The Second Trump Presidency

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I didn’t know there was a problem with Obamacare (aka ACA).
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What is the problem with Obamacare?

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I wasn’t talking about a problem with the Affordable Care Act- I was talking about Trump’s broken promises to replace it with something better.

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Where have you been, PaulK? Crying “RACIST” is soooo 2020, a gasping pejorative in want of a cogent argument.

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I understand that you are too stupid to read in context and understand that I was simply pointing out facts about Trump. And you. And I guess that racism is so normalised in your circles that calling it out seems wrong to you. Hardly a surprise.

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The Insurrection charge is preposterous, as evidenced by the fact that, among the myriad of spurious charges brought against Trump over the last few years, none of the charges are for insurrection.

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It’s hardly preposterous since the insurrection occurred, the insurrectionists were encouraged by Trump - and Trump is still talking about pardoning them.If the charges have not been raised it is simply because Trump managed enough plausible deniability to make conviction difficult.

I know, right? Like saying I have brown eyes is so last millennium. Can't anyone come up with something new?Though, come to think of it, my eyes are still brown, even after all these years. And Trump, having established his racist bonafides with his discriminative rental policies and with the Central Park 5 case way back in the 1980's, is still a racist.--Percy

Yes you are, . . . and also a rapist-supporter.No matter how many interesting or noble things you do in life, they will all be totally eclipsed by you supporting a rapist.Don't worry though, you can still aim higher in life, . . . if Jeffrey Epstein's records are ever fully released, you can then be known as a child-rapist-supporter.That would be a feather in your cap, eh?

Yeah, ain't that the truth though?During the 2016 campaign, he kept boasting that he had a plan that would replace the ACA and it would only cost us $18 per month! Of course, he couldn't just present it then and there because Hillary would steal the plan from him, so we'd have to wait until after he won the election (like so many of his other promises, like having a brilliant plan to stop an armed conflict and save so many lives, but he'd only ever present it if he won so let those innocent people continue to die, which is also like the "hundreds of thousands" of Americans being killed by immigrants but he killed the bi-partisan bill that would have stopped that "slaughter" thus causing even more thousands to die until Biden was out of office).But then when he won in 2016, no plan. But he insisted that he did have a plan and would present it in two weeks. Two weeks later he pushed the date back another two weeks. Again and again and again. And still no plan was ever presented.Now EIGHT YEARS LATER, still no plan that would replace the ACA. Now it's "I have concepts of a plan". Eight years to work on those "concepts" and still nothing?What kind of low-grade morons would ever believe that there will ever be a Trump plan? Besides getting rid of Obamacare and replacing it with nothing?Reminds me of an old dirty joke from the late 60's (which has recently resurfaced as a lawyer joke, but I'll borrow part of that new build-up as per the Rabbi Kalir Theory of Joke Telling):

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A woman who has been married three times visits a new gynecologist for the first time and he is astonished to find that she is still a virgin. So she explains:

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The build-up to the punch line offers reasons for the first two marriages. They're both a real stretch and require us to suspend disbelief, plus after more then half a century I forget what they were, but here is what the recent version offers:

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• Husband 1 -- REDACTED because it's the punchline of the 1960's original.
• Husband 2 was an engineer; he understood the basic process but wanted three years to research, implement, and design a new state-of-the-art method.
• Husband 3 was in marketing; although he had a nice product, he was never sure how to position it.
• Husband 4 was a psychologist; all he ever did was talk about it.
• Husband 5 was a stamp collector; all he ever did was… God! I miss him!

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The new punchline is that Hubbie 6 was a lawyer, so she knew she would really get screwed this time.

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The original punchline was that her last husband was the world's greatest salesman: he would spend all day selling her on how great it was going to be, but then never deliver.

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That original punchline describes Trump to a "T". All he does is deliver a sales pitch but never delivers on any of his promises. All he does is sell us a bill of goods (AKA "a pig in a poke"). All talk and no goods.And his followers still have never caught on to his grift.

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During the 2016 campaign, he kept boasting that he had a plan that would replace the ACA and it would only cost us $18 per month!

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He did eventually admit that he couldn’t work out a real plan because it was too difficult (not that the difficulty of healthcare reform was exactly a secret).But then he promised a new plan in the 2020 campaign. You would have thought that 4 years would have been enough to sort that one out, but apparently not.

That's the point. His only concern is to make the big announcement of a product, but the actual delivery of that product is not his concern. He was there for the big announcement of each new Trump "enterprise", but from that point on he was MIA (except to collect his cut of the grift). He would be there for the ground-breaking of a new factory to bring back domestic jobs so that he could get the credit, but then he'd allow that work to be sent overseas; he got what he wanted.Related was his pressuring President Zelenskyi to announce an investigation into the Bidens, not to conduct any actual investigation.I think the expression is "all show, no go."Then compare Trump's plethora of "infrastructure weeks" in which he promised to build/repair infrastructure, none of which got past the announcement, to Biden just getting the job done. Of course, as we see the fruits of Biden's accomplishment, Trump will try to take all the credit. The lousy bum!

