MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
- Start date
A Fox News reporter on Thursday called out two of his colleagues for sounding “like a White Supremacist chat room” when they attempted to defend President Trump’s infamous “both sides” comment about white supremacists in Charlottesville, according to internal emails reviewed by The Daily Beast.
As the political world continues to digest the Mueller report, we are entering into a new and especially dangerous phase of the tortured, twisting Russia scandal.
Just as fresh questions are emerging that simply cannot go unanswered — because answers would deepen our understanding of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s revelations, and by extension, of President Trump’s corruption — Trump is increasingly committed to closing off any and all inquiry along those lines.
Meanwhile, Trump is escalating his spinning of a fantasy alt-narrative, in which the only corruption and criminality that we’ve seen have been on the part of the investigators — and he’s threatening action against them.
This is creating an increasingly unstable situation that may essentially force Democrats to choose between total confrontation and total capitulation.
ate Thursday, Trump spoke to Fox News’s Sean Hannity and escalated the lawless rhetoric. He claimed the Mueller investigation was a “coup” and “an attempted overthrow of the United States government.”
Trump then demanded a reopened investigation into Hillary Clinton and the “dirty cops” at the FBI (citing some by name), who he says were all in on the coup attempt, a scandal he called “far bigger than Watergate.” Trump said: “Hopefully the attorney general will do what’s right, and I believe he will.”
The definition of appeasement, according to Dictionary.com, is “to bring to a state of peace, quiet, ease, calm, or contentment; pacify; soothe: i.e. to appease an angry king” and to “yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.”
That’s where we are aren’t we? We are appeasing an angry king. And the usual result of appeasement is that the angry king banks every concession and, empowered and emboldened by his success, gets more aggressive and more power hungry. Far from restraining him, appeasement gives him time to amass strength, until there’s no restraining him at all. By the time it’s absolutely clear that he is a tyrant, it’s too late. That’s the core narrative of every Shakespeare play that charts a historical bid for absolute power. And every one of those plays is a tragedy.
This week, in the face of Democratic appeasement and Republican complicity, Trump has upped the ante once again. ...
But it’s telling, it seems to me, that in this tweet, Trump clearly regards the Supreme Court as his ultimate backstop — because he has created a majority that he assumes will always defend him. His intent is to get another branch of the government “on his team,” i.e. under his direct control.
That’s how he sees the federal courts — as an extension of a strongman’s will. So far, that hasn’t been the case (in some instances, especially on immigration, the judicial pushback has actually been excessive) but with more and more judges chosen precisely because they do not believe in challenging executive power, it is seemingly Trump’s intention that the judiciary will be his.
In other words, he’s slowly neutering the judicial checks and balances and defying the congressional ones. (As a way to nullify the Senate’s “advice and consent” function, for example, Trump increasingly relies on “acting” secretaries, appointed with no Senate approval and thereby even more vulnerable to Trump’s personal leverage. As Trump explained, “I like ‘acting’. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that?” Yes, Mr. President, we do.)
When you combine this looming scenario of a completely unaccountable president (outside presidential elections) with the powers of the presidency as they have evolved since the Second World War, you have a Turkey scenario. The GOP will not stand in the way of strongman rule, and will, in fact, try to buttress it. ...
Only a massive public insurrection against strongman rule can begin to reverse this. It’s not happening, but it needs to. The shock and zeal and passion so many felt in 2016 needs to be summoned again. The Congress needs to subpoena Don McGahn and Kirstjen Nielsen to testify about their experiences in the White House. They need to tell the story that Mueller has laid out, in vivid testimony day after day. They may well have to go to court to enforce their oversight role. The focus should be on Trump’s claim to be beyond the rule of law. ...
Yes, Trump’s hegemony is strong, and getting stronger. He can bypass the television networks in ways Nixon couldn’t have dreamed of. He has a very strong economy. He has successfully marginalized much of the mainstream media for half the country. He has a shamelessness that is rarely found, even the most vulgar and venal. He is prepared to push buttons in the national psyche that few sane or decent people would. He can seem, in his demagogic genius, intimidating.
No one should be intimidated. And of course appeasement in the past has not always led to defeat. With a long, bitter, damaging campaign of resistance and counterattack, it can end in victory as well. Let’s put aside all our differences on policy and politics, and together do our constitutional duty. Every hour. Every day. Until we have not only defeated this president’s assault on America but cast him and his party into the rubbish bin of history.
“We’re fighting all the subpoenas.”
With this vow to reporters on Wednesday, President Trump laid bare his approach to the concept of congressional oversight. As the Democratic-controlled House ramps up its investigations of his administration, Mr. Trump is throwing up a stone wall.
