The Donald Trump Score Card

Judge T.S. Ellis has ruled against a change in location of the Manafort trial to Roanoke, VA that was requested by his lawyers.

In May 2018 Trump praised Ellis by name during a speech at the NRA after Ellis made remarks that sounded critical of the prosecutors who argued that the trial should not be thrown out. They later argued that is shouldn't be moved away from Alexandria, Virginia as requested by Manfort's team.

Trump apparently has been quiet about the failed attempts to have the case dismissed or moved. Trump hasn't praised Ellis after his latest decisions that have gone against Manafort.

It's rare for a sitting President to refer to a judge by name and praise or criticize him regarding a particular case while it is active.

Ellis was apparently playing devil's advocate when he was addressing the prosecutors.

Ellis was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.


Judge refuses to move Paul Manafort trial to Roanoke
by Rachel Weiner
July 17, 2018

excerpt:

"Paul Manafort’s upcoming trial on bank and fraud charges will continue in Alexandria, Va., despite his efforts to move the proceedings to Roanoke.

The former Trump campaign chairman had argued that the jury pool in Northern Virginia is too liberal and too saturated with coverage of the case to give him a fair trial.

Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled Tuesday that Manafort is not entitled to a completely ignorant jury, nor one with as many Republicans as Democrats. Moreover, the nationwide coverage of the case would make any move ineffectual."

 

An Analysis of Trump Supporters Has Identified 5 Key Traits
A new report sheds light on the psychological basis for Trump's support.
by Bobby Azarian Ph.D.
Posted Dec 31, 2017

An Analysis of Trump Supporters Has Identified 5 Key Traits

excerpt:

In a recent review paper published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, Psychologist and UC Santa Cruz professor Thomas Pettigrew argues that five major psychological phenomena can help explain this exceptional political event.

1. Authoritarian Personality Syndrome
2. Social dominance orientation
3. Prejudice
4. Intergroup contact
5. Relative deprivation

 

Commentaries
Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters
Thomas F. Pettigrew*a
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2017, Vol. 5(1), 107–116, doi:10.5964/jspp.v5i1.750
Received: 2017-01-04. Accepted: 2017-02-22. Published (VoR): 2017-03-02.


Abstract

No one factor describes Trump’s supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact. Research on the topic demonstrates that these theories and concepts of social psychology prove centrally important in helping to understand this unexpected event. This paper describes the supporting data for this statement and demonstrates the close parallels between these American results and those of research on far-right European supporters.

Keywords: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, intergroup contact, Trump supporters


free pdf download

https://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/download/750/pdf

 

Comey, who is a republican, said republican voters should vote for democrats, also.

 

5) Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain the lifestyle, activities and amenities that an individual or group are accustomed to
or that are widely encouraged or approved in the society to which they belong. .


i.e., white trailer trash. They need someone to blame for their station in life so if it isn’t the Mexicans who are crossing the border to steal their jobs,
it’s the Chinese who are producing low cost goods in greater quantity, or The Canadians, or the Germans, or NAFTA, or the European Union,
…anyone but themselves and trump targets them all.....

 

Trump has started another ego battle. This time it's with the leader of Iran.

Like he did with N. Korea, after months of nasty childish words Trump can have a meeting with the leader of Iran in Singapore and claim that he saved the world from near-certain nuclear destruction. His administrations can produce a Hollywood style movie trailer like it did the last time claiming that the fate of the world depends on Trump. His adherents will have another opportunity to chant "Nobel! Nobel! Nobel!"


Trump issues threat to Iran: 'YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES'
MARK OSBORNE and CONOR FINNEGAN
Good Morning America
July 23, 2018

Trump issues threat to Iran: 'YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES'

 

After his remark "YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES", Trump didn't use his usual worn-out phrase 'the likes of which have never been seen before.'

He did try a variant: THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.

 

I wonder why it's OK to negotiate with our enemies (Russia, North Korea) when Trump does it but when Obama did it with Iran it's bad. I'd say Iran is the least threatening of the three.