....and on Earth peace, good will toward men.

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...and on Earth peace, good will toward men.

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Sayeth the rape-supporter.

But does it really say that? For that, King James Version will be of no help, but rather you would need to go back to the "original Greek", but even that will not help since the original manuscripts do not agree. Plus, on top of that there's always fallible human interpretation and the work of editors who, as Edgar Rice Burroughs remarked, "would change even the Word of God."The key word there in Luke 2:14 for "good will" is ευδοκια, which can also mean "God's favor". But there's also the issue of case which determines how a word is used in a sentence. Some manuscripts say "ευδοκια", which is in the nominative case, but others have it in the genitive, "ευδοκιας", to indicate possessive. Which case you use makes a lot of difference.From Wikipedia's Annunciation to the shepherds:

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After this, a great many more angels appear, praising God with the words "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." ...

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Translational issues

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The King James Version of the Bible translates the words of the angels differently from modern versions, using the words "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". Most Christmas carols reflect this older translation, with "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", for example, using the words "Peace on the earth, good will to men, / From Heaven's all gracious King."

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The disparity reflects a dispute about the Greek text of the New Testament involving a single letter. The Greek text accepted by most modern theological scholars today uses the words epi gēs eirēnē en anthrōpois eudokias (ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας), literally "on earth peace to men of good will", with the last word being in the genitive case (apparently reflecting a Semitic idiom that reads strangely in Greek). Most ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament have this reading. The original version of the ancient Codex Sinaiticus (denoted א* by scholars) has this reading, but it has been altered by erasure of the last letter to epi gēs eirēnē en anthrōpois eudokia (ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία), literally "on earth (first subject: peace) to men (second subject: good will)," with two subjects in the nominative case. Expressed in standard English, this gives the familiar "Peace on earth, good will to men" of many ancient Christmas carols.

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Even though some other ancient Greek manuscripts (and many medieval ones) agree with the edited Codex Sinaiticus, most modern religious scholars and Bible translators accept the reading of the majority of ancient manuscripts, translating as "on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests" (NIV) or "on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased" (ESV).

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The Douay-Rheims Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate, derives from the same Greek text as the original Codex Sinaiticus, but renders it "on earth peace to men of good will". In the New American Bible, this is updated to "on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests".

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So, to follow the more ancient texts, that promised peace is not for all of us, but rather only for those whom God favors. Since Christian Nationals (of whom I suspect K.Rose is one) and MAGAts (which he has demonstrated himself to be) think, speak, and act contrary to Christian teachings (indeed, frequently in direct opposition to those teachings), they would find themselves to be excluded from God's favor ... please excuse me, they exclude themselves from God's favor. Thus the Soup Nazi would have to tell them, "No peace for you!"Sorry, guy, but it's not my call. Rather, it's yours. PSActually, I was thinking more about Christian Nationalists, Trump MAGAts, et al. as NOT being "men of good will", but rather nobody could ever possibly mistake them for being of good will. And hence their own mean-spiritedness excludes them from that promised peace.Thus the Soup Nazi would have to tell them, "No peace for you!"

Trump's constant stream of denigration, insult, aggresion and ill will has deadened us to the sheer inappropriateness of it all. Nearly everything Trump has done since the election has been horrible (except for proposing the elimination of the twice-annual time change, and maybe he'll get rid of the penny, too), and he's not even president yet. He's threatened allies and enemies alike with retributive tariffs. He's pressuring Denmark to hand over Greenland, for Panama to surrender the canal unless they lower prices, and for Canada to sign on as the 51^st state. He promised to use his Justice Department to go after political enemies. On Christmas Eve he vowed to still execute federal death row inmates whose death sentences Biden just commuted to life in prison.But what's worse than all that is that he's normalized for all of us animosity and cruelty and hate and death and relentless pursuit of self-interest. We no longer look at his statements and say, "That's totally unacceptable." Now at most it's just, "There he goes again." We've resigned ourselves to Trump is just who he is and there's nothing we can do about it. He can only be endured, not changed. If Trump has taught non-MAGA people anything it's hopelessness.--Percy

News outlets are reporting today that Trump's senior border advisor says he's bringing back family detention. Illegal immigrants with children born in the U.S. will be deported, and they must make the choice on whether to bring their children with them. Homan said, "You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position."When confronted with a fait accompli most governments will behave in a compassionate and humane manner, but not the Trump administration. Trump himself calls Illegal immigrants a scourge that must be eliminated. His language often echos German antisemitism from the years leading up to and including WWII, dehumanizing illegal immigrants just as the Nazis did to the Jews.--Percy

But the Republican position is that having a child is not a choice. So how can you hold someone responsible for something over which they have no choice?Oh yeah. They're also Über-"true"-Christians, which answers that question.[voice=Emily Litella]Never mind.[/voice]