Translating Trumpian tweets
For example:
I’m in the Oval Office. Democrats, come back from vacation now and give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall. You voted yes in 2006 and 2013. One more yes, but with me in office, I’ll get it built, and Fast!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018
Translations follow quotes:
—“I’m in the Oval Office. Democrats, come back from vacation now.”
I work, you don’t, you lazy blowhards.
—“…give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall.”
Many people have criticized Trump’s penchant for capitalizing words that in English are ordinarily not capitalized unless they begin a sentence. But I think he does it for emphasis of the concepts therein, and to show that they’re a big deal. Border security? Big deal. The wall? Not just any wall; the Wall.
—“You voted yes in 2006 and 2013.”
A historic reference to remind them of their current hypocrisy and their previous support.
—“One more yes, but with me in office…”
C’mon Democrats, do do do what you done done done before. Hey, just one more “yes,” but now I’m president so you can’t bear to give me the satisfaction, because of your hatred of me. So you’re not just hypocrites, you’re spiteful petty hypocrites, willing to sacrifice our country’s security for vindictive political reasons.
—“I’ll get it built, and Fast!”
I’m the doer and not the talker. I’m the man of action, not the empty promiser. I have a track record as a builder, too; before I became president, that’s what I was famous for.
That tweet is only 44 words long in its entirety. But hardly a word is wasted. And I do think he wrote that one himself.
Whether a person hates Trump, loves him, or has mixed feelings, I can’t understand why anyone would actually think him stupid. Oh, I understand why his opponents might call him stupid, but a lot of people I know honestly and truly think he is stupid. I never have thought so, even back when I was writing posts very critical of Trump during the primaries.
[NOTE: Nor, by the way, did I ever think either Obama or Bush were stupid, although opponents of each called them that.]
Good analysis.
Your observation, Neo, has been pretty obvious from the commencement of Trump tweets. I happen to believe he authors his own tweets, not just some now and then.
And he means what he says, in contrast to his Democratic (dissembling) predecessors.
Covfefe
People think he’s stupid because they want to think that, so they don’t pay any attention to the facts. I used to think that was rare (not paying attention to facts so as to not disturb one’s beliefs); not any more.
On the capitalization thing, Southwest always capitalizes the word Customer, to emphasize their customer focus. I find that endearing because they actually are customer-focused.
There is a very important piece by Jonathan Turley, who is no right winger.
The remaking of the Democratic Party was evident last week with the reaction to the decision to withdraw troops from Syria. There was a time when a sizable number of Democrats opposed undeclared wars and unending military campaigns. Now, they are appalled that Trump would not continue a war in one of the myriad countries with American troops engaged in combat operations. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the withdrawal a “Christmas gift to Vladimir Putin,” while Tim Kaine, David Cicilline, and other Democrats called it “irresponsible” or “hasty.”
Of course, this “hasty” move is after seven years of intervention in the civil war, including personnel on the ground since 2012.
I think he has put his finger on it and that is why the Wall is such a confrontation. I don’t know how this will turn out. The Coast Guard and Border Patrol are hostages.
The tweet about the Obamas having a wall around their house for security was also right on the point.
That Turley piece was very interesting. I’ve always respected him, even when we disagreed on policy. Where will people like him go when they want to vote? Republicans today believe much more in law and Constitution and civil rights than do Democrats, but Turley would have public policy disagreements with them.
Our founding fathers were fans of capitalization for emphasis. Of course, they misspelled frequently too, although I’m not sure how much spelling has changed over time.
I disliked Bush, but didn’t think him stupid. While I wouldn’t call him stupid, I never saw the brilliance and oratory skills other attributed to him. Whatever you choose to call Trump, the guy knows how to persuade (Scott Adams has written extensively on this subject) and communicate. Tweeting is simply the modern-day fireside chat. FDR was smart to speak directly to the people; Trump isn’t breaking any new ground by Tweeting. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the left doesn’t seem to work. I’ve tried it with friends, face to face, and it doesn’t shame them, let alone lead them to repentance.