 

George Will has always been alright in my book. He represents the last of the old guard that I understood even if I didn't always agree with. Too bad William F. Buckley is not around.

 

white trash likes to blame others for not taking personal responsibility, but when it comes to their own personal responsibility. . . . . .

it's his narcissism, again.

 

Because Iran is such a useful target in diverting attention from Russia and N.Korea. Wouldn't want to pick the most threatening.

 

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion.
by Jonathan Chait
July 8, 2018 9:00 pm

What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?

excerpt:

"Russian intelligence gains influence in foreign countries by operating subtly and patiently. It exerts different gradations of leverage over different kinds of people, and uses a basic tool kit of blackmail that involves the exploitation of greed, stupidity, ego, and sexual appetite. All of which are traits Trump has in abundance.

Throughout his career, Trump has always felt comfortable operating at or beyond the ethical boundaries that constrain typical businesses. In the 1980s, he worked with La Cosa Nostra, which controlled the New York cement trade, and later employed Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, both of whom have links to the Russian Mafia. Trump habitually refused to pay his counterparties, and if the people he burned (or any journalists) got in his way, he bullied them with threats. Trump also reportedly circulated at parties for wealthy men featuring cocaine and underage girls.

One might think this notoriety immunizes Trump from blackmail. Curiously, however, Trump’s tolerance for risk has always been matched by careful control over information. He maintains a fanatical secrecy about his finances and has paid out numerous settlements to silence women. The combination of a penchant for compromising behavior, a willingness to work closely with criminals, and a desire to protect aspects of his privacy makes him the ideal blackmail target.

It is not difficult to imagine that Russia quickly had something on Trump, from either exploits during his 1987 visit or any subsequent embarrassing behavior KGB assets might have uncovered. But the other leverage Russia enjoyed over Trump for at least 15 years is indisputable — in fact, his family has admitted to it multiple times. After a series of financial reversals and his brazen abuse of bankruptcy laws, Trump found it impossible to borrow from American banks and grew heavily reliant on unconventional sources of capital. Russian cash proved his salvation. From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases — a red flag of potential money laundering — of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” said Donald Jr. in 2008. “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” boasted Eric Trump in 2014."

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

This fits with the study by Diana Muntz that status insecurity, not economic hardship, was the main driver for the Trump voters.Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote
Trump supporters were more likely than Clinton voters to feel that “the American way of life is threatened,” and that high-status groups, like men, Christians, and whites, are discriminated against.

 

Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote
Diana C. Mutza,
Edited by Jennifer A. Richeson, Yale University, New Haven, CT, and approved March 26, 2018 (received for review October 16, 2017)

Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote

excerpt:

"A possible explanation is dominant group status threat. When members of a dominant group feel threatened, several wellestablished reactions help these groups regain a sense of dominance and wellbeing. First, perceived threat makes status quo, hierarchical social and political arrangements more attractive (18). Thus, conservatism surges along with a nostalgia for the stable hierarchies of the past. Perceived threat also triggers defense of the dominant ingroup, a greater emphasis on the importance of conformity to group norms, and increased outgroup negativity (19, 20). It is psychologically valuable to see one’s self as part of a dominant group; therefore, when group members feel threatened, this prompts defensive reactions. It is precisely this form of group threat that may have motivated Trump supporters (21).

Two forms of group status threat are especially prominent in the United States today. For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country, white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race (22). The declining white share of the national population is unlikely to change white Americans’ status as the most economically well-off racial group, but symbolically, it threatens some whites’ sense of dominance over social and political priorities. Furthermore, when confronted with evidence of racial progress, whites feel threatened and experience lower levels of self-worth relative to a control group. They also perceive greater antiwhite bias as a means of regaining those lost feelings of self-worth (23).

