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The Art of No Deal

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Litwitlou

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Re: The Art of No Deal

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Harry Marks wrote:The ideology of Davos Man, as taught in the M.B.A. programs that made America great, is to focus on success and disregard any pretense to responsibility. The great exemplars of this mode of operation include several who were indicted. The rot did not begin with Donald our Dear Leader.

Sociopaths Make Great CEOs

* Manipulative and Conning
* Grandiose Sense of Self
* Pathological Lying
* Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
* Shallow Emotions
* Incapacity for Love
* Need for Stimulation
* Callousness/Lack of Empathy
* Poor Behavioural Controls/Impulsive Nature
* Early Behaviour Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
* Irresponsibility/ Unreliability
* Promiscuous Sexual Behaviour/ Infidelity
* Lack of Realistic Life Plan/ Parasitic Lifestyle
* Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility

Sound like anyone we know?
http://archives.dailynews.lk/2013/02/12/fea26.asp
"I have a great relationship with the blacks."
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DB Roy
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs6UcgiDwg0

Art imitates life to a shocking degree.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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Maybe he's been up late to tweet so often because he is studying this old flick.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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Re: The Art of No Deal

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The shutdown is now over after 35 days--the longest in U.S. history. It ended with Trump accepting the same deal he refused earlier (even though it was exactly the deal he asked Congress to send him earlier saying that he would sign it and decided at the last minute not to). So, really, the shutdown was over nothing and should never have happened. All that was accomplished is that many government employees, who missed two paychecks, have lost money, had their credit ratings damaged and some are looking for new quarters having been evicted. One woman was forced to ration her insulin. While they will receive their back pay, they will not receive any financial reprieve from penalties incurred by delayed payments or any legal reprieve from any other punitive actions that may have been launched against them.

Many employees are afraid the govt may shut down again in three weeks when Trump and Congress will again haggle over funding for his wall since it very unlikely either side will budge. Trump has to understand that he not only owns the shutdown (which he very stupidly announced he would take credit for) but that he cannot win funds for his wall. I predict he will not dare shutdown the govt a second time. It will take some years for the govt machinery to recover from the havoc wreaked on it by this last shutdown. The American public squarely blames Trump for the shutdown--and rightly so--and if he shuts it down again, the public may howl for his impeachment for this this alone apart from any collusion or obstruction crimes.

He will probably go the route of declaring a national emergency but I can't see him pulling that off. You can't declare a national emergency by shutting down the govt--that in itself was becoming a true national emergency. Plus a national emergency requires immediate responses and a thousand miles of wall or slats doesn't exactly fall into that category. The repubs are leery about doing that because they don't want to find a democratic president in 2020 pulling the same shit on them. It's a bad precedent set by a bad president.

While Mitch McConnell could have ended the shutdown much earlier, he chose not to but I think people may have misinterpreted his actions. McConnell is not a fan of shutdowns. He has, in the past, counseled congressional republicans from resorting to them. He allowed them to shutdown the govt during Obama's administration not because he thought they would get what they wanted but so that they would understand the futility of resorting to such measures. It worked, they didn't try it again. So, it seems to me, he refused to end the shutdown in order to let Trump twist in the wind for a while. I think Trump may have consulted Turtle-face on the matter and McConnell may have told him not to shutdown the govt. Trump, believing himself a political genius greater than any other, ignored him and initiated a shutdown anyway to show McConnell how a master does it. Instead, it backfired spectacularly and McConnell just sat back and let Trump understand what his actions brought down on the nation because Trump clearly had no idea what he was doing to the country and didn't care. McConnell was probably thinking, "You baked this shit cake, now you eat it!" After watching Trump gagging on the excrement and country on the brink of a true crisis, he stepped up and put an end to it. I think Trump learned the lesson: hands off shutting down the govt.