I think (hope) Trump is smart enough to know that he must find a way to make The Wall a reality. So far, the government shutdown is barely noticeable to most Americans, so he’s smart to keep up the pressure.
I think the word “smart” carries a lot of connotations that many people find unacceptable when applied to Trump. So if Trump is not smart, he must be stupid.
I bet that if you asked these people if Trump is “cunning”, they would agree. But there’s a great deal of overlap between smart and cunning. But the connotations carried by “cunning” are more acceptable to those people.
Slightly off-topic but to me it seems that “smart” in our culture today has a moral dimension, the way “fat” does. The unspoken assumption is that if you get “educated” you will become “smart”, and thus if you aren’t “smart” you were unwilling to accept the “education” (notice how “ignorant” is frequently treated as a synonym for “stupid” and an antonym for “smart”).
Furthermore, “stupid” is a term of opprobrium in a way that “short” is not. No one thinks that short people are in any way to blame for being so. As someone or other once said, no one by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature. A desirable woman might refuse to date a short man but she’d not blame him for being short. Likewise a tall woman might be considered more attractive, and while others might resent her advantage it would be largely because it IS unearned.
The parallel with “fat” is we have the unspoken assumption that anyone who is “fat” remains so because they are unwilling to accept the lifestyle changes needed. (Sometimes that assumption is not UNspoken.)
To me, “smart” and “stupid” are like “tall” and “short”. Being tall is usually an advantage and being short is usually not. There is little you can do about whether or not you are tall, although some environmental factors in your childhood might have changed that. But in our culture today “tall” and “short” do not carry that moral dimension the way that “smart” and “fat” do.
Well, I never have seen the messiah as ‘smart’. I see him as clever and a grifter, like the Clintons, using personal power to amass a personal fortune, under the disguise of an ideology. Clintons, Obama, and the globalists give a damn about the poor, and all the ‘victim’ groups. They simply seek power and wealth. They seek to have the peasants under their boot.
Only a fool would believe otherwise.
“I can’t understand why anyone would think him stupid.” neo
They Know that Anyone who doesn’t think as they do… Is Stupid.
Because Only a Truly Stupid person could Fail to See the Rightness of their Ideology.
They think this way because their Identity is so Deeply Invested in the Dogmas they Desperately Embrace that their sense of Self-Worth is entirely Dependent upon Insisting those dogmas to be Incontrovertibly TRUE.
They Know the Truth (sound familiar?) with literally a Religious Fervor. Given their Hate for Christianity and Judaism (conservative) the Irony and Hypocrisy is Literally Biblical. There is a Deep Fanatical Element to the Left.
What GB just said. We should pull his statement out every time we start wondering why they act the way they do.
While I wouldn’t call him stupid, I never saw the brilliance and oratory skills other attributed to [GW Bush] .
windbag: I don’t remember anyone attributing such to GWB. The man was a wonderful walking disaster of malapropisms like “misunderestimate,” “make the pie higher” and “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
He did a nice job walking the site of the Twin Towers and pulling the country together. I still like GWB but I would never sell him as an orator.
Frederick,
How smart can someone actually be who insists that different results can be achieved with methods consistently found wanting?
Their intelligence is held hostage to their cognitive dysfunction. Which stems from a juvenile refusal to accept reality. Which in turn prevents maturation into wisdom.
parker,
You’ve concisely identified the motivation of the ‘Stalinists’ on the Left. Offhand, I can’t think of even one democrat in leadership who isn’t in it solely for the power.
Can’t wait for his tweets come Thursday, when Pelosi’s back in charge of the House:“House Democrats ready bills to re-open government, but without wall funding”:
windbag: I don’t remember anyone attributing such to GWB. The man was a wonderful walking disaster of malapropisms like “misunderestimate,” “make the pie higher” and “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
It was painful for me to watch Bush but I can’t watch Trump either. Bush was a gentleman but unable to process questions, one of the most embarrassing moments was when a reporter asked him to name a mistake he had made. Trump would probably say, “When I decided to take your question.”
