the famous Battle of Belleau Wood. Instead, Daly was given the Distinguished Service Cross and, later, the Navy Cross.
In June 1918 at the battle of Belleau Wood in WW1, the Marines were pinned down under heavy artillery barrage. At one point in the battle, the now 44 year old Daly, led his Marines in a counter-attack against machine gun emplacements with a battle cry that has become Marines lore “Come on, you sons of B——, do you want to live forever?!” In the course of that battle he was wounded three times. 1,800 Marines died in the battle of Belleau Wood.
These are the types of Americans that our current sitting president refers to as "losers."
And Putin's asset in the Oval Office STILL hasn't uttered one word about the bounties that Putin has placed on the heads of our troops in Afghanistan.
Since then we learned that a violent collision took place in Syria between US and Russian troops that left American troops with concussions, two U.S. officials said. Two Russian helicopters flew above the Americans, and one of the aircraft was within about 70 feet the vehicle.
The injuries occurred when one of the Russian vehicles deliberately sideswiped an American vehicle in a convoy, causing the crew to suffer "concussion-like injuries." Initial reports indicate as many as four Americans may have been injured.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
―President Theodore Roosevelt
Trump has made it abundantly clear that he believes in nothing, honors nothing, and respects nothing. As a veteran, the oath I took would never allow me to vote for a domestic threat to my country like Trump. Trump has repeatedly betrayed America, it's people, as well as his oath of office. And as a Marine veteran, his betrayals to this country are unforgettable, and unforgivable.
Semper Fi.
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"This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only Trump and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process."
"It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump."
"The president and his advisers have sought to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense; they have attempted to corrupt federal law-enforcement agencies to protect themselves and their cohorts, and they have exploited the nation’s darkest impulses in the pursuit of profit. But their ability to get away with this fraud is tied to cruelty."
"Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, blackVoters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them."
--Adam Serwer, The Atlantic December 2019
"All cruelty springs from weakness."
--Seneca
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Foreign influence was never supposed to be part of America’s electoral equation. What is a democracy if not rule by a country’s own citizens?
Sitting in offices in St. Petersburg, Russia, employees of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) had plenty of ideas this year about how to waltz past American legal and political safeguards to sow discord and try to manipulate the U.S. election outcome this fall.
Internal messages by the group’s officers to its staff advised that LGBT groups and “their liberal allies” were active online late into the night and responded well to manipulative infographics and colorful pictures, unlike their conservative counterparts.John McCain — a critic of Russia and an advocate for higher military spending — was to be branded “an old geezer” in on-line messaging. Paul Ryan — who notably said last July that “Russia is not our ally” — was to be branded in social media as a “two-faced loudmouth.”
These were just a few of efforts by the Russian organization’s online army of trolls to promote divisive messages on hot political topics ranging from sanctuary cities to illegal voting to whether athletes stood or knelt during the national anthem at NFL games.
The result was to taint democratic discourse in the United States in an effort to influence voting, an outcome made possible by the shortcomings of the U.S. laws and rules that are supposed to ensure fair election outcomes.
The snarky guidance provided to the Russian trolls, according to a detailed U.S. federal court filing last week, was part of Operation Lakhta, which itself was just one aspect of Russia’s attack on American democracy.
It was laid bare when prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia revealed on Oct. 19 they had taken the Washington mantra “follow the money” to heart in tracking the activities of Russian citizen Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, chief accountant of Operation Lakhta.
According to the filing, she “managed the financing of substantially all aspects of the Project [Lakhta] operations” and — luckily for prosecutors but perhaps unluckily for Russia — Khusyaynova kept “meticulous” records, covering her payments for rent, travel, furniture, and even garbage disposal. It’s unclear how the emails arrived in Washington, but creative Western hacking seems a distinct possibility.
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Trump quote from 2004, a response to a Larry King Live caller asking how he handles stress. Trump: “I try and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. If you tell yourself it doesn’t matter, like you do shows, you do this, you do that and then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter."
Spoken like the true sociopath that he is.
There will be no guilt, no apologies, no shame, and no sense of remorse coming from a narcissistic sociopath like Trump.
Trump pretty much checks every box for the diagnostic criterion of a narcissistic sociopath.
~Manipulative and Conning:
They never recognize the rights of others, and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They seek out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired.
~Shallow Emotions:
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion, it is more feigned than experienced, and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would usually upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises..
~Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt:
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, he has victims, and accomplices, who will also end up as victims. ( Cohen, Manafort, Bannon, Stone, Flynn) The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way...
~Callousness/Lack of Empathy:
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
~Pathological Lying:
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities..
~Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature:
Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
~Irresponsibility/Unreliability:
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
Some of the problems a sociopathic narcissist like Trump will face include: Trouble handling criticism, easily becoming impatient or angry if they don't think they are being treated correctly. They feel easily slighted. They try to belittle others or react with rage to make themselves seem superior. They have trouble adapting to change and dealing with stress. They secretly feel insecure, vulnerable, and humiliated, and have a very fragile self-esteem.
We owe it to the more than 200 thousand American souls that are no longer with us, to remove Trump from office.
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Almost every president has occasionally engaged in hyperbole, lying, corner-cutting, or press-bashing, though none have done so daily, if not hourly. One lie does not undermine democracy, but 30,000+ lies can. One governmental reversal in court is not tyranny, but scores of such defeats reveal an administration at odds with the constitutional injunction to “faithfully execute the laws.”
If we added up the anti-democracy maneuvers of the prior 10 presidents over the past 60 years, they wouldn’t equal Trump alone in under four years—indeed, if you compare the eight close associates of Trump convicted or indicted in his almost-one term of office, that would again exceed those of all presidents combined (excepting Watergate felons) from Kennedy to Obama..
• Replacing the rule of law with the law of rule—courtesy of Bill Barr—as accused allies receive pardons and praise while enemies are threatened with arbitrary prosecution.
• Engaging in multiple obstructions of justice, such as firing FBI director James Comey and urging White House counsel Don McGahn to lie to Mueller.
• Basing an entire convention on himself—no platform, Trumps proliferating like Borgias—and on the daily violation of the anti-monarchical Hatch Act because “no one cares,” according to his apologist Mark Meadows.
• Worsening economic inequality by shifting trillions through tax breaks to “American Oligarchs,” in Andrea Bernstein’s useful phrase, who then gratefully support his assaults on environmental and consumer laws to make even more money.
• Inciting violence by hyperbolic attacks on opponents, embracing neo-nazi5 while ignoring warnings from the FBI about the number-one domestic threat, right-wing violence.
• Enthusiastically embracing many of the world’s leading dictators—Putin, Xi, Bolsonaro, Kim Jung Un, Sisi, Duterte, Erdogan.
• Repeating Covid-19 falsehoods in order to pressure Republican governors to prematurely reopen the economy and schools, causing the avoidable deaths of over 100,000 Americans so far.
• Attempting to stymie postal delivery to, in effect, steal millions of mail-in ballots… and the election.
• Erupting with a lava of lies—now up to an average of 22 a day, to bury rivals and reality (Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished."
• Attempting to delegitimize the Fourth Estate as “enemies of the people,” using Stalin’s odious phrase.
• Bullying neutral sources of information—the CDC, DNI, FDA, regulatory agencies—to bend their expected integrity to his political needs.
• Milking public office for private gain by treating “his” federal government like he treated the Trump Organization.
• Attempting to criminally extort the president of Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden.
• Fiiring career professionals and “independent” inspectors general for doing their job, increasingly having a government of cronies, cranks, multimillionaires, relatives, and unconfirmable third-raters.
• Ignoring all congressional subpoenas (when Nixon ignored eight of them, it became the third article in his impeachment, “Contempt of Congress”).
• Saying things such as “I alone can fix it” and “with Article II, I can do whatever I want,” as well as praising Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist party, when it changed the country’s constitution, making Xi Jinping ruler for life.
If you add it all up, What do you see? It all has one purpose,” said Sally Yates, former acting attorney general, “to remove any check on his abuse of power.” It is deviant despotism.
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In 2015, McConnell made the best case for getting rid of the filibuster.
Mitch McConnell made history in January 2015 when he filibustered his own bill on the Senate floor.
Mitch filibustered his own proposal, which he had introduced only hours earlier. The bill was a measure proposed by the White House, based on a "last-choice," one-off fix McConnell himself came up with in the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff, to take America's borrowing limit out of Congress' hands — the president could raise the debt ceiling, and Congress could override him only with a veto-proof majority.
McConnell introduced the bill to show that President Obama doesn't have the votes for such a measure even in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Well on that day, Majority Leader Harry Reid called his bluff.
McConnell demanded an up or down vote on a measure that would allow the president to have more authority in raising the debt ceiling.
McConnell was betting that some Democrats would vote against the move, which would have allowed McConnell to portray President Barack Obama's desire for such authority as something even Democrats opposed. He also hoped it would show disunity among Democrats.
At first Dems opposed an up or down vote on McConnell's proposal, but after discussing it over, they decided to call McConnell's bluff, and agreed to his proposal for an up or down vote.
McConnell was immediately forced to turn around and say "I OBJECT!!!!," filibustering his own suggestion. 😂
"I don't know how the Republicans can say they're not abusing the filibuster after what we saw on the floor today," Sen. Durbin said at the time.
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