Octopus Overlords

Kraken wrote:I'll credit or blame Trump for the economy starting six months after the Republicans pass a budget or tax plan (even though Trump will have had very little influence over it, the president traditionally owns it). Until then, we're coasting on previous policy and speculation about future policy.

But yeah, the economy is good to the point of overheating. That makes it exactly the wrong time for deficit-fueled stimulus.

It is the perfect time. We need to get the defense contractors wound up for the war(s).

It looks like Trump has pivoted on his DACA pivot.

The list of "principles" delivered by the White House to Congress on Sunday includes:

• Constructing the border wall with Mexico
• Employing 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 1,000 lawyers for the agency
• Hiring an extra 370 immigration judges and 300 federal prosecutors
• Banning immigrants from bringing their extended family members to the US
• Penalising "sanctuary cities" that have resisted the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants
• Having companies use an E-Verify programme to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs

"These findings outline reforms that must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients," Mr Trump wrote in a letter to Congress accompanying the list.

His legislative affairs director, Marc Short, said the priorities were "essential to mitigate the legal and economic consequences of any grant of status to Daca recipients".

Last month, Mr Trump told Congress, which is dominated by his Republican party, it had six months to agree new legislation to help the Dreamers.

So it looks like Trump wants to do a lot of hiring in the oppression sector, at least.

I'm about halfway through Ken Burns' Viet Nam series, and it's instructive to hear audio of Johnson bitching about fake news.

Max Peck wrote:It looks like Trump has pivoted on his DACA pivot.

The list of "principles" delivered by the White House to Congress on Sunday includes:

• Constructing the border wall with Mexico
• Employing 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 1,000 lawyers for the agency
• Hiring an extra 370 immigration judges and 300 federal prosecutors
• Banning immigrants from bringing their extended family members to the US
• Penalising "sanctuary cities" that have resisted the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants
• Having companies use an E-Verify programme to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs

"These findings outline reforms that must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients," Mr Trump wrote in a letter to Congress accompanying the list.

His legislative affairs director, Marc Short, said the priorities were "essential to mitigate the legal and economic consequences of any grant of status to Daca recipients".

Last month, Mr Trump told Congress, which is dominated by his Republican party, it had six months to agree new legislation to help the Dreamers.

So it looks like Trump wants to do a lot of hiring in the oppression sector, at least.

Sounds fair.

You know, for the children.

I have to agree - he totally has done 'so much work'.

Trump has principles?!??

Haaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

At the 8:37 minute mark, it looks like Trump is trying to go for a pussy grab...but when he realizes he can't, they do a quick, awkward cut back to him going for the hand.

Trump increasingly isolated and angry.

This article is incredible. That this article has been published with this level of detail screams that insiders are afraid and feel a need to get the word out about how unstable the President is. Will anyone step up and stop this insanity?

Trump says he would beat Tillerson in an IQ test.

I'm in if they Pay-per-view it.

Good luck getting anything done! #RexIsRight #FuckingMoron

stessier wrote:Trump says he would beat Tillerson in an IQ test.

I'm in if they Pay-per-view it.

Pretty sure it's his Wisdom score which is the biggest problem.

If you've actually taken an IQ test, you know there is zero chance Drumpf would score triple digits. I desperately want Drumpf to take an independent IQ test and have the results published.

GreenGoo wrote:If you've actually taken an IQ test, you know there is zero chance Drumpf would score triple digits. I desperately want Drumpf to take an independent IQ test and have the results published.

FAKE TESTS!

noxiousdog wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:If you've actually taken an IQ test, you know there is zero chance Drumpf would score triple digits. I desperately want Drumpf to take an independent IQ test and have the results published.

FAKE TESTS!

We all know CNN would feed Tillerson the questions ahead of the test.

I'd sell my sister to Isis for a chance to see Trump Administration Jeopardy.

GreenGoo wrote:If you've actually taken an IQ test, you know there is zero chance Drumpf would score triple digits. I desperately want Drumpf to take an independent IQ test and have the results published.

I wonder if anyone has ever explained to Trump that an IQ score of 100 isn't a perfect result. Back in the pre-internet era, I once lost an argument about what IQ scores mean because I was the only person in the group that knew that a score of 100 was bog standard as opposed to 100%, and I had no reference material at hand to back up my position. I gave up when I was accused of saying that a girl in the group, who knew she had an IQ of 100, wasn't intelligent. Apparently some people would rather believe that they are perfect rather than perfectly average.

Everyone is a great driver. Just ask them.

GreenGoo wrote:Everyone is a great driver. Just ask them.

Better yet, ask Mr. Carlin

tgb wrote:I'd sell my sister to Isis for a chance to see Trump Administration Jeopardy.

Is that offer open to anyone or just ISIS?

Rip wrote:

tgb wrote:I'd sell my sister to Isis for a chance to see Trump Administration Jeopardy.

Is that offer open to anyone or just ISIS?

I'm sure it's open to any group or person that his sister would find repulsive.

Rip wrote:

tgb wrote:I'd sell my sister to Isis for a chance to see Trump Administration Jeopardy.

Is that offer open to anyone or just ISIS?

Have you met his sister? According to tgb, she's a real peach.

My sisters is a princess, and don't you forget it!

FEMA administrator: Puerto Rico’s politics, lack of unity, hindering hurricane response

The federal response to Hurricane Maria has been hampered by Puerto Rico’s political culture and a lack of unity among leaders on the island, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator William “Brock” Long said Monday in a briefing with reporters at FEMA headquarters in Washington.