Bush was stumped and stood there looking clueless.
Stupid or not, Obama’s ‘education’ has been painted on with a very thin layer. I never imagined that any president would pronounce ‘corps’ as ‘corpse’ and there are few educated people who would claim to have been to 57 states with 3 more to go. Come to think of it, he is rather stupid.
huxley and Mike K,
My bad. That was poorly written. I meant that to refer to Obama.
How many illegal immigrants live with you Ann, may all your friends and relatives become addicts to the drugs bought in from Mexico, that would be my wish for the new year
Come to think of it, he is rather stupid.
Because he had a pair of slips of the tongue? That really is a superficial judgment.
Obama has adequate general intelligence. He just isn’t actually interested in much beyond his diversions. He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago for twelve years and produced not one scholarly paper, spent perhaps 3 years all told practicing law, and doesn’t appear self-educated in much of anything. His viewpoints are quite conventional (with a certain circle). Stupid he isn’t, and he has a certain cunning which allowed him to avoid accountability for abuses of the sort which got Richard Nixon sent packing.
FDR was smart to speak directly to the people;
He averaged 2-3 fireside chats a year, IIRC. However, he gave a mean of 83 press conferences a year. FDR’s standard press conference had ground rules which evaporated after 1952, among them that the President was not to be directly quoted. The number of reporters in attendance was in the low two-digits.
I’m not sure how this helps the “Trump us not stupid” camp.
IIFC, he had an offer for $25 Million in return for DACA but passed on that. Now he’ll settle for less than 5.
He’s had 2 years of Republican control but somehow squandered it. Now it’s over and he has nothing to show for it.
May all of ann’s Male relatives be wrongly accused of sexual wrongdoings they didn’t commit, may Ann’s all sources of income be destroyed due to globalisation, may ann’s Home be frequented by illegal immigrants daily. May Ann’s every business venture goes under due to business stifling liberal policies.
I can no longer stand the grandstanding career liberals and the useful idiots like Ann who will not compromise and meet in the middle with the rest of Americans who want nothing but make an honest living. How many illegals are you sponsoring right now? Why can we support rape victims without destroying innocent men? why can we support the poor without destroying villainizing every business owner and drive all small businesses out of business with idiotic liberal policies? Why can’t we support immigrates without putting the illegals on the pedestal and turn our cities into s**thole? A friend of my father lost a 20000 dollar camera (he is a photographer) when he foolishly left it in car when he came to San Francisco for a visit, is Ann going him back the money. Idiotic Ann probably still firmly believe kavanaugh was a serial gang rapist, yep trump is a liar but none of cnn and their anti trump guests ever lie, f**k you for willingly choosing to become such a hopelessly retard useful idiot.
At least the people who used to qualify for Medicaid will now have their Obamacare with a 10,000 deductible
Can’t
Yup, Trump is stupid. But then again, so were Eisenhower and Reagan.
Trump is willing to compromise and work with both side for the best of America, trump is the man of the middle who wants to bring back sensible and pragmatic middle of the road policies and put America on the right path without the extremist ideological partisan politics. But no the extremists from both sides (neocons and commies) are joining forces to obstruct trump in every step of the way from steering America back from the cliff. Ann you are the enemy of America, so are the other hard right people here who believe people with preexisting conditions should not be protected or the Iraqi was a just war and messages of devil bill Kristol is a saint.
I wonder if PDT capitalizes ‘Wall’ because he wants to keep the White Walkers out. Can’t say I blame him. Of course, it’s more like “_Re_build the Wall” at this point….
Use the military training budget to build the wall.
Combat engineers build obstacles all the time; the border wall is one of such.
Neo:
Let’s distinguish knowledge from intellect. Barry Soetoro revealed a woeful lack of knowledge, and a surprising shortfall in actual effective intellect..
* On cash-for-clunkers he lamented he got nothing when his car failed; the “law professor” conflated first-party coverage with third-party liability.
