As DVaut and others have pointed out before, Trump is not a liar, he is a bull****ter. Some excerpts from Harry Frankfurt's classic essay On Bull****:

So Trump's credibility isn't 0. It isn't even calculated. It's practically equal to rand()?

EDIT: No, that's wrong. It's higher than random but no more than what it takes to make him look correct.

There's a Frankfurter inspired work by another philosopher about as.sholes which he updated as a general theory of Trump. https://www.amazon.com/*******s-Theo.../dp/0385542038

It matters.

Here is one of the stories of how a part of the country went from a mix of races to all white 105 years ago.

https://longreads.com/2016/11/21/a-s...ng-in-america/

The story echoes one 70 years before and is echoed 70 years later in the same place.

It's vastly lower than random but only because, as POTUS, the topics Trump is asked to comment on are usually those where things are not going well. This gives the illusion that what he is doing is carefully crafting lies.

To illustrate this: the US economy is currently going pretty well. Unemployment is low, stock market is high, etc. If you asked Trump to give you a few paragraphs on the state of the US economy, they would still be chock full of bull**** and nonsense, right? A scheming liar would study up on this strong area for them, know all the facts and figures, be able to mount an argument as to why they deserve credit. But since Trump the bull****ter doesn't care about the facts, the plan remains the same: don't bother to learn anything, just spew whatever made-up self-serving crap sounds good.

Thanks for this. I think I've honestly missed most of these (or had them go over my head.) And you're right; it's silly to expect a podcast to be literally constructive (or to feel like I'm doing anything simply by listening). They do strike me as very intelligent and representative of an interesting perspective, so I suppose I've felt disappointed because sometimes it feels wasted or something. But that's obviously silly. I'm sure I'll keep at it.

I guess I'm just turned off by the fact that so much of it is comprised of references that go over my head and attempts to impress each other. Actually, it comes off kind of like:

From what it looks like over here, Trump learns a couple of talking points on each subject that are favorable to him personally. He also isn't worried about changing the talking points whenever new ones serve him better.

I'm learning that GOP has been chipping away at the State level, and they're only 6 states away from a Constitutional Convention. How close is that? How bad would it be?

Yeah, but his only interest in the talking points is that they are not obviously untrue to a general listener. For instance, he wouldn't have got up in the middle of the GFC and said that the stock market was reaching new highs - that's just obviously wrong. Aside from that, truth or falsity is not a criterion he uses when deciding on the talking points. It's more important that something sounds good. Even on something that has gone well, I fully expect him to spew bull**** rather than facts if the facts are inconveniently complicated and nuanced. I mean look at the election, he won the goddamn thing and there's been nothing but bull**** out of his mouth about it ever since.

They have 28, they need 34. The concern is that they can apparently count all states that previously called for a convention, such as New Hampshire calling for one to overturn Citizens United. In theory, in an idealistic world, a lot of good could come out of a Constitutional Convention. We could trade overturning Citizens United, fair districting and voter's rights for a balanced budget amendment.

In reality, this is the Republicans trying to get a balanced budget amendment to KO Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and lots of regulatory agencies while probably solidifying gun rights and making it harder to protect voting rights.

So right now, if they get one, it could be game over.

CNN just reported that Russia said Putin's visit with Trump will be "limited in time" and he won't be able to discuss anything Ukraine related.

Here we go...

There shouldn't be anything CLOSE to talk of game over. Totally ridiculous.

For this reason (and many others) Donald needs to be held accountable for his publicly known offenses to date, regardless of collusions and bribes and laundering. If there are no consequences for his current actions as POTUS, the country will never be the same.

CONGRESS VS POTUS UNDER OATH
(x-posting my own idea from another thread):

CONGRESS: Mr. Trump, we find you to be in violation of the Constitution, your Presidential Oath & Powers, and the following US Laws. [...] Do you have anything to say in your defense?

TRUMP: I just found out that Obama knew last year this would happen. Why did he do nothing to stop me?"

any convention proposed amendments still have to be approved by 3/4 of the state legislatures.

That's 38 states with both houses approving (1 house in NE).

That's a high consensus level that will prevent any flaky amendments being passed.

Republicans could snap write a new constitution and the 3/4ths thing would immediately get thrown out the window in the document.

WAAF.

1) Lots of flaky things are being done already. Do you support every action Trump has taken so far, including letting Russia do whatever they want to us?

2) If no, what's the worst thing he did that you disagree with?

3) Should the US President have more or less power than they're given now? Why? (I want someone to ask this on a heavily pro-Trump forum)

4) Кто больше лжец, Трамп или Путин?

We see many more pro-Democratic Party people in the street suggesting we overthrow our democratically elected government. That's the coup attempt more likely to happen.

But the American people won't let that happen.

you should start a thread on question 3.

I have points of agreement and disagreement with every politician in this country, I assume everyone else does too. Is that somehow not obvious to you?

I will. You just have to be one of the first replies though...for oppositional value.

EDIT: THREAD UP - GO FOR IT POCO

Yes, however reasonable people don't apply looser standards to Trump's actions no matter how far he goes against their core beliefs.

Trump wrote 3 tweets so far this morning, all of them too boring to post. He IS back to attacking China again in 2 of them, but they were somewhat thin and slightly veiled insults.

EDIT: Apologies for slipping up and downplaying his tweets. Nothing the guy says or does is insignificant anymore. Right now, he's in the process of creating a China/Russia/NK mess and these tweets don't help.

NPR has gotta be up for Troll of the Week for tweeting out the entire Declaration of Independencce, which got a bunch of Trumpkins riled up not realizing what it was and thinking they were attacking Trump.

Trumpkins never miss an opportunity to demonstrate they are the dumbest among us.

A few weeks ago...

Me: Did you see that letter from the Canadian government? Canada's done with us until Trump is gone.

Trumpkin: (Laughing) Good, **** Canada! Watch how fast they come crawling back when they need help with another war.

So that's why this thread is always filled with such over-the-top Anti-Trump stuff. God forbid we bore ourselves with reality.