In the continental U.S., “politics between Republicans and Democrats is bad enough, but in Puerto Rico, politics is even worse in many cases,” Long said, adding that divisions on the island had undermined unity of purpose there.

His comments came at the end of an hour-long session in which he and two U.S. military generals defended the Trump administration’s response to the devastating hurricane. Long singled out the total collapse of communications across Puerto Rico as the greatest impediment to delivering food, water, fuel and other supplies to desperate survivors of the storm, which hit the island Sept. 20.

Heck of a job, Brock!

This one is tough to dissect. Long has been described as very competent by many accounts. However he has spent a lot of his time blaming other parties which is never a good sign. His discussion about local officials needs follow up. Why does it matter if they are not talking to each other? Go around them. What was the point of sending in FEMA officials for ground assessments and other data collection efforts? Do they really desperately need local officials as data sources?

Also he is sending barely coded messages about needing resources. If that is case then he needs to just speak up about it. If this is about logistics then why did the Trump administration let the Jones Act waiver expire? Where is the concerted effort to ramp up aid efforts?

There are so many questions that indicate that this is a shit show and Trump is out golfing every day. It is an amazing disgrace and even that is lost in the complete chaos of his administration this week. You have to wonder at what point people start to really, really realize how bad he is. Many of us expected bad but I don't know that we thought it'd be this bad. We are very, very fucked if a big crisis comes upon us.

tgb wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:Everyone is a great driver. Just ask them.

Better yet, ask Mr. Carlin

i will fully admit my driving skills are average, at best. (and i have never personally owned a motorized vehicle). i also hate driving in real life, but i love video game car racing.


definitely much better on bicycle.

Mensa has come out and offered to host the IQ tests. Just FYI.

Read an article suggesting that the NFL is going to force players to stand for the anthem. Apparently there was a strongly worded memo to the owners from the commissioner.

This should end well.

GreenGoo wrote:Read an article suggesting that the NFL is going to force players to stand for the anthem. Apparently there was a strongly worded memo to the owners from the commissioner.

This should end well.

Lots of thoughts here.

Thanks.

Forbes opinion piece suggests NFL boycott successfully hurting ratings.

GreenGoo wrote:Mensa has come out and offered to host the IQ tests. Just FYI.

Oh, he was just joking.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later insisted that Trump’s comment was “a joke and nothing more than that.”

“The president certainly never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent,” Sanders said in Tuesday afternoon’s news briefing. She added that Trump has “100 percent confidence” in Tillerson and admonished reporters for taking the president’s comment so seriously.

“Maybe you guys should get a sense of humor and try it sometime,” she quipped.

Just like he was joking the other 22 times he's mentioned his IQ.

Eminem was right. Trump is a chicken shit who has no balls. He's all talk and no hat.

Let Trump rail against the NFL. Maybe once Americans realize that even football isn't safe from being ruined by the Trump Administration, they'll get fed up.

Zarathud wrote:He's all talk and no hat.

Or, as they say in Texas, all hat and no cattle.

Take an IQ test? He's smarter than that.

Most presidents have had above-average IQs (those who were never tested are scored according to their academic achievements, vocabulary, and similar manifestations.) There's no indication that Trump's in that club; I'd be surprised if he ranks as average, even if he could sit through the test. But intelligence takes forms beyond book learnin', and Trump is evidently a genius at manipulating people and crushing opponents. Even if that doesn't equate to IQ, it's a mistake to underestimate him.

Kraken wrote:Trump is evidently a genius at manipulating people and crushing opponents. Even if that doesn't equate to IQ, it's a mistake to underestimate him.

He's no genius. It's just that rational people have no defense against being steamrolled by complete fabrication raining down like hellfire. While they're spending energy trying to rebut and counter the first lie, Trump is pushing out his 4th fresh one while wearing that big, fat signature shit-eating grin. He's not a genius, he's just a mudslide of shit with financial resources.

Zarathud wrote:Eminem was right. Trump is a chicken shit who has no balls. He's all talk and no hat.

Let Trump rail against the NFL. Maybe once Americans realize that even football isn't safe from being ruined by the Trump Administration, they'll get fed up.

Hehe. You bring the funny this morning. Thanks!

I don't even have the words:

President Donald Trump said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation’s highest ranking national security leaders, according to three officials who were in the room.

Trump’s comments, the officials said, came in response to a briefing slide he was shown that charted the steady reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons since the late 1960s. Trump indicated he wanted a bigger stockpile, not the bottom position on that downward-sloping curve.

...

The July 20 meeting was described as a lengthy and sometimes tense review of worldwide U.S. forces and operations. It was soon after the meeting broke up that officials who remained behind heard Tillerson say that Trump is a “moron".

Every choice he makes is in service of his bottomless need to feel powerful and respected. His obsession with nukes is absolutely terrifying... he seems determined to provoke NK into an attack so he can justify laying waste to them.

I’m starting to fear that it’ll be a minor miracle if his presidency ends without an enormous calamity happening.

I hope that in every future event where "Past Presidents" convene, he's not invited. I want whoever takes office next to make it their first step to say "Okay, here's a big list of everything Trump did. Reverse it" on day one. I want them to apologize to the world for our country's behavior in electing this narcissistic and dangerous moron and promise we'll do better for everyone.

I want to feel like I'm part of the country that can lead the free world, not a laughingstock nation that's trying to drive backwards down an escalator that's pushing us up towards progress.

I want to see him invited...but then photos start popping up of him sitting alone at a table with Melania as the other presidents are laughing and slapping each other on the backs at a nearby table.

...although I doubt Melania will be around that long.