* Pushed with the killer question “how much of GDP can government arrogate without disaster?” he made facile reply “It’s not how much, it’s how smart. He didn’t know the difference between intelligence and information.
The more government intrudes in free markets, the more information is lost. It was that lack of market information that killed the USSR. Too many size 18 boots, never enough size 8 shoes. No statist can substitute their own thought for the reality of the expressed demands of the market.
Once government gets past about 65% dirigisme, we enter a death spiral of asset misallocation.
Don’t give the left too much credit, or even any credit at all.
Ann,
What does it matter whatever the 2019 House and Senate pass if the Donald vetoes? I want ‘loose cannon’ Trump to stand defiant when it comes to the illegal alien invasion. This is an issue that impacts my grandchildren. Do you have skin in the long game?
Presidents Bush and Obama aren’t stupid. But Joe Biden is a dumbass and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Joe biden is not stupid but a racist evil snake who will accuse every white political opponent of his racist and turn around and lynch any opponent who is black. Someone like him doesn’t deserve to be called human
manju if Trump is stupid then what does that make Hillary who outspent him 2 or 3 to 1 and had nearly all the media on her side while much of Trump’s own party was reluctant or outright opposed, but could not defeat him?
Another question regarding Hillary: how much does she pay you? Do you get a case of beefaroni each week for your flophouse room? Just wondering. Not a sarcastic question, it is known that Hillary pays people to troll the internet – “Barrier Breakers”, “Correct the Record”.
“he has nothing to show for it.”
Tax cuts that have produced a strong economy.
Rescission of the near-treasonous Iran deal.
These two alone have been of enormous benefit to the country. With all due respect manju you are a very confused and stupid individual. This is why you troll neo’s website, because you are incapable of holding a real job.
Trump is not stupid, he just is not an intellectual but a doer. He lives in a real world, while most intellectuals live in a fantasy which has increasingly less in common with reality. He reminds me the heroes of Ayn Rand or the hero of Kipling’s “Mary Gloster”: a man with a vision who is among very few who can see an unsatisfied society’s demand and the first who takes opportunity to fill the void with a sound business plan looking impossible for almost everybody else.
He inherited from President Obama what would become the longest bull market in history.
But now, as we all face the dreaded inverted yield curve, it appears that Trump has squandered this inheritance as well.
President Obama certainly left us the longest string of bull in history.
The economy under him was, however, a mess. That’s why Trump was elected.
Only someone who doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about the working class and middle class (or the role of industry in national security) would think Obama did anything good for the economy.
Does manju know anything about interest rate and it’s effect on the stock market? Does manju know anything about stock market and the election and how stock market always get pull down after the midterm to have space for a rally right before the next election. It is a lot easier to have a rally when the stock market is at 20,000 than 30,000. China was on the brink to overtake America within 5 years as the world’s greatest superpower, trump singlehandedly reverse that trend, and allowing the world to see china‘s true color and its barbaric nature with the trade war. After China pretty much kidnapped the three Canadians to retailiate their expansion in the world arena will be halted
Joe biden is not stupid but a racist evil snake who will accuse every white political opponent of his racist and turn around and lynch any opponent who is black. Someone like him doesn’t deserve to be called human
In re characters like Biden and Dan Quayle, their deficiencies are noticeable when they are compared to professional peers – i.e. other national politicians. They’re not deficient when compared to the man in the street. Both men managed to pass the bar exam in their respective states. I don’t think either required multiple attempts. (JFK Jr. required 3 cracks at the New York bar exam). Biden practiced law for about four years, Quayle for about two.
Quayle was treated horribly by the media, and particular outlets weren’t above bald lying. Biden isn’t run down this way. The thing is, the man produces such an enormous mass of verbiage, his clownishness cannot be hidden (to the point that Keith Ablow said if a patient entered his office talking the way Biden did during one public appearance, he’d undertake a dementia inventory).
Observers of Biden have offered that he should have gone into real estate sales, something for which he has a genuine flair. Tough to say what Quayle’s true vocation was; it always seemed he wasn’t interested in much other than golf and chillin’ with the family.
