All Things Trump: The Return Of The King

[Tero]

He's been talking to reporters all morning. Trump is determined to win the 2020 election.

[Tero]

Now he is back to raking the leaves in CA. No mention of the BIG faucet he opened.

[Tero]

Fox News Is Demanding War With Iran. Donald Trump Is Listening
Trump’s heavy consumption of Fox News content is increasing his appetite for direct military confrontation with Iran
As President Donald Trump weighs sending U.S. forces to help Israel bomb Iran — and potentially plunge the nation into a new war — his decision is being influenced by bellicose on-air content at Fox News. The favored network of the president has put forth a parade of hosts, guests, and professional commentators with an effusively pro-war and pro-regime change message.

According to an administration official and another close associate of the commander-in-chief, Trump’s heavy consumption of Fox News content is increasing his appetite for direct military confrontation with Iran.

This marks a significant change in Trump’s outlook. In past weeks, Trump had favored diplomacy with Iran and privately suggested that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to suck the U.S. into a hot war. But in recent days, the sources tell Rolling Stone, the president has marveled at the militantly anti-Iran coverage on Fox, as well as footage of Israeli air strikes. “Wow,” Trump has said, per the associate, commenting on what he views as the awe-inspiring ferocity of Israel’s operations. Trump has also privately expressed how impressed and, currently, optimistic he is about military campaigns against Tehran.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a peacemaker president, in contrast to interventionist Republicans like George W. Bush. But this episode is underscoring that Trump can be swayed into a hawkish mode that rivals the most militant neo-con.

“This is a dumb and fake story,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly tells Rolling Stone. “President Trump takes feedback from experts across the administration, and is constantly communicating with his national security team, but ultimately makes the decision he feels will keep Americans safe.”

In recent days, the voices speaking to a presidential audience of one, via the mass broadcast of Fox News, include Sen. Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican has appeared on the network repeatedly to advocate for direct U.S. involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran. “We’ve got a chance to end a threat to the state of Israel forever by replacing this regime with something better. I do believe the biggest winner of them leaving will be the Iranian people,” Graham told host Sean Hannity on Monday.

At one point, the senator broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the commander-in-chief. “Be all-in, President Trump, in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat,” Graham said. “If we need to provide bombs, do that. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations.”

On Tuesday, Graham appeared on America Reports, another Fox News show, expressing his confidence that “President Trump understands the threat the ayatollah presents to us, not just Israel, and that he will at the end of the day help Israel finish the job. That will require, I think, weapons that Israel doesn’t possess and may be joint military operations.”

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that after watching Fox News gush about Israel’s supposed tactical military genius last week, Trump began to call reporters to suggest that he had played a role in orchestrating that country’s surprise strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, and told people he was privately leaning towards involving the U.S. more directly in the conflict.

The president has, the sources tell Rolling Stone, also spoke glowingly to advisers about Fox segments showing how network stars are supporting his policies of (supposed) strength and military might. In the same breath, he’s bashed recent comments made by other prominent allies, such as former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who have challenged Trump’s openness to war.

The sway that Fox News producers have over President Trump’s thinking, as he weighs matters of war and peace, is jarring, if not entirely unsurprising. The network cheerleaded the disastrous march to war with Iraq under President George W. Bush in the early 2000s. And this reflexive hawkishness has hardly abated over the decades.

During Trump’s first presidency, pro-war advocates would make a point of getting themselves booked on Fox, knowing Trump binge-watched it, specifically so they could look straight into the camera and urge Trump to bomb Syria.

In Trump’s second term, the cable news giant became a go-to recruiting pool for the Trump administration. Trump elevated multiple Fox News personalities to posts as senior government officials, in particular Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Another Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro was recently tapped to become the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro herself is a huge Middle East war hawk, who in a now infamous 2015 screed against Syria and Iraq demanded that the U.S. “bomb them, bomb them, and then bomb them again.”