Second, Americans feel threatened by the increasing interdependence of the United States on other countries. As recent headlines have warned, “The era of American global dominance is over” (24, 25). Whether such headlines are true remains debatable (26), but the perception of a threat to US global dominance is very real. For example, in 2011, 38% of Americans endorsed the view that “[t]he US stands above all other countries in the world” (27); by 2014, that same percentage was down to 28% (27). This drop has been most precipitous among Republicans. The “China threat” in particular looms large in many American minds (28).

Although economists see globalization as mutually beneficial to countries that participate, Americans increasingly feel that they are not getting their fair share. For example, roughly one-half of Americans view trade as something that benefits job availability in other countries at the expense of jobs for Americans (29). To the extent that the public views the global economy in zero-sum terms, the rise of countries, such as China and India, represents a threat to America’s dominant status. Interestingly, whites’ perceptions of antiblack and antiwhite bias also are also zero sum: that is, the less antiblack bias that whites perceive in a given decade, the greater the antiwhite bias that is perceived (30)."

 

now trump wants to revoke security clearances for people who disagree with him. What a fucking petty loser.

 

Senate Candidate Lauds Trump For 'Standing Up To Russians,' Crowd Laughs
Ron Dicker, HuffPost
July 23, 2018

Senate Candidate Lauds Trump For 'Standing Up To Russians,' Crowd Laughs

excerpt:

"Corey Stewart, Virginia’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, wasn’t joking ― but the audience was laughing.

During a weekend debate against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Stewart declared: “We have a president who is standing up to the Russians.”

That got a loud chuckle from Kaine ― and from people in the audience."

 

White House Correspondents' Association rebukes Trump over tweet on press credentials
By Max Greenwood
05/09/18 12:46 PM EDT

White House Correspondents' Association rebukes Trump over tweet on press credentials

excerpt:

"The White House Correspondents' Association fired back at President Trump on Wednesday after he suggested revoking press credentials for journalists who cover his administration critically."

 

Trump to try to implement what sounds like a welfare package for farmers who have already been damaged by his tariff war.

Trump hinted at a similar approach months ago that would try to take money from farm programs such as weather disaster relief that wasn't meant to mitigate the damage resulting from his trade war.


Trump offers help to farmers hit by escalating China trade war
John Fritze, USA TODAY
Published 11:16 a.m. ET July 24, 2018 | Updated 1:23 p.m. ET July 24, 2018

Trump offers help to farmers hit by escalating China trade war

excerpt:

"WASHINGTON – As he embarks on a multi-state trip through parts of the country hit heavily by ongoing trade disputes, President Donald Trump is preparing to direct billions of dollars to farmers whose crops have been hurt by tariffs.

Responding to farm groups and Republican criticism on Capitol Hill, the administration has been working for months on a plan to shore up slipping prices for soybeans, pork and other crops hit with retaliatory tariffs from China.

The administration is expected to announce the aid package Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the plan, in the same week Trump is traveling to Missouri, Illinois and Iowa to speak with veterans and stump for candidates in this year's midterm elections."

 

Trump will need to formulate a welfare package for the U.S. washing machine industry in addition to the U.S. farmers. The money would likely come in part from the U.S. taxpayers or be reallocated from other funding programs that were meant for other purposes.


Whirlpool loved Trump's tariffs. Now it's struggling
by Nathaniel Meyersohn
July 24, 2018: 11:43 AM ET

Whirlpool loved Trump's tariffs. Now it's struggling

excerpt:

""Tariffs are the greatest!" President Donald Trump said on Twitter Tuesday morning. Whirlpool used to agree.

In January, when Trump announced tariffs on imported washing machines, CEO Marc Bitzer told analysts, "This is, without any doubt, a positive catalyst for Whirlpool."

But the Trump administration didn't stop there. It imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, sending raw material prices skyrocketing. That has raised costs for Whirlpool by $350 million and squeezed its profit margins. Steel prices in the United States are 60% higher than the rest of the world, Bitzer told analysts on Tuesday.

Now Whirlpool is backtracking on its protectionist cheerleading. The company's reversal demonstrates the unintended consequences tariffs have sowed on manufacturers and their carefully-planned supply chains."