The Trump Presidency

[Calliander]

Social media posts are unkind to the color red, too.

Haha, I'm like, "Oh you're using ImageMagick. Nice." There are *way* better technologies but everyone is still using the same old thing to "compress" images so yeah, red is one of the worst.

[Doc Holliday]

Even as cable news networks debate reports of the existence of a recording of President Donald Trump using a racial slur, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports says that the president's approval rating among African-Americans is at 36 percent, nearly double his support at this time last year.

"Today's @realDonaldTrump approval ratings among black voters: 36%," Rasmussen said in a tweet. "This day last year: 19%."

That is a staggeringly high number for a man who only won 8 percent of the African-American vote in 2016.

Yoshi?

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

The power of Kanye.

[Satsuki]

I'd be curious about the breakdown of those numbers, since Rasmussen usually skews right on issues. I think their phone bank is wacky or something, haha.

[Doc Holliday]

Damn this is brutal.

[Dolemite]

Slow news lately. *yawn*

[Frogacuda]

I'm going to come out and say it. I think the rat is Pence, and I think this letter is strategic positioning, not public service announcement.

Despite the strategic use of the word "resistence," I think this is not the work of someone with the goal of opposing Trump as much as that of a man trying to build a path to legitimacy in the event of a Trump impeachment or resignation.

1) The author not only champions the "achievements" of the administration, but takes credit for them. "All the good things you conservatives liked about Trump? They were ME all along!"
2) The author is willfully vague about the specifics of Trump's worrying behavior, because the intent here is to cover all bases. Whatever scandal ends up being the one to take down Trump, we can imagine that was one of these things.
3) Pence, while always maintaining broad support for the President, has always managed to keep himself out of any scandal and controversy. He's the one guy who seems utterly absent from the various tell-all books to this point, who seems to just be hanging back and waiting and keeping out of trouble as a matter of strategy.
4) Pence, as the one who will inherit the Presidency in the event of an impeachment or resignation, faces a crisis of legitimacy just by virtue of being a part of this administration. More than anyone else, he needs to find away to distance himself from whatever shit Trump goes down for, and this gives him a path, particularly among conservatives.
5) Pence is the one guy in the administration that Trump can't fire, so if this does get aired out somehow, it doesn't really matter that much.

HuffPo has also pointed out the conspicuous use of a common Pence-ism, "lodestar" as a tell, also.

[Joust Williams]

Government seems to be witholding a lot of damning stuff on Kavanaugh. Must be one of those family values that the rural folk champion

[Doc Holliday]

When Did NPR become such trash? Here they are data mining for women Trump voters and the only specific question they ask is not Trump’s strict immigration policy, tarriffs, or tax cuts, but wether or not he had an affair.

That’s all women care about NPR?

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/06/64497...-hear-from-you

[Satsuki]

I am 200000000% sure it's not Pence. Like, I am utterly not convinced this dude is some sort of Putin-level genius playing 4D chess with the press. I think it's some middle tier individual who likes to hear her/himself talk and is greatly inflating his/her position and importance. I'm not sure how complicit the NYT is in this, but whatever.

The "lodestar" thing is many people's smoking gun, but in every workplace you get those weird terms that one person uses and then they catch on throughout the office. You have to use it in order to communicate with the person in seniority who uses it, that's why we use dumb ass terms like "paradigm" and "synergy."

I would love if it was Melania, lol. But it's totally not.