In recent days, Fox News personalities have again been banging the drums of war. In a Sunday night monologue, host Mark Levin screamed at his audience that “this is good versus evil. You’re either a patriotic American who is going to get behind the president, the commander in chief, or you’re not.” Levin went on to declare that the War Powers Act — which requires the president to seek the approval of Congress before entering an military conflict — was an “unconstitutional law that tries to steal power from the commander-in-chief,” and that it was imperative that Trump be allowed to initiate a war, unilaterally, lest “these primitives” launch a nuclear bomb at Detroit.

In a segment aired Tuesday, former Delta Force Intelligence Analyst Brett Velicovich told the network’s audience that the United States needed to “bomb [Iran] back to the negotiation table,” because “this region only understands power.” (Velicovich’s Fox bio lists him as “a managing partner at Expert Drones/Dronepire Inc.”)

That same day Fox & Friends host Laurence Jones claimed — without a hint of irony — that “if we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days.” The network aired computer generated simulations on the manner in which a bunker buster BLU-109 bomb might be used to cripple Iranian infrastructure.

Such is the narrative being mainlined by the nation’s notoriously impressionable president.

On Thursday, while attending the ceremony unveiling two large flagpoles Trump had installed at the White House, Trump told his base, “We’re not looking for long-term war.”

The president was asked if he had made up his mind about joining the Israeli offensive against Iran. “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I am going to do.” Trump said. While the president remains a wild card, those advocating to plunge the nation into another needless conflict abroad know exactly where he’s turning to make up his mind.
https://www.rollingstone.com/

[Brian Peacock]

...
She had zero respect for organized religion and was an atheist
She smoked, she drank.

She was a clinically depressed alcoholic who made a career off justifying her own selfish nature as an objective and normative fact. Her writings are comforting myths for the pathologically solipsistic. Sure, she was an atheist - but that lends no particular weight to her perspective. Sure, she was a bit of a character, but in reality her character just wasn't very nice.

[Svartalf]

Yep, that's what I gathered about that person, that and her cult of pathologic social darwinism

[Sean Hayden]

Where are all the Seths, the 2nd amendment people? I need some guidance here. There are gangs of masked men with no uniforms and no badges grabbing people off the streets.

If we imagine anti-government sentiments on a spectrum, then on one side there might be annoyance at having to identify yourself at a traffic stop, and at the other terror at the prospect of being “arrested” by unidentified masked men. Today we have a lot of people who were losing their minds about things at the lower end who’ve gone completely silent in the face of what they supposedly feared most.

[macdoc]

Have you read Ayn Rand Brian? or just regurgitating and attempting to use multisyllabic words to impress?

Like Svarty "gathered".....

[pErvinalia]

Where are all the Seths, the 2nd amendment people? I need some guidance here. There are gangs of masked men with no uniforms and no badges grabbing people off the streets.

If we imagine anti-government sentiments on a spectrum, then on one side there might be annoyance at having to identify yourself at a traffic stop, and at the other terror at the prospect of being “arrested” by unidentified masked men. Today we have a lot of people who were losing their minds about things at the lower end who’ve gone completely silent in the face of what they supposedly feared most.

The second amendment is only to protect against a tyrannical left wing government. Tyrannical right wing governments are fine.

[pErvinalia]

Have you read Ayn Rand Brian? or just regurgitating and attempting to use multisyllabic words to impress?

Like Svarty "gathered".....

Atlas Shrugged is the right wing libertarian bible. That's enough for me to judge Ayn Rand.

[Brian Peacock]

Have you read Ayn Rand Brian? or just regurgitating and attempting to use multisyllabic words to impress?

Like Svarty "gathered".....

Only The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and a few sections of The Voice of Reason - my copies of which I donated to a charity shop over 20 years ago. It is said that a good Objectivist reads Atlas Shrugged out loud once a year. When did you last read it?

[Svartalf]

objectivists is the way rand cultists call themselves?