The economy under him was, however, a mess. That’s why Trump was elected.
I think we err when we attribute business cycle dynamics to the incumbent administration. The influence of public policy on rates of economic development can be a challenge to discern and are commonly operating on time scales much longer than terms of office for politicians. To the extent that you can attribute things to contemporary policy, the consequential actors are the Federal Reserve Governors. When they’re not getting the job done, the result is elevated inflation or (more infrequently and injuriously, deflation). The Democratic Party did enact a number bad policies which injured the labor market. Casey Mulligan delineated what they were in detail on his blog. These rendered labor market recovery slower than it otherwise would have been. (It might have been slow no matter what BO or the Democrats in Congress did).
Things the elected officials can and should do to improve economic performance will not be undertaken because in our time Congress is exceedingly resistant to accomplishing anything, much less something that might offend vested interests or contravene dysfunctional mentalities among the elites. What Trump can accomplish is what Reagan could accomplish: changes in the Code of Federal Regulations, which do not require congressional approval.
Manju has the DNC talking points, even the ridiculous one about Obama’s “Bull Market,” down pat.
I’m not sure how this helps the “Trump us not stupid” camp.
IIFC, he had an offer for $25 Million in return for DACA but passed on that. Now he’ll settle for less than 5.
The issue is the DACA legalization. More important than the money. Most of those “children” that would be legalized were “young adults” as they entered illegally. Once the border is secure, I am in favor of legal residence for those who really were brought in as children. Not citizenship, though.
He’s had 2 years of Republican control but somehow squandered it. Now it’s over and he has nothing to show for it.
With Joe Biden thinking the presidency is under Article I of the Constitution, I should go easy on leftists who think presidents write and pass legislation. They don’t. What you ignore, or don’t know, is that Trump ran against the ruling class that includes both parties. A lot of the people who voted for him also voted for, or were about to vote for, Ross Perot. The establishment Republicans vote how their donors tell them to vote.
The reason why Democrats are no longer the party of the working man, is the money now comes from the rich who are interested in social issues, not economics. They are the party of the rich and the poor. The middle class is shifting to the Republicans as Trump reorganizes the GOP. Read that column I linked above by Turley.
To the extent that you can attribute things to contemporary policy, the consequential actors are the Federal Reserve Governors.
Mostly true but the “You can’t drill your way…” and other regulation of industry can hurt an economy. The trade deals were also a big part. Ross Perot was against NAFTA too.
Manju has the DNC talking points, even the ridiculous one about Obama’s “Bull Market,” down pat. –Mike K
That’s pretty much Manju’s style — just lob talking points, apropos or not, into topics. When challenged, he usually disappears.
The Rumsfeld “poem” he dropped into the Internet Poetry topic he had copped from elsewhere and presented as his own to needle neocons and conservatives in general. It contributed nothing to that conversation.
From a few hours ago — a Trumpian tweet, pure and undistilled:
Ann:
At least he didn’t lie about an innocent man being a serial gang rapists like you democrats did.
I am not a Democrat. And I thought what was done to Kavanaugh was appalling.
Ann,
I’m sure you thought the way Kavanaugh was treated was appalling. But did you think it was more appalling than the President’s tweets? Those sure seem to work you into a lather, faster and easier, than any other ‘appalling’ thing of the past couple years.
At least manju, who is basically trolling everyone with his DNC approved ‘fact checks’, doesn’t claim to be on our side.
But you spend an awful lot of time and words undermining the one guy fighting for you and yours, however much you hate him. Or at least, undermining the beliefs and confidence of those who support the only guy fighting for you and yours.
And Geoffrey Britain said it better and shorter than anyone ever has, I think.
Perhaps I’m a bad person but I just don’t care about Trump’s tweets anymore.
Yes, they are often snarky or exaggerated or whatever, but that’s Twitter’s raison d’etre and it’s not like Democrats are taking the high road either, despite their self-serving claims to the contrary.
