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Posts posted by TexasHooch
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This is a great article:
QuoteWASHINGTON (AP) β Barack Obama, mindful of the urgent power of a presidentβs words, liked to say he was guarded with his language because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling.
His successor,Β Donald Trump, showed no such restraint.
Now Trump is facingΒ dozens of criminal charges in four separate indictments,Β two ofthemΒ anchored in the Republicanβs lie that he did not lose the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. And Trumpβs propensity for falsehoods and his right to utter them are at theΒ core of his legal defense.
Though the U.S. presidency is vested with many overt powers, one of the most important is implicit βΒ the power of rhetoric. It is used often as a call to action, to rally Americans for a mission abroad, to comfort a grieving public after tragedy or to sacrifice for a greater good.
βScholars like me who study presidential rhetoric, presidential communication, they call it essentially a second Constitution,β said Jennifer Mercieca, a communications scholar at Texas A&M University. Having presidents communicate directly to the public βchanged the complete balance and separation of powers without having a new constitutional convention. It made the president the center of our political system.β
Trump, in effect, is arguingΒ that his words as president carried no special force and he was simply exercising his free speech rights.
βMost presidents have a sense of the importance of language β of the written word, of the spoken word,β said Wayne Fields, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on presidential rhetoric. βSome of them are not particularly good at it themselves, but they rarely are quite so dismissive of it as Trump has been.β
Lawyers for the former president, who now is facing criminal charges in courtrooms stretching from Miami toΒ New York, have made clear that Trumpβs free speech rights will form the foundation of their defense in the Jan. 6 case. John Lauro, one of the lawyers, characterized to CNN that special counsel Jack Smithβs case was βvery, very unusual, outside-of-the-bounds criminal prosecution of First Amendment rights.β
But Smith anticipated that argument when he began to outline Trumpβs alleged wrongdoing in theΒ federal indictmentΒ over Trumpβs culpability in theΒ Capitol riot. On the second page of the document, prosecutors stressed that Trump was free to, essentially, lie: βThe defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.β
Instead, Smith argued in the indictment, it is Trumpβs conduct, not merely his words, that constituted prosecutable offenses.
That distinction could prove critical given thatΒ Trump abandoned so manyΒ of the basic tenets of presidential communication during his time in office.
βAn incorrect phrasing or an offhand comment can move markets or make the phone lines at the State Department blow up. This is really the first thing you learn when you come to the White House,β said Dan Pfeiffer, Obamaβs White House communications director. βAnything out of the presidentβs mouth or even a tweet from the White House account has tremendous power.β
That level of language discipline, Pfeiffer said, βwas a huge transition from the campaign for Obama and all of us.β
Itβs hard to deny how powerful a presidentβs direct words can be, although that was not always the case. Mercieca said until the early 20th century, presidents rarely spoke to the public. A leaderβs comments were primarily intergovernmental and often done in written form.
But that began to change with President Theodore Roosevelt, as well as President Woodrow Wilson, who revived the practice of delivering the annualΒ State of the UnionΒ in person to Congress after more than a century of presidents sending lawmakers a written update. The explosion in direct contact between presidents and the public shifted the center of political gravity to the White House, supplanting Congressβs role as a direct representative of voters.
βI think that the bully pulpit is one of the more unique tools that is available to a president that other branches of government or government officials canβt utilize in the same way,β presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky said. βBecause it is a powerful tool, presidents have to wield it carefully and with great thought and intention.β
Fields said President Dwight Eisenhower paid special care to how his words were being translated abroad, as did President Ronald Reagan, whose speechwriters were well aware how his rhetoric was being heard in the former Soviet Union. Domestically, Roosevelt used his platform to push his environment and conservation agenda. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt later used his trademark fireside chats to communicate with an anxious public through the Great Depression and World War II.
Then there was Trump.