Lindsey Graham had told the world that if Trump lets the shutdown end without funding for his wall, his presidency will have effectively ended. Well, now, Lindsey, old boy, what about it? Ann Coulter has apparently dismissed Trump out of hand. She realizes that this shutdown was it: either he got his funding for the wall or stick a fork in him, he's done. She's sticking the fork in right now.

But the big lesson to take from all this is just how weak, ignorant and clueless Trump really is. He bossed Congress around as long it was majority republican but with a democratic House, he is totally out of his league. Nancy Pelosi has completely schooled him. She not only got him to accept that his SOTU address was not happening in the House, she made him back off on his demand for wall funding. She slam-dunked his ass right into a shitcan. It was brutal and highly enjoyable to watch her force crow down Trump's throat. She has shown the world she is not to be trifled with and she's more than enough to handle a jerk like Trump. She has dominated him and solidified her power. She has the dems now solidly behind her and even some repubs because they see now that Trump will never beat her. She is stronger than him. She knows the game very well and he is an idiot. He thought he could redefine the game on his terms. She has proven he can't simply because she won't allow him to. She has earned respect. I admit, I thought Pelosi didn't know her ass from her elbow but I was wrong. She is a smart, shrewd woman. She has pretty much destroyed Donald Trump politically and she hasn't even delivered the coup de grace yet.

I still expect the republicans to have a trick or two up their sleeves and pull some surprise moves in the next three weeks but it looks like Pelosi is ahead of the game.

And it was funny what Schumer did because it was something that shouldn't have worked. He put that big, smelly turd log labeled "Govt Shutdown" on a plate and held it out to Trump and Trump, knowing full well what it was, grabbed it and took at great big bite of it. Schumer had to be thinking, "Holy fuck, is this guy stupid!!!" Any other president would have had the brains to push that plate away. NOBODY EVER wants to openly flirt with shutting down the govt--especially a president. A PRESIDENT!!! And Trump went and did it. Clearly, the man was clueless as to what a shutdown really means. His staff didn't know either. That idiot Wilbur Ross suggesting that furloughed workers should avoid going to the food bank and get a bank loan instead!! Is this guy for real??? Is this draining the swamp or pouring more crocodiles into it?? The public was stunned by the callousness. Trump himself appeared to be totally untouched by the hardship he was causing and only addressed when it seemed that he had better say something but his choice of words betrayed his lack of care. He called the workers "patriots." Patriots??? They didn't volunteer for this. They didn't want it contrary to Trump's incredible assertions that they did. Meanwhile, Pelosi and Schumer never failed to mention how important it was to get people back to work. It was public relations coup for the dems and utterly ruinous for the republicans.

Moreover, the public is behind Pelosi because Trump stupidly cast this whole thing as the dastardly villain. He was the evil guy shutting down the govt, even saying he was proud to do it. He tried to them push it off on the dems, even calling it Schumer's shutdown but it didn't work. All the tricks that Trump normally uses--the sophomoric nicknames, the taunting language, the smirks and sneers, the tweets--didn't work. The American public did not like what he was doing. It made too clear to them that he didn't know what he was doing, that he is flying by the seat of his pants. The public is both angry and frightened. The emperor's new clothes syndrome. We voted a 72 yo child as the most powerful man in the world. What were we thinking???? Trump made himself the villain and Pelosi looked like the knight who slew the dragon. It was a public communications disaster for Trump.

Moreover, because Pelosi forced Trump to fold on his demands, it revealed something that infuriates the public: Trump had no plan, no strategy. He simply forced a shutdown and waited for the dems to fold. He had nothing else up his sleeve, was holding no ace in the hole. He was just bluffing the whole time. Pelosi knew it and forced Trump to either show his hand or fold. Well, when you have nothing in your hand, folding is all you can do and so Trump folded. To shut down the govt with no plan. How stupid can you be??

So I think this wall thing is done simply because the public is sick of hearing about it. We don't care about any fucking wall and and we absolutely will not stand for any more needless govt shutdowns!! And once the public speaks on the matter, that's how it is. And that's how it is, folks.