So, I post a tweet by the president that’s both juvenile and vile and I’m the one doing the undermining of your belief in him. Interesting.
LOL Ann. El-Oh-El.
I see that got a rise. It’s too bad you can’t see your comments from our side. They border on monomania.
His tweets are poems, by the modern rules.
COVFEFE
–by D. J. T.
I’m in the Oval Office. Democrats,
come back from vacation now and
give us the votes necessary for
Border
Security,
including
the
Wall.
You voted yes in 2006 and
2013. One more yes, but
with me in office, I’ll get it built, and
Fast!
Ann on January 1, 2019 at 5:28 pm at 5:28 pm said:
So, I post a tweet by the president that’s both juvenile and vile and I’m the one doing the undermining of your belief in him. Interesting.
* * *
But is any of it false?
“General” McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/politics/24mcchrystal.html
Last assignment a total bust.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/23/general.mcchrystal.obama.apology/index.html
(read to the end)
Known for big, dumb mouth.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/05/19/mcchrystal-on-the-rolling-stone-scandal-youre-going-to-find-out-who-your-friends-are/?utm_term=.196d7f7ffbb5
(see CNN also)
Hillary lover!
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcchrystal-on-hillary-one-of-the-relationships-i-will-value-forever_us_5b57400ae4b086f60991d08a
(video which I didn’t listen to, so maybe HuffPo lied in the headline, but why would they?)
— I’m gonna need a second comment for this one —
“Does manju know anything about interest rate and it’s effect on the stock market?”
Of course not. And if he did it would have zero effect on his comments which have no content other than the promotion of DNC/anti-Trump narratives. Huxley has him exactly right. I also agree with FR’s take on Ann.
Apparently, Trump once considered having McChyrstal as his VP:
Maybe that was Mike Flynn’s influence, who said this in October 2016:
Wonder what Flynn thinks of Trump’s tweet.
I had to look up the source of this remark by Ann, as I have been avoiding everything but Neo and PowerLine over the holidays until today.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/01/politics/trump-tweet-mcchrystal/index.html
McChrystal “won’t work for immoral liers,” but see below for what he said about Obama in the Rolling Stone article, if I can find it.
— More on Hillary & The General —
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html
(unpaid political advertisement)
“But she was understandably wary of talking about areas in which she and Obama split — namely, on bedrock issues of war and peace, where Clinton’s more activist philosophy had already collided in unpredictable ways with her boss’s instincts toward restraint. She had backed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal of 30,000 (Obama went along with that, though he stipulated that the soldiers would begin to pull out again in July 2011, which she viewed as problematic).”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2010/06/hillary_clinton_the_only_perso.html?gtm=bottom>m=top
“Unlike President Obama, Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, James Jones, John Kerry, and John McCain, Hillary Clinton wasn’t disparaged by Afghanistan commander Stanley McChrystal or his aides in today’s Rolling Stone article.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/22/only-clinton-singled-out-for-praise-in-rolling-stone-article-on-mcchrystal/
“Seems like McChrystal’s team is like the general American public in giving Clinton the highest rating among senior U.S. leaders.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-runaway-general-the-profile-that-brought-down-mcchrystal-192609/
“The general prides himself on being sharper and ballsier than anyone else, but his brashness comes with a price: Although McChrystal has been in charge of the war for only a year, in that short time he has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as “shortsighted,” saying it would lead to a state of “Chaos-istan.” The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One.
…
Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn’t go much better. “It was a 10-minute photo op,” says an adviser to McChrystal. “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”
From the start, McChrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency.
…
As McChrystal leaned on Obama to ramp up the war, he did it with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq: Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the fuckers out. After arriving in Afghanistan last June, the general conducted his own policy review, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The now-infamous report was leaked to the press, and its conclusion was dire: If we didn’t send another 40,000 troops – swelling the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by nearly half – we were in danger of “mission failure.” The White House was furious. McChrystal, they felt, was trying to bully Obama, opening him up to charges of being weak on national security unless he did what the general wanted. It was Obama versus the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was determined to kick the president’s ass.”