[macdoc]

Objectivism is a codified version of Rands ideas as a counter to organized religion. It's been continued by one of Rand's proteges - calling it a cult just brands you as ignorant. Rational self interest is what the do gooders on the right get all up in arms about......labelling it selfishness.
Duh....with a few quickly weeded out by Darwinian processes ....all humans are selfish and balance that off with the need to be contributors to the particular social milieu the person belongs to.
A few self immolators will jump on the grenade...... others throw the grenade

Objectivism, a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand, centers on the idea that reality exists independently of consciousness, reason is the primary means of knowledge, and individuals should pursue their own rational self-interest. Other core tenets include the belief in individual rights, laissez-faire capitalism, and the importance of art in human life.

Is there anything you really argue with there other than lassez-faire capitalism ??? which I also think is not feasible and needs oversight.
Other than that those are all concepts I'm content agreeing with especially individual rights.

Well Brian, at least you read enough to make up your mind and yeah I read Atlas Shrugged a few years back....it's a long slog. Fountainhead is far more accessible and is based on Frank Lloyd Wright who happens to be a hero of mine.
It's remarkable to wander around Chicago in older neighborhoods populated with Victorian montrosity then stumble on a building that looks to be from the 60s.

Instead they are from the late 1800s....it's very jarring to see how far ahead he was.

then there is Falling Water ...the most famous house in the world looking very contemporary yet built in 1936.

I've seen all these and others and had a lovely glass vase from Falling Water glass foundry which was too heavy to bring to Australia

He was very much in the mold of Rand's makers and creators, opinionated, brash and not afraid of calling out his rivals...hell he had a live tree growing through the floor of his amazing studio in Chicago built in 1896 - expanses of glass - great place to tour. Eventually he was out in the wilderness as far as the American architectural society was concerned and got no work in the US
Ended designing cottages in Ontario Canada and taking small commissions and training others. My second family lived in one of those....the minute I walked into the house I asked is this a Wright house and Anne lit up ...one of students. It's easy enough to identify the style.

Rands tenet in Atlas Shrugged centered around what would happen if the individual innovators - think Steve Jobs types - withdrew from society and let it collapse into dull Kafka world.
During the WWII many innovators were stripped of their patents without compensation - the most notable Edwin Armstrong ( yeah right WHO??!! )

Considered by many to be the most prolific inventor in radio history, Edwin Armstrong, the pioneer of FM, isbarely known today.

https://www.criticalcomms.com.au/conten ... 1253666463
- a guy that should rank in public awareness with Edison, Bell etc ...but he was stripped of his patents which were given to RCA for the war machine.
Armstrong's widow actually finally won her case against the US government long after his suicide.

Rand fought Communism, escaped from the Stalinist regime by crawling out, fought organized religions and really anything like unions too which she saw as corrupt....and they were..... so her vision was informed by those experiences.
If you read her works within the context of the history of times in the 50s perhaps you might take a different view.
It's hardly a cult...

Brian just doesn't buy her views....I do in the most part ...the rights of the individual, the anti-theism, anti-intrusive government, women's rights, the rights of individuals to the income from their creations including things like patents.

She did want unbridled capitalism led by the creators and a Darwinian tooth and nail competition with the gov staying out of it.
Doesn't fly ....there is a middle ground...fair competition with gov oversight of tactics instead of brutal destruction of a competitor.
Don't know what the Objectivists are up to lately but I see most of their approach admirable against the anti-science, alternative facts shite floating around the repuglies...

That's why having Rand as an icon is absolutely

Happy to see people reading her and making up their own minds she was and is influential for me.

[JimC]

I would agree that reality exists independently of consciousness, and that reason is the primary means of knowledge. However, the tenet that "individuals should pursue their own rational self-interest" is only a partial truth. We are, via our evolution, not only selfish individuals, but equipped with the abilities to be cooperative and empathetic. Political thought in a complex world should recognise this, and deliberately foster social constructs which allow this aspect of our innate nature to encourage social cohesion. Brutal robber baron free enterprise is an increasing dangerous model.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Being cooperative and empathetic is in one's self-interest as well. Building teamwork and alliances is rational. Who-whom is the question. Who are you allying with, and for what reason? Are you allying to secure your narrow base, or to widen the general weal?

[pErvinalia]

Rational self interest would see us digging up and burning as much coal and oil as possible. The negative consequences are some other future person's problem.