Among the congressional requests denied in recent days: Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, has declined an invitation to discuss immigration policy; the Justice Department has rebuffed a subpoena for https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/justice-department-refuses-to-comply-with-congressional-subpoena-for-testimony-on-citizenship-question-and-2020-census/2019/04/24/d132996a-66a6-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html?utm_term=.8729bcfcba44 (John Gore), a deputy attorney general, to answer questions about the 2020 census; and the White House has instructed a former staffer, Carl Kline, not to provide information about how security clearances are granted. Mr. Trump called the subpoena for Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel, “ridiculous.” And while the Internal Revenue Service is still officially considering the request by the House Ways and Means Committee for Mr. Trump’s tax returns, the president’s acting chief of staff has already declared that Democrats will “never” get their hands on them.
Mr. Trump and his defenders justify such defiance by saying that the inquiries are partisan and thus illegitimate. “These aren’t, like, impartial people,” the president said of Democratic lawmakers.
Mr. Trump is leaning heavily on executive privilege, the principle that the president and other senior officials have the right to confidential deliberations within the executive branch. But scholars say https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/when-presidents-use-executive-privilege. Neither the phrase nor the concept appears in the Constitution. Even so, since the establishment of the presidency, all of its occupants have at some point claimed the implied prerogative as fundamental to the separation of powers.
As with many Americans, I began reading special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference as soon as it was released. As a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, I couldn’t help but see the events it recounts the way that President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, would have viewed them as they happened.
What the report revealed, page after page, was President Donald Trump and his campaign’s efforts to profit from the most “sweeping and systematic” — to use the words of the report — information warfare attack ever waged against the United States of America.
Trump and his team were uniquely positioned to sound the alarm and halt the Russian attack, but instead they welcomed it. And then they tried to obstruct efforts to investigate it. As such, Trump bears distinct responsibility for our failure to defend against Russia’s hostility and take the steps necessary to deter future threats.
To ensure that his betrayal and obstruction, and the foreign hostility it invites, do not become the new status quo in America, Trump must be held accountable. This means we must convene public hearings in Congress leading to impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. We must send an unmistakable message to our adversaries that we will not tolerate attempts to sabotage our democracy and upend the rule of law. It’s not an exaggeration to say that our freedom requires it.
Optimism, hope, destiny, harvest, bounty — these are Lakewood’s buzzwords. Prosperity too. Words that are rarely heard include guilt, shame, sin, penance and hell. Lakewood is not the kind of church that troubles your conscience. “If you want to feel bad, Lakewood is not the place for you,” said Rollo. “Most people want to leave church feeling better than when they went in.”
Hardline evangelicals dismiss the prosperity gospel as unchristian. Some of Lakewood’s more firebrand critics even label it “heresy”. They point to the belief, which Osteen seems to personify, that God is a supernatural ally whom you can enlist to help enrich your life. There is scant mention of humanity’s fallen condition in his motivational talks.
Yet the market share of US churches run by celebrity prosperity preachers such as Osteen, Creflo Dollar (sic), Kenneth Copeland and Paula White keeps growing. Three out of four of the largest megachurches in America subscribe to the prosperity gospel. Formal religion in the US has been waning for years. Almost a quarter of Americans now profess to having none. Among the Christian brands, only “non-denominational charismatics” — a scholarly term for the prosperity preachers — are expanding.
Though precise numbers are hard to find, one in five Americans is estimated to follow a prosperity gospel church. This offshoot of Christianity is quintessentially American — a blend of the Pentecostal tradition and faith healing. It is also expanding worldwide. Among its largest growth markets are South Korea, the Philippines and Brazil.
“Preachers like Osteen know how to work the modern marketplace,” says John Green, a political scientist specialising in religion at Ohio’s University of Akron. “They are like the mega mall of religion with an Amazon account added on. They are at the cutting edge of consumer trends.”
Joel Osteen is a maestro of high-tech religious marketing. I met him behind the scenes before one of his Nights of Hope — a two-and-a-half-hour, all-singing-and-dancing show that he takes on the road every few weeks. Donald Trump is a big fan of Osteen’s. The pastor has sold out New York’s Madison Square Garden no fewer than seven times. This Night of Hope took place at the Giant Centre in Hershey, Pennsylvania — the home of American chocolate. The sermon he was about to give turned out to be as candied as anything the town produces.
The first thing that struck me was Osteen’s jitters. Even on the 194th Night of Hope, his nervous energy was palpable. Thousands were queuing outside in the rain for the $15 tickets to hear him preach. The second thing that struck me was his stature. Profiles list Osteen’s height at anywhere between 5ft 9in, which is my height, and 5ft 11in. He was at least two inches shorter than me.
The third thing was his hesitancy. Osteen, a youthful 56-year-old, is said to practise his sermon for days until he gets it pitch perfect — when to turn to which camera to deliver the money line; which part of the stage to occupy at any given moment; when to vary his cadence; how to make the most of all the bling. Had he chosen the life of a preacher, Trump would surely have designed his church like Osteen’s Lakewood — with its curved stage, glitzy video screens and rotating golden globe.
...
Last edited:
