Pidesco

That's all well and good but the media was always a bunch of biased muckrackers, even back to the days of the beginning of your country. The mainstream media is continuing as it always was, sometimes good, sometimes bad but most times just mediocre. Trump as President was the result of a weird confluence of factors, the strongest of all being the subprime financial crisis, but also the cult of celebrity, the increased awareness of underlying prejudices in society, the rise of internet powered extremists, the hard partisan divide, demographics, the electoral college, the slanted perception of crime and terrorism, the return of fascism as a relevant political force, and more things that haven't crossed my mind, right now. One could argue that the pivotal event leading to the Trump Presidency was Comey's shenanigans a week before the election, but really, Trump shouldn't even have made it out of the escalator, much less the Republican primaries or the actual Presidential campaign. You all that is true to an extent. But I really believe the biggest factor in electing Trump was the absence of a viable alternative. If the Democrats had nominated nearly anyone else (except Sanders, that s--t will never fly in the US as a whole) We would have a congress in control of one party and executive in the control of the other and we'd all be sleeping better. Hillary Clinton and all the baggage that came with her was a nonstarter. I mean she lost Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Democrats don't lose those states. She nearly lost Minnesota. Even Mondale won Minnesota. It was the only State he won. So for all of Trumps flaws, Clinton was equally flawed. And the voters were facing a choice of SoS or something different. Unless they were smart. The smart ones said "to hell with both of you" and voted 3rd party. I know that saying all the GOP/DNC candidates are pretty much the same is your thing, but that was always obviously not true about Trump and is, incredibly, becoming even more blatantly obvious as time passes. I don't see a candidate the Democrats could have put up that would be massively better President than Trump. That was also true of the candidates that the GOP put up against Trump in the primaries, as terrible as that field was. What Trump was, was a huge litmus test of partisanship in American politics. Once a upon a time you could say something along the lines of the following, albeit without evidence: "Republican voters would vote for their party even if Justin Bieber/Carrot Top/Donald Trump/Kim Kardashian/Paris Hilton was the nominee". well, now there's evidence, and I think the same is true of Democrats. Hell, if you could have magically exchanged the nominees in the last election, I'm pretty sure the end result would have differed very little in terms of the popular vote.

Pretty much.

That's all well and good but the media was always a bunch of biased muckrackers, even back to the days of the beginning of your country. The mainstream media is continuing as it always was, sometimes good, sometimes bad but most times just mediocre. Trump as President was the result of a weird confluence of factors, the strongest of all being the subprime financial crisis, but also the cult of celebrity, the increased awareness of underlying prejudices in society, the rise of internet powered extremists, the hard partisan divide, demographics, the electoral college, the slanted perception of crime and terrorism, the return of fascism as a relevant political force, and more things that haven't crossed my mind, right now. One could argue that the pivotal event leading to the Trump Presidency was Comey's shenanigans a week before the election, but really, Trump shouldn't even have made it out of the escalator, much less the Republican primaries or the actual Presidential campaign.

It's a good thing Trump agrees with that then, as he wants to spend money on an ineffectual wall instead of actually needed and useful infrastructure.

So what's the difference to all other publications, according to you?

That type of story doesn't really expire though. I mean I don't think he is just coasting on it or anything, but that gives him some lifelong street cred in my world. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/make-believe-maverick-20081016

McCain is now well known for being all talk. Also he was always a womanizing, unprincipled idiot who only got anywhere because of his Dad.

Anyone wants a 50% coupon?

Baby boomers had more kids than you can shake a stick at and the world's slowly stumbling towards catastrophe thanks to their active efforts. Seems to me that having kids is not a reliable predictor towards a person's ability to give a rat's ass about said kids' future.

He is not.

No. You are welcome.

The Supreme Court is back in conservative hands and illegal border crossings are down 70%, so he's not as ineffective is you claim. Consider the difference if the super shrew won. Republican weakness is that they're disunited against a united Democrat opposition, thus majority of Republicans have to yield to Dems because the far right is so intransigent they sabotage the good when they can't get the perfect.I would suggest that if people are suddenly choosing to stay in Mexico instead of moving to the US, things must be getting pretty bad in the US. Yes. The decrease in bank robberies after new security system is installed is a sign that things get pretty bad in the bank. F... logic. The better analogy would be a new security system that works so well it reduces the number of new clients the bank welcomes on a daily basis. And then the bank gets robbed by an existing customer, anyway. Edit: I'm sorry, I completely dropped the ball here. Let me correct this. And then the bank gets robbed by the CEO. And then the bank gets robbed by the branch manager. And then the bank gets robbed by the security contractor. But now, at least the money is safely always within the bank, under the control of fewer and fewer customer while the rest of the customers see their assets decreasing in value over time.

The Supreme Court is back in conservative hands and illegal border crossings are down 70%, so he's not as ineffective is you claim. Consider the difference if the super shrew won. Republican weakness is that they're disunited against a united Democrat opposition, thus majority of Republicans have to yield to Dems because the far right is so intransigent they sabotage the good when they can't get the perfect. I would suggest that if people are suddenly choosing to stay in Mexico instead of moving to the US, things must be getting pretty bad in the US.

Actually I doubt his hosting duties were all that strenuous. However running multiple business and handling real estate is where he makes his money, and he seems to be very involved in that. I don't think it is reasonable to dismiss his work ethic. There are plenty of other flaws for us to hold against him. edit: Also, the campaign itself is a tremendous grind, and should have given him a pretty good idea of what the presidency would be like. He campaigned for well over a year and all evidence points to him doing it tirelessly. He would have burnt out long before the election if he really was a lazy guy. I don't think he ever did much more than speaking to yes men and delegating actual work when running his various businesses. As for the campaign, while being always on the road is certainly strenuous in and of itself, his speeches were always almost entirely off the cuff for a reason. He prepares nothing beforehand, and doesn't think more than 5 minutes about any given subject.

Saying he did nothing is certainly hyperbole. However, the most tiring thing he ever did, mentally or physically, before becoming the President was probably recording episodes of The Apprentice.

He thought that it was less work than essentially doing nothing?

So someone from Obsidian went to Portugal only after I left.

This is pretty much a perfect depiction of what happens:

Wait, your healthcare is fine? Oh, never mind then. Everything must be peachy keen for everyone, everywhere.

I was specifically thinking about the "working tremendous hours" bit. I'm of the opinion that both W. and Obama were well meaning. This is iffier if considering their entire administrations, of course. Stating that the cause of rising health care costs was the ACA is misleading to say the least. Healthcare costs in the US were already ridiculous and increasing long before the ACA. The ACA was an underwhelming solution because the US, as a whole, is ridiculously and irrationally dysfunctional regarding anything that attempts to tackle the unmitigated catastrophe that is healthcare in America.

That stopped being true a few months ago, apparently.

It's those Spicer comments

Denying the holocaust during a white house press conference on the day of a Jewish holiday is certainly an interesting new low.