Trump lost the election in 2020 to Biden

@Noflaps said in #61:
> Oh, I hope not, most excellent kitten. Plus, "authoritarian" doesn't describe Trump. We don't see him, for example, trying to jail his political foes. Or circumventing the rule of law by attempting to go around Congress with executive orders.

I'm sorry if it comes across as rude, but what planet are you living on? Haha. The republicans tried to make as much of a stink about bidens laptop, clintons servers- etc as they possibly could too. Trump was one of the guys who popularized the whole 'birth certificate thing' for Obama. If they had any real dirt on Biden they would've ran with it to the moon. The only reason you don't see it the same as it is vs him is because none of it holds much water at all. None of it is remotely in the same ballpark.

Trump gutted the fuck out of so many government bureaus and replaced them with his yes guys - and did his best to do so with the supreme court. And circumventing congress with executive orders? He absolutely did abuse that. He signed all sorts of executive orders that rolled back environmental and public health protections. Executive orders that reorganized and slashed all sorts of positions all across the govt.

Furthermore he declared the southern border a national emergency which allows tons of circumvention of congress and unlocks funds to just go and do whatever he feels like without any legislature.

These include authorities not just to reallocate military construction funds, as Trump did for his border wall, but to take over radio stations, control domestic transportation and suspend the prohibition against government testing of chemical agents on unwitting human subjects. There are also powers that allow the president to detail members of the U.S. armed forces to other nations and to prohibit or limit the export of any agricultural commodity.

And don't even get me started on the abuse of the pardoning system.
I mean, if Trump wasn't committing all of these crimes all over the place - he wouldn't be fighting so many lawsuits - some of them are political hits to a degree, but he's flagrantly violated so many laws it's laughable at this point.

@Salmon-rushdie, with respect to your #71 (which wonders what planet I'm from, "Haha"), which "agencies" and "yes guys" are you taking about? Please be specific. Are you under the impression that the current president is surrounded by agency heads he doesn't want? I don't believe he is.

And Trump didn't try to increase the number of Supreme Court judges so he could appoint a number of new justices to the Court. It was some Democrats who talked about enlarging the Court after he left, remember? All Trump did was appoint well-qualified justices to the court when others retired. Like any president would do. Are you actually trying to argue that was somehow overbearing and authoritarian?

And as far as people "making a stink" about Hunter's laptop -- do you mean by suggesting that it was real and being ignored? Do you think it's imaginary? I'm curious. By the way, I don't recall either Hunter or Hillary being charged with a crime. Trump didn't seem to martial his justice department to try to go after either of them. I'm glad he didn't! That would have made him look rather authoritarian, don't you think?

And when you say "some of them [ referring to suits brought against Trump] are political hits to a degree," should we all just giggle? Are "political hits to a degree" okay in a democracy? Is it okay to attack political rivals in a democracy using the judicial system? Did Trump do that?

And when you assert he's "flagrantly violated so many laws it's laughable," can you specifically identify them? What, for example, is the statute supposedly violated to justify taking a past-the-statute-of-limitations misdemeanor (apparently asserted because a payment made many years ago to a lawyer was, gasp, labelled "legal expenses") and turning it into a supposed felony (in his currently ongoing case in New York) .

I'm genuinely curious to know exactly what that statute is that was supposedly violated so as to justify bootstrapping a supposed expired misdemeanor into a prosecutable felony? So far, commentators seem to be struggling to identify it, despite being attentive to the trial. Whatever it is, why didn't the federal Justice Department pursue it earlier? Why was it up to New York to bring him to trial, in an election year, several years after he left office?

Perhaps, earlier, you were referring to the Presidential Records act, because he had some "classified docs" at his well-guarded estate and had apparently been communicating about that with pertinent federal employees. It is my understanding, for example, that he had added another lock at their request, in the past. Perhaps you should look into that act, and the ways in which Trump and many other presidents have interacted with it. Including presidents that I presume you and most of the rest of us like.

Note that he took documents home as president -- not as a senator or vice president, unlike some. Remember, it's called the "Presidential" Records Act, I believe. Not the "Random Senator's Records Act." And his documents were stored in a well-guarded estate behind locked doors. Not scattered around in several places, including a garage and a public building. And yet HE is the one against whom proceedings were initiated. Curious, no?

And as far as America's southern border goes, how's it going? Is it secure?

I'm from this planet. It's really the only choice at the moment. But thanks for asking.

It's always fun to see a "thumbs down" slapped on without any attempt at an explanation. What did I say that was inaccurate?

Please set me straight with a cogent and specific explanation of my misunderstandings. I'm always eager to learn, and I try not to be unfairly or excessively political. But if my status as a planetary resident is questioned, I must respond to some extent. I try to do so as gently and apolitically as the circumstances and the need to respond permit.