To make matter worse, Mueller is getting uncomfortably close to Trump now by having Roger Stone arrested. You knew that would have to happen at some point and it fits the narrative many pundits foresaw two years ago--that Mueller was going to strip away everybody who could help Trump--one by one--until he was isolated and vulnerable. Cohen was a huge fish as were Flynn and Manafort but Stone was sort of the top ideologue of Trump's rise to power. In some ways, he is the biggest fish yet. He has vowed not to testify against Trump but he will. Once he confers with his lawyers and they spell out to him what he's looking at, he'll spill beans and a lot of them.

I said some months ago the wheels were slowing coming off and they are. Slowly and surely.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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Flimflam men are exposed eventually. That is finally happening to Trump. If he can rise from this take-down, he truly is a master of the craft.

So many harmful effects from this brutal shutdown of Trump's. It has always been difficult to get landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers. Now, with only a threat that payments might have been interrupted, some building owners are declining to participate. Just one example.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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DB Roy wrote:It ended with Trump accepting the same deal he refused earlier (even though it was exactly the deal he asked Congress to send him earlier saying that he would sign it and decided at the last minute not to). So, really, the shutdown was over nothing and should never have happened.
True that it was a failed gamble, but the game of chicken takes two, and it is not clear that his adversaries are "winning" anything. The premise of shutdowns was always that movement conservatives did not consider much of what government does to be worth doing. So when Newtie passed a severely pared-back budget and Clinton refused to sign it, they turned to the alternative of refusing to fund anything at all. While this did not "work" politically (it alienated the center) they forced Clinton and the Democrats to designate "essential" government services, which really means, government that we can get a super-majority to agree on.

All this to say, the precedent of refusing to sign a funding bill that does not include "the President's priorities" is already established. Clinton won politically because the cuts Newtie was passing weren't really that popular. Dear Leader is on the wrong side of this one from a popular perspective - a big majority, like the one that swept the Dems into House leadership, opposes the wall. But he may very well be able to keep the Senate behind him. The fact that the brinkmanship is about symbolism, not fact, works against him with independents, but it works for him with Republicans.

If Dear Leader was smart (pigs would fly, and) he would declare victory for getting the Democrats to agree to the symbolic budget number in dealing with "the border crisis" and claim the wall was just a bargaining chip. Forget Ann Coulter, she doesn't represent anyone. But he is a narcissist, and so we are going to get a replay of this and the federal workers will continue to be demoralized until the purple state GOP senators figure out how to get around him.
DB Roy wrote: All that was accomplished is that many government employees, who missed two paychecks, have lost money, had their credit ratings damaged and some are looking for new quarters having been evicted. One woman was forced to ration her insulin. While they will receive their back pay, they will not receive any financial reprieve from penalties incurred by delayed payments or any legal reprieve from any other punitive actions that may have been launched against them.
But will the Dems succeed in turning this "let them eat cake" shutdown into a symbol of the way Dear Leader has sold the government to fat cats? I doubt it. What seems to me to be missing, if I can tap the conversation on the "Last Unicorn" thread, is a Democrat who can successfully portray themselves as acting for destiny, for the needs of the future, rather than just branding themselves with a set of rhetorical positions. Biden comes closest, but we all know he has a lot of baggage. If the fat cats keep wallowing in their privilege as publicly as possible, then a Bernie figure could manage it, but right now his negatives are still awfully high.
DB Roy wrote: Trump has to understand that he not only owns the shutdown (which he very stupidly announced he would take credit for) but that he cannot win funds for his wall. I predict he will not dare shutdown the govt a second time.
I wish I could agree with you. He can't be as dumb as he seems. But he still has Sean and da boyz backing him up, and he may be satisfied to keep picking fights on that basis. When Red State America turns off Fox News, you will know the stalemate is really broken.
DB Roy wrote:He will probably go the route of declaring a national emergency but I can't see him pulling that off.