* * *
But Obama supporters were not at all outraged that McChrystal “resigned” because “…you have the right to have a
Secretary of Defensecommanding general whose views are better aligned with yours.”I think Ann takes Trump literally but not seriously.
Kind of like the Rolling Stone does.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-obama-wall-773963/
“It turns out the president was completely making up this assertion. According to one neighbor who spoke with the Post: “There’s a fence that goes along the front of the house, but it’s the same as the other neighbors have. It’s tastefully done.”
And another neighbor confirmed to the paper that the house is “100 percent visible from the street.”
While there is a fence and a guard house blocking part of the driveway to the Obamas’ $8.1 million-dollar home, installed by the Secret Service, the Post’s fact checker confirms the front of the house is open to the street, and nothing blocks the stairs leading up to the front door. And the mansion, located in the Kalorama neighborhood of D.C., certainly isn’t a compound, like Trump alleged.
Trump also claimed in his tweet that his proposed border wall would be a “slightly larger version” of the wall he accused the Obamas of having. But even that was stretching the truth. His desired border wall would be three or four times as tall and thousands of miles long, significantly larger than the imaginary fence around President Obama’s house.”
I don’t think Trump actually looked at the fence, just riffed on the reports.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/423273-trump-us-needs-border-wall-like-obamas-needed-privacy-wall-outside-dc
“TMZ first reported two years ago that the Obamas had obtained permits for additional security at their D.C. home. The structure, which in photos appears to be similar to a security fence but made of brick, was reportedly completed in 2017.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/31/washington-post-fact-checker-no-wall-around-obamas/
“That prompted the Post to go to the $8 million, 8,200-square-foot Tudor-style mansion on Belmont Street in the Kalorama neighborhood to see whether there was a 10-foot wall. They found numerous security measures and even added fencing since the former president purchased it.
“The Obamas added security fencing to a retaining wall in front of the home (it is not a compound) for the needs of the Secret Service. A guard booth was built, and fencing was added to the back,” the Post wrote.
The Post also noted that part of Belmont Street had been blocked off and cited neighbors as saying that each end of the street now has security checkpoints also.
One neighbor also told the Post on condition of anonymity that “there’s a fence that goes along the front of the house, but it’s the same as the other neighbors have … tastefully done.”
But not a 10-foot wall.
“There is no 10-foot wall in the front, back or sides of the house — and no wall is going up,” a second neighbor told the Post. The home is “100 percent visible from the street.”
Mr. Trump was not the first person to characterize the security additions to the Obamas’ mansion as a “wall.”
Celebrity-news site TMZ led a January 2017 story about construction on the building with “President Obama is taking a cue from Donald Trump … he’s building himself a wall. We got photos of construction at Obama’s soon-to-be D.C. rental.”
The debate over border security is also getting bogged down in the semantic differences between “fencing” and “a wall” and whether steel slats count.”
* * *
So, we just need to translate the Wall tweet as Neo did with the one in her post.
* * *
President and Mrs. Obama built/has a ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound.
— I have no idea how big their ($8 million, 8,200-square-foot Tudor-style) mansion is, but it’s not a tenement walk-up. Was the fence already there? Oh, they built it themselves? How big does a yard have to be to make a mansion into a compound? Who cares anyway?
I agree, totally necessary for their safety and security.
— Sauce for the goose, sauce for the people!
The U.S. needs the same thing, slightly larger version!
— that’s a joke, Jim. Somebody explain it to Acosta, will ‘ya?
* * *
This is the only picture I found of the BACK fence at the Obama’s and it is easily 8 feet hight, and may be 10 (looking at the height of the doors behind to the left). Note that the “fact checker” only looked at the front, which is indeed visible from the street — if you can get ON the street through the checkpoints at each end.
Also, the view of the grounds show they are quite extensive; big enough to be called a compound anyway, especially if there are some separate buildings like a garage or guest-house.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/obama-house-kalorama/index.html
“The 8,200-square-foot home, which last fall underwent upgraded security preparations in order to accommodate the family’s arrival, is now blocked off to public access by concrete barriers, manned 24-7 by United States Secret Service officers.”