HisΒ presidential rhetoric was riddled with thousands of falsehoodsΒ β some benign, many serious, so many of them repeated. He would be prone to vulgar name-calling and derision of political opponents. And on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump used the language of battle in ways difficult to ignore. In testimony before the Houseβs Jan. 6 committee last year, Mercieca noted that Trump invoked the word βfightβ 20 times in his speech at the Ellipse near the White House just before the riot, while using the word βpeacefullyβ just once.
The federal charges against Trump focus on his actions β namely, that he wasnβt charged with incitement, which takes the issue of his speech off the table, according to legal experts.
βHeβs allowed to lie. Thatβs not the conduct thatβs charged. Whatβs important is what the indictment says he did,β said Carrie Cordero, senior fellow and general counsel at Center for a New American Security and a former Justice Department official. βAnd what he did was try to use β try to corrupt, really β different institutions of government in furtherance of the conspiracy to defraud the United States ... to try to prevent the election outcome.β
But as he seeks to regain the White House, Trumpβs election lies and relitigation of the 2020 election are playing a starring role in the Republican presidential primaries, and those claims have taken deep root within the GOP, despite all evidence to the contrary. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted Aug. 10 to Aug. 14 found that 57 percent of Republicans say Bidenβs election was not legitimate.
Trump βhas a very canny read of his supporters and how his language affects his supporters,β Chervinsky said. βI think some of it is intentional. I think some of it is gut instinct.β
Β
βScholars like me who study presidential rhetoric, presidential communication, they call it essentially a second Constitution,β said Jennifer Mercieca, a communications scholar at Texas A&M University. Having presidents communicate directly to the public βchanged the complete balance and separation of powers without having a new constitutional convention. It made the president the center of our political system.β
Trump, in effect, is arguingΒ that his words as president carried no special force and he was simply exercising his free speech rights.
βMost presidents have a sense of the importance of language β of the written word, of the spoken word,β said Wayne Fields, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on presidential rhetoric. βSome of them are not particularly good at it themselves, but they rarely are quite so dismissive of it as Trump has been.β
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I'm confused.Β They literally sell koozies on their website.
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Nevermind. They're the kind you don't like.
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A Belgian beer company no less.
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OK, this last one is mildly NSFW
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Whitney:
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Me: Every fucking time
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Yep.Β Sorta figured Meadows would be as well but maybe he was in too deep to cut a deal.
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4 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:
You parrot that phony criticism from her political opponents nicely. They said the same thing about Obama. They called him the most divisive president in history. Did you think he was too divisive too?
Nope.
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3 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:
you shouldβve turned off Limbaugh in your youth
Β I didn't like the Democratic nominee for President so I'm a Limbaugh lover?Β Β Fuck all the way off.
6 minutes ago, Bullneck said:Really?Β I'd like to know your views on this.
I just thought she was too divisive- not entirely her fault.Β I just don't think she would have been effective working the other side of the isle.Β I wanted Biden on the ticket.
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2 minutes ago, troph said:
Listening to her itβs clear she would have made a fantastic president.Β
Strongly disagree.Β But at least she wouldn't have tried to bring the republic down.
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10 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:
Duncan seems like a principled Republican.
ΒΒ
I must have a lower bar than you.Β I was just happy that he sounded like a grownup.
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Pretty watch, especially the top one, but I'm not asking about watches in a similar price range.Β This is a specific Luminox watch that's in an auction that I may be able to get at a very deep discount.Β Β Plus, it'd probably be for my son, who's a Navy nut and would get a kick out of the Seals connection, even though the actual operators probably use G-Shocks or similar.
Luminox claims to have a reputation for being able to take a beating, so it's good to hear as much from utxmike.
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I feel like I'm asking about the hamburger at a steakhouse, but can anyone offer an opinion about Luminox watches?
Specifically, I've got my eye on this one at an online auction.Β It's listed as new.
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https://luminox.com/products/navy-seal-steel-3251-blackout-steel-military-dive-watch
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π©π©π©π©π©Stupid 2nd guess, but rebounded nicely.
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It's got to be DMs.Β But they can't fish just to fish.Β Someone must have disclosed that he was using them.
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Wordle [spoilers inevitable but discouraged]
in Lulz
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