The repubs are leery about doing that because they don't want to find a democratic president in 2020 pulling the same shit on them. It's a bad precedent set by a bad president.
Exactly right. It is easier to make a factual case for a national emergency on climate action than on illegal immigration. If Dear Leader tries this stunt, it would really put the screws to McConnell, and I have to guess McConnell would finally call "Enough" and join Pelosi in reining in this catastrophic presidency. Impeachment? Probably not, unless Dear Leader tries to use military force to impose his will. Something with different symbolic optics and more specific application, like declaring it to be the sense of Congress that there is no emergency and Dear Leader was violating his constitutional role.
DB Roy wrote:While Mitch McConnell could have ended the shutdown much earlier, he chose not to but I think people may have misinterpreted his actions. McConnell is not a fan of shutdowns. He has, in the past, counseled congressional republicans from resorting to them. He allowed them to shutdown the govt during Obama's administration not because he thought they would get what they wanted but so that they would understand the futility of resorting to such measures. It worked, they didn't try it again. So, it seems to me, he refused to end the shutdown in order to let Trump twist in the wind for a while. I think Trump may have consulted Turtle-face on the matter and McConnell may have told him not to shutdown the govt. Trump, believing himself a political genius greater than any other, ignored him and initiated a shutdown anyway to show McConnell how a master does it. Instead, it backfired spectacularly and McConnell just sat back and let Trump understand what his actions brought down on the nation because Trump clearly had no idea what he was doing to the country and didn't care.
This makes sense to me. One thing we have learned about Dear Leader is that he eventually lets the adults talk him down from his follies. The trick is to do it in a non-confrontational way, without engaging his narcissism. Best is if you convince him the solution is his own genius idea.
DB Roy wrote:But the big lesson to take from all this is just how weak, ignorant and clueless Trump really is. He bossed Congress around as long it was majority republican but with a democratic House, he is totally out of his league.
Did he boss Congress around? Then where is the wall? He just wants a conflict so he can pretend he won it.
DB Roy wrote: Nancy Pelosi has completely schooled him.
She has shown the world she is not to be trifled with and she's more than enough to handle a jerk like Trump.
Too soon to tell, in my opinion. Yes, she has successfully conveyed that the majority will not give in to temper tantrums, but as any parent knows, this is a long game with no winners. What she has on her side is the grown-up awareness that compromise is how things get done, but it is hard to tap that when the only available means is to refuse compromise.
DB Roy wrote:It was public relations coup for the dems and utterly ruinous for the republicans.
I disagree. I call it a stalemate. If you held the 2020 elections today, yes, the Dems would take back the Senate. But a week is a long time in politics.
DB Roy wrote:The public is both angry and frightened. The emperor's new clothes syndrome. We voted a 72 yo child as the most powerful man in the world. What were we thinking???? Trump made himself the villain and Pelosi looked like the knight who slew the dragon. It was a public communications disaster for Trump.
There is something to this. When the Red States see him as a vehicle to overturn Roe v Wade they like him and his bluster. But when it is more about wondering if their loss of income from a trade war amounts to anything of substance, then their public support begins to look more like a facade with not much to hold it up.
DB Roy wrote: He was just bluffing the whole time.
That's our Dear Leader alright. As it sinks in that he never expected or wanted to win, that he is clueless from his orange top to his stubby toes, an awful lot of MAGA types are going to turn away in disgust.
DB Roy wrote:To make matter worse, Mueller is getting uncomfortably close to Trump now by having Roger Stone arrested.
He has vowed not to testify against Trump but he will. Once he confers with his lawyers and they spell out to him what he's looking at, he'll spill beans and a lot of them.
Yes, but I think the declaration by Whitaker that the Mueller investigation is coming to a close was wishful thinking and a clumsy attempt to put pressure on him. Unless Mueller has had to give up on the money laundering angles and was just hoping to nail down details on collusion, I have to believe the info they wanted from Stone's hard drives will open up new lines of investigation.