Trump once considered having McChyrstal as his VP:
Yeah, ‘sources’ are just so bloody credible.
Of course “sources” are not the final word. But that doesn’t mean we can simply dismiss those quoted Trump comments re McChrystal at that rally in 2015.
Ann seems determined to hold a NeverTrump position. I don’t really care. I quit Ricochet when my account was suspended for two days after I used the term “TDS” to describe the rants of one member.
There are a lot of people who have Trump Derangement Syndrome. It seems especially prevalent in California and in DC. I consider it a mild psychosis.
McChrystal “won’t work for immoral liers,” but he loved him some Hillary, because she backed his plan against Obama.
What would he have done if she had been elected?
Any bets he would have resigned over her (a) lies about Benghazi; (b) lies about her emails; (c) lies about the Trump dossier; (d) lies about Uranium One; (e) bribes disguised as charitable donations; …..
Ann on January 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm at 7:44 pm said:
Of course “sources” are not the final word. But that doesn’t mean we can simply dismiss those quoted Trump comments re McChrystal at that rally in 2015.
* * *
No, but we can decode them with our Secret Decoder Rings.
Trump seemed to hint at the controversy and getting McChrystal involved in his potential administration during a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, in November 2015.
“We had one general who is really tough — I won’t say his name — but he got fired because he was very, very, nasty, he wasn’t politically correct and everybody said he was our best general, and he used foul language all the time, and he got fired because they interviewed him and he was cursing all over the magazine,” he said, with an audience member quickly yelling “Bring him back!”
“Bring him back,” Trump responded. “And we might.”
* * *
This happened before Trump swept the GOP primaries; before he had cemented his platform messages with his fans; and probably before he knew much about McChrystal’s long-time cred as a Democrat (he voted for Obama, even if he didn’t agree with his Prez later as CiC).
So, if your audience is yelling for someone to be added to the team, what aspiring politician is going to say up-front to their faces: not a chance — even if he had no particular interest in the General at the time.
I didn’t know “the longest bull market in history” was a DNC talking point. I knew it was a Trump one. But Obama AFAIK did not brag about the stock market per se. He talked about the underlying economy.
Indeed, the first proclamation of the end of this historic bull run that I read came from a pro-Trump website:
“The longest bull market in history” has been a topic of conversation recently well outside the realm of political talking points. It began in 2009. It was longer than Reagan’s, longer than Clinton’s even.
But now, the stock market has been entering bear territory. Bond markets are flashing an inverted yield curve for some treasuries, a major indicator of a recession.
The last time we saw this indicator was right before Bush’s Great Recession.
How did we get here?
Manju: Maybe you could make a closely-reasoned argument for a change instead of your “What about this?” j’accuse style of commenting.
It’s a tricky business lining up market movements with presidential administrations. I’m pretty sure you would find a way to rationalize whatever happens with praising Democrats and condemning Republicans.
Or rather you would read about it elsewhere and parrot it here.
“The longest bull market in history” has been a topic of conversation recently well outside the realm of political talking points. It began in 2009.
I assume you are referring to the Reagan Bull Market that began in 1982, accelerated with the 1994 election that made the GOP the majority in both Houses and continued until 2008. After 2008, Obama and the Fed used the ZIRP to force all investment to the stock market while the economy slid along at the bottom. GDP growth of 2% was the “new normal” until Trump came along and started cancelling regulations.
There’s a standard argument on the left that the economy is better under Democrat presidents, mostly because of the red-hot runs under JFK, LBJ and Clinton, but there’s not many data points and I don’t think it’s that simple. Here’s a good article questioning that faith:
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/10/28/which-presidents-have-been-best-for-the-economy
And of course there was the “red hot” (not) economy under FDR which is blamed on a progressive Republican, Hoover. For some reason Democrats don’t tout FDR’s economic record except to say that FDR didn’t go far enough. Can’t argue with success I guess.