The Shambling Mound's Third Week

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Under the continuing rule of the orange-haired monster, Lord Dampnut, the most important local council in the global village, continues to lurch from one "yuge" problem to the next. Some commentators have finally noticed what is an intrinsic problem regardless of the political decisions themselves; that Lord Dampnut is not used to the idea of running a country which is built the checks and balances of a separation of powers and a rule of law. He is far more familiar with the sort of rule where he makes all the decisions and everyone follows those decisions.

As a result, Lord Dampnut is finding himself in the unenviable position of coming into increasing conflict with the internal legal system, whilst backing off on belligerence towards international powers. The big event of the week of course was the decision of the appeals court to uphold the suspension of the travel ban on selective group of Muslim-majority countries. True to his style, Lord Dampnut angrily treated "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!". The recursive irony of telling an appeals court that they will be taken to court has not been lost. Yo dawg, I hear you like courts, & etc.

Security, the main excuse for the travel ban, is of course an especially selective issue with Lord Dampnut, as reliable sources suggested that only Islamic fundamentalists will be an issue. Neo-nazi terrorists will not, apparently, be a problem. Well, why should they? After all, people with similar ideologies are now the people in charge of operations.

In further selective choices, Lord Dampnut's nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos was elected to the Senate. Requiring a historic tie-breaker vote, DeVos is a long-standing campaigner against public education (an area in which she has no experience). One fairly suspects that familial connections will encourage an "Amway" education system.

Attracting quite a bit of media attention in the week, was the events following department store Nordstrom dropping Ivanka Trump's line of clothing items. Lord Dampnut complained using the POTUS twitter account and the following day Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway continued the issue directly promoting Ivanka's items. The Federal ethics rules prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions to endorse products, and complaints have been lodged with the Office of Government Ethics.

We have a word for when business and government interests coincide, don't we?

Comments

Yes

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

It's fascism.

Re: Yes

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Why, 'prosperity', of course! :-)

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

"The recursive irony of telling an appeals court that they will be taken to court has not been lost."

QOTD!

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Lord Dampnuts is not emotionally stable enough to be President. I highly doubt that Pence is unpalatable to establishment Republicans; they're just waiting for Lord Dampnuts to have a total meltdown before either impeaching him or using the 25th Amendment to remove him.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

We'll see. For the 25th Amendment to be used, I expect he needs to have a debilitating stroke or something or the folks participating will go down in history as the first coup in the US. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure something can be arranged, but there is a process to be followed.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Thinking about impeachment is like thinking about how you're going to spend your Powerball jackpot. Kinda fun, sure - but a waste of time.

The left would be better off planning for 2020.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

If it's going to be an option, Trump will impeach himself.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Intentionally? Then why go through all this - why go through all of this...for Pence (pretty much any other name in the country would make it more believable)?

Unintentionally? The left needs to decide - is Trump an evil genius, or a dumbass? I'm not saying which it is, or if it's either at all - but it isn't both - both isn't an option.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Not intentionally. As the introduction to the post says, Trump is used to being able to say "I'm the boss, do what I say". He's not used to the idea of a separation of powers. He'll impeach himself because of that, by ignoring a court order.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

What exactly is he going to ignore? He can issue executive orders that aren't legal and get overturned but this isn't impeachable.

Best chance would be if something turns up in his financial history. I expect there are folks who are digging into everything he'd done recently enough to be prosecuted for. I expect there is something to be found, he doesn't seem to be a dot the i's and cross the t's kind of guy.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

It seems both of you are going with option B - he's a dumbass...

If that's the case, why couldn't Hillarys team or Jebs team or the media dig this something up? Countless people with unlimited funding couldn't do it - who will do it now, and how?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

He can be an evil genius about some things and a dumbass about others.

He's an evil genius about his ability to find the right electorate regions to pitch to (and Clinton was a dumbass in ignoring the rust belt).

He can be a dumbass in matters of political management (which I suspect Clinton is an evil genius in)

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

He's definitely not a dumbass. He did take part in complicated business deals over the past few decades and at times seemed to take shortcuts, for example Trump "University". I don't know how representative this was, but this was a pretty big oversight and I wouldn't expect it to be a one off.

There also seem to be a lot more people are actively looking into his background right now. Sure, Jeb's and Hillary's teams hired investigators, but I'd guess they were looking for the kinds of things that usually bring down a politician during a campaign, girlfriends, lying about their past, etc... I'm just guessing here, but I expect they didn't invest a whole lot into forensic accounting. Even if a forensic accountant found something during the campaign, the reaction of the voters would probably be something like "huh?" I could of course be wrong, the inner workings of DC are a bit of a black box that all of us are trying to interpret like medieval alchemists.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

> What exactly is he going to ignore? He can issue executive orders that aren't legal and get overturned but this isn't impeachable.<

If however he ignores a court order (e.g., disinvestment, use of public office to promote business interests etc) then he would be in strife.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Trump seemed like a big dumb ass the way he handled Flynn.
And that's still not over yet.