The story looks like this: Trump was angling for commercial favors from Moscow, including ability to toss money laundering opportunities to his family and friends. So he lied about the negotiations even while putting in place key concessions on the Republican position on Ukraine and driving wedges into NATO. The Russians got some active collusion in their effort to divide the country and, if possible, get their boy elected. But none of it looks like the kind of quid pro quo that would force McConnell's hand, where Trump agrees to take orders from Moscow in exchange for getting him elected. Our Dear Leader is probably not too smart for that, but Putin probably is.

I think the way to play it, if I am right that there is no smoking gun waiting out there, is to continue investigating so that the public can't consign their knowledge of his character to amnesia. There are lots of trails the public has a right to know about, which can be explored with a straight face and a concern for the long-term health of the constitution, without needing impeachable offenses to emerge.
DB Roy wrote:I said some months ago the wheels were slowing coming off and they are. Slowly and surely.
I'm beginning to wonder if there ever were any wheels. We are looking at an administration staffed by third-string novices, if at all, who can't seem to accomplish anything. The Huawei investigation is the closest they have come to successful policy, and that was thanks to the Justice Department, which Dear Leader has denigrated at every opportunity.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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DB Roy wrote:Trump has to understand that he not only owns the shutdown (which he very stupidly announced he would take credit for) but that he cannot win funds for his wall. I predict he will not dare shutdown the govt a second time.
I'm also not too sure 'bout that. I've been listening to two people who studied in Ukraine and other authoritarian states. They claim Trump is behaving about the same as the Russian oligarchs. They have predicted many Trump events years in advance. They think he will continue the shutdown for several reasons.
  • Fear of retribution, loss of support, and appearing weak if he makes a deal that doesn't include $5.7 Billion USD for the wall.
  • Trump wants the shutdown to continue. He can proceed with dismantling agencies and bureaucracies he dislikes.
  • Many Government employees won't return after another lengthy shutdown. Trump sees that as a benefit.
  • During the shutdown he can continue to sell off public land for oil drilling rights. (Presumably Trump isn't profiting directly, but some wealthy individuals and corporations will owe him big time.)
  • Breaking up the system and selling if off for parts.
  • Trump believes he wins during chaos.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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We should have a poll on whether Trump will do shutdown 2.0. I wager no, because he values the millions in his base more than the few in far-right media. The base eroded during the first shutdown.

The only way I see for Trump not to lose again is for the Democrats to stick with "not one dollar for a wall." If they're willing to fund border security to the tune of 5.5 billion, it's stupid, or just nakedly political, to insist that none of that could be spent on fencing.
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Re: The Art of No Deal

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DWill wrote: The only way I see for Trump not to lose again is for the Democrats to stick with "not one dollar for a wall." If they're willing to fund border security to the tune of 5.5 billion, it's stupid, or just nakedly political, to insist that none of that could be spent on fencing.
I don't think it is either stupid or nakedly political to fund border security but not a wall.

If building a wall was not a problem, it would have been funded by now. But the symbolism is all about excluding brown-skinned people. No, you might argue, it's just about slowing down illegal immigration and drugs and other toxicity. After all, Israel has a wall. But it turns out Israel doesn't mainly rely on a wall.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opin ... egypt.html
Sensors matter more to deterrence than cement does. But with symbolism, it's the other way around. Sensors can be turned off when the flow of migration subsides. Walls stay. Dear Leader wants to put up a permanent "Not Welcome" symbol.

As with his position on global warming, he wants to stick it to the next generation for daring to think. And a certain network is happy to goad him on, because they have built an audience of people who want to stick it to the next generation for daring to think.

The Democrats have already agreed to funding the equivalent of the cost of the wall, although a large chunk of that would go to beefing up the processing of asylum claims so that we are not separating children from their parents or putting claimants to work for $1 per day.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/opin ... rants.html
They have also agreed to serious fencing. The purely political side is all Dear Leader and his